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

In this episode, Sadiah Qureshi invites us to unravel histories of science, race, and empire to understand the social dynamics that we have inherited in the present. How do we begin to heal from constructs of division and racialization that have led to real-life consequences and systemic injustices for so many?Join us as we discuss how historical contexts influence how knowledge is shaped, the presumptions underlying “conservation” and “de-extinction” projects to interrogate, and more.We invite you to…tune in and subscribe to Green Dreamer via any podcast app;join us on Patreon for the extended version of this episode;and subscribe to our newsletter and latest updates here.

Bethany Brookshire, an award-winning freelance science journalist and author, delves into the complexities of how we label animals as 'pests.' She discusses the cultural evolution of this term and its ties to power dynamics and social justice. The conversation highlights how urban pests like rats symbolize broader societal issues, while proposing a shift in mindset towards coexistence with wildlife. Brookshire also shares insights on the ecological importance of overlooked species and emphasizes the need for innovative solutions that respect both humans and animals.

What does it mean to expand our perceptions of wealth — and question what it means to build freedom and security in life? How might we re-ground our understandings of democracy in traditional ecological knowledge? And how do we embrace an all-of-the-above approach when it comes to our possibilities for systemic change?In this episode, we are honored to welcome Joseph Gazing Wolf, who offers a wealth of wisdom drawing upon his life experiences growing up in landless, abject poverty.Join us as we explore how what it means to become “uncontrollable” in the eyes of mainstream systems, what we can learn from the diverse Indigenous knowledges rooted in different places around the globe, and more.We invite you to…tune in and subscribe to Green Dreamer via any podcast app;join us on Patreon for the extended version of this episode;and subscribe to our newsletter and latest updates here.

What does it actually mean to build “movements” — understanding this word not as a loose terminology overarching certain causes but as a substantive call for intentionally spun and co-conspired webs of relations? How can clarifying the words we use around organizing help to prevent co-optation and dilution? And how do we navigate the paradox of needing funding from often “dirty” sources in order to get by — while simultaneously attempting to subvert the underlying structures of power themselves?In this part 2 of our conversation with Rasul A. Mowatt and Too Black of Laundering Black Rage (tap into part 1 here), we continue to sink in more deeply to unravel our entanglement in systems of exploitation.Join us as we learn about what it means to tether ourselves to “organizations” beyond feeding into the optics of collective action; how we can practice “reverse laundering” to help funnel more resources towards “illegitimate” places of need; how to disentangle movement building from cycles of electoral politics; and more.We invite you to…tune in and subscribe to Green Dreamer via any podcast app;join us on Patreon for the extended version of this episode;and subscribe to our newsletter and latest updates at greendreamer.substack.com

What does it mean to understand laundering in the context of how Black rage often gets converted to fit the interests of capital — against the very people experiencing that anger as a response to state violence? How do we remain cautious of different forms of co-optation, including through the arts, that end up distancing people from the material conditions that originally sparked the rage?In this part one of our two-part conversation, we are honored to welcome the co-authors of Laundering Black Rage, Rasul A. Mowatt and Too Black — who guide us to critically reflect on key happenings in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd — and more recently, the murder of Sonya Massey.Join us in this vital and sobering dialogue as we discuss how activism for social causes is often subverted, redirected, and laundered into forms deemed palatable by the state — only to be fed back into reinforcing the system itself. We also explore how cities, to be distinguished from “society”, are set up inherently as sites of extraction — enforcing complicity by design.How do we confront our entanglement in such processes of laundering — while staying focused on the types of efforts that can more directly address the sources of systemic harm?www.patreon.com/greendreamer

With a significant part of the global population now reliant on paved road systems for the daily functioning of our lives, it is easy to overlook the impacts they have on our human and more-than-human communities.But how did so many of us become seemingly locked into this dependence on the “normalized violence” of these networks? And what does it mean to support harm reduction in the context of built infrastructures — or even dare to lean into possibilities of regenerative road ethics?In this episode, second-time guest Ben Goldfarb of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping The Future of Our Planet (previously featured here) calls on us to confront the harmful-by-default impacts of our road systems. Join us as we uncover the various forms of highway pollution that communities of color are disproportionately subjected to; how roads impact our more-than-human communities beyond roadkill; what road decommissioning projects have entailed in practice; and more.What does it mean to alchemize change for transport systems that are quite literally being rigidified as they further expand — entrenching us deeper into these status quo ways of world-making?We invite you to…tune in and subscribe to Green Dreamer via any podcast app;join us on Patreon for the extended version of this episode;and subscribe to our newsletter and latest updates here.

Camille Sapara Barton, an advocate for grief practices, shares profound insights on embracing grief rather than overcoming it. She discusses the challenges of information overload in modern life and how it affects our emotional well-being. Exploring the impact of capitalism on our humanity, Camille highlights the importance of community rituals and somatic practices for deeper self-awareness. She encourages reconnecting with our bodies and honoring traditions, particularly in helping future generations navigate unresolved pain.

What does it mean to remember ourselves as representatives of our rivers, oceans, and other earthly bodies of water? Why is it vital to recognize the failed logic underpinning regulatory systems that take on an “innocent until proven guilty” approach to water pollution? And how can we leverage our tools as artists, storytellers, and creatives to co-create felt change?In this episode, we dialogue with Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo and Blake Lavia of Talking Wings Collective for a synergistic conversation — where they invite us to think and dream with water.Join us as the artist-activist duo expands on how the legal frameworks surrounding pollution often exist in “grey areas”; why we need to problematize such “bureaucracies of death” as maintaining worldviews of separation between people and our waterful world; and what it means to replace extractivist modes of relating with our ecosystems that better align with the Indigenous framing of “Water is Life.”Tune in and subscribe to Green Dreamer via any podcast app; get our show notes at greendreamer.com; and join us on Patreon for the extended version of this episode.www.patreon.com/greendreamer

In this conversation with Dr. Juanita Sundberg, we explore how our relationships with the more-than-human world are often shaped by our institutions and knowledge systems — which don’t always honor the diverse cosmologies and relationalities of life. Juanita draws on her work with Indigenous communities and organizations as she highlights how our existence is determined not only by political and societal constructs of borders and boundaries, but by some of the most overlooked elements of the living world.What is the significance of unraveling colonial modes of relating? What does it mean to nuance the concept of “human exceptionalism"? And how do we collectively re-enliven and heal such senses of dissociation?Tune in and subscribe to Green Dreamer via any podcast app, and read our episode transcript and show notes at greendreamer.com.

How do we recalibrate the metrics of mainstream politics, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) often used to define a nation's “success” — and recenter them on our collective and planetary wellbeing? What could a truly regenerative economy encompass, and what might that mean for our immediate and long-term activism?In this episode, we welcome Amanda Janoo, who feels called to help build just and sustainable economies through goal-oriented and participatory design policies.Join us as Amanda shares about the limitations of mainstream economics; what the “Wellbeing Economy” is all about; how it relates to other models such as circular economy or degrowth economy; and more.Tune in and subscribe to Green Dreamer via any podcast app, and get our show notes at greendreamer.com.