Emergence Magazine Podcast

In this immersive listening journey from our archive, acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton guides us into the Hoh Rain Forest—one of the quietest places in North America. In a world drowned out by the din of modern life, Hempton offers a way to attune our ears to the sounds that emerge in the absence of noise and reconnect with the silence of the living world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Hinton is a poet, translator, and author whose works are informed by ancient Chinese philosophy and deep ecological thought. In this interview, David discusses his latest book Wild Mind, Wild Earth, which looks to ancient modes of seeing and being as a way to ground the modern environmental movement. Advocating for a return to a deep kinship between humans and the Earth, David speaks about how reweaving consciousness and landscape might help us navigate the sixth extinction with an ethics tempered by love.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we revisit our conversation with Richard Powers, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Overstory, a story that reweaves the fabric of our reality by entangling us within “plant consciousness.” Richard discusses the kind of storytelling that acknowledges the reciprocal, communal existence of all living things, how life-changing these stories can be, and how they might help shape our response to the ecological crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we’re re-sharing our interview with Irish teenage author, naturalist, and conservationist Dara McAnulty. His debut book, Diary of a Young Naturalist—which he wrote at the age of fourteen, and which is in part an intimate portrait of his love of the living world and his distress at its destruction—is a testament to the power and importance of joy, a joy that encircles his relationship with nature. In a world where many are incentivized to act out of fear, Dara’s instinct to wonder at all that unfolds around him feels regenerative—a return to the essence of our connection with the living Earth.In this conversation we spoke about the importance of approaching living in an era of crisis from a place grounded in joy, and his realization that writing, music, and art can be activism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jamie Figueroa is Boricua (Afro-Taíno) by way of Ohio and a long-time resident of northern New Mexico. She is the author of the novel Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer. In this narrated essay, Jamie considers the kind of world she wants to inhabit and the stories that will make it so. Confronted with narratives of catastrophe and colonialism that restrict her spirit, she summons the imagination, sovereignty, and courage needed to restory herself and rebirth the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh died nearly one year ago, on January 22, 2022. To honor his passing, we are re-sharing his “Ten Love Letters to the Earth,” a series of meditations that engage us in intimate conversation with our Earth. As we now approach the one year anniversary of his death, we offer these recitations in remembrance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this talk given at St. Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in London, Sufi teacher and Emergence Executive Editor Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee speaks about what it looks like to live in an unfolding apocalyptic reality and the creative possibilities that are waiting to be embodied. In this time of deep uncertainty, he reminds us of the ancient, primordial covenant of relationship with the living world that can give us a ground to stand on, and the sacred nature of creation that is always there, waiting for us to return to it.Read the transcript. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we come to the end of Living with the Unknown, we begin again at the beginning. For the final story of our third volume, we journey into the fictional, post-apocalyptic landscape of acclaimed Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri. In this short story, superbly narrated by British actor Colin Salmon, a man and a woman inhabit a world abandoned by humans, grappling with what is at stake in beginning a new civilization.Emergence Magazine, Vol 3: Living with the Unknown explores what living in an apocalyptic reality looks like through four themes: Initiation, Ashes, Roots, and Futures. Experience “Chapter Four: Futures.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this expansive interview, writer, artist, and technologist James Bridle seeks to widen our thinking beyond humancentric ways of knowing. In questioning our fundamental assumptions about intelligence, they explore how radical technological models can decentralize power and become portals into deeper relationship with the living world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alexis Wright is an Australian Aboriginal author and member of the Waanji people from the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. As the world falters, threatening native ecosystems and Indigenous lifeways, Alexis turns inward to the dwelling place of ancestral story.Emergence Magazine, Vol 3: Living with the Unknown explores what living in an apocalyptic reality looks like through four themes: Initiation, Ashes, Roots, and Futures. Experience “Chapter Four: Futures.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices