Episode 29: Rewilding Christianity w/ Solveig Nilsen-Goodin & Aric Clark

Seven in ten Americans identify as Christian. For a movement like  rewilding to gain more traction, it must intersect with the belief  systems of the culture at large on some level. I am not a Christian,  though I am interested in the intersection of rewilding and  christianity. Since I live in the United States, I feel it’s important  to understand enough about the dominant cultures here and where to find  common ground in rewilding narratives. In this episode I chat with two  friends of mine who are both pastors. Solveig Nilsen-Goodin and Aric  Clark.

Rev. Solveig Nilsen-Goodin is an ordained pastor in the Lutheran Church, a spiritual director, grief coach, writer, author of the book: What is the Way of the Wilderness: An Introduction to the Wilderness Way Community, and co-editor and contributor to A Grounded Faith: Reconnecting with Creator and Creation in the Season of Lent. Solveig helped found EcoFaith Recovery, and founded and pastored the Wilderness Way Community for eleven years. She and her husband Peter are raising two teenage boys in NE Portland.

Rev. Aric Clark is pastor of Mt. Home and Sherwood  United Methodist Churches. He is also a writer, a speaker, and an  activist who lives in Portland, Oregon. He is the co-author of Never  Pray Again: Lift Your Head, Unfold Your Hands, and Get To Work, a book  which challenges readers to embrace a concrete other-centered  spirituality, and editor of Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions for the  Church in a Time of Empire. When not pastoring, writing, or protesting  he is parenting two teenagers and indulging a love of tabletop gaming.

Our conversation topics range from anarchism, feminism,  death, grief, decolonization and the histories of the church, the  challenges of working in institutions and much more.

Notes:

Episode 28: Rewilding Myth w/ Sophie Strand

In this episode I converse with writer Sophie Strand. I’ve found her  writing to be particularly inspiring to my rewilding journey in terms of understanding and thinking about masculinity. However, we cover much more than that. Our conversation branches off in many directions, though  the main thread is around connecting our personal narratives in rewilding to the larger cultural narratives found in our mythologies–and  the mythologies that make the most sense from a rewilding perspective. It was such a pleasure to converse with someone as deeply researched and passionate about this topic as Sophie is. She has many insights to  share and I’m honored to have her on the podcast. Looking forward to reading her book when it comes out this fall!

Notes:

Sophie’s Links
www.sophiestrand.com
cosmogyny on instagram
Pre-Order Her Book: The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine

Mentions

Sophie’s Favorite Mythologists/Writers:
Shawn King
Robert Bringhurst
Ursula LeGuinn
Donna Haraway
Merlin Sheldrake

Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life by Carl Kerényi
Beard Tax
Matters of Ancestry by Jason Godesky
Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death by Bernd Heinrich
Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday
Morphic Resonance: The Nature of Formative Causation by Rupert Sheldrake
Toxoplasmosis: How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy
Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom
Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World by Lisa Wells
Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives by Joan Halifax

Episode 27: Day to Day Rewilding

Recently one of my patrons asked me what my day to day rewilding looked like. This is a glimpse into some of that, but also with perspective on what it might look like for others.

 

Episode 26: Overpopulation w/ Jason Godesky

Far right fascists have laid claim to the conversation of overpopulation. This was easy for them to do, considering the most famous historical promoter of this idea was a classist and racist who proposed killing the poor. Though he is wrong about population in so many ways, the basic ecological framework is real: animal populations grow to meet their food availability. The more food available, the more a population grows. The human population has increased exponentially since the “neolithic demographic transition” or in lay terms, the invention of full-time agricultural society, or, when humans began creating their food and became their own managers of the food supply. This makes population growth, and overpopulation, a central component of civilization. Understanding and speaking about overpopulation is a necessity, because it is a reality. We must wrestle this conversation away from fascists so that we can discuss it through a lens of reproductive justice as the collapse of civilization intensifies.

