Spirituality & Mindfulness · The Creative Process: Recent Episodes
Spiritual Leaders, Mindfulness Experts, Great Thinkers, Authors, Elders, Artists Talk Faith & Religion · Creative Process Original Series
Spirituality & Mindfulness episodes of the popular The Creative Process podcast. We speak to spiritual leaders, mindfulness experts, great thinkers and authors, elders, artists, musicians and others discuss paths to faith, connection, and creativity. To listen to ALL arts, education & spirituality episodes of “The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society”, you’ll find our main podcast on Apple: tinyurl.com/thecreativepod, Spotify: tinyurl.com/thecreativespotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Exploring the fascinating minds of creative people. Conversations with writers, artists & creative thinkers across the Arts & STEM. We discuss their life, work & artistic practice. Winners of Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Pulitzer, leaders & public figures share real experiences & offer valuable insights. Notable guests and participating museums and organizations include: Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Neil Patrick Harris, Smithsonian, Roxane Gay, Musée Picasso, EARTHDAY.ORG, Neil Gaiman, UNESCO, Joyce Carol Oates, Mark Seliger, Acropolis Museum, Hilary Mantel, Songwriters Hall of Fame, George Saunders, The New Museum, Lemony Snicket, Pritzker Architecture Prize, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Galleries, Joe Mantegna, PETA, Greenpeace, EPA, Morgan Library & Museum, and many others.
The interviews are hosted by founder and creative educator Mia Funk with the participation of students, universities, and collaborators from around the world. These conversations are also part of our traveling exhibition. www.creativeprocess.info
For The Creative Process podcasts from Seasons 1, 2, 3 visit: tinyurl.com/creativepod or creativeprocess.info/interviews-page-1, which has our complete directory of interviews, transcripts, artworks, and details about ways to get involved.
INSTAGRAM: @creativeprocesspodcast
“We are in the middle of a labyrinth which suggests to us many fake corridors. What's the superpower of literature? Literature is like an antidote against propaganda. Propaganda explains the world easily in a two-dimensional way. Literature gives you a more complex explanation. Literature tells personal stories.”
Today, we have a conversation about time, memory, and the bittersweet geography of human sorrow. Georgi Gospodinovis widely considered one of the most daring voices in contemporary European literature. His acclaimed novel, The Physics of Sorrow, won the prestigious Jan Michalski Prize in 2016, blending ancient myth and quantum physics to chronicle the delicate realities of post-socialist Eastern Europe. Joining him is Angela Rodel, a brilliant linguist, musician, and translator whose profound artistic empathy carries the flowing cadences of the Bulgarian language into vivid English. Together, this extraordinary creative duo made history by winning the 2023 International Booker Prizefor Time Shelter—the first book written in Bulgarian to ever receive the honor.
Time Shelter is a masterfully dark, funny, and prescient novel. It begins with an enigmatic psychiatrist opening a clinic that treats Alzheimer’s patients by meticulously recreating past decades to match their internal clocks. But the experiment quickly escapes the clinic walls, triggering a pan-European crisis where entire nations hold democratic referendums to choose which era of the past they will retreat into. It is a book that holds up a mirror to our own world, exploring what happens when a civilization faces a deficit of meaning and tries to weaponize nostalgia.
(0:00) The Trap of Nostalgia
(2:13) The Art of Translation
(5:44) The Pandemic of the Past
(11:30) Reading from ‘Time Shelter’
(14:28) Death and the Gardener
(19:34) The Translator's Calling
(26:05) Cultural Rhythms of the Bulgarian Language
(30:00) The Nonlinear Approach to Storytelling
(34:30) Separating Personal and Historical Pasts
(42:55) Storytelling vs Propaganda
(47:19) Bodies, Animals and the Loneliness of the Minotaur
(56:00) Reading ' Eight Minutes and 19 Seconds’
(1:00:28) What makes a good life? What has given your life meaning?
(1:04:18) Childhood, Memory and Imagination
(1:10:38) Reflections on God and the Stories His Grandmother Told Him
(1:17:20) Education and the Empathic Imagination
(1:23:25) The Museum of Memory
(1:26:15) The Importance of Hugging and Empathy
(1:28:02) AI and the Future of Humanity
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Today, we have a conversation about time, memory, and the bittersweet geography of human sorrow. Georgi Gospodinovis widely considered one of the most daring voices in contemporary European literature. His acclaimed novel, The Physics of Sorrow, won the prestigious Jan Michalski Prize in 2016, blending ancient myth and quantum physics to chronicle the delicate realities of post-socialist Eastern Europe. Joining him is Angela Rodel, a brilliant linguist, musician, and translator whose profound artistic empathy carries the flowing cadences of the Bulgarian language into vivid English. Together, this extraordinary creative duo made history by winning the 2023 International Booker Prizefor Time Shelter—the first book written in Bulgarian to ever receive the honor.
Time Shelter is a masterfully dark, funny, and prescient novel. It begins with an enigmatic psychiatrist opening a clinic that treats Alzheimer’s patients by meticulously recreating past decades to match their internal clocks. But the experiment quickly escapes the clinic walls, triggering a pan-European crisis where entire nations hold democratic referendums to choose which era of the past they will retreat into. It is a book that holds up a mirror to our own world, exploring what happens when a civilization faces a deficit of meaning and tries to weaponize nostalgia.
(0:00) The Trap of Nostalgia
(1:22) The Nonlinear Approach to Storytelling
(3:53) Translating the Atmosphere
(4:31) The Pandemic of the Past
(6:37) Death and the Gardener
(9:49) The Translators Calling
(11:00) Slowing Down Time
(13:14) Storytelling vs Propaganda
(15:54) Translating the Atmosphere
(18:19) What makes a good life? What has given your life meaning?
(20:56) Reflections on God and the Stories His Grandmother Told Him
(23:43) The Importance of Hugging, Empathy and Storytelling
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
If you live in a city, you’ve probably had that moment in the middle of the night. You hear a scratching in the walls, or you catch the glowing eyes of a raccoon peering out from a dumpster, and for a second, the concrete world feels a lot less 'controlled' than we like to pretend. We’ve been taught to think of cities as 'biological deserts'—places where nature goes to die. But my guest today, Dan Werb, says that’s a myth we tell ourselves to feel safe. Dan is an award-winning epidemiologist and a musician, and in his new book, Our Wild Familiars, he explores the 'synanthropes'—the wild creatures that aren't our pets, but aren't quite strangers either. They are the coyotes, the bats, and even the octopuses that are learning to use our cities as laboratories for their own rapid evolution. He’s also the author of The Invisible Siege and City of Omens.
(0:02) The unexpected biodiversity of urban areas and wild familiars
(1:18) What is a Synanthrope?
(4:15) The Myth of the Biological Desert
(8:04) The Ancestral Bond between early humans, ravens, and foxes
(9:15) Crows and Grudges
(12:42) Stepping Stones in the Concrete
(14:20) The Epidemiological Triangle
(17:58) The Illusion of AI Connection
(19:56) The Museum of Memory
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Salwa and Selma Mikou are the founders of Paris-based Mikou Architecture. Born in Fez, Morocco and educated in Paris, they have spent the last two decades reimagining the relationship between the built environment and the cultural landscape.
After honing their craft under two of the world’s most iconic architects, Jean Nouvel and Renzo Piano, they founded their own studio. For them, architecture is a living interaction with landscape and what they call the Atlas of Resonance, interpreting the hidden layers of a territory, geology, memory, and craft. It is a philosophy that rejects the generic, seeking instead to weave together technological innovation with local materials. Whether it is a mosque in the north of England or a hybrid innovation hub in a former royal manufactory, their work asks a fundamental question: How does space shape the way we think, learn and remember? They were selected by Rem Koolhaas to represent Morocco at the Venice Biennale. Most recently, they were commissioned by Hermès to create a 17,000-square-meter facility that bridges industrial performance with poetic expression. At the heart of their practice is a belief that architecture is not just about building—it’s about shaping relationships: between people, between past and future, between technology and craft.
(0:03) Architecture as a Living Transformation
(1:42) The Intuitive Knowledge of Living Art
(2:20) Preserving the Human Core of Expression
(3:14) The Medina and the Geometry of Childhood
(6:35) The Social Spaces of Rooftops
(8:27) The Twin Dynamic and Confrontation with 'l'autre'
(10:21) Contextual Echoes & Traces of the Site
(12:12) The Temples of Water
(13:15) The Mosque as Pure Spatiality
(15:49) Building Culture with Yves Saint Laurent & Pierre Bergé
(16:57) The Wast ed-dar (وسط الدار) and the Heart of a Building
(18:31) The Smells and Sounds of Home
(19:44) Balance, Nature, and Sisterhood
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Step into the deep time of the forest floor, where a single fallen leaf contains the history of the world, and invisible fungal networks hum with ancient conversations. Biologist and acclaimed author David George Haskell reveals a staggering truth: we are completely dependent on the botanical world, and our belief in strict human individuality is a biological illusion.
Haskell has spent much of his life training himself to see the universal within the infinitesimally small. He's famously sat for a year in a single square meter of Tennessee's forest, a mandala experience that revealed the deep history of the world through a single fallen leaf. He's a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his books The Forest Unseen and Sounds Wild and Broken, and he received the John Burroughs Medal for The Songs of Trees.
His work often focuses on what he calls the unwaged labor of the natural world, the complex biological communities that sustain our planet without a monetary ledger. And his latest book is How Flowers Made Our World. In it, he argues that we are essentially grass apes dependent on the ancient innovations of flowering plants for two-thirds of our daily calories.
(0:00) How Flowers Made Our World
(1:33) Networked Connection is the Foundation of Life
(2:00) Contemplating the Small
(4:07) Consciousness, Intelligence & Memory in the More-Than-Human-World
(4:18) We Are Grass Apes
(5:41) Memories of His Childhood in Paris & Wild Orchids
(6:34) The Networked Intelligence of Forests
(7:45) The Earth in Full Song
(8:46) The Practice of Listening
(10:11) Escaping the Screen: Real Connections in the Classroom
(11:35) The True Cost of AI
(12:11) Transforming Ourselves
(14:23) Silence Without Expectation
(15:32) A Sensory Legacy for the Future
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
What if the defining revolution of Earth's history wasn't led by animals or humans, but by flowers? Are we truly individuals, or are our bodies and minds just walking ecosystems?
Our guest today is David George Haskell, a biologist who has spent much of his life training himself to see the universal within the infinitesimally small. He's famously sat for a year in a single square meter of Tennessee's forest, a mandala experience that revealed the deep history of the world through a single fallen leaf. He's a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his books The Forest Unseen and Sounds Wild and Broken, and he received the John Burroughs Medal for The Songs of Trees.
His work often focuses on what he calls the unwaged labor of the natural world, the complex biological communities that sustain our planet without a monetary ledger. And his latest book is How Flowers Made Our World. In it, he argues that we are essentially grass apes dependent on the ancient innovations of flowering plants for two-thirds of our daily calories.
(0:00) How Flowers Made Our World
The incredible ancient history of flowers on Earth
(4:56) Contemplating the Small
Expanding our world by restricting our gaze
(14:30) The Illusion of Individuality
Why atomism is false and interconnectedness is the foundation of life
(26:08) We Are Grass Apes
The evolutionary origins of humans and our dietary dependence on grass
(33:32) Memories of His Childhood in Paris & Wild Orchids
(38:55) The Networked Intelligence of Forests
How trees communicate and share resources beneath the soil
(44:00) The Earth in Full Song
Tracing the sonic history of our planet
(51:08) The Practice of Listening
Why tuning in to the natural world is crucial for our survival
(1:01:21) Silence Without Expectation
Sitting with nature without demanding progress or enlightenment
(1:11:01) Transforming Ourselves
Why personal change matters in the fight for the climate
(1:15:20) Escaping the Screen
Finding real human-to-human connection away from technology
(1:16:16) The True Cost of AI
The devastating impact of data centers on our fossil fuel consumption
(1:23:18) A Sensory Legacy for the Future
What we must preserve for the generations not yet born
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“Grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. It wasn't unrequited in the past. Usually, we think of unrequited love as you never got to do it, you never had it for yourself. But, in fact, there can be requited love, which is then unrequited love in the paroxysms of grief.”
Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt’s writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.
(0:00) “We were hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives”
(2:04) Grief as Unrequited Love
Siri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.
(3:19) The Shared Space of a 43-year Marriage
(4:36) Reading from Ghost Stories
Siri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.
(7:02) How Loss Changes Our Sense of Time
(11:24) How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness
(13:04) Believing in a Reality that Transcends the Individual
(20:06) Physical Love in Marriage
On the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“Grief happens because you don't stop loving the person who died. The person doesn't exist in your reality anymore. The everyday is not colored and shaped by this other human being, but you don't stop loving the person. So grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. And probably without that dynamic relationship with this person, I would be someone else. And he would've been someone else. I mean, Paul died before me. But we were, I think, hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives.”
Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt’s writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.
(0:00) Grief as Unrequited Love
Siri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.
(4:00) Facing Death with Courage
The importance of not hiding from mortality and how discussing end-of-life wishes offered a necessary perspective.
(12:37) Reading from Ghost Stories
Siri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.
(18:41) The Phantom Limb: ” The beloved is taken away and it feels as if you're amputated or gutted.”
(21:50) Grandfather, Father and Son: Generational Traumas Behind Paul Auster's Writing
(24:11) How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness
(30:09) Feeding the Earth
"Paul very pointedly told me that he wanted to be buried in the Jewish mode. And the phrase he used was, “I want my body to feed the earth.”
(44:23) Physical Love in Marriage
On the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.
(54:00) The Philosophy of the Between
How relational existence is foundational to life.
(1:00:16) The Hubris of Controlling Nature
(1:12:00) The Dark History of Statistics
(1:32:12) The Art of Learning vs. AI and Automated Outcomes
“I think we have to ask ourselves, what is education? What do we want from it? How do we want people to learn?
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
"Within society, we seem to have separated the arts out, so they're not so much a part of our daily lives. Often there's something that we feel we should do as a kind of leisure activity or hobby if we have enough time or if we have enough money to engage in them. And this is so fundamentally different to how humans engaged with the arts. When we look back thousands of years, it just was part of the everyday, and I feel like that's a major loss within contemporary societies."
Daisy Fancourt is a Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology at UCL and the author ofArt Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health. A pioneer in the field of psychoneuroimmunology, she directs the WHO Collaborating Center on Arts and Health, where her research influences global health policy and the integration of the arts into medical care.
(0:00) The Healing Power of the Arts: Longevity, Immunity & Wellbeing
(1:17) Singing to Daphne: How Daisy used singing to comfort her premature daughter in the ICU
(2:47) The Story of Russell: How a stroke survivor used art classes to reclaim his life, health, and identity
(5:23) A Planet of 8 Billion Artists: Tracing the evolutionary origins of creativity back 40,000 years
(8:58) Psychoneuroimmunology. Defining the biological mechanisms: how art reduces inflammation and cortisol
(12:42) Art & Longevity. How arts engagement can slow biological aging and alter gene expression
(18:24) Safeguarding Creativity. Why we should use AI for routine tasks but protect the human joy of the creative process
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Can curiosity and empathy be taught? How can we expand our sense of solidarity through stories? In this episode, we explore the internal dialogues of artists, actors and writers to ask what it means to step into someone else's shoes.
(0:00) Novelist Jim Shepard discusses Literature as a Tool for Emotional Education and Exploring History
(2:05) Tony Award-winning Actor Neil Patrick Harris on Being Moved by Theater and its Ability to Bridge Worlds
(3:55) Novelist Katie Kitamura on How a Book is Made in Collaboration with the Reader
(5:00) Screenwriter, Playwright Laura Eason on Inhabiting the Hearts of Characters Different from Ourselves
(6:03) Academy Award-winning Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on the Art of Visual Storytelling
(6:37) Cinematographer, Director Benoit Delhomme on the Freedom of Handheld Cinematography
(7:19) Author Etgar Keret on Looking for Humanity through Shared Intention
(8:18) Viet Thanh Nguyen – Opposing Power through Expansive Solidarity
(9:27) Adam Moss – Author, Fmr. Editor New York magazine on “The Work of Art”
(10:29) John Patrick Shanley – Tony & Academy Award-winning Writer, Director on Finding Value in Ordinary Experiences and the Creative Power of Daydreaming
(11:56) Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist Nicholas Kristof on Why Individual Stories are Necessary to Generate Connection
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
In this special edition, we hear from our guests from across the arts and sciences. From composers and poets to forest ecologists and climate envoys, they tell the story of our planet. Moving beyond the data of destruction, we explore the intelligence of nature, the ethics of what we eat, and the empathy required to save our future.
MAX RICHTER, Composer, Sleep, The Blue Notebooks
CARL SAFINA, Author, Becoming Wild
ADA LIMÓN, 24th US Poet Laureate
CYNTHIA DANIELS, Grammy Award-winning Sound Eng.
SUZANNE SIMARD, Finding the Mother Tree
JOELLE GERGIS, Lead Author, IPCC 6th Assessment Rpt
NOAH WILSON-RICH, CEO, Best Bees Company
INGRID NEWKIRK, PETA Founder
BERTRAND PICCARD, Solar Impulse Foundation
DAVID FARRIER, Author, Footprints
KATHLEEN ROGERS, Pres, Earth Day Network
ODED GALOR, Unified Growth Theory
PETER SINGER, Philosopher
GEOFF MULGAN, Another World Is Possible
CLAIRE POTTER, Welcome to the Circular Economy
CHRIS FUNK, Dir. Climate Hazards Car.
JENNIFER MORGAN, Special Envoy, International Climate Action
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
On Music, Trust and Connection with the Animal World
“Mostly I’ll play in a minor key, something sad, which I think can work for an animal because they can sense the sadness, and they try to reassure me and comfort me. I chose love songs because I'm convinced they are very intuitive and they can sense what I am trying to say to them, and profess my love in a way. I think there's always a way to connect, and if you're being cautious and don't threaten the animals, something beautiful can happen.”
Musician Plumestakes his guitar to the world's most unlikely concert halls—farms, sanctuaries, and wild habitats. A passionate advocate for veganism and animal welfare, we discuss what animals hear, how trust forms, and what music can reveal when it enters a world not made for humans alone.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
How is music a pathway to understanding animals?
Musician Plumes takes his guitar to the world's most unlikely concert halls—farms, sanctuaries, and wild habitats. A passionate advocate for veganism and animal welfare, we discuss what animals hear, how trust forms, and what music can reveal when it enters a world not made for humans alone.
“Mostly I’ll play in a minor key, something sad, which I think can work for an animal because they can sense the sadness, and they try to reassure me and comfort me. I chose love songs because I'm convinced they are very intuitive and they can sense what I am trying to say to them, and profess my love in a way. I think there's always a way to connect, and if you're being cautious and don't threaten the animals, something beautiful can happen.”
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
On the urgent need to reclaim our political voices, the forces that silence dissent, and how art and poetry are crucial tools for survival
Our guest today is an activist scholar who believes the classroom is inseparable from the public square. David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University and a founding faculty member of Stanford’s Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. But his work has long reached beyond the academy. Through his book, Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back, and his podcast of the same name, he insists that the great global crises of our time—from escalating wars and democratic failures to environmental collapse—are fundamentally crises of value and voice. His recent work has put him on the front lines of campus activism, challenging institutions, resigning his membership from the MLA, a move that highlights the ethical cost of speaking truth to power. We’ll talk about what he calls the "carceral logic" of the modern university, why art and poetry are crucial tools for survival in times of war, and what he tells his students about preparing for a future defined by uncertainty. His perspective is rooted in literature, but his urgency is all about the world we live in now. We will discuss the forces that silence dissent, the "imperial logic" of AI, and what it means to be a moral, active citizen when the systems we rely on are failing.
“There is a dispute about what the American Dream is or how it would play out in different circumstances. The American dream has essentially been narrowed into a white Christian nationalist notion of things so that everything that falls outside what they imagine that to be is not only undesirable, but should be the subject of extermination, deportation, and detention. I am heartened by the fact that more of our 'better angels' are emerging with a more capacious and expansive notion of what the American dream could be.”
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
On the urgent need to reclaim our political voices, the forces that silence dissent, and how art and poetry are crucial tools for survival
“There is a dispute about what the American Dream is or how it would play out in different circumstances. The American dream has essentially been narrowed into a white Christian nationalist notion of things so that everything that falls outside what they imagine that to be is not only undesirable, but should be the subject of extermination, deportation, and detention. I am heartened by the fact that more of our 'better angels' are emerging with a more capacious and expansive notion of what the American dream could be.”
Our guest today is an activist scholar who believes the classroom is inseparable from the public square. David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University and a founding faculty member of Stanford’s Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. But his work has long reached beyond the academy. Through his book, Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back, and his podcast of the same name, he insists that the great global crises of our time—from escalating wars and democratic failures to environmental collapse—are fundamentally crises of value and voice.
His recent work has put him on the front lines of campus activism, challenging institutions, resigning his membership from the MLA, a move that highlights the ethical cost of speaking truth to power. We’ll talk about what he calls the "carceral logic" of the modern university, why art and poetry are crucial tools for survival in times of war, and what he tells his students about preparing for a future defined by uncertainty. His perspective is rooted in literature, but his urgency is all about the world we live in now. We will discuss the forces that silence dissent, the "imperial logic" of AI, and what it means to be a moral, active citizen when the systems we rely on are failing.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
How can we use negative spaces in fiction to engage with readers’ imaginations? How are memory and trauma passed onto us through language? How do we become more than the stories we tell ourselves?
KATIE KITAMURA (Author, Audition, Intimacies) emphasizes that a book is created in collaboration with the reader, using negative spaces in the narrative structure to allow for reader interpretation, paralleling the space between audience and actor in performance.
PAUL LYNCH (Booker Prize-winning Novelist, Prophet Song) discusses the richness and slipperiness of the English language in Ireland, shaped by the overlay of English onto Irish grammatical constructions, resulting in unique phrasing and a capacity to create new constructions.
DANIEL PEARLE (Screenwriter, Playwright, The Beast in Me) shares that audiences are fascinated by the unfettered, uncensored ID in characters, reflecting the universal fantasy of acting without consequences. He advises writers to put people who deeply irritate them into a play, as those characters often become the audience's favorites.
HALA ALYAN (Novelist, Poet, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home: A Memoir) describes her work as an excavation of the darkest hours and intergenerational trauma carried by her lineage, which has endured repeated exile. She links exile from the body to the larger patterns of not having a place in the world.
T.C. BOYLE(Novelist, Short Story Writer, Environmentalist) shares that the creative process involves a magic in reaching for the unconscious and the surprise of the creative process. He emphasizes that art and nature are our salvations, over money. He advocates for solitude in nature—alone on a beach or in the woods—to connect with the natural world.
ADAM ALTER (Author of Anatomy of a Breakthrough) discusses the axioms of creativity, noting that being around more people, even those who are "deeply incompetent," is generally beneficial for creativity by providing diversity of opinion and information, preceding the necessary time for solitary focus.
SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA (Booker Prize-winning Author of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida) explains his decision to write in the second person as a way of exploring the spiritual dimension of the internal voice. He posits that the "you" could be a spirit whispering thoughts, leading people (and nations) astray.
DANIEL HANDLER A.K.A LEMONY SNICKET (Author, A Series of Unfortunate Events) argues that his books for children and adults are not fundamentally different and says everyone's childhood is full of powerful emotions derived from ordinary injustices, noting that we cry hardest over hurt feelings, not global catastrophes.
ADA LIMÓN (24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Startlement, The Carrying) talks about her responsibility as a writer to honor her ancestors, specifically her grandfather, who had to sublimate his creative spirit for safety and belonging, leading her to prioritize grace and freedom in her own writing.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Today’s episode is about something most of us long for: feeling healthy in our bodies and calm in our minds – not by pushing harder, but by letting the body restore itself. Our guest today is LD Chen, an entrepreneur-turned-author who discovered the ancient wisdom that healing doesn’t come from trying harder, but from restoring the body’s natural intelligence. LD believes everyone has the right to live peacefully and free from constant stress and anxiety – to move through life with genuine joy, peace, and appreciation. After quickly building a 1,000-person company and then facing burnout and serious health issues, LD’s life changed when he encountered an ancient standing practice called Oneness. He is now the Head Coach of the Oneness Institute for America and Europe, and author of the Amazon bestseller Oneness: The Self-Healing Secret You Were Never Supposed to Know.
“Oneness is actually not about learning in the usual way. Most teachings tell you how to learn – how to let go, how to calm down, how to manage anger. Oneness does the opposite: we stand, we train the body to correct the heart, and then we live from that heart.”
Episode Website
Oneness Weekly newsletter
TEDx; How AI is changing us- And what means to be human
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“Oneness is actually not about learning in the usual way. Most teachings tell you how to learn – how to let go, how to calm down, how to manage anger. Oneness does the opposite: we stand, we train the body to correct the heart, and then we live from that heart.”
Today’s episode is about something most of us long for: feeling healthy in our bodies and calm in our minds – not by pushing harder, but by letting the body restore itself. Our guest today is LD Chen, an entrepreneur-turned-author who discovered the ancient wisdom that healing doesn’t come from trying harder, but from restoring the body’s natural intelligence. LD believes everyone has the right to live peacefully and free from constant stress and anxiety – to move through life with genuine joy, peace, and appreciation. After quickly building a 1,000-person company and then facing burnout and serious health issues, LD’s life changed when he encountered an ancient standing practice called Oneness. He is now the Head Coach of the Oneness Institute for America and Europe, and author of the Amazon bestseller Oneness: The Self-Healing Secret You Were Never Supposed to Know.
Episode Website
Oneness Weekly newsletter
TEDx; How AI is changing us- And what means to be human
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“I can change my mind. I can reduce anger, hatred. Nothing to do with religion. All religions carry the message of love, loving kindness, and tolerance. With different views, there is a possibility to synthesize new ideas. If majority of the world leaders become female, world become safer. I feel that. Compassion is the key factor. Non-violence, compassion and self-confidence, these are key factors for happy individual, happy community, peaceful world. This century should be century of compassion, century of peace. No more bloodshed. We should develop a big “we,” rather than “we” or “they.” With these wings, you can fly.” -DALAI LAMA
For decades, the Dalai Lama has been a global symbol of peace, compassion, and resilience, a spiritual leader living in exile from his home in Tibet. But how do you capture the essence of his wisdom—the kind that can truly change a life—in a way that feels intimate and personal? My guest today, documentary filmmaker Barbara Miller, has managed to do just that in her new film, Wisdom of Happiness. It’s a beautiful film that feels less like a documentary and more like a private, heart-to-heart conversation, where he invites us into his thoughts and shares practical steps for finding inner peace in a chaotic world. She's dealt with anti-globalization, domestic violence, and the fight for female pleasure in her previous works. We’ll talk about how she shifted from exposing systemic pain to focusing on radical hope and her collaboration with Executive Producer Richard Gere and Manuel Bauer, the Dalai Lama’s personal photographer for the last thirty-five years, who made his cinematography debut with this film. She shares what the Dalai Lama taught her about living in harmony with our body, nature, and the world.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“ Everybody wants happiness, joyfulness, peaceful world. Our 21st century will not be easy century. Fear, anger, hatred. In our mind we created distinctions. Different nationality, different color, different religion. Strong concept of “we” and “they”. Brothers and sisters of this small planet, we are same human beings. Meanwhile, global warming is a serious problem. Destruction of this planet is actually destruction of yourself. Our common responsibility should be work together, to save our world. We all have this marvelous human brain. The problem is, when negative emotions develop, our whole mind is taken over. So, we must deal with emotions.
I can change my mind. I can reduce anger, hatred. Nothing to do with religion. All religions carry the message of love, loving kindness, and tolerance. With different views, there is a possibility to synthesize new ideas. If majority of the world leaders become female, world become safer. I feel that. Compassion is the key factor. Non-violence, compassion and self-confidence, these are key factors for happy individual, happy community, peaceful world. This century should be century of compassion, century of peace. No more bloodshed. We should develop a big “we,” rather than “we” or “they.” With these wings, you can fly.” -DALAI LAMA
For decades, the Dalai Lama has been a global symbol of peace, compassion, and resilience, a spiritual leader living in exile from his home in Tibet. But how do you capture the essence of his wisdom—the kind that can truly change a life—in a way that feels intimate and personal? My guest today, documentary filmmaker Barbara Miller, has managed to do just that in her new film, Wisdom of Happiness. It’s a beautiful film that feels less like a documentary and more like a private, heart-to-heart conversation, where he invites us into his thoughts and shares practical steps for finding inner peace in a chaotic world. She's dealt with anti-globalization, domestic violence, and the fight for female pleasure in her previous works. We’ll talk about how she shifted from exposing systemic pain to focusing on radical hope and her collaboration with Executive Producer Richard Gere and Manuel Bauer, the Dalai Lama’s personal photographer for the last thirty-five years, who made his cinematography debut with this film. She shares what the Dalai Lama taught her about living in harmony with our body, nature, and the world.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
How do our environments shape who we are and how we care for the world and each other? There are many solutions to climate change, inequality, and poverty around the world. How can we learn from them and transform our society?
Eiren Caffall (All the Water in the World) discusses the importance of embracing complexity and emotional flexibility in facing ecological grief.
Irvin Weathersby Jr. (In Open Contempt) discusses the transformative power of meditation and nature, drawing inspiration from Emerson and Thoreau.
Jay Parini (Biographies of Steinbeck, Frost, Faulkner…) on the significance of place in literature and life.
Natasha Hakimi Zapata (Another World Is Possible) explores the generosity and hope in people’s efforts to build better societies.
Audrea Lim (Free The Land) on how personal experiences with public lands influence our views on conservation.
Katie Kitamura (Audition, Intimacies) reflects on the role of landscape and memory in her novels.
Dr. Bayo Akomolafe (Philosopher, Founder of Emergence Network) discusses his awe for mountains, using them as a metaphor for humility and the search for meaning beyond oneself.
For more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
IG @creativeprocesspodcast
“I want people to understand South Asian art as broader than a single gallery or a single artist, but as a larger cultural movement. I want people to encounter art in all parts of their lives, and I’m constantly thinking about new ways to achieve that. I was very aware, as someone launching a South Asia-focused gallery, that this was the cultural dynamic that undergirded the way that most people in the West were thinking about art from the region. Taking that on directly and inviting artists to work with that theme was a really important ground for setting the ethos of the gallery and the types of critical questions we wanted to tackle with the work we were doing.”
My guest today is Rajiv Menon, a gallerist and curator who is carving out a distinctive space in the contemporary art world. Based in Los Angeles, Rajiv Menon holds a PhD from NYU, where he studied global media and visual culture, and he's also a passionate collector of South Asian art. He founded Rajiv Menon Contemporary with a clear mission: to bring artists from South Asia and its diaspora to a wider audience, and to cultivate a new generation of art collectors within these communities. His exhibitions have tackled fascinating themes, from the exuberant and sometimes overwhelming world of the Indian wedding through Viraj Khanna's intricate textile art in Why Did I Say Yes?, to a deep dive into the creativity of Kerala in Three Steps of Land, and a compelling look at how artists transform nostalgia into an aesthetic movement in The Past Is a Country. His work resonates far beyond the gallery walls, aiming to shift our collective culture. He's also recently been honored by the City of Los Angeles for his contributions to the arts. @rajivmenoncontemporary
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
In this time of rapid technological change, how do we hold onto our humanity? How do stories, traditions, and community help us find meaning in loss and face an uncertain future? How can science, art, and spirituality open new pathways to understanding ourselves and the human experience?
PAUL SHRIVASTAVA (Co-President of The Club of Rome) discusses the need for a holistic, eco-civilizational future, emphasizing that science, technology, and economics are important but not the whole picture. He urges us to design our own lives and livelihoods to meet diverse ecological futures, and later highlights the importance of embodied, emotional, and spiritual learning as essential to evolving human consciousness in a technologically dominated world.
BAYO AKOMOLAFE (Philosopher, Psychologist, Writer & Founder of the Emergence Network) shares a deeply personal story about the loss of his father, describing how it forced him to mature quickly and become the breadwinner for his family. He reflects on the lessons learned from his children, especially his autistic son, who teaches him about grace, possibility, and futurity.
MICHEL FORST (Human Rights Advocate & the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders) explores how theology and meditation serve as ongoing sources of inspiration, shaping his values and career choices in human rights advocacy.
DR. GUY LESCHZINER(Neurologist & Author of The Nocturnal Brain, The Man Who Tasted Words & other books; Consultant Neurologist & Professor at King's College London) analyzes the concept of free will, suggesting that much of what we do is influenced by factors beyond our control. He also discusses the importance of striving to make the world better, the role of sleep and dreams in memory and emotional processing, and the changing nature of mentorship and education.
EIREN CAFFALL (Musician & Author of All the Water in the World) highlights the importance of preserving knowledge and human history, imagining how future generations might rebuild society after catastrophe by holding onto stories, traditions, and the hope of repair.
DR. FERNANDO GARCÍA-MORENO (Neuroscientist, Ikerbasque Research Associate at the Achucarro Basque Centre for Neuroscience) explains that while our brains have not changed biologically for thousands of years, cultural evolution has accelerated. He emphasizes the unique human roles of generating and transmitting knowledge across generations.
NATASHA HAKIMI ZAPATA (Journalist, Author of Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America From Around the Globe) shares her inspiration from the generosity and hope she encounters in others, and describes how connecting with nature—especially bodies of water—reinforces the importance of conservation policies that integrate human communities into ecosystems.
IRVIN WEATHERSBY JR. (Author of In Open Contempt) reflects on the influence of his church upbringing and family, especially his grandmother, on his writing and creative expression. He discusses the impact of music, particularly hip hop, and the importance of lyricism and cultural heritage in shaping his literary voice.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
"For the last two decades, I've made over 20 films about the environment, starting with oil and carbon emissions. Those films, Kiss the Ground and now Common Ground, talk about how we can stabilize the climate, reverse climate change, grow nutrient-dense food, and help farmers make a profit through biodiversity and regenerative practices and principles.
There's incredible intelligence in nature; it knows how to be resilient. We thought we could do it better, and in trying to mechanize and industrialize the entire system, we created a linear system that doesn’t make sense. We’re growing animals to produce food that we can’t eat so that we can ship it halfway around the world. It’s a system that doesn’t work.
The way to heal, regenerate, stabilize the climate, and reverse climate change is literally one inch and one acre at a time—through communities waking up to the power of soil and biodiversity to sequester carbon for all of us. The oceans can’t handle any more carbon absorption; they’re acidifying and heating up. We need to take the carbon we’ve emitted and put it back into the soil. When we do that, we create thriving ecosystems, biodiversity, and water infiltration, which massively reduces the risks from flooding.
It helps reverse desertification and staves off droughts by retaining water like a sponge. Resiliency comes from having genetic diversity rather than just one of everything."
Today, we explore the work of a filmmaker whose lens is consistently turned toward the most critical issues facing our planet. Rebecca Tickell, in collaboration with her husband Josh Tickell, has created a powerful cinematic catalog of films that are not merely observations, but catalysts for change. They've taken on the complexities of our energy systems, the deep-seated problems within our food supply, and now, with her latest work, Bee: Wild, they explore the essential, fragile, and often unseen world of pollinators.
Their film Kiss the Ground sparked a global conversation about regenerative agriculture, leading to tangible shifts in policy and public understanding. Common Ground continued this exploration, unraveling the intricate web of our food systems. Now, with Bee: Wild, narrated by Ellie Goulding and executive produced by Angelina Jolie,Rebecca brings her characteristic blend of journalistic rigor, personal narrative, and solutions-driven storytelling to the urgent plight of bees, asking us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“I didn't really appreciate bees until I became a farmer, and then I started to understand how essential bees are for our food. They pollinate 70% of our food, and that feeds 90% of the world. There's a whole world of insects that creates the color in our food; it's what creates the flavor in our food. It's part of our biodiversity, and it's essential for human life on Earth to protect and understand how to protect these bees and pollinators.
If you look at the COP, the Conference of the Parties, they haven't even been talking about soil regeneration at all, and they've been holding these conferences in oil-rich countries, then talking about reducing carbon emissions. Soil has the power, through photosynthesis, to draw down carbon from the atmosphere. It's called biosequestration. It takes that carbon down into the roots, and then it turns it into healthy humus. That is the food for life in the soil. It needs that carbon. And so that is the purpose of plants. They breathe in the carbon and breathe out the oxygen. As we've been watching carbon levels increase in our atmosphere, we've been watching the ocean try to absorb as much of it as it can and become acidified as a result, leading to great losses to our ocean habitat and coral reefs.
We've forgotten that simple tool of the solution that's right beneath our feet called soil health and soil regeneration. Not only does it draw down carbon, it's the only place we can put that teraton of carbon that we've emitted. There's only one place for it, and it's in the soil. So why isn't that the main conversation of every climate conversation? You not only bring the soil back to life, but you are creating nutrient-dense food. You're giving plants the ability to work in symbiosis with the soil that it co-evolved with. That then allows for it not only to be resilient and have a strong immune system, but also to absorb nutrition, which, in turn, we eat and absorb that nutrition. Like I said, we're a reflection of the soil.”
Today, we explore the work of a filmmaker whose lens is consistently turned toward the most critical issues facing our planet. Rebecca Tickell, in collaboration with her husband Josh Tickell, has created a powerful cinematic catalog of films that are not merely observations, but catalysts for change. They've taken on the complexities of our energy systems, the deep-seated problems within our food supply, and now, with her latest work, Bee: Wild, they explore the essential, fragile, and often unseen world of pollinators.
Their film Kiss the Ground sparked a global conversation about regenerative agriculture, leading to tangible shifts in policy and public understanding. Common Ground continued this exploration, unraveling the intricate web of our food systems. Now, with Bee: Wild, narrated by Ellie Goulding and executive produced by Angelina Jolie,Rebecca brings her characteristic blend of journalistic rigor, personal narrative, and solutions-driven storytelling to the urgent plight of bees, asking us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“If we look at the entire history of the human experience, if you saw some text or you heard some spoken language, you could 100 percent reliably infer that there was a human who created that. Our experience of having that text or that image generated for us is very akin to the experience of a magic trick, and we sort of pre-subconsciously want to attribute some kind of intelligence to what's going on on the other side.
At the core of the work is that sense of curiosity, that sense of joy, that sense of beauty, and that sense of learning. I've been fortunate to have all kinds of strange and interesting experiences, whether that's seeing weird things in the sky over secret military bases in the middle of the Nevada desert, going scuba diving and finding internet cables on the bottom of the ocean, or tracking spy satellites in the sky and being able to predict when they'll appear in a flash against the backdrop of stars. The world around us is extraordinary and embodied, right? It is not on screens, and I’m very privileged to have that be so much a part of my process.”
Trevor Paglen is an artist whose work makes the invisible visible, whether he's photographing secret government sites from miles away or revealing the hidden infrastructures of mass surveillance. He's a geographer by training, and he combines investigative journalism with his art practice to explore the hidden power structures of our time, including military technology and artificial intelligence. His work has been exhibited in major museums around the world, and he's also an award-winning author. His exhibitions, like 'The Black Sites' and 'Limit Tele-photography,’ have earned him critical acclaim, including a MacArthur Fellowship. He's recently opened a new exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York called Cardinals (Jun 26–Aug 15) which delves into the intriguing connections between UFO sightings, AI, and the spread of disinformation.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“There's a word for this brain rot, right? I think that's very real. There are studies coming out now that are showing that the more and more of our cognitive labor we offload to AI systems, the less creative we become, the less critical we become, and the less of our human faculties for reason we use. There's something sad about that, but there’s also something dangerous about it because that leaves us very open to being manipulated. The surveillance capitalism kind of economy of extracting data from every possible moment of everyday life in order to extract value. The sensor systems that we're surrounded with are not simply passive devices that are recording us; they are increasingly becoming active sculptors of our experience of reality. Playing dirty.
If we look at the entire history of the human experience, if you saw some text or you heard some spoken language, you could 100 percent reliably infer that there was a human who created that. Our experience of having that text or that image generated for us is very akin to the experience of a magic trick, and we sort of pre-subconsciously want to attribute some kind of intelligence to what's going on on the other side.
I’m trying to think about these other media strategies, whether that's UFO photography, psychological operations, magic, or neuroscience, and take them seriously as contributing factors to the changing visual culture. With the collection at Pace Gallery, (New York, Jun 26–Aug 15) it was really just to put those images together and show them. They’re all photographed on film. A lot of them are photographed on instant film. They’re not images that are made with AI; they're not images that are photoshopped. What I really wanted to get at was thinking about the ways in which what we see in an image is very often what we're predisposed to see. I am playing with these mechanics of perception and proposing that as a way of thinking about images now.
At the core of the work is that sense of curiosity, that sense of joy, that sense of beauty, and that sense of learning. I've been fortunate to have all kinds of strange and interesting experiences, whether that's seeing weird things in the sky over secret military bases in the middle of the Nevada desert, going scuba diving and finding internet cables on the bottom of the ocean, or tracking spy satellites in the sky and being able to predict when they'll appear in a flash against the backdrop of stars. The world around us is extraordinary and embodied, right? It is not on screens, and I’m very privileged to have that be so much a part of my process.”
Trevor Paglen is an artist whose work makes the invisible visible, whether he's photographing secret government sites from miles away or revealing the hidden infrastructures of mass surveillance. He's a geographer by training, and he combines investigative journalism with his art practice to explore the hidden power structures of our time, including military technology and artificial intelligence. His work has been exhibited in major museums around the world, and he's also an award-winning author. His exhibitions, like 'The Black Sites' and 'Limit Tele-photography,’ have earned him critical acclaim, including a MacArthur Fellowship. He's recently opened a new exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York called Cardinals, which delves into the intriguing connections between UFO sightings, AI, and the spread of disinformation.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“I guess the book was about giving hope because I realized how much we could do together. I believe that ordinary people are the ones bringing changes here. I believe that the communities gathering together – for example, I am seeing that in this country around the protection of rivers – are the ones that will mark the change. It's not going to come from above; it's going to come from below, up. We all have a role. Working for the protection of what we love the most will make you happy. So get into a positive mindset. Learn all you can. Be part of things that make you feel positive. You will see how you will find your way, and there is no place for feeling disempowered. This is the moment where you should feel very powerful because it is us who are going to make the future of this Earth.”
Monica Feria-Tinta is a British-Peruvian barrister specialising in Public International Law. She has been called one of ‘the most daring, innovative and creative lawyers’ in the United Kingdom, and was shortlisted for “Barrister of the Year” at The Lawyers’ Awards 2020 and at Chambers and Partners UK Bar Awards 2023 for her work in addressing climate change and environmental degradation. In 2020, she acted before the Constitutional Court of Ecuador in Los Cedros case, the first ‘Rights of Nature’ case in the world. In September 2022 her work as Counsel secured a win in the Torres Strait Islanders case, a landmark moment in which the UN Human Rights Committee found a Sovereign state responsible, for the first time in history, for lack of action in addressing climate change. She is the author of A Barrister for the Earth: Ten Cases of Hope for Our Future.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“So I think that part of colonialism for Indigenous peoples has been this idea that Indigenous peoples aren't thinking peoples and that we don't have thought on a kind of systemic level. One of the things that I was interested in doing is intervening in that because I think Indigenous people have a lot of beautiful, very intellectual, theoretical contributions to make to the world. A lot of our theory is encoded in story, but a lot of our theory is also encoded in land-based practice. You can't learn about it from reading books or from going to lectures. You have to really be out on the land with elders for long periods of time.”
In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson about her new book,Theory of Water. Theory of Water is a rich, complex, and deeply personal reflection on world-making and life-giving processes best captured in the fluidity of water as it circulates through all our bodies and the planet. It is a largely collective project that enlists our listening and love, and helps us face the violence of all forms of dominance, enclosure, and containment. We are especially gifted to have the chance to listen to one of the songs from Leanne’s album, Theory of Ice, and have her comment on it and the relation of her music to her writing. This is a particularly special episode of Speaking Out of Place.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and musician. She is the author of eight previous books, including the novel Noopiming: A Cure for White Ladies, which was short listed for the Dublin Literary prize and the Governor General’s award for fiction. Leanne’s album, Theory of Ice, released by You’ve Changed Records in 2021 and short-listed for the Polaris Prize and she was the 2021 winner of the Prism Prize’s Willie Dunn Award. Her latest project Theory of Water was published by Knopf Canada/Haymarket books in the spring of 2025. Leanne is a member of Alderville First Nation.
https://speakingoutofplace.com Bluesky @palumboliu.bsky.social
Instagram @speaking_out_of_place
“Poetry is the prince of the literary arts to me. It's at the very top because it's language refined to its apex of memorability. I am interested in poetry as memorability and poetry as something you live by. These are the words you live by. These words stay in your brain and guide your life. That's what I am interested in. My memoir slash autofiction is called Borges and Me, and as you know, it's a story of my time in 1970 when my best friend Billy was drafted for the Vietnam War, and so was I. He went to Vietnam, and I went to Scotland to hide out and do my graduate work. I spent nearly seven years in Scotland, but I certainly spent the next five years definitely in Scotland. I was there before as an undergraduate for a bit, too. During that time, Billy was killed in Vietnam, and I was a nervous wreck. My memoir talks about my depression, my anxieties, and then, through my friend Alastair Reid, I met Borges, the great Argentine writer. We went on a little road trip through the Highlands, and this conversation with Borges really restored me back to myself and what was important in life. I felt that I owed a huge amount to that contact with Borges… I was lucky that suddenly, out of nowhere, came a wonderful director-producer named Mark Turtletaub. He had read my book and loved it, and he approached me. We had a conversation, and he said, ‘Look, I want to make this movie.’ So off we went.”
It’s a real pleasure today to welcome a writer whose voice has been a guiding force in American letters for decades. Jay Pariniis the author of acclaimed biographies of literary giants like John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, William Faulkner, and Gore Vidal—as well as an illuminating portrait of Jesus in The Human Face of God. He’s also a celebrated poet, novelist, essayist, and teacher whose work reflects a lifelong devotion to the arts, the humanities, and the power of language to tell the truth, gently. From his poetry to his prose, Jay's writing brings rare insight and deep compassion to the page. He doesn’t just study his subjects—he inhabits them, helps us hear their voices, and see the world through their eyes. And of course, he’s one of the few people who can say they've gotten into the heads of both Jesus and Gore Vidal...and lived to tell the tale.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“I like young people to know that they're extremely powerful. So I'm one person, but I think I always had this positive idea about my role. You cannot let anyone tell you what limitations are there, so you shouldn't feel limited by anyone telling you this is as far as you can go, or this is what you can do. I think only you know about that, and I think you start step by step. When I did the first case, I learned some things. Then was the next case. When the time to learn comes, learn with all your might because that's gold. It's a moment in life when you have the time to actually do that. Get informed. People who are into Googling everything should open up their searches, go out there, and learn in a different way. Don't hold back.
I guess the book was about giving hope because I realized how much we could do together. If a person can manage to argue and make a major impact in the way we are understanding treaties in human rights or other things, imagine what could be if every single person is in their own place in some field, with that alertness and synced in the same way. I believe that ordinary people are the ones bringing changes here. I believe that the communities gathering together – for example, I am seeing that in this country around the protection of rivers – are the ones that will mark the change. It's not going to come from above; it's going to come from below, up. And that means all of us. We all have a role.
To the young people, I would say you have the right to joy, and you have the right to be happy. Working for the protection of what we love the most will make you happy. So get into a positive mindset. Learn all you can. Be part of things that make you feel positive. You will see how you will find your way, and there is no place for feeling disempowered. This is the moment where you should feel very powerful because it is us who are going to make the future of this Earth.”
Monica Feria-Tinta is a British-Peruvian barrister specialising in Public International Law. She has been called one of ‘the most daring, innovative and creative lawyers’ in the United Kingdom, and was shortlisted for “Barrister of the Year” at The Lawyers’ Awards 2020 and at Chambers and Partners UK Bar Awards 2023 for her work in addressing climate change and environmental degradation. In 2020, she acted before the Constitutional Court of Ecuador in Los Cedros case, the first ‘Rights of Nature’ case in the world. In September 2022 her work as Counsel secured a win in the Torres Strait Islanders case, a landmark moment in which the UN Human Rights Committee found a Sovereign state responsible, for the first time in history, for lack of action in addressing climate change. She is the author of A Barrister for the Earth: Ten Cases of Hope for Our Future.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“ It's a really dangerous time we're living through, and I do think that when we talk about these progressive policies, a huge problem in the US is that we still have a lot of stigma left over from the Cold War that keeps us from really great ideas because they're branded as socialist or communist. And I’ve seen, in the time I've been a journalist for the past 15 years, how that stigma has slowly faded. And you see that younger people are more and more interested in these ideas, whether or not they're considered socialist.”
Natasha Hakimi Zapata is an award-winning journalist, translator, and university lecturer based in Europe. She is the author of Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America From Around the Globe.Her articles appear regularly in The Nation, In These Times, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is the former foreign editor of Truthdig and has received several Southern California Journalism and National Arts & Entertainment Journalism awards, most recently in 2024 for her work as a foreign correspondent.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
We are working in the lab to understand this moment in development, which is called phylotypic. This is something that has been known for over a hundred years. When you see many vertebrate embryos at this early embryonic time point, all embryos look very, very similar. We are extrapolating these ideas to the brain. We have seen that at this time point, the phylotypic period, all brains of these species are very simple but very closely related. We share the same features with a fish or with a gecko or with any other mammalian species at this early time point. We have the same brain with the same genes active and the same cell types involved in it.
Dr. Fernando García-Moreno is a neuroscientist whose work explores the deep evolutionary roots of the brain—and what they reveal about identity, complexity, and even the future of technology. From the thalamus to the phylotypic brain, his research uncovers how our most fundamental brain structures co-evolve—and how they shape, and limit, the way we think. As we navigate an age shaped by AI and rapid innovation, Fernando brings a powerful lens: one that reminds us where we come from—and what evolution may still be writing into our futures. He is an Ikerbasque Research Associate at the Achucarro Basque Centre for Neuroscience.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“The more that you have that evolving relationship with the natural world, that's dynamic and alive to the moment you're in, and that's not afraid of the feelings of fear, hopelessness, grief, or pain that attend paying close attention to the world as it is evolving around you, the better we are able to be flexible in the relationship we need to form with fixing what we can and holding onto what we have. The more we rely on that black-and-white thinking of either being in grief or being out of it, where we have a loss and we have to move on, or we don't and we're fine. The more that happens, the more difficult it is to flow into what we really need in terms of emotional flexibility to get through the staggering changes that are starting to happen regarding climate issues.”
Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician. Her work on loss, oceans, and extinction has appeared in Orion,Guernica, The LA Review of Books, Al Jazeera, and the anthology Elementals. She has received a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and a 3Arts Make a Wave grant. Her work includes her memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary, the short film Becoming Oceanthatshe made with Scott Foley, and her novel All the Water in the World.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“We are in a complex and delicately balanced relationship of connection to everything else on the planet. We begin to recognize, write into, and speak into the complex interdependence and interconnection of every gesture that we make on the planet. Most storytelling that I really respond to, whether it's from my own culture or from previous civilizations, acknowledges that we are in this complex relationship where every gesture we make is connected to the lives of every other creature on the planet. The more narratives we allow to be complex in that way and interconnected, the more we begin to change our brain chemistry around how we protect ourselves and everything that is in relation to us. The more that you have that evolving relationship with it, that's dynamic and alive to the moment you're in, and that's not afraid of the feelings of fear, hopelessness, grief, or pain that attend paying close attention to the world as it is evolving around you, the better we are able to be flexible in the relationship we need to form with fixing what we can and holding onto what we have.”
Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician. Her work on loss, oceans, and extinction has appeared in Orion, Guernica, The LA Review of Books, Al Jazeera, and the anthology Elementals. She has received a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and a 3Arts Make a Wave grant. Her work includes her memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary, the short film Becoming Oceanthatshe made with Scott Foley, and her novel All the Water in the World.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
How do our personal relationships affect political movements and activism? What can we learn from Native American tradition to restore ecological balance? How can transforming capitalism help address global inequality and the environmental crisis?
DEAN SPADE (Author of Love in a Fcked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together)* shares his reflections on the importance of understanding common relational patterns within activist movements. He emphasizes the need for solidarity and collective action in response to global crises like the conflict in Gaza and ecological disasters. Spade argues for resilience and mutual support within activist communities as essential for sustained efforts toward systemic change.
TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE (Founder · Host · Exec. Director of First Voices Radio · Founder of Akantu Intelligence · Master Musician of the Ancient Lakota Flute) discusses the often-overlooked Native history and the Western historical domination that has shaped contemporary educational perspectives. He highlights the need for reconnection to Native perspectives and calls for an acknowledgment of the spiritual and cultural richness lost through historical and ongoing colonial practices.
ALEXI HAWLEY (Showrunner · Writer · Creator of The Rookie · The Recruit) explores the complexities and challenges of depicting policing on television. Reflecting on the creation of his show "The Rookie" in the aftermath of Philando Castile's murder, Hawley discusses the show's evolution in addressing injustice in the justice system and the effort to portray an aspirational version of policing that acknowledges real-world issues.
JERICHO BROWN (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet · Director of Creative Writing Program · Emory University · Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill) delves into the complexities of being a Black writer, emphasizing the importance of embracing one's identity rather than trying to transcend it. He discusses how blackness enriches his craft and argues that the power of writing comes from its capacity to create new ways of seeing and understanding the world.
PAUL SHRIVASTAVA (Co-President of THE CLUB OF ROME) analyzes the need for collaborative efforts across various sectors—businesses, governments, and individuals—to address global inequalities and environmental challenges. He underscores the imperative to reshape capitalist principles to reduce extreme inequalities and to foster a sustainable and equitable global system.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram: @creativeprocesspodcast
Where does our intuition come from? How are lifelong creative partnerships formed and what role do friendship and personal connection play? How do our personal lives influence the art we make?
Erland Cooper (Scottish composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist) explores the emotional and transformative effects of music and visual arts. He underscores how music can transport individuals to different places and evoke emotional responses and relates his personal experiences of homesickness for his native Orkney.
Debora Cahn (television creator, writer, and Emmy-nominated showrunner and executive producer of Netflix’s The Diplomat) discusses the craft of long-form storytelling in television. She highlights the process of building immersive worlds and the challenge of integrating ideas into narratives that resonate with audiences on a universal level.
Julian Lennon (singer-songwriter and documentary filmmaker, founder of The White Feather Foundation, and photographer/author of Life’s Fragile Moments) reflects on the influence of his heroes and teachers and remembers the thing his mother taught him. He speaks about the importance of empathy, respect, and positivity, and how these values shape his creative and humanitarian efforts.
Ed Zwick (Academy-Award-winning writer, director, and producer, and author of Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions) analyzes the elusive nature of talent and the magical moments in casting where undeniable potential shines through. Zwick shares insights into the subtle and unspoken aspects of directing that elevate a performance and bring a story to life.
Chris Blackwell (Founder of Island Records and inductee of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame) highlights the importance of instinct in recognizing and nurturing talent. He recounts his initial hesitation before signing Cat Stevens to Island Records. He shares how artistic partnerships grow out of personal connections and friendship.
Joy Gorman Wettels (Executive producer of UnPrisoned and the founder of Joy Coalition) highlights stigmatized social issues through her storytelling. She emphasizes that humanizing these issues by creating relatable, empathetic characters can lead to real-world change and understanding.
Rick Carnes (Songwriter and President of the Songwriters Guild of America) discusses the fundamental elements of songwriting and how music marks significant moments in people’s lives. He elaborates on his creative process and the importance of mindfulness and emotional awareness in writing meaningful songs.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
"The country spoke Irish largely before it spoke English. Grammatically, the structure of Irish is different from English. As Ireland adopted the English language, this sort of hybridization started to occur, where the English language was placed on top of Irish grammatical constructions. You get this slipperiness, this ability to move sentences, to place words in interesting places, and to use constructions that you just wouldn't find in England, for example. The thing about being an Irish writer is there isn't a reverence. There’s a sort of implicit freedom to use the language however we like. So long as you have mastery and command of the language, you can push it to the edges."
Paul Lynch is the author of five novels. His most recent novel, Prophet Song, won the 2023 Booker Prize and the Dayton Literary Peace Peace Prize for Fiction, and other prizes. Prophet Song presents a dystopian vision of Ireland and a mother’s determination to protect her family as her country slides towards totalitarianism. The Booker Prize Jury said, “It’s a remarkable accomplishment for a novelist to capture the social and political anxieties of our moment so compellingly.“ In 2024, Lynch was elected to Aosdána, the Irish academy for the arts, honoring distinguished artists. He was the chief film critic of Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper. His novels have been translated into 35 languages.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Paul Lynch is the author of five novels. His most recent novel, Prophet Song, won the 2023 Booker Prize and the Dayton Literary Peace Peace Prize for Fiction, and other prizes. Prophet Song presents a dystopian vision of Ireland and a mother’s determination to protect her family as her country slides towards totalitarianism. The Booker Prize Jury said, “It’s a remarkable accomplishment for a novelist to capture the social and political anxieties of our moment so compellingly.“ In 2024, Lynch was elected to Aosdána, the Irish academy for the arts, honoring distinguished artists. He was the chief film critic of Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper. His novels have been translated into 35 languages.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“We narrate the story of our lives to ourselves. We narrate it in linear fashion. And I know many writers have played with time in all sorts of amazing ways, but we're storytellers. This is what we do. And if you give the brain a story, a prepackaged story, you're giving a cheesecake. That's what it wants. That's why it loves stories. That's why our society is just built on stories. Politics is nothing but stories. Everything you do in the evenings – we sit down, we're watching Netflix – just stories. We consume them all the time. We are just machines for belief.”
Paul Lynch is the author of five novels. His most recent novel, Prophet Song, won the 2023 Booker Prize and the Dayton Literary Peace Peace Prize for Fiction, and other prizes. Prophet Song presents a dystopian vision of Ireland and a mother’s determination to protect her family as her country slides towards totalitarianism. The Booker Prize Jury said, “It’s a remarkable accomplishment for a novelist to capture the social and political anxieties of our moment so compellingly.“ In 2024, Lynch was elected to Aosdána, the Irish academy for the arts, honoring distinguished artists. He was the chief film critic of Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper. His novels have been translated into 35 languages.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
We are privileged to present the voices of individuals dedicated to effecting change and mitigating the harm inflicted upon our precious planet. These are individuals deeply committed to the core values that drive positive transformation. Thank you for tuning in to our episodes and for your ongoing dedication to stewarding our planet, not just on Earth Day but throughout the year. We can’t save the planet overnight, but by acting mindfully, we can create a better future. Let’s make Every Day, Earth Day!
Composer MAX RICHTER on Nature's Sonic Landscape
Founder of PETA INGRID NEWKIRK on the Shared Traits between Humans and Animals
JULIAN LENNON (Musician and Founder of White Feather Foundation) on Balancing Our Relationship with Mother Earth
BERTRAND PICCARD (Explorer, Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight) discusses his adventures and how climate change will change our quality of life
CARL SAFINA (Author and environmentalist) on the Miracle of Life on Earth
NAN HAUSER (Whale Researcher, President, Center for Cetacean Research & Conservation) on How a Whale Saved her Life
U.S. Poet Laureate ADA LIMÓN on Embracing Hope Amid Environmental Uncertainty
Environmental Writer DAVID FARRIER on Evaluating Our Environmental Legacy
Grammy & Emmy Award-winning Sound Engineer CYNTHIA DANIELS on The Role of Art and Compassion in Transforming Society
Economist ODED GALOR on Education's Role in Addressing Climate Change
President of EarthDay.ORG KATHLEEN ROGERS on Advocating for Global Environmental Education
Lead Author of IPCC 6th Assessment Report JOELLE GERGIS on Learning from Historical Climate Data
Fmr. Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit Director SIR GEOFF MULGAN on Imagining a Circular Future for Society
Free Solo Climber of 200+ of the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers ALAIN ROBERT on The Consequences of Overproduction on the Planet
Director of Climate Hazards Center, UC Santa Barbara CHRIS FUNK on Adapting to a Two-Degree World
Environmental Writer DAVID FARRIER Stretching Time and Empathy for Future Generations
Author of Finding the Mother Tree DR. SUZANNE SIMARD on Trees: Advanced Communicators of the Natural World
“Most Influential Living Philosopher” PETER SINGER on the Ethical Imperative to Respect Animal Life
Fmr. Exec. Director, Greenpeace Int'l, Special Envoy for Int'l Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry JENNIFER MORGAN on the Importance of Resilience in Advocacy
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“One of the things that hopefully my books illustrate is that everybody's mind is different. And one of the amazing things about the human experience–and indeed that manifests in terms of art and creativity–is that when we have such different minds, that is why all this creativity, all this art is possible.”
Dr. Guy Leschziner is the author of The Nocturnal Brain, The Man Who Tasted Words, and other books. He is a consultant neurologist and a Professor of Neurology and Sleep Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. He sees patients with a range of neurological and sleep disorders, and is actively involved in research and teaching. He has presented series on sleep and neurology for BBC World Service and Radio 4. His latest book is Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“ I'm fascinated by the extremes of the human experience, partly because it is so far removed from our own experience of life. In another way, when you look at people who have neurological disorders or diseases, these are really nature's experiments. They are ways of trying to understand how the brain works for all of us. By extrapolation from looking at these extremes, we can learn about the workings of our own brains. That's very much the case across all the areas of my work, whether it be sleep disorders, neurology, or epilepsy—how we regulate our emotions, how we move, how we experience the world.
I never intended to be a storyteller; I intended to be a story listener, which is what we do daily in our clinics. Telling these stories generates empathy, creates understanding, and hopefully inspires the next generation to pursue careers as doctors, psychologists, and healthcare professionals, fostering a fascination with the brain similar to what Oliver Sacks did for me.”
Dr. Guy Leschziner is the author of The Nocturnal Brain, The Man Who Tasted Words, and other books. He is a consultant neurologist and a Professor of Neurology and Sleep Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. He sees patients with a range of neurological and sleep disorders, and is actively involved in research and teaching. He has presented series on sleep and neurology for BBC World Service and Radio 4. His latest book is Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“So, post-activism is not ‘post-activism’ in the sense of being after activism. It is not supposed to be a through line to results or resolutions or solutions.”
Dr. Bayo Akomolafe is a philosopher, psychologist, writer, public intellectual, and the founder of the Emergence Network. His work, which he names post-activism, marks an earth-wide effort to sensitize bodies towards new response-abilities and other places of power – a project framed within a material feminist/post-humanist/post-activist ethos and inspired by Yoruba indigenous cosmologies. He is the author of These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home.
“Post-activism is instead a noticing that the ways we care for ourselves and our causes and our worlds could actually be incarcerated. Another way to put that is to notice that care can often become carceral. I often suggest that we like to embrace things, but sometimes in the squeeze of embrace, it could quickly become asphyxiation, where we choke the air out of each other in trying to care for each other.”
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“I learn more than anything else from my children. My son, he's seven, he's autistic, and I call him my prophet for a reason. He teaches me to meet myself in ways that are usually very stunning. I can get information from other people; I can read a book here and there, but it's very rare to come across such an embodiment of grace, possibility, and futurity, all wrapped up in a tiny seven-year-old boy's body. My son has given me lots of gifts.”
Dr. Bayo Akomolafe is a philosopher, psychologist, writer, public intellectual, and the founder of the Emergence Network. His work, which he names post-activism, marks an earth-wide effort to sensitize bodies towards new response-abilities and other places of power – a project framed within a material feminist/post-humanist/post-activist ethos and inspired by Yoruba indigenous cosmologies. He is the author of These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“What I meant when I said there is no AI is that I don't think we serve ourselves well when we put our own technology up as if it were a new God that we created. I think we confuse ourselves too easily. This goes back to Alan Turing, the main founder of computer science, who had this idea of the Turing test. In the test, you can't tell whether the computer has gotten more human-like or the human has gotten more computer-like. People are very prone to becoming more computer-like. When we're on social media, we let ourselves be guided by the algorithms, so we start to become dumb in the way the algorithms want us to. You see that all the time. It's really degraded our psychologies and our society.”
Jaron Lanier is a pioneering technologist, writer, and musician, best known for coining the term “Virtual Reality” and founding VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. He led early breakthroughs in virtual worlds, avatars, and VR applications in fields like surgery and media. Lanier writes on the philosophy and economics of technology in his bestselling book Who Owns the Future? and You Are Not a Gadget. His book Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality is an inventive blend of autobiography, science writing, and philosophy. Lanier has been named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people and serves as Prime Unifying Scientist at Microsoft’s Office of the CTO—aka “Octopus.” As a musician, he’s performed with Sara Bareilles, Philip Glass, T Bone Burnett, Laurie Anderson, Jon Batiste, and others.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“AI is obviously the dominant topic in tech lately, and I think occasionally there's AI that's nonsense, and occasionally there's AI that's great. I love finding new proteins for medicine and so on. I don't think we serve ourselves well when we put our own technology up as if it were a new God that we created. I think we're really getting a little too full of ourselves to think that. This goes back to Alan Turing, the main founder of computer science, who had this idea of the Turing test. In the test, you can't tell whether the computer has gotten more human-like or the human has gotten more computer-like. People are very prone to becoming more computer-like. When we're on social media, we let ourselves be guided by the algorithms, so we start to become dumb in the way the algorithms want us to. You see that all the time. It's really degraded our psychologies and our society.”
Jaron Lanier is a pioneering technologist, writer, and musician, best known for coining the term “Virtual Reality” and founding VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. He led early breakthroughs in virtual worlds, avatars, and VR applications in fields like surgery and media. Lanier writes on the philosophy and economics of technology in his bestselling book Who Owns the Future? and You Are Not a Gadget. His book Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality is an inventive blend of autobiography, science writing, and philosophy. Lanier has been named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people and serves as Prime Unifying Scientist at Microsoft’s Office of the CTO—aka “Octopus.” As a musician, he’s performed with Sara Bareilles, Philip Glass, T Bone Burnett, Laurie Anderson, Jon Batiste, and others.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Photo credit: Michael Springer
Why is there so much conflict over people, land, and resources? How can we rethink capitalism and land ownership to create a fairer, more equitable society?
Audrea Lim is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and journalist whose work focuses on land, energy, and the environment. Her writing has appeared in TheNew Yorker, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, the Guardian, the New Republic, and The Nation. Lim is the editor of The World We Need and the author of Free The Land: How We Can Fight Poverty and Climate Chaos. She is a visiting scholar at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University and was a 2022 Macdowell fellow.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
@audrea_lim
The music on this episode is “Snowball” from the album Sunken Cities, performed by Audrea Lim and her band Odd Rumblings.
“We've lost over 70 percent, 73 percent, I think the latest data indicates, of wildlife and mammals in the last 50 years. That’s just shocking when you get that data, but then you ask, what can I do? What can I do? I wanted to move away from any guilt or compulsion because it doesn't work to talk to people that way. After 50 years of climate being in the news, in science, and in our schools, less than a fraction of 1 percent of people in the world do anything about it on a daily basis. How could that be? This is a civilizational crisis. For less than 1 percent to be engaged and do something means that our communication is flawed. I’m not saying the people are wrong, or the science is wrong, or the facts are wrong, but the narrative as a whole is not one that truly entices people or draws them in with a shared understanding of what we face and what to do about it. “
Paul Hawken is a renowned environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist committed to sustainability and transforming the business-environment relationship. He starts ecological businesses, writes about nature and commerce, and consults with heads of state and CEOs on climactic economic and ecological regeneration. He has appeared on the Today Show, Talk of the Nation, Real Time with Bill Maher, CBS This Morning, and his work has been profiled or featured in hundreds of articles, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, Forbes, and Businessweek. He has written nine books, including six national and New York Times bestsellers. He's published in 30 languages, and his books are available in over 90 countries. He is the founder of Project Drawdown and Project Regeneration, which is creating the world's largest, most complete listing and network of solutions to the climate crisis. His latest book is Carbon: The Book of Life.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“We have 1.2 trillion carbon molecules in every cell. We have around 30 trillion cells, and that’s us. So carbon is really a flow that animates everything we love, enjoy, eat, and all plant life, all sea life—everything that's alive on this planet—is animated by the flow of carbon. “
Paul Hawken is a renowned environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist committed to sustainability and transforming the business-environment relationship. He starts ecological businesses, writes about nature and commerce, and consults with heads of state and CEOs on climactic economic and ecological regeneration. He has appeared on the Today Show, Talk of the Nation, Real Time with Bill Maher, CBS This Morning, and his work has been profiled or featured in hundreds of articles, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, Forbes, and Businessweek. He has written nine books, including six national and New York Times bestsellers. He's published in 30 languages, and his books are available in over 90 countries. He is the founder of Project Drawdown and Project Regeneration, which is creating the world's largest, most complete listing and network of solutions to the climate crisis. His latest book is Carbon: The Book of Life.
“We want to see the situation we're in as that, as a flow. Where are the flows coming from, and why are we interfering with them? Why are we crushing them? Why are we killing them? For sure. But also, we need to see the wonder, the awe, the astonishment of life itself and to have that sensibility as the overriding narrative of how we act in the world, how we live, and how we talk to each other. Unless we change the conversation about climate into something that's a conversation about more life—better conditions for people in terms of social justice, restoring so much of what we've lost—then we won’t get anywhere.”
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
How can we overcome our fears? How can we challenge ourselves, pushing our physical boundaries to achieve the impossible?
Alain Robert is a renowned rock climber and urban climber. Known as "the French Spider-Man” or "the Human Spider," Robert is famous for his free solo climbing, scaling skyscrapers using no climbing equipment except for a small bag of chalk and a pair of climbing shoes. Some of his most notable ascents include the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sydney Opera House, and over 200 of the world's tallest skyscrapers. He is also a motivational speaker and the author of The Spider-man: Free and Unattached, and With Bare Hands: The True Story of Alain Robert, the Real-life Spiderman.
“You are fighting to stay alive. You are fully in the present moment. You don't have time to think about being afraid. You are focused on what you are doing. You struggle to pass another window. You don't have time to think about your problems. The only thing you are concerned about deep down in the back of your mind is that you need to stay alive, and for that, you need to remain calm and focused.”
www.instagram.com/alainrobertofficial/?hl=fr
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
Images courtesy of alainrobert.com
“You are fighting to stay alive. You are fully in the present moment. You don't have time to think about being afraid. You are focused on what you are doing. You struggle to pass another window. You don't have time to think about your problems. The only thing you are concerned about deep down in the back of your mind is that you need to stay alive, and for that, you need to remain calm and focused.”
How can we overcome our fears? How can we challenge ourselves, pushing our physical boundaries to achieve the impossible?
Alain Robert is a renowned rock climber and urban climber. Known as "the French Spider-Man” or "the Human Spider," Robert is famous for his free solo climbing, scaling skyscrapers using no climbing equipment except for a small bag of chalk and a pair of climbing shoes. Some of his most notable ascents include the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sydney Opera House, and over 200 of the world's tallest skyscrapers. He is also a motivational speaker and the author of The Spider-man: Free and Unattached, and With Bare Hands: The True Story of Alain Robert, the Real-life Spiderman.
www.instagram.com/alainrobertofficial/?hl=fr
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
Image courtesy of alainrobert.com
“My mandate focuses on the protection of those trying to protect the planet. Protection of defenders is my main topic. When I'm speaking to states or companies, it's always related to cases of defenders facing threats, attacks, or penalization by companies or governments, like the recent case of Paul Watson (founder of Sea Shepherd) in Denmark… When I travel to places like Peru, Colombia, or Honduras and meet Indigenous people, I realize they have a relationship with nature that we don't have anymore. They express that the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe goes beyond just air and food; it represents what they call Pachamama or Mother Earth. This is a cosmovision shared across various communities, not only in Latin America but globally.”
Michel Forst is a prominent human rights advocate and the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention. He previously served as the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders (2014–2020) and has worked with Amnesty International, UNESCO, and the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, championing protections for activists worldwide. Forst’s career is marked by his unwavering commitment to defending those at risk for advancing justice, environmental protection, and human rights globally.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
"I do remember a few things about my upbringing that I think helped shape my systems view, and they're almost oppositional. So, on the one hand, Hinduism is a multi-god religion. They believe in millions of gods, and they have an understanding of cosmology that is multi-lifetime. You don't end your life in this one; you kind of reincarnate your soul into another one. So they have this big cosmological picture, which created a sense of wonder and awe in me right from childhood. Like, oh my God, we are not just living in this house, in this neighborhood, in this town, in this country, in this world. There is this whole big thing with time and space. So, it kind of unbounded my physical existence. On the other hand, the same precepts of religion and the caste system within the Hindu religion were another mind-opener. We are imposing these systemic rules on our lives, which privilege some people, privilege some ideas, and denounce other people and ideas.
And so, I was keenly perceptive that systems analysis broadly lacks a kind of self-reflectivity about its own boundaries. It doesn't allow non-material things, spiritual things, to enter it. To some degree, the Club of Rome's work also suffers from that. We do a lot of systems analysis of material systems but don't incorporate the spiritual, the emotional, the subjective as strongly into as the artistic and the aesthetic, etc. One of my goals now at the Club of Rome is to open up the dialogue beyond just the material systems and earth systems to include these human systems that are, in many ways, driving what's happening to the earth systems."
Paul Shrivastava is Co-President of The Club of Rome and a Professor of Management and Organisations at Pennsylvania State University. He founded the UNESCO Chair for Arts and Sustainable Enterprise at ICN Business School, Nancy, France, and the ONE Division of the Academy of Management. He was the Executive Director of Future Earth, where he established its secretariat for global environmental change programs, and has published extensively on both sustainable management and crisis management.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Less than two weeks into the new year and the world’s wealthiest 1% have already used their fair share of the global carbon budget allocated for 2025. 2024 was hottest year on record. How can we change our extractive mindset to a regenerative mindset? How can we evolve our systems from economic growth to a vision of regenerative living and eco-civilization?
Paul Shrivastava is Co-President of The Club of Rome and a Professor of Management and Organisations at Pennsylvania State University. He founded the UNESCO Chair for Arts and Sustainable Enterprise at ICN Business School, Nancy, France, and the ONE Division of the Academy of Management. He was the Executive Director of Future Earth, where he established its secretariat for global environmental change programs, and has published extensively on both sustainable management and crisis management.
“Climate change is here. It's already causing devastation to the most vulnerable populations. We are living with an extractive mindset, where we are extracting one way out of the life system of the Earth. We need to change from that extractive mindset to a regenerative mindset. And we need to change from the North Star of economic growth to a vision of eco civilizations. Those are the two main principles that I want to propose and that the Club of Rome suggests that we try to transform our current organization towards regenerative living and eco civilization.”
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
Photo credit: Penn State. Creative Commons
Why is it that we find the courage to boldly confront mainstream societal norms and structures, yet are so often unable to treat romantic partners with care and generosity? Why do we lose our principles when we become insecure, disappointed, or jealous? Why do we act our worst in sexual and romantic relationships? And why do we prioritize romantic connection above other types of relationships, like friendship?
Dean Spade is an organizer, speaker, author, and professor at Seattle University's School of Law, where he teaches courses on policing, imprisonment, gender, race, and social movements. He is the author of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the next) and Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law. His latest book is Love in a Fcked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together*.
“This book has a lot of the wisdom of things that feminists and queers have learned in the community about sexuality, but the book is really for anybody who is political, even those just starting out and beginning to realize that there is something wrong with the systems they live under. I want to be in movements. Our movements are made of relationships. So, if you're just getting into our movements, or if you've been here for years and have been watching the ways we hurt each other and fall apart relationally, this book is about identifying these common patterns.”
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
How do the arts help us find purpose and meaning? What role do stories play in helping us preserve memories, connect us to each other, and answer life’s big questions?
MAX RICHTER(Award-winning Composer & Pianist · His album Sleep is the most streamed classical album of all time) reflects on the importance of creativity and how literature, music, and visual art offer windows into other people’s perceptions and experiences, fostering understanding and connection.
ETGAR KERET (Cannes Film Festival Award-winning Director · Author of Fly Already · Suddenly a Knock on the Door · The Seven Good Years) shares insights from his upbringing and how his mother's storytelling shaped his perception of creativity and authenticity.
ANTHONY JOSEPH (T.S. Eliot Prize-winning Poet, Novelist & Singer-songwriter · Author of Sonnets for Albert) discusses the fragmented documentation of Caribbean life and how his poetry attempts to piece together these fragments.
CLAUDIA FORESTIERI (Emmy Award-winning Writer · Creator of HBOMax’s Gordita Chronicles) talks about the crucial role of immigrants in building and revitalizing America, portraying them as "Born Again Americans."
BRIGITTE MUNOZ-LIEBOWITZ (Showrunner Gordita Chronicles · One Day at a Time) highlights the inevitability of adversity in life and its role in fostering growth. She underscores the importance of a positive outlook in overcoming the challenges of immigration.
JOHNJOE McFADDEN (Author of Life is Simple: How Occam’s Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe · Professor of Molecular Genetics at University of Surrey) explores the communicative power of art, detailing how complex ideas and feelings can be conveyed holistically.
SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA (Booker Prize-winning Author of The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida) discusses his choice of writing in the second person to explore the spiritual dimension.
CATHERINE CURTIN (Actress · Stranger Things · Orange Is the New Black · Homeland) reflects on creative freedom, experimental theater and her work in film and television.
KATE MUETH (Founder/Artistic Director of the award-winning dance theater company The Neo-Political Cowgirls) emphasizes the importance of connecting stories to meaning and how her creative process prioritizes authenticity and personal fulfillment over industry expectations.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
How can we learn to speak the language of the Earth and cultivate our intuitive intelligence? What lessons can we learn from non-human animals about living in greater harmony with nature? How have we contributed to making our planet a more dangerous place, and how can we work to save it?
COLIN STEEN (CEO of Legacy Agripartners) reflects on his upbringing on a farm in Weldon, Saskatchewan. He highlights the rewarding yet challenging nature of farm life, emphasizing the importance of agriculture and its impact on shaping one's responsibilities and successes in life.
JILL HEINERTH (Canadian cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker) discusses her experiences exploring underwater caves. She talks about the collaborative nature of her work and her reflections on our connected planet.
NOAH WILSON-RICH (Co-Founder and CEO of The Best Bees Company, Author of The Bee: A Natural History) explores his fascination with bees and their significance to human society. He shares the broader lessons humans can learn from these pollinators.
INGRID NEWKIRK (Founder and President of PETA) discusses the fascinating world of animal communication. She explores the ways animals interact and communicate with each other, the complexity of animal languages and their significance in the animal kingdom.
NEIL GRIMMER (Brand President of SOURCE Global, innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel) highlights the critical issue of water insecurity and scarcity facing the global population. He underscores the urgent need for innovation and technology deployment to address the increasing water stress and ensure sustainable water resources.
CARL SAFINA (Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center) offers a critical perspective on human impact on the environment. He emphasizes that while humans are technologically advanced, we are often reckless in our use of these capabilities, leading to severe planetary problems that we struggle to solve.
RICHARD VEVERS (Founder and CEO of The Ocean Agency) stresses the importance of coral reefs as foundational species that support diverse marine ecosystems. He warns of the dire consequences of coral reef destruction and advocates for the protection and conservation of these essential habitats.
WALTER STAHEL (Founding Father of the Circular Economy, Founder-Director of the Product-Life Institute) discusses the necessity of adopting a circular economy to tackle environmental challenges. He argues that creating a low-waste, low-carbon, and low-anthropogenic mass society is essential for preserving natural resources and reducing environmental impacts.
JOELLE GERGIS (IPCC Lead Author, Award-winning climate scientist and writer, Author of Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope) shares insights on coping with the emotional burden of climate change. She highlights the importance of maintaining hope, connecting with like-minded individuals, and finding meaning amidst the ongoing environmental crisis.
JAMES BROWNING (Founder of advocacy group F Minus) explains the insidious nature of fossil fuel lobbying. He reveals how lobbyists representing both harmful industries and beneficial causes can complicate efforts to raise awareness and address the climate crisis effectively.
PAULA PINHO (Director of the European Commission’s DG for Energy) encourages active participation in nurturing values such as peace, democracy, and sustainability. She advocates for using social media and other means to speak out and engage in meaningful discussions to promote these values.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“I think a lot of joy comes from helping others. One of the things that I've been really focusing on is finding that balance in life, what’s real and what’s true and what makes you happy. How can you help other people feel the same and have a happier life? I think whatever that takes. So if that's charity, if that's photography, if that's documentary, if that's music, and I can do it, then I'm going to do it.
From traveling, especially in Ethiopia, Kenya, and even South America, we just see these scenarios and situations where they don't have enough support or finances. Anything I’m involved in, a good percentage goes to The White Feather Foundation. From what I witnessed, I just wanted to be able to help. My best teacher ever was Mum because I watched her live through life with dignity, grace, respect, and empathy. To me, those are some of the key things that are most important in living life. I think you have to love everybody and yourself. Respect is a real key issue, not only for people but for this world that we live in, Mother Earth. It's of key importance that we honor and respect this beautiful little blue ball that we live on.”
Julian Lennon is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and NYTimes bestselling author of the Touch the Earth children’s book trilogy. This autumn, Whispers – A Julian Lennon Retrospective is being presented at Le Stanze della Fotografia, culminating in the publication of Life’s Fragile Moments, his first photography book. It features a compilation of images that span over two decades of Lennon's unique life, career, adventures, and philanthropy. He founded The White Feather Foundation in 2007, whose key initiatives are education, health, conservation, and the protection of indigenous cultures. He was the executive producer of Kiss the Ground and other environmental documentaries and was named a Peace Laureate by UNESCO in 2020.
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Photo credit: © 2024, Julian Lennon. All rights reserved.
Life’s Fragile Moments, published by teNeues, www.teneues.com, August 2024. 27,5 x 34 cm |10 5/6 x 13 3/8 in., 240 pages, Hardcover, approx. 200 color photographs, texts English & German ISBN: 978-3-96171-614-2
What is the power of photography? How do images and songs bookmark our lives, reminding us of what we care about, who we love, and what it means to be alive?
Julian Lennon is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and NYTimes bestselling author of the Touch the Earth children’s book trilogy. This autumn, Whispers – A Julian Lennon Retrospective is being presented at Le Stanze della Fotografia, culminating in the publication of Life’s Fragile Moments, his first photography book. It features a compilation of images that span over two decades of Lennon's unique life, career, adventures, and philanthropy. He founded The White Feather Foundation in 2007, whose key initiatives are education, health, conservation, and the protection of indigenous cultures. He was the executive producer of Kiss the Ground and other environmental documentaries and was named a Peace Laureate by UNESCO in 2020.
“I think a lot of joy comes from helping others. One of the things that I've been really focusing on is finding that balance in life, what’s real and what’s true and what makes you happy. How can you help other people feel the same and have a happier life? I think whatever that takes. So if that's charity, if that's photography, if that's documentary, if that's music, and I can do it, then I'm going to do it.
From traveling, especially in Ethiopia, Kenya, and even South America, we just see these scenarios and situations where they don't have enough support or finances. Anything I’m involved in, a good percentage goes to The White Feather Foundation. From what I witnessed, I just wanted to be able to help. My best teacher ever was Mum because I watched her live through life with dignity, grace, respect, and empathy. To me, those are some of the key things that are most important in living life. I think you have to love everybody and yourself. Respect is a real key issue, not only for people but for this world that we live in, Mother Earth. It's of key importance that we honor and respect this beautiful little blue ball that we live on.”
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Photo credit: © 2021 Marilyn Clark
How and when will we transition to a clean energy future? How have wetlands become both crucial carbon sinks and colossal methane emitters in a warming world? What lessons can we learn from non-human animals about living in greater harmony with nature?
Richard Black (Author of The Future of Energy · Fmr. BBC Environment Correspondent · Director of Policy & Strategy · Global Clean Energy Thinktank · Ember) addresses the substantial economic impact of fossil fuel subsidies, noting that the actual costs, when including climate change damages, reach up to six or seven trillion dollars annually, overshadowing the relatively small climate finance provided by Western governments.
Euan Nisbet (Earth Systems Scientist · Royal Holloway University of London) explores the role of methane in the atmosphere, its historical importance in maintaining the planet’s temperature, and its current contribution to global warming. He explains the sources of methane, including natural processes and human activities, and discusses recent trends and challenges tied to rising methane levels.
Julie Pierce (Vice President of Strategy & Planning · Minnesota Power) highlights her company's significant strides in sustainability. She outlines Minnesota Power's decade-long journey towards decarbonization, noting that they have transitioned from a 95% fossil-based portfolio to sourcing 50-60% of their energy from clean sources, including wind, solar, and hydropower.
Arash Abizadeh (Professor of Political Science · McGill University Author ofHobbes and the Two Faces of Ethics · Associate Editor · Free & Equal) reflects on the future we are leaving for the next generations. He underscores the social and political challenges of ensuring that the technologies and resources needed to adapt to climate change are distributed equitably across all societies.
Daniel Susskind(Economist · Oxford & King’s College London · Author of Growth: A Reckoning · A World Without Work) discusses the critical role of technological progress in driving economic growth. He advocates for a shift toward technologies that not only enhance prosperity but also protect the environment and promote social equity.
Ian Robertson(Author of How Confidence Works: The New Science of Self-belief · Co-Director of the Global Brain Health Institute · Co-Leader of The BrainHealth Project) calls for young people to connect with nature and develop mastery over their minds. He envisions a future where individuals can access the joy of being conscious, embodied beings in a healthy, natural world.
Ingrid Newkirk(Founder & President of PETA · People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) emphasizes the shared traits between humans and other animals, advocating for a compassionate approach to all living beings. She urges listeners to recognize the personhood in animals and to treat them with respect and empathy.
This episode brings together diverse voices discussing critical environmental and ethical issues. From the economic burden of fossil fuel subsidies to the equitable distribution of climate adaptation resources, the importance of technological progress, and the need for the ethical treatment of animals.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
This episode explores the enduring power of storytelling to shape our world and illuminate the human experience. Writers Neil Gaiman, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, E.J. Koh, Marge Piercy, and Max Stossel discuss creativity, resilience, and the power of words to heal and bring people together.
Neil Gaiman (Writer, Producer, Showrunner · The Sandman, American Gods, Good Omens, Coraline) explores the secret lives of writers, reflecting on the masks they wear in the pursuit of truth and beauty.
Jericho Brown (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet: The Tradition · Editor of How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill) shares “Foreday in the Morning”, highlighting the hard work and resilience in Black America. He examines the vernacular of his poetry and how it intertwines themes of race, nationality, and familial love.
Ada Limón (U.S. Poet Laureate · The Hurting Kind, The Carrying) presents an "apocalyptic love poem" that questions the intersection of despair and hope in today's changing world. She reflects deeply on the personal and universal struggles of finding beauty amidst environmental and existential crises.
Marge Piercy (Award-winning Novelist, Poet & Activist) delves into the emotional weight of words and memories, the terror of child separation, and the impending doom facing our world due to environmental destruction and political negligence.
E.J. Koh (Award-Winning Memoirist & Poet · The Magical Language of Others · A Lesser Love) recounts a haunting family history from Jeju Island in Korea, emphasizing the lasting impacts of trauma and the collective memory of ancestral sufferings.
Max Stossel (Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Speaker, Creator of Words That Move) uses the metaphor of a boxing ring to discuss the complexities of human conflict and connection, encouraging a shift from adversarial relationships to collaborative problem-solving.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
Episode Website
www.creativeprocess.info/pod
Instagram:@creativeprocesspodcast
“So there's something about this flowy synchronousness in nature and us as part of that nature that has been efficient, for example, for the social connectedness of beings. So if I feel more connected to you, I will be more willing to do something for you to collaborate with you and funny enough, we seem to be more coordinated and also solving problems.
This brain-body connection is incredibly important to understand. We don't have one brain for art and one brain for all other life; it's all one. Through the behaviors that we enact, whether good or bad for health, it's all one. We have a say in how our brain activates. One final thing you said about natural spaces: impressive work on the neuroscience of human-nature interaction has shown that when we are among trees, among birds, in nature, there is a biophilic effect. Our body and brain like it, and it manifests in a specific activation pattern in the brain—alpha band activity—and it is a restorative activation pattern. When we are in nature, something in evolution does that when we're there, our brain resets. Restoration means we get rid of toxins; it means that our brain gets this default mode network activation that is so good for resetting us, taking us out of the here and now. If we are in urban landscapes, even if they are very beautiful to look at—architecture, I love it, and we must look at it, and it is awe-inspiring—we do need to make sure to be in nature regularly because otherwise, our body cannot relax.”
Dr. Julia F. Christensen is a Danish neuroscientist and former dancer currently working as a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Germany. She studied psychology, human evolution, and neuroscience in France, Spain and the UK. For her postdoctoral training, she worked in international, interdisciplinary research labs at University College London, City, University London and the Warburg Institute, London and was awarded a postdoctoral Newton International Fellowship by the British Academy. Her new book The Pathway to Flow is about the science of flow, why our brain needs it and how to create the right habits in our brain to get it.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-julia-f-christensen-36539a144https://www.instagram.com/dr.julia.f.christensen?igsh=cHZkODgxczJqZmxl
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How can we unlock a state of flow in our daily lives? How does connecting with nature influence our mental and physical well-being? How do movement, dance and play help us feel more creative, connected, and content?
Dr. Julia F. Christensen is a Danish neuroscientist and former dancer currently working as a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Germany. She studied psychology, human evolution, and neuroscience in France, Spain and the UK. For her postdoctoral training, she worked in international, interdisciplinary research labs at University College London, City, University London and the Warburg Institute, London and was awarded a postdoctoral Newton International Fellowship by the British Academy. Her new book The Pathway to Flow is about the science of flow, why our brain needs it and how to create the right habits in our brain to get it.
“So there's something about this flowy synchronousness in nature and us as part of that nature that has been efficient, for example, for the social connectedness of beings. So if I feel more connected to you, I will be more willing to do something for you to collaborate with you and funny enough, we seem to be more coordinated and also solving problems.
This brain-body connection is incredibly important to understand. We don't have one brain for art and one brain for all other life; it's all one. Through the behaviors that we enact, whether good or bad for health, it's all one. We have a say in how our brain activates. One final thing you said about natural spaces: impressive work on the neuroscience of human-nature interaction has shown that when we are among trees, among birds, in nature, there is a biophilic effect. Our body and brain like it, and it manifests in a specific activation pattern in the brain—alpha band activity—and it is a restorative activation pattern. When we are in nature, something in evolution does that when we're there, our brain resets. Restoration means we get rid of toxins; it means that our brain gets this default mode network activation that is so good for resetting us, taking us out of the here and now. If we are in urban landscapes, even if they are very beautiful to look at—architecture, I love it, and we must look at it, and it is awe-inspiring—we do need to make sure to be in nature regularly because otherwise, our body cannot relax.”
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-julia-f-christensen-36539a144https://www.instagram.com/dr.julia.f.christensen?igsh=cHZkODgxczJqZmxl
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Photo credit: Hans Scherhaufer
What does it mean to live a good life? How can the arts help us learn to speak the language of the Earth and cultivate our intuitive intelligence? What is the power of mentorship for forging character and creative vision? How can we hold onto our cultural heritage and traditions, while preparing students for the needs of the 21st century?
Alan Poul (Emmy & Golden Globe-winning Executive Producer · Director · Six Feet Under · Tales of the City · Tokyo Vice · My So-Called Life) shares his personal journey and the importance of mentorship in shaping one's creative path. He discusses his experiences with influential figures such as Stephen Sondheim, Paul Schrader, and Robert Wilson, emphasizing the value of learning from those you admire.
Rupert Sheldrake (Biologist · Author of The Science Delusion · The Presence of the Past · Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work) explores the significance of cultural and religious traditions in education. He argues that knowing the open questions in science, integrating arts, and learning by heart are crucial for a well-rounded education.
Jericho Brown (Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet · Director of Creative Writing Program at Emory University · Author of The Tradition · The New Testament) emphasizes the power and agency that young writers have to create change. He encourages persistence and the importance of trying, despite the fear of failure.
Sy Montgomery (Naturalist · Author of The Soul of an Octopus · The Hawk’s Way · Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell) reflects on how animals have been her mentors and teachers. From her Scottish Terrier, Molly, to wild emus in Australia, she shares how her interactions with animals have guided her career and life choices.
Manuela Lucá-Dazio (Exec. Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize · Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale · Dept. of Visual Arts & Architecture) discusses the necessity of reconnecting with cultural heritage and expanding educational tools. She advocates for a more imaginative approach to integrating different fields of knowledge and teaching methods.
Jeffrey D. Sachs (Economist · President of UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network · Director of Center for Sustainable Development · Columbia University) highlights the global consensus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the critical importance of education. He specifically advocates for SDG 4, which focuses on inclusive and equitable quality education for all.
Todd B. Kashdan (Psychologist · APA Award-winning Author of The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively · Curious? · The Upside of Your Dark Side · Leading Authority on Well-being, Curiosity, Courage & Resilience) analyzes the shortcomings of the current education system. He stresses the need to teach critical thinking and develop superior information-gathering strategies.
Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Founder · Host · Exec. Director of First Voices Radio · Founder of Akantu Intelligence · Master Musician of the Ancient Lakota Flute) offers a unique perspective on our connection to the Earth. He delves into Indigenous wisdom about living in harmony with nature, our ancestors, and recognizing the timeless energy around us.
Erland Cooper (Songwriter · Producer · Multi-instrumentalist · Composer of Folded Landscapes) reminisces about his upbringing surrounded by nature and traditional folk music. He shares how these elements have influenced his work and creative process.
Peter Singer (Philosopher · Author of Animal Liberation · Founder of The Life You Can Save) examines the core philosophical questions about living a good life. He discusses the principles of Effective Altruism and the importance of using our resources wisely to make the world a better place.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Have we entered what Earth scientists call a “termination event,” and what can we do to avoid the worst outcomes? How can we look beyond GDP and develop new metrics that balance growth with human flourishing and environmental well-being? How can the 15-minute city model revolutionize urban living, enhance health, and reduce our carbon footprint?
Euan Nisbet (Earth Systems Scientist - Royal Holloway University of London) analyzes historical patterns that point to a potential termination event and emphasizes the urgency of addressing abrupt climate changes.
Daniel Susskind(Economist - Oxford & King’s College London - Author of Growth: A Reckoning - A World Without Work) discusses the economic trade-offs involved in pursuing net-zero emissions and the growing public discontent with the costs.
Carlos Moreno (Originator of the 15-Minute City concept - Author of The 15-Minute City: A Solution to Saving Our Time & Our Planet) explores how the 15-minute city model can enhance urban living, promote local commerce, and reduce our carbon footprint.
Richard Black(Author of The Future of Energy - Former BBC Environment Correspondent - Director of Policy & Strategy - Global Clean Energy Thinktank - Ember) explains the future energy landscape, critiques the contributions of oil and gas companies to the clean energy transition, and emphasizes the need for a realistic clean energy transition.
Carissa Carter (Academic Director at Stanford's d.school - Co-author of Assembling Tomorrow: A Guide to Designing a Thriving Future) highlights the importance of people critically interpreting climate data and understanding its emotional impact.
Gordon Lambert (World Economic Forum Global Council - Energy and Sustainability - Former Member of Alberta’s Climate Change Advisory Panel) shares his personal reflections on the harmony of nature and the necessity of aligning business strategies with renewable energy goals.
Dr. Ben Shofty(Functional Neurosurgeon - Professor - University of Utah) discusses the health benefits of exposure to nature and its positive impact on well-being and creativity.
Julia F. Christensen (Neuroscientist - Author of The Pathway To Flow: The New Science of Harnessing Creativity to Heal and Unwind the Body & Mind) explores the neuroscience behind human interaction with nature and its restorative effects on the brain.
The episode examines critical issues surrounding climate change, economic growth, and urban development. Euan Nisbet highlighted the urgency of addressing abrupt climate changes, while Daniel Susskind shed light on the economic complexities of achieving net-zero emissions. Carlos Moreno presented the revolutionary concept of the 15-minute city, and Richard Black emphasized the need for a realistic clean energy transition. Carissa Carter underscored the importance of understanding and visualizing climate data, while Gordon Lambert, Dr. Julia F. Christensen, and Dr. Ben Shofty provided personal and scientific insights into the benefits of integrating nature into our lives. These conversations give us a deeper look into the challenges and potential solutions for creating a sustainable future.
To hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“I moved to Utah, which is a very beautiful place, and I feel like the mountains and the breathtaking nature that we have around here really help. There are many studies that have shown that exposure to nature and spending time in nature really helps us. It helps our well-being as human beings, and it also helps us to be creative, reflective, and calm. My personal creative process works through interaction with other people. Through genuine interest in other people and through spending time with them. These are the times when, through talking to people like you, friends, family, or even strangers, I usually think about questions that interest me and most of the time, these questions are abstract and amorphic. But every now and then, there's a question that I think, ‘Oh, wait, I can look into that through my lab or through my research, and I can utilize that question to try and help my patients.’ One such example is another project that we have in our lab, trying to understand how time perception happens in the brain and how subjective time perception works. This is something that, through interactions with other people in my lab, we eventually reach the point where we have a formed question that we can utilize to understand that process inside the brain.”
Dr. Ben Shofty is a functional neurosurgeon affiliated with the University of Utah. He graduated from the Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Medicine, received his PhD in neurosurgical training from the Israeli Institute of Technology, and completed his training at the Tel Aviv Medical Center and Baylor University. He was also an Israeli national rugby player. His practice specializes in neuromodulation and exploring treatments for disorders such as OCD, depression, and epilepsy, among others, while also seeking to understand the science behind creativity, mind-wandering, and the many complexities of the brain.
https://healthcare.utah.edu/find-a-doctor/ben-shofty
https://academic.oup.com/brain/advance-article/doi/10.1093/brain/awae199/7695856
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Have we entered what Earth scientists call a “termination event,” and what can we do to avoid the worst outcomes? How can a spiritual connection to nature guide us toward better environmental stewardship? What can ancient wisdom teach us about living harmoniously with the Earth? How have wetlands become both crucial carbon sinks and colossal methane emitters in a warming world?
Euan Nisbet is an Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at the Royal Holloway University of London. Specializing in methane and its impact on climate change, his research spans Arctic and Tropical Atmospheric Methane budgets. Nisbet led the MOYA project, focusing on global methane emissions using aircraft and ground-based field campaigns in Africa and South America. Born in Germany and raised in Africa, his field work has taken him around the world. He is the author of The Young Earth and Leaving Eden: To Protect and Manage the Earth.
“I am a Christian and I have strong Muslim and Jewish friends as well as great respect for Hindu beliefs. I grew up in Southern Africa and I am well aware of the depth of some Indigenous beliefs. I think that having belief systems does give you a very different perspective sometimes. Now, in Christianity, the concept of the shepherd, human beings are here and this is our garden, our garden of Eden, but we have a responsibility. And if we choose to kick ourselves out of the garden, there are consequences. And that's precisely what we are doing. The garden is there, it's lovely, and we can manage it, and it's our job to manage it. We can manage it properly. We can respect it. It's for all creation, and it's very explicit that it involves all Creation. And that's a very fundamental biblical law that you have to respect all Creation. And if you don't do that, then the consequences—you’re basically throwing yourself out of the Garden of Eden."
https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/euan-nisbet
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How do the works of Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin continue to influence our understanding of nature, ecological interdependence, and the human experience? How does understanding history help us address current social and environmental issues. How can dialogues between the arts and sciences foster holistic, sustainable solutions to global crises?
Renée Bergland is a literary critic, historian of science, and educator. As a storyteller, Bergland connects the lives of historical figures to the problems of the present day. As an educator, she emphasizes the interdisciplinary connections between the sciences and humanities. A longtime professor at Simmons University, where she is the Program director of Literature and writing, Bergland has also researched and taught at institutions such as Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and MIT. Bergland’s past published titles include Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer Among the American Romantics and The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects. Her most recent book, Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science, was published in April of 2024. It explores Dickinson and Darwin’s shared enchanted view of the natural world in a time when poetry and natural philosophy, once freely intertwined, began to grow apart.
“The reason that people responded to Darwin as if he were theologically radical was because his vision of the great tree of life was not a ladder. It was not hierarchical at all. His metaphor of the tree has lots of intertwined branches and roots. There's not a single apex to a tree, and the way that Darwin described humans, they were not the top of the whole chain, the whole ladder. That was an insight that was upsetting to many people. It seemed humiliating for humans not to be the very best living creature. And that was one of the reasons that many people reacted negatively to Darwin. But for Dickinson, that idea was just liberating and exciting and fascinating, such that in many of her poems about the natural world, she blurs the human and the animal and the plant…Darwin’s very clear in On the Origin of Species that when he talks about the struggle for life, he's primarily talking about co-adaptation and collaboration between species that can learn to work together. He's the one who actually, as he explains the struggle for life, says it's nothing like two dogs fighting over a bone. That's not what it is. But unfortunately, a lot of that co-adaptation language got lost in the popular imagination. And that's one of the reasons that turning to Dickinson can help us understand—because she so beautifully depicts a Darwinian world where, yes, there's death, but there's more than anything, there's life.”
www.reneebergland.com
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691235288/natural-magic
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
The planet’s well-being unites us all, from ecosystems to societies, global systems to individual health. How is planetary health linked to mental health?
Charlie Hertzog Young is a researcher, writer and award-winning activist. He identifies as a “proudly mad bipolar double amputee” and has worked for the New Economics Foundation, the Royal Society of Arts, the Good Law Project, the Four Day Week Campaign and the Centre for Progressive Change, as well as the UK Labour Party under three consecutive leaders. Charlie has spoken at the LSE, the UN and the World Economic Forum. He studied at Harvard, SOAS and Schumacher College and has written for The Ecologist, The Independent, Novara Media, Open Democracy and The Guardian. He is the author of Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a Better Future.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
Your book Spinning Out is a beautiful exploration and elucidation of the links between the climate crisis, mental health and social change. Reading your book is an uplifting experience and one I'd recommend to anyone interested in finding agency. As a young, leading climate change activist, you emerged from, as you describe in your book, a month long coma with some powerful realizations about the way climate chaos fuels mental health problems and why our information culture isn't adequately set up to support people in the distress which you write about so eloquently in your book. Can you take us back to that day in 2019 when you were consumed by anxiety and despair and things became too much to bear?
