This week, Fariha Róisín offers both timely and timeless wisdom on what it means to live in a body that has experienced trauma. This is a conversation that bears witness to the deep terror and distress of the world and still charges forward with undying compassion and care – the compassion and care of wild survival.  Offering both deep personal reflection and spacious contemplation about the state of the world, Fariha reminds us that our bodies guide us to what we need. This episode brings...

Invoking ancestry, magic, and a deep relationship with the Dead, this week’s guest Perdita Finn invites listeners into a world of mystery. Perdita’s work, including her new book Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World, calls humanity to engage with a faith in the unseen world, a faith in surrender, and a faith in the other side. For Perdita, this faith is not rooted in an otherworldly abstract idea of spirituality, but rather a grounded, embodied experience.  As we come to...

As those of us in the Northern Hemisphere enter into autumn, this week’s guest Jacqueline Suskin reminds us that the earth gives us dedicated time for reflection. In a conversation that roots deeply into seasonality and life’s rhythms, Jacqueline’s meditations and suggestions feel perfectly timed.  Jacqueline uses her book A Year in Practice as a practical guide for finding inspiration and meaning throughout the seasons. Detailing her ongoing connection to the earth and the wonder she feels...

What is life at the edges of ecosystems, at the moments of convergence? In this week’s episode, guest Obi Kaufmann introduces listeners to his understanding of consilience – emphasizing the importance of art and science in sacred relationship.  Obi shares in a reverie about what California has been and could be, and in doing so, he invites guests to imagine a world where we recognize nature as the undeniable truth of who we are. Obi brings rooted knowledge and esoteric inquiry to this...

Bringing us to the Wind River Reservation, this week’s guest, Jason Baldes, shares his work to bring back wild Buffalo to Wind River and to rematriate land to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes. Jason offers his deep wisdom about the ecological, spiritual, and cultural importance of Buffalo. Jason’s work with the Wind River Tribal Buffalo initiative has already had an immense effect. The physical and cultural landscape of the so-called United States is steeped in a colonial...

Continuing the conversation series, “The Edges in the Middle,” presented in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, For The Wild is delighted to share this conversation between Báyò Akómoláfé, Madhulika Banerjee, and Minna Salami.  Speaking on the theme, “Democracy and Its Exquisite Others,” Báyò, Madhulika, and Minna delve into an exploration of what it means to truly participate in democracy, as an embodied, collective action. In this thoughtful and informed...

“We’re not trying to be right. We’re trying to see if we can see clearly.” In this agile and authentic episode, returning guest Stephen Jenkinson offers a lucid view of the world. How might our understanding of the world change if we approached life with a willingness to see things as they are rather than a need to only affirm that which we desire?  Ayana and Stephen journey together to consider what had brought us to this modern time – prompting vital questions about the value of tradition,...

What does it mean to settle, to be in a settled place? This week’s guest, AbdouMaliq Simone has dedicated his work to investigating the specifics of urban organization as they are created by people. In this erudite and globally-positioned conversation, Ayana and AbdouMaliq meditate on how the design of our environments shapes us.  AbdouMaliq talks us through the uncertain, vulnerable, and dynamic positions in the choreography of global cities, and contemplates what it means to live an urban...

In an episode that cuts straight to the soul, this week’s guest Andrea Gibson joins Ayana in a conversation that asks what it means to truly live. Andrea contemplates the ways we cope with loneliness and the deeply rooted societal fears of disconnection and of death. Facing fear, confusion, and loss head on, Andrea reminds us that healing is a return to the self, a return to community.  Andrea’s openness about their diagnosis and emotional journey, brings depth and emotion to the...

Death is a process of decomposition, how can we come to embrace this reality? This week, guest Katrina Spade joins Ayana for a fascinating conversation on the possibilities of burial practices, ways to connect with death, and the value in thoughtful death plans. Sharing her journey to founding Recompose, “a licensed, full-service, green funeral home in Seattle offering human composting,” Katrina shares that the way we design death rituals matters in how connected we feel to the process of...

It is with a heavy heart that we share that Tokitae, a Southern Resident Orca held unjustly in captivity for 53 years, has passed away. To honor her memory, this week we are rebroadcasting our episode with Kurt Russo on the People Under the Sea, originally aired in October of 2018. This conversation explores the powerful memory held by Southern Resident orcas, the threats they face from vessel noise, chemical pollutants, and declining Chinook salmon population, the health of the Salish Sea,...

Introducing listeners to her fierce devotion to community and care for the animal world, Keiara Wade, the Compton Cowgirl, considers the ways care work includes the human and more-than-human. Though the connection between humans and animals is often unspoken, it is a vital tie, and Keiara emphasizes the way the specific tie between human and horse can be incredibly therapeutic, healing, and nourishing.   Keiara shares her journey with the Compton Cowboys and her experiences as a Black...

