Green Dreamer: Seeding change towards collective healing, sustainability, regeneration

How do we show up as sensitive, creative and intuitive beings in a system that does not honor the uniqueness of our spirits? How can we stay true to our calling when we’re so busy simply trying to survive?

In this episode, Niharika Sanyal shares sweet fruits of wisdom on the radical act of honoring our unique gifts as offerings during times of darkness. In guiding us towards the deepest desires and whispers of our hearts, Sanyal draws from her personal experiences, yoga philosophy, and Vedic myths. Her teachings shine a light on the collective pathways that can lead us towards more divine ways of being, feeling and co-existing through tuning into our innate inner wisdom, knowledge and unconditional love.

Get our transcript and episode show notes at greendreamer.com; support our show at patreon.com/greendreamer.

“We consume not only stuff but also knowledge, experiences, critique. And this consumption, many times, is not even digested. It is the consumption for consumption’s sake so that we can feel better.”

What might it mean for humanity to reach a level of maturation to be able to confront the multilayered crises we now face—calling upon us to “grow up and show up” for ourselves and our planet? And how might recognizing the differing historical contexts that we were raised within help us to have more empathy when navigating our generational differences?

In this episode, we revisit our past conversation with Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, a Brazilian educator and Indigenous and Land Rights advocate. She is a professor and Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities, and Global Change at the University of British Columbia. She is one of the founders of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Arts/Research Collective and part of the coordination team of the "Last Warning" campaign.

Vanessa is also the author of Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and Implications for Social Activism.

What could it mean to heal our relationship with the dead, the decaying, and the dark in order to move towards more liveable futures? What possibilities might arise when we shift from cultural narratives of fear, discomfort, and disgust with these unseen worlds — to ones which honor the wisdoms that they may be able to offer?

In this episode, Perdita Finn draws on her book Take Back the Magic to invite us to find kinship and guidance from beings that have passed.

Through a renewal of ancient practices and rituals, Finn invokes the reclamation of our bodies, inner wisdom, and personal mantras that keep us whole and grounded during the troubled times of modernity.

Subscribe and listen to Green Dreamer via any podcast app and read on for our episode transcript.

In this episode, geographer, writer, and sound artist AM Kanngieser invites us to reconsider the diverse ways in which we register both sound and silence — pushing back against the idea that listening itself is a virtuous act with universality in experience.

Through their own journey as a geographer and sound artist, Kanngieser sheds light on the colonial repercussions of extracting sound, knowledge, and information from landscapes and communities that have historically been taken from without consent.

What are the moral considerations for using recording technologies initially developed for military surveillance? How do we ask for permission to capture sounds—not just from the people of a place but also from the land themselves? And what does it mean to blur the boundaries of our various senses as we become more attuned and responsive to the world?

Why is the North Africa and Middle East region so vital to center in discourses on climate justice? How does the current global energy transition reinforce colonial, extractivist power dynamics? And what is the meaning of “eco-normalization” in the context of the Arab world?

Join us in this episode as Algerian researcher and activist Hamza Hamouchene dissects crucial narratives surrounding the notion of “green energy colonialism.” Posing critical questions about the current beneficiaries of renewable energy projects, Hamouchene offers thought-provoking perspectives that empower listeners to unpack the systemic injustices of “green colonialism.”

Listen via our website or any podcast app, and find the transcript below.

Who does “fair trade” as a certification program speaking to conscious consumers really serve? How might it fall short of what it promises—supporting farmers and producers from falling into the deepest pits of poverty while paradoxically also keeping them at a certain level? What does the process of rebuilding power entail for communities who are grappling with local inequalities within a larger global corporate agricultural chain?

In this episode, we converse with author and geography Lindsay Naylor as she delves into the daily acts of resistance and agricultural practices by the campesinos/as of Chiapas, Mexico, in their pursuit of dignified livelihoods and self-declared autonomous communities. Drawing from her fieldwork, Naylor explores interaction with fair trade markets and state violence within the context of the radical history of coffee production.

What does it mean to recognize the limitations of “biodiversity” as a gauge of planetary wellbeing? How do we make sense of the heads of big corporations like Shell being major patrons of the largest conservation organizations? And how might a politics of disability justice shape diverse futures beyond an exclusive framework of Western-Scientific conservation?

In this episode, we converse with scholar and anti-oppression activist Audra Mitchell on how intersecting forms of systemic violence work to extract, eliminate, and conceal cultural and ecological plurality—and how the survival, preservation, and organization of oppressed and marginalized communities alone resist such violence.

Extended episode: patreon.com/greendreamer

“What we’re talking about are plants that people desire for ornamental collection and will oftentimes go to great lengths to get them. Sometimes, that desire leads to conservation problems, and sadly… in the worst-case scenario, the extinction of an entire species.”

Where does cacti and succulent life fit within the realm of illegal/illicit wildlife trade? What conversations might arise when we include them in a wider picture of political ecology and colonial histories? And how might the entanglement of desire, care, and conservation complicate trends of in-vogue succulent and cacti collecting?

Join us in this episode with our guest Jared Margulies, author of The Cactus Hunters, as we delve into prickly themes of globalized trade networks, desire, and preservation.

What can grief teach us about being truly alive? And how might seeds, and the compassionate acts of tending to them, be the “helpers and teachers” of mediating our collective grief?

In this episode, we are honored to welcome Vivien Sansour, founder of the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Project—an initiative centered on caring for and preserving seeds as keepers of ancestral connection and models of subversive advocacy.

Join us as Vivien shares about the systemic violence of disconnection and relational severance, the socio-economic pressures turning many historically food-centered farms into monocultural plantations of commercial tobacco for export, how Palestinian agriculturalists are standing up to reclaim food sovereignty, and more.

What might the histories of human and gray whale relations show us in terms of how the stories we tell shape the texture of our relationships to our more-than-human kin? How can adopting a plurality of narratives and cultural perspectives in and around a particular species disrupt the kinds of binaries that so often underly academic research methods? And what might a more diverse, accessible, and context-specific approach to field research look like with humility and deep-listening at its core?  

Tune in to this episode with our guest, Anna Guasco, to explore these questions and more.