CHARLIE HERTZOG YOUNG
I've been a climate activist since I was about 12 years old. It began with a deep passion for wildlife. I started taking up litter and telling off my schoolmates, eventually I set up a green council when I was about 13 or 14. As I learned more and more about the climate crisis and how sprawling and interconnected it was, not just with nature, but with the oppression that exists within human society, I started getting more involved and impassioned, getting involved in protests, marches. When I was about 15 years old, I helped shut down an airport for a night. I eventually started going to the UN climate talks. I went to Davos and it started to become my everything. I felt like I was doing something meaningful about the crisis, but also felt a sense of deep despair and loss, both from the perspective of the impending collapse of the biosphere and also a deep dislocation from the dominant culture and the consensus reality. I felt like no one else was feeling the sense of urgency and emergency that I felt. I started to get incredibly anxious. In 2019, when I was 27, I jumped off a six storey building. My memory has blacked it out, but I spent a month in a coma and woke up having lost both of my legs. The five years since have been one of not just physical and mental recovery, but also trying to untangle the messy web of causality as to how and why it was that I lost my mind in the way I did. I try to find some of the gifts in that madness, what it was pointing towards in terms of the unbalance of the ecosphere and how human civilization has begun to operate completely out of step with the ecosphere.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
Yes, it’s really important to hear those ways that you connect. I wanted to go back a little bit too, because there are gifts that come with a heightened sense of awareness of impending danger that is almost primal. As you say, madness can be visionary. And when you write about those visions, of being stalked by a wolf, it’s a foreboding, almost like a warning of impending danger. As you know, many Indigenous societies have dream theories and interpretations that reveal a philosophical order about the nature of the universe, and visions within many cultures are taken very seriously. Visions are seen as actually real. There's a reason for them. And, it made me reflect a lot about, if you pull back, to that time you saw a wild wolf stalking you in the street. This is a kind of metaphor for how we're treating the ecosphere, and the rest of the creatures that we share this planet with. It really calls into question who is more mad. Is it the kind of collective blindness that refuses to see the way we are behaving towards rest of the creatures we share the world with and pretending that our disrespect for the very planet that provides us with food, water, and shelter can go on being abused and sucked dry. Like the 300 million years it took for fossil fuels to form in the Earth has been depleted by humans in under 200 years.
HERTZOG YOUNG
Yeah, I mean there's that old saying, “blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light.” For a lot of people like myself, I think it's true that losing your mind can be a proportionate response to the climate crisis. Those of us with mental health issues are often branded as being in our own world. But paradoxically, being in our own world can actually be a result of being more connected to the outside world rather than less. And in the context of climate change, it may be fairer to describe people who fail to develop psychological symptoms as being in their own separate anthropocentric world, inattentive to the experiences of the billions of other human and nonhuman beings on the planet, unaffected by looming existential catastrophe. There are layers and layers of insulation made up of civilizational narratives that dislocate many people from climate chaos and those whose psyches buckle upon contact with this reality are the ones deemed mad. But this pathologizing is a defense mechanism employed by the civilized or by the dominant culture, which ends up subjugating those of us whose minds stray from accepted norms. There are lots of studies that show that certain forms of psychosis are actually a form of meaning-making for communities that feel like they have no sense of purpose. We've had generations and generations of trauma visited upon the human species by picking apart communities and our intimate relationships with nature. Especially since the 80s, picking apart our inability to even consider ourselves as part of society in a meaningful sense. That kind of pulling apart means that we're locked in quite individual and atomized spaces, where when something as massive as climate change starts to happen, people feel both responsible for it, and completely unable to do anything about it. That's not me saying that being depressed is the only objective kind of indicator for reality, but it's quite easy for the human species to underestimate or discount quite how significantly dangerous our situation is and people with depression are more able to see that with eyes unclouded by biases.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
We do deny reality and the climate emergency, justifying our bad behavior by telling ourselves, “Oh, we survived this and that, so we'll survive this, too.” Of course, with climate change, it's completely non-linear. It goes up to a certain point and then, out of nowhere, a year's worth of rain falls in a day bringing flooding to your front door. Wildfires break out suddenly. These extreme climate events are a wake-up call, but it's often too late to do anything if you lose your home. So it’s really about rethinking capitalism and our extractivist relationship to the planet.
I spend a long time, as you do, I know, talking with students and teachers and unlike in the past where we'd talk about career paths or being anxious about exams and job choices or the future of work, students today are concerned about this underlying fear of the future because they can see that it's just overshadowing everything. The storms and the heat waves and the flooding and all these things you've described. I think that all young people would benefit from reading your book because you have been at the front lines since your early teens. But how do you feel we can overcome the apathy and inaction that is going on today?
HERTZOG YOUNG
I think it's very easy for this stuff to be paralyzing. I used to be in a space where I felt that as soon as I wasn't devastatingly ill, I had to hurl myself back at the problem of climate change or something to do with new economics or a new kind of politics. I would end up very quickly burning out. While I do think that it's deeply important for us to engage with these issues, it's really important that we engage with them in a way that isn't trying to approach them with an internal sense of emergency. I often get letters from people who have read my book or one of my articles saying, thank you for naming not just the phenomenon of eco anxiety, but some of the interiority of it, and saying that they feel seen. It's quite upsetting that it's not something people tend to feel safe just having as a normal topic of conversation. People are worried that they'll bring down the mood and so that puts us in these silos and that's a real problem. Only by opening up can we start to build a deeper sense of connection and potentially collective action. Another problem is that eco anxiety is often considered to be a predominantly Global North issue. In researching my book and speaking to people in the Global South, I did a lot of my work in Pakistan looking at the impacts of the floods. The WHO estimated that one in five people affected by things like massive flooding, hurricanes, heat waves, or droughts, are likely to experience some kind of severe mental health impact. Speaking to doctors in Pakistan, that number is often far higher. It's just not seen as a mental health issue because it's often interpreted as inevitable suffering. It's an extension of the kind of othering that is already visited upon the Global South that people's psychological distress doesn't count, because obviously people will be having a hard time if they've experienced a natural disaster. So organizations like the WHO fly in to deliver medication and then helicopter out again. And local doctors say it's no solution at all. You've got to be working with communities, asking people what their needs are, what their pillars of care were prior to a natural disaster, and how to try and restore those again.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
Yeah. It’s terrible the way that is. Some people are expected to just take that burden of suffering like it's an act of God, when it's an act of our abuse of this planet. I've had conversations with people like Bertrand Piccard who has said we have to put it aside. He's not denying the eco anxiety, but says you have to work within the capitalist systems to give people the solutions so that then they don't have that despair too. So I think we have to not deny that it's there, but then also provide those solutions. And I hope that all these solutions come up at the speed they need to take place.
HERTZOG YOUNG
One of the most promising and surprisingly effective on the first try solutions that I came across while looking at this stuff was from a doctor Dr. Asma Humayun who works in Pakistan. Prior to the flooding, she was already working on a massive nested mental health and psychosocial support program. What they were doing was, within a month, they managed to train a thousand people in psychological first aid in the community. People who were not just doctors and nurses, but also teachers, social workers, people who had high contact with people in the community. They trained people to look out for psychological distress, learn how to respond with mental health first aid, and also look after their own mental health. That network of a thousand people then linked in through an app that was very low bandwidth so it could work even when there wasn't good internet so they could link in with people who were slightly more trained to provide people with the care that they needed. So an area of 1 million people that previously only had one psychiatrist was fully networked with a nested system where people were not only able to get support, but also able to build their own networks of support and new practices of support. That has now been taken on by the Pakistani government and is potentially going to be mapped out across the nation as some kind of iterative feedback response for communities to build on that already existing resilience and that already existing knowledge, rather than just relying on these very brittle old systems of having one specialized person with a massive, massive population of people who have really high needs and usually never even go to a psychiatrist because they wouldn't think that they get help or that their condition is something that could be alleviated. One of the really surprising outputs is that 50 percent of people who are referred to services and use them came back, which is an astronomically high proportion in this field. So it's one example of how you can work within a capitalist system, but also start to bake in community resilience and empower communities to do things together.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
I think that that's so important to hear. Often in these moments of crisis, we’re lucky to be around this community of friends, but sometimes they don't occur when we're close to those that we trust and we feel safe with. Maybe the racing thoughts come at an unexpected moment. What are some of those ways that you can pull back from that, so you can be gentle on your mind and not focus on what lies ahead?
HERTZOG YOUNG
There's a whole section in my book about tips and advice. Not just of mine, but of many people who are similar to me and have been doing this stuff for a long time. One of the ways that I try to maintain a feeling of safety while also not collapsing into a state of passivity, and it's taken a very long time for me to learn this, but it’s being forgiving with myself. One of the people who I write about a lot in the book is Jennifer Uchandu, a Nigerian climate activist and mental health activist who sets up an organization called The Eco-Anxiety in Africa Project. She talks about needing to remind herself constantly. Her test is not whether she's doing enough, it's whether she's doing her best. And doing her best doesn't mean doing as much as she possibly can, it means having the right balance of self care and action. Recently I've been really struggling with insomnia because I've still got quite bad nerve pain from my surgeries. And it sounds so simple and I used to get annoyed at these things, but just breathing. You know, deep breathing and kind of breathing into my back. Spending time in nature is also helpful. It can be quite hard for me because my mobility isn't always great on my prosthetics or if I'm in a wheelchair, but I swim a lot. And I draw a lot. One of the things that's been really amazing is that over the last few years, me and my friends have gotten into the habit of calling one another as first points of contact, not just in crisis, but if we've had a tricky day.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
I don't believe in the silver bullet of AI or technology that will solve all these problems, but I have mixed feelings and perhaps you do too. I just wonder about your reflections on AI in terms of helping us balance the energy grid or solve the climate crisis. We also know that it consumes a lot of energy, so how do we navigate those risks and potential benefits?
HERTZOG YOUNG
I think that certain kinds of AI can be really helpful for, as you say, balancing the grid or by relieving humans of certain kinds of manual repetitive labor arduous labor, so long as that actually transfers into people having more time. The economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that we've had enough of a rise in productivity that we could be working 15 hour weeks and have the same amount as people had decades ago. However, because of the structure of the economic system, that productivity rise has not transferred into more free time. I'm slightly scared about utopian visions about AI freeing humans from work, because I don't think we have enough of a social and political infrastructure to actually reap most of the gains if that were to happen. I think deeper down, I'm concerned because we call it “artificial intelligence,” but we don't even know what organic intelligence is. We have a very limited and very brittle understanding of what intelligence is, what the mind is, and we see this first hand over and over again in medical circles. There's a very circuit-based treatment of the human mind, and mental health issues are often treated as a glitch. When we've got a deeply flawed and frankly quite infantile understanding of what intelligence is, we're going to build something that is not in any way linked in healthfully with the ecosystem. I do think that there are some useful, utilitarian, appropriate uses of it, but they should be really kept limited. I'm worried that AI will serve those interests that have already subjugated and dominated because of the kinds of intelligence it chooses to put central to its way of operating. There's also a certain amount of arrogance implicit in the way that AI is talked about, that it is somehow, not just superior to any single human mind, but it's come from a superior kind of human mind. I think it's the same kind of human mind that has got us into the problems that we've already experienced. And the same kind of thinking is unlikely to be able to solve those issues.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
Exactly. Let's not duplicate our mistakes through another hyper-industrialized system. And just so in closing, on a optimistic note, as you think about the future, the future of education, the importance of the arts, what would you like young people to know, preserve, and remember?
HERTZOG YOUNG
I think I'll answer it from a slightly different tack, which is the thing that was most important to me as a young person in learning about these issues, but also feeling a modicum of safety and direction, helping me really pursue the things I was curious about, and have a more intimate relationship with my values. The thing that was important to me was having mentors. And I would really recommend that young people take a bit of a risk and ask people they want to learn from whether they can spend time with them and listen to their stories to learn from their experiences. I think one of the most promising things is rebuilding intergenerational relationships. This fight is one that has been going on for generations upon generations. It is a fight that is as old as human civilization. And so one of the main things I'd like young people to know is that they don't have to reinvent the wheel. They can reach out to those that they want to emulate and trust those relationships.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and Daniela Cordovez Flores. One Planet Podcast & The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Associate Text Editor was Nadia Lam. Additional production support by Katie Foster.Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
The planet’s well-being unites us all, from ecosystems to societies, global systems to individual health. How is planetary health linked to mental health?
Charlie Hertzog Young is a researcher, writer and award-winning activist. He identifies as a “proudly mad bipolar double amputee” and has worked for the New Economics Foundation, the Royal Society of Arts, the Good Law Project, the Four Day Week Campaign and the Centre for Progressive Change, as well as the UK Labour Party under three consecutive leaders. Charlie has spoken at the LSE, the UN and the World Economic Forum. He studied at Harvard, SOAS and Schumacher College and has written for The Ecologist, The Independent, Novara Media, Open Democracy and The Guardian. He is the author of Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a Better Future.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
Your book Spinning Out is a beautiful exploration and elucidation of the links between the climate crisis, mental health and social change. Reading your book is an uplifting experience and one I'd recommend to anyone interested in finding agency. As a young, leading climate change activist, you emerged from, as you describe in your book, a month long coma with some powerful realizations about the way climate chaos fuels mental health problems and why our information culture isn't adequately set up to support people in the distress which you write about so eloquently in your book. Can you take us back to that day in 2019 when you were consumed by anxiety and despair and things became too much to bear?
CHARLIE HERTZOG YOUNG
I've been a climate activist since I was about 12 years old. It began with a deep passion for wildlife. I started taking up litter and telling off my schoolmates, eventually I set up a green council when I was about 13 or 14. As I learned more and more about the climate crisis and how sprawling and interconnected it was, not just with nature, but with the oppression that exists within human society, I started getting more involved and impassioned, getting involved in protests, marches. When I was about 15 years old, I helped shut down an airport for a night. I eventually started going to the UN climate talks. I went to Davos and it started to become my everything. I felt like I was doing something meaningful about the crisis, but also felt a sense of deep despair and loss, both from the perspective of the impending collapse of the biosphere and also a deep dislocation from the dominant culture and the consensus reality. I felt like no one else was feeling the sense of urgency and emergency that I felt. I started to get incredibly anxious. In 2019, when I was 27, I jumped off a six storey building. My memory has blacked it out, but I spent a month in a coma and woke up having lost both of my legs. The five years since have been one of not just physical and mental recovery, but also trying to untangle the messy web of causality as to how and why it was that I lost my mind in the way I did. I try to find some of the gifts in that madness, what it was pointing towards in terms of the unbalance of the ecosphere and how human civilization has begun to operate completely out of step with the ecosphere.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
Yes, it’s really important to hear those ways that you connect. I wanted to go back a little bit too, because there are gifts that come with a heightened sense of awareness of impending danger that is almost primal. As you say, madness can be visionary. And when you write about those visions, of being stalked by a wolf, it’s a foreboding, almost like a warning of impending danger. As you know, many Indigenous societies have dream theories and interpretations that reveal a philosophical order about the nature of the universe, and visions within many cultures are taken very seriously. Visions are seen as actually real. There's a reason for them. And, it made me reflect a lot about, if you pull back, to that time you saw a wild wolf stalking you in the street. This is a kind of metaphor for how we're treating the ecosphere, and the rest of the creatures that we share this planet with. It really calls into question who is more mad. Is it the kind of collective blindness that refuses to see the way we are behaving towards rest of the creatures we share the world with and pretending that our disrespect for the very planet that provides us with food, water, and shelter can go on being abused and sucked dry. Like the 300 million years it took for fossil fuels to form in the Earth has been depleted by humans in under 200 years.
HERTZOG YOUNG
Yeah, I mean there's that old saying, “blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light.” For a lot of people like myself, I think it's true that losing your mind can be a proportionate response to the climate crisis. Those of us with mental health issues are often branded as being in our own world. But paradoxically, being in our own world can actually be a result of being more connected to the outside world rather than less. And in the context of climate change, it may be fairer to describe people who fail to develop psychological symptoms as being in their own separate anthropocentric world, inattentive to the experiences of the billions of other human and nonhuman beings on the planet, unaffected by looming existential catastrophe. There are layers and layers of insulation made up of civilizational narratives that dislocate many people from climate chaos and those whose psyches buckle upon contact with this reality are the ones deemed mad. But this pathologizing is a defense mechanism employed by the civilized or by the dominant culture, which ends up subjugating those of us whose minds stray from accepted norms. There are lots of studies that show that certain forms of psychosis are actually a form of meaning-making for communities that feel like they have no sense of purpose. We've had generations and generations of trauma visited upon the human species by picking apart communities and our intimate relationships with nature. Especially since the 80s, picking apart our inability to even consider ourselves as part of society in a meaningful sense. That kind of pulling apart means that we're locked in quite individual and atomized spaces, where when something as massive as climate change starts to happen, people feel both responsible for it, and completely unable to do anything about it. That's not me saying that being depressed is the only objective kind of indicator for reality, but it's quite easy for the human species to underestimate or discount quite how significantly dangerous our situation is and people with depression are more able to see that with eyes unclouded by biases.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
We do deny reality and the climate emergency, justifying our bad behavior by telling ourselves, “Oh, we survived this and that, so we'll survive this, too.” Of course, with climate change, it's completely non-linear. It goes up to a certain point and then, out of nowhere, a year's worth of rain falls in a day bringing flooding to your front door. Wildfires break out suddenly. These extreme climate events are a wake-up call, but it's often too late to do anything if you lose your home. So it’s really about rethinking capitalism and our extractivist relationship to the planet.
I spend a long time, as you do, I know, talking with students and teachers and unlike in the past where we'd talk about career paths or being anxious about exams and job choices or the future of work, students today are concerned about this underlying fear of the future because they can see that it's just overshadowing everything. The storms and the heat waves and the flooding and all these things you've described. I think that all young people would benefit from reading your book because you have been at the front lines since your early teens. But how do you feel we can overcome the apathy and inaction that is going on today?
HERTZOG YOUNG
I think it's very easy for this stuff to be paralyzing. I used to be in a space where I felt that as soon as I wasn't devastatingly ill, I had to hurl myself back at the problem of climate change or something to do with new economics or a new kind of politics. I would end up very quickly burning out. While I do think that it's deeply important for us to engage with these issues, it's really important that we engage with them in a way that isn't trying to approach them with an internal sense of emergency. I often get letters from people who have read my book or one of my articles saying, thank you for naming not just the phenomenon of eco anxiety, but some of the interiority of it, and saying that they feel seen. It's quite upsetting that it's not something people tend to feel safe just having as a normal topic of conversation. People are worried that they'll bring down the mood and so that puts us in these silos and that's a real problem. Only by opening up can we start to build a deeper sense of connection and potentially collective action. Another problem is that eco anxiety is often considered to be a predominantly Global North issue. In researching my book and speaking to people in the Global South, I did a lot of my work in Pakistan looking at the impacts of the floods. The WHO estimated that one in five people affected by things like massive flooding, hurricanes, heat waves, or droughts, are likely to experience some kind of severe mental health impact. Speaking to doctors in Pakistan, that number is often far higher. It's just not seen as a mental health issue because it's often interpreted as inevitable suffering. It's an extension of the kind of othering that is already visited upon the Global South that people's psychological distress doesn't count, because obviously people will be having a hard time if they've experienced a natural disaster. So organizations like the WHO fly in to deliver medication and then helicopter out again. And local doctors say it's no solution at all. You've got to be working with communities, asking people what their needs are, what their pillars of care were prior to a natural disaster, and how to try and restore those again.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
Yeah. It’s terrible the way that is. Some people are expected to just take that burden of suffering like it's an act of God, when it's an act of our abuse of this planet. I've had conversations with people like Bertrand Piccard who has said we have to put it aside. He's not denying the eco anxiety, but says you have to work within the capitalist systems to give people the solutions so that then they don't have that despair too. So I think we have to not deny that it's there, but then also provide those solutions. And I hope that all these solutions come up at the speed they need to take place.
HERTZOG YOUNG
One of the most promising and surprisingly effective on the first try solutions that I came across while looking at this stuff was from a doctor Dr. Asma Humayun who works in Pakistan. Prior to the flooding, she was already working on a massive nested mental health and psychosocial support program. What they were doing was, within a month, they managed to train a thousand people in psychological first aid in the community. People who were not just doctors and nurses, but also teachers, social workers, people who had high contact with people in the community. They trained people to look out for psychological distress, learn how to respond with mental health first aid, and also look after their own mental health. That network of a thousand people then linked in through an app that was very low bandwidth so it could work even when there wasn't good internet so they could link in with people who were slightly more trained to provide people with the care that they needed. So an area of 1 million people that previously only had one psychiatrist was fully networked with a nested system where people were not only able to get support, but also able to build their own networks of support and new practices of support. That has now been taken on by the Pakistani government and is potentially going to be mapped out across the nation as some kind of iterative feedback response for communities to build on that already existing resilience and that already existing knowledge, rather than just relying on these very brittle old systems of having one specialized person with a massive, massive population of people who have really high needs and usually never even go to a psychiatrist because they wouldn't think that they get help or that their condition is something that could be alleviated. One of the really surprising outputs is that 50 percent of people who are referred to services and use them came back, which is an astronomically high proportion in this field. So it's one example of how you can work within a capitalist system, but also start to bake in community resilience and empower communities to do things together.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
I think that that's so important to hear. Often in these moments of crisis, we’re lucky to be around this community of friends, but sometimes they don't occur when we're close to those that we trust and we feel safe with. Maybe the racing thoughts come at an unexpected moment. What are some of those ways that you can pull back from that, so you can be gentle on your mind and not focus on what lies ahead?
HERTZOG YOUNG
There's a whole section in my book about tips and advice. Not just of mine, but of many people who are similar to me and have been doing this stuff for a long time. One of the ways that I try to maintain a feeling of safety while also not collapsing into a state of passivity, and it's taken a very long time for me to learn this, but it’s being forgiving with myself. One of the people who I write about a lot in the book is Jennifer Uchandu, a Nigerian climate activist and mental health activist who sets up an organization called The Eco-Anxiety in Africa Project. She talks about needing to remind herself constantly. Her test is not whether she's doing enough, it's whether she's doing her best. And doing her best doesn't mean doing as much as she possibly can, it means having the right balance of self care and action. Recently I've been really struggling with insomnia because I've still got quite bad nerve pain from my surgeries. And it sounds so simple and I used to get annoyed at these things, but just breathing. You know, deep breathing and kind of breathing into my back. Spending time in nature is also helpful. It can be quite hard for me because my mobility isn't always great on my prosthetics or if I'm in a wheelchair, but I swim a lot. And I draw a lot. One of the things that's been really amazing is that over the last few years, me and my friends have gotten into the habit of calling one another as first points of contact, not just in crisis, but if we've had a tricky day.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
I don't believe in the silver bullet of AI or technology that will solve all these problems, but I have mixed feelings and perhaps you do too. I just wonder about your reflections on AI in terms of helping us balance the energy grid or solve the climate crisis. We also know that it consumes a lot of energy, so how do we navigate those risks and potential benefits?
HERTZOG YOUNG
I think that certain kinds of AI can be really helpful for, as you say, balancing the grid or by relieving humans of certain kinds of manual repetitive labor arduous labor, so long as that actually transfers into people having more time. The economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that we've had enough of a rise in productivity that we could be working 15 hour weeks and have the same amount as people had decades ago. However, because of the structure of the economic system, that productivity rise has not transferred into more free time. I'm slightly scared about utopian visions about AI freeing humans from work, because I don't think we have enough of a social and political infrastructure to actually reap most of the gains if that were to happen. I think deeper down, I'm concerned because we call it “artificial intelligence,” but we don't even know what organic intelligence is. We have a very limited and very brittle understanding of what intelligence is, what the mind is, and we see this first hand over and over again in medical circles. There's a very circuit-based treatment of the human mind, and mental health issues are often treated as a glitch. When we've got a deeply flawed and frankly quite infantile understanding of what intelligence is, we're going to build something that is not in any way linked in healthfully with the ecosystem. I do think that there are some useful, utilitarian, appropriate uses of it, but they should be really kept limited. I'm worried that AI will serve those interests that have already subjugated and dominated because of the kinds of intelligence it chooses to put central to its way of operating. There's also a certain amount of arrogance implicit in the way that AI is talked about, that it is somehow, not just superior to any single human mind, but it's come from a superior kind of human mind. I think it's the same kind of human mind that has got us into the problems that we've already experienced. And the same kind of thinking is unlikely to be able to solve those issues.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS · ONE PLANET PODCAST
Exactly. Let's not duplicate our mistakes through another hyper-industrialized system. And just so in closing, on a optimistic note, as you think about the future, the future of education, the importance of the arts, what would you like young people to know, preserve, and remember?
HERTZOG YOUNG
I think I'll answer it from a slightly different tack, which is the thing that was most important to me as a young person in learning about these issues, but also feeling a modicum of safety and direction, helping me really pursue the things I was curious about, and have a more intimate relationship with my values. The thing that was important to me was having mentors. And I would really recommend that young people take a bit of a risk and ask people they want to learn from whether they can spend time with them and listen to their stories to learn from their experiences. I think one of the most promising things is rebuilding intergenerational relationships. This fight is one that has been going on for generations upon generations. It is a fight that is as old as human civilization. And so one of the main things I'd like young people to know is that they don't have to reinvent the wheel. They can reach out to those that they want to emulate and trust those relationships.
This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and Daniela Cordovez Flores. One Planet Podcast & The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Associate Text Editor was Nadia Lam. Additional production support by Katie Foster.Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
How can we show more kindness, respect, and love to the animals we share this planet with? What lessons can we learn from non-human animals about living in greater harmony with nature?
Ingrid Newkirk is the Founder and President of PETA, actively leading the organization and advocating for animal rights. PETA is the largest animal rights organization in the world with more than 9 million members and supporters globally. Under her leadership, PETA has achieved significant victories, such as ending car-crash tests on animals, pushing major fashion brands to go fur-free, influencing Ringling Bros. to become an animal-free circus, and helping pass a law that allows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve new medications without conducting cruel tests on animals. Ingrid has written 14 books and has been featured in major publications like The New Yorker and The Guardian, and was the subject of HBO's documentary I Am an Animal and was named one of Forbes’ “100 Most Powerful Women.” She joined One Planet Podcast to reflect on her 75 years as animal rights advocate.
“They’re not human traits. They’re all shared traits because, of course, we all love. We all love our families, or not. We all grieve if somebody we love disappears or dies. A family dog, perhaps. A grandfather. We all feel loneliness, we all feel joy. We all really value our freedom. And so I think, if anything, looking into the eyes of the animal, even online, you see a person in there. There’s a someone in whatever the shape or the physical properties of that individual are. And that lesson is that I am you. You are me, only different. We are all the same in all the ways that count…Any living being teaches you– Look into my eyes. And there you are, the reflection of yourself. So we need to learn from the animals how to live more gently and consume less and be more thoughtful and look out for each other in this great circle of life.
I think things do change because of agitation. So agitation is vital. I mean, nobody who is in a cause should be there to win a popularity contest, whether you're working for children or the elderly or working for peace animals, it's all against nonviolence, aggression, domination, and needless cruelty and suffering. It's all for respect. So you have to be vigorous. You have to use your voice. You can use it politely, but if people don't listen, at PETA, we escalate. So we always start off with a polite letter, a polite entreaty. We always try to, as I say, do the homework. So we have the options that we put out on the table to say, look, instead of doing this, you could do that, and we will help you transition to that.”
www.peta.org
www.ingridnewkirk.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Stephen Wolfram is a computer scientist, mathematician, and theoretical physicist. He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, and the Wolfram Language. He received his PhD in theoretical physics at Caltech by the age of 20 and in 1981, became the youngest recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Wolfram authored A New Kind of Science and launched the Wolfram Physics Project. He has pioneered computational thinking and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions and innovations in science, technology and business.
“I have grown up in the kind of Western scientific tradition, so to speak. And what's interesting to see is that some of the questions that we get to ask now have sort of grown out of the Western scientific tradition, are things that have also been asked in quite different traditions. , when I was a kid, people would talk about sort of at a religious level, they would talk about souls and so on. And one would say, "Well, that just can't be anything scientific." I mean, you know, what does a soul weigh? Anything that exists must have a weight; that sounded reasonable from the point of view of the narrow way of thinking about science at the time. Now that we understand this idea of computation, we understand that there can be a thing that is real and meaningful, but it doesn't have a weight. It is merely an abstract thing, a computational thing. And when we think about souls, that's, I think, the idea that what is going for is this kind of computational representation, this computational engram of what's in a brain, for example. And we now have a much better understanding of what that sort of engram, what that abstract, it has no physical weight or anything like that. It's just an abstract thing that can be rendered in a brain.”
www.stephenwolfram.com
www.wolfram.com
www.wolframalpha.com
www.wolframscience.com/nks/
www.amazon.com/dp/1579550088/ref=nosim?tag=turingmachi08-20
www.wolframphysics.org
www.wolfram-media.com/products/what-is-chatgpt-doing-and-why-does-it-work/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“We and all living beings thrive by being actors in the planet’s regeneration, a civilizational goal that should commence and never cease. We practiced degeneration as a species and it brought us to the threshold of an unimaginable crisis. To reverse global warming, we need to reverse global degeneration.”
Can we really end the climate crisis in one generation? What kind of bold collective action, technologies, and nature-based solutions would it take to do it?
Paul Hawken is a renowned environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist committed to sustainability and transforming the business-environment relationship. A leading voice in the environmental movement, he has founded successful eco-friendly businesses, authored influential works on commerce and ecology, and advised global leaders on economic and environmental policies. As the founder of Project Regeneration and Project Drawdown, Paul leads efforts to identify and model solutions to reverse global warming, showcasing actionable strategies. His pioneering work in corporate ecological reform continues to shape a sustainable future. He is the author of eight books, including Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation.
https://regeneration.org
https://paulhawken.com
https://drawdown.org
https://regeneration.org/nexus
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Can we really end the climate crisis in one generation? What kind of bold collective action, technologies, and nature-based solutions would it take to do it?
Paul Hawken is a renowned environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist committed to sustainability and transforming the business-environment relationship. A leading voice in the environmental movement, he has founded successful eco-friendly businesses, authored influential works on commerce and ecology, and advised global leaders on economic and environmental policies. As the founder of Project Regeneration and Project Drawdown, Paul leads efforts to identify and model solutions to reverse global warming, showcasing actionable strategies. His pioneering work in corporate ecological reform continues to shape a sustainable future. He is the author of eight books, including Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation.
“We and all living beings thrive by being actors in the planet’s regeneration, a civilizational goal that should commence and never cease. We practiced degeneration as a species and it brought us to the threshold of an unimaginable crisis. To reverse global warming, we need to reverse global degeneration.”
https://regeneration.org
https://paulhawken.com
https://drawdown.org
https://regeneration.org/nexus
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“So for me, it just kind of removing a lot of the shame and then a lot of the energy that I was wasting trying to fit myself into a neurotypical process or framework or way of thinking or being. So, you know, some people call that unmasking, just kind of removing. I was wasting a lot of energy, basically trying to be someone else and function in a different way. And then just beating myself up internally for not being able to do that. And throughout my healing journey, as I really realized, Oh, that's actually what's happening. Like there's not actually anything wrong with me being able to...That's why it's called Love Your Brain. It's not just, you know, tolerate your brain. Or, fine, you can work with this brain that you have. It's like, no, I genuinely love the weird experiences that my brain can give me and the incredibly rich, deep experience I have of the world. Like I experience nature so deeply and so intensely. I have really strong connections with animals. I have really great intuition, which I think is just from picking up all this sensory data and putting it together. All these experiences that I get to have, but I don't get to have those experiences if I'm just trying to make myself be something else, which I think is most people who are late diagnosed, I feel like that's their experience. It's just like I've been trying to be someone else for so long. It's exhausting. And then you don't have the energy then to be creative, the carving out the time, making the time to actually create.”
Mattia Maurée is an interdisciplinary composer whose work centers around themes of perception, body, sensation, trauma, and resilience. Their scores for critically acclaimed films have been played in 13 countries. Their poems have been featured in Boston City Hall as part of the Mayor's Poetry Program, Guerrilla Opera, and Arc Poetry Magazine. Mattia composes and performs on violin, voice, and piano, and has taught music for over 20 years. They have received a Master's of Music in Composition at New England Conservatory and a Bachelor's of Music from St. Olaf College. They also are an AUDHD coach, host the AuDHD Flourishing podcast and help other neurodivergent folks heal and find their creative flow in their course Love Your Brain.
http://mattiamauree.com
https://studio.com/mattia
https://mattiamauree.com/love-your-brain
https://www.audhdflourishing.com/hello
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How can we learn to flourish because of who we are, not in spite of it? What is the sensory experience of the world for people with autism and ADHD? How can music help heal trauma and foster identity?
Mattia Maurée is an interdisciplinary composer whose work centers around themes of perception, body, sensation, trauma, and resilience. Their scores for critically acclaimed films have been played in 13 countries. Their poems have been featured in Boston City Hall as part of the Mayor's Poetry Program, Guerrilla Opera, and Arc Poetry Magazine. Mattia composes and performs on violin, voice, and piano, and has taught music for over 20 years. They have received a Master's of Music in Composition at New England Conservatory and a Bachelor's of Music from St. Olaf College. They also are an AUDHD coach, host the AuDHD Flourishing podcast and help other neurodivergent folks heal and find their creative flow in their course Love Your Brain.
“So for me, it just kind of removing a lot of the shame and then a lot of the energy that I was wasting trying to fit myself into a neurotypical process or framework or way of thinking or being. So, you know, some people call that unmasking, just kind of removing. I was wasting a lot of energy, basically trying to be someone else and function in a different way. And then just beating myself up internally for not being able to do that. And throughout my healing journey, as I really realized, Oh, that's actually what's happening. Like there's not actually anything wrong with me being able to...That's why it's called Love Your Brain. It's not just, you know, tolerate your brain. Or, fine, you can work with this brain that you have. It's like, no, I genuinely love the weird experiences that my brain can give me and the incredibly rich, deep experience I have of the world. Like I experience nature so deeply and so intensely. I have really strong connections with animals. I have really great intuition, which I think is just from picking up all this sensory data and putting it together. All these experiences that I get to have, but I don't get to have those experiences if I'm just trying to make myself be something else, which I think is most people who are late diagnosed, I feel like that's their experience. It's just like I've been trying to be someone else for so long. It's exhausting. And then you don't have the energy then to be creative, the carving out the time, making the time to actually create.”
http://mattiamauree.com
https://studio.com/mattia
https://mattiamauree.com/love-your-brain
https://www.audhdflourishing.com/hello
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“The Greek Enlightenment introduced the idea of centrality and the priority of rationality in understanding ourselves and our relation to the world. Heidegger wants to move us away from what he thinks has culminated in a kind of dead end. We appear in this world without any instruction manual, we have these finite, corporeal lives that begin in ways- we have no control over and end in ways we often have no control over. The classical conception was that the cosmos was good, because it was open to human interrogation. It allowed itself to be interrogated, so the thing that mattered most of all was knowing, because knowing was the way in which we became at home in the world. Heidegger thought we had prioritized the question of knowledge to such a degree as the primordial relationship to all of reality. He connected this to the kind of predatory stance of contemporary technology, which is essentially destroying the world because it considers the world as just material stuff, which we can understand and manipulate for our own ends. He thinks there's a huge influence in the original understanding of being as intelligibility that eventually has cut us off from all sources of meaning in a possible life other than this successful control of the environment for our own satisfaction.”
What is the importance of philosophy in the 21st century as we enter a post-truth world? How can we reintroduce meaning and uphold moral principles in our world shaken by crises? And what does philosophy teach us about living in harmony with the natural world?
Robert Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago where he teaches in the College, Committee on Social Thought, and Department of Philosophy. Pippin is widely acclaimed for his scholarship in German idealism as well as later German philosophy, including publications such as Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, and Hegel’s Idealism. In keeping with his interdisciplinary interests, Pippin’s book Henry James and Modern Moral Life explores the intersections between philosophy and literature. Pippin’s most recent published book is The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy.
https://socialsciences.uchicago.edu/directory/Robert-Pippin
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo208042246.html
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“When you're playing music with a group of people, there are those special moments when it all works, and you're in the groove. As soon as you begin to think about it, you lose it because you've introduced thought, and it's trying to take over. There's something at a lower level, a different level altogether, where all that is happening and working. And I think that's true of the whole body, that sometimes when we start thinking that introduces problems rather than solutions.”
Joseph LeDoux is a Professor of Neural Science at New York University at NYU and was Director of the Emotional Brain Institute. His research primarily focuses on survival circuits, including their impacts on emotions, such as fear and anxiety. He has written a number of books in this field, including The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human, The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self, Anxious, and The Deep History of Ourselves. LeDoux is also the lead singer and songwriter of the band The Amygdaloids.
www.joseph-ledoux.com
www.cns.nyu.edu/ebi
https://amygdaloids.net
www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674261259
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How does the brain process emotions? How are emotional memories formed and stored in the brain, and how do they influence behavior, perception, and decision-making? How does music help us understand our emotions, memories, and the nature of consciousness?
Joseph LeDoux is a Professor of Neural Science at New York University at NYU and was Director of the Emotional Brain Institute. His research primarily focuses on survival circuits, including their impacts on emotions, such as fear and anxiety. He has written a number of books in this field, including The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human, The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self, Anxious, and The Deep History of Ourselves. LeDoux is also the lead singer and songwriter of the band The Amygdaloids.
“When you're playing music with a group of people, there are those special moments when it all works, and you're in the groove. As soon as you begin to think about it, you lose it because you've introduced thought, and it's trying to take over. There's something at a lower level, a different level altogether, where all that is happening and working. And I think that's true of the whole body, that sometimes when we start thinking that introduces problems rather than solutions.”
www.joseph-ledoux.com
www.cns.nyu.edu/ebi
https://amygdaloids.net
www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674261259
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Music courtesy of Joseph LeDoux
“If you look at meditation, and you strip away the belief system, you find that essentially every meditation is attention training. It might be bringing your mind back to a mantra; some sound, or to your breath, or to a particular attentional stance. I like mindfulness of breathing, where you pay full attention to your in-breath, and to your out-breath, and then the next breath, the in-breath, and the out-breath. At some point, your mind is going to wander off. That's the way our minds are wired. But here's the key: When you notice your mind has wandered and you bring it back to the point of focus—to the next breath, for example—that's the moment of mindfulness. Attention training of this kind is really a beautiful avenue into the optimal state, where you're fully focused on what you're doing. And in this state, which is one of high creativity, people experience themselves as part of a web of connection. The connection may be to the artists who have gone before you, whose work you imbibe and build on, or the writers whose thoughts you're building on, or the people who are doing this with you, in whatever context that might be. Thich Nhat Hanh calls this interbeing; being fully connected and interdependent. I remember a dialogue from years ago, in the 80s, with the Dalai Lama and a group of psychologists, where he said: In my languages, Tibetan and Sanskrit, the word for compassion implies for yourself as well as for others. In English, it only focuses on others. He said, you need a new word in the English language—self compassion. Today, there's a rather robust field of research on that, but the Dalai Lama saw that gap way before, because he realized that our view of compassion didn't include first taking care of ourselves.”
Daniel Goleman is an American psychologist, author, and science journalist. Before becoming an author, Goleman was a science reporter for the New York Times for 12 years, covering psychology and the human brain. In 1995, Goleman published Emotional Intelligence, a New York Times bestseller. In his newly published book Optimal, Daniel Goleman discusses how people can enter an optimal state of high performance without facing symptoms of burnout in the workplace.
www.danielgoleman.info
www.harpercollins.com/products/optimal-daniel-golemancary-cherniss?variant=41046795288610
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/69105/emotional-intelligence-by-daniel-goleman/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How can we enhance our emotional intelligence and avoid burnout in a changing world? How can we regain focus and perform in an optimal state? What do we mean by ecological intelligence?
Daniel Goleman is an American psychologist, author, and science journalist. Before becoming an author, Goleman was a science reporter for the New York Times for 12 years, covering psychology and the human brain. In 1995, Goleman published Emotional Intelligence, a New York Times bestseller. In his newly published book Optimal, Daniel Goleman discusses how people can enter an optimal state of high performance without facing symptoms of burnout in the workplace.
“If you look at meditation, and you strip away the belief system, you find that essentially every meditation is attention training. It might be bringing your mind back to a mantra; some sound, or to your breath, or to a particular attentional stance. I like mindfulness of breathing, where you pay full attention to your in-breath, and to your out-breath, and then the next breath, the in-breath, and the out-breath. At some point, your mind is going to wander off. That's the way our minds are wired. But here's the key: When you notice your mind has wandered and you bring it back to the point of focus—to the next breath, for example—that's the moment of mindfulness. Attention training of this kind is really a beautiful avenue into the optimal state, where you're fully focused on what you're doing. And in this state, which is one of high creativity, people experience themselves as part of a web of connection. The connection may be to the artists who have gone before you, whose work you imbibe and build on, or the writers whose thoughts you're building on, or the people who are doing this with you, in whatever context that might be. Thich Nhat Hanh calls this interbeing; being fully connected and interdependent. I remember a dialogue from years ago, in the 80s, with the Dalai Lama and a group of psychologists, where he said: In my languages, Tibetan and Sanskrit, the word for compassion implies for yourself as well as for others. In English, it only focuses on others. He said, you need a new word in the English language—self compassion. Today, there's a rather robust field of research on that, but the Dalai Lama saw that gap way before, because he realized that our view of compassion didn't include first taking care of ourselves.”
www.danielgoleman.info
www.harpercollins.com/products/optimal-daniel-golemancary-cherniss?variant=41046795288610
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/69105/emotional-intelligence-by-daniel-goleman/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“The Wandering is a choose your own adventure novel, and the reader is situated in the shoes of this brown woman from the Global South. She's 27 and in a way, she is stuck with her life. She aspires to be middle class, but her job doesn't allow her to achieve this social mobility. In her condition, she makes a deal with a devil, a reference to the story of Faust and Mephistopheles, finally getting a pair of red shoes that will take her anywhere. But that means she will never be able to find home—that's the curse of the shoes. The title in Indonesian is Gentayanga, which is a word used to describe ghosts who exist in a liminal state. This is a metaphor for people who travel. I came up with the idea for this novel in 2009 when I was an Indonesian international student studying for my PHD in New York. When I went back to Jakarta, I felt like I was not at home, but New York wasn't my home either, so there's a feeling of being neither here nor there. I wanted to capture the sense of being everywhere, which is liberating, but also the sense of displacement.”
Intan Paramaditha is a writer and an academic. Her novel The Wandering (Harvill Secker/ Penguin Random House UK), translated from the Indonesian language by Stephen J. Epstein, was nominated for the Stella Prize in Australia and awarded the Tempo Best Literary Fiction in Indonesia, English PEN Translates Award, and PEN/ Heim Translation Fund Grant from PEN America. She is the author of the short story collection Apple and Knife, the editor of Deviant Disciples: Indonesian Women Poets, part of the Translating Feminisms series of Tilted Axis Press and the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Asian Cinemas (forthcoming 2024). Her essay, “On the Complicated Questions Around Writing About Travel,” was selected for The Best American Travel Writing 2021. She holds a Ph.D. from New York University and teaches media and film studies at Macquarie University, Sydney.
https://intanparamaditha.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/626055/the-wandering-by-intan-paramaditha/9781787301184
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How are writing and travel vehicles for understanding? How can we expand the literary canon to include other voices, other cultures, other experiences of the world?
Intan Paramaditha is a writer and an academic. Her novel The Wandering (Harvill Secker/ Penguin Random House UK), translated from the Indonesian language by Stephen J. Epstein, was nominated for the Stella Prize in Australia and awarded the Tempo Best Literary Fiction in Indonesia, English PEN Translates Award, and PEN/ Heim Translation Fund Grant from PEN America. She is the author of the short story collection Apple and Knife, the editor of Deviant Disciples: Indonesian Women Poets, part of the Translating Feminisms series of Tilted Axis Press and the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Asian Cinemas (forthcoming 2024). Her essay, “On the Complicated Questions Around Writing About Travel,” was selected for The Best American Travel Writing 2021. She holds a Ph.D. from New York University and teaches media and film studies at Macquarie University, Sydney.
“The Wandering is a choose your own adventure novel, and the reader is situated in the shoes of this brown woman from the Global South. She's 27 and in a way, she is stuck with her life. She aspires to be middle class, but her job doesn't allow her to achieve this social mobility. In her condition, she makes a deal with a devil, a reference to the story of Faust and Mephistopheles, finally getting a pair of red shoes that will take her anywhere. But that means she will never be able to find home—that's the curse of the shoes. The title in Indonesian is Gentayanga, which is a word used to describe ghosts who exist in a liminal state. This is a metaphor for people who travel. I came up with the idea for this novel in 2009 when I was an Indonesian international student studying for my PHD in New York. When I went back to Jakarta, I felt like I was not at home, but New York wasn't my home either, so there's a feeling of being neither here nor there. I wanted to capture the sense of being everywhere, which is liberating, but also the sense of displacement.”
https://intanparamaditha.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/626055/the-wandering-by-intan-paramaditha/9781787301184
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Environmentalists, writers, artists, activists, and public policy makers explore the interconnectedness of living beings and ecosystems. They highlight the importance of conservation, promote climate education, advocate for sustainable development, and underscore the vital role of creative and educational communities in driving positive change.
00:00 "The Conditional" by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón
01:27 The Secret Language of Animals: Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA
03:03 A Love Letter to the Living World: Carl Safina, Ecologist & Author
04:11 Exploring the Mysteries of Soil and Coral Reefs: Merlin Sheldrake, Biologist, Author of Entangled Life
04:47 Exploring Coral Reefs: Richard Vevers, Founder of The Ocean Agency
05:56 The Importance of Climate Education: Kathleen Rogers, President of EarthDay.org
07:02 The Timeless Wisdom of Turtles: Sy Montomery, Naturalist & Author
07:38 Optimism in the Face of Environmental Challenges: Richard Vevers
08:32 Urban Solutions for a Sustainable Future: Paula Pinho, Director, Just Transition, Consumers, Energy Efficiency & Innovation, European Commission
08:57 The Circular Economy: Walter Stahel, Founder & Director of the Product-Life Institute
09:39 The Power of Speaking Out for Sustainability: Paula Pinho
10:16 Empowering the Next Generation Through Education: Jeffrey Sachs, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
www.maxrichtermusic.com
https://studiorichtermahr.com
Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep.
Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.
“As technology becomes more dominant, the arts become ever more important for us to stay in touch the things that the sciences can't tackle. What it's actually like to be a person? What's actually important? We can have this endless progress inside this capitalist machine for greater wealth and longer life and more happiness, according to some metric. Or we can try and quantify society and push it forward. Ultimately, we all have to decide what's important to us as humans, and we need the arts to help with that. So, I think what's important really is just exposing ourselves to as many different ideas as we can, being open-minded, and trying to learn about all facets of life so that we can understand each other as well. And the arts is an essential part of that.”
How is being an artist different than a machine that is programmed to perform a set of actions? How can we stop thinking about artworks as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences? In this conversation with Max Cooper, we discuss the beauty and chaos of nature and the exploration of technology music and consciousness.
Max Cooper is a musician with a PhD in computational biology. He integrates electronic music with immersive video projections inspired by scientific exploration. His latest project, Seme, commissioned by the Salzburg Easter Festival, merges Italian musical heritage with contemporary techniques, was also performed at the Barbican in London.
He supplied music for a video narrated by Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis for COP26.
In 2016, Cooper founded Mesh, a platform to explore the intersection of music, science and art. His Observatory art-house installation is on display at Kings Cross until May 1st.
https://maxcooper.net
https://osterfestspiele.at/en/programme/2024/electro-2024
https://meshmeshmesh.net
www.kingscross.co.uk/event/the-observatory
The music featured on this episode was Palestrina Sicut, Cardano Circles, Fibonacci Sequence, Scarlatti K141. Music is from Seme and is courtesy of Max Cooper.
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How is being an artist different than a machine that is programmed to perform a set of actions? How can we stop thinking about artworks as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences? In this conversation with Max Cooper, we discuss the beauty and chaos of nature and the exploration of technology music and consciousness.
Max Cooper is a musician with a PhD in computational biology. He integrates electronic music with immersive video projections inspired by scientific exploration. His latest project, Seme, commissioned by the Salzburg Easter Festival, merges Italian musical heritage with contemporary techniques, was also performed at the Barbican in London.
He supplied music for a video narrated by Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis for COP26.
In 2016, Cooper founded Mesh, a platform to explore the intersection of music, science and art. His Observatory art-house installation is on display at Kings Cross until May 1st.
“As technology becomes more dominant, the arts become ever more important for us to stay in touch the things that the sciences can't tackle. What it's actually like to be a person? What's actually important? We can have this endless progress inside this capitalist machine for greater wealth and longer life and more happiness, according to some metric. Or we can try and quantify society and push it forward. Ultimately, we all have to decide what's important to us as humans, and we need the arts to help with that. So, I think what's important really is just exposing ourselves to as many different ideas as we can, being open-minded, and trying to learn about all facets of life so that we can understand each other as well. And the arts is an essential part of that.”
https://maxcooper.net
https://osterfestspiele.at/en/programme/2024/electro-2024
https://meshmeshmesh.net
www.kingscross.co.uk/event/the-observatory
The music featured on this episode was Palestrina Sicut, Cardano Circles, Fibonacci Sequence, Scarlatti K141. Music is from Seme and is courtesy of Max Cooper.
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"I want to be wowed by the world. I want to gaze at it in awe and wonder. And I think when we take a step back and begin to appreciate the complexity of the interactions around us. We're taking note of a very porous between the self and the rest of the world. We are literally observing our enmeshment in our environment. And it's that kind of a reference frameshift that I think is going to help us move out of some of the darkness. My mother is an artist, and I think growing up surrounded by her practice exposed me to the creative process and is probably that which afforded me a certain sympathy for those tools and those modes of exploring the world later in life."
Clayton Page Aldern is an award winning neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a Master's in Neuroscience and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Oxford. He is also a research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Minds, Brains, and Bodies, which explores the neurobiological impacts of rapid environmental change.
https://claytonaldern.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717097/the-weight-of-nature-by-clayton-page-aldern
https://csde.washington.edu
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How does a changing climate affect our minds, brains and bodies?
Clayton Page Aldern is an award winning neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a Master's in Neuroscience and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Oxford. He is also a research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Minds, Brains, and Bodies, which explores the neurobiological impacts of rapid environmental change.