What is intelligence beyond, preceding, and following human intelligence?  This week, Ayana is joined by guest James Bridle in a conversation that considers multiple forms of intelligence and ways of being.  Bringing a rich background of research on forms of intelligence, from artificial to mycelial, James posits that it is a critical failure to use human intelligence as the benchmark for all forms of knowing. Seeing intelligence as both relational and embodied, James points out that...

This week’s guest, Toko-pa Turner, invites us to consider that our dreams may serve as important guides throughout our lives. Diving into the intimately intertwined world of psyche and matter, Toko-pa considers the ways we may rehabilitate our imaginative capacities. We cannot simply dispose of that which goes beyond physical observation. Instead, centering the importance of feelings and sensing, Toko-pa encourages us to take time and pay attention to dreams.  Dreams and our interior...

In this week’s episode, guest Amy Glenn invites listeners on a journey to consider the value in caregiving and companioning. Rooting the conversation in her experience as both a birth and death doula, Amy details the deep work of holding space for all of life’s moments.  Amy points out the thresholds of everyday life, and the value in sitting with uncertainty. Companioning, storytelling, and ritual making are all vital as we come to contemplate what it means to hold space for death....

Continuing the conversation series, “The Edges in the Middle,” presented in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, For The Wild is delighted to share this conversation between Báyò Akómoláfé, Naomi Klein and Yuria Celidwen.  Speaking about climate grief and hope, Báyò, Naomi, and Yuria build together to consider the value in tapping into the depth of emotion as we feel it, not as we are told we should feel it. In a time marked by disruption, loss, and demise,...

In an increasingly unequal and precarious world, how might we come to combat disconnection and disillusionment? In this episode, guest Cuck Collins dives deeply into the world of wealth hoarding and staggering inequality. Recognizing the complexity of these issues, Ayana and Chuck engage deeply with questions of philanthrocapitalism, tax spending, the wealth defense industry, and power inequities across society. Chuck explains that as wealth concentrates in fewer and fewer hands it...

Embracing the mountains, desert steppe, and islands of Patagonia, this week’s guest Diana Friedrich grounds listeners in an expansive and profound landscape. As she describes her work to protect swaths of land through Rewilding Argentina’s Patagonia Azul project, Diana and Ayana share in a love for landscapes that offer both challenge and refuge.  For Diana, conservation work is a calling to enter into deep community and to build trust over a shared love for the land. This means reimagining...

How are the crises of our times crises of being, crises of becoming? In this week’s conversation, Ayana is joined by returning guest Dr. Báyò Akómoláfé. Ayana and Báyò dance together through questions of crisis, identity, and rupture. As we attempt to break from the monoculture that cements us as citizen subjects of empire, Báyò suggests that we need an ontological mutiny.  Pointing out the possibilities of a more generous and spacious politics, Báyò calls listeners’ attention to the...

Engaging crucially with food as a cultural, spiritual, and generational experience, this week’s guest Abena Offeh-Gyimah highlights the connections between ancestral foods, and the soil, seeds, and people who play a part in sustaining ancestral foodways. Focusing on the ancestral foods of Africa, and specifically her home-country of Ghana, Abena shares stories of connection, trust, and community fostered by food.  Abena calls listeners to pay attention to the technical and spiritual aspects...

Continuing the conversation series, “The Edges in the Middle,” presented in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, For The Wild is delighted to share Báyò Akómoláfé in conversation with scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.  Speaking on the theme "What if justice gets in the way?,” Báyò and Keeanga engage in a lively conversation that considers how our quest for justice shapes us and is simultaneously shaped by systems of power and control. Together, they ask: how can...

How might we tend to our bodies if we saw them as an ecosystem? In this week’s episode, guest Samantha Zipporah reminds us that our bodies and their cycles are a part of nature, not separate from it. Honoring the seasons of life, of the earth, and of our bodily cycles, Samantha highlights the importance of both fallow and fertile times, with particular attention to how this manifests for those with wombs. These intimate connections between body and earth inspire Smantha to dive deep into the...

In a profoundly informative and thought-provoking episode, returning guest Ismail Lourido Ali considers how we can create spaces for people to safely explore themselves and their consciousness. Ismail’s work to build an informed drug culture calls us to consider the ways we might prioritize balance and humility in conversations over moral judgment and cultural shame. Focusing on moving away from repression, the conversation weaves together nuanced ideas about pleasure, education, and societal...

 Continuing the conversation series, “The Edges in the Middle,” presented in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, For The Wild is delighted to share Báyò Akómoláfé in conversation with Indy Johar of Dark Matter Labs.  Speaking on the theme “A New Theory of the Self,” Báyò and Indy dive into the milieu of life forms entangled together on earth. The conversation asks listeners to reconsider the objective nature of self and the word around us that has been so...

How do we face the scope of global extraction in the name of oil and gas production? Guest Amy Westervelt joins us this week to consider the full story behind these extractive industries and the role they play in shaping global structures from shipping ports, to government policies, to media talking points. Together, Amy and Ayana consider what it might mean for these organizations to be held accountable to the local and global disasters they have wrought in pursuit of profit. Amy brings...