The Rewilding Podcast w/ Peter Michael Bauer

Anthropology is at the core of rewilding. Understanding the various ways in which humans act and why, helps us draw a picture of what is possible for humanity. Rewilding pulls its inspiration from the millions of years that humans lived in relative harmony with our environments–without causing the sixth mass extinction and without creating large-scale inequality, and how these crises came about. To make cultural transformations, we have to understand where material determinism and intentional idealism come together.

On this episode of the Rewilding Podcast, I’ve invited Daniel, the host of the What is Politics YouTube channel, to explain how this all works. What is Politics is a compelling series that delves into the natural histories and anthropology of politics, in the form of didactic storytelling. I came across Daniel’s long form videos on YouTube last year when I was complaining about how off the mark David Graeber’s book the Dawn of Everything is, (how much it omits, how much it ignores, how much it simply pretends doesn’t already exist on this subject) and someone sent me a link to the What is Politics critiques. People had been asking me to write a review, and I couldn’t get past the first 100 pages of what I considered a misdirection. The amount of time it would taken to review the book felt daunting, and I kept putting it off. I was super relieved to find and watch the What is Politics reviews, to see that someone had gone through the whole book with a fine-tooth comb and so much deeper than I ever could have. Now when people ask me what my thoughts are on the Dawn of Everything, I just send them to the What is Politics YouTube channel. It's a huge relief to be honest. For these reasons and more, I’m excited to have Daniel as a guest on the Rewilding Podcast, to talk about the material realities that give rise to, and/or provide the fuel for, certain human political and social organizations.

Notes

Daniel's What is Politics YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@WHATISPOLITICS69

Hierarchy in the Forest by Christopher Boehm
https://bookshop.org/a/24844/9780674006911

Chris Knight Works
Dawn Review: https://mronline.org/2021/12/20/the-dawn-of-everything-gets-human-history-wrong/
Early Human Kinship Was Matrilineal: https://libcom.org/article/engels-was-right-early-human-kinship-was-matrilineal
The Science of Solidarity: http://www.chrisknight.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/The-Science-of-Solidarity1.pdf
Did Communism Make Us Human: https://brooklynrail.org/2021/06/field-notes/Did-communism-make-us-human
The Human Symbolic Revolution: http://radicalanthropologygroup.org/sites/default/files/pdf/pub_knight_power_watts_big.pdf

The Pseudoscience of 'The Secret'
https://www.livescience.com/5303-pseudoscience-secret.html

No Time for Bullies: Baboons Retool Their Culture
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/science/no-time-for-bullies-baboons-retool-their-culture.html

The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter
https://bookshop.org/a/24844/9780521386739

Parecon: Life After Capitalism by Michael Albe

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In this episode I’m chatting with Kara Moses. Kara is a biologist and educator teaching nature connection, rewilding, wild living skills and woodland management. She is a writer, a climate activist, chair of the Cambrian Wildwood project in west Wales, she created Radical Nature Connection at the Ulex Project in the pyrenees which brings nature connection practice into relationship with our struggles to challenge interlocking systems of oppression, such as racism, patriarchy, colonialism, and ableism and our efforts to build movements forging a life-affirming future. You can learn more about her work at her website rewildeverything.org and her social media handle RewildEverything.

Kara and I discuss the different ways rewilding has been used and the ways it has been perceived, and the challenges of using the word. We follow Kara through her transformative journey from primatology to direct action climate activism to nature connection, how she came to rewilding and beyond. This is a fun and deep conversation from a fellow rewilder who has dealt with similar and very different challenges than myself, in terms of spreading rewilding.

Notes: 

www.RewildEverything.org
Twitter: @Kara_L_Moses
Insta: @RewildEverything
Facebook: @RewildEverything

• www.CambrianWildwood.org
• How lemurs fight climate change
• Meet Kara Moses, the activist who helped shut down a Welsh coal mine
• Feral by George Monbiot 
• Wild Awake Ireland
• ‘It’ll take away our livelihoods’: Welsh farmers on rewilding and carbon markets
• Anthropogenic heathlands: disturbance ecologies and the social organisation of past super-resilient landscapes
• Radical Nature Connection (RNC)
• My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem
• Queer Nature
• Rewild Portland
• Weaving Earth
• We are the 99%
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall-Kimmerer
• The Old Way
• Access to You is a Privilege
• What Kinship is and What it is Not by Marshall Sahlins

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In this episode I chat with Tao Orion. Tao holds a degree in Agroecology and Sustainable Agriculture from UC Santa Cruz and a MSc degree in Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security from the National University of Ireland, Galway. She is the author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration. Tao and I chat about invasive species, transforming people’s perceptions of them, learning to manage them without the  use of herbicides and how we might start rethinking land management especially as global food growing and distribution systems start to shrink and collapse.