"I want to be wowed by the world. I want to gaze at it in awe and wonder. And I think when we take a step back and begin to appreciate the complexity of the interactions around us. We're taking note of a very porous between the self and the rest of the world. We are literally observing our enmeshment in our environment. And it's that kind of a reference frameshift that I think is going to help us move out of some of the darkness. My mother is an artist, and I think growing up surrounded by her practice exposed me to the creative process and is probably that which afforded me a certain sympathy for those tools and those modes of exploring the world later in life."
https://claytonaldern.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717097/the-weight-of-nature-by-clayton-page-aldern
https://csde.washington.edu
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"The Judeo-Christian idea is of Adam in the Garden of Eden, where he's given dominion over all things on the Earth, including plants and animals, and he is in a superior position, and the living world is subordinate to him. And you have this idea of a kind of divine approval for this hierarchy. Then, in the 17th century, Descartes comes along, and he takes the idea from Aristotle that what humans have is the capacity to reason, and they have the capacity to speak. And that is what fundamentally distinguishes humans from other animals is they have the capacity to speak, and they have capacity to speak a particular kind of language that allows us to express the results of a rational thinking, and all of that's very much concentrated in the mind.
So, what's happening, of course, is that alongside this, we find that the idea of a kind of inert world that is simply there for our pleasure, enjoyment, and exploitation has proved to be catastrophically mistaken because we see it with flooding, we see it with forest fires. We see it with acidification of the oceans. We see it with the continuing rise in temperatures that the world itself, the more-than-human world is fighting back. It has taken on its own agency. And therefore, the idea of a pyramid, a hierarchy, is no longer operative."
Michael Cronin is an Irish academic specialist in culture, travel literature, translation studies, and the Irish language. He has taught in universities in France and Ireland and has held visiting research fellowships to universities in Canada, Belgium, Peru, France, and Egypt. He's a fellow of Trinity College Dublin, an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a senior researcher in the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation. He is the current holder of the Chair of French (est. 1776) at TCD. He is the author of Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene, Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene, and other books.
www.tcd.ie/French/people/michaelcronin.php
www.cambridge.org/core/books/ecotravel/24263DF8E2E021915FEF4F937F146D25
www.routledge.com/Eco-Translation-Translation-and-Ecology-in-the-Age-of-the-Anthropocene/Cronin/p/book/9781138916845
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How has tourism and writing about travel contributed to the ecological degradation of the planet?How does language influence perception and our relationship to the more-than-human world?
Michael Cronin is an Irish academic specialist in culture, travel literature, translation studies, and the Irish language. He has taught in universities in France and Ireland and has held visiting research fellowships to universities in Canada, Belgium, Peru, France, and Egypt. He's a fellow of Trinity College Dublin, an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a senior researcher in the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation. He is the current holder of the Chair of French (est. 1776) at TCD. He is the author of Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene, Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene, and other books.
"The Judeo-Christian idea is of Adam in the Garden of Eden, where he's given dominion over all things on the Earth, including plants and animals, and he is in a superior position, and the living world is subordinate to him. And you have this idea of a kind of divine approval for this hierarchy. Then, in the 17th century, Descartes comes along, and he takes the idea from Aristotle that what humans have is the capacity to reason, and they have the capacity to speak. And that is what fundamentally distinguishes humans from other animals is they have the capacity to speak, and they have capacity to speak a particular kind of language that allows us to express the results of a rational thinking, and all of that's very much concentrated in the mind.
So, what's happening, of course, is that alongside this, we find that the idea of a kind of inert world that is simply there for our pleasure, enjoyment, and exploitation has proved to be catastrophically mistaken because we see it with flooding, we see it with forest fires. We see it with acidification of the oceans. We see it with the continuing rise in temperatures that the world itself, the more-than-human world is fighting back. It has taken on its own agency. And therefore, the idea of a pyramid, a hierarchy, is no longer operative."
www.tcd.ie/French/people/michaelcronin.php
www.cambridge.org/core/books/ecotravel/24263DF8E2E021915FEF4F937F146D25
www.routledge.com/Eco-Translation-Translation-and-Ecology-in-the-Age-of-the-Anthropocene/Cronin/p/book/9781138916845
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"The album 1 0 0 1 is really like a journey from our connection with nature to where we are now, in this moment where we're playing with technology. We're almost in this hybrid space, not fully understanding where it's going. And it's very deep in our subconscious and probably much greater than we realize. And it sort of ends in this space where the consciousness of what we're creating, it's going to be very separate from us. And I believe that's kind of where it's heading – the idea of losing humanity, losing touch with nature and becoming outside of something that we have created."
Dustin O’Halloran is a pianist and composer and member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Winner of a 2015 Emmy Award for his main title theme to Amazon's comedy drama Transparent, he was also nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for his score for Lion, written in collaboration with Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka). He has composed for Wayne McGregor (The Royal Ballet, London), Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, Ammonite starring Kate Winslet, and The Essex Serpent starring Claire Danes. He produced Katy Perry’s “Into Me You See” from her album Witness and appears on Leonard Cohen’s 2019 posthumous album Thanks For The Dance. With six solo albums under his name, his latest album 1 0 0 1, which explores ideas of technology, humanity and mind-body dualism, is available on Deutsche Grammophon.
https://dustinohalloran.com/
www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/dustin-o-halloran
www.imdb.com/name/nm0641169/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
Music courtesy of Dustin O’Halloran and Deutsche Grammophon
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
What will happen when Artificial General Intelligence arrives? What is the nature of consciousness? How are music and creativity pathways for reconnecting us to our humanity and the natural world?
Dustin O’Halloran is a pianist and composer and member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Winner of a 2015 Emmy Award for his main title theme to Amazon's comedy drama Transparent, he was also nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for his score for Lion, written in collaboration with Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka). He has composed for Wayne McGregor (The Royal Ballet, London), Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, Ammonite starring Kate Winslet, and The Essex Serpent starring Claire Danes. He produced Katy Perry’s “Into Me You See” from her album Witness and appears on Leonard Cohen’s 2019 posthumous album Thanks For The Dance. With six solo albums under his name, his latest album 1 0 0 1, which explores ideas of technology, humanity and mind-body dualism, is available on Deutsche Grammophon.
“The album 1 0 0 1 is really like a journey from our connection with nature to where we are now, in this moment where we're playing with technology. We're almost in this hybrid space, not fully understanding where it's going. And it's very deep in our subconscious and probably much greater than we realize. And it sort of ends in this space where the consciousness of what we're creating, it's going to be very separate from us. And I believe that's kind of where it's heading – the idea of losing humanity, losing touch with nature and becoming outside of something that we have created."
https://dustinohalloran.com/
www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/dustin-o-halloran
www.imdb.com/name/nm0641169/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
Music courtesy of Dustin O’Halloran and Deutsche Grammophon
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"Well, it's important that although you can disaggregate them, they're really clusters of the same quest that they're all glosses on the four classical virtues of temperance, prudence, courage, and justice. And they're all attempts to achieve self-mastery, and in that sense, tranquility, moderation, these are different ways of expressing the ideas of prudence and temperance. It's striking that Adam Smith translated the Roman word temperance with virtue as a kind of tranquility of the soul.
When I was rereading the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, I was struck by the idea of the environmental crisis being a kind of self-executing divine retribution for disturbing the harmonies of the universe. There are so many passages in the scriptures which talk about the plagues and fires and punishments that come from failing to respect our place in the universe and having the hubris to imagine that we can transform and thwart the laws of nature. These punishments are self-executing, and we are experiencing them. The way to restore harmony is the way that harmony has always been restored, which is by restraint, humility, and living according to nature. "
Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.
https://constitutioncenter.org/about/board-of-trustees/jeffrey-rosen
www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Pursuit-of-Happiness/Jeffrey-Rosen/9781668002476
https://constitutioncenter.org/news-debate/podcasts
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
What is the true meaning of the pursuit of happiness? What can we learn from the Founding Fathers about achieving harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery, and pursuing the public good?
Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.
"Well, it's important that although you can disaggregate them, they're really clusters of the same quest that they're all glosses on the four classical virtues of temperance, prudence, courage, and justice. And they're all attempts to achieve self-mastery, and in that sense, tranquility, moderation, these are different ways of expressing the ideas of prudence and temperance. It's striking that Adam Smith translated the Roman word temperance with virtue as a kind of tranquility of the soul.
When I was rereading the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, I was struck by the idea of the environmental crisis being a kind of self-executing divine retribution for disturbing the harmonies of the universe. There are so many passages in the scriptures which talk about the plagues and fires and punishments that come from failing to respect our place in the universe and having the hubris to imagine that we can transform and thwart the laws of nature. These punishments are self-executing, and we are experiencing them. The way to restore harmony is the way that harmony has always been restored, which is by restraint, humility, and living according to nature. "
https://constitutioncenter.org/about/board-of-trustees/jeffrey-rosen
www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Pursuit-of-Happiness/Jeffrey-Rosen/9781668002476
https://constitutioncenter.org/news-debate/podcasts
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"I mean, your mother, your concept of God, all of this I feel for our Earth. More than if Earth were a person. And I grew up Christian, I grew up Methodist, and I still pray and read the Bible. If you believe that there is any Creator, what better thing can you do with your life than honor the creation? And if you don't believe in that, but you understand the facts of evolution – which I also understand – again, what better use of a life than to honor the Big Life with a capital L? And what better way to enjoy it? There's so much that we can each do, and it is a joy for me.
I think that animals certainly don't have all these widgets demanding their attention like we do. Their spirits are just not as atomized as ours are. We have so many little things flickering at the edge of our consciousness. When we pay attention to anything, we're not paying that deep attention, but animals are. And they have senses that we do not. I mean, they're aware of chemical cues that we completely miss. They can hear sounds we don't hear. They see colors and kinds of light we can't perceive, etc. But we all share a common ancestor. We share 90 percent of our genetic material with all placental mammals. So we really are all family. So, seeing how animals do things, I think we have more access to that kind of consciousness than we allow ourselves to understand."
Author Sy Montgomery and illustrator Matt Patterson are naturalists, adventurers, and creative collaborators. Montgomery has published over thirty acclaimed nonfiction books for adults and children and received numerous honors, including lifetime achievement awards from the Humane Society and the New England Booksellers Association.
Patterson’s illustrations have been featured in several books and magazines, such as Yankee Magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur. He is the recipient of Roger Tory Peterson Wild American Art Award, National Outdoor Book Award for Nature and the Environment, and other honors. Most recently, Patterson provided illustrations for Freshwater Fish of the Northeast.
Their joint books are Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell and The Book of the Turtle. Montgomery’s other books include The Soul of an Octopus, The Hawk’s Way and The Secrets of the Octopus (published in conjunction with a National Geographic TV series).
www.mpattersonart.com
https://symontgomery.com
www.harpercollins.com/products/of-time-and-turtles-sy-montgomery?variant=41003864817698
www.harpercollins.com/products/the-book-of-turtles-sy-montgomery?variant=40695888609314
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/F/bo215806915.html
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
What can turtles teach us about time, patience, and wisdom? What can we learn about the mysteries of consciousness by observing animals? How can we open our senses and embrace the interconnectedness of all life on Earth?
Author Sy Montgomery and illustrator Matt Patterson are naturalists, adventurers, and creative collaborators. Montgomery has published over thirty acclaimed nonfiction books for adults and children and received numerous honors, including lifetime achievement awards from the Humane Society and the New England Booksellers Association.
Patterson’s illustrations have been featured in several books and magazines, such as Yankee Magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur. He is the recipient of Roger Tory Peterson Wild American Art Award, National Outdoor Book Award for Nature and the Environment, and other honors. Most recently, Patterson provided illustrations for Freshwater Fish of the Northeast.
Their joint books are Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell and The Book of the Turtle. Montgomery’s other books include The Soul of an Octopus, The Hawk’s Way and The Secrets of the Octopus (published in conjunction with a National Geographic TV series).
"I mean, your mother, your concept of God, all of this I feel for our Earth. More than if Earth were a person. And I grew up Christian, I grew up Methodist, and I still pray and read the Bible. If you believe that there is any Creator, what better thing can you do with your life than honor the creation? And if you don't believe in that, but you understand the facts of evolution – which I also understand – again, what better use of a life than to honor the Big Life with a capital L? And what better way to enjoy it? There's so much that we can each do, and it is a joy for me.
I think that animals certainly don't have all these widgets demanding their attention like we do. Their spirits are just not as atomized as ours are. We have so many little things flickering at the edge of our consciousness. When we pay attention to anything, we're not paying that deep attention, but animals are. And they have senses that we do not. I mean, they're aware of chemical cues that we completely miss. They can hear sounds we don't hear. They see colors and kinds of light we can't perceive, etc. But we all share a common ancestor. We share 90 percent of our genetic material with all placental mammals. So we really are all family. So, seeing how animals do things, I think we have more access to that kind of consciousness than we allow ourselves to understand."
www.mpattersonart.com
https://symontgomery.com
www.harpercollins.com/products/of-time-and-turtles-sy-montgomery?variant=41003864817698
www.harpercollins.com/products/the-book-of-turtles-sy-montgomery?variant=40695888609314
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/F/bo215806915.html
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Ludovic Slimak is a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toulouse in France and Director of the Grotte Mandrin research project. His work focuses on the last Neanderthal societies, and he is the author of several hundred scientific studies on these populations. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, the New York Times, and other publications. He is the author of The Naked Neanderthal: A New Understanding of the Human Creature
http://ww5.pegasusbooks.com/books/the-naked-neanderthal-9781639366163-hardcover
https://lampea.cnrs.fr/spip.php?article3767
www.odilejacob.fr/catalogue/sciences-humaines/archeologie-paleontologie-prehistoire/dernier-neandertalien_9782415004927.php
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Who were the Neanderthals? And what can our discoveries about them teach us about intelligence, our extractivist relationship to the planet, and what it means to be human?
Ludovic Slimak is a paleoanthropologist at the University of Toulouse in France and Director of the Grotte Mandrin research project. His work focuses on the last Neanderthal societies, and he is the author of several hundred scientific studies on these populations. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, the New York Times, and other publications. He is the author of The Naked Neanderthal: A New Understanding of the Human Creature.
"After working 30 years excavating in caves, in rock shelters, and really in tracking what I call the creator, my feeling was after many years, I didn't really know what to think about Neanderthals, but at a certain moment, after seeing millions of these tools, I began to realize something very interesting. We have two categories of humans which are deeply divergent. One is hyper-standardized, and the other is much more creative. It was clear to me that this creativity was related to the raw material that this population used. The Neanderthal will adapt his project to the function of the color, texture, and natural morphologies of the block. So you have a kind of dialectic, a kind of discussion between the craftsman and the natural environment. When you are dealing with Homo sapien technology, they have the same categories of technologies, but it's very clear that even very early Sapiens, when they have a project, they will constrain the natural world to their project."
http://ww5.pegasusbooks.com/books/the-naked-neanderthal-9781639366163-hardcover
https://lampea.cnrs.fr/spip.php?article3767
www.odilejacob.fr/catalogue/sciences-humaines/archeologie-paleontologie-prehistoire/dernier-neandertalien_9782415004927.php
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"The humanities are all about representing the world, while the sciences are all about knowing the world. But I believe the roles are deeply intertwined, and that literature, the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts are all ways of knowing the world. They do exactly the same thing in our understanding of the world. And it is really important to try to put these things together to bring people closer in talking to each other."
Paola Spinozzi is Professor of English Literature at the University of Ferrara and currently serves as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Internationalisation. She is the coordinator of the PhD Programme in Environmental Sustainability and Wellbeing and the co-coordinator of Routes towards Sustainability. Her research encompasses the ecological humanities and ecocriticism, utopia and sustainability; literature and the visual arts; literature and science; cultural memory. She has co-edited Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies and published on post/apocalyptic and climate fiction, nature poetry, eco-theatre; art and aesthetics, imperialism and evolutionism in utopia as a genre; the writing of science; interart creativity.
https://docente.unife.it/paola.spinozzi https://www.unife.it/studenti/dottorato/it/corsi/riforma/environmental-sustainability-and-wellbeing
https://www.routesnetwork.net
https://www.routledge.com/Cultures-of-Sustainability-and-Wellbeing-Theories-Histories-and-Policies/Spinozzi-Mazzanti/p/book/9780367271190.
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How can we create positive change? What does it mean to have an ecological mind? How can interdisciplinary collaborations help us move beyond educational silos and create sustainable futures?
Paola Spinozzi is Professor of English Literature at the University of Ferrara and currently serves as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Internationalisation. She is the coordinator of the PhD Programme in Environmental Sustainability and Wellbeing and the co-coordinator of Routes towards Sustainability. Her research encompasses the ecological humanities and ecocriticism, utopia and sustainability; literature and the visual arts; literature and science; cultural memory. She has co-edited Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies and published on post/apocalyptic and climate fiction, nature poetry, eco-theatre; art and aesthetics, imperialism and evolutionism in utopia as a genre; the writing of science; interart creativity.
"The humanities are all about representing the world, while the sciences are all about knowing the world. But I believe the roles are deeply intertwined, and that literature, the humanities, philosophy, history, and the arts are all ways of knowing the world. They do exactly the same thing in our understanding of the world. And it is really important to try to put these things together to bring people closer in talking to each other."
https://docente.unife.it/paola.spinozzi https://www.unife.it/studenti/dottorato/it/corsi/riforma/environmental-sustainability-and-wellbeing
https://www.routesnetwork.net
https://www.routledge.com/Cultures-of-Sustainability-and-Wellbeing-Theories-Histories-and-Policies/Spinozzi-Mazzanti/p/book/9780367271190.
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How would the life of Jesus be told through the eyes of his mother? How can literature help us understand history and the nature of identity?
Maciej Hen was born in 1955 in Warsaw. He graduated from the Cinematography Department at the Film School in Łódź. For years he has been trying his hand at diverse activities, from music to all fields of journalism and television lighting design. As a prose writer, Hen has published four novels so far: Według niej (2004, DUE; the English translation, According to Her, published in 2022 by Holland House Books, was shortlisted to the EBRD Literary Prize in 2023), Solfatara (2015, W.A.B., 2016 Gombrowicz Prize and shortlisted for the Norwid Prize and the Angelus Prize), Deutsch dla średnio zaawansowanych, Segretario and one non-fiction book, Beatlesi w Polsce (The Beatles in Poland).
"I wondered who could be a better narrator of the story of Jesus than his own Jewish mother? When I was young, as a European Greco-Christian, I was aware of some of my Jewish history, but writing According to Her, I tried to imagine the issue of someone considered to be a Messiah or prophet by some Jewish followers. What could be the genuine story of something that really happened or was told? This led me to write a realistic novel about how it could have been."
"I can tell you the story of my parents. They both lost most of their families during World War II, and they survived because they were quick enough to escape to the East, where there was no paradise either, but at least there was a chance to survive. So my father lost his father, one of his sisters, the sister's husband, and his brother. But the brother disappeared in Soviet Union, nobody knows how, but the others were murdered by Nazis. And as for my mother, she lost almost everybody. She had six siblings, and she managed only to take one of her sisters while evacuating to the East. So five of her siblings, both parents, and grandmother, all died in the death camp in Belzec."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maciej_Hen
www.hhousebooks.com/shortlisted-ebrd-according-to-her
www.wydawnictwoliterackie.pl/autor/1271/maciej-hen
https://www.instagram.com/maciej.hen/
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064871385361
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"I was so excited to be offered that role in Little Bird. They sent me the scripts, and I read them, and I wept so much just reading those scripts because the story is so profoundly sad. And I was really very honored to be playing a Jewish Holocaust survivor caught up in a very difficult story. I was also honored to be on set. And a good part of the time that I was there, we were on Indian reservations, having cultural sharing time, listening to their stories, and really just being a witness to what they experienced. So a lot of that was very profound for me working on that project, and being able to tell the story that my character owned was, of course, really personal to me just being Jewish. A lot of times, being Jewish, we don't necessarily get to play Jewish. So it was really important to me that I honor that story the best that I could."
From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House M.D, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She played a Holocaust survivor and adopted mother in the drama television series Little Bird. The story centres on a First Nations woman who was adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop, as she attempts to reconnect with her birth family and heritage.
Lisa’s career began by writing, composing, and performing an original AIDS awareness musical Positive Me at the renowned La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City. In the wake of COVID, Lisa began to paint using old family photographs as starting points. Her incredibly detailed paintings capture intimate relationships and spontaneous moments with honesty and compassion.
https://lisaedelstein.komi.io/
www.lisaedelsteinpaintings.com/
www.imdb.com/name/nm0249046
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Artworks:
“Beach Day”, “Marsha”, “Karen” Courtesy of the Artist
Lisa Edelstein in the Studio
Photo credit: Holland Clement, Courtesy of the artist
How can the arts help us examine and engage with social issues? How do our families shape our views, memories, and experience of the world?
From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series House, to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse talent. Some of Edelstein's feature credits include Keeping the Faith, What Women Want, Daddy Daycare, As Good as It Gets, and Fathers and Sons. She played a Holocaust survivor and adopted mother in the drama television series Little Bird. The story centres on a First Nations woman who was adopted into a Jewish family during the Sixties Scoop, as she attempts to reconnect with her birth family and heritage.
Lisa’s career began by writing, composing, and performing an original AIDS awareness musical Positive Me at the renowned La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City. In the wake of COVID, Lisa began to paint using old family photographs as starting points. Her incredibly detailed paintings capture intimate relationships and spontaneous moments with honesty and compassion.
"I was so excited to be offered that role in Little Bird. They sent me the scripts, and I read them, and I wept so much just reading those scripts because the story is so profoundly sad. And I was really very honored to be playing a Jewish Holocaust survivor caught up in a very difficult story. I was also honored to be on set. And a good part of the time that I was there, we were on Indian reservations, having cultural sharing time, listening to their stories, and really just being a witness to what they experienced. So a lot of that was very profound for me working on that project, and being able to tell the story that my character owned was, of course, really personal to me just being Jewish. A lot of times, being Jewish, we don't necessarily get to play Jewish. So it was really important to me that I honor that story the best that I could."
https://lisaedelstein.komi.io/
www.lisaedelsteinpaintings.com/
www.imdb.com/name/nm0249046
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Photo credit: Mitch Stone
Courtesy of the artist
“The natural world has its own sonic language. Its own fingerprints. And that's one of the beautiful things about being out here. There is another acoustic environment, another sort of sonic fingerprint, and it is always changing. Every day is a sort of a different sound picture. I walk out the door and you do hear it changing over time. The leaves are coming in now, different kinds of bird song. The wind sounds different. It's a wonderful thing to be around and experience.” —Max Richter
Excerpts of interviews from One Planet Podcast & The Creative Process
SY MONTGOMERY
NYTimes Bestselling Author of Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell, Secrets of the Octopus, The Hawk’s Way: Encounters with Fierce Beauty, and other books
MAX RICHTER
Award-winning Composer, Pianist & Environmentalist (The Blue Notebooks, Waltz with Bashir, Arrival, Ad Astra) His album SLEEP is the most streamed classical record of all time. Cofounder of Studio Richter Mahr
MERLIN SHELDRAKE
Biologist & Bestselling Author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021
THOMAS CROWTHER
Ecologist - Co-chair of the Board for UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration - Founder of Restor
TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE
Founder/Host of First Voices Radio - Master Musician of the Ancient Lakota Flute
ERLAND COOPER
Nature’s Songwriter - Composer of “Folded Landscapes”
RICK BASS
Environmentalist & Story Prize Award-winning Author of “Why I Came West”, “For a Little While” - Fmr. Geologist - Organizer of Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest
PETER SINGER
“Most Influential Living Philosopher” - Author, Founder of The Life You Can Save
KATHLEEN ROGERS
President of EarthDay.ORG
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
www.maxrichtermusic.com
https://studiorichtermahr.com
Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep.
Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.
Photos courtesy of Unsplash
Photo credit: Kyle Johnson, Sebastian Unrau, Abner abiu Castillo diaz, Deepak Nautiyal
What are we willing to give up to find meaning, connection, and a sense of belonging? What happens if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand on social media? Will we find the right partner? Will we get into the right college? Or find the best job?
Tara Isabella Burton is the author of the novels Social Creature, The World Cannot Give, and Here in Avalon, as well as the nonfiction books Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World and Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. She is currently working on a history of magic and modernity, to be published by Convergent in late 2025. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, Granta, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
www.taraisabellaburton.com
www.simonandschuster.com/books/Here-in-Avalon/Tara-Isabella-Burton/9781982170097?fbclid=IwAR30lnvlXMrDJtCq_568jUM3hvzr6yUz_GUUZSkbR2RarreOF6PMcvhabBg
www.amazon.com/dp/B07W56MQLJ/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?keywords=strange+rites+tara+isabella+burton&qid=1565365017&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmr0
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
What are we willing to give up to find meaning, connection, and a sense of belonging? What happens if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand on social media? Will we find the right partner? Will we get into the right college? Or find the best job?
Tara Isabella Burton is the author of the novels Social Creature, The World Cannot Give, and Here in Avalon, as well as the nonfiction books Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World and Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. She is currently working on a history of magic and modernity, to be published by Convergent in late 2025. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, Granta, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications.
www.taraisabellaburton.com
www.simonandschuster.com/books/Here-in-Avalon/Tara-Isabella-Burton/9781982170097?fbclid=IwAR30lnvlXMrDJtCq_568jUM3hvzr6yUz_GUUZSkbR2RarreOF6PMcvhabBg
www.amazon.com/dp/B07W56MQLJ/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?keywords=strange+rites+tara+isabella+burton&qid=1565365017&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmr0
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Scientists, artists, psychologists, conservationists, and spiritual leaders share their stories and insights on the importance of connecting with nature, preserving the environment, embracing diversity, and finding harmony in the world. Music courtesy of composer Max Richter. All voices in this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast.
00:05 Adapting to Earth: Indigenous Perspectives
TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE - Founder/Host of First Voices Radio - Founder of Akantu Intelligence
https://firstvoicesindigenousradio.org
https://akantuintelligence.org
01:06 The Beauty and Fragility of the Natural World
APRIL GORNIK - Artist, Environmentalist, Co-founder of The Church: Arts & Creativity Center
www.aprilgornik.com
www.thechurchsagharbor.org
02:01 The Importance of Whales in Ecosystems
NAN HAUSER - Whale Researcher - President, Center for Cetacean Research & Conservation - Director, Cook Islands Whale Research
https://whaleresearch.org
03:27 The Importance of Community and Collective Well-being
ROBERT WALDINGER - Co-Author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happinesshttps://www.robertwaldinger.com
04:19 The Power of Love, Respect, and Unity
JULIAN LENNON - Singer-songwriter, Photographer, Doc Filmmaker, Exec. Producer of the films Common Ground & Kiss the Ground
https://julianlennon.com
https://commongroundfilm.org
05:05 The Importance of Cultural and Scientific Knowledge
RUPERT SHELDRAKE - Biologist & Author of The Science Delusion, The Presence of the Past
www.sheldrake.org
0:6:18 Mastering Confidence & Human Potential
IAN ROBERTSON - Author of How Confidence Works: The New Science of Self-belief - Co-Director of the Global Brain Health Institute
https://ianrobertson.org
07:01 The Magic of Coral Reefs
GATOR HALPERN - Co-Founder & President of Coral Vita - UN Young Champion of the Earth - Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur
https://coralvita.co
08:06 Lessons from Ancient Trees and Tundra
DOUG LARSON - Biologist - Expert on Deforestation - Author of Cliff Ecology - The The Dogma Ate My Homework
https://experts.uoguelph.ca/doug-larson
09:36 Understanding the Flow of Life
MASTER SHI HENG YI - 35th Generation of Shaolin Masters
Headmaster of the Shaolin Temple Europe
www.shihengyi.online
www.shaolintemple.eu
Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep.
Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“I think like a scientist and my interest in stunted trees probably goes back to my upbringing. I had a difficult childhood with a father who insisted that he was right about everything all the time.
And in my early years as a scientist, I was trying to find some system that would not argue back to me. I loved working with organisms that were themselves repressed by nature. It's a wonderful thing to stand like Gulliver on top of an entire ecosystem that's only three inches tall. And ask yourself, am I any happier than it? And I wasn't. And I found that tremendously thrilling to have a different perspective.”
What can thousand-year-old trees teach us about living sustainably? If we want to be sustained by this planet indefinitely, we need to stop trying to suck it dry.
Doug Larson is an award winning scientist, author, and Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Guelph. He is an expert on deforestation and regularly contributes to The Guardian and other publications. His books include Cliff Ecology: Pattern and Process in Cliff Ecosystems, The Urban Cliff Revolution: New Findings on the Origins and Evolution of Human Habitats, Storyteller Guitar, and The Dogma At My Homework.
https://experts.uoguelph.ca/doug-larson
https://volumesdirect.com/products/the-dogma-ate-my-homework
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cliff-ecology/7502E52B487789BEA2CACC4553AA663B
https://www.amazon.com/Urban-Cliff-Revolution-Evolution-Habitats/dp/1550419927
https://www.amazon.com/Storyteller-Guitar-Doug-Larson-ebook/dp/B00B9VZQXU
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Image courtesy of Doug Larson
What can thousand-year-old trees teach us about living sustainably? If we want to be sustained by this planet indefinitely, we need to stop trying to suck it dry.
Doug Larson is an award winning scientist, author, and Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Guelph. He is an expert on deforestation and regularly contributes to The Guardian and other publications. His books include Cliff Ecology: Pattern and Process in Cliff Ecosystems, The Urban Cliff Revolution: New Findings on the Origins and Evolution of Human Habitats, Storyteller Guitar, and The Dogma At My Homework.
“I think like a scientist and my interest in stunted trees probably goes back to my upbringing. I had a difficult childhood with a father who insisted that he was right about everything all the time.
And in my early years as a scientist, I was trying to find some system that would not argue back to me. I loved working with organisms that were themselves repressed by nature. It's a wonderful thing to stand like Gulliver on top of an entire ecosystem that's only three inches tall. And ask yourself, am I any happier than it? And I wasn't. And I found that tremendously thrilling to have a different perspective.”
https://experts.uoguelph.ca/doug-larson
https://volumesdirect.com/products/the-dogma-ate-my-homework
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cliff-ecology/7502E52B487789BEA2CACC4553AA663B
https://www.amazon.com/Urban-Cliff-Revolution-Evolution-Habitats/dp/1550419927
https://www.amazon.com/Storyteller-Guitar-Doug-Larson-ebook/dp/B00B9VZQXU
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Image courtesy of Doug Larson
"The idea that the laws of nature are fixed is taken for granted by almost all scientists and within physics, within cosmology, it leads to an enormous realm of speculation, which I think is totally unnecessary. We're assuming the laws of nature are fixed. Most of science assumes this, but is it really so in an evolving universe? Why shouldn't the laws evolve? And if we think about that, then we realize that actually, the whole idea of a law of nature is a metaphor. It's based on human laws. I mean, after all, dogs and cats don't obey laws. And in tribes, they don't even have laws. They have customs. So it's only in civilized societies that you have laws. And then if we think through that metaphor, then actually the laws do change.
All artists are influenced by other artists and by things in the collective culture, and I think that morphic resonance as collective memory would say that all of us draw unconsciously as well as consciously on a collective memory and all animals draw on a collective memory of their kind as well. We don't know where it comes from, but there's true creativity involved in evolution, both human and natural."
How do we navigate ambiguity and uncertainty? Moving beyond linear thinking into instinct and intuition, we might discover other sources within ourselves that lie beyond the boundaries of science and reason.
Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. His many books include The Science Delusion, The Presence of the Past, and Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work. At Cambridge University, Dr. Sheldrake worked in developmental biology as a fellow of Clare College. From 2005 to 2010, he was director of the Perrott Warrick Project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College Cambridge. He was among the top 100 global thought leaders for 2013, as ranked by the Duttweiler Institute.
www.sheldrake.org
www.amazon.com/Science-Delusion/dp/1529393221/?tag=sheldrake-20
www.amazon.com/Science-Set-Free-Paths-Discovery/dp/0770436722/?tag=sheldrake-20
How do we navigate ambiguity and uncertainty? Moving beyond linear thinking into instinct and intuition, we might discover other sources within ourselves that lie beyond the boundaries of science and reason.
Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. His many books include The Science Delusion, The Presence of the Past, and Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work. At Cambridge University, Dr. Sheldrake worked in developmental biology as a fellow of Clare College. From 2005 to 2010, he was director of the Perrott Warrick Project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College Cambridge. He was among the top 100 global thought leaders for 2013, as ranked by the Duttweiler Institute.
"The idea that the laws of nature are fixed is taken for granted by almost all scientists and within physics, within cosmology, it leads to an enormous realm of speculation, which I think is totally unnecessary. We're assuming the laws of nature are fixed. Most of science assumes this, but is it really so in an evolving universe? Why shouldn't the laws evolve? And if we think about that, then we realize that actually, the whole idea of a law of nature is a metaphor. It's based on human laws. I mean, after all, dogs and cats don't obey laws. And in tribes, they don't even have laws. They have customs. So it's only in civilized societies that you have laws.
And then if we think through that metaphor, then actually the laws do change.
All artists are influenced by other artists and by things in the collective culture, and I think that morphic resonance as collective memory would say that all of us draw unconsciously as well as consciously on a collective memory and all animals draw on a collective memory of their kind as well. We don't know where it comes from, but there's true creativity involved in evolution, both human and natural."
www.sheldrake.org
www.amazon.com/Science-Delusion/dp/1529393221/?tag=sheldrake-20
www.amazon.com/Science-Set-Free-Paths-Discovery/dp/0770436722/?tag=sheldrake-20
“I drove for like a half an hour into absolute nothingness, and I left the car. It was three o'clock in the morning. It was minus 17 degrees and it was absolutely still. I've never experienced stillness such as that. I mean, it's like you feel like you can feel your atoms move or not move because it's so cold. And the sky is full of the Northern Lights. So you are already in a remote place, but you want to go further. And I think maybe those themes of going out into the wilderness are motivated by the urge to connect. And I think Issa López has really incorporated it beautifully into the script. And the show tells of this great disconnect between people. So not only are we disconnected from our environment, but we are disconnected from each other.
When we were shooting I sometimes thought, there is this beauty about collaboration between a director, cinematographer, and production designer, and all these key people. And I'm more and more convinced there's some kind of conscious thing happening. And there's also something subconscious happening.”
How does the place we’re born influence our beliefs? What would it be like to live in a world run by women, where it’s perpetually night, and the dead can speak to the living? In this episode, we discuss the new season of HBO’s True Detective: Night Country with award-winning cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister.
Known for his work on Tár, Pachinko, Great Expectations, and most recently, the new season of True Detective, he's also known for his collaboration with director Terence Davies on the films The Deep Blue Sea and A Quiet Passion. His work on Great Expectations earned him an Primetime Emmy and a BAFTA in cinematography, and in 2022, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Tár.
http://florianhoffmeister.de/
www.hbo.com/true-detective
www.imdb.com/title/tt2356777/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Photo: Jodie Foster, Kali Reis · Photograph by Michele K. Short/HBO
How does the place we’re born influence our beliefs? What would it be like to live in a world run by women, where it’s perpetually night, and the dead can speak to the living? In this episode, we discuss the new season of HBO’s True Detective: Night Country with award-winning cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister.
Known for his work on Tár, Pachinko, Great Expectations, and most recently, the new season of True Detective, he's also known for his collaboration with director Terence Davies on the films The Deep Blue Sea and A Quiet Passion. His work on Great Expectations earned him an Primetime Emmy and a BAFTA in cinematography, and in 2022, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Tár.
“I drove for like a half an hour into absolute nothingness, and I left the car. It was three o'clock in the morning. It was minus 17 degrees and it was absolutely still. I've never experienced stillness such as that. I mean, it's like you feel like you can feel your atoms move or not move because it's so cold. And the sky is full of the Northern Lights. So you are already in a remote place, but you want to go further. And I think maybe those themes of going out into the wilderness are motivated by the urge to connect. And I think Issa López has really incorporated it beautifully into the script. And the show tells of this great disconnect between people. So not only are we disconnected from our environment, but we are disconnected from each other.
When we were shooting I sometimes thought, there is this beauty about collaboration between a director, cinematographer, and production designer, and all these key people. And I'm more and more convinced there's some kind of conscious thing happening. And there's also something subconscious happening.”
http://florianhoffmeister.de/
www.hbo.com/true-detective
www.imdb.com/title/tt2356777/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Photo credits: Michele K. Short / HBO
In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with eminent Anishinaabe legal theorist John Borrows and philosopher Paco Calvo about how we might learn about, learn with, and learn from our plant companions on this earth. Plants show signs of communication and of learning. They produce and respond to many of the same neurochemicals as humans, including anesthetics. They share resources with one another, and when under threat, emit signals of warning and of pain. While Barrows and Calvo both urge us to listen to the Earth, during this conversation we discover that these two thinkers are often listening for different things. The discussion reveals fascinating points of difference and commonality. And in terms of the latter, the point both John and Paco insist upon is that we maintain our separation from other beings at our peril and at a loss.
Dr. John Borrows, BA, MA, JD, LLM, PhD, LLD, FRSC, is Canada's pre-eminent legal scholar and a global leader in the field of Indigenous legal traditions and Aboriginal rights. John holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria as well as the Law Foundation Chair in Aboriginal Justice and Governance.
Paco Calvo is a renowned cognitive scientist and philosopher of biology, known for his groundbreaking research in the field of plant cognition and intelligence. He is a professor at the University of Murcia in Spain, where he leads the Minimal Intelligence Lab (MINT Lab), focusing on the study of minimal cognition in plants. Calvo’s interdisciplinary work combines insights from biology, philosophy, and cognitive science to explore the fascinating world of plant behavior, decision-making, and problem-solving.
https://www.uvic.ca/law/facultystaff/facultydirectory/borrows.php
https://www.um.es/mintlab/index.php/about/people/paco-calvo/
00:02 Introduction to Plant Communication
00:21 Conversation with John Burrows and Paco Calvo
01:11 Challenging Pre-existing Concepts about Intelligence
01:37 Exploring Plant Intelligence
02:32 Understanding Human Intelligence
04:47 Challenging Orthodox Cognitive Psychology
05:34 Ecological Approach to Intelligence
07:26 The Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Understanding Intelligence
09:11 Understanding Anishinaabe Law and Ethical Traditions
12:09 The Role of Treaties in Indigenous Peoples' Relationships with Nature
38:51 The Role of Education in Understanding Ecological Cognition
45:28 The Importance of Experiential Learning and Literacy Beyond Books
46:24 The Power of Ignorance and Openness to Knowledge
50:00 The Ethical Obligations to the More Than Human World
01:07:43 The Role of Religion in Understanding Our Relationship with the More Than Human World
01:16:16 The Importance of Slowing Down to Appreciate Plant Behavior
01:17:39 The Co-Evolutionary Perspective of Life
www.palumbo-liu.com
https://speakingoutofplace.com
https://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20
“We have not adapted to Earth. She needs us to do that. Instead, we've tried to adapt Earth to our needs. Which is always an extraction, take away. Earth doesn't exist because of technology. Earth will always be here.”
Tiokasin Ghosthorse is a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota and has a long history with Indigenous activism and advocacy. Tiokasin is the Founder, Host and Executive Producer of “First Voices Radio” (formerly “First Voices Indigenous Radio”) for the last 31 years in New York City and Seattle/Olympia, Washington. In 2016, he received a Nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize from the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy. Other recent recognitions include: Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Fellowship in Music (2016), National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Nominee (2017), Indigenous Music Award Nominee for Best Instrumental Album (2019) and National Native American Hall of Fame Nominee (2018, 2019). He also was recently nominated for “Nominee for the 2020 Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities”. He is the Founder of Akantu Intelligence.
https://firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/
https://akantuintelligence.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Songs featured on this episode are “Butterfly Against the Wind”
And from the album Somewhere In There
“Spatial Moon” and “Sunrise Moon”
Composed by Tiokasin Ghosthorse and Alex Alexander
Music on this episode is courtesy of Tiokasin Ghosthorse.
How can we learn to speak the language of the Earth and cultivate our intuitive intelligence?
Tiokasin Ghosthorse is a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota and has a long history with Indigenous activism and advocacy. Tiokasin is the Founder, Host and Executive Producer of “First Voices Radio” (formerly “First Voices Indigenous Radio”) for the last 31 years in New York City and Seattle/Olympia, Washington. In 2016, he received a Nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize from the International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy. Other recent recognitions include: Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Fellowship in Music (2016), National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Nominee (2017), Indigenous Music Award Nominee for Best Instrumental Album (2019) and National Native American Hall of Fame Nominee (2018, 2019). He also was recently nominated for “Nominee for the 2020 Americans for the Arts Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities”. He is the Founder of Akantu Intelligence.
“We have not adapted to Earth. She needs us to do that. Instead, we've tried to adapt Earth to our needs. Which is always an extraction, take away. Earth doesn't exist because of technology. Earth will always be here.”
https://firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/
https://akantuintelligence.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Songs featured on this episode are “Butterfly Against the Wind”
And from the album Somewhere In There
“Spatial Moon” and “Sunrise Moon”
Composed by Tiokasin Ghosthorse and Alex Alexander
Music on this episode is courtesy of Tiokasin Ghosthorse.
"As a physicist, and it's not just me but many scientists and Nobel Prize winners have towards the end of their lives arrived at the conclusion that the world has the signature of some kind of intelligent design and we don't know what that is.
You can look at the whole picture from a religious angle. You can look through the simulation theory. I don't know how to formulate or explain what's behind it, but the universe is too perfect and fine-tuned to perfection. Even a small change in anything can lead to a total disintegration of all the fundamental forces, all the equilibrium in the universe, where the matter will not be stable, nothing will be the way it is, and then there will be no life. And I'm not against the idea of evolution because I think that creation and evolution go hand in hand. They are both true, and they are not competing against each other. They are not two competing philosophies or ideologies."
Dr. Melvin M. Vopson is Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Portsmouth, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Chartered Physicist and Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He is the co-founder and CEO of the Information Physics Institute, editor-in-chief of the IPI Letters and Emerging Minds Journal for Student Research. He is the author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe. Dr. Vopson has a wide-ranging scientific expertise in experimental, applied and theoretical physics that is internationally recognized. He has published over 100 research articles, achieving over 2500 citations.
https://www.port.ac.uk/about-us/structure-and-governance/our-people/our-staff/melvin-vopson
https://ipipublishing.org/index.php/ipil/RR
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Are we living in a Simulated Universe? How will AI impact the future of work, society & education?
Dr. Melvin M. Vopson is Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Portsmouth, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Chartered Physicist and Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He is the co-founder and CEO of the Information Physics Institute, editor-in-chief of the IPI Letters and Emerging Minds Journal for Student Research. He is the author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe. Dr. Vopson has a wide-ranging scientific expertise in experimental, applied and theoretical physics that is internationally recognized. He has published over 100 research articles, achieving over 2500 citations.
"As a physicist, and it's not just me but many scientists and Nobel Prize winners have towards the end of their lives arrived at the conclusion that the world has the signature of some kind of intelligent design and we don't know what that is.
You can look at the whole picture from a religious angle. You can look through the simulation theory. I don't know how to formulate or explain what's behind it, but the universe is too perfect and fine-tuned to perfection. Even a small change in anything can lead to a total disintegration of all the fundamental forces, all the equilibrium in the universe, where the matter will not be stable, nothing will be the way it is, and then there will be no life. And I'm not against the idea of evolution because I think that creation and evolution go hand in hand. They are both true, and they are not competing against each other. They are not two competing philosophies or ideologies."
https://www.port.ac.uk/about-us/structure-and-governance/our-people/our-staff/melvin-vopson
https://ipipublishing.org/index.php/ipil/RR
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"One of the big differences I've noticed talking with people from more communally oriented cultures is that American culture has a strong emphasis on the individual on individual happiness, individual achievement on individual self-expression. And there are other cultures where the community, the family, and the neighborhood where they live and the well-being of others are paramount and are the first thing they think about. The most exemplary instance of that is in Bhutan, where they can't even propose a law for the legislature to consider unless they have a full section describing the effect on the community of any given law, the effect on the well-being of the whole population. So nothing is about the individual. It's all about the collective."
What makes a good life? How important are relationships in helping us lead happy and meaningful lives?
Dr. Robert Waldinger is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital, and cofounder of the Lifespan Research Foundation. Dr. Waldinger received his AB from Harvard College and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He is a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and he directs a psychotherapy teaching program for Harvard psychiatry residents. He is also a Zen master (Roshi) and teaches meditation in New England and around the world. His TED Talk about the Harvard study “What makes a good life?” has been viewed more than 42 million times and is one of the 10 most watched TED Talks ever. He is co-author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.
https://www.robertwaldinger.com/
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Good-Life/Robert-Waldinger/9781982166694
https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/https://www.lifespanresearch.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
What makes a good life? How important are relationships in helping us lead happy and meaningful lives?
Dr. Robert Waldinger is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital, and cofounder of the Lifespan Research Foundation. Dr. Waldinger received his AB from Harvard College and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He is a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and he directs a psychotherapy teaching program for Harvard psychiatry residents. He is also a Zen master (Roshi) and teaches meditation in New England and around the world. His TED Talk about the Harvard study “What makes a good life?” has been viewed more than 42 million times and is one of the 10 most watched TED Talks ever. He is co-author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.
"One of the big differences I've noticed talking with people from more communally oriented cultures is that American culture has a strong emphasis on the individual on individual happiness, individual achievement on individual self-expression. And there are other cultures where the community, the family, and the neighborhood where they live and the well-being of others are paramount and are the first thing they think about. The most exemplary instance of that is in Bhutan, where they can't even propose a law for the legislature to consider unless they have a full section describing the effect on the community of any given law, the effect on the well-being of the whole population. So nothing is about the individual. It's all about the collective."
https://www.robertwaldinger.com/
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Good-Life/Robert-Waldinger/9781982166694
https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/https://www.lifespanresearch.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
The more the science of intelligence (both human and artificial) advances, the more it holds the potential for great benefits and dangers to society.
Max Bennett is the cofounder and CEO of Alby, a start-up that helps companies integrate large language models into their websites to create guided shopping and search experiences. Previously, Bennett was the cofounder and chief product officer of Bluecore, one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S., providing AI technologies to some of the largest companies in the world. Bluecore has been featured in the annual Inc. 500 fastest growing companies, as well as Glassdoor’s 50 best places to work in the U.S. Bluecore was recently valued at over $1 billion. Bennett holds several patents for AI technologies and has published numerous scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals on the topics of evolutionary neuroscience and the neocortex. He has been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list as well as the Built In NYC’s 30 Tech Leaders Under 30. He is the author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains.
"I think anyone who's practiced any sense or form of meditation, realizes that often it's when we turn our minds off and we think less that we feel most aware and present. And I think that is a great sort of introspective case study in the decoupling between conscious awareness and thinking. So I think it is highly possible that we will have very intelligent machines that far surpass us in quote-unquote intelligence, its ability to reason and problem solve, but could very easily not be sentient or conscious at all. Similarly, I think this also applies to other animals. I think folks who argue that animals are not conscious or sentient due to their inability to solve a variety of intellectual tasks may also be wrong. But when it comes to consciousness, we have pretty much no idea how consciousness emerges from matter. There are some hot, relatively speculative ideas, but we have no real scientific grounding on which to define this is how consciousness emerges."
www.abriefhistoryofintelligence.com/
www.alby.com
www.bluecore.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"This is why protecting the indigenous around the world has been an important cause for me because of that history, because of their knowledge, and the potential of losing it forever. I know that around the world that there are groups that are striving and doing the best that they can to maintain and hold onto those languages, doing as much research and capturing as much of that knowledge as possible. You know, fortunately, there are some incredible, dare I say, youngsters these days who are learning, who have such respect for their elders and their history and their past. They are learning the language and holding onto it as best as they can. As I said, I think the fact that it's all being recorded now and put down, and hopefully nothing further bad happens. I think it's key because we've learned so much from the Indigenous. You know, we're part of that history. It's just we've lost our way. They still know where they're going. It's just the rest of us that have been misguided, I would say, in the bigger scheme of things. The other thing was we, you know, for many, I mean we didn't know any better. That's no excuse, but, you know, we all rode on that bandwagon too of enjoying life to the extremes before we knew, really what that meant, how that abused not only people but the Earth. And the situation that we live in, as you see in the film also, I think we're only just seeing the tip of the surface really about the quantity of illness that is coming from the past 50 years of the way things have been done. I mean, the general public didn't know about so, so many of the bad things that were happening. The poisoning, the chemicals in our food, in all of our products, whether it's from, deodorants to hairsprays to makeup. It's really only in the past few years that there's been a decent should I say shift in that world and that finally some companies are taking responsibility for their actions and their positions, and they're trying to change things too. So little by little, little by little, but it's working."
How can the arts inspire us to lead lives of greater meaning and connection? What kind of world are we leaving for future generations?
Julian Lennon is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and NYTimes bestselling author of children's books. Executive Producer of Common Ground and its predecessor Kiss the Ground, which reached over 1 billion people and inspired the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. The natural world and indigenous people are also the focus of Lennon’s other documentaries Whaledreamers, and Women of the White Buffalo. In 2007, Julian founded the global environmental and humanitarian organization The White Feather Foundation, whose key initiatives are education, health, conservation, and the protection of indigenous culture, causes he also advances through his photography, exhibited across the US and Europe. His latest album Jude spans a body of work created over the last 30 years. Julian was named a Peace Laureate by UNESCO in 2020.
https://julianlennon.com
https://commongroundfilm.org
https://kissthegroundmovie.com
https://whitefeatherfoundation.com
https://julianlennon.lnk.to/JudeWE
https://julianlennon-photography.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How can the arts inspire us to lead lives of greater meaning and connection? What kind of world are we leaving for future generations?
Julian Lennon is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and NYTimes bestselling author of children's books. Executive Producer of Common Ground and its predecessor Kiss the Ground, which reached over 1 billion people and inspired the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. The natural world and indigenous people are also the focus of Lennon’s other documentaries Whaledreamers, and Women of the White Buffalo. In 2007, Julian founded the global environmental and humanitarian organization The White Feather Foundation, whose key initiatives are education, health, conservation, and the protection of indigenous culture, causes he also advances through his photography, exhibited across the US and Europe. His latest album Jude spans a body of work created over the last 30 years. Julian was named a Peace Laureate by UNESCO in 2020.
"This is why protecting the indigenous around the world has been an important cause for me because of that history, because of their knowledge, and the potential of losing it forever. I know that around the world that there are groups that are striving and doing the best that they can to maintain and hold onto those languages, doing as much research and capturing as much of that knowledge as possible. You know, fortunately, there are some incredible, dare I say, youngsters these days who are learning, who have such respect for their elders and their history and their past. They are learning the language and holding onto it as best as they can. As I said, I think the fact that it's all being recorded now and put down, and hopefully nothing further bad happens. I think it's key because we've learned so much from the Indigenous. You know, we're part of that history. It's just we've lost our way. They still know where they're going. It's just the rest of us that have been misguided, I would say, in the bigger scheme of things. The other thing was we, you know, for many, I mean we didn't know any better. That's no excuse, but, you know, we all rode on that bandwagon too of enjoying life to the extremes before we knew, really what that meant, how that abused not only people but the Earth. And the situation that we live in, as you see in the film also, I think we're only just seeing the tip of the surface really about the quantity of illness that is coming from the past 50 years of the way things have been done. I mean, the general public didn't know about so, so many of the bad things that were happening. The poisoning, the chemicals in our food, in all of our products, whether it's from, deodorants to hairsprays to makeup. It's really only in the past few years that there's been a decent should I say shift in that world and that finally some companies are taking responsibility for their actions and their positions, and they're trying to change things too. So little by little, little by little, but it's working."
https://julianlennon.com
https://commongroundfilm.org
https://kissthegroundmovie.com
https://whitefeatherfoundation.com
https://julianlennon.lnk.to/JudeWE
https://julianlennon-photography.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How can we resolve conflicts without compromising our ethics and moral vision? Each year, wars are being fought in our name or with our support that citizens never get an opportunity to vote on. How can we make our voices heard?
“Warism, taking war for granted as morally acceptable, even morally required, is the primary obstacle to peace.” Duane L. Cady is a philosopher and Professor Emeritus at Hamline University. He was nominated for the 1991 Grawemeyer World Order Award, was named Outstanding Educator of the Year by the United Methodist Foundation for Higher Education, and a festschiff in his honor was published in 2012. Cady is best known for his works on pacifism, including Moral Vision: How Everyday Life Shapes Ethical Thinking, and From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum.
"The task for us is to understand how we can get moral visions and then consider the ethics of negotiating between and among them, including collisions between moral visions. So my interest is in the extent to which various forms of reason take part in these different projects. I argue that contemporary technical philosophers tend to avoid this kind of problem. They tend to think of reason as much more narrow, whereas I want to include things like ordinary experience, the arts, theater, and reading a book. All those things can have an effect. Or as the case, we can consider now with current events experiencing moral horror, even if it's at a bit of a distance, even on TV or reading about it in the newspaper, have an effect on helping shape our moral vision. And so it's not necessarily a matter of neuro-technical reasoning. That probably is enough to get an idea of what I might do."
https://duanelcady.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Many people talk to God, but Neale Donald Walsch says God told him, “You’ve got me all wrong.”
Walsch is a modern day spiritual messenger. He spent the majority of his life searching for spiritual meaning before experiencing his Conversations with God. The series of books has been translated into 37 languages. Walsch's newest book, GodTalk: Experiences of Humanity's Connections with a Higher Power, features a compilation of many different stories and perspectives from others who've encountered God in unexplainable and unique ways.
www.nealedonaldwalsch.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How do some people face incredible tragedies and find within these experiences inspiration to improve the lives of others? Our guest today lost her grandfather, who was the assassinated Prime Minister of the Buganda Kingdom, and her father, who was disappeared by Idi Amin, and yet she went on to become a leading conservationist.
Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is Uganda's first full-time wildlife veterinarian and the Founder and CEO of Conservation Through Public Health. Interested in animals from a young age, she pursued her studies at the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London before returning to Uganda. In the time since, she's worked tirelessly to preserve the animals of Uganda, being awarded the Whitley Gold Award, Sierra Club Earth Care Award, Edinburgh Medal, National Geographic Explorer, and most recently an appointment to become a United Nations Champion of the Earth for Science and Innovation. She is author of Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet.
"I have always wanted to be around animals and growing up, I cannot remember a time when there were no pets at home. My elder brother Apollo Katerega, who was 10 years older than me, also liked animals, especially dogs and was always bringing stray dogs and cats home. I was the last born of six children. My sister, Veronica Nakibule, who I followed, was five years older than me so were just outside each other's age bracket for playing. Thus the pets at home became my main companions, and we developed a strong bond.
Along the way, I eventually fulfilled my lifelong dream to not only become a veterinarian, but a wildlife veterinarian. In 1996, I began to take care of the critically endangered mountain gorillas of Uganda. Since then, they've increased in number from six hundred and fifty to 1,063 individuals in Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC). There are no mountain gorillas surviving in zoos outside their range countries, and their only hope is to keep the population thriving where they are naturally found.
The gorillas have shaped my life's calling since I first studied them as a student at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London. I've treated them as the first full-time wildlife veterinarian in Uganda and supported them as Founder and Chief Executive Officer of a grassroots NGO and nonprofit, Conservation Through Public Health, more commonly known as 'CTPH,' that promotes biodiversity conservation through not only improving the health of gorillas and other wildlife, but also the health and wellbeing of the people and livestock with whom they share their fragile habitats."
www.ctph.org
https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781950994267/walking-with-gorillas/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"The mind-body problem has been the main thing that I explored in my days in philosophy because I also had some small romances with philosophy as well. And I think this is not a matter of empirical investigation. So I don't think that there is any experience experiment that could tell you if there is a soul that is non-physical. I think that at the end of the day, this is for a philosophical and metaphysical discussion that could be determined by arguments and not experiments."
How we think, feel, and experience the world is a mystery. What distinguishes our consciousness from AI and machine learning?
Liad Mudrik studies high level cognition and its neural substrates, focusing on conscious experience. She teaches at the School of Psychological Sciences at Tel Aviv University. At her research lab, her team is currently investigating the functionality of consciousness, trying to unravel the depth and limits of unconscious processing, and also researching the ways semantic relations between concepts and objects are formed and detected.
https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/mudriklab
https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/mudriklab/people/#gkit-popup
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How we think, feel, and experience the world is a mystery. What distinguishes our consciousness from AI and machine learning?
Liad Mudrik studies high level cognition and its neural substrates, focusing on conscious experience. She teaches at the School of Psychological Sciences at Tel Aviv University. At her research lab, her team is currently investigating the functionality of consciousness, trying to unravel the depth and limits of unconscious processing, and also researching the ways semantic relations between concepts and objects are formed and detected.
"The mind-body problem has been the main thing that I explored in my days in philosophy because I also had some small romances with philosophy as well. And I think this is not a matter of empirical investigation. So I don't think that there is any experience experiment that could tell you if there is a soul that is non-physical. I think that at the end of the day, this is for a philosophical and metaphysical discussion that could be determined by arguments and not experiments."
https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/mudriklab
https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/mudriklab/people/#gkit-popup
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Coral reefs are the most biodiverse habitat on the planet, despite covering less than 1 percent of the ocean. Over a quarter of all marine life exists in these rain forests of the sea.
Gator Halpern is the Co-founder and President of Coral Vita, a mission-driven company working to restore our world’s dying coral reefs. He is a lifelong entrepreneur who is passionate about starting projects that can help create a better harmony between society and nature. His work has earned him a number of awards including being named a United Nation’s Young Champion of the Earth, a Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur, and an Echoing Green fellow. Before founding Coral Vita, he worked on development projects in Brazil, Peru, and South Africa. During his career, he has helped distribute millions of baby fish for aquaculture to remote villages in the Amazon, he’s analyzed the environmental effects of land-use change projects on three different continents, and worked for the World Wildlife Fund Global Marine Program. Gator founded Coral Vita during his graduate studies at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and he lives and works in the Bahamas where Coral Vita operates the world’s first commercial land-based coral farm for reef restoration.
“Coral reefs are the most biodiverse habitat on the planet, despite covering less than 1 percent of the ocean area, over a quarter of all marine life exists in these rainforests of the sea. And if you think of a coral reef as a rainforest, the trees are the coral themselves. Which are incredible organisms, so, magic is really the right word to describe them. They're these animals that are one of the original forms of animal life, the second branch of the animal kingdom is actually Cnidaria, which includes coral and jellyfish. So, an ancient animal, but they have a symbiotic relationship with algae, and so inside the animal tissue are these zooxanthellae, these algae that do photosynthesis, like algae do, like plants do. It's able to capture sunlight and convert it into sugars and energy. And so, it's an animal, but it's got plants that live inside it, this algae, and then even more wild - it grows a skeleton that is rock!
So coral skeleton is actually calcium carbonate, which is limestone. And most of the limestone that exists on the earth was grown by these organisms. And so they're animals with plants inside of them that grow rock as skeleton. And the rock skeletons form these incredibly intricate structures that are coral reefs that can grow for thousands of miles and the corals can live for thousands of years to be seen from space and to create these essential ecosystems that are really the cornerstone of all of life in the ocean and, and therefore much of life on Earth.”
https://coralvita.co
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"Learning about environmentalism in school, you look at specific figures like John Muir, etc. And I wanted people to also have that association when it came to the environmental justice movement because I think sometimes that really is a helpful learning tool for students.
So in particular, Hazel M. Johnson, I'm so fascinated by her because she's often not really written about in environmental textbooks at all. She was just a woman in Chicago who had no environmental experience, but she started realizing that a lot of people in her community, including her husband, were getting all sorts of forms of cancers and other heart diseases and things like that at what she suspected were alarming rates. So when she investigated, she found that her neighborhood was built on top of toxic waste and other things, and she defined this term called a toxic doughnut that her community and so many other communities that were similar to hers that were lower income and primarily Black neighborhoods that were formerly redlined were surrounded by a toxic doughnut of waste, of landfills, highways running through their neighborhoods, and sometimes even buried radioactive waste, etc.
So she was one of the first people who really made a stir about this, and I think something that's really cool in her work, and then also Dr. Robert Bullard, to formalize that research or that hunch that she had and produced the first study on toxic waste and race and really made the field of environmental justice is that they also were really just faith-based people that spoke about this amongst their churches.
And I think again, that's something that's really cool because in the environmental or scientific community, sometimes people do try to separate faith advocacy from science. However, these are people who were mobilizing in their churches and talking about it in their sermons and seeing how they could transform their communities to be better for people and the planet.
So I think it's just a great story, and I really want people to know the names of people like Hazel Johnson and Dr. Robert Bullard just like they know the names of people like John Muir because they've done such a beautiful job, and I want their legacies to be remembered."
Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. She’s passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and was the first to define the term “Intersectional Environmentalism.” She is the founder of @greengirlleah and The Intersectional Environmentalist platform. Her articles on this topic have appeared in Vogue, Elle, The Good Trade, and Youth to the People and she has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, W Magazine, Domino, GOOP, Fashionista, BuzzFeed, and numerous podcasts. She has a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Chapman University and worked for the National Park Service and Patagonia headquarters before pursuing activism full time. She lives in Carpinteria, California. She is the author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet, and Winner of the Creative Force Foundation Award 2023.
www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com
www.instagram.com/greengirlleah
www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/leah-thomas/the-intersectional-environmentalist/9780316281935/?lens=voracious
Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs , Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
“Sometimes people do try to separate faith advocacy from science. However, Hazel Johnson and Dr. Robert Bullard are people who were mobilizing in their churches and talking about it in their sermons and seeing how they could transform their communities to be better for people and the planet.
So I think it's just a great story, and I really want people to know the names of people like Hazel Johnson and Dr. Robert Bullard just like they know the names of people like John Muir because they've done such a beautiful job, and I want their legacies to be remembered."
Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. She’s passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and was the first to define the term “Intersectional Environmentalism.” She is the founder of @greengirlleah and The Intersectional Environmentalist platform. Her articles on this topic have appeared in Vogue, Elle, The Good Trade, and Youth to the People and she has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, W Magazine, Domino, GOOP, Fashionista, BuzzFeed, and numerous podcasts. She has a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Chapman University and worked for the National Park Service and Patagonia headquarters before pursuing activism full time. She lives in Carpinteria, California. She is the author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet, and Winner of the Creative Force Foundation Award 2023.
www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com
www.instagram.com/greengirlleah
www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/leah-thomas/the-intersectional-environmentalist/9780316281935/?lens=voracious
Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs , Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"I found faith very late in life. And while it has been an incredible joy for me, a joyful journey. It remains a journey. You still are traveling. You don't suddenly think like, now I've got it all figured out! So you still are aware of your own struggles. And the fact that it took me so long to come to a place where I could believe...I was 49 when I was baptized. And I had gone down every stupid, wrong, obviously dishonest road it was possible to go down. I was not somebody who converted at 19 and never changed my mind. I changed my mind a million times. And so I was aware of where all the dead ends were. Now I can at least say I know that this road ends here, and this road ends there, logically, morally, and emotionally. And that's been helpful to me."
What makes a good drama? What advantages do human storytellers have over their AI counterparts? Where do ideas come from? And what do spiritual beliefs share with artists' faith in the creative process?
Andrew Klavan is the author of such internationally bestselling crime novels as True Crime, filmed by Clint Eastwood, Don’t Say A Word, filmed starring Michael Douglas, Empire of Lies and When Christmas Comes. He has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award five times and has won twice. He wrote the screenplays to A Shock to The System starring Michael Caine, One Missed Call starring Edward Burns, and Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer starring Dean Cain. His essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, his political satire videos have been viewed by tens of millions of people, and he hosts a popular podcast The Andrew Klavan Show at the Daily Wire. He is also the author of a memoir about his religious journey The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ and the USA Today bestseller The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England's Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus. His latest crime novel is The House of Love and Death, the third book in the Cameron Winter series.
www.andrewklavan.com
www.amazon.com/House-Death-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613164467
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
What makes a good drama? What advantages do human storytellers have over their AI counterparts? Where do ideas come from? And what do spiritual beliefs share with artists' faith in the creative process?
Andrew Klavan is the author of such internationally bestselling crime novels as True Crime, filmed by Clint Eastwood, Don’t Say A Word, filmed starring Michael Douglas, Empire of Lies and When Christmas Comes. He has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award five times and has won twice. He wrote the screenplays to A Shock to The System starring Michael Caine, One Missed Call starring Edward Burns, and Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer starring Dean Cain. His essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, his political satire videos have been viewed by tens of millions of people, and he hosts a popular podcast The Andrew Klavan Show at the Daily Wire. He is also the author of a memoir about his religious journey The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ and the USA Today bestseller The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England's Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus. His latest crime novel is The House of Love and Death, the third book in the Cameron Winter series.
"I found faith very late in life. And while it has been an incredible joy for me, a joyful journey. It remains a journey. You still are traveling. You don't suddenly think like, now I've got it all figured out! So you still are aware of your own struggles. And the fact that it took me so long to come to a place where I could believe...I was 49 when I was baptized. And I had gone down every stupid, wrong, obviously dishonest road it was possible to go down. I was not somebody who converted at 19 and never changed my mind. I changed my mind a million times. And so I was aware of where all the dead ends were. Now I can at least say I know that this road ends here, and this road ends there, logically, morally, and emotionally. And that's been helpful to me."
www.andrewklavan.com
www.amazon.com/House-Death-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613164467
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with Joseph M. Pierce and Liza Black about the vast number of questions that are opened up when people pretend to be Native when they in fact are not. These cases take on a specific significance when such false identifications allow these people access to privilege and positions of authority. When these falsehoods are found out, they place scholars and activists who have allied themselves with these people in extremely difficult positions, and unfortunately make institutions like colleges and universities the final arbiters of how “justice” is to be served. Finally, these cases put even more pressure on Native peoples to imagine and practice inventing identities that are both rooted and at the same time open to a broader set of possibilities.
Liza Black is a citizen of Cherokee Nation. Recently on fellowship at UCLA, Black is currently completing her book manuscript: How to Get Away with Murder: A Transnational History of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, contracted with Johns Hopkins University Press for an anticipated publication date of 2026. How to Get Away with Murder provides six case studies of women, girls, and two spirits disappeared or murdered over the course of the 20th century. Black is an Associate Professor of History and Native American and Indigenous Studies. In 2020, Black published Picturing Indians: Native Americans in Film, a deeply archival book making the argument that mid-century Native people navigated the complexities of inhabiting filmic representations of themselves as a means of survivance. Black has received several research grants including the Ford pre-, doc and post-doc fellowships; the Institute of American Cultures at UCLA fellowship; and the Cherokee Nation Higher Education Grant.
Joseph M. Pierce is Associate Professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University. His research focuses on the intersections of kinship, gender, sexuality, and race in Latin America, 19th century literature and culture, queer studies, Indigenous studies, and hemispheric approaches to citizenship and belonging. He is the author of Argentine Intimacies: Queer Kinship in an Age of Splendor, 1890-1910 (SUNY Press, 2019) and co-editor of Políticas del amor: Derechos sexuales y escrituras disidentes en el Cono Sur (Cuarto Propio, 2018) as well as the 2021 special issue of GLQ, “Queer/Cuir Américas: Translation, Decoloniality, and the Incommensurable.” His work has been published recently in Revista Hispánica Moderna, Critical Ethnic Studies, Latin American Research Review, and has also been featured in Indian Country Today. Along with S.J. Norman (Koori of Wiradjuri descent) he is co-curator of the performance series Knowledge of Wounds. He is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
www.lizablack.com
www.josephmpierce.com
www.palumbo-liu.com
https://speakingoutofplace.com
https://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20
"I was so mad at the Catholic Church and my upbringing and the way that my parents, my mother particularly, was so manipulated to think that if she did one thing for herself that she was somehow hurting Jesus and the local priests. I mean, it's such a brainwashing kind of situation. On the other hand, if you're raised Catholic, you're raised to believe in miracles. And the idea of transubstantiation. There's so many things about Catholicism, there's so much imagery that's magic, magical thinking, that lets your mind run free to a certain extent. You know, it does give you the willful ability to dream and imagine and just take off on crazy tangents. I mean religious people tend to be seekers and seekers tend to be the people that keep us whole and spiritually grounded and not just religious per se."
In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?
April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.
She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour’s arts district, and in this episode, we’ll also hear from some of the talented artists they’ve brought to their stages.
www.aprilgornik.com
www.thechurchsagharbor.org
www.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2
https://sagharborcinema.org/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Kimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846
Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain
In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?
April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.
She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour’s arts district, and in this episode, we’ll also hear from some of the talented artists they’ve brought to their stages.
"I was so mad at the Catholic Church and my upbringing and the way that my parents, my mother particularly, was so manipulated to think that if she did one thing for herself that she was somehow hurting Jesus and the local priests. I mean, it's such a brainwashing kind of situation. On the other hand, if you're raised Catholic, you're raised to believe in miracles. And the idea of transubstantiation. There's so many things about Catholicism, there's so much imagery that's magic, magical thinking, that lets your mind run free to a certain extent. You know, it does give you the willful ability to dream and imagine and just take off on crazy tangents. I mean religious people tend to be seekers and seekers tend to be the people that keep us whole and spiritually grounded and not just religious per se."
www.aprilgornik.com
www.thechurchsagharbor.org
www.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2
https://sagharborcinema.org/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Kimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846
Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain
Additional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.
"Confidence is a series of mental, physical, and emotional habits that can be learned. And once you learn them, you can gain the compound interest benefits of confidence."
How important is confidence? Psychologists say confidence is a series of mental, physical, and emotional habits that can be learned. What makes some people overconfident while others are realistic about their abilities and why are both outlooks important to succeed in life?
Ian Robertson is Co-Director of the Global Brain Health Institute (Trinity College Dublin and University of California at San Francisco) and Co-Leader of The BrainHealth Project at University of Texas at Dallas. A trained clinical psychologist as well as a neuroscientist, he is internationally renowned for his research on neuropsychology. He has written five books and numerous newspaper and magazine articles and comment pieces in the Guardian, Times, Telegraph, Irish Times, Time magazine and New York magazine, amongst others. He has appeared on BBC Radio and featured in several major television documentaries. He is a regular speaker at major futurology and business conferences in Europe, the USA and Asia.
https://ianrobertson.org
www.gbhi.org
www.penguin.co.uk/books/441931/how-confidence-works-by-robertson-ian/9781787633728
https://centerforbrainhealth.org/project
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How important is confidence? Psychologists say confidence is a series of mental, physical, and emotional habits that can be learned. What makes some people overconfident while others are realistic about their abilities and why are both outlooks important to succeed in life?
Ian Robertson is Co-Director of the Global Brain Health Institute (Trinity College Dublin and University of California at San Francisco) and Co-Leader of The BrainHealth Project at University of Texas at Dallas. A trained clinical psychologist as well as a neuroscientist, he is internationally renowned for his research on neuropsychology. He has written five books and numerous newspaper and magazine articles and comment pieces in the Guardian, Times, Telegraph, Irish Times, Time magazine and New York magazine, amongst others. He has appeared on BBC Radio and featured in several major television documentaries. He is a regular speaker at major futurology and business conferences in Europe, the USA and Asia.
"Confidence is a series of mental, physical, and emotional habits that can be learned. And once you learn them, you can gain the compound interest benefits of confidence."
https://ianrobertson.org
www.gbhi.org
www.penguin.co.uk/books/441931/how-confidence-works-by-robertson-ian/9781787633728
https://centerforbrainhealth.org/project
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"So it's just a great joy to be passing this guitar made from the wood of an 800-year-old tree around to musicians and asking them to play a song of resistance or celebration. And that's what we're going to do at Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest. We're going to have it be an annual event like Farm Aid. And we want it to be big. We want it to be Woodstock in its pivot point. The way the Children's Trust court case was pivotal, the way this Black Ram court case we had and won was pivotal.
We want Climate Aid to be a celebration. And this one guitar exploring the question: Can one tree save a forest? Can one song save a forest? And we think the answer is yes. We believe it will be. What we want to do with the forest that the guitar came from is establish it as a climate refuge, a place dedicated to storing as much carbon and long-term safekeeping as possible.
I went into this old forest called Black Ram that we were seeking to defend and did successfully defend for now. There are these 600, 700, and 800-year-old trees already spraypainted in orange and blue that they were going to cut down. And I thought let's make a guitar out of a piece of one of these giant spruces. And that's what I did. I went back with my chainsaw and cut out a length of it, wheel-barreled it out, and took the piece of wood to a man named Kevin Kopp."
Rick Bass, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for his memoir Why I Came West, was born and raised in Texas, worked as a petroleum geologist in Mississippi, and has lived in Montana's Yaak Valley for almost three decades. His short fiction, which has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, and The Paris Review, as well as numerous times in Best American Short Stories, has earned him The Story Prize, multiple O. Henry Awards and Pushcart Prizes in addition to NEA and Guggenheim fellowships.
He’s an organizer and speaker at Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest, a fundraiser event to benefit the grassroots environmental movement of Protect Ancient Forests & The Montana Project. Featuring Maggie Rogers and more great performers and speakers. The evening will advance the efforts to protect the Black Ram forest by designating the region as the nation’s first Climate Refuge. Portland, Maine, on Sunday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. ET, at the Merrill Auditorium. Tickets available at the Merrill’s box office and online at PortTIX.com.
www.rickbass.net
www.protectancientforests.org
www.montanaproject.org
www.PortTIX.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Rick Bass, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for his memoir Why I Came West, was born and raised in Texas, worked as a petroleum geologist in Mississippi, and has lived in Montana's Yaak Valley for almost three decades. His short fiction, which has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, and The Paris Review, as well as numerous times in Best American Short Stories, has earned him The Story Prize, multiple O. Henry Awards and Pushcart Prizes in addition to NEA and Guggenheim fellowships.
He’s an organizer and speaker at Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest, a fundraiser event to benefit the grassroots environmental movement of Protect Ancient Forests & The Montana Project. Featuring Maggie Rogers and more great performers and speakers. The evening will advance the efforts to protect the Black Ram forest by designating the region as the nation’s first Climate Refuge. Portland, Maine, on Sunday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. ET, at the Merrill Auditorium. Tickets available at the Merrill’s box office and online at PortTIX.com.
"So it's just a great joy to be passing this guitar made from the wood of an 800-year-old tree around to musicians and asking them to play a song of resistance or celebration. And that's what we're going to do at Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest. We're going to have it be an annual event like Farm Aid. And we want it to be big. We want it to be Woodstock in its pivot point. The way the Children's Trust court case was pivotal, the way this Black Ram court case we had and won was pivotal.
We want Climate Aid to be a celebration. And this one guitar exploring the question: Can one tree save a forest? Can one song save a forest? And we think the answer is yes. We believe it will be. What we want to do with the forest that the guitar came from is establish it as a climate refuge, a place dedicated to storing as much carbon and long-term safekeeping as possible.
I went into this old forest called Black Ram that we were seeking to defend and did successfully defend for now. There are these 600, 700, and 800-year-old trees already spraypainted in orange and blue that they were going to cut down. And I thought let's make a guitar out of a piece of one of these giant spruces. And that's what I did. I went back with my chainsaw and cut out a length of it, wheel-barreled it out, and took the piece of wood to a man named Kevin Kopp."
www.rickbass.net
www.protectancientforests.org
www.montanaproject.org
www.PortTIX.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"I was very inspired to know that humans are not the be-all and end-all. We're just one state. But you could be in this state of consciousness, this kind of godly state, even a demonic state, but also the fact that all living creatures had souls and were affected by karma. And this is something we tend to forget, especially because animals are so tasty and therefore we have to justify slaughtering them on such a mass scale. So we want to believe that they don't count. Or they are somehow lesser souls than us. The cat doesn't believe that it's a pet. The cat believes they are the center of the universe. I'm sure the cockroach believes that they are the center of the universe, just as we do. And back to the thing you said: how our bodies inform our view. I think every living creature suffers and experiences joy. And therefore it's convenient for us to say that certain things don't have souls...whatever the soul is."
What happens when we die? What happens to our memories and consciousness when our bodies cease to be? In the end, is it the things we did and the people we loved that give our lives meaning?
Shehan Karunatilaka is the multi-award winning author. He is known for his novels dealing with the history, politics, and folklore of his home country of Sri Lanka. He won the Commonwealth Book Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for his debut novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, and the Booker Prize 2022 for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. In addition to novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories. Born in Colombo, he studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam, and Singapore.
www.shehanwriter.com
https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324064824
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
What happens when we die? What happens to our memories and consciousness when our bodies cease to be? In the end, is it the things we did and the people we loved that give our lives meaning?
Shehan Karunatilaka is the multi-award winning author. He is known for his novels dealing with the history, politics, and folklore of his home country of Sri Lanka. He won the Commonwealth Book Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for his debut novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, and the Booker Prize 2022 for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. In addition to novels, he has written rock songs, screenplays and travel stories. Born in Colombo, he studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam, and Singapore.
"I was very inspired to know that humans are not the be-all and end-all. We're just one state. But you could be in this state of consciousness, this kind of godly state, even a demonic state, but also the fact that all living creatures had souls and were affected by karma. And this is something we tend to forget, especially because animals are so tasty and therefore we have to justify slaughtering them on such a mass scale. So we want to believe that they don't count. Or they are somehow lesser souls than us. The cat doesn't believe that it's a pet. The cat believes they are the center of the universe. I'm sure the cockroach believes that they are the center of the universe, just as we do. And back to the thing you said: how our bodies inform our view. I think every living creature suffers and experiences joy. And therefore it's convenient for us to say that certain things don't have souls...whatever the soul is."
www.shehanwriter.com
https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324064824
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Photo credit: David Parry/Booker Prize Foundation
"When I came to America I had a shock. I never knew what it meant to be in a country that seems to have no history, being in a place where you feel like you are nowhere, you could have been dropped by a plane in a cultural, historical desert.
In the United States, they're destroying historic buildings. They've paved over cemeteries of African slaves. They're changing the environment so that memory is destroyed.
Because you are placing yourself in a broader arc of time, I asked a woman from Guatemala: how can women keep fighting for so much power? And she said, 'Because, for us, the dead are not dead.' This gives them the courage to go on when everything seems to be lost. I think that this is the kind of struggle that we need to make against war, against the destruction of nature."
In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji interview renown scholar, activist, and writer Silvia Federici about her powerful and inspiring collection of essays, Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. These essays, written over the span of several decades, display her abilities to diagnose and indeed predict the most important issues facing us today.
Silvia Federici is a scholar, teacher, and feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science professor. She also taught at the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. In 1972, she co-founded the International Feminist Collective. In 1995, in the course of the campaign to demand the liberation of Mumia Abu-Jamal, she cofounded the Radical Philosophy Association (RPA) anti-death penalty project, an organization intended to help educators become a driving force towards its abolition.
For several decades, Federici has been working in a variety of projects with feminist organizations across the world like Women in Nigeria (WIN), Ni Una Menos, the Argentinian feminist organization; she alsohas been organizing a project with feminist collectives in Spain to reconstruct the history of the women who were persecuted as witches in early modern Europe, and raise consciousness about the contemporary witch-hunts that are taking place across the world.
Federici is considered one of the leading feminist theoreticians in Marxist feminist theory, women’s history, political philosophy, and the history and theory of the commons. Her most famous book, Caliban and the Witch, has been translated in more than 20 foreign languages, and adopted in courses across the U.S. and many other countries. Often described as a counterpoint to Marx’s and Foucault’s account of “primitive accumulation,” Caliban reconstructs the history of capitalism, highlighting the continuity between the capitalist subjugation of women, the slave trade, and the colonization of the Americas. It has been described as the first history of capitalism with women at the center.
www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=961
www.palumbo-liu.com
https://speakingoutofplace.com
https://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20
"And I think the ways that wolves converse with one another, there's also so much there that really conjures the way that we humans do. And I was trying to piece together: why did we feel so threatened by wolves? In part, I think because there's a sort of uncanny mirror that humans have seen in a wolf. And I'll give an example. Wolf packs will form a diversity of family structures very often. So they will have a nuclear family where you'll have two breeders, but they can also have an extended family where there's sort of aunts and uncles in the pack. Or (these are the biologist's names) they'll call it a step-family if a wolf pack welcomes an outside breeder. A foster family, if they welcome another outsider. And I think the way that a pack is its own ecosystem: if one wolf dies, there's one wolf in this pack that might be the one that teaches how to move through the territory. And if that one wolf dies, the whole pack has a much higher likelihood of disbanding. And so this idea that the interconnectivity between the packs and the individuality of the wolves is so critical. It is so beautiful, and you see that studying these different wolves, they have personalities."
The lone wolf is actually alone because it's looking for connection. They leave in order to find a mate and form their own pack. If loneliness is an epidemic, what can wolves teach us about loneliness, courage, and connection?
Erica Berry is the author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear. Her essays in journalism appear in Outside, Wired, The Yale Review, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Guernica, among other publications. Berry has taught workshops for teenagers and adults at Literary Arts, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the New York Times Student Journeys in Oxford Academia.
www.ericaberry.com
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250882264/wolfish
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
The lone wolf is actually alone because it's looking for connection. They leave in order to find a mate and form their own pack. If loneliness is an epidemic, what can wolves teach us about loneliness, courage, and connection?
Erica Berry is the author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear. Her essays in journalism appear in Outside, Wired, The Yale Review, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Guernica, among other publications. Berry has taught workshops for teenagers and adults at Literary Arts, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, the New York Times Student Journeys in Oxford Academia.
"And I think the ways that wolves converse with one another, there's also so much there that really conjures the way that we humans do. And I was trying to piece together: why did we feel so threatened by wolves? In part, I think because there's a sort of uncanny mirror that humans have seen in a wolf. And I'll give an example. Wolf packs will form a diversity of family structures very often. So they will have a nuclear family where you'll have two breeders, but they can also have an extended family where there's sort of aunts and uncles in the pack. Or (these are the biologist's names) they'll call it a step-family if a wolf pack welcomes an outside breeder. A foster family, if they welcome another outsider. And I think the way that a pack is its own ecosystem: if one wolf dies, there's one wolf in this pack that might be the one that teaches how to move through the territory. And if that one wolf dies, the whole pack has a much higher likelihood of disbanding. And so this idea that the interconnectivity between the packs and the individuality of the wolves is so critical. It is so beautiful, and you see that studying these different wolves, they have personalities."
www.ericaberry.com
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250882264/wolfish
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Photo by Andrea Lonas
"It was the Summer Solstice yesterday. And there was this orange burning sun just dipping down below the skyline of the city, and it reflected across three buildings through the glass. This daylight, this last glimmer - or the grimlin, as we call it in Orkney, or the simmer dim - kind of echoing across the glass, reflecting across the glass. And for a moment, we're talking a millisecond, I was on the Highlands. I was back home. And it's those moments, you know, they're everywhere. I love to find that little bit of magic in the everyday."
How has music transported you? Where do you find inspiration from the natural world? Where do you find moments of every day magic?
Erland Cooper is a Scottish composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Stromness, Orkney. He has released three acclaimed studio albums, four additional companion albums, and multiple EPs, including a trilogy of work inspired by his childhood home. His work combines field recordings with traditional orchestration and contemporary electronic elements. Through music words and cinematography, he explores landscape, memory, and identity. Cooper also works across mixed media projects, including installation, art, theater, and film. He is widely known for burying the only existing copy of the master tape of his first classical album in Scotland, deleting all digital files, and leaving only a treasure hunt of clues for fans and his record label alike to search for it. The tape has recently been found.
www.erlandcooper.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
How has music transported you? Where do you find inspiration from the natural world? Where do you find moments of every day magic?
Erland Cooper is a Scottish composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Stromness, Orkney. He has released three acclaimed studio albums, four additional companion albums, and multiple EPs, including a trilogy of work inspired by his childhood home. His work combines field recordings with traditional orchestration and contemporary electronic elements. Through music words and cinematography, he explores landscape, memory, and identity. Cooper also works across mixed media projects, including installation, art, theater, and film. He is widely known for burying the only existing copy of the master tape of his first classical album in Scotland, deleting all digital files, and leaving only a treasure hunt of clues for fans and his record label alike to search for it. The tape has recently been found.
"It was the Summer Solstice yesterday. And there was this orange burning sun just dipping down below the skyline of the city, and it reflected across three buildings through the glass. This daylight, this last glimmer - or the grimlin, as we call it in Orkney, or the simmer dim - kind of echoing across the glass, reflecting across the glass. And for a moment, we're talking a millisecond, I was on the Highlands. I was back home. And it's those moments, you know, they're everywhere. I love to find that little bit of magic in the everyday."
www.erlandcooper.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Photo by Alex Kozobolis
Happy World Oceans Day! Today we’re streaming voices of environmentalists and artists with music courtesy of composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erland Cooper.
Voices on this episode are
GIULIO BOCCALETTI
Author of Water, A Biography
Natural Resource Security & Environmental Sustainability Expert
Chief Strategy Officer 2016–2020, The Nature Conservancy
PAULA PINHO
Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy
RON GONEN
Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners
Fmr. Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC
MARCIA DESANCTIS
Journalist, Essayist,
Author of A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life
JEAN WEINER
Goldman Environmental Prize Winner
Founder of Fondation pour la Protection de la Biodiversité Marine, Haiti
DERRICK EMSLEY
Co-founder & CEO of veritree - Data-driven Restorative Platform & tentree Apparel Co.
DR. FARHANA SULTANA
Co-author: Water Politics: Governance, Justice & the Right to Water
Fmr. UNDP Programme Officer, United Nations Development Programme
NEIL GRIMMER
Brand President of SOURCE Global · Innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel: Drinking Water Made from Sunlight and Air
ALAN JACOBSEN
Director of Photography
Emmy & Sundance Special Jury Award-Winning & Oscar Nominated Documentaries
RICHARD VEVERS
Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency
BRIAN WILCOX
Chief Engineer & Co-founder of Marine BioEnergy
Grows Kelp in the Ocean to Provide Carbon-neutral Fuels
SETH M. SIEGEL
Entrepreneur, Public Speaker & NYTimes Bestselling Author
Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World
Troubled Water: What's Wrong with What We Drink
JOELLE GERGIS
Lead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Author of Humanity’s Moment
JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast
ROB BILOTT
Environmental Lawyer, Partner Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP
Author of Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont
JILL HEINERTH
Explorer, Presenter, Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver
OSPREY ORIELLE LAKE
Founder & Executive Director of the Women's Earth & Climate Action Network International
Author of Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature & Artist
JESS WILBER
International Outreach Citizens’ Climate Lobby
Coordinator, Senior Stewards Acting for the Environment
BERTRAND PICCARD
Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation
IBRAHIM ALHUSSEINI
Founder & CEO of FullCycle Fund
GARY GRIGGS
Global Oceans Hero Award-Winner · Distinguished Professor of Earth Sciences
Director Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz 1991 to 2017
Sample Credits:
BBC News Excerpt, Public broadcast, 19th July. Fair usage, courtesy Simon Gurney, BBC Studios Limited.
BBC News Excerpt, Public broadcast, 19th July. Fair usage, courtesy Simon Gurney, BBC Studios Limited.
UN Broadcast Excerpt, Greta Thunberg, Young Climate Activist at the Opening of the Climate Action Summit 2019, United Nations license 24 October 2022.
CBS News Excerpt 1970. Fair usage, archive courtesy Leah Hodge, CBS
www.erlandcooper.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Artworks by Mia Funk www.miafunk.com
Music from Folded Landscapes courtesy of Erland Cooper and Universal Music Enterprises.
Today we’re streaming voices of environmentalists, students, and teachers with music courtesy of composer Max Richter. All voices in this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast or reflectors of our participating students.
Voices on this episode are
BRITT WRAY
Author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford
JEFFREY SACHS
President of UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Director of Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University
EVELINE MOL, Student Barnard College
BERTRAND PICCARD, Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation
AVA CLANCY, Student
MIRA PATLA, Student
DARA DIAMOND, Student
ARIELLE DAVIS, Student
CLAIRE POTTER, Designer, Lecturer, Author of Welcome to the Circular Economy
MEGAN HEGENBARTH, Participating Student, University of Minnesota
GRACE PHILLIPS, Participating Student, Pitzer College
BIANCA WEBER, Participating Student, Syracuse University
ELLEN EFSTATHIOU, Participating Student, Oberlin College
SURYA VIR, Participating Student, University of Wisconsin-Madison
MACIE PARKER, Participating Student, Boston University
BEILA UNGAR, Participating Student, Columbia University
CARL SAFINA, Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center, Author of “Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace”
Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep.
Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Pablo Hoffman has always been passionate about plants and natural ecosystems, with special appreciation for research and dissemination with practical results for the production and conservation of native species. Pablo graduated in Forestry at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) 2002, had his Master’s in Forestry – UFPR 2014, currently he is a PhD candidate in Forestry. One of the Founders of the Sociedade Chauá, Pablo has been a board member since 2008. Currently is the Executive Director as well Coordinator of the Chauá Nursery of native species. A specialist in conservation, propagation and restoration of rare and endangered species of the Araucaria Forest, whose projects are locally and internationally recognized. As a result of Sociedade’s Chauá efforts to save endangered plant species Pablo was awarded the Marsh Award (2018), Whitley Award (2022), and Guardians of Nature (2022). As a life choice, working with conservation of rare and endangered plant species is the lifeblood of his personal and professional aspirations, to leave a positive legacy for the next generations, keeping the ecosystems alive with humans as part of it.
“We're trying to do a nice thing to save species, but the problem is not ours. I mean it's ours as well, but the problem is a state problem or a countrywide problem. Everybody needs to see this. And also the communication about what we are doing. How hard what we are doing is in terms of even finding these species, and finding funds to keep on going.
Almost 20 years of working with species conservation in a country like Brazil is quite difficult. It's like almost like a miracle that we are still here and keep on going. One of the questions of the Princess was: are you still doing the same? Are you still fighting for this? And she said it because normally people give up. And this is my life. This is my life. I want to leave a legacy, in terms of trying to do something to save this ecosystem, to save the species to make sure that my daughter can see some of the species in the future, and not only my daughter. So that people in the future can see, can discover more species, and can use the species."
www.sociedadechaua.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Ada Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her book Bright Dead Things was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her work has been supported most recently by a Guggenheim Fellowship. She grew up in Sonoma, California and now lives in Lexington, Kentucky where she writes, teaches remotely, and hosts the critically-acclaimed poetry podcast, The Slowdown. Her new book of poetry, The Hurting Kind, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in May 2022.
Photo credit: Lucas Marquardt
www.adalimon.net
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"I think one of the things that we find in our research is, even when people recall their own lifetimes, what are memorable moments for them? They don't recall just the pleasant ones. They also recall the painful ones because both of those have contributed to the narrative of making them who they are. So we do need this disruption, sometimes this variation, something to push against or to bounce off in order to experience, I think, meaning, happiness, fulfillment in life."
Brock Bastian is author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living and a professor at University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences. His research and writing focus on pain, happiness, morality, and wellbeing. In his search for a new perspective on what makes for the good life, Bastian has studied why promoting happiness may have paradoxical effects; why we need negative and painful experiences in life to build meaning, purpose, resilience, and ultimately greater fulfilment in life; and why behavioural ethics is necessary for understanding how we reason about personal and social issues and resolve conflicts of interest.
www.brockbastian.com
www.abebooks.com/9780141982106/Side-Happiness-Embracing-Fearless-Approach-0141982101/plp
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Brock Bastian is author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living and a professor at University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences. His research and writing focus on pain, happiness, morality, and wellbeing. In his search for a new perspective on what makes for the good life, Bastian has studied why promoting happiness may have paradoxical effects; why we need negative and painful experiences in life to build meaning, purpose, resilience, and ultimately greater fulfilment in life; and why behavioural ethics is necessary for understanding how we reason about personal and social issues and resolve conflicts of interest.
"I think one of the things that we find in our research is, even when people recall their own lifetimes, what are memorable moments for them? They don't recall just the pleasant ones. They also recall the painful ones because both of those have contributed to the narrative of making them who they are. So we do need this disruption, sometimes this variation, something to push against or to bounce off in order to experience, I think, meaning, happiness, fulfillment in life."
www.brockbastian.com
www.abebooks.com/9780141982106/Side-Happiness-Embracing-Fearless-Approach-0141982101/plp
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"In On Time and Water, I was invited to interview the Dalai Lama twice. I was thinking, what do you ask a person that has been reincarnated 14 times? I also interviewed lots of scientists, and sometimes the gurus are more rational than scientists, and they talk about climate solutions. And I seek wisdom from my grandparents, and simple friendship and stories. They were both 98 years old, and I would ask them: 'Is 100 years a long time or a short time?' And they would tell me it's a very short time.
And this climate scientist encouraged me to write and said, 'People don't understand data, but they understand stories.' And it's a very strong belief that the artist does have a role in our society. Sometimes he's an entertainer. Sometimes he's just documenting, but sometimes you maybe have a role in a very fundamental shift in our history. I think I could not be a writer here and now in history and not make some effort to address this issue."
Andri Snær Magnason is an award winning author of On Time and Water, The Casket of Time, LoveStar, Dreamland and The Story of the Blue Planet. His work has been published in more than 35 languages. He has a written in most genres, novels, poetry, plays, short stories, non fiction as well as being a documentary film maker. His novel, LoveStar got a Philip K. Dick Special Citation, and the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire in France and “Novel of the year” in Iceland. The Story of the Blue Planet, was the first children’s book to receive the Icelandic Literary Award and has been published or performed in 35 countries. The Blue Planet received the Janusz Korczak Honorary Award in Poland 2000, the UKLA Award in the UK and Children's book of the Year in China. His book – Dreamland – a Self Help Manual for a Frightened Nation takes on these issues and has sold more than 20.000 copies in Iceland. He co directed Dreamland - a feature length documentary film based on the book. Footage from Dreamland and an interview with Andri can be seen in the Oscar Award-winning documentary Inside Job by Charles Ferguson. His most recent book, Tímakistan, the Time Casket has now been published in more than 10 languages, was nominated as the best fantasy book in Finland 2016 with authors like Ursula K. le Guin and David Mitchell. In English six books are currently available: Bónus Poetry, The Story of The Blue Planet, LoveStar, Dreamland and The Casket of Time, (Tímakistan) and On Time and Water.
www.andrimagnason.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Andri Snær Magnason is an award winning author of On Time and Water, The Casket of Time, LoveStar, Dreamland and The Story of the Blue Planet. His work has been published in more than 35 languages. He has a written in most genres, novels, poetry, plays, short stories, non fiction as well as being a documentary film maker. His novel, LoveStar got a Philip K. Dick Special Citation, and the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire in France and “Novel of the year” in Iceland. The Story of the Blue Planet, was the first children’s book to receive the Icelandic Literary Award and has been published or performed in 35 countries. The Blue Planet received the Janusz Korczak Honorary Award in Poland 2000, the UKLA Award in the UK and Children's book of the Year in China. His book – Dreamland – a Self Help Manual for a Frightened Nation takes on these issues and has sold more than 20.000 copies in Iceland. He co directed Dreamland - a feature length documentary film based on the book. Footage from Dreamland and an interview with Andri can be seen in the Oscar Award-winning documentary Inside Job by Charles Ferguson. His most recent book, Tímakistan, the Time Casket has now been published in more than 10 languages, was nominated as the best fantasy book in Finland 2016 with authors like Ursula K. le Guin and David Mitchell. In English six books are currently available: Bónus Poetry, The Story of The Blue Planet, LoveStar, Dreamland and The Casket of Time, (Tímakistan) and On Time and Water.
"In On Time and Water, I was invited to interview the Dalai Lama twice. I was thinking, what do you ask a person that has been reincarnated 14 times? I also interviewed lots of scientists, and sometimes the gurus are more rational than scientists, and they talk about climate solutions. And I seek wisdom from my grandparents, and simple friendship and stories. They were both 98 years old, and I would ask them: 'Is 100 years a long time or a short time?' And they would tell me it's a very short time.
And this climate scientist encouraged me to write and said, 'People don't understand data, but they understand stories.' And it's a very strong belief that the artist does have a role in our society. Sometimes he's an entertainer. Sometimes he's just documenting, but sometimes you maybe have a role in a very fundamental shift in our history. I think I could not be a writer here and now in history and not make some effort to address this issue."
www.andrimagnason.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"I think one thing that is not talked about enough is the importance of the arts and the importance of the humanities. And on the university level, the defunding of these sorts of programs and the kind of devaluing of that knowledge is an enormous loss. The arts are what tell us who we are. They're for the soul and they make being alive worthwhile. And the importance of making connections and finding a way to reach others and communicate and connect by trying to be honest and complicated and complex - because I truly believe that without those things, whatever future we can imagine for ourselves is going to be paltry. And it won't be imaginative. And without the humanities and the arts, it doesn't make me feel hopeful about the future."
Madeleine Watts is an Australian writer based in New York. Her first novel The Inland Sea was published in 2020 and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing. Her essays and stories have been published in Harper’s Magazine, The Believer, The Guardian, The White Review, and The Paris Review Daily, among others. She teaches creative writing at Columbia University in New York. Her second novel, Elegy, Southwest, is forthcoming.
www.madeleinewatts.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/667704/the-inland-sea-by-madeleine-watts
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Madeleine Watts is an Australian writer based in New York. Her first novel The Inland Sea was published in 2020 and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing. Her essays and stories have been published in Harper’s Magazine, The Believer, The Guardian, The White Review, and The Paris Review Daily, among others. She teaches creative writing at Columbia University in New York. Her second novel, Elegy, Southwest, is forthcoming.
"I think one thing that is not talked about enough is the importance of the arts and the importance of the humanities. And on the university level, the defunding of these sorts of programs and the kind of devaluing of that knowledge is an enormous loss. The arts are what tell us who we are. They're for the soul and they make being alive worthwhile. And the importance of making connections and finding a way to reach others and communicate and connect by trying to be honest and complicated and complex - because I truly believe that without those things, whatever future we can imagine for ourselves is going to be paltry. And it won't be imaginative. And without the humanities and the arts, it doesn't make me feel hopeful about the future."
www.madeleinewatts.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/667704/the-inland-sea-by-madeleine-watts
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"Whenever we are conscious, we are conscious of something, or of many things. These are the contents of consciousness. To understand how they come about, and what I mean by controlled hallucination, let's change our perspective. Imagine for a moment, that you are the brain.
Really try to think about what it's like up there, sealed inside the bony vault of a skull, trying to figure out what's out there in the world. There's no light, no sound, no anything - it's completely dark and utterly silent. When trying to form perceptions, all the brain has to go on is a constant barrage of electrical signals, which are only indirectly related to things out there in the world, whatever they may be. These sensory inputs don't come with labels attached... How does the brain transform these inherently ambiguous sensory signals into a coherent perceptual world full of objects and people, and places?"
– ANIL SETH
Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
Anil Seth is a neuroscientist, author, and public speaker who has pioneered research into the brain basis of consciousness for more than twenty years. He is the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, as well as the best-selling 30 Second Brain, and other books. He is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is Co-Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science, and is Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. He has a TED talk on consciousness and appeared in several films, including The Most Unknown and The Search. He has written for Aeon, The Guardian, Granta, New Scientist, and Scientific American. He was the 2017 President of the British Science Association (Psychology Section) and winner of the 2019 KidSpirit Perspectives award. He has published more than 180 academic papers and is listed in 2019 and 2020 Web of Science ‘highly cited researcher’ index, which recognizes the world’s most influential researchers over the past decade.
www.anilseth.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566315/being-you-by-anil-seth
https://perceptioncensus.dreamachine.world/
https://dreamachine.world/
@anilkseth
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Anil Seth is a neuroscientist, author, and public speaker who has pioneered research into the brain basis of consciousness for more than twenty years. He is the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, as well as the best-selling 30 Second Brain, and other books. He is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is Co-Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science, and is Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. He has a TED talk on consciousness and appeared in several films, including The Most Unknown and The Search. He has written for Aeon, The Guardian, Granta, New Scientist, and Scientific American. He was the 2017 President of the British Science Association (Psychology Section) and winner of the 2019 KidSpirit Perspectives award. He has published more than 180 academic papers and is listed in 2019 and 2020 Web of Science ‘highly cited researcher’ index, which recognizes the world’s most influential researchers over the past decade.
"Whenever we are conscious, we are conscious of something, or of many things. These are the contents of consciousness. To understand how they come about, and what I mean by controlled hallucination, let's change our perspective. Imagine for a moment, that you are the brain.
Really try to think about what it's like up there, sealed inside the bony vault of a skull, trying to figure out what's out there in the world. There's no light, no sound, no anything - it's completely dark and utterly silent. When trying to form perceptions, all the brain has to go on is a constant barrage of electrical signals, which are only indirectly related to things out there in the world, whatever they may be. These sensory inputs don't come with labels attached... How does the brain transform these inherently ambiguous sensory signals into a coherent perceptual world full of objects and people, and places?"
– ANIL SETH
Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
www.anilseth.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566315/being-you-by-anil-seth
https://perceptioncensus.dreamachine.world/
https://dreamachine.world/
@anilkseth
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Listen to Part 4 of this Special Series with music courtesy of composer Max Richter. All voices on this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast:
INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder & President of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
JEFFREY D. SACHS, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Director of Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University, Economist, Author
JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry
MERLIN SHELDRAKE, Biologist & Bestselling Author of “Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures”, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021
WALTER STAHEL, Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy, Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute
ARMOND COHEN, Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force
PIA MANCINI, Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation, YGL World Economic Forum
RON GONEN, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners, Former Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC
AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL, Poet & Author of “World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks and Other Astonishments”
ANA CASTILLO, Award-Winning Xicana Activist, Editor, Poet, Novelist & Artist
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
www.maxrichtermusic.com
https://studiorichtermahr.com
Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep.
Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.
Artwork: Saudade, Mia Funk
Listen to Part 3 of this Special Series with music courtesy of composer Max Richter.