My guest today is Jason Godesky. Jason is an old friend and colleague of mine. We met in the early 2000’s on an internet chat board called “Ish Con” short for Ishmael Conference. It was a place to discuss the ideas presented in the books by Daniel Quinn. It was here that I gave Jason the nickname, “The Machine Gun” for his ability to remember and rapidly deploy facts, journals, studies, ethnographies, and more to back up many of the positions in what we would later call Rewilding. When ishcon closed down in 2006, I bought the domain rewild.info and invited Jason to help create a new online chat board specific to rewilding. Jason is well known for his essays on his now defunct blog, The Anthropik Network. A few years ago when Rewild Portland acquired rewild.com, I asked Jason to write the content to help people describe what rewilding means. These days his main focus is on using storytelling and gaming to promote the concepts of rewilding. Though, every once and a while he’ll post a new essay on a particular topic of interest. It’s his latest essay, entitled “Overpopulation” that we’ll be discussing here on the rewilding podcast today.

Notes:

Jason’s Projects

Mentions

Underworld Party Podcast: Beyond Land Acknowledgment 03 w/ Peter Michael Bauer

Episode 25: What is Rewilding?

In this episode I return to the theme of this podcast: rewilding. It’s used in so many contexts now, from video games to outdoor clothing to lifestyle branding. But what does it really mean? Where did it emerge? How can we stay authentic to the meaning as it gets absorbed by mainstream capitalism? This is a good refresher for those familiar with my work, as well as a nice starting place for those who have recently come across the podcast.

 

Notes

• Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
• Against the Grain by James Scott
• The Maya Forest Garden

Episode 24: Depression & Rewilding w/ Sheila Henson

I’ve lived with depression for most of my life. I’ve learned to  manage my symptoms in order to function and live a more fulfilling life.  I’ve dedicated this episode to working through some of the areas of  overlap between depression and rewilding. This is a very personal topic  that lives close to my heart. I was originally planning on doing this  one solo, but I realized that it would be more impactful if it were in  conversation with someone who shares similar but different experiences  with depression.

My guest on this episode is Sheila Henson. Sheila received  her BA in History and an MA in Education, spent twelve years as a  behavioral respite worker for children with special needs, working for  many of those years at the Serendipity Center in Portland. Today she is  an ADHD Coach, and is a well known and respected educator on tiktok. The  drive to understand how to be kind, collaborative, and restorative  within our social and ecological communities led her to Rewild Portland,  where she now serves on the board of directors, heading up our  transformative justice committee. Sheila and I also co-teach a Rewilding  Your Health class through Rewild Portland. 

Notes:

List of National Suicide Hotlines
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/11181469

Sheila’s Website
https://www.sheilahenson.com/

Sheila’s Tiktok
https://www.tiktok.com/@adhdcoachsheila

Sleep & Depression
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/mental-health/depression-and-sleep

Exercise & Depression
The Challenges of Treating Depression with Exercise: From Evidence to Practice
https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1111/j.1468-2850.2006.00022.x

Meditation & Depression
An update on mindfulness meditation as a self-help treatment for anxiety and depression
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3500142/

Diet & Depression
Diet and Depression—From Confirmation to Implementation
https://www.anp3sm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/jama_berk_2019_ed_190008.pdf

Music & Depression
Music therapy for depression
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004517.pub3/full

Green Spaces and Depression
Green spaces deliver lasting mental health benefits
https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_349054_en.html

Gardening & Depression
Gardening is beneficial for health: A meta-analysis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5153451/

Soil Microbiome & Depression
Dirt has a microbiome, and it may double as an antidepressant
https://qz.com/993258/dirt-has-a-microbiome-and-it-may-double-as-an-antidepressant/

Crafting & Depression
Antidepressive response of inpatients with major depression to adjuvant occupational therapy: a case–control study
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12991-016-0124-0

