Quillwood Podcast

This is more an update than a proper episode, announcing that I am putting the Quillwood Podcast on hold while I work on other creative and educational projects. I might return to it at some point, but have no specific plans on when that might happen. I hope you have enjoyed and benefitted from the episodes I have released, and hope our paths cross at a Quillwood Academy event sometime soon.

In this final episode of season one of the Quillwood Podcast, host Eric Garza thanks listeners, invites them to reflect on season one, and invites feedback about any element of the podcast. The first episode of season two will go live on the upcoming winter solstice, December 21 of 2022.

Links and Resources

• Quillwood Academy
• Quillwood Podcast Episode 1: Two Stories

Stephen Jenkinson is an author, storyteller, musician, and cultural activist. He is best known for his books Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, and Come of Age: A Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble. He founded the Orphan Wisdom School, located outside Ottowa, in Canada.

Outline

• 00:00 - 02:19 — Episode introduction
• 02:19 - 08:48 — Broadening our understanding of ancestry
• 08:48 - 18:33 — Culture, limits, and the extension of the human will
• 18:33 - 22:45 — Entitlement and privilege
• 22:45 - 29:44 — The cultural poverty behind white supremacy
• 29:44 - 40:53 — Education, learning, and ambivalence
• 40:53 - 54:49 — Getting older versus becoming an elder
• 54:49 - 58:15 — Episode wrap-up

Links and Resources

• Orphan Wisdom School
• Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul
• Come of Age: A Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble
• Quillwood Academy
• Telling Tales of Change

Denise Casey works with people of all ages as a storyteller, performing artist, voice movement therapy practitioner, group facilitator, and mindfulness coach. She and Eric talk about the value in learning to tell our stories, liberating ourselves from stories that are not working, seeing the ways we lie to ourselves, and healing the pain that our bodies carry, among other things.

Outline

• 00:00 - 02:11 — Episode introduction
• 02:11 - 09:33 — The value in learning to tell our stories
• 09:33 - 17:50 — Liberating ourselves from stories that are not working
• 17:50 - 27:39 — Seeing the ways we lie to ourselves
• 27:39 - 34:45 — Healing the pain that our bodies carry
• 34:45 - 41:34 — Struggling with the energy of people pleasing
• 41:34 - 46:34 — Fear as a barrier to telling our story
• 46:34 - 48:09 — Episode wrap-up

Links and Resources

• GotThisVoice.com
• Quillwood Academy
• Telling Tales of Change
• Inside Out Writing: I Got a Story to Tell (Denise's workshop)
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk
• When the Body Says No: The Hidden Cost of Stress, by Gabor Maté
• Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger, by Lama Rod Owens
• Lama Rod Owens
• Lama John Mckransky
• Playing the Game
• QP #2: Dancing with the Cannibal Giant, with Sherri Mitchell

Layla AbdelRahim is an independent scholar who writes about our narrative attachment to predatory and parasitic economic systems. She and Eric talk about colonization and the colonization of our minds, epistemology and the foundation of our narratives, wildness versus domestication, the origins of domesticated and colonized narratives, among other things.

Outline

• 00:00 - 02:44 — Episode introduction
• 02:44 - 20:00 — Colonization and the colonization of our minds
• 20:00 - 24:48 — Epistemology and the foundation of our narratives
• 24:48 - 34:15 — Wildness and domestication
• 34:15 - 47:04 — Origins of domesticated, colonized narratives
• 47:04 - 56:02 — Layla's vision of where things are headed
• 56:02 - 56:42 — Episode wrap-up

Links and Resources

• Layla AbdelRahim's website
• Layla AbdelRahim's Patreon Page
• Quillwood Academy
• Undaunted Study Group
• Wild Children — Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education, by Layla AbdelRahim
• Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness, by Layla AbdelRahim
• Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism, by Jack D Forbes
• Mary Douglas (anthropologist)
• John Zerzan
• Claude Lévi-Strauss (anthropologist)
• Michel Foucault (philosopher)
• Pierre Bourdieu (sociologist)

Jessica Canham co-founded the award-winning video production company LINK International Productions, and manages Caapi Cottage Retreats, a transformational retreat center on the island of Dominica. She and Eric talk about characteristics that support systems of mutual aid, turning necessary skills into novelties, ethics of service and the impacts of inequality, and planning and organizing systems of mutual aid, among other things.

Outline

• 00:00 - 02:52 — Episode introduction
• 02:52 - 05:32 — Defining mutual aid
• 05:32 - 09:52 — Characteristics that support systems of mutual aid
• 09:52 - 12:34 — Turning necessary skills into novelties in the industrial world
• 12:34 - 18:43 — Ethics of service and the impacts of inequality
• 18:43 - 26:14 — Systems of mutual aid emerge in disasters
• 26:14 - 37:35 — Planning and organizing systems of mutual aid
• 37:35 - 42:41 — Episode wrap-up

Links and Resources

• Love in Action Video Series
• Caapi Cottage Retreats
• Quillwood Academy
• Undaunted Study Group
• What Is This Global Crisis Asking Of Us (free webinars)
• Margaret Wheately (author)
• WhatsApp
• Front Porch Forum

Dr. Elizabeth Boulton is an independent researcher who was a transport officer in the Australian Army who did tours of duty in East Timor and Iraq and who has done humanitarian work in Ghana, Nigeria, and Sudan. She and Eric talk about global warming as a hyperobject and a hyperthreat, expanding our awareness of the harm we cause, and the entangled nature of planetary, human, and state security, among other things.

Outline

• 00:00 - 02:38 — Episode introduction
• 02:38 - 10:13 — Global warming as a hyperobject
• 10:13 - 15:49 — Global warming as a hyperthreat
• 15:49 - 18:52 — Expanding our awareness of the harm we cause
• 18:52 - 27:17 — Entangled nature of planetary, human, and state security
• 27:17 - 37:59 — Incorporation of depletion and consumption in hyperthreat narrative
• 37:59 - 51:41 — Role of conservation in security strategy
• 51:41 - 65:26 — Finding agency against the hyperthreat
• 65:26 - 78:18 — Censorship of alternative security narratives
• 78:18 - 80:55 — Episode wrap-up

Links and Resources

• Destination Safe Earth
• Quillwood Academy
• Undaunted Study Group
• Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World, by Timothy Morton
• The Nine Planetary Boundaries
• The Great Simplification, with Nate Hagens (Quillwood Podcast #6)
• Plan E: A Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century Era of Entangled Security and Hyperthreats, by Elizabeth Boulton
• An Introduction to Plan E: Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century Era of Entangled Security and Hyperthreats, by Elizabeth Boulton

Carolyn Baker is a writer and educator who most recently authored the book Undaunted: Living Fiercely into Climate Meltdown in an Authoritarian World. She and Eric talk about the meaning of undanted, living fiercely in an increasingly autocratic world, seeing today's converging crises as a rite of passage, learning lessons from our ordeal, and living with uncertainty, among other things.

Outline

• 00:00 - 02:44 — Episode introduction
• 02:44 - 09:59 — The quality and value of being undaunted
• 09:59 - 17:26 — Living fiercely and an increasingly autocratic world
• 17:26 - 30:11 — Seeing today's converging crises as a rite of passage
• 30:11 - 33:05 — Learning the lessons from our ordeal
• 33:05 - 44:47 — Reflections on certainty and not giving up
• 44:47 - 46:34 — Episode wrap-up

Links and Resources

• Carolyn Baker's website
• Undaunted: Living Fiercely into Climate Meltdown in an Authoritarian World, by Carolyn Baker
• Subscribe to Carolyn's Daily News Digest
• Quillwood Academy
• Reality Blind Reading Group
• Stephen Jenkinson's Orphan Wisdom School
• The Physics of Climate Change, by Lawrence M. Krauss
• Do the Work: An Antiracist Activity Book, by W. Kamau Bell and Kate Schatz
• Lyla June Johnston Interview on As Temperatures Rise

David Blittersdorf is the President and CEO of AllEarth Renewables, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Post Carbon Institute as well as Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. He and Eric talk about the percentage of fossil energy we can reasonably expect to replace with renewable energy, the limitations of renewable energy, energy return on energy invested, and what drew David to the renewable energy industry, among other things.

Outline

• 00:00 - 03:14 — Episode introduction
• 03:14 - 06:48 — What percentage of fossil energy we can replace with renewables
• 06:48 - 17:05 — Mineral limitations in large scale conversion to renewables
• 17:05 - 20:46 — The resource peaking process, and peaking of global oil supply
• 20:46 - 33:41 — Energy return on energy invested, and energy blindness
• 33:41 - 42:31 — What attracted David to the renewable energy industry
• 42:31 - 48:04 — Resistance to wind and solar generation capacity
• 48:04 - 52:07 — Navigating today's changing world
• 52:07 - 54:22 — Episode wrap-up

Links and Resources

• AllEarth Renewables
• Quillwood Academy
• Reality Blind Reading Group
• Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, by Richard Heinberg
• The Energy Return on Invested of Biodiesel in Vermont, by Eric Garza
• Jimmy Carter's 1977 energy policy speech (YouTube)
• Pliocene and Eocene provide best analogs for near-future climates (K.D. Burke et al, in Proceedings for the National Academies of Sciences)

Arthur Haines is a Maine hunting and recreation guide, forager, ancestral skills mentor, author, public speaker, and botanical researcher. In this episode he and Eric talk about the benefits of eating and gathering wild foods, how not all impacts we might have on wild plant populations are negative, practices for properly harvesting fiddleheads and wild leeks, and strategies for regulating the harvest of wild edible plants, among other things.

Outline

• 00:00 - 03:11 — Episode introduction
• 03:11 - 07:17 — What Arthur and his family have been harvesting and eating
• 07:17 - 17:04 — Benefits of eating and gathering wild foods
• 17:04 - 31:11 — Interacting with wild foods, and how not all impact is negative
• 31:11 - 34:23 — Lamenting commercial harvesting of wild foods
• 34:23 - 52:00 — Practices for properly harvesting fiddleheads and wild leeks
• 52:00 - 64:30 — Strategies for regulating the harvest of wild plant foods
• 64:30 - 73:03 — Overcoming the mindset of exploitation and conquest
• 73:03 - 76:16 — Episode wrap-up

Links and Resources

• Arthur Haines' website
• Quillwood Academy
• Reality Blind Reading Group
• Ingestion of Mycobacterium vaccae decreases anxiety-related behavior and improves learning in mice (Journal of Behavioral Processes)
• Immerse Yourself in a Forest for Better Health (New York Department of Environmental Conservation)
• Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources, by M. Kat Anderson
• Population viability analysis of American Ginseng and Wild Leek harvested in stochastic environments (Journal of Conservation Biology)