Voices on this episode:
PAULA PINHO, Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy
PIA MANCINI, Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation, YGL World Economic Forum
JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry
WALTER STAHEL, Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy, Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute
MERLIN SHELDRAKE, Biologist & Bestselling Author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021
RON GONEN, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners, Former Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC
MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO, Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize, Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale, Visual Arts & Architecture Dept.
NICHOLAS ROYLE, Co-author of "An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory”, Author of “Mother: A Memoir”
MARK BURGMAN, Director, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, Editor-in-Chief, Conservation Biology
MIKE DAVIS, CEO of Global Witness
JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast
BRITT WRAY, Author of “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”, Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford University
RICHARD VEVERS, Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency
ARMOND COHEN, Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force
BILL HARE, Founder & CEO of Climate Analytics, Physicist, Climate Scientist
DAVID PALUMBO-LIU, Activist, Professor & Author of “Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back”, Host of Speaking out of Place Podcast
IBRAHIM ALHUSSEINI, Founder & CEO of FullCycle Fund
GAIA VINCE, Science Writer, Broadcaster & Author of “Transcendence” & “Adventures in the Anthropocene”
INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder & President of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
www.maxrichtermusic.com
https://studiorichtermahr.com
Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep.
Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.
"And so there's always that element of doubt. It's like, I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to tell you everything I know, but I don't know everything. And that little area creates a vibration that can run very deep because you can have that about your entire spiritual experience of life where you go on, I think this, I feel this, or I believe this, but I don't, I don't ultimately really know. And if you are very invested, the way Sister Aloysius (the older nun) is in her faith and her worldview and how she operates. For her to admit that she has doubt is an earthquake under the whole culture. And it's something that I think the whole culture has experienced."
John Patrick Shanley is from The Bronx. His plays include Prodigal Son, Outside Mullingar (Tony nomination), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, Italian-American Reconciliation, Welcome to the Moon, Four Dogs and a Bone, Dirty Story, Defiance, and Beggars in the House of Plenty. His theatrical work is performed extensively across the United States and around the world. For his play, Doubt, he received both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the arena of screenwriting, he has ten films to his credit, most recently Wild Mountain Thyme, with Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, and Christopher Walken. His film of Doubt, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis, which he also directed, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay. Other films include Five Corners (Special Jury Prize, Barcelona Film Festival), Alive, Joe Versus the Volcano (which he also directed), and Live From Baghdad for HBO (Emmy nomination). For his script of Moonstruck he received both the Writers Guild of America Award and an Academy Award for best original screenplay. In 2009, The Writers Guild of America awarded Mr. Shanley the Lifetime Achievement In Writing.
www.imdb.com/name/nm0788234
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
John Patrick Shanley is from The Bronx. His plays include Prodigal Son, Outside Mullingar (Tony nomination), Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, Italian-American Reconciliation, Welcome to the Moon, Four Dogs and a Bone, Dirty Story, Defiance, and Beggars in the House of Plenty. His theatrical work is performed extensively across the United States and around the world. For his play, Doubt, he received both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the arena of screenwriting, he has ten films to his credit, most recently Wild Mountain Thyme, with Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, and Christopher Walken. His film of Doubt, with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis, which he also directed, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay. Other films include Five Corners (Special Jury Prize, Barcelona Film Festival), Alive, Joe Versus the Volcano (which he also directed), and Live From Baghdad for HBO (Emmy nomination). For his script of Moonstruck he received both the Writers Guild of America Award and an Academy Award for best original screenplay. In 2009, The Writers Guild of America awarded Mr. Shanley the Lifetime Achievement In Writing.
"And so there's always that element of doubt. It's like, I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to tell you everything I know, but I don't know everything. And that little area creates a vibration that can run very deep because you can have that about your entire spiritual experience of life where you go on, I think this, I feel this, or I believe this, but I don't, I don't ultimately really know. And if you are very invested, the way Sister Aloysius (the older nun) is in her faith and her worldview and how she operates. For her to admit that she has doubt is an earthquake under the whole culture. And it's something that I think the whole culture has experienced."
www.imdb.com/name/nm0788234
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Listen to Part 2 of this Special Series with music courtesy of composer Max Richter.
Voices on this episode:
MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO - Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize - Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale, Visual Arts & Architecture Dept.
BRITT WRAY - Author of “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”, Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford University
WALTER STAHEL - Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy - Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute
MATHIS WACKERNAGEL - Founder & President of the Global Footprint Network - World Sustainability Award Winner
JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast
RICHARD VEVERS - Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency
ARMOND COHEN - Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force
PAULA PINHO - Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy
MARTIN VON HILDEBRAND - Indigenous Rights Activist - Winner of Right Livelihood & Skoll Awards - Founder of Fundacion Gaia Amazonas, named #40 NGOs of the World by The Global Journal
HAROLD P. SJURSEN - Professor of Philosophy - Science, Technology, the Arts - NYU, Beihang University, East China University
BILL HARE - Founder & CEO of Climate Analytics, Physicist, Climate Scientist
SIR ANDY HAINES - Tyler Prize Award-winner for Environmental Achievement - Professor of Environmental Change & Public Health
LISA JACKSON PULVER - Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University of Sydney's Indigenous Strategy & Services
Max Richter’s music featured in this episode:
“Spring 1” from The New Four Seasons – Vivaldi Recomposed
Vladimir’s Blues” from The Blue Notebooks
"Lullaby From The Westcoast Sleepers” from 24 Postcards in Full Colour,
Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.
www.maxrichtermusic.com
https://studiorichtermahr.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Today we’re streaming voices of environmentalists, artists, students, and teachers. Enjoy Part 1 of this Special Series with music courtesy of composer Max Richter.
Voices on this episode are
MAX RICHTER
INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder of PETA
BERTRAND PICCARD, Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation
CARL SAFINA, Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center
CLAIRE POTTER, Designer, Lecturer, Author of “Welcome to the Circular Economy”
ADA LIMÓN, U.S. Poet Laureate, Host of The Slowdown podcast
CYNTHIA DANIELS, Grammy and Emmy award-winning producer, engineer, composer
JOELLE GERGIS, Lead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Author of “Humanity’s Moment”
KATHLEEN ROGERS, President of EARTHDAY.ORG
ODED GALOR, Author of “The Journey of Humanity”, Founder of Unified Growth Theory
SIR GEOFF MULGAN, Fmr. Chief Executive of Nesta, Fmr, Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit Director & Downing Street’s Head of Policy, Author of “Another World is Possible”
ALAIN ROBERT, Rock & Urban Climber known for Free Solo Climbing 150+ of the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers using no Climbing Equipment
NOAH WILSON-RICH, Co-founder & CEO of The Best Bees Company
CHRIS FUNK, Director of the Climate Hazards Center at UC Santa Barbara, Author of Drought, Flood, Fire: How Climate Change Contributes to Recent Catastrophes
DAVID FARRIER, Author of “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils”
DR. SUZANNE SIMARD, Professor of Forest Ecology, Author of “Finding the Mother Tree”
PETER SINGER, “Most Influential Living Philosopher”, Author, Founder of The Life You Can Save
JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
www.maxrichtermusic.com
https://studiorichtermahr.com
Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep.
Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.
“For me, the creative process is a sort of a continuous thing in the sense that I'm writing kind of all the time, at some level. And that doesn't mean I'm sitting at my desk all the time, but it does mean that I've got a continuous thought process, a continuous engagement with the material I'm trying to shape. And it's many different kinds of processes. First of all, obviously an intention. You need to have an intention. What is it I'm trying to do? But then you get a process of making things, and then you get into a process of dialogue with the things you've made where they start to take on properties and it feels like the material has intentions of its own.
So then you are trying to - it's like herding cats, you know? - sort of corralling this material into some kind of structure, some kind of formed object. Then it becomes like a sculptural process on the large scale.”
Composer Max Richter is known for his ability to translate profound human emotions into music. Max’s record Sleep is the most streamed classical album of all time and his catalogue has surpassed 3 billion streams.
A prolific collaborator, he scored and performed for Kim Jones for the Dior shows, and the new Wayne McGregor and Margaret Atwood ballet MADDADDAM, and arts collective Random International on the Rain Room installation.
Max has collaborated with film directors Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese, and Ari Folman, and scored film & TV including Ad Astra, Black Mirror, Shutter Island, The Leftovers, Arrival and his Emmy-nominated score for Taboo.
He’s the co-founder of Studio Richter Mahr, with his partner and artist Yulia Mahr in Oxfordshire, UK. Max and Yulia built the studio around an old tractor barn, and have powered it with cutting-edge solar and heat-pump technology. It’s a haven for their family and community of musicians and artists which regularly come through. Set within 31 acres of woodland, Max and Yulia have a huge passion for using the land to farm and provide a sustainable working environment as well as using creativity as an elevating force within society. Operating as a free space for artists to develop their work, the studio also works with local partners to support the local community.
www.maxrichtermusic.com
https://studiorichtermahr.com
Photo by William Waterworth
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Max Richter’s music featured in this episode is "On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks.
Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.
Composer Max Richter is known for his ability to translate profound human emotions into music. Max’s record Sleep is the most streamed classical album of all time and his catalogue has surpassed 3 billion streams.
A prolific collaborator, he scored and performed for Kim Jones for the Dior shows, and the new Wayne McGregor and Margaret Atwood ballet MADDADDAM, and arts collective Random International on the Rain Room installation.
Max has collaborated with film directors Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese, and Ari Folman, and scored film & TV including Ad Astra, Black Mirror, Shutter Island, The Leftovers, Arrival and his Emmy-nominated score for Taboo.
He’s the co-founder of Studio Richter Mahr, with his partner and artist Yulia Mahr in Oxfordshire, UK. Max and Yulia built the studio around an old tractor barn, and have powered it with cutting-edge solar and heat-pump technology. It’s a haven for their family and community of musicians and artists which regularly come through. Set within 31 acres of woodland, Max and Yulia have a huge passion for using the land to farm and provide a sustainable working environment as well as using creativity as an elevating force within society. Operating as a free space for artists to develop their work, the studio also works with local partners to support the local community.
“For me, the creative process is a sort of a continuous thing in the sense that I'm writing kind of all the time, at some level. And that doesn't mean I'm sitting at my desk all the time, but it does mean that I've got a continuous thought process, a continuous engagement with the material I'm trying to shape. And it's many different kinds of processes. First of all, obviously an intention. You need to have an intention. What is it I'm trying to do? But then you get a process of making things, and then you get into a process of dialogue with the things you've made where they start to take on properties and it feels like the material has intentions of its own.
So then you are trying to - it's like herding cats, you know? - sort of corralling this material into some kind of structure, some kind of formed object. Then it becomes like a sculptural process on the large scale.”
www.maxrichtermusic.com
https://studiorichtermahr.com
Photo by William Waterworth
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"So social animals need to be connected. Lonely animals show chronic stress responses and die earlier if these needs are not met. Now, what are our concrete, non-negotiable needs? How many friends are enough to keep our default stress response down? Our social media needs, the need to talk, touch, and so on? And what physical spaces do we exactly need? How much nature do we need to be in? Stress science needs to stop studying stressors and focus on what we need to be healthy. Finally, this is not only health. It reduces our general performance, our cognitive flexibility, our creativity and exploration, our mood, and our libido."
Dr. JF Brosschot is a professor of health psychology at Leiden University. He is one of the first to show that stress affects the immune system. Through his research of psychophysiological mechanisms of stress in daily life, while researching stress as a worldwide epidemic, Brosschot also recognizes the importance of where all this stress stems from and why this is happening. Now, his specific inquiry of how unconscious and prolonged physiological stress responses affect our mental and physical well-being has opened up the conversation to mental health and its tangible effects.
www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/jos-brosschot
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Dr. JF Brosschot is a professor of health psychology at Leiden University. He is one of the first to show that stress affects the immune system. Through his research of psychophysiological mechanisms of stress in daily life, while researching stress as a worldwide epidemic, Brosschot also recognizes the importance of where all this stress stems from and why this is happening. Now, his specific inquiry of how unconscious and prolonged physiological stress responses affect our mental and physical well-being has opened up the conversation to mental health and its tangible effects.
"So social animals need to be connected. Lonely animals show chronic stress responses and die earlier if these needs are not met. Now, what are our concrete, non-negotiable needs? How many friends are enough to keep our default stress response down? Our social media needs, the need to talk, touch, and so on? And what physical spaces do we exactly need? How much nature do we need to be in? Stress science needs to stop studying stressors and focus on what we need to be healthy. Finally, this is not only health. It reduces our general performance, our cognitive flexibility, our creativity and exploration, our mood, and our libido."
www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/jos-brosschot
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
00:25 JERICHO BROWN - Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet, Author of “The Tradition” & “The New Testament”
00:39 JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”
01:02 ALICE FULTON - Poet - Recipient of MacArthur “Genius”, NEA & Guggenheim Fellowships
01:31 BERTRAND PICCARD - Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation: 1000+ Profitable Climate Solutions
02:31 CHRIS BLACKWELL - Founder of Island Records - Bob Marley, U2, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Roxy Music, Amy Winehouse…Author of “The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond"
03:31 ALICE NOTLEY - Poet & Artist - Academy of American Poets Award Winner
04:08 MIA FUNK - Artist, Writer & Host of The Creative Process reads “In My Dreams"
04:45 MAX STOSSEL - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Speaker - Creator of "Words That Move”
05:04 GERALD FLEMING - Poet, Author of the collections “The Choreographer”, “One”, “Night of Pure Breathing”, among others
05:29 MARGO BERDESHEVSKY - Award-winning Poet - "Kneel Said the Night”,"Before The Drought”, “Between Soul & Stone”
05:56 SAM LEVY - Award-winning Cinematographer of “Lady Bird” “Frances Ha” “While We’re Young” “Confess, Fletch”
06:31 CHAYSE IRVIN - Award-winning Cinematographer - “Blonde" starring Ana de Armas, “Beyonce: Lemonade”, Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman”
06:57 KARINA MANASHIL - President of Mad Solar - Creative Confidante for Kid Cudi - Executive Producer of Netflix’s “Entergalactic”, A24’s “Pearl”, “X”
07:37 CARL SAFINA - Ecologist - Founding President of Safina Center - NYTimes Bestselling Author of “Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace”, among others
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Flower Duet - Leo Delibes
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Conducted by Philip Milman https://pmmusic.pro/
“The history of the film Dream is I was contacted by an advertising agency a number of years ago that had a client who was an animation company that wanted to do a short animation on wildlife. So we met and we discussed how long this would be, and what the content would be. And they said, "Choose several species that are impacted right now." And we chose the baby harp seal because Canada in their great wisdom decided to start hunting baby seals again in eastern Canada. A rhino was chosen because, at that time, rhino poaching was the highest level it had ever been in history. I think more than 2,000 rhinos were killed that year just in South Africa alone, not even counting other countries. We chose to the humpback whale because some imbecile within the United States government decided that there were enough humpback whales now that we could start resuming whale hunting in this country. And the pelican was chosen because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which had devastating consequences. And we still have those consequences today. The oil is still there. It's just under the sand. It's not like all the oil has been cleaned up. We were very fortunate that that animation was presented at Cannes that year and it won two awards, a Golden Lion and a Silver Lion Award.”
Christopher J. Gervais is an award winning producer. His animated film Dream won a 2017 Golden Lion for film and a Silver Lion for music at the 64th Annual International Festival of Creativity. He is environmental and marine scientist and has decades of experience in field work and research with multiple academic institutions and natural history museums. A former science and social studies teacher, later an administrator, he became the youngest principal of a public school in the state of Florida. While a graduate student, Christopher conducted fieldwork and research to study the Pleistocene Mega fauna and their fossils that were deposited over 10,000 years ago. His study of these extinct species informs his concerns for preserving biodiversity and was a significant factor in the founding of the WCFF. Christopher was one of the first scientists to conduct underwater vertebrate paleontology research. He is a professional, advanced scuba diver with NAUI, PADI, SSI and NASDS with over 2,500 logged dives. Christopher founded the WCFF in 2010 using his life savings to get the organization off the ground and has maintained the operations since then. He is a philanthropic supporter of conservation organizations across the globe. Christopher is President of the International Exploration Society, Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, member of the Ocean Geographic Society, friend of American Philosophical Society.
www.wcff.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Christopher J. Gervais is an award winning producer. His animated film Dream won a 2017 Golden Lion for film and a Silver Lion for music at the 64th Annual International Festival of Creativity. He is environmental and marine scientist and has decades of experience in field work and research with multiple academic institutions and natural history museums. A former science and social studies teacher, later an administrator, he became the youngest principal of a public school in the state of Florida. While a graduate student, Christopher conducted fieldwork and research to study the Pleistocene Mega fauna and their fossils that were deposited over 10,000 years ago. His study of these extinct species informs his concerns for preserving biodiversity and was a significant factor in the founding of the WCFF. Christopher was one of the first scientists to conduct underwater vertebrate paleontology research. He is a professional, advanced scuba diver with NAUI, PADI, SSI and NASDS with over 2,500 logged dives. Christopher founded the WCFF in 2010 using his life savings to get the organization off the ground and has maintained the operations since then. He is a philanthropic supporter of conservation organizations across the globe. Christopher is President of the International Exploration Society, Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, member of the Ocean Geographic Society, friend of American Philosophical Society.
“The history of the film Dream is I was contacted by an advertising agency a number of years ago that had a client who was an animation company that wanted to do a short animation on wildlife. So we met and we discussed how long this would be, and what the content would be. And they said, "Choose several species that are impacted right now." And we chose the baby harp seal because Canada in their great wisdom decided to start hunting baby seals again in eastern Canada. A rhino was chosen because, at that time, rhino poaching was the highest level it had ever been in history. I think more than 2,000 rhinos were killed that year just in South Africa alone, not even counting other countries. We chose to the humpback whale because some imbecile within the United States government decided that there were enough humpback whales now that we could start resuming whale hunting in this country. And the pelican was chosen because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which had devastating consequences. And we still have those consequences today. The oil is still there. It's just under the sand. It's not like all the oil has been cleaned up. We were very fortunate that that animation was presented at Cannes that year and it won two awards, a Golden Lion and a Silver Lion Award.”
www.wcff.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“So I think this is like the same as it has been forever. This is not new. Centuries and centuries ago we had the same challenges. This all starts with how you behave. And so I think it starts there.
And then I would say there are a lot of really good tooling that we can still use. If you remember, your generation has been so good at using tooling to hack and troll governments and politicians. And I am in awe. I mean, talk about hack the system. You are like the new Anonymous, and I love that. Like I am right there with you. I don't even use TikTok, but if you want me to use TikTok for something, I will. So just keep using social media to troll the trolls. I think that is a very important thing that you can do and occupy that space. And then lastly, build alternatives and support alternatives. We have distributed social media projects. We have New_ Public, which is this amazing group in the United States that is like designing public spaces and rethinking digital spaces and they're incredible. Support those projects. Support everyone who's building distributed mesh infrastructure. If there's a generation that is multiplayer, it is you guys. And so you need to play in all these different games at the same time and build the alternative while you are using whatever you have at your hands to make sure that we are pushing for our agenda.
I think it's fundamental that we figure out a way of doing this. I think it's absolutely wrong and unfair that those who are about to leave this Earth are the ones making decisions for those staying on Earth. That doesn't make any sense. So, how do we do it? I am not the right person for doing policy. I'm a systems thinker, so I think about systems, but how we implement the policy for that, I don't know. I do know that philosophically we must include everyone who shares this planet with us in the decision-making process.
It starts with different levels. It starts with how you react when you read something. It starts with each of us personally, how we behave and how we act on social media, and educating ourselves on misinformation and disinformation tactics to be able to see them and not be part of that hyper-reactionary movement where everything is like a disaster, or we react every time we feel like offended by everything.”
Pia Mancini is a democracy activist, political scientist, open source sustainer, co-founder & CEO at Open Collective and Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation. She has worked in politics in Argentina as the Chief of Advisers and Deputy Secretary of Political Affairs, Government of the City of Buenos Aires and CIPPEC think tank. She has developed technology for democracy around the world and is a YC Alum, Young Global Leaders (World Economic Forum). She co-founded DemocracyOS & The Net Party (Partido de la Red).
www.piamancini.com
https://opencollective.com
https://democracy.earth
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Pia Mancini is a democracy activist, political scientist, open source sustainer, co-founder & CEO at Open Collective and Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation. She has worked in politics in Argentina as the Chief of Advisers and Deputy Secretary of Political Affairs, Government of the City of Buenos Aires and CIPPEC think tank. She has developed technology for democracy around the world and is a YC Alum, Young Global Leaders (World Economic Forum). She co-founded DemocracyOS & The Net Party (Partido de la Red).
“So I think this is like the same as it has been forever. This is not new. Centuries and centuries ago we had the same challenges. This all starts with how you behave. And so I think it starts there.
And then I would say there are a lot of really good tooling that we can still use. If you remember, your generation has been so good at using tooling to hack and troll governments and politicians. And I am in awe. I mean, talk about hack the system. You are like the new Anonymous, and I love that. Like I am right there with you. I don't even use TikTok, but if you want me to use TikTok for something, I will. So just keep using social media to troll the trolls. I think that is a very important thing that you can do and occupy that space. And then lastly, build alternatives and support alternatives. We have distributed social media projects. We have New_ Public, which is this amazing group in the United States that is like designing public spaces and rethinking digital spaces and they're incredible. Support those projects. Support everyone who's building distributed mesh infrastructure. If there's a generation that is multiplayer, it is you guys. And so you need to play in all these different games at the same time and build the alternative while you are using whatever you have at your hands to make sure that we are pushing for our agenda.
I think it's fundamental that we figure out a way of doing this. I think it's absolutely wrong and unfair that those who are about to leave this Earth are the ones making decisions for those staying on Earth. That doesn't make any sense. So, how do we do it? I am not the right person for doing policy. I'm a systems thinker, so I think about systems, but how we implement the policy for that, I don't know. I do know that philosophically we must include everyone who shares this planet with us in the decision-making process.
It starts with different levels. It starts with how you react when you read something. It starts with each of us personally, how we behave and how we act on social media, and educating ourselves on misinformation and disinformation tactics to be able to see them and not be part of that hyper-reactionary movement where everything is like a disaster, or we react every time we feel like offended by everything.”
www.piamancini.com
https://opencollective.com
https://democracy.earth
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver is a proud Aboriginal woman with connections to communities in southwestern New South Wales, South Australia, and beyond. She is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Indigenous Strategy and Services for the University of Sydney and leads the institution's strategy to advance Indigenous participation, engagement, education, and research, including the university's One Sydney, Many People 2021-2024 strategy.
She is a recognized expert and tireless advocate for health and education. Her research focuses on capacity building for healthcare workers and improved health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. She serves her country in the Royal Australian Air Force Specialist Reserve as a Group Captain and is a member of the Australian Statistical Advisory Committee, the Australian Medical Council, and the Health Performance Council of South Australia.
"So I think for me, there is an agency in having control over your own learning and really crappy things can happen to you, but it's really about what you can do with those. It's really about recognizing that, you know, there is an opportunity in everything. And for me, that opportunity was to escape at 14, and whilst on the streets, I thought, well, I can either live on the streets and do lots of drugs or become a sex worker...Neither of those things were what I wanted to do. What I really wanted to do was to become a social worker or become a nurse, or become someone who could help others out of this. But first I had to lift myself out of this. So, when I look back at my 14-year-old self and my 15-year-old self and 16 and 17-year-old self, I just cannot believe the wisdom I had then. And sometimes I think about things, and I wonder. I know I'm still not as wise now as I was then in some things. So, yeah, it's pretty interesting."
www.sydney.edu.au
www.sydney.edu.au/content/dam/corporate/documents/about-us/values-and-visions/one-sydney-many-people-digital.pdf
Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on Leaders, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk www.oneplanetpodcast.org
“That's the thing that contributes most to a film is just really giving it your all. That's all I can do on a movie. I can't really make a movie good or not because that's decided by the spectator. That's not in my control. All I can do is give it everything that I have. Like that's just the love I have to give. So why bring in all these other things? Just set it up so you can give it everything that you've got each time. In those theoretical considerations about how a scene can function or be rendered or shot or executed or all these things, just think of it as, 'Oh, this is the challenge.' I want authenticity. How do we create an environment where that's more likely to happen? Because it's never going to be something that I can enforce, and the more I try to enforce it, the less likely it'll happen. So it's very tricky.
It's luck. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. There's definitely times where I think back, like I would have liked to have done that differently. But that's always going to be the feeling, no matter how well you do it, you know?”
Chase Irvin is a Canadian American cinematographer making waves in the film industry. Chayse has received immense critical acclaim for his vision and style. He has worked on features, shorts, and visual albums, most notably in his collaboration with Director Kahlil Joseph on the film Beyoncé: Lemonade. He lensed Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which received 6 Academy Award nominations, winning for best adapted screenplay. Chayse’s first feature film Medeas won the prestigious Best Cinematography Debut at the Camerimage Film Festival in 2013. Hannah, starring Charlotte Rampling, won a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival. Chase is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. His latest films are Netflix’s Blonde starring Ana de Armas and A24’s God's Creatures starring Emily Watson.
www.chayseirvin.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Chase Irvin is a Canadian American cinematographer making waves in the film industry. Chayse has received immense critical acclaim for his vision and style. He has worked on features, shorts, and visual albums, most notably in his collaboration with Director Kahlil Joseph on the film Beyoncé: Lemonade. He lensed Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which received 6 Academy Award nominations, winning for best adapted screenplay. Chayse’s first feature film Medeas won the prestigious Best Cinematography Debut at the Camerimage Film Festival in 2013. Hannah, starring Charlotte Rampling, won a Silver Hugo from the Chicago International Film Festival. Chase is a member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. His latest films are Netflix’s Blonde starring Ana de Armas and A24’s God's Creatures starring Emily Watson.
“That's the thing that contributes most to a film is just really giving it your all. That's all I can do on a movie. I can't really make a movie good or not because that's decided by the spectator. That's not in my control. All I can do is give it everything that I have. Like that's just the love I have to give. So why bring in all these other things? Just set it up so you can give it everything that you've got each time. In those theoretical considerations about how a scene can function or be rendered or shot or executed or all these things, just think of it as, 'Oh, this is the challenge.' I want authenticity. How do we create an environment where that's more likely to happen? Because it's never going to be something that I can enforce, and the more I try to enforce it, the less likely it'll happen. So it's very tricky.
It's luck. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. There's definitely times where I think back, like I would have liked to have done that differently. But that's always going to be the feeling, no matter how well you do it, you know?”
www.chayseirvin.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“I think we have become quite disconnected. We should become more connected to rethink how to communicate and how to learn from the past. And how to use this incredible cultural heritage that we have and how to make it alive and how to translate it into our own times. We want to expand the tools. So maybe to become a little bit more open and imaginative in creating bridges between different fields of knowledge, different methods of teaching and learning, and different ways to transmit knowledge.
We should all learn to be sustainable in our daily life and find the beauty in what proves to be sustainable. And we really need to start shifting our way of looking at things because sometimes sustainability, which is a priority right now, doesn't really coincide with let's say the cheapest solution or the best economical solution. But we have to decide our priorities. So the priority now is sustainability. We have to start to think about that. If I think back to the most recent winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, I can see a lot of really groundbreaking innovative practices being brought to the forefront.”
Manuela Lucá-Dazio is the newly appointed Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In this capacity, she works closely with the jury, however, she does not vote in the proceedings. She is the former Executive Director, Department of Visual Arts and Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia, where she managed exhibitions with distinguished curators, architects, artists, and critics to realize the International Art Exhibition and the International Architecture Exhibition, each edition since 2009. Preceding that, she was responsible for the technical organization and production of both Exhibitions, beginning in 1999. She holds a PhD in History of Architecture from the University of Roma-Chieti, Italy and lives in Paris, France.
www.pritzkerprize.com
www.pritzkerprize.com/jury#jury-node-2236
www.labiennale.org/en
Photo credits: Anselm Kiefer, Sylviane Sarfati
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Manuela Lucá-Dazio is the newly appointed Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In this capacity, she works closely with the jury, however, she does not vote in the proceedings. She is the former Executive Director, Department of Visual Arts and Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia, where she managed exhibitions with distinguished curators, architects, artists, and critics to realize the International Art Exhibition and the International Architecture Exhibition, each edition since 2009. Preceding that, she was responsible for the technical organization and production of both Exhibitions, beginning in 1999. She holds a PhD in History of Architecture from the University of Roma-Chieti, Italy and lives in Paris, France.
“I think we have become quite disconnected. We should become more connected to rethink how to communicate and how to learn from the past. And how to use this incredible cultural heritage that we have and how to make it alive and how to translate it into our own times. We want to expand the tools. So maybe to become a little bit more open and imaginative in creating bridges between different fields of knowledge, different methods of teaching and learning, and different ways to transmit knowledge.
We should all learn to be sustainable in our daily life and find the beauty in what proves to be sustainable. And we really need to start shifting our way of looking at things because sometimes sustainability, which is a priority right now, doesn't really coincide with let's say the cheapest solution or the best economical solution. But we have to decide our priorities. So the priority now is sustainability. We have to start to think about that. If I think back to the most recent winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, I can see a lot of really groundbreaking innovative practices being brought to the forefront.”
www.pritzkerprize.com
www.pritzkerprize.com/jury#jury-node-2236
www.labiennale.org/en
Photo credit: Anselm Kiefer
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“I still do workshops on oppression generally, but at this point, I've been focusing mostly on a workshop that's called Reclaiming Nature Writing, which has been a workshop that takes the idea of nature writing, which at least in the US has always been seen as a predominantly white male field and looks at writers that have existed for hundreds of years that have always been writing about nature but have maybe not been considered nature writers by the field generally.
So we look at writers like Audre Lorde who wrote about nature all the time but is not usually seen as a nature writer. And many others like that because it addresses ideas of land trauma and severement from nature and what are the historical causes for that? And what are the systems of oppression that have led certain people to be disconnected from nature in certain ways? And how can we heal that by telling new stories about the outdoors and travel and nature in general?”
Amanda E. Machado is a writer, public speaker and facilitator whose work explores how race, gender, sexuality, and power affect the way we travel and experience the outdoors. She has written and facilitated on topics of social justice and adventure and lived in Cape Town, Havana, Mexico City, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, and other cities. She has been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, New York Times, NPR, and other publications. She is also the founder of Reclaiming Nature Writing, a multi-week online workshop that expands how we tell stories about nature in a way that considers ancestry, colonization, migration trauma, and other issues.
www.amandaemachado.com
IG www.instagram.com/amandaemachado0
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Amanda E. Machado is a writer, public speaker and facilitator whose work explores how race, gender, sexuality, and power affect the way we travel and experience the outdoors. She has written and facilitated on topics of social justice and adventure and lived in Cape Town, Havana, Mexico City, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, and other cities. She has been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, New York Times, NPR, and other publications. She is also the founder of Reclaiming Nature Writing, a multi-week online workshop that expands how we tell stories about nature in a way that considers ancestry, colonization, migration trauma, and other issues.
“I still do workshops on oppression generally, but at this point, I've been focusing mostly on a workshop that's called Reclaiming Nature Writing, which has been a workshop that takes the idea of nature writing, which at least in the US has always been seen as a predominantly white male field and looks at writers that have existed for hundreds of years that have always been writing about nature but have maybe not been considered nature writers by the field generally.
So we look at writers like Audre Lorde who wrote about nature all the time but is not usually seen as a nature writer. And many others like that because it addresses ideas of land trauma and severement from nature and what are the historical causes for that? And what are the systems of oppression that have led certain people to be disconnected from nature in certain ways? And how can we heal that by telling new stories about the outdoors and travel and nature in general?”
www.amandaemachado.com
IG www.instagram.com/amandaemachado0
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“The Singularity reminds me - of course aware of lots and lots of differences - but it's a tendency which is as old as Gnosticism. I think, and a dream that people have had. It's a peculiar dream, in my mind because it's sort of saying that life is something like being in prison, and what we need to do, the future that we ought to want for ourselves, is to get out of jail. And so this is a profound denial of life. I guess that's what it is, we seem to be having a view that technology can free us from problems that we have.
It's as though nature has been the cause of our problem, and if we could only marshal our strongest self, which is seen in terms of this kind of powerful calculative type of reasoning, then we'll be able to achieve something, which is I guess utopian but reminds me of some kind of semi-religious kind of promise. So this sets everything up, and the need for rethinking a lot of things. We are material, physical, living creatures, and not just minds that are trapped inside a body.”
Harold P. Sjursen is an educator and administrator having served on the faculty of both a liberal arts college and school of engineering. His background is in the history of philosophy, but since childhood has sustained an interest in science and technology. His current research interests focus on the philosophy of technology, global philosophy, and technological ethics. His engineering education projects address issues related to the internationalization of higher education, the integration of the liberal arts and engineering and ethics beyond the codes for engineers.
http://harold-sjursen.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Harold P. Sjursen is an educator and administrator having served on the faculty of both a liberal arts college and school of engineering. His background is in the history of philosophy, but since childhood has sustained an interest in science and technology. His current research interests focus on the philosophy of technology, global philosophy, and technological ethics. His engineering education projects address issues related to the internationalization of higher education, the integration of the liberal arts and engineering and ethics beyond the codes for engineers.
“The Singularity reminds me - of course aware of lots and lots of differences - but it's a tendency which is as old as Gnosticism. I think, and a dream that people have had. It's a peculiar dream, in my mind because it's sort of saying that life is something like being in prison, and what we need to do, the future that we ought to want for ourselves, is to get out of jail. And so this is a profound denial of life. I guess that's what it is, we seem to be having a view that technology can free us from problems that we have.
It's as though nature has been the cause of our problem, and if we could only marshal our strongest self, which is seen in terms of this kind of powerful calculative type of reasoning, then we'll be able to achieve something, which is I guess utopian but reminds me of some kind of semi-religious kind of promise. So this sets everything up, and the need for rethinking a lot of things. We are material, physical, living creatures, and not just minds that are trapped inside a body.”
http://harold-sjursen.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“People sometimes ask me if I'm optimistic, and sometimes they ask me if I've got hope. And I think there is a difference between the two. I mean, optimism is the kind of feeling that the probability is it's all going to be fine. And hope is the feeling that there's still a good chance that things could work out well. And I think I'm more at the kind of hope that the optimism that, you know, we have so much knowledge within our grasp. And we have so much technology that we could use. But it isn't just about technology, it's also about values. What kind of values, and what kind of society do we want to live in? What kind of values do we have collectively as a community, and as a society? And that's a much more contested field. I do think that we do need to really raise that as an issue in society. What kind of society do we want to live in? And what kind of future do we want for ourselves? But also for those that will come after us? And I think that's a crucial debate that we should be having now. I think this big issue is what are the values that drive our society? What kind of a future do we want? And I'd like to see much more of a debate in public discussion about that.”
Andy Haines was formerly a family doctor and Professor of Primary Health Care at UCL. He developed an interest in climate change and health in the 1990’s and was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the 2nd and 3rd assessment exercises and review editor for the health chapter in the 5th assessment. He was Director (formerly Dean) of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine from 2001- October 2010. He chaired the Scientific Advisory Panel for the 2013 WHO World Health Report, the Rockefeller /Lancet Commission on Planetary Health (2014-15) and the European Academies Science Advisory Council working group on climate change and health (2018-19). He currently co-chairs the InterAcademy Partnership (140 science academies worldwide) working group on climate change and health and is also co-chairing the Lancet Pathfinder Commission on health in the zero-carbon economy. He has published many papers on topics such as the effects of environmental change on health and the health co-benefits of low carbon policies. His current research focuses on climate change mitigation, sustainable healthy food systems and complex urban systems for sustainability. He was awarded the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2022.
www.lshtm.ac.uk
https://tylerprize.org
www.interacademies.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Andy Haines was formerly a family doctor and Professor of Primary Health Care at UCL. He developed an interest in climate change and health in the 1990’s and was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the 2nd and 3rd assessment exercises and review editor for the health chapter in the 5th assessment. He was Director (formerly Dean) of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine from 2001- October 2010. He chaired the Scientific Advisory Panel for the 2013 WHO World Health Report, the Rockefeller /Lancet Commission on Planetary Health (2014-15) and the European Academies Science Advisory Council working group on climate change and health (2018-19). He currently co-chairs the InterAcademy Partnership (140 science academies worldwide) working group on climate change and health and is also co-chairing the Lancet Pathfinder Commission on health in the zero-carbon economy. He has published many papers on topics such as the effects of environmental change on health and the health co-benefits of low carbon policies. His current research focuses on climate change mitigation, sustainable healthy food systems and complex urban systems for sustainability. He was awarded the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2022.
“People sometimes ask me if I'm optimistic, and sometimes they ask me if I've got hope. And I think there is a difference between the two. I mean, optimism is the kind of feeling that the probability is it's all going to be fine. And hope is the feeling that there's still a good chance that things could work out well. And I think I'm more at the kind of hope that the optimism that, you know, we have so much knowledge within our grasp. And we have so much technology that we could use. But it isn't just about technology, it's also about values. What kind of values, and what kind of society do we want to live in? What kind of values do we have collectively as a community, and as a society? And that's a much more contested field. I do think that we do need to really raise that as an issue in society. What kind of society do we want to live in? And what kind of future do we want for ourselves? But also for those that will come after us? And I think that's a crucial debate that we should be having now. I think this big issue is what are the values that drive our society? What kind of a future do we want? And I'd like to see much more of a debate in public discussion about that.”
www.lshtm.ac.uk
https://tylerprize.org
www.interacademies.org
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“There's a great David Bowie song called ‘Memory of a Free Festival.’ It's a song about a concert that he organized in Beckenham in August 1969, the same weekend of Woodstock. He wrote this song about that concert. And in August 1969, also, his father died just 10 days or so before the concert. And his funeral took place days before.
So the song that Bowie wrote is, I think, deeply resonant of the death of his father, as well as about the concert itself. And it's an extraordinary song about the end of the 1960s as well. I think there's a sort of critical consensus that it's with this song that Bowie really started coming into his own. And the second part is just kind of chorus. ‘The Sun Machine is coming down, and we are going to have a party.’ And it's kind of demonic. It's an extraordinary refrain, which really, it's hypnotic. It's mesmerizing.
And I found myself trying to think about this idea of a sun machine. What is a sun machine? How might we describe a sun machine? What do we feel about the idea of a sun machine? Something affirmative but strange that is arriving, that's coming down, and that we are going to celebrate. We're going to have a party. So the sun machine in the book is in part an attempt to think about what music does to me, or what music might do to people more generally.
And that's another key way, I suppose, in which I'm interested in the wordless. The power of listening. The power of music. The capacity that music has to transport and to transform, but also the power of music. And this is something that David Bowie realized very early on. I think the power of music and its links with memory. So the relationship between music and mourning, but also the way in which our memories of our lives are bound up with music and how listening to music can be like opening a portal into the past. And into particular ways of thinking about memory.”
Nicholas Royle is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Sussex, England, where he has been based since 1999. He has also taught at the University of Oxford, the University of Tampere, and the University of Stirling; and has been a visiting professor at the universities of Århus, Santiago del Compostela, Turku, Manitoba, and Lille. He is a managing editor of the Oxford Literary Review and director of Quick Fictions. He has published many books, including Telepathy and Literature, E.M. Forster, Jacques Derrida, The Uncanny, Veering: A Theory of Literature, How to Read Shakespeare, and Hélène Cixous: Dreamer, Realist, Analyst, Writing, as well as the novels Quilt and An English Guide to Birdwatching, and Mother: A Memoir. In addition, he is co-author with Andrew Bennett of three books: Elizabeth Bowen and the Dissolution of the Novel, This Thing Called Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing, and An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory Sixth edition, 2023. Royle’s current projects include a detective novel, a collection of essays about new approaches to narrative theory, and a collaborative work with Timothy Morton on Covid-19. His latest book, David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine, is due to be published in November 2023.
www.routledge.com/An-Introduction-to-Literature-Criticism-and-Theory/Bennett-Royle/p/book/9781032158846
https://myriadeditions.com/creator/nicholas-royle/
https://quickfiction.co.uk/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Nicholas Royle is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Sussex, England, where he has been based since 1999. He has also taught at the University of Oxford, the University of Tampere, and the University of Stirling; and has been a visiting professor at the universities of Århus, Santiago del Compostela, Turku, Manitoba, and Lille. He is a managing editor of the Oxford Literary Review and director of Quick Fictions. He has published many books, including Telepathy and Literature, E.M. Forster, Jacques Derrida, The Uncanny, Veering: A Theory of Literature, How to Read Shakespeare, and Hélène Cixous: Dreamer, Realist, Analyst, Writing, as well as the novels Quilt and An English Guide to Birdwatching, and Mother: A Memoir. In addition, he is co-author with Andrew Bennett of three books: Elizabeth Bowen and the Dissolution of the Novel, This Thing Called Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing, and An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory Sixth edition, 2023. Royle’s current projects include a detective novel, a collection of essays about new approaches to narrative theory, and a collaborative work with Timothy Morton on Covid-19. His latest book, David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine, is due to be published in November 2023.
“There's a great David Bowie song called ‘Memory of a Free Festival.’ It's a song about a concert that he organized in Beckenham in August 1969, the same weekend of Woodstock. He wrote this song about that concert. And in August 1969, also, his father died just 10 days or so before the concert. And his funeral took place days before.
So the song that Bowie wrote is, I think, deeply resonant of the death of his father, as well as about the concert itself. And it's an extraordinary song about the end of the 1960s as well. I think there's a sort of critical consensus that it's with this song that Bowie really started coming into his own. And the second part is just kind of chorus. ‘The Sun Machine is coming down, and we are going to have a party.’ And it's kind of demonic. It's an extraordinary refrain, which really, it's hypnotic. It's mesmerizing.
And I found myself trying to think about this idea of a sun machine. What is a sun machine? How might we describe a sun machine? What do we feel about the idea of a sun machine? Something affirmative but strange that is arriving, that's coming down, and that we are going to celebrate. We're going to have a party. So the sun machine in the book is in part an attempt to think about what music does to me, or what music might do to people more generally.
And that's another key way, I suppose, in which I'm interested in the wordless. The power of listening. The power of music. The capacity that music has to transport and to transform, but also the power of music. And this is something that David Bowie realized very early on. I think the power of music and its links with memory. So the relationship between music and mourning, but also the way in which our memories of our lives are bound up with music and how listening to music can be like opening a portal into the past. And into particular ways of thinking about memory.”
www.routledge.com/An-Introduction-to-Literature-Criticism-and-Theory/Bennett-Royle/p/book/9781032158846
https://myriadeditions.com/creator/nicholas-royle/
https://quickfiction.co.uk/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“I wrote a book called The Aquanaut for kids. I realized that our best hope for humanity is to ignite the imagination of kids. There were lots of things I was afraid of when I was a little kid. I was afraid of the dark. I was afraid to go down the basement stairs, and yet now I live most of my entire career in the dark, in places that would make people feel terrified and claustrophobic. So a lot of those young life experiences that I had I actually turned into my superpowers. And I want to encourage children to know that anything they dream of that they can make it come true with hard work and dedication. I talk all the time to groups, big and small, and I still get asked by people, 'Do you believe in climate change?' And I'm like, it's not a question of belief. It's science. It's happening. And although I might feel frustrated, I try to never communicate that frustration. I recognize that for whatever reason, someone just doesn't have the knowledge. So maybe it hasn't been taught at school. Maybe they've become subjected to the very strong voices of a political entity that has steered them away from believing in climate change. And so I try to take people at wherever they are and try to just very carefully and without judgment share what I've seen and my experiences and try to gently guide them towards better information sources because we can't just be polarized. We can't just call each other names when we don't understand. We have to help people to understand, put out a hand, and, hopefully, bring them onto our side, onto a better understanding of the science of what's occurring.”
Jill Heinerth is a Canadian cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker. She is a veteran of over thirty years of filming, photography, and exploration on projects in submerged caves around the world. She has made TV series, consulted on movies, written several books and is a frequent corporate keynote speaker. Jill is the first Explorer in Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, recipient of Canada’s prestigious Polar Medal and is a Fellow of the International Scuba Divers Hall of Fame. In recognition of her lifetime achievement, Jill was awarded the Sir Christopher Ondaatje Medal for Exploration from the RCGS and the William Beebe Award from the Explorers Club.
www.intotheplanet.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Jill Heinerth is a Canadian cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker. She is a veteran of over thirty years of filming, photography, and exploration on projects in submerged caves around the world. She has made TV series, consulted on movies, written several books and is a frequent corporate keynote speaker. Jill is the first Explorer in Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, recipient of Canada’s prestigious Polar Medal and is a Fellow of the International Scuba Divers Hall of Fame. In recognition of her lifetime achievement, Jill was awarded the Sir Christopher Ondaatje Medal for Exploration from the RCGS and the William Beebe Award from the Explorers Club.
“I wrote a book called The Aquanaut for kids. I realized that our best hope for humanity is to ignite the imagination of kids. There were lots of things I was afraid of when I was a little kid. I was afraid of the dark. I was afraid to go down the basement stairs, and yet now I live most of my entire career in the dark, in places that would make people feel terrified and claustrophobic. So a lot of those young life experiences that I had I actually turned into my superpowers. And I want to encourage children to know that anything they dream of that they can make it come true with hard work and dedication. I talk all the time to groups, big and small, and I still get asked by people, 'Do you believe in climate change?' And I'm like, it's not a question of belief. It's science. It's happening. And although I might feel frustrated, I try to never communicate that frustration. I recognize that for whatever reason, someone just doesn't have the knowledge. So maybe it hasn't been taught at school. Maybe they've become subjected to the very strong voices of a political entity that has steered them away from believing in climate change. And so I try to take people at wherever they are and try to just very carefully and without judgment share what I've seen and my experiences and try to gently guide them towards better information sources because we can't just be polarized. We can't just call each other names when we don't understand. We have to help people to understand, put out a hand, and, hopefully, bring them onto our side, onto a better understanding of the science of what's occurring.”
www.intotheplanet.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“I think you need to be aware and see people be open to what can happen and get a feel, get an instinct, I guess. I think I've been blessed with instinct. I mean, I did not do well at school. I passed zero exams. I'm unemployable, but I've been blessed with having instincts.
Miles Davis was the best teacher, always amused when I asked him questions. I was pretty cocky at the time, and I once asked him why he played so many bad notes, unlike Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong, who always played clean. He didn’t blink. He didn’t bite my head off. ‘Because I try and play what I hear in my head, he said, “not what I know I can already play.” That, to me, was the essence of jazz, trying to get somewhere new and not worrying if you made mistakes as long as you got there in the end. On a tightrope, and wobbling a little, but eventually gliding across that tightrope.
Well, it's really great if you can be involved in doing something which brings something to people and lifts things. You know, if you can find a way to…when I say find a way, you just get an instinct of something, Oh, this is going to be fun. That can be great. I'm always looking…I don't know that I'm deliberately looking at things. I think things have happened, and I've seen something or got a feel for something or feel for the person or… I think I've been given a lot of luck.”
Chris Blackwell, an inductee of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, is widely considered responsible for turning the world on to reggae music. As the founder of Island Records, he helped forge the careers of Bob Marley, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, U2, Roxy Music, among many other high-profile acts, and produced records including Marley’s Catch a Fire and Uprising. Blackwell currently runs Island Outpost, a group of elite resorts in Jamaica, which includes GoldenEye—the former home of author Ian Fleming. He received the A&R Icon Award in recognition of his lasting influence on the music business. He is author, with Paul Morley, of The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond.
www.islandoutpost.com
www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Islander/Chris-Blackwell/9781982172701
www.islandrecords.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Chris Blackwell, an inductee of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, is widely considered responsible for turning the world on to reggae music. As the founder of Island Records, he helped forge the careers of Bob Marley, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, U2, Roxy Music, among many other high-profile acts, and produced records including Marley’s Catch a Fire and Uprising. Blackwell currently runs Island Outpost, a group of elite resorts in Jamaica, which includes GoldenEye—the former home of author Ian Fleming. He received the A&R Icon Award in recognition of his lasting influence on the music business. He is author, with Paul Morley, of The Islander: My Life in Music and Beyond.
“I think you need to be aware and see people be open to what can happen and get a feel, get an instinct, I guess. I think I've been blessed with instinct. I mean, I did not do well at school. I passed zero exams. I'm unemployable, but I've been blessed with having instincts.
Miles Davis was the best teacher, always amused when I asked him questions. I was pretty cocky at the time, and I once asked him why he played so many bad notes, unlike Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong, who always played clean. He didn’t blink. He didn’t bite my head off. ‘Because I try and play what I hear in my head, he said, “not what I know I can already play.” That, to me, was the essence of jazz, trying to get somewhere new and not worrying if you made mistakes as long as you got there in the end. On a tightrope, and wobbling a little, but eventually gliding across that tightrope.
Well, it's really great if you can be involved in doing something which brings something to people and lifts things. You know, if you can find a way to…when I say find a way, you just get an instinct of something, Oh, this is going to be fun. That can be great. I'm always looking…I don't know that I'm deliberately looking at things. I think things have happened, and I've seen something or got a feel for something or feel for the person or… I think I've been given a lot of luck.”
www.islandoutpost.com
www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Islander/Chris-Blackwell/9781982172701
www.islandrecords.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"On mythologies or collective stories, in more recent writing, this is less true of Words That Move, but the next Special will very much draw on basically a religious or spiritual concept that my friend Alice Frank and Derek Hake and a couple of others have really helped instill in me as literally true - that I am literally you. That we are one thing looking through many different eyes. Like one thing having all of these different human experiences. And not as a metaphor, we're all one. No, like actually there's actual, literal oneness. And what does that look like to explore with words? But that is a concept that I will certainly be playing more on in the next Poetry Special."
Max Stossel is an Award-winning poet, filmmaker, and speaker, named by Forbes as one of the best storytellers of the year. His Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move takes the audience through a variety of different perspectives, inviting us to see the world through different eyes together. Taking on topics like heartbreak, consciousness, social media, politics, the emotional state of our world, and even how dogs probably (most certainly) talk, Max uses rhyme and rhythm to make these topics digestible and playful. Words That Move articulates the deep-seated kernels of truth that we so often struggle to find words for ourselves. Max has performed on five continents, from Lincoln Center in NY to the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. He is also the Youth & Education Advisor for the Center for Humane Technology, an organization of former tech insiders dedicated to realigning technology with humanity’s best interests.
www.wordsthatmove.com/
www.instagram.com/maxstossel/
www.humanetech.com
https://vimeo.com/690354718/54614a2318
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Max Stossel is an Award-winning poet, filmmaker, and speaker, named by Forbes as one of the best storytellers of the year. His Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move takes the audience through a variety of different perspectives, inviting us to see the world through different eyes together. Taking on topics like heartbreak, consciousness, social media, politics, the emotional state of our world, and even how dogs probably (most certainly) talk, Max uses rhyme and rhythm to make these topics digestible and playful. Words That Move articulates the deep-seated kernels of truth that we so often struggle to find words for ourselves. Max has performed on five continents, from Lincoln Center in NY to the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney. He is also the Youth & Education Advisor for the Center for Humane Technology, an organization of former tech insiders dedicated to realigning technology with humanity’s best interests.
"On mythologies or collective stories, in more recent writing, this is less true of Words That Move, but the next Special will very much draw on basically a religious or spiritual concept that my friend Alice Frank and Derek Hake and a couple of others have really helped instill in me as literally true - that I am literally you. That we are one thing looking through many different eyes. Like one thing having all of these different human experiences. And not as a metaphor, we're all one. No, like actually there's actual, literal oneness. And what does that look like to explore with words? But that is a concept that I will certainly be playing more on in the next Poetry Special."
www.wordsthatmove.com/
www.instagram.com/maxstossel/
www.humanetech.com
https://vimeo.com/690354718/54614a2318
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"With Ginny, one of the things that we also really wanted to do in terms of her self-help, it was always a hundred percent - we always wanted representation and lived perspectives in front of and behind the camera. That's always been at the forefront and very important for us. So in terms of mental health, we have people that have that lived experience and so we would seek out true mental health professionals. We worked with Mental Health America, and we worked with a psychologist, her name's Dr. Taji Huang, who specialized in self-harm therapy. So, she would read our scripts. We would consult with her about our storylines. She would watch our cuts and have very specific thoughts.
And in season two, we always wanted to bring in Zion as a father because in season one Zion's in three episodes. We hear Ginny talk about him, but we don't get a sense of how close are they? And they're very, very close. And we really wanted to show that father figure helping her get into therapy and that you have a parent like Georgia who doesn't want therapy. And that sort of threatens her and how she grew up, and she doesn't believe in it but goes to therapy with Ginny and learns a lot about herself in that and how she really truly doesn't understand her daughter.
So we really took as much care as we could with people who had lived experiences with professionals just to try to make it as authentic as possible. And I think that's really translating on-screen because people really are identifying with it. It's so important to talk about it. It's okay that you're not okay. It's okay to go to therapy. It's okay to talk to your parents about it and your friends. This is all okay. We're all feeling the same way. We all do."
Debra J. Fisher is a writer, producer, and director. She currently serves as the showrunner, writer, and executive producer of the Netflix series Ginny & Georgia. Season one of the hit series was watched by over 52 million subscribers in its first month on the platform, gathering a devoted fan base. The highly anticipated second season premiered on January 5th. Ginny & Georgia is Debra’s first time in the showrunner’s seat. Through her long and varied career, she has worked her way up the ladder on numerous beloved TV shows including Alias, The O.C., Charmed, and Criminal Minds, among others. With a wealth of experience from her own professional journey, she works to pay it forward by mentoring the next generation of creatives.
www.instagram.com/debrajfisher
www.tiktok.com/@debrajfisher
www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/ginny-and-georgia-season-2-release-date
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Debra J. Fisher is a writer, producer, and director. She currently serves as the showrunner, writer, and executive producer of the Netflix series Ginny & Georgia. Season one of the hit series was watched by over 52 million subscribers in its first month on the platform, gathering a devoted fan base. The highly anticipated second season premiered on January 5th. Ginny & Georgia is Debra’s first time in the showrunner’s seat. Through her long and varied career, she has worked her way up the ladder on numerous beloved TV shows including Alias, The O.C., Charmed, and Criminal Minds, among others. With a wealth of experience from her own professional journey, she works to pay it forward by mentoring the next generation of creatives.
"With Ginny, one of the things that we also really wanted to do in terms of her self-help, it was always a hundred percent - we always wanted representation and lived perspectives in front of and behind the camera. That's always been at the forefront and very important for us. So in terms of mental health, we have people that have that lived experience and so we would seek out true mental health professionals. We worked with Mental Health America, and we worked with a psychologist, her name's Dr. Taji Huang, who specialized in self-harm therapy. So, she would read our scripts. We would consult with her about our storylines. She would watch our cuts and have very specific thoughts.
And in season two, we always wanted to bring in Zion as a father because in season one Zion's in three episodes. We hear Ginny talk about him, but we don't get a sense of how close are they? And they're very, very close. And we really wanted to show that father figure helping her get into therapy and that you have a parent like Georgia who doesn't want therapy. And that sort of threatens her and how she grew up, and she doesn't believe in it but goes to therapy with Ginny and learns a lot about herself in that and how she really truly doesn't understand her daughter.
So we really took as much care as we could with people who had lived experiences with professionals just to try to make it as authentic as possible. And I think that's really translating on-screen because people really are identifying with it. It's so important to talk about it. It's okay that you're not okay. It's okay to go to therapy. It's okay to talk to your parents about it and your friends. This is all okay. We're all feeling the same way. We all do."
www.instagram.com/debrajfisher
www.tiktok.com/@debrajfisher
www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/ginny-and-georgia-season-2-release-date
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"I lived in New York City for a long time and about five years ago, my wife and I, with our two then very, very young kids, decided we wanted to leave the city. And I love Central Park. I love the city. There's so much to love about it. I wanted more outdoors, and I wanted more nature. I wanted water and trees, and I wanted things that I couldn't only find in Central Park. I wanted it to be all around. And so we moved out to Connecticut where we live, not so far from the water. There is unbelievable beauty out here. I run almost every day or go for long walks. And so for me, being in natural environments is really critical to my welfare. It's how I grew up in Australia. It's something that I missed for a long time when I was in the heart of Manhattan. A lot of people don't feel that way, but for me, that's personally very important."
"We'll look at old news reels, and we'll look at ads from the fifties, sixties, seventies, the dawn of TV, really. And we look at those ads, and we sort of laugh in a superior way because they look so naive. And you're right, there is something very humane about them. They're very straightforward. They don't seem to be trying too hard to convince you of anything. And if they do, they just seem so obvious now. There's no trickery there. There's no chicanery. It's right there in front of you. And I think people weren't jaded in the same way back then. They were just taking things at face value. They weren't bombarded.”
Adam Alter is a Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business and the Robert Stansky Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellow. Adam is the New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, and Drunk Tank Pink, which investigates how hidden forces in the world around us shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. He has written for the New York Times, New Yorker, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and a host of TV, radio, and publications. His next book Anatomy of a Breakthrough will be published in 2023.
"I lived in New York City for a long time and about five years ago, my wife and I, with our two then very, very young kids, decided we wanted to leave the city. And I love Central Park. I love the city. There's so much to love about it. I wanted more outdoors, and I wanted more nature. I wanted water and trees, and I wanted things that I couldn't only find in Central Park. I wanted it to be all around. And so we moved out to Connecticut where we live, not so far from the water. There is unbelievable beauty out here. I run almost every day or go for long walks. And so for me, being in natural environments is really critical to my welfare. It's how I grew up in Australia. It's something that I missed for a long time when I was in the heart of Manhattan. A lot of people don't feel that way, but for me, that's personally very important."
https://adamalterauthor.com
www.penguin.co.uk/books/431386/irresistible-by-adam-alter/9781784701659
www.simonandschuster.com/books/Anatomy-of-a-Breakthrough/Adam-Alter/9781982182960
www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/adam-alter
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Adam Alter is a Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business and the Robert Stansky Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellow. Adam is the New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, and Drunk Tank Pink, which investigates how hidden forces in the world around us shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. He has written for the New York Times, New Yorker, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and a host of TV, radio, and publications. His next book Anatomy of a Breakthrough will be published in 2023.
"I lived in New York City for a long time and about five years ago, my wife and I, with our two then very, very young kids, decided we wanted to leave the city. And I love Central Park. I love the city. There's so much to love about it. I wanted more outdoors, and I wanted more nature. I wanted water and trees, and I wanted things that I couldn't only find in Central Park. I wanted it to be all around. And so we moved out to Connecticut where we live, not so far from the water. There is unbelievable beauty out here. I run almost every day or go for long walks. And so for me, being in natural environments is really critical to my welfare. It's how I grew up in Australia. It's something that I missed for a long time when I was in the heart of Manhattan. A lot of people don't feel that way, but for me, that's personally very important."
"We'll look at old news reels, and we'll look at ads from the fifties, sixties, seventies, the dawn of TV, really. And we look at those ads, and we sort of laugh in a superior way because they look so naive. And you're right, there is something very humane about them. They're very straightforward. They don't seem to be trying too hard to convince you of anything. And if they do, they just seem so obvious now. There's no trickery there. There's no chicanery. It's right there in front of you. And I think people weren't jaded in the same way back then. They were just taking things at face value. They weren't bombarded.”
https://adamalterauthor.com
www.penguin.co.uk/books/431386/irresistible-by-adam-alter/9781784701659
www.simonandschuster.com/books/Anatomy-of-a-Breakthrough/Adam-Alter/9781982182960
www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/adam-alter
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"So a lot of people ask, in my line of work as a climate scientist, 'How do you not just fall into a state of despair and really just see the really dark aspects of human behavior and our inability to correct our course and do the right thing?' And the truth is that we all have to reconcile it in some way. And you can either be really consumed by those darker emotions and that feeling that people don't care. Or you can just try and see beauty where it is and connect with other people who are also doing their very best. So I think this kind of binary thinking of black and white people are good or bad isn't quite right. There's just shades of gray and sometimes people do the best that they can from day to day, but other times we just have to. I guess it's a sense of being stubborn and believing that there is goodness out there."
Dr. Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer at the Australian National University. She served as a lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and is the author of Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia. Joëlle has also contributed chapters to The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, and Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua.
http://joellegergis.com
https://climatehistory.com.au
www.blackincbooks.com.au/authors/jo-lle-gergis
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Dr. Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer at the Australian National University. She served as a lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and is the author of Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia. Joëlle has also contributed chapters to The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, and Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua.
"So a lot of people ask, in my line of work as a climate scientist, 'How do you not just fall into a state of despair and really just see the really dark aspects of human behavior and our inability to correct our course and do the right thing?' And the truth is that we all have to reconcile it in some way. And you can either be really consumed by those darker emotions and that feeling that people don't care. Or you can just try and see beauty where it is and connect with other people who are also doing their very best. So I think this kind of binary thinking of black and white people are good or bad isn't quite right. There's just shades of gray and sometimes people do the best that they can from day to day, but other times we just have to. I guess it's a sense of being stubborn and believing that there is goodness out there."
http://joellegergis.com
https://climatehistory.com.au
www.blackincbooks.com.au/authors/jo-lle-gergis
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
"I really feel that if there is something about art that I seek - I think people use art for many things - it's really some kind of a belief that we can transcend. I mean, if I try to kind of see it as some kind of a substitute for a religion. You know, religion tells us that there's something out there. There's somebody watching us, somebody doing something. And I think that for me, many times good art says there is something beyond our understanding that exists, and there is a way to get a step closer to it. Maybe not to unveil it, but we can get there.
"There is something about both my parents, but I think especially my mother, it's as if the horrible circumstances that they lived through being Jews in the Holocaust, my mother losing her entire family - it was horrible and traumatic, but it was almost like a very extreme human experiment. And it created something. It's like many times when you put somebody in extreme situations, and most of the time he will crush or she will crush, but sometimes, a superhero will be born. And there is something about my parents, when I came to work on the exhibition about my mother Inside Out, I realized there is something about her that was so unique that it could not have been achieved in normal times. Because the thing that happened with my mother was that, when the war started, she was five years old. When the war ended, she was 11 years old. By the time she was about 10, all the people that she had known before the war had died. Her parents, her brother, her grandfather, her friends."
Author, Screenwriter, and Director Etgar Keret is a recipient of the French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, the Charles Bronfman Prize, and the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Jellyfish, which he directed with his wife Shira Geffen. Most recently, they created the TV mini series The Middleman (L’Agent Immobilier) starring Mathieu Amalric. His books include the short story collections Fly Already, Suddenly a Knock on the Door, and his memoir The Seven Good Years. Etgar’s work has been translated into forty-five languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review,The New York Times, and This American Life.
A frequent collaborator with visual and performing artists, an exhibition inspired by his mother called Inside Out is currently showing at the Jewish Museum in Berlin until February 5th, 2023.
www.etgarkeret.com
The Middleman www.imdb.com/title/tt11523800
www.jmberlin.de/en/exhibition-inside-out-etgar-keret
https://etgarkeret.substack.com
Jellyfish http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0807721
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Author, Screenwriter, and Director Etgar Keret is a recipient of the French Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, the Charles Bronfman Prize, and the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Jellyfish, which he directed with his wife Shira Geffen. Most recently, they created the TV mini series The Middleman (L’Agent Immobilier) starring Mathieu Amalric. His books include the short story collections Fly Already, Suddenly a Knock on the Door, and his memoir The Seven Good Years. Etgar’s work has been translated into forty-five languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review,The New York Times, and This American Life.
A frequent collaborator with visual and performing artists, an exhibition inspired by his mother called Inside Out is currently showing at the Jewish Museum in Berlin until February 5th, 2023.
"I really feel that if there is something about art that I seek - I think people use art for many things - it's really some kind of a belief that we can transcend. I mean, if I try to kind of see it as some kind of a substitute for a religion. You know, religion tells us that there's something out there. There's somebody watching us, somebody doing something. And I think that for me, many times good art says there is something beyond our understanding that exists, and there is a way to get a step closer to it. Maybe not to unveil it, but we can get there.
"There is something about both my parents, but I think especially my mother, it's as if the horrible circumstances that they lived through being Jews in the Holocaust, my mother losing her entire family - it was horrible and traumatic, but it was almost like a very extreme human experiment. And it created something. It's like many times when you put somebody in extreme situations, and most of the time he will crush or she will crush, but sometimes, a superhero will be born. And there is something about my parents, when I came to work on the exhibition about my mother Inside Out, I realized there is something about her that was so unique that it could not have been achieved in normal times. Because the thing that happened with my mother was that, when the war started, she was five years old. When the war ended, she was 11 years old. By the time she was about 10, all the people that she had known before the war had died. Her parents, her brother, her grandfather, her friends."
www.etgarkeret.com
The Middleman www.imdb.com/title/tt11523800
www.jmberlin.de/en/exhibition-inside-out-etgar-keret
https://etgarkeret.substack.com
Jellyfish http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0807721
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
Photo credit: Lielle Sand
"As a minimal condition to be able to persist, we cannot use forever more than what we get back from nature, what nature can renew. It's a very mechanical view, but we are not even fulfilling this mechanical, bottom-line requirement. Ecologists will tell you that to maintain biodiversity because wild species are in competition for that regeneration, maybe it's not a good idea to use the entire capacity of the planet.
So shooting for one planet just means you would be totally dominant, and leave no space for other species. Ecologists say to maintain 85% of preindustrial biodiversity, it would take about at least half the planet left on its own. That would mean getting to half-planet. And now we use at least 1.75. I say at least because our assessments with about 15,000 data points per country in year are based on UN statistics, and their demand side is probably an underestimate because not all demands are included. And also on the supply side or the regeneration side, the UN is very production oriented, so it's the FAO numbers, for example, look at agricultural production, and the depletion side or the destruction side is not factored in adequately."
Mathis Wackernagel is Co-founder and President of Global Footprint Network. He created the Ecological Footprint with Professor William Rees at the University of British Columbia as part of his Ph.D. in community and regional planning. Mathis also earned a mechanical engineering degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Mathis has worked on sustainability with governments, corporations and international NGOs on six continents and has lectured at more than 100 universities. Mathis has authored and contributed to more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, numerous articles, reports and various books on sustainability that focus on embracing resource limits and developing metrics for sustainability. Mathis’ awards include the 2018 World Sustainability Award, the 2015 IAIA Global Environment Award, being a 2014 ISSP Sustainability Hall of Fame Inductee, the 2013 Prix Nature Swisscanto, 2012 Blue Planet Prize, 2012 Binding Prize for Nature Conservation, the 2012 Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award of the International Society for Ecological Economics, the 2011 Zayed International Prize for the Environment (jointly awarded with UNEP). He was also selected as number 19 on the en(rich) list identifying the 100 top inspirational individuals whose contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures.
www.footprintnetwork.org
www.footprintnetwork.org/tools
www.overshootday.org/power-of-possibility/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
Mathis Wackernagel is Co-founder and President of Global Footprint Network. He created the Ecological Footprint with Professor William Rees at the University of British Columbia as part of his Ph.D. in community and regional planning. Mathis also earned a mechanical engineering degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Mathis has worked on sustainability with governments, corporations and international NGOs on six continents and has lectured at more than 100 universities. Mathis has authored and contributed to more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, numerous articles, reports and various books on sustainability that focus on embracing resource limits and developing metrics for sustainability. Mathis’ awards include the 2018 World Sustainability Award, the 2015 IAIA Global Environment Award, being a 2014 ISSP Sustainability Hall of Fame Inductee, the 2013 Prix Nature Swisscanto, 2012 Blue Planet Prize, 2012 Binding Prize for Nature Conservation, the 2012 Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award of the International Society for Ecological Economics, the 2011 Zayed International Prize for the Environment (jointly awarded with UNEP). He was also selected as number 19 on the en(rich) list identifying the 100 top inspirational individuals whose contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures.
"As a minimal condition to be able to persist, we cannot use forever more than what we get back from nature, what nature can renew. It's a very mechanical view, but we are not even fulfilling this mechanical, bottom-line requirement. Ecologists will tell you that to maintain biodiversity because wild species are in competition for that regeneration, maybe it's not a good idea to use the entire capacity of the planet.
So shooting for one planet just means you would be totally dominant, and leave no space for other species. Ecologists say to maintain 85% of preindustrial biodiversity, it would take about at least half the planet left on its own. That would mean getting to half-planet. And now we use at least 1.75. I say at least because our assessments with about 15,000 data points per country in year are based on UN statistics, and their demand side is probably an underestimate because not all demands are included. And also on the supply side or the regeneration side, the UN is very production oriented, so it's the FAO numbers, for example, look at agricultural production, and the depletion side or the destruction side is not factored in adequately."
www.footprintnetwork.org
www.footprintnetwork.org/tools
www.overshootday.org/power-of-possibility/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
“It was really fun and ridiculous and great, and that resonates with people because we've all got inner children. You know, I'm still a little girl at heart. That doesn't go away. You don't suddenly become a grownup, become the most sensible person on the planet, and if you can tap into that on some level, it doesn't even have to be clever. You know, sometimes the simplest ideas are the best, the sweetest.
I also have a sense of humor. I like to laugh. I like to play music in the office. I like to tell jokes. I like to watch documentaries. I like to watch funny things, vintage, new. I don't think there's any right or wrong way. And I don't like perfection or everything having to be perfect because I'm a bit scruffy, but I do wear flowers in my hair because it makes me happy. And I do like to get dressed up every day and wear an outfit. If it's a vintage dress from years ago or something that makes me happy, whatever that is, I like to start my day feeling happy.”
Oberon Sinclair is the CEO and founder of the creative and branding agency, My Young Auntie. Since she founded the company in 1997, Oberon has collaborated with and managed an array of notable clients from the high luxury, art, fashion, food and lifestyle sectors, including Hermès, Vivienne Westwood, Fabergé, the Richemont Group, Jack Spade, ArtForum, Selfridges, Rizzoli Books, Island Records, David Lee Roth, among others. Oberon is known as the Queen of Kale for reviving an interest in the superfood across the world. She’s a Founding Member of NeueHouse where she moderates talks.
https://myyoungauntie.com
www.instagram.com/myyoungauntiepr
www.neuehouse.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
Photo: Oberon in conversation with artist and fashion designer Jason Wu at NeueHouse
Oberon Sinclair is the CEO and founder of the creative and branding agency, My Young Auntie. Since she founded the company in 1997, Oberon has collaborated with and managed an array of notable clients from the high luxury, art, fashion, food and lifestyle sectors, including Hermès, Vivienne Westwood, Fabergé, the Richemont Group, Jack Spade, ArtForum, Selfridges, Rizzoli Books, Island Records, David Lee Roth, among others. Oberon is known as the Queen of Kale for reviving an interest in the superfood across the world. She’s a Founding Member of NeueHouse where she moderates talks.
“It was really fun and ridiculous and great, and that resonates with people because we've all got inner children. You know, I'm still a little girl at heart. That doesn't go away. You don't suddenly become a grownup, become the most sensible person on the planet, and if you can tap into that on some level, it doesn't even have to be clever. You know, sometimes the simplest ideas are the best, the sweetest.
I also have a sense of humor. I like to laugh. I like to play music in the office. I like to tell jokes. I like to watch documentaries. I like to watch funny things, vintage, new. I don't think there's any right or wrong way. And I don't like perfection or everything having to be perfect because I'm a bit scruffy, but I do wear flowers in my hair because it makes me happy. And I do like to get dressed up every day and wear an outfit. If it's a vintage dress from years ago or something that makes me happy, whatever that is, I like to start my day feeling happy.”
https://myyoungauntie.com
www.instagram.com/myyoungauntiepr
www.neuehouse.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
"I think it's really interesting how we humans are a massively cooperative species. That's why we dominate the world to the extent that we do. We're very good at working together and stories and metaphors are a lot of what drives us to work together, that drives us towards goals. So that's why I thought it was very important to push against the metaphors that have informed so much of our culture for the last couple of hundred years.
So we have the idea of survival of the fittest, not directly from Darwin, that argued that the growing human population would outstrip the earth's resources and there would inevitably be death and weakness in parts of the population. And Darwin had read Malthus and took that idea of progress through struggle and the weeding out of weaker members by the harsh exigencies of nature, and that was how he came up with his theory of natural selection. Those are phrases that have stuck with our society, and I think our thinking about how nature works and how we work.
So those are phrases that came out of science that affect the culture. And the culture, of course, affects science in terms of what we push science to ask for, what we tell science we want to know about the world. And I'm hoping that the new crop of scientists who are looking at all of these cooperative relations among living things - how that holds together ecosystems, how that determines how species can survive - that that new crop of scientists will inform and reform the metaphors that we use, the stories that we tell ourselves about how nature works, how we work, how the culture works. That's what I'm hoping will happen."
Kristin Ohlson is the author of Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World. Her other books include The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers and Foodies are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet, and Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil. Olson appears in the award-winning documentary film Kiss The Ground, speaking about the connection between soil and climate. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Smithsonian, Discover, New Scientist, Orion, American Archeology, and has also been anthologized in Best American Science Writing, and Best American Food Writing.
www.kristinohlson.com
www.patagonia.com/stories/sweet-in-tooth-and-claw/story-123959.html
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
Kristin Ohlson is the author of Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World. Her other books include The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers and Foodies are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet, and Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil. Olson appears in the award-winning documentary film Kiss The Ground, speaking about the connection between soil and climate. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Smithsonian, Discover, New Scientist, Orion, American Archeology, and has also been anthologized in Best American Science Writing, and Best American Food Writing.
"I think it's really interesting how we humans are a massively cooperative species. That's why we dominate the world to the extent that we do. We're very good at working together and stories and metaphors are a lot of what drives us to work together, that drives us towards goals. So that's why I thought it was very important to push against the metaphors that have informed so much of our culture for the last couple of hundred years.
So we have the idea of survival of the fittest, not directly from Darwin, that argued that the growing human population would outstrip the earth's resources and there would inevitably be death and weakness in parts of the population. And Darwin had read Malthus and took that idea of progress through struggle and the weeding out of weaker members by the harsh exigencies of nature, and that was how he came up with his theory of natural selection. Those are phrases that have stuck with our society, and I think our thinking about how nature works and how we work.
So those are phrases that came out of science that affect the culture. And the culture, of course, affects science in terms of what we push science to ask for, what we tell science we want to know about the world. And I'm hoping that the new crop of scientists who are looking at all of these cooperative relations among living things - how that holds together ecosystems, how that determines how species can survive - that that new crop of scientists will inform and reform the metaphors that we use, the stories that we tell ourselves about how nature works, how we work, how the culture works. That's what I'm hoping will happen."
www.kristinohlson.com
www.patagonia.com/stories/sweet-in-tooth-and-claw/story-123959.html
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
"Better than mindfulness, curiosity and the willingness to be open to other perspectives and reveal diversion of perspectives, it's linked with more innovation, it leads to willingness for greater social support for your ideas. So you're talking about finding allies more work, family integration, less burnout, more engagement, and then a greater tendency to experience flow where you lose yourself in your work in the workplace. And there's these wide-ranging benefits that occur.
And what you find is the two dimensions of curiosity that are the most beneficial in the workplace, one is called joyous exploration. And that's really just this pure pleasurable sense of wonder that there's a lot of interesting things in the world, and I just know less than I think I do, and I want to be exposed to that novelty. The second one gets less attention. It's what we call stress tolerance. It's that when you have the lure of the novel, the divergent, and you know, the mysterious and complex, there's always a level of anxiety. You are moving away from the knowns and the own unknowns, and you are going into the face of acknowledging there's uncertainty, and you don't know how things are going to turn out. The people that can better tolerate that without trying to close and reach an answer quickly, they're the ones that are more likely to be creative, more likely to be innovative."
Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at George Mason University, and a leading authority on well-being, curiosity, courage, and resilience. He has published more than 220 scientific articles, his work has been cited more than 35,000 times, and he received the American Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology. He is the author of several books, including The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively, Curious? and The Upside of Your Dark Side, and has been translated into more than fifteen languages. His research is featured regularly in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Time, and his writing has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, National Geographic, and other publications. He is a keynote speaker and consultant for organizations as diverse as Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, Prudential, General Mills, The United States Department of Defense, and World Bank Group.
https://toddkashdan.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690674/the-art-of-insubordination-by-todd-b-kashdan-phd/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at George Mason University, and a leading authority on well-being, curiosity, courage, and resilience. He has published more than 220 scientific articles, his work has been cited more than 35,000 times, and he received the American Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology. He is the author of several books, including The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively, Curious? and The Upside of Your Dark Side, and has been translated into more than fifteen languages. His research is featured regularly in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Time, and his writing has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, National Geographic, and other publications. He is a keynote speaker and consultant for organizations as diverse as Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, Prudential, General Mills, The United States Department of Defense, and World Bank Group.
"Better than mindfulness, curiosity and the willingness to be open to other perspectives and reveal diversion of perspectives, it's linked with more innovation, it leads to willingness for greater social support for your ideas. So you're talking about finding allies more work, family integration, less burnout, more engagement, and then a greater tendency to experience flow where you lose yourself in your work in the workplace. And there's these wide-ranging benefits that occur.
And what you find is the two dimensions of curiosity that are the most beneficial in the workplace, one is called joyous exploration. And that's really just this pure pleasurable sense of wonder that there's a lot of interesting things in the world, and I just know less than I think I do, and I want to be exposed to that novelty. The second one gets less attention. It's what we call stress tolerance. It's that when you have the lure of the novel, the divergent, and you know, the mysterious and complex, there's always a level of anxiety. You are moving away from the knowns and the own unknowns, and you are going into the face of acknowledging there's uncertainty, and you don't know how things are going to turn out. The people that can better tolerate that without trying to close and reach an answer quickly, they're the ones that are more likely to be creative, more likely to be innovative."
https://toddkashdan.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690674/the-art-of-insubordination-by-todd-b-kashdan-phd/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
“It's the combination of everything. It's combination of faith in the invisible, faith in myself as well. But, I guess, God, maybe also part of the answer. I prefer to speak about my worst accident because it was in 1982. I fell from 20 meters - 20 meters free fall, hands first. Head first, actually, but what touched the bottom of the cliff was my hands. So both hands, they completely exploded, tearing apart my skin, my flesh. I pretty much lost 45% of my blood. Both elbows also exploded because my forearms worked as a kind of shock breaker. At the bottom of the cliff, it was a slab of limestone. So, it can't get any harder than that. It's rock. And, fortunately, I bounced back and continued my fall. But it was a steep slope. So I got another 20, 30 meters. And I guess that all of that absorbed a lot of energy. It's a bit like if you compare somebody with a being in a car accident. If you're bumping onto a tree, usually you are dead because you are speeding and suddenly something is really stopping you. Nothing is bouncing back, so this is why it kills you. And the fact that my body did manage to bounce back on the limestone and then roll again on a steep slope most probably saved me. I was in a coma, but my coma was just one week. And then somehow I woke up.
Deep down I have no idea why I am still alive because normally you are not supposed to stay alive after such a fall, but obviously, I did. And doctors, they said that I was never going to be able to climb back, and actually I made them lie because I came back. It took me two years to be even better than I was before my accident. And although I was 66 percent disabled, I did manage to come back and become even much, much better than I had ever been before. I climbed in 1991 the hardest free solo route in the world. So that was something completely unthinkable because with such a broken body that also doesn't really make sense.”
Alain Robert is a renowned rock climber and urban climber. Known as "the French Spider-Man” or "the Human Spider," Robert is famous for his free solo climbing, scaling skyscrapers using no climbing equipment except for a small bag of chalk and a pair of climbing shoes. Some of his most notable ascents include the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sydney Opera House, as well as other of the world's tallest skyscrapers. He is also a motivational speaker and the author of With Bare Hands: The True Story of Alain Robert, the Real-life Spiderman.
www.alainrobert.com
www.instagram.com/alainrobertofficial/?hl=fr
www.blacksmithbooks.com/books/with-bare-hands-the-true-story-of-alain-robert-the-real-life-spiderman/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
Image courtesy of alainrobert.com
Alain Robert is a renowned rock climber and urban climber. Known as "the French Spider-Man” or "the Human Spider," Robert is famous for his free solo climbing, scaling skyscrapers using no climbing equipment except for a small bag of chalk and a pair of climbing shoes. Some of his most notable ascents include the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sydney Opera House, as well as other of the world's tallest skyscrapers. He is also a motivational speaker and the author of With Bare Hands: The True Story of Alain Robert, the Real-life Spiderman.
“It's the combination of everything. It's combination of faith in the invisible, faith in myself as well. But, I guess, God, maybe also part of the answer. I prefer to speak about my worst accident because it was in 1982. I fell from 20 meters - 20 meters free fall, hands first. Head first, actually, but what touched the bottom of the cliff was my hands. So both hands, they completely exploded, tearing apart my skin, my flesh. I pretty much lost 45% of my blood. Both elbows also exploded because my forearms worked as a kind of shock breaker. At the bottom of the cliff, it was a slab of limestone. So, it can't get any harder than that. It's rock. And, fortunately, I bounced back and continued my fall. But it was a steep slope. So I got another 20, 30 meters. And I guess that all of that absorbed a lot of energy. It's a bit like if you compare somebody with a being in a car accident. If you're bumping onto a tree, usually you are dead because you are speeding and suddenly something is really stopping you. Nothing is bouncing back, so this is why it kills you. And the fact that my body did manage to bounce back on the limestone and then roll again on a steep slope most probably saved me. I was in a coma, but my coma was just one week. And then somehow I woke up.
Deep down I have no idea why I am still alive because normally you are not supposed to stay alive after such a fall, but obviously, I did. And doctors, they said that I was never going to be able to climb back, and actually I made them lie because I came back. It took me two years to be even better than I was before my accident. And although I was 66 percent disabled, I did manage to come back and become even much, much better than I had ever been before. I climbed in 1991 the hardest free solo route in the world. So that was something completely unthinkable because with such a broken body that also doesn't really make sense.”
www.alainrobert.com
www.instagram.com/alainrobertofficial/?hl=fr
www.blacksmithbooks.com/books/with-bare-hands-the-true-story-of-alain-robert-the-real-life-spiderman/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @creativeprocesspodcast
Image courtesy of alainrobert.com
"I think just stay open and curious and don't shy away from doing things that are hard. And don't shy away from asking the hard questions. And I guess one of the things that I really do recommend to young people is to not necessarily be looking always over the fence you know, to try to find their passion or the thing that they were meant to do, but instead, you know, stop and remain still and look around at what is already in their lives that they could do to make a contribution.
I think many times, we've had this kind of restless sense of, Oh, I need to go and find my passion, or I need to go and do this, or do that when there's something right in front of us that is already calling us or we're already set up to offer, and we sort of minimize it. And yet when we really immerse ourselves in the lives that we've been given you know, we can make an incredibly valuable contribution in an iterative way, day after day, and really find a lot of purpose and meaning there."
Dr. Anna Lembke is professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. A clinician scholar, she has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries. She sits on the board of several state and national addiction-focused organizations, has testified before various committees in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, keeps an active speaking calendar, and maintains a thriving clinical practice. Dr. Lembke explores how to moderate compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine overloaded world in her NYTimes bestselling book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. Her previous book Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop was highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic.
www.annalembke.com
https://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/patient_care/addiction.html
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/624957/dopamine-nation-by-anna-lembke-md/
www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/11360/drug-dealer-md
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Dr. Anna Lembke is professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. A clinician scholar, she has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries. She sits on the board of several state and national addiction-focused organizations, has testified before various committees in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, keeps an active speaking calendar, and maintains a thriving clinical practice. Dr. Lembke explores how to moderate compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine overloaded world in her NYTimes bestselling book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. Her previous book Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop was highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic.
"I think just stay open and curious and don't shy away from doing things that are hard. And don't shy away from asking the hard questions. And I guess one of the things that I really do recommend to young people is to not necessarily be looking always over the fence you know, to try to find their passion or the thing that they were meant to do, but instead, you know, stop and remain still and look around at what is already in their lives that they could do to make a contribution.
I think many times, we've had this kind of restless sense of, Oh, I need to go and find my passion, or I need to go and do this, or do that when there's something right in front of us that is already calling us or we're already set up to offer, and we sort of minimize it. And yet when we really immerse ourselves in the lives that we've been given you know, we can make an incredibly valuable contribution in an iterative way, day after day, and really find a lot of purpose and meaning there."
www.annalembke.com
https://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/patient_care/addiction.html
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/624957/dopamine-nation-by-anna-lembke-md/
www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/11360/drug-dealer-md
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"That's how she was. Miss Naomi (Mello-D) was very, very positive. I don't know how. She would say God. She would say the Love of Jesus is what kept her positive, but I've just never seen her have a distasteful moment. She was able to get her freedom. She filed out for commutation. They denied her all five votes, and then her roommate just was like, you need to do it again, file paperwork again.
So she wrote the letter, and she said she put it in her Bible and just forgot about it. And she said, one day she came in her room and something... "God just said, send that letter." And she sent it in and the five nos turned into five yeses, in a matter of a year or so. And now she actually works for Lieutenant Governor Fetterman of Pennsylvania. She's the Commutation Specialist. So she assists other lifers in trying to get out and get their freedom. So her story is just amazing and really powerful and it's inspiring. And I'm just, I'm just glad to be along for the ride."
Fury Young and BL Shirelle are the powerhouse team behind Die Jim Crow Records, the first non-profit record label in United States history for currently and formerly incarcerated musicians. DJC Records’ mission is to dismantle stereotypes around race and prison in America by amplifying the voices of our artists. As a pair, Fury Young and BL Shirelle form a perhaps unlikely, but unstoppable duo. Young is a Jewish New Yorker who has not experienced incarceration. Shirelle is a queer, Black woman from Philadelphia who has been heavily impacted by police violence and incarceration. The two formed an inseparable bond. As friends, musical collaborators and now Co-Executive Directors of Die Jim Crow Records, their leadership and commitment to values of representation, fairness, passion for the cause, and a love for art, are at the core of DJC.
www.diejimcrow.com
http://www.blshirelle.com
http://www.furyyoung.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Fury Young and BL Shirelle are the powerhouse team behind Die Jim Crow Records, the first non-profit record label in United States history for currently and formerly incarcerated musicians. DJC Records’ mission is to dismantle stereotypes around race and prison in America by amplifying the voices of our artists.
As a pair, Fury Young and BL Shirelle form a perhaps unlikely, but unstoppable duo. Young is a Jewish New Yorker who has not experienced incarceration. Shirelle is a queer, Black woman from Philadelphia who has been heavily impacted by police violence and incarceration. The two formed an inseparable bond. As friends, musical collaborators and now Co-Executive Directors of Die Jim Crow Records, their leadership and commitment to values of representation, fairness, passion for the cause, and a love for art, are at the core of DJC.
"That's how she was. Miss Naomi (Mello-D) was very, very positive. I don't know how. She would say God. She would say the Love of Jesus is what kept her positive, but I've just never seen her have a distasteful moment. She was able to get her freedom. She filed out for commutation. They denied her all five votes, and then her roommate just was like, you need to do it again, file paperwork again.
So she wrote the letter, and she said she put it in her Bible and just forgot about it. And she said, one day she came in her room and something... "God just said, send that letter." And she sent it in and the five nos turned into five yeses, in a matter of a year or so. And now she actually works for Lieutenant Governor Fetterman of Pennsylvania. She's the Commutation Specialist. So she assists other lifers in trying to get out and get their freedom. So her story is just amazing and really powerful and it's inspiring. And I'm just, I'm just glad to be along for the ride."
www.diejimcrow.com
http://www.blshirelle.com
http://www.furyyoung.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"I am hopeful because I see so many people who care and who care deeply and who are really embracing this Green Amendment movement. It's amazing how powerfully it resonates with people because, while they can't get their heads around what does the Clean Water Act say? Or the Clean Air Act say? Or this law or that law, they can get their heads around I have a right to clean water and clean air, and I'm going to advocate for it. And so that's a beautiful, powerful thing. And it's really so empowering to see how people advocate for the environment in general, but also advocate for this Green Amendment movement because the message is so accessible. I also just had this real belief, if I can't be positive and hopeful, what's my option? To become depressed and sit down and shut up? Well, if I sit down and shut up, that's one less voice for the earth. That's one less voice for nature.
That's one less voice for victimized people who are being sacrificed to industry. So I don't really feel like I have the luxury of wallowing in defeat or despair and sitting down and shutting up. I feel that I have a duty and an obligation to speak for the Earth. And while fundamentally the Green Amendment movement and constitutional Green Amendments are about the Rights of the People, I believe that by framing our Green Amendments in the way traditional constitutional rights are framed where it is the right of the people, we give so much power to nature because we really are giving the people the power they need to protect our natural resources, to speak in defense of our critters and our wild places and our wild spaces and for future generations to rise up in the most powerful way for our climate. I believe 100% in the Rights of Nature."
Maya K. van Rossum is the founder of Green Amendments For The Generations, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring passage of Green Amendments in every state constitution across our nation, and also at the federal level when the time is right. She is an environmental attorney, community organizer, and the Delaware Riverkeeper, leading the regional advocacy organization, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, for over 30 years. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network works throughout the four states of the Delaware River watershed (NY, NJ, PA & DE) and at the national level using advocacy, science and litigation to protect the Delaware River and its tributaries. She is the Author of The Green Amendment: The People's Fight for a Clean, Safe, and Healthy Environment.
www.ForTheGenerations.org
www.delawareriverkeeper.org
https://forthegenerations.org/the-green-amendment/
https://twitter.com/MayaKvanRossum
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Maya K. van Rossum is the founder of Green Amendments For The Generations, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring passage of Green Amendments in every state constitution across our nation, and also at the federal level when the time is right. She is an environmental attorney, community organizer, and the Delaware Riverkeeper, leading the regional advocacy organization, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, for over 30 years. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network works throughout the four states of the Delaware River watershed (NY, NJ, PA & DE) and at the national level using advocacy, science and litigation to protect the Delaware River and its tributaries. She is the Author of The Green Amendment: The People's Fight for a Clean, Safe, and Healthy Environment.
"I am hopeful because I see so many people who care and who care deeply and who are really embracing this Green Amendment movement. It's amazing how powerfully it resonates with people because, while they can't get their heads around what does the Clean Water Act say? Or the Clean Air Act say? Or this law or that law, they can get their heads around I have a right to clean water and clean air, and I'm going to advocate for it. And so that's a beautiful, powerful thing. And it's really so empowering to see how people advocate for the environment in general, but also advocate for this Green Amendment movement because the message is so accessible. I also just had this real belief, if I can't be positive and hopeful, what's my option? To become depressed and sit down and shut up? Well, if I sit down and shut up, that's one less voice for the earth. That's one less voice for nature.
That's one less voice for victimized people who are being sacrificed to industry. So I don't really feel like I have the luxury of wallowing in defeat or despair and sitting down and shutting up. I feel that I have a duty and an obligation to speak for the Earth. And while fundamentally the Green Amendment movement and constitutional Green Amendments are about the Rights of the People, I believe that by framing our Green Amendments in the way traditional constitutional rights are framed where it is the right of the people, we give so much power to nature because we really are giving the people the power they need to protect our natural resources, to speak in defense of our critters and our wild places and our wild spaces and for future generations to rise up in the most powerful way for our climate. I believe 100% in the Rights of Nature."
www.ForTheGenerations.org
www.delawareriverkeeper.org
https://forthegenerations.org/the-green-amendment/
https://twitter.com/MayaKvanRossum
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"I think the general waking up that I'm seeing around me in so many different parts of society, people from all walks understanding that this is here, it's not a future threat. It's active now. We need to get smart about addressing it. And there's a deep approach that... You know, we've just been through the Great Resignation with COVID where a lot of people are leaving their jobs. But similarly, a lot of people are also asking themselves how can I be of service? What can I do at this time? How am I going to be? And you know, the more climate job boards and networking communities and sites of bringing people together to do that work of figuring out how they're going to go on their climate journey while infusing it with a sense of joy, with a sense of how can we make this fun, right? How can we reshift so this is not just focusing on the negative, but really focusing on what we want to be building and what is abundant and the better life that we're working towards? All of that has been popping up a lot and that gives me an honest sense of hope.
You know, I see that reflected. I see real people doing real things and changes in their life. And I feel it within myself and all of those things are just great. It's possible to have high well-being, high meaning, high engagement with things that matter, and that are purposeful, and waves of cultivating, nourishing emotions around all of those things in an increasingly turbulent world. We can do that. So even as the systems around us change. If water is becoming more scarce, let's say, or food scarcity, climate disasters ramping up, and migration crises, there are lots of things that we can do within ourselves to stretch our capacity to be caring and continue taking action for the present moment."
Britt Wray is the author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis. She's a writer and broadcaster researching the emotional and psychological impacts of the climate crisis. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, she is a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she investigates the mental health consequences of ecological disruption. She holds a PhD in Science Communication from the University of Copenhagen. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post Guardian, and Globe and Mail, among other publications. She has hosted several podcasts, radio, and TV programs with the BBC and CBC, is a TED Resident, and writes Gan Dread, a newsletter about staying sane in the climate crisis. She is also the author of Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction.
www.brittwray.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/647141/generation-dread-by-britt-wray
https://greystonebooks.com/products/rise-of-the-necrofauna
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Britt Wray is the author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis. She's a writer and broadcaster researching the emotional and psychological impacts of the climate crisis. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, she is a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she investigates the mental health consequences of ecological disruption. She holds a PhD in Science Communication from the University of Copenhagen. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post Guardian, and Globe and Mail, among other publications. She has hosted several podcasts, radio, and TV programs with the BBC and CBC, is a TED Resident, and writes Gan Dread, a newsletter about staying sane in the climate crisis. She is also the author of Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction.
"I think the general waking up that I'm seeing around me in so many different parts of society, people from all walks understanding that this is here, it's not a future threat. It's active now. We need to get smart about addressing it. And there's a deep approach that... You know, we've just been through the Great Resignation with COVID where a lot of people are leaving their jobs. But similarly, a lot of people are also asking themselves how can I be of service? What can I do at this time? How am I going to be? And you know, the more climate job boards and networking communities and sites of bringing people together to do that work of figuring out how they're going to go on their climate journey while infusing it with a sense of joy, with a sense of how can we make this fun, right? How can we reshift so this is not just focusing on the negative, but really focusing on what we want to be building and what is abundant and the better life that we're working towards? All of that has been popping up a lot and that gives me an honest sense of hope.
You know, I see that reflected. I see real people doing real things and changes in their life. And I feel it within myself and all of those things are just great. It's possible to have high well-being, high meaning, high engagement with things that matter, and that are purposeful, and waves of cultivating, nourishing emotions around all of those things in an increasingly turbulent world. We can do that. So even as the systems around us change. If water is becoming more scarce, let's say, or food scarcity, climate disasters ramping up, and migration crises, there are lots of things that we can do within ourselves to stretch our capacity to be caring and continue taking action for the present moment."
www.brittwray.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/647141/generation-dread-by-britt-wray
https://greystonebooks.com/products/rise-of-the-necrofauna
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
"I'd like them to think that we're all stewards of the Earth and the environment, and we're all, compared to earth's history - which is over four and a half billion years old. we're just here for a short while. And that it's important that we think of ourselves as stewards of intergenerational knowledge. And so just like I pass on this knowledge and my experiences to students and, through discussions like this, I want to empower our young people, to do the same. And also, if you are interested in the environment today, there are so many entry points and so many more jobs available than when I was in college. So it is green technology, blue technology for water, anything related to sustainability...so many more opportunities. So go for it and remember to pass on your knowledge and your stewardship values to the next generation."
Jay Famiglietti is a hydrologist, a professor and the Executive Director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, where he holds the Canada 150 Research Chair in Hydrology and Remote Sensing. He is also the Chief Scientist of the Silicon Valley tech startup, Waterplan. Before moving to Saskatchewan, he served as the Senior Water Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. From 2013 through 2018, he was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the California State Water Boards. He has appeared on CBS News 60 Minutes, on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, as a featured expert in water documentaries including Day Zero and Last Call at the Oasis, and across a host of international news media. He is the host of the podcast What About Water?
https://jayfamiglietti.com
What About Water? podcast with Jay Famiglietti
Twitter @WhatAboutWater
GIWS https://water.usask.ca
www.waterplan.com
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Jay Famiglietti is a hydrologist, a professor and the Executive Director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, where he holds the Canada 150 Research Chair in Hydrology and Remote Sensing. He is also the Chief Scientist of the Silicon Valley tech startup, Waterplan. Before moving to Saskatchewan, he served as the Senior Water Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. From 2013 through 2018, he was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the California State Water Boards. He has appeared on CBS News 60 Minutes, on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, as a featured expert in water documentaries including Day Zero and Last Call at the Oasis, and across a host of international news media. He is the host of the podcast What About Water?
"I'd like them to think that we're all stewards of the Earth and the environment, and we're all, compared to earth's history - which is over four and a half billion years old. we're just here for a short while. And that it's important that we think of ourselves as stewards of intergenerational knowledge. And so just like I pass on this knowledge and my experiences to students and, through discussions like this, I want to empower our young people, to do the same. And also, if you are interested in the environment today, there are so many entry points and so many more jobs available than when I was in college. So it is green technology, blue technology for water, anything related to sustainability...so many more opportunities. So go for it and remember to pass on your knowledge and your stewardship values to the next generation."
https://jayfamiglietti.com
What About Water? podcast with Jay Famiglietti
Twitter @WhatAboutWater
GIWS https://water.usask.ca
www.waterplan.com
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
“I live my life embodying the teaching my grandmother instilled in me – that no matter which lens I walked on, I had to learn how to build relationships with the land and the Indigenous peoples whose land I reside on to become a welcome guest. As a displaced Indigenous woman, my longing to return to my ancestral homelands will always be there, and this is why I continue to support my communities in the diaspora. However, my relationships are not only with my community, but also the Indigenous communities whose land I am displaced on, and this is the foundation of my work while residing in the Pacific Northwest. I strongly believe that in order to start healing Indigenous landscapes, everyone must understand their positionality as either settlers, unwanted guests, or welcomed guests, and that is ultimately determined by the Indigenous communities whose land you currently reside on or occupy. This teaching has also helped me envision my goals in life. Every day I get closer to becoming an ancestor because life is not guaranteed but rather a gift we are granted from our ancestors who are now in the spiritual world.”
Dr. Jessica Hernandez (Binnizá & Maya Ch’orti’) is a transnational Indigenous scholar, scientist, and community advocate based in the Pacific Northwest. She has an interdisciplinary academic background ranging from marine sciences to environmental physics. She advocates for climate, energy, and environmental justice through her scientific and community work. Her book Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science breaks down why western conservationism isn’t working–and offers Indigenous models informed by case studies, personal stories, and family histories that center the voices of Latin American women and land protectors. In 2022, she was named by Forbes as one of the 100 most powerful women of Central America. She holds appointments at Sustainable Seattle, City of Seattle's Urban Forestry Commission, and the International Mayan League. Fresh Banana Leaves received the Bruce Piasecki and Andrea Masters Award on Business and Society Writing (2022).
www.jessicabhernandez.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/675699/fresh-banana-leaves-by-jessica-hernandez/
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Dr. Jessica Hernandez (Binnizá & Maya Ch’orti’) is a transnational Indigenous scholar, scientist, and community advocate based in the Pacific Northwest. She has an interdisciplinary academic background ranging from marine sciences to environmental physics. She advocates for climate, energy, and environmental justice through her scientific and community work. Her book Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science breaks down why western conservationism isn’t working–and offers Indigenous models informed by case studies, personal stories, and family histories that center the voices of Latin American women and land protectors. In 2022, she was named by Forbes as one of the 100 most powerful women of Central America. She holds appointments at Sustainable Seattle, City of Seattle's Urban Forestry Commission, and the International Mayan League. Fresh Banana Leaves received the Bruce Piasecki and Andrea Masters Award on Business and Society Writing (2022).
“I live my life embodying the teaching my grandmother instilled in me – that no matter which lens I walked on, I had to learn how to build relationships with the land and the Indigenous peoples whose land I reside on to become a welcome guest. As a displaced Indigenous woman, my longing to return to my ancestral homelands will always be there, and this is why I continue to support my communities in the diaspora. However, my relationships are not only with my community, but also the Indigenous communities whose land I am displaced on, and this is the foundation of my work while residing in the Pacific Northwest. I strongly believe that in order to start healing Indigenous landscapes, everyone must understand their positionality as either settlers, unwanted guests, or welcomed guests, and that is ultimately determined by the Indigenous communities whose land you currently reside on or occupy. This teaching has also helped me envision my goals in life. Every day I get closer to becoming an ancestor because life is not guaranteed but rather a gift we are granted from our ancestors who are now in the spiritual world.”
www.jessicabhernandez.com
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/675699/fresh-banana-leaves-by-jessica-hernandez/
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
"Now, William of Occam was a theologian, really, but he was closer to being a logician. He worked with logic, and he went to study theology at the University of Oxford. He had an uncertain history. We don't really know anything about his childhood other than he was given to the Franciscans, which gives you a clue he might have been an abandoned child, an orphaned child, an illegitimate child and just left at the monastery. So we don't really know anything much about his early life, but we do know he went to walk Oxford to study theology. And to give you a feeling for what the problem was really, theology was at that time called the Queen of Sciences. And that's because the way that people thought about the world is that theology, religion, metaphysics were all one. So yes, they had gods or angels in the sky pushing the heavenly bodies, and they had those spirits on earth causing plagues and stuff. And it was all one place. Everything was one place but with lots and lots of entities. And also part of the reason why it was called a science is that Thomas Aquinas a century earlier - another great theologian - had incorporated Aristotle's philosophy into Christian theology and came up with what he called theology as a science."