Plant & Fungi Medicine
Psychedelic Treatment with Psilocybin Relieves Major Depression, Study Shows
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/psychedelic-treatment-with-psilocybin-relieves-major-depression-study-shows

The  Efficacy of Psilocybin Compared to Selective Serotonin Reuptake  Inhibitors in the Treatment of Adults with Major Depressive Disorder
https://scholarworks.arcadia.edu/showcase/2020/pa/60/

Pharmaceuticals & Depression

Antidepressants: Selecting one that’s right for you

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/antidepressants/art-20046273

Other Sources:

DSM-5 Criteria and Depression Severity: Implications for Clinical Practice
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6176119/

Depression Definition and DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria
https://www.psycom.net/depression-definition-dsm-5-diagnostic-criteria/

Behavioral Aspects of Animal Domestication
https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1086/413673

All About Alexithymia, or Difficulty Recognizing Feelings
https://www.healthline.com/health/autism/alexithymia

Changing The name PDA
https://emilywilding.com/changing-the-name-pda/

What Does It Mean to Be Neurodivergent?
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-neurodivergence-and-what-does-it-mean-to-be-neurodivergent-5196627

The roles of peripheral serotonin in metabolic homeostasis
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001457931500455X#:~:text=Because%20serotonin%20does%20not%20cross,be%20an%20attractive%20therapeutic%20strategy.

Poor Proles Almanac Podcast

Episode 23: A Conversation w/ Lisa Wells

Lisa Wells is the author of Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World, The Fix, and winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize. Her essays have been published by The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, Granta, The Believer, n+1 and others. She lives in Seattle and writes a column for Orion Magazine called Abundant Noise. She’s also one of my oldest and closest friends. In her latest book, Believers, she sought out many different people all seeking to find a way to live sustainably in the world, as we sit on the precipice of a collapsing civilization. In this conversation, we chat about the book, some of the subjects (including myself), the writing process itself, the role of storytellers as culture building, and much more.

Notes:
Lisa Wells Website
Instagram Account
Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World

Episode 22: The Handmade Life w/ Delia Ann Turner

In this episode I converse with someone who has greatly inspired me, Delia Ann Turner. Delia co-owns and operates The School of the Greenwood: For Creative Rewilding. Delia is an amazing craftsperson and educator. Our topics wandered from making hand crafts, living off the grid, traveling to learn from communities where hand made crafts are barely holding on, integrating what we learn back in our own communities, to her philosophy in carefully crafting adventure and fantasy camps for children, to running a small business and the contradictory aspects of living a wild life but also utilizing tools like social media to increase the reach and impact of her work. It was a wide-ranging conversation and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Delia’s Links:
Delia Ann Turner Instagram
School of the Greenwood Website
School of the Greenwood Instagram

Mentions:
Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature
The Art of Not Being Governed
Mushroom at the End of the World
Nancy Baskets
Eoin Donnelly (Timber Framer)
The Bear and the Nightingale

Episode 20: 5 Ways to Start Rewilding

In this episode, I answer three questions from my patrons on patreon:

  1. What is your advice for people just beginning on their rewilding journeys?
  2. What is your favorite part of rewilding?
  3. What are your favorite books for rewilders to use for help rewilding?

Episode 19: Exploring “Cancel Culture” w/ Clementine Morrigan

Today I’m chatting with Clementine Morrigan, a prolific writer and podcaster covering a range of topics. In this conversation we talk about “cancel and call out culture” and the challenges of transcending punishment and imprisonment, in order to move toward a more egalitarian, transformative justice process when conflict arises–as it inevitably does–in our communities.

Notes:

Clementine Morrigan’s Work
Lnk.bio
Instagram
Fucking Cancelled Podcast
Fuck the Police Means We Don’t Act Like Cops to Each Other Zine

Other Mentions:
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
Conflict is Not Abuse
The Sociopath Next Door
Cursed Cancellations Instagram