Show Notes:

Tao’s Website

Beyond the War on Invasive Species

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Tending the Wild by M. Kat Anderson

The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature's Salvation

In contrast to green image, Portland continues using weedkiller Roundup in parks

What Will They Do with His Garden?

Finisia Medrano

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My guest for this episode is ​Samantha Zipporah. Samantha is devoted to breaking the spells of oppression in reproductive & sexual health through education, healing & liberation.  She has over 20 years of experience honing her craft as an educator, guide & caregiver tending to fertility, sex, & cycles spanning the full womb continuum. Sam’s work rises from an ancient lineage of midwives, witches, & wise women​. A fierce champion of critical thinking skills, her knowledge is integrative & inclusive of modern medicine & science​ as well as traditional & ancient healing practices. S​am provides vital education for everyone from professionals to preteens in her books, courses, & live classes. Her online community The Fruit of Knowledge features monthly live workshops & an abundance of resources & dialogue for womb wisdom keepers & seekers.

In this conversation Samantha and I talk about rewilding contraception, and a few of the threads connected to that.

Notes

Samantha’s Website
https://www.samanthazipporah.com/

Samantha’s Linktree
https://linktr.ee/samanthazipporah

Samantha’s Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/samanthazipporah/

Other Mentions:

• Peter’s “How to Rewild Yourself” Memes
• Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott
• Sand Talk by Tyson Yonkaporta
• Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici
• IUD Side Effects Facebook Group
• IUD Awareness Website
• Please Bleed: Plants and Practical Magic
• Conscious Contraception Skillshare
• Miscarriage and Abortion Support Course
• Incidence of Post-Vasectomy Pain: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

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Hannes Wingate is an artist, builder, designer, and outdoor survival-skills instructor. He was educated at Central St. Martins College of Art in London. He is known internationally for constructing giant, human sized nests from natural materials found within close range of the build site. He has traveled the world, spending time living with and learning traditional skills from the Sami, Maori, Basque and Native American cultures.

In this conversation Hannes and I discuss his practice as an artist, looking at how he transforms people’s perspectives through his sculptural art, storytelling. We touch on some interweaving philosophies and practices like biomimicry, ancestral skills and how creativity lends itself to state resistance. In the second half, Hannes debriefs my experience at Boulder Outdoor Survival School.

Notes: 

Hannes’ Instagram

Burnside Nest

Boulder Outdoor Survival School

Making by Tim Ingold

Eli Loomis Interview

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In this episode I talk with my friend, Rachael Rice. Rachael is an artist, writer, death worker and certified weirdo who crafts scroll-stopping content for people who want to shape change. Her work centers collapse-informed learnings about grief, death, myth, magic and meaning-making in pale times. A neurodivergent queer witch navigating multiple health diagnoses and broadly coded as a white cis woman, Rachael is of Swedish, Scottish, Irish, French, German and English ancestry living and loving with her partner whose income supports her work on the lands of the Chinook in Portland, Oregon. She works in a dozen kinds of media, plays four instruments, speaks three languages, parents two children, and hollers at one cat, usually not all at once. In this conversation, Rachael and I discuss what it means to be “collapse aware,” what death work is and how it relates to societal collapse, and ways you can engage with it. 

Notes:

Rachael’s Website
Rachael’s Instagram

Mentions:

Collapse Care w/ Carmen Spagnola
“Curse of Knowledge”
Death Doula/Midwife
Lotka Volterra Cycle
Diminishing-Returns

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In this episode of the Rewild Podcast I talk with David Ian Howe about dogs and rewilding. David is a professional archaeologist trying to popularize the science of anthropology, most often through comedic videos. He is known for his interest and expertise in understanding ethnocynology–the study of the ancient relationship between humans and dogs. As rewilding is in part, a critique of domestication, the relationship between humans and dogs is an interesting area of exploration: at what point does mutualistic symbiosis become parasitic, or vice versa and is the human and dog relationship reflective of that? Listen in as David and I discuss this ancient relationship, among a few other topics. 

