Emergence Magazine Podcast

In this narrated essay from our first issue on Perspective, medievalist Jeffrey Jerome Cohen examines the history of our attraction to see Earth from above. He wonders what an enlarged perspective might bring. Does it offer a deeper understanding of ourselves as Earthlings or is this attraction an indulgence in a dangerous fantasy that we might be free of the gravity, and complexity, of life on Earth. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is the author of Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman and Earth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From her own backyard compost pile in Oregon to the dark earths of the Amazon and Liberia, Emma Marris explores the possibility that there is more to our ancient kinship with soil than nutrient extraction. Emma is the author of Rambunctious Garden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol farmer and food justice activist. This profile explores her work to create spaces for people of color to heal and reconnect to the land—an effort to end America’s food apartheid system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Raised on her grandmother’s jam cake, biscuits, and sweet black tea, Crystal Wilkinson evokes a legacy of joy, love, and plenty in the culinary traditions of Black Appalachia. Crystal is the author of The Birds of Opulence, Water Street, and Blackberries, Blackberries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marveling at worms, fungi, and the pioneering water bear, Jay Griffiths brings our attention to what dwells beneath our feet, inviting us to remember that soil is what turns the Earth’s barren rock into the riotous life we know. Jay is the author of Anarchipelago, Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time, Wild: an Elemental Journey, and A Love Letter from a Stray Moon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the storied universe of Hmong cosmology, Squirrel is revered for its ability to outsmart the hunter. In this narrated essay, Lisa Lee Herrick recalls her grandfather—a master squirrel hunter—bringing home a squirrel for spicy hunter’s stew, and how this dish helped unravel a hidden past. Lisa is an award-winning writer, artist, community organizer, and media specialist who helped produce the film, The Hmong and The Secret War, now available online at PBS.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this in-depth interview, David Zilber, director of the fermentation lab at Noma—named the best restaurant in the world—discusses how food is culture, but fermentation is culture on a deeper level. David has worked at Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark, since 2014 and is the co-author of The Noma Guide to Fermentation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this in-depth interview, writer Robert Macfarlane takes listeners on a journey through language and landscape, exploring how a precision of utterance and a grammar of reciprocity can summon wonder in our encounters with place. Robert is the author of “The Old Ways,” “The Wild Places,” “Mountains of the Mind,” “Landmarks,” and “Underland.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paul Kingsnorth faces his suspicion that modern written language is in fact a tool of ecocide. Paul is the author of the novels “The Wake” and “Beast,” the essay collection “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist,” and the poetry collection “Songs from the Blue River.” His latest book is “Savage Gods: A Crisis of Words.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Rush reflects on climate change as a transformational force on our landscapes and the words we might use to grasp this shifting reality. Her book “Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore” was recently nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for its rigorous reporting on America’s vulnerability to rising seas. This narrated essay is an account of the days she spent driving through the Pacific Northwest while on a tour for the book—a time of wildfires, loss, and possible futures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Haskell enters the intricate and generative soundscape of the world of birds, inviting us to join in a practice of cross-species listening as a bridge to kinship. David is the author of “The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors” and “The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an effort to seek out a language beyond the human, Charles Foster travels to the Isle of Skye to listen to the intricate vocalizations of the eight remaining Scottish killer whales. Charles is the author of more than twenty books, including “Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species Divide” and “Wired for God: The Biology of Spiritual Experience.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rejecting the refrain “there are no words,” author and poet Camille T. Dungy reaches for a language that can encompass the experience of loneliness, erasure, and loss. Camille is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently “Trophic Cascade,” and a collection of personal essays, “Guidebook to Relative Strangers.” She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a companion to Kimberly Ruffin's essay “Bodies of Evidence” from our Faith issue, she created this guided practice offering ways to connect to the living world through a walk in the forest. For Kimberly, faith is a continuous exchange of belonging, an experience that’s palpable among trees. In this practice, as with any experience in nature use common sense, trust your intuition, and tell somewhere where you’re going. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For Chickasaw novelist and poet, Linda Hogan, hope lives where faith has fallen away. During an encounter with caged elephants, she experiences a wave of profound and startling love in the presence of beings so very different from—and so very like—ourselves. In her essay “Ancient Root,” Linda reflects on how these beings embody a terrestrial intelligence akin to our own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this narrated essay, Aylie Baker reflects on her experiences sailing by canoe under Micronesian Master Navigator Sesario Sewralur and shows how we can draw on an innate ability to orient ourselves in a shifting world. Born in Maine, Aylie is committed to supporting the healing of watershed communities. View this story on our website: www.emergencemagazine.org/story/wave-patterns Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this in-depth interview, Reverend angel Kyodo williams reflects on our widespread crisis of story, the failure of institutional religions to offer a new way forward, and her philosophy of Radical Dharma—a path to individual and collective liberation. A Sensei in the Japanese Zen tradition, angel is author of “Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace” and coauthor of “Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an age when the fate of the world is frightfully unknown, George Prochnik, author of “In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise,” makes a case for uncertainty as a form of faith and hope. If we unravel our desire for the all-knowing, he says, we can enter into a sanctuary of mystery, in which “I do not know” becomes a statement of hope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Kimberly Ruffin revisits her upbringing and spiritual heritage, she compiles the bodies of evidence that have invigorated her spirit. A certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide and a new member of a church, Kimberly explores where “spirit power” can be found, both within a church community and in the places where faith rises up within the land. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this in-depth interview, Bill Porter, famously known as the translator Red Pine, reflects on his encounters with Chinese hermits and his long history with the great Taoist and Buddhist poets of China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices