Green Dreamer: Seeding change towards collective healing, sustainability, regeneration

How do we make sense of the contradiction of having both excess food and food insecurity at the same time? And how do counterculture movements like Food Not Bombs prefigure the alternative worlds that are possible? In this episode, we welcome David Boarder Giles, the author of A Mass Conspiracy to Feed People: Food Not Bombs and the World-Class Waste of Global Cities, and an anthropologist of food, waste, cities, and social movements who teaches at Deakin University in Melbourne. He focuses on the relationships between economy, identity, and affect or feeling, and his writing is largely organized around three intersecting topics: the role of abject economies in global cities, globalized efforts at municipal governance, and emergent networks and counterpublics cultivated within those abject economies. For him, these are the topics that are the most interesting and the most pressing. // The song featured in this episode is Allergic by Lil Idli. // Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, biocultural revitalization, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and newsletter at GreenDreamer.com. *Our episodes are minimally edited. Please view them as invitations to dive deeper into the topics and resources explored.

How has philanthropy traditionally worked to uphold the extractive economic system? And what does it mean to recognize the various forms of capital that we have beyond financial capital? In this episode, we welcome Konda Mason, a social entrepreneur, Earth and social justice activist, spiritual teacher, and the president of Jubilee Justice, a nonprofit working to bring economic equity to BIPOC farmers and ecological sustainability by introducing an innovative way of growing rice while convening deeply transformational journeys—exploring the intersection of land, race, money, and spirit. The song featured in this episode is Little Girl by Lil Idli. Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, ecological regeneration, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and newsletter at GreenDreamer.com. *Our episodes are minimally edited. Please view them as invitations to dive deeper into the topics and resources explored.

How does viewing the Earth as an embodiment of imagination invite us to conceptualize or feel our ecological crises in different ways? And what does it mean to be more imaginative with our scientific inquiries—while also remaining a humility to recognize the limitations of this particular lens? In this episode, we welcome Monica Gagliano, the author of Thus Spoke the Plant and a Research Associate Professor in evolutionary ecology at Southern Cross University, where she directs the Biological Intelligence (BI) Lab as part of the Diverse Intelligences Initiative of the Templeton World Charity Foundation. Gagliano's work has extended the concept of cognition (including perception, learning processes, memory) in plants. By re-kindling a sense of wonder for this beautiful place we call home, she is helping to create a fresh imaginative ecology of mind that can inspire the emergence of truly innovative solutions to human relations with the world we co-inhabit. // The song featured in this episode is Allergic by Lil Idli. // Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, biocultural revitalization, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and newsletter at GreenDreamer.com. *Our episodes are minimally edited. Please view them as invitations to dive deeper into the topics and resources explored.

How have the wellness and beauty industries thrived off of a dominant culture of non-acceptance? And what might be the healing potentials that lie in plant medicines—when their sacred origins and rituals are honored and respected? In this episode, we welcome Fariha Róisín. As a multidisciplinary artist who is a Muslim queer Bangladeshi, she is interested in the margins, in liminality, otherness, and the mercurial nature of being. Róisín is the author of the poetry collection How To Cure A Ghost, as well as the novel Like A Bird. Her upcoming work is a book of non-fiction entitled, Who Is Wellness For? and her second book of poetry is entitled Survival Takes a Wild Imagination. The song featured in this episode is Little Girl by Lil Idli. Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, ecological regeneration, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and newsletter at GreenDreamer.com. *Our episodes are minimally edited. Please view them as invitations to dive deeper into the topics and resources explored.

What does it mean to "see" soil beyond their chemistry and biology—understanding also their cultural, relational, and historical embodiment? How have Colombian small and Indigenous farmers resisted—and thrived—even amidst decades of armed conflicts, scientific colonization, and epistemological and ontological violences? In this episode, we welcome Dr. Kristina Lyons, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, whose current research is situated at the interfaces of socio-ecological conflicts, transitional justice, community-based forms of reconciliation, militarized psychologies, and science and legal studies in Colombia. Her book, Vital Decomposition, weaves together an intimate ethnography of two kinds of practitioners: state soil scientists and small farmers who attempt to cultivate alternatives to commercial coca crops and the military-led, growth-oriented development paradigms intended to substitute them. *** Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, biocultural revitalization, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and newsletters at GreenDreamer.com. *Our episodes are minimally edited; please view them as open invitations to dive into every topic and resource explored.

In this episode, we welcome Nick Estes, a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and co-founder of The Red Nation. Nick is a historian, journalist, and author of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance. Together, we unravel the topics of why truth-seeking to better understand history has become so politicized and contentious, the boarding school system that the U.S. used to assimilate Native children, The Red Deal as going beyond what The Green New Deal addresses, and more. (The musical offering in this episode is Mother by Jared Sowan, provided to us by Indigenous Cloud.) Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, ecological regeneration, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and newsletter at GreenDreamer.com. *Our episodes are minimally edited. Please view them as open invitations to dive deeper into each resource shared and topic explored.

In this episode, we revisit our past conversation with Charles Eisenstein, a public speaker and author of the books Climate — A New Story, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, The Ascent of Humanity, and Sacred Economics. Charles‘ work covers a wide range of topics, including the history of human civilization, economics, spirituality, and the ecology movement. And some primary themes that he explores include anti-consumerism, interdependence, and how myth and narrative influence culture. The musical offering shared in this episode is Mother by Jared Sowan, provided to us by Indigenous Cloud. Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, ecological regeneration, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and newsletter at GreenDreamer.com. Support our show: GreenDreamer.com/support *Our episodes are minimally edited; please view them as invitations to dive deeper into every subject and resource explored.

How might we lean into appreciative inquiry in support of a cycle of healing? And what does it mean to view conflicts as potentials for collective breakthroughs? In this episode, we welcome Shilpa Jain, the Executive Director of YES! and a facilitator, author, and educator on topics including globalization, creative expressions, ecology, democratic living, innovative learning, and unlearning. The musical offering in this episode is Grandmother’s Song by Hand Drum Songs, provided to us by Indigenous Cloud. *** ABOUT: Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, ecological regeneration, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and weekly newsletter at GreenDreamer.com. Support the show at GreenDreamer.com/support. *Our episodes are minimally edited; please view them as open invitations to dive deeper into the topics and resources explored.

What signs are there that the dominant culture has trended towards one of “choice paralysis”, with many stuck in “infinite browsing mode”? And how might encouraging people to commit—to causes, place, people, projects—support the societal transformation many deeply yearn for? In this episode, we welcome Pete Davis, a writer and civic advocate from Falls Church, Virginia. Pete works on civic projects aimed at deepening American democracy and solidarity, and he is the co-founder of Getaway and the Democracy Policy Network. Pete became well-known for his Harvard Law School graduation speech, “A Counterculture of Commitment,” which has been viewed more than 30 million times and became the basis for his book, Dedicated: The case for commitment in an age of infinite browsing. The musical offering in this episode is Around the World by Wig Wam, provided to us by Indigenous Cloud. Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, ecological regeneration, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and newsletter at GreenDreamer.com. Support Green Dreamer: GreenDreamer.com/support *Our episodes are minimally edited; please view them as open invitations to dive deeper into the resources and topics explored.

What are the differences between “food security”, “food justice”, and “food sovereignty”? And while food aid and soup kitchens play a critical role in the immediate term, how might they still help to uphold the same power dynamics that historically marginalized communities wish to compost? In this episode, we welcome Karen Washington, a farmer and activist, to Green Dreamer. Karen is a co-owner/farmer at Rise & Root Farm in Chester, New York, and in 2010, she co-founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS), an organization supporting growers in both urban and rural settings. Karen currently serves on the boards of the New York Botanical Gardens, Mary Mitchell Center, Soul Fire Farm, and Black Farmer Fund, and is widely recognized for her community leadership and organizing. The musical offering in this episode is American Trilogy by First Nations Elvis, provided by Indigenous Cloud. Green Dreamer is a community-supported podcast and multimedia journal exploring our paths to collective healing, ecological regeneration, and true abundance and wellness for all. Find our show notes, transcripts, and newsletter at GreenDreamer.com. Support our work: GreenDreamer.com/support *Our episodes are minimally edited; please view them as open invitations to dive deeper into the resources and topics explored.