A deep dive into the depths of activism, Shipibo Ayahuasca Curanderismo, and being a professional listener, with the spectacular Joshua Kahn Russell! In this episode, Joshua shares about his experience channeling a sense of knowing about the world into activism and politics, and how that brought him to plant medicine, and to his current work in the world: supporting activists to heal their trauma and gain resilience with the help of Sacred Nature. He begins with a story of understanding change as about shifting the balances and forces of power. This thread is inherent throughout the conversation on both the micro and macro level, as Joshua shares about how he got into and spent decades doing front line, indigenous sovereignty, social and climate justice movement work, until long undiagnosed Lyme disease and burnout brought him to a complete halt. He shares about how his life was saved by practices from an indigenous ayahuasca tradition, and what he understands now about that cosmology and technology. Then, we turn the dialogue to the topic of supporting other activists, and to listening and connecting with consciousness beyond the human realm. This is a conversation about identity, trauma, wisdom, and re-orienting what it means to be an agent of social change.

Bio: Joshua Kahn Russell has spent 25 years as a social movement facilitator and has trained thousands of activists across the globe in over 15 countries. He is the former Executive Director of The Wildfire Project, where he supported progressive grassroots frontline organizations across a range of sectors including Environmental and Climate Justice, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Racial and Economic Justice movements. He has helped campaigns win — defending land, water, and workers rights, defeating multi-billion dollar oil pipelines, winning wage increases and tenant protections — against banks, oil companies, logging corporations, and coal barons; worked with groups in a breadth of arenas, from local resiliency projects, to national coalitions, to the United Nations Climate Change Negotiations internationally. He has been an apprentice of Shipibo Ayahuascero Ricardo Amaringo in the Peruvian Amazon for over 12 years, and brings cohorts of leaders to the rainforest for trauma healing in Indigenous-held ayahuasca ceremonies and plant dietas. He also works with plant medicines as a guide, and is currently a somatic leadership coach. Joshua threads together his experience of decades of frontline activist work as a campaigner, strategist, organizer, and non-violent direct action coordinator, learning from grassroots movements around the world, with his practice of supporting healing and transformation with plant medicine.  He has written and co-edited numerous books, including A Line In The Tar Sands: Struggles for Environmental Justice, Beautiful Trouble, and Organizing Cools the Planet: Tools and Reflections to Navigate the Climate Crisis.

From the episode - quote 1 came from Anthony Machado:
”There is no path. The path is made by walking.” quote 2 came from George Harrison: If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”