This episode features Rachael Petersen, a writer, thinker, and convener. We discuss her life and work at the confluence of philosophy, ecology, and transcendence. As Program Lead of Harvard’s Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative, Rachael guides interdisciplinary explorations into how cutting-edge plant science challenges our ideas of mind, matter, and meaning. She holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, where her research centered on panpsychism, pantheism, and the more-than-human world, with a special focus on German philosophy. You can learn more at her personal website: https://www.rachaelnpetersen.com/

This episode features Natalia Schwien Scott. She is an herbalist, wildlife rescue & rehabilitation apprentice, and Ph.D. candidate in the Study of Religion at Harvard University, where she recently completed a Master of Theological Studies degree with a focus on the intersection of ecology and spiritual practice. She researches relational ontologies, posthuman ethics, and diction on personhood in scientific discourse. She also serves as an Advisor and Program Associate for the Thinking with Plants & Fungi Initiative at the Center for the Study of World Religion, which we discussed in our previous episode. Learn more about her amazing work here: https://www.selkieprojects.com

This episode features Rachael Petersen and Natalia Schwien Scott, who co-launched the “Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative” at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University in fall of 2022. We talk about the initiative and its culminating conference, which took place in May of 2025. We discuss their interdisciplinary exploration into how plants and fungi help us rethink the nature of mind and matter and humans’ relationship to the more-than-human world. You can learn more about the initiative and conference here: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/research-programming/thinking-plants-fungi
Stay tuned in upcoming weeks for an episode featuring Natalia and another episode featuring Rachael. They're doing exciting work at the forefront of the sort of issues addressed at the intersection of religion and ecology.

In this episode, our host (Sam Mickey) reviews two books that engage with questions about the place of life, meaning, and purpose in the universe. First, he discusses the anthology, Towards a Philosophy of Cosmic Life: New Discussions and Interdisciplinary Views, edited by David Bartosh, Attila Grandpierre, and Bei Peng (Springer, 2024). It's notable for its interdisciplinary and transnational perspectives on the inherence of life in the universe. It includes a wonderful chapter by John B. Cobb, Jr. (1925-2024), a scholar of ecological civilization steeped in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Second, Sam discusses Cosmic Purpose, by Kagawa Toyohiko (1888-1960) (Wipf and Stock, 2014). Kagawa was a Japanese philosopher and Evangelical Christian who, similar to the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, sought to align theological understanding of meaning and purpose with scientific discoveries of the evolution of life and the universe. If you are interested in ideas of purpose (teleology), these books are definitely worth reading.

This episode features Yuria Celidwen, PhD, a native of Indigenous Nahua and Maya lineages from the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. We discuss her work as a scholar, researcher, and writer working at the intersection of Indigenous studies, cultural psychology, and contemplative sciences. We focus in particular on her book, Flourishing Kin: Indigenous Wisdom for Collective Well-Being (2024). We also discuss some of the complexities involved with psychedelic research, including an article she co-authored, "Ethical Principles of Traditional Indigenous Medicine to Guide Western Psychedelic Research and Practice."

This episode features Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder, a writer at the confluence of relationship to place with experiences of the sacred. She has a masters of theological studies from Harvard Divinity School, and she's worked as a staff writer and editor for Emergence Magazine. Her writings have been published in numerous venues. We talk about her personal and professional journey into the intersection of religion and ecology, particularly with reference to her new book, Mother, Creature, Kin: What We Learn from Nature's Mothers in a Time of Unraveling (Broadleaf Books, 2025). From microbes to megafauna and everything in between, the natural world is full of lessons about care, kinship, and mothering, lessons that ca provide support during our transitional time.

On this special Earth Day episode, we feature the work of three writers who focus on the wonderful world of trees: Beth Norcross, Leah Rampy, and Laura Pustarfi. Beth and Leah are the authors of the new book (released on Earth Day 2025), Discovering the Spiritual Wisdom of Trees. Laura is the editor of an anthology (co-edited with David Macauley), The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality (forthcoming in June 2025). Enjoy this thought-provoking discussion about trees and the questions they raise about agency, value, intelligence, wisdom, and relationality.

This episode features Cathy Coleman, Ph.D., a former dean of students at California Institute of Integral Studies, president of Kepler College, and director of IONS’ EarthRise Retreat Center. We discuss her new anthology, Ralph Metzner, Explorer of Consciousness: The Life and Legacy of a Psychedelic Pioneer. Cathy was Ralph Metzner’s wife of 31 years, and they worked closely together. We discuss the vast impact of Ralph Metzner’s healing therapies and wisdom on colleagues, students, clients, and the fields in which he worked. Renowned as a pioneering psychologist, psychedelic elder, alchemical explorer, and shamanic teacher, the late Ralph Metzner (1936–2019) contributed profoundly to consciousness research, transpersonal psychology, and contemporary psychedelic studies across his more than 50 year career. Metzner was also an influential teacher of our host (Sam Mickey), who contributed a chapter to this wonderful volume.

This episode features Russell Duvernoy, PhD, Associate Professor of Philosophy at King's University College at Western University in London, Ontario. We discuss Russell’s engagement with process philosophies, environmental philosophy, contemporary Continental philosophy, and comparative philosophy (including classical Daoism, Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, and world Indigenous philosophies). We touch on topics like attention, affect, tensions between speculative and existential philosophies, and the idea of ecological conversion. Some of these topics are covered in his monograph, Affect and Attention after Deleuze and Whitehead: Ecological Attunement (Edinburgh University Press, 2020).

This episode of Spotlights features the Rev. Dr. Lisa Dahill, Miriam Therese Winter Chair for Transformative Leadership and Spirituality and Director of the Center for Transformative Spirituality at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. We talk about her personal and professional engagement with ecological theology, her study of the German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the liturgical and ritual practices involved in rewilding Christianity, and much more.