Notes:

Links to David’s Work
David’s Website
David’s Youtube
David’s Patreon
David’s Instagram
David’s TikTok

Mentions
Ashkelon dog cemetery
Prehistoric Dogs as Hunting Weapons: The Advent of Animal Biotechnology by Angela Perri
Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness by Donna Harroway
Wolf In Dog's Clothing? Black Wolves May Be First 'Genetically Modified' Predators
Wolves in the Land of Salmon by Dave Moskowitz
Domestication Gone Wild
Neoteny
Foxy Behavior: how a Russian fox farm uncovered the basis of canine domestication
Wolf Totem Jiang Rong
Wolves and Ravens
Badgers & Coyotes
Did Dog-Human Alliance Drive Out the Neanderthals?
The dark side of oxytocin, much more than just a “love hormone”
Riot Dog
This Article Won’t Change Your Mind
Ancient Anxiety and ADHD
Donny Dust
Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society

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On this episode of the Rewilding Podcast, I converse with Carmen Spagnola about the necessary self and community care that comes with the realization that we are living in a collapse. Carmen works at the intersection of somatics, trauma recovery, attachment, and mysticism. Her approach to collapse – navigating the converging emergencies of large scale cooperation dilemmas – weaves Wendell Berry sensibilities with Octavia Butler realities. Her book The Spirited Kitchen: Recipes and Rituals for the Wheel of the Year, comes out in the fall of 2022. 

Notes:
Carmen’s Social Media
Carmen’s Website
The Spirited Kitchen Book

Utne Reader/Geez Magazine: Preparing for a Beautiful End
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Peak Oil
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
The Oil Drum
John Michael Green
Sharon Astyk
Carolyn Baker: Love in a Time of Apocalypse & Conscious Collapsing
The Collapse of Civilization May Have Already Begun
Wilderness First Responder
Peter Levine
Stephen Porges
Believers by Lisa Wells
The “Collapse” of Cooperative Hohokam Irrigation in the Lower Salt River Valley

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Seven in ten Americans identify as Christian. For a movement like rewilding to gain more traction, it must intersect with the belief systems of the culture at large on some level. I am not a Christian, though I am interested in the intersection of rewilding and christianity. Since I live in the United States, I feel it’s important to understand enough about the dominant cultures here and where to find common ground in rewilding narratives. In this episode I chat with two friends of mine who are both pastors. Solveig Nilsen-Goodin and Aric Clark. 

Rev. Solveig Nilsen-Goodin is an ordained pastor in the Lutheran Church, a spiritual director, grief coach, writer, author of the book: What is the Way of the Wilderness: An Introduction to the Wilderness Way Community, and co-editor and contributor to A Grounded Faith: Reconnecting with Creator and Creation in the Season of Lent. Solveig helped found EcoFaith Recovery, and founded and pastored the Wilderness Way Community for eleven years. She and her husband Peter are raising two teenage boys in NE Portland.

Rev. Aric Clark is pastor of Mt. Home and Sherwood United Methodist Churches. He is also a writer, a speaker, and an activist who lives in Portland, Oregon. He is the co-author of Never Pray Again: Lift Your Head, Unfold Your Hands, and Get To Work, a book which challenges readers to embrace a concrete other-centered spirituality, and editor of Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions for the Church in a Time of Empire. When not pastoring, writing, or protesting he is parenting two teenagers and indulging a love of tabletop gaming.

Our conversation topics range from anarchism, feminism, death, grief, decolonization and the histories of the church, the challenges of working in institutions and much more. 

Notes:

• Christian Anarchism
• Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza
• Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
• Catholic Worker Movement
• The Smell of Rain on Dust by Martin Prechtel
• Finisia Medrano 
• Hildegard Von Bingen
• Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World by Lisa Wells
• Rewilding the Way by Todd Wynward
• Ched Myers
• Watershed Discipleship
• Ecofaith Recovery
• Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth by Randy Woodley
• A Grounded Faith: Reconnecting with Creator and Creation in the Season of Lent
• The Leaven Community
• What is the Way of the Wilderness?

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In this episode I converse with writer Sophie Strand. I've found her writing to be particularly inspiring to my rewilding journey in terms of understanding and thinking about masculinity. However, we cover much more than that. Our conversation branches off in many directions, though the main thread is around connecting our personal narratives in rewilding to the larger cultural narratives found in our mythologies–and the mythologies that make the most sense from a rewilding perspective. It was such a pleasure to converse with someone as deeply researched and passionate about this topic as Sophie is. She has many insights to share and I'm honored to have her on the podcast. Looking forward to reading her book when it comes out this fall!

Notes:

Sophie's Links
www.sophiestrand.com
cosmogyny on instagram
Pre-Order Her Book: The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine

Mentions

Sophie's Favorite Mythologists/Writers:
Shawn King
Robert Bringhurst
Ursula LeGuinn
Donna Haraway
Merlin Sheldrake

• Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life by Carl Kerényi
• Beard Tax
• Matters of Ancestry by Jason Godesky
• Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death by Bernd Heinrich
• Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday
• Morphic Resonance: The Nature of Formative Causation by Rupert Sheldrake
• Toxoplasmosis: How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy
• Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom
• Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World by Lisa Wells
• Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives by Joan Halifax

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