Johnjoe McFadden is the author of Life is Simple, How Occam’s Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe. He obtained his PhD at Imperial College London and went on to work on human genetic diseases and then infectious diseases, at the University of Surrey. Professor McFadden has specialised in examining the genetics of microbes such as the agents of tuberculosis and meningitis. His other books are Quantum Evolution: Life in the Multiverse, and Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology (co-authored with Jim Al-Khalili). He has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals on a wide range of subjects and lectures around the world. His present post is Associate Dean (International) and Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Surrey.
www.surrey.ac.uk/people/johnjoe-mcfadden
https://johnjoemcfadden.co.uk
www.basicbooks.com/titles/johnjoe-mcfadden/life-is-simple/9781549112119
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Johnjoe McFadden is the author of Life is Simple, How Occam’s Razor Set Science Free and Shapes the Universe. He obtained his PhD at Imperial College London and went on to work on human genetic diseases and then infectious diseases, at the University of Surrey. Professor McFadden has specialised in examining the genetics of microbes such as the agents of tuberculosis and meningitis. His other books are Quantum Evolution: Life in the Multiverse, and Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology (co-authored with Jim Al-Khalili). He has published more than 100 articles in scientific journals on a wide range of subjects and lectures around the world. His present post is Associate Dean (International) and Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Surrey.
"Now, William of Occam was a theologian, really, but he was closer to being a logician. He worked with logic, and he went to study theology at the University of Oxford. He had an uncertain history. We don't really know anything about his childhood other than he was given to the Franciscans, which gives you a clue he might have been an abandoned child, an orphaned child, an illegitimate child and just left at the monastery. So we don't really know anything much about his early life, but we do know he went to walk Oxford to study theology. And to give you a feeling for what the problem was really, theology was at that time called the Queen of Sciences. And that's because the way that people thought about the world is that theology, religion, metaphysics were all one. So yes, they had gods or angels in the sky pushing the heavenly bodies, and they had those spirits on earth causing plagues and stuff. And it was all one place. Everything was one place but with lots and lots of entities. And also part of the reason why it was called a science is that Thomas Aquinas a century earlier - another great theologian - had incorporated Aristotle's philosophy into Christian theology and came up with what he called theology as a science."
www.surrey.ac.uk/people/johnjoe-mcfadden
https://johnjoemcfadden.co.uk
www.basicbooks.com/titles/johnjoe-mcfadden/life-is-simple/9781549112119
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"So we tend to take living for granted. I think that might be the biggest limitation of human intelligence is to not understand with awe and reverence and love that we live in a miracle that we are part of and that we have the ability to either nurture or destroy.
The living world is enormously enriching to human life. I just loved animals. They're always just totally fascinating. They're not here for us. They're just here like we're just here. They are of this world as much as we are of this world. They really have the same claim to life and death and the circle of being."
Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Audubon, CNN.com, National Geographic News, and other publications. He is the author of ten books including the classic Song for the Blue Ocean, as well as New York Times Bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent book is Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.
www.safinacenter.org
www.carlsafina.org
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Audubon, CNN.com, National Geographic News, and other publications. He is the author of ten books including the classic Song for the Blue Ocean, as well as New York Times Bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent book is Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.
"So we tend to take living for granted. I think that might be the biggest limitation of human intelligence is to not understand with awe and reverence and love that we live in a miracle that we are part of and that we have the ability to either nurture or destroy.
The living world is enormously enriching to human life. I just loved animals. They're always just totally fascinating. They're not here for us. They're just here like we're just here. They are of this world as much as we are of this world. They really have the same claim to life and death and the circle of being."
www.safinacenter.org
www.carlsafina.org
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Photo: Carl Safina in Uganda
"If all jobs could be done more cheaply and better by AI, then what would we do? It would be a world without work, and I think that initially that sounds kind of frightening. How would we earn an income? What would we do all day long? I think it's also a big opportunity to rethink what it means to be human and what gives meaning in our lives. I think because we have been forced to work since the rise of our species, we had to earn our bread by the sweat of our brows.
We have kind of defined our identity and dignity around work. A lot of people take pride in being a breadwinner, in making a contribution to society by putting an effort and achieving some useful aims, but in this hypothetical future where that's not needed anymore. We would have to find some other basis for our human worth. Not what we can do to produce instrumental, useful outcomes, but maybe rather what we can be and experience to add value to the world by actually living happy and fulfilling lives. And so leisure culture, cultivating enjoyment of life, all the good things, happy conversation, appreciation for art, for natural beauty.
All of these things that are now seen as kind of gratuitous extras, little frills around the existence of the universe, maybe we would have to build those into the center. That would have profound consequences for how we educate people, the kinds of culture that we encourage, the habits and characters that we celebrate. That will require a big transition. But I think ultimately that is also an enormous opportunity to make the human experience much better than it currently is."
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish-born philosopher with a background in theoretical physics, computational neuroscience, logic, and artificial intelligence, as well as philosophy. He is the most-cited professional philosopher in the world under the age of 50.
He is a Professor at Oxford University, where he heads the Future of Humanity Institute as its founding director. He is the author of some 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias, Global Catastrophic Risks, Human Enhancement, and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, a New York Times bestseller which helped spark a global conversation about the future of AI. He has also published a series of influential papers, including ones that introduced the simulation argument and the concept of existential risk.
Bostrom’s academic work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He is a repeat main TED speaker and has been on Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers list twice and was included in Prospect’s World Thinkers list, the youngest person in the top 15. As a graduate student he dabbled in stand-up comedy on the London circuit, but he has since reconnected with the heavy gloom of his Swedish roots.
https://nickbostrom.com
https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish-born philosopher with a background in theoretical physics, computational neuroscience, logic, and artificial intelligence, as well as philosophy. He is the most-cited professional philosopher in the world under the age of 50.
He is a Professor at Oxford University, where he heads the Future of Humanity Institute as its founding director. He is the author of some 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias, Global Catastrophic Risks, Human Enhancement, and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, a New York Times bestseller which helped spark a global conversation about the future of AI. He has also published a series of influential papers, including ones that introduced the simulation argument and the concept of existential risk.
Bostrom’s academic work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He is a repeat main TED speaker and has been on Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers list twice and was included in Prospect’s World Thinkers list, the youngest person in the top 15. As a graduate student he dabbled in stand-up comedy on the London circuit, but he has since reconnected with the heavy gloom of his Swedish roots.
"If all jobs could be done more cheaply and better by AI, then what would we do? It would be a world without work, and I think that initially that sounds kind of frightening. How would we earn an income? What would we do all day long? I think it's also a big opportunity to rethink what it means to be human and what gives meaning in our lives. I think because we have been forced to work since the rise of our species, we had to earn our bread by the sweat of our brows.
We have kind of defined our identity and dignity around work. A lot of people take pride in being a breadwinner, in making a contribution to society by putting an effort and achieving some useful aims, but in this hypothetical future where that's not needed anymore. We would have to find some other basis for our human worth. Not what we can do to produce instrumental, useful outcomes, but maybe rather what we can be and experience to add value to the world by actually living happy and fulfilling lives. And so leisure culture, cultivating enjoyment of life, all the good things, happy conversation, appreciation for art, for natural beauty.
All of these things that are now seen as kind of gratuitous extras, little frills around the existence of the universe, maybe we would have to build those into the center. That would have profound consequences for how we educate people, the kinds of culture that we encourage, the habits and characters that we celebrate. That will require a big transition. But I think ultimately that is also an enormous opportunity to make the human experience much better than it currently is."
https://nickbostrom.com
https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"Creativity is one of the most important themes that you can see throughout the book. I find meditation is a very good source of mindfulness, and what meditation teaches you is to observe your own thoughts. A lot of times we suffer through self-talk, and we are not even aware of this. A lot of times this self-talk actually amplifies our pain, because in reality, the pain should not last very long. Creative pain should not last very long, but it's the self-talk that amplifies the amount of it, and the length of it. Now, meditation allows you to look at your self-talk and identify that, and by labeling and identifying it, you lessen it and reduce the duration. And that is actually incredibly important. Teach yourself to be mindful through meditation.”
Vitaliy Katsenelson was born in Murmansk, Russia and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1991. He is the author of Soul in the Game, The Art of a Meaningful Life. He is the CEO of Denver-based value investment firm IMA. Vitaliy has also written two books on investing. Forbes Magazine called him “The New Benjamin Graham.” He’s written for the Financial Times, Barron’s, Institutional Investor and Foreign Policy. Vitaliy lives in Denver with his wife and three children, where he loves to read, listen to classical music, play chess, and write about life, investing, and music.
https://soulinthegame.net
https://contrarianedge.com
https://imausa.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Vitaliy Katsenelson was born in Murmansk, Russia and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1991. He is the author of Soul in the Game, The Art of a Meaningful Life. He is the CEO of Denver-based value investment firm IMA. Vitaliy has also written two books on investing. Forbes Magazine called him “The New Benjamin Graham.” He’s written for the Financial Times, Barron’s, Institutional Investor and Foreign Policy. Vitaliy lives in Denver with his wife and three children, where he loves to read, listen to classical music, play chess, and write about life, investing, and music.
"Creativity is one of the most important themes that you can see throughout the book. I find meditation is a very good source of mindfulness, and what meditation teaches you is to observe your own thoughts. A lot of times we suffer through self-talk, and we are not even aware of this. A lot of times this self-talk actually amplifies our pain, because in reality, the pain should not last very long. Creative pain should not last very long, but it's the self-talk that amplifies the amount of it, and the length of it. Now, meditation allows you to look at your self-talk and identify that, and by labeling and identifying it, you lessen it and reduce the duration. And that is actually incredibly important. Teach yourself to be mindful through meditation.”
https://soulinthegame.net
https://contrarianedge.com
https://imausa.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"You really need to think about it holistically. We've disconnected ourselves from the living world, and we have this beautiful quotation from David Orr, he's an environmentalist and teacher, and he said, 'Can we imagine education that doesn't dominate nature?' And I think, the jury is out. We have to actually reconceive it. We have to think about a living world that we're part of. And [through my work at the McEwen school] I discovered that the Indigenous folks have a different cosmology. They don't put humans at the center. They put life at the center, and one of the guys said, 'We think that we are related to the rocks and the grasses,' which is actually what E.O. Wilson said, 'Rock is slow life, and life is fast rock.' So here you have the greatest life scientist in the last half-century saying the same thing as the Indigenous cosmologist. When I realized that I thought–Wow, this is just an incredible, incredible situation that you have science and spirituality coming to the same place.”
Designer, author, educator and artist Bruce Mau is a brilliantly creative optimist whose love of thorny problems led him to create a methodology for life-centered design. Across thirty years of design innovation, he’s collaborated with global brands and companies, leading organizations, heads of state, renowned artists and fellow optimists. Mau became an international figure with the publication of his landmark S,M,L,XL, designed and co-authored with Rem Koolhaas, and his most recent books are Mau MC24: Bruce Mau’s 24 Principles for Designing Massive Change in Your Life and Work and, with co-author, Julio Ottino, dean of Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering, The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World – The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science. Mau is co-founder and CEO of Massive Change Network, a holistic design collective based in the Chicago area.
www.massivechangenetwork.com
www.Brucemaustudio.com
Mau MC24
The Nexus
Image Courtesy of Massive Change Network
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Designer, author, educator and artist Bruce Mau is a brilliantly creative optimist whose love of thorny problems led him to create a methodology for life-centered design. Across thirty years of design innovation, he’s collaborated with global brands and companies, leading organizations, heads of state, renowned artists and fellow optimists. Mau became an international figure with the publication of his landmark S,M,L,XL, designed and co-authored with Rem Koolhaas, and his most recent books are Mau MC24: Bruce Mau’s 24 Principles for Designing Massive Change in Your Life and Work and, with co-author, Julio Ottino, dean of Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering, The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World – The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science. Mau is co-founder and CEO of Massive Change Network, a holistic design collective based in the Chicago area.
"You really need to think about it holistically. We've disconnected ourselves from the living world, and we have this beautiful quotation from David Orr, he's an environmentalist and teacher, and he said, 'Can we imagine education that doesn't dominate nature?' And I think, the jury is out. We have to actually reconceive it. We have to think about a living world that we're part of. And [through my work at the McEwen school] I discovered that the Indigenous folks have a different cosmology. They don't put humans at the center. They put life at the center, and one of the guys said, 'We think that we are related to the rocks and the grasses,' which is actually what E.O. Wilson said, 'Rock is slow life, and life is fast rock.' So here you have the greatest life scientist in the last half-century saying the same thing as the Indigenous cosmologist. When I realized that I thought–Wow, this is just an incredible, incredible situation that you have science and spirituality coming to the same place.”
www.massivechangenetwork.com
www.Brucemaustudio.com
Mau MC24
The Nexus
Image Courtesy of Massive Change Network
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"When I was in Northern India, everywhere I was passing by the Ganges River, and I realized that this story was about water. This story was about connecting with this place as I would a baptism. I'm a Catholic. I don't relate to India in that same spiritual way as a native of the country or as a Hindu would, but I can relate to it as a person in that I feel cleansed and refreshed and purified by water. And I felt a draw always to the water."
Marcia DeSanctis is a journalist, essayist, and author of A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life, 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go, a New York Times travel bestseller. A contributor writer at Travel + Leisure, she also writes for Air Mail, Vogue, BBC Travel and many other publications. She has won five Lowell Thomas Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers and is the recipient of the 2021 Gold Award for Travel Story of the Year. Before becoming a writer, she was a television news producer for ABC, NBC and CBS News, for most of those years producing for Barbara Walters. She lives in Connecticut.
https://marciadesanctis.com
A Hard Place to Leave
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Marcia DeSanctis is a journalist, essayist, and author of A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life, 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go, a New York Times travel bestseller. A contributor writer at Travel + Leisure, she also writes for Air Mail, Vogue, BBC Travel and many other publications. She has won five Lowell Thomas Awards from the Society of American Travel Writers and is the recipient of the 2021 Gold Award for Travel Story of the Year. Before becoming a writer, she was a television news producer for ABC, NBC and CBS News, for most of those years producing for Barbara Walters. She lives in Connecticut.
"When I was in Northern India, everywhere I was passing by the Ganges River, and I realized that this story was about water. This story was about connecting with this place as I would a baptism. I'm a Catholic. I don't relate to India in that same spiritual way as a native of the country or as a Hindu would, but I can relate to it as a person in that I feel cleansed and refreshed and purified by water. And I felt a draw always to the water."
https://marciadesanctis.com
A Hard Place to Leave
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Photo credit: Elena Seibert
"My wife and I are Buddhists. We practice Buddhism, and the main message with that spiritual tradition is to benefit others. I mean, if you focus more on benefiting others than seeking just for oneself, this is where joy comes from, both for yourself and others. So it is kind of a life of service. I mean, we can make a living at it, but at the same time, it's more about a life of service. We're serving other people. We're feeding people the best food you can find anywhere. When you speak about tradition or passing on farms, often what gets forgotten is not just the land itself, but it's the wisdom. It's knowing how to coax life from the soil. That's very important, whatever you're growing. There's a certain type of wisdom that it takes to grow those things, and that is something that's at risk of getting forgotten."
John and Emily Beaton have created a multi-enterprise farming business in Northeastern Minnesota near Duluth and the shores of Lake Superior. They founded Fairhaven Farm with a spirit of community building, a focus on soil health, and a desire to see a thriving local food system. They sell starter plants each spring for home gardeners, grow food for over 50 families through their CSA program, and are launching a new Pizza Farm enterprise where the couple will serve wood-fired pizzas on the farm featuring all locally sourced ingredients—including fresh tomatoes and vegetables right from their field!
www.fairhaven.farm
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
John and Emily Beaton have created a multi-enterprise farming business in Northeastern Minnesota near Duluth and the shores of Lake Superior. They founded Fairhaven Farm with a spirit of community building, a focus on soil health, and a desire to see a thriving local food system. They sell starter plants each spring for home gardeners, grow food for over 50 families through their CSA program, and are launching a new Pizza Farm enterprise where the couple will serve wood-fired pizzas on the farm featuring all locally sourced ingredients—including fresh tomatoes and vegetables right from their field!
"My wife and I are Buddhists. We practice Buddhism, and the main message with that spiritual tradition is to benefit others. I mean, if you focus more on benefiting others than seeking just for oneself, this is where joy comes from, both for yourself and others. So it is kind of a life of service. I mean, we can make a living at it, but at the same time, it's more about a life of service. We're serving other people. We're feeding people the best food you can find anywhere. When you speak about tradition or passing on farms, often what gets forgotten is not just the land itself, but it's the wisdom. It's knowing how to coax life from the soil. That's very important, whatever you're growing. There's a certain type of wisdom that it takes to grow those things, and that is something that's at risk of getting forgotten."
www.fairhaven.farm
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
"Stoicism started in 300 B.C. in Athens. Zeno of Citium was the first Stoic. He created it. He put together components of some other then existing schools of philosophy and started his own school, but what we know primarily are the Roman Stoics. So this would be in the first century B.C. and the first century A.D. in Rome. And the four big names are Marcus Aurelius (who was also an emperor), Seneca (who was also a playright and the first century equivalent of a billionaire), an interestingly complex guy, and Epictetus (who was a successful head of a school of philosophy). Fourth name (less known, but a very important Roman Stoic) is Musonius Rufus, who was actually the teacher of Epictetus. And the interesting thing is, all four of them, you can pick up and start reading them, and you will very quickly sort of say – Oh, I see what they're doing. And I see why it's relevant to my life. And I see how it can be useful to my life.”
William B. Irvine is emeritus professor of philosophy at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, USA. He is the author of eight books that have been translated into more than twenty languages. His A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy played a key role in the Stoic renaissance that has taken place in recent years. His subsequent The Stoic Challenge: A Philosopher’s Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient provides a strategy for dealing, in proper Stoic manner, with the setbacks we experience in daily living. He is currently at work on a book about thinking critically, but with an open mind, in the age of the internet.
www.williambirvine.com
The Stoic Challenge
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
William B. Irvine is emeritus professor of philosophy at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, USA. He is the author of eight books that have been translated into more than twenty languages. His A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy played a key role in the Stoic renaissance that has taken place in recent years. His subsequent The Stoic Challenge: A Philosopher’s Guide to Becoming Tougher, Calmer, and More Resilient provides a strategy for dealing, in proper Stoic manner, with the setbacks we experience in daily living. He is currently at work on a book about thinking critically, but with an open mind, in the age of the internet.
"Stoicism started in 300 B.C. in Athens. Zeno of Citium was the first Stoic. He created it. He put together components of some other then existing schools of philosophy and started his own school, but what we know primarily are the Roman Stoics. So this would be in the first century B.C. and the first century A.D. in Rome. And the four big names are Marcus Aurelius (who was also an emperor), Seneca (who was also a playright and the first century equivalent of a billionaire), an interestingly complex guy, and Epictetus (who was a successful head of a school of philosophy). Fourth name (less known, but a very important Roman Stoic) is Musonius Rufus, who was actually the teacher of Epictetus. And the interesting thing is, all four of them, you can pick up and start reading them, and you will very quickly sort of say – Oh, I see what they're doing. And I see why it's relevant to my life. And I see how it can be useful to my life.”
www.williambirvine.com
The Stoic Challenge
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Photo credit: Lyndon French
"It can be very difficult. When we say seven generations, our generations are longer - from grandparent to grandparent - it's not the Western idea of one generation. So it's even longer than most people would know, and the thing is it does take practice. It does take true intention, not only individually, but societal, community intention. It has to be built into the structure of a community, of a country, of a tribe. And for our tribes, for my tribe, that was built into our structure. It was built into the way that we lived."
Victor A. Lopez-Carmen is a Dakota and Yaqui writer, health advocate, and student at Harvard Medical School. He is cofounder of the Ohiyesa Premedical Program at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), which supports Indigenous community and tribal college students to pursue healthcare education. He also founded Translations for our Nations, a grant funded initiation that translated accurate COVID-19 information into over 40 Indigenous languages from over 20 different countries. For his work, he has been featured on the Forbes 30 under 30 and Native American 40 under 40 lists. He is Co-Chair of the UN Global Indigenous Youth Caucus.
Forbes 30 under 30 - Healthcare 2022
Translations for our Nations
Ohiyesa Premedical Program
www.globalindigenousyouthcaucus.org
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Victor A. Lopez-Carmen is a Dakota and Yaqui writer, health advocate, and student at Harvard Medical School. He is cofounder of the Ohiyesa Premedical Program at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), which supports Indigenous community and tribal college students to pursue healthcare education. He also founded Translations for our Nations, a grant funded initiation that translated accurate COVID-19 information into over 40 Indigenous languages from over 20 different countries. For his work, he has been featured on the Forbes 30 under 30 and Native American 40 under 40 lists. He is Co-Chair of the UN Global Indigenous Youth Caucus.
"It can be very difficult. When we say seven generations, our generations are longer - from grandparent to grandparent - it's not the Western idea of one generation. So it's even longer than most people would know, and the thing is it does take practice. It does take true intention, not only individually, but societal, community intention. It has to be built into the structure of a community, of a country, of a tribe. And for our tribes, for my tribe, that was built into our structure. It was built into the way that we lived."
Forbes 30 under 30 - Healthcare 2022
Translations for our Nations
Ohiyesa Premedical Program
www.globalindigenousyouthcaucus.org
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
“Truth is, in some sense, a pathless land. And so anything that we state in either scientific or religious frameworks, spiritual frameworks, will always be only a partial description and will maybe give us some pointers that are good on truth. It will also miss other things that are really important... Science is part of the process of the fun of exploring using conceptual tools, this endless truth. But on a spiritual side, another way to explore the truth is - if we are in fact ourselves not distinct from consciousness, if consciousness is the fundamental reality, and we're not distinct from that - then we can explore the truth by just being the truth.”
Donald D. Hoffman is a Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes. His research on perception, evolution, and consciousness received the Troland Award of the US National Academy of Sciences, the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution of the American Psychological Association, the Rustum Roy Award of the Chopra Foundation, and is the subject of his TED Talk, titled “Do we see reality as it is?”
http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/
The Case Against Reality
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Donald D. Hoffman is a Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes. His research on perception, evolution, and consciousness received the Troland Award of the US National Academy of Sciences, the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution of the American Psychological Association, the Rustum Roy Award of the Chopra Foundation, and is the subject of his TED Talk, titled “Do we see reality as it is?”
“Truth is, in some sense, a pathless land. And so anything that we state in either scientific or religious frameworks, spiritual frameworks, will always be only a partial description and will maybe give us some pointers that are good on truth. It will also miss other things that are really important... Science is part of the process of the fun of exploring using conceptual tools, this endless truth. But on a spiritual side, another way to explore the truth is - if we are in fact ourselves not distinct from consciousness, if consciousness is the fundamental reality, and we're not distinct from that - then we can explore the truth by just being the truth.”
http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/
The Case Against Reality
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"If we have this vision of life, then we find meaning, but if everything is just the quest for temporary happiness, we are running after happiness all the time, we try to find it outside of ourselves, and it's difficult to find it outside of ourselves. And then we have depression, we have anxiety because we don't find what we want in life... I also would like to tell you how inspired I was in my childhood by all the big explorers that I met, astronauts of the early American Space Program, pioneers in aviation, pioneers in environment, in underwater exploration. And all these people showed me that it is wonderful to embrace the unknown, to do things that nobody thinks is possible, to try things for the first time, to invent, to create, to call our certitudes into question, to challenge our knowledge and try to know more and better and differently.
All this, I believe, is really important in life. Always try to improve what we see and what we have. This is the meaning of exploration, not only exploration of new territories, but exploration of better ways to think and better ways to do.”
Psychiatrist, aviator and explorer, Bertrand Piccard made history in 1999 by accomplishing the first ever non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, and a number of years later the first round-the-world solar-powered flight. Piccard has dedicated his life to demonstrating sustainable development opportunities. He is Founder and Chairman of the Solar Impulse Foundation, which has assembled a verified portfolio of over 1400 actionable and profitable climate solutions. As a pioneer of new ways of thinking that reconcile ecology and economy, he uses his exploration feats to motivate governments and industries to take action. He is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment and Special Advisor to the European Commission. He’s author of Réaliste, Changer d’Altitude, and other books.
Solar Impulse Foundation
bertrandpiccard.com
Solar Impulse Solutions Explorer (1400+)
Réaliste
Changer d’altitude
Photo credit: Jean Revillard
Cairo, Egypt, July 13, 2016 - Solar Impulse flying over the Pyramids
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Psychiatrist, aviator and explorer, Bertrand Piccard made history in 1999 by accomplishing the first ever non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, and a number of years later the first round-the-world solar-powered flight. Piccard has dedicated his life to demonstrating sustainable development opportunities. He is Founder and Chairman of the Solar Impulse Foundation, which has assembled a verified portfolio of over 1400 actionable and profitable climate solutions. As a pioneer of new ways of thinking that reconcile ecology and economy, he uses his exploration feats to motivate governments and industries to take action. He is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment, Special Advisor to the European Commission, and is author of Réaliste, Changer d’Altitude, and other books.
"If we have this vision of life, then we find meaning, but if everything is just the quest for temporary happiness, we are running after happiness all the time, we try to find it outside of ourselves, and it's difficult to find it outside of ourselves. And then we have depression, we have anxiety because we don't find what we want in life... I also would like to tell you how inspired I was in my childhood by all the big explorers that I met, astronauts of the early American Space Program, pioneers in aviation, pioneers in environment, in underwater exploration. And all these people showed me that it is wonderful to embrace the unknown, to do things that nobody thinks is possible, to try things for the first time, to invent, to create, to call our certitudes into question, to challenge our knowledge and try to know more and better and differently.
All this, I believe, is really important in life. Always try to improve what we see and what we have. This is the meaning of exploration, not only exploration of new territories, but exploration of better ways to think and better ways to do.”
Solar Impulse Foundation
bertrandpiccard.com
Solar Impulse Solutions Explorer (1400+)
Réaliste
Changer d’altitude
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
"And so that this is like a daily gift, which is why I practice every day, and that's what the artistic and creative experience is for me. So in a world that's either so impossible to control, such as political situations and world hunger and gargantuan, spiritual malaise, which is what I believe this world is suffering from because we are way too identified with our animal nature and way too unidentified with our spiritual nature, which is what I believe is required as a transformation for this world to exist. For us to become less selfish and more compassionate human beings or we're doomed.
You know, it can be painful to stay awake or it can be revelation to become awake, which is why people are learning how to meditate and why that's coming into schools because there's an awakening to yourself and the goodness and possibility in this world.”
Cynthia Daniels is a Grammy and Emmy award-winning producer, engineer and composer working extensively in film, television, and music. Her career has led her around the world, initially specializing in orchestral pop from Big Band Jazz to Broadway, and then crossing over into producing records for young and seasoned artists in the rock, country, and folk-rock world. She is owner and chief engineer at The Hamptons first world-class recording studio, MonkMusic. She has hosted or engineered sessions for Chaka Khan, Beyonce, Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Nile Rogers, Alec Baldwin, Julie Andrews, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Billy Porter.
www.cynthiadaniels.net
Monk Music Radio
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Cynthia Daniels is a Grammy and Emmy award-winning producer, engineer and composer working extensively in film, television, and music. Her career has led her around the world, initially specializing in orchestral pop from Big Band Jazz to Broadway, and then crossing over into producing records for young and seasoned artists in the rock, country, and folk-rock world. She is owner and chief engineer at The Hamptons first world-class recording studio, MonkMusic. She has hosted or engineered sessions for Chaka Khan, Beyonce, Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Nile Rogers, Alec Baldwin, Julie Andrews, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Billy Porter.
"And so that this is like a daily gift, which is why I practice every day, and that's what the artistic and creative experience is for me. So in a world that's either so impossible to control, such as political situations and world hunger and gargantuan, spiritual malaise, which is what I believe this world is suffering from because we are way too identified with our animal nature and way too unidentified with our spiritual nature, which is what I believe is required as a transformation for this world to exist. For us to become less selfish and more compassionate human beings or we're doomed.
You know, it can be painful to stay awake or it can be revelation to become awake, which is why people are learning how to meditate and why that's coming into schools because there's an awakening to yourself and the goodness and possibility in this world.”
www.cynthiadaniels.net
Monk Music Radio
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Portrait of Cynthia Daniels by Mia Funk
"Sacrifices mentioned here do not necessarily mean that we need to go through a period of suffering, but rather a process of changing our life's outlook. Buddhist teachings mention how desire and ignorance lie at the root of all suffering. By tuning down our desires, we may be on a journey to discover a spiritual enlightenment in harmony with the planet. Another mistake we make when talking about continuing economic growth is that we often equate it to human wellbeing. We think matter of factly that economic growth means an increase in the human standard of living. However, this runs the risk of replacing our end goal of increased human prosperity with one means of achieving it, which is economic growth to the point that we pour all our resources into cranking numbers, such as GDP, but never question if it actually does improve our lives. I think degrowth offers a new way of thinking, an avenue of self-reflection and making the necessary corrections."
–Yansong Li, co-host on this episode
KC Legacion is a Master of Environmental Studies candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. His research presents a reimagined understanding of social media through the lens of degrowth—this project will culminate in a short film set to premiere in September of this year. Outside of their research, KC is a team member of the web collective degrowth.info and a member of a nascent housing cooperative in West Philadelphia.
www.degrowth.info
www.kclegacion.com
www.decidim.org
www.joinmastodon.org
www.iNaturalist.org
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
KC Legacion is a Master of Environmental Studies candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. His research presents a reimagined understanding of social media through the lens of degrowth—this project will culminate in a short film set to premiere in September of this year. Outside of their research, KC is a team member of the web collective degrowth.info and a member of a nascent housing cooperative in West Philadelphia.
"Sacrifices mentioned here do not necessarily mean that we need to go through a period of suffering, but rather a process of changing our life's outlook. Buddhist teachings mention how desire and ignorance lie at the root of all suffering. By tuning down our desires, we may be on a journey to discover a spiritual enlightenment in harmony with the planet. Another mistake we make when talking about continuing economic growth is that we often equate it to human wellbeing. We think matter of factly that economic growth means an increase in the human standard of living. However, this runs the risk of replacing our end goal of increased human prosperity with one means of achieving it, which is economic growth to the point that we pour all our resources into cranking numbers, such as GDP, but never question if it actually does improve our lives. I think degrowth offers a new way of thinking, an avenue of self-reflection and making the necessary corrections."
–Yansong Li, co-host on this episode
www.degrowth.info
www.kclegacion.com
www.decidim.org
www.joinmastodon.org
www.iNaturalist.org
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
“Before coming on board Under the Banner of Heaven, I had very little knowledge of Mormonism, but having read the script by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who is also the showrunner for the show, I resonated deeply with Jeb Pyre (played by Andrew Garfield) when it comes to his growing ambivalence and his crisis of faith.
And the more he learned about the gruesome, grisly history of the founding Mormonism, and also about the case that he was investigating, the more disillusioned and disenchanted he was becoming. And that resonated with me because I was raised Catholic in the Philippines. I was born and grew up in the Philippines, which is the most predominantly Catholic country in Asia. In fact, 95% of Filipinos are Roman Catholic, but as I grew older, actually went to Catholic schools and universities from kindergarten until college, and then the more I learned about the history of the Catholic Church and the atrocities and the injustices that it has committed, especially in the name of colonialist and imperialist pursuits in the Middle ages, the more I questioned its control over me and my life.”
Redefining being a multi-hyphenate for artistic control and representation, Sandoval made her television debut directing the 6th episode for the new FX limited series, Under the Banner of Heaven based on the New York Times best seller by Jon Krakauer.
Isabel Sandoval is a Filipina filmmaker who made history with the World Premiere of Lingua Franca at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori section and was the first film directed by and starring a trans woman of color ever to screen in competition. In honor of her achievements with the film, Sandoval was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Her early film works debuted last summer on The Criterion Channel platform, displaying her growth and evolution as a creator, able to embrace new mediums.
www.fxnetworks.com/shows/under-the-banner-of-heaven
The Criterion Channel
www.imdb.com/name/nm4583383/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Redefining being a multi-hyphenate for artistic control and representation, Sandoval made her television debut directing the 6th episode for the new FX limited series, Under the Banner of Heaven based on the New York Times best seller by Jon Krakauer.
Isabel Sandoval is a Filipina filmmaker who made history with the World Premiere of Lingua Franca at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori section and was the first film directed by and starring a trans woman of color ever to screen in competition. In honor of her achievements with the film, Sandoval was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the 2021 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Her early film works debuted last summer on The Criterion Channel platform, displaying her growth and evolution as a creator, able to embrace new mediums.
“Before coming on board Under the Banner of Heaven, I had very little knowledge of Mormonism, but having read the script by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who is also the showrunner for the show, I resonated deeply with Jeb Pyre (played by Andrew Garfield) when it comes to his growing ambivalence and his crisis of faith.
And the more he learned about the gruesome, grisly history of the founding Mormonism, and also about the case that he was investigating, the more disillusioned and disenchanted he was becoming. And that resonated with me because I was raised Catholic in the Philippines. I was born and grew up in the Philippines, which is the most predominantly Catholic country in Asia. In fact, 95% of Filipinos are Roman Catholic, but as I grew older, actually went to Catholic schools and universities from kindergarten until college, and then the more I learned about the history of the Catholic Church and the atrocities and the injustices that it has committed, especially in the name of colonialist and imperialist pursuits in the Middle ages, the more I questioned its control over me and my life.”
www.fxnetworks.com/shows/under-the-banner-of-heaven
The Criterion Channel
www.imdb.com/name/nm4583383/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
“The struggle for a planetary future calls for a profound epistemological shift. Indigenous ancestral knowledges are now providing a foundation for our work against climate change, one based on what I refer to as Indigenous economies of abundance—as opposed to capitalist economies of scarcity. Rather than seeing climate change as apocalyptic, we can see that climate change is bringing about the demise of capital, making way for Indigenous lifeways that center familial relationships with the earth and elemental forms. Kānaka Maoli are restoring the worlds where their attunement to climatic change and their capacity for kilo adaptation, regeneration, and tranformation will enable them to survive what capital cannot.”
Candace Fujikane is an author and professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, teaching aloha ʻāina and the protection of Hawaiʻi. Having grown up on the slopes of Maui’s Haleakalā, Candace has stood for the lands, waters, and political sovereignty of Hawaiʻi for over 20 years. Her newest book, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future, contends that “Indigenous ancestral knowledge provides a foundation for movements against climate change, one based on Indigenous economies of abundance as opposed to capitalist economies of scarcity.”
· english.hawaii.edu/faculty/candace-fujikane/
· www.dukeupress.edu/mapping-abundance-for-a-planetary-future
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Candace Fujikane is an author and professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, teaching aloha ʻāina and the protection of Hawaiʻi. Having grown up on the slopes of Maui’s Haleakalā, Candace has stood for the lands, waters, and political sovereignty of Hawaiʻi for over 20 years. Her newest book, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future, contends that “Indigenous ancestral knowledge provides a foundation for movements against climate change, one based on Indigenous economies of abundance as opposed to capitalist economies of scarcity.”
“The struggle for a planetary future calls for a profound epistemological shift. Indigenous ancestral knowledges are now providing a foundation for our work against climate change, one based on what I refer to as Indigenous economies of abundance—as opposed to capitalist economies of scarcity. Rather than seeing climate change as apocalyptic, we can see that climate change is bringing about the demise of capital, making way for Indigenous lifeways that center familial relationships with the earth and elemental forms. Kānaka Maoli are restoring the worlds where their attunement to climatic change and their capacity for kilo adaptation, regeneration, and tranforma- tion will enable them to survive what capital cannot.”
· english.hawaii.edu/faculty/candace-fujikane/
· www.dukeupress.edu/mapping-abundance-for-a-planetary-future
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
“And yet somehow by magic we love. We fall in love. We teach each other. We care about each other. We have these emotional experiences together even if all of that seems impossible. By magic, we can do these things. And that always surprised me and delighted me.”
“These were my bedtime stories stories. I remember listening to them before I could speak. I had delayed speech, and I had quite a bit of trouble with speaking at all and with learning and also just simply getting into school. I think I must have been five before I was uttering some of my first words and trying to articulate.
Simple communication was very difficult for me and my family, especially in a family where we were speaking several languages. They hoped to instill English. It’s the language of survival. Once they immigrated to the States. And my grandmother, my father’s mother, who raised me was speaking Japanese, that was her private language. It was a remnant of the past and sort of the past of the occupation with Korea being occupied by Japan. My mother and father spoke in Korean, and this was a much more intimate language that I wanted to have access to but would also keep me away from the English that they hoped me to get. And all of this was compounded by my difficulty with speech. So there was a lot of frustration and fear in my relationship to language, and the relationship these languages had to each other, that was something I felt very sensitive to since I was young. Since before I could speak.”
E. J. Koh is the author of the memoir The Magical Language of Others, winner of the Washington State Book Award and the 2021 Pacific Northwest Book Award. For her poetry collection A Lesser Love she received the Pleiades Press Editors Prize. She is the co-translator of Yi Won’s The World’s Lightest Motorcycle, forthcoming from Zephyr Press. Her poems, translations, and stories have appeared in Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and World Literature Today, among others. She earned her MFA in Literary Translation and Creative Writing from Columbia University, and is completing the PhD program at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is a recipient of MacDowell and Kundiman fellowships.
IG @thisisejkoh
· www.instagram.com/p/CRB8O69BWQJ/
· www.creativeprocess.info
E. J. Koh is the author of the memoir The Magical Language of Others, winner of the Washington State Book Award and the 2021 Pacific Northwest Book Award. For her poetry collection A Lesser Love she received the Pleiades Press Editors Prize. She is the co-translator of Yi Won’s The World’s Lightest Motorcycle, forthcoming from Zephyr Press. Her poems, translations, and stories have appeared in Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and World Literature Today, among others. She earned her MFA in Literary Translation and Creative Writing from Columbia University, and is completing the PhD program at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is a recipient of MacDowell and Kundiman fellowships.
IG @thisisejkoh
· www.instagram.com/p/CRB8O69BWQJ/
· www.creativeprocess.info
“We drastically misuse our mind and have neglected a very important part of the way our mind works in the modern world. I think preindustrial people and our ancestors used this very well. And that is that we have a whole right hemisphere of our brain which doesn't think in words, which takes in the holistic picture of everything around us. Anyone who is listening to this podcast will be aware that sometimes you have got feelings about things. They are signals that are sent from the right hemisphere of the brain, picking up things that we can't consciously interpret or read. It goes through our amygdala, which is our alarm system, and straight down the vagus nerve, and we feel it down in the middle of our body. What the books argue, if you want to be able to parent effectively, and live your life effectively, is to stay in touch with that. Include those signals as part of your mental checking out. Expand your awareness because you can read that every few seconds all the time. And your life will be very different. There are feelings below your feelings. They are not always right, but they're always worth listening to.”
Steve Biddulph (AM) is a renowned parent educator. A retired psychologist of 30 years, he continues to write and teach, authoring books such as The Secret of Happy Children, Raising Boys, The New Manhood, and 10 Things Girls Need Most, which have influenced how we view childhood development and mental health. Voted Australian Father of the Year in 2001, Steve has since been made a member of the Order of Australia for his work in youth mental health, and remains a patron of the Sanctuary Refugee Trust and Australian Religious Response to Climate Change.
· www.stevebiddulph.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Steve Biddulph (AM) is a renowned parent educator. A retired psychologist of 30 years, he continues to write and teach, authoring books such as The Secret of Happy Children, Raising Boys, The New Manhood, and 10 Things Girls Need Most, which have influenced how we view childhood development and mental health. Voted Australian Father of the Year in 2001, Steve has since been made a member of the Order of Australia for his work in youth mental health, and remains a patron of the Sanctuary Refugee Trust and Australian Religious Response to Climate Change.
· www.stevebiddulph.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"The heart also reports to the brain and receives from the brain. So our bodies are in dialogue with the brain. And we don't really know where consciousness is, we sort of imagine it's somewhere in the head. We have no real reason to suppose that it's just we identify it with our sight and we, therefore, think it must be somewhere up there behind the eyes, but it's something that takes in the whole of us and to which the whole of us contributes.”
“We think in the west of resistance as something negative but it's actually part of the creative process. Without resistance nothing new can come into being, so the very things that we think of as perhaps obstructing or negating are the very things that will lead to something new and greater. We need to get over this idea. For example, we're only able to move in space because there is friction. Friction is a force that stops you moving but without a degree of friction, you cannot actually move. You wouldn't have anything to move in relation to. So perfection is itself an imperfection. And in a number of traditions, this is memorialized by the idea that when you create something there should deliberately be some imperfection in it.”
Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London.
He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry.
He is the author of a number of books, including The Matter with Things, and The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.
· https://channelmcgilchrist.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, philosopher and literary scholar. He is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London.
He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry.
He is the author of a number of books, including The Matter with Things, and The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.
· https://channelmcgilchrist.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
“I think humans really need to feel valued and loved. The question is where do you get your value from? And I try to get my value from–faith plays a big part of my life, but not everyone has that way of thinking about the world, so I'm not going to major on that, but that's only part of it, the sense that I believe there's a God who thinks I'm of worth, but it's more than that. I believe that my closest friends and my family think I'm of worth. That's it. That will do. And if 100 or 1,000 people think I'm an idiot, that’s a bit annoying, but it's not totally the end of the world. And they’re not going to think about it after a week because they’re going to have other things to think about. And so I think that's probably made me more comfortable in saying that if I do stand up and it’s a disaster, it doesn't matter that much. If I start a charity and it fails, and I have started things that fell apart, it's not the end of the world.”
Jon Yates is Executive Director of the Youth Endowment Fund, a £200 million charitable fund focused on integrating young people into society. After graduating from the University of Oxford, he started his career as a community worker in the London Borough of Newham, before joining McKinsey and Company, where he advised charities, companies and government on strategy and organisational development. He has co-founded a series of charities and initiatives including The Challenge and More in Common aimed at improving life chances and understanding. These programmes now reach 1 in 6 Britons in their lifetime.
· www.youthendowmentfund.org.uk · www.creativeprocess.info · www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Jon Yates is Executive Director of the Youth Endowment Fund, a £200 million charitable fund focused on integrating young people into society. After graduating from the University of Oxford, he started his career as a community worker in the London Borough of Newham, before joining McKinsey and Company, where he advised charities, companies and government on strategy and organisational development. He has co-founded a series of charities and initiatives including The Challenge and More in Common aimed at improving life chances and understanding. These programmes now reach 1 in 6 Britons in their lifetime.
· www.youthendowmentfund.org.uk · www.creativeprocess.info · www.oneplanetpodcast.org
“The figure in my work is me. The figure in my work is you. It's me placing objects. It’s me putting things together. It’s you standing near it. It’s you in proximity moving back and forth, moving around it. It’s us. One of the reasons I make the things I do the way I make them is because I can't imagine them. I make things that I couldn't draw or even think about clearly. I can only look at them. I enjoy the complexity that I make because I'm striving to see it.”
John Powers was born in Chicago. He is a sculptor. After doing an apprenticeship on the West Coast with the sculptor Tom Jay, he moved to New York where he studied at Pratt and Hunter College. His artwork has been shown at MoMA PS1, the Brooklyn Museum, the Bruges Triennial, and PostMasters Gallery, among others. He was recently featured in the New York Times after injuring his hand.
· www.johnpowers.us
· www.creativeprocess.info
John Powers was born in Chicago. He is a sculptor. After doing an apprenticeship on the West Coast with the sculptor Tom Jay, he moved to New York where he studied at Pratt and Hunter College. His artwork has been shown at MoMA PS1, the Brooklyn Museum, the Bruges Triennial, and PostMasters Gallery, among others. He was recently featured in the New York Times after injuring his hand.
· www.johnpowers.us
· www.creativeprocess.info
Jeffrey D. Sachs is University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Chair of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, Co-Chair of the UN Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, Commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Honorary Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development at Sunway University. Sachs has been Special Advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General António Guterres. Sachs was twice named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders, and has received 38 honorary doctorates. He received the Legion of Honor from France in 2021 and the Order of the Cross from Estonia in 2019.
Jeffrey Sachs hosts “The Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs” podcast featuring renowned authors of scintillating, inspiring and remarkably important books about history, social justice, and the challenges of building a decent world. Previous conversations feature Mariana Mazzucato, author of “Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism,” and Robert Lustig, author of “Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine” among others.To learn more, visit
· www.bookclubwithjeffreysachs.org/
· www.jeffsachs.org
· sdgacademy.org/
· www.unsdsn.org/
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
“If we’re badly educated, we’re not going to make it on this planet. If I had to put my finger on one Sustainable Development Goal above all else, it is let’s empower young people so that they know the future. They know the world that they’re going to be leading soon. They can do something about it…Specifically, target 4.7 which says that everybody should learn about sustainable development. Everybody should learn about global citizenship.
If you’re in elementary school up to university, you should be learning–What is climate change? What is biodiversity? What can we do about it? And this kind of learning is not only book learning, but is also experiential learning.”
Jeffrey D. Sachs · President of UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network · Director of Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University (35 mins)
Interviewed by Mia Funk & Eveline Mol · Associate Podcast Producer Eveline Mol
Jeffrey D. Sachs is University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Chair of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, Co-Chair of the UN Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, Commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Honorary Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development at Sunway University. Sachs has been Special Advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General António Guterres. Sachs was twice named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders, and has received 38 honorary doctorates. He received the Legion of Honor from France in 2021 and the Order of the Cross from Estonia in 2019.
Jeffrey Sachs hosts “The Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs” podcast featuring renowned authors of scintillating, inspiring and remarkably important books about history, social justice, and the challenges of building a decent world. Previous conversations feature Mariana Mazzucato, author of “Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism,” and Robert Lustig, author of “Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine” among others.To learn more, visit
· www.bookclubwithjeffreysachs.org/
· www.jeffsachs.org
· sdgacademy.org/
· www.unsdsn.org/
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
"Everything I would ask Temple and shrine carpenter Master Tsunekazu Nishioka, he brought it back to issues of the environment. Trees as living beings that we should love and cherish and respect. That we apologize to the tree when we cut it because we are ending that phase of its life, but we promise to use it in a way that will continue that life for another thousand years as part of a temple, for instance. He was constantly pointing out–Trees at the bottom of the hill, it's wetter there so that wood is not good for much. The trees at the top are not fighting for light, so they get stouter. And the trees in the middle, they are competing for light, so they get taller. And the branches are higher up, so they have fewer knots. Everything was about where the wind from, where the water came from, every question returned to that, and that’s something I realized as I got to know other craftspeople in Japan, whether to lacquer or basketry or textiles. They all had this fundamentally sound environmental understanding that had been handed down for centuries.
In Edo Japan, basically life was pretty good, and they recycled everything. Everything was reused, upcycled. Waste was considered taboo. A person who was wasting was considered an ugly person. So there is a lot that we could talk about: design, the layout, scale. Buildings were rarely taller than two stories. Very good use of environmental features, microclimates, use of wind for cooling, passive solar heating. Good use of planting, gardens, etc. But regarding cities of the future, I think the main thing is it needs to be a place where people feel like they belong and want to take responsibility.
I'm from New Orleans, and I am very interested in the fact that cities and the places we live in teach us. They shape us, as much as we shape them. And New Orleans was a wonderful place to grow up in because you wouldn't have said it was sustainable, but the vernacular traditional architecture was naturally cooler in summers because of the way it was built with high ceilings with deep eaves from the roof, with verandas shaded with lots of breezes and lots of gardens, plus it is full of older buildings. And things become gentle over time.”
Azby Brown is a leading authority on Japanese architecture, design, and environmentalism and the author of several groundbreaking books, including Just Enough, Small Spaces, The Japanese Dream House, The Very Small Home, and The Genius of Japanese Carpentry. He is lead researcher for Safecast, a global citizen-science organization that pioneered crowdsourced environmental monitoring. Azby Brown has lived in Japan since 1985.
· azbybrown.com
· www.safecast.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Azby Brown is a leading authority on Japanese architecture, design, and environmentalism and the author of several groundbreaking books, including Just Enough, Small Spaces, The Japanese Dream House, The Very Small Home, and The Genius of Japanese Carpentry. He is lead researcher for Safecast, a global citizen-science organization that pioneered crowdsourced environmental monitoring. Azby Brown has lived in Japan since 1985.
· azbybrown.com
· www.safecast.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
“We're all part of a web like a dreamcatcher. Everybody knows a dreamcatcher and whatever you do that’s wrong will eventually come back and affect you because we’re all connected. What would we like people to learn about Native Americans? I was an educator for over 21 years, so for me it's probably overcoming fear from the outside and fear from the inside to know the outside, so there needs to be more understanding.”
“What really helped me as a Shinnacock person was traveling out to different nations in the country and Canada and talking with people who went to the same things. And where they're at in their historical cycle colonization cycle. Tribes that are culturally similar to ours, that's what really helped me out was actually visiting.”
The Shinnecock are a nation of Native Americans made up of 12 Algonquian-speaking tribes. This nation occupied the territory between Long Island and Connecticut, today their descendants live on a 400-acre reservation in Southampton, where they are officially called Shinnecock. They currently have over 1,200 enrolled members. Photo by Jeremy Dennis
· www.creativeprocess.info
The Shinnecock are a nation of Native Americans made up of 12 Algonquian-speaking tribes. This nation occupied the territory between Long Island and Connecticut, today their descendants live on a 400-acre reservation in Southampton and have over 1,200 enrolled members. Mia visited the Shinnecock reservation to do this interview with photographer and founder of Ma’s House BIPOC Art Studio Jeremy Dennis; beadwork artist and dancer Tohanash Tarrant; traditional singer, dancer, and artist Standing Buffalo (Shane Weeks); and artist and educator Denise Silva Dennis.
· www.jeremynative.com
· www.thunderbirddesigns.com
· bizhiki.com
· denisesilvadennis.com
· accessgenealogy.com/new-york/shinnecock-tribe.htm
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
“Artistic creativity and it’s crucial to artistic creativity amongst many other things. In artistic creativity, from my viewpoint, is that you start off with an idea and you’re shaping and you’re totally in control and it doesn’t matter if it's music or sculpture or painting or a novel, eventually the thing sparks its own life, becomes itself, and at that point, the role of the artist is to stand back and let it become what its got to become. And that’s where you get the great art.”
Dr.George Ellis is a South African theoretical physicist who is considered to be a world leader in relativity theory and cosmology. He has published over 500 scientific papers and several books including The Large scale Structure of Space Time, which he co-authored with Steven Hawking in 1973. He is an active Quaker and won the Templeton Prize in 2004 for his exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension. He is also a past President of the International Society for Science and Religion.
· math_research.uct.ac.za/~ellis/
· www.creativeprocess.info
Dr. George Ellis is a South African theoretical physicist who is considered to be a world leader in relativity theory and cosmology. He has published over 500 scientific papers and several books including The Large scale Structure of Space Time, which he co-authored with Steven Hawking in 1973. He is an active Quaker and won the Templeton Prize in 2004 for his exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension. He is also a past President of the International Society for Science and Religion.
· math_research.uct.ac.za/~ellis/
· www.creativeprocess.info
“Nature is my home because. It doesn't matter where I am. It’s available and it's there and it's always giving me the same sort of nourishment. All of us have had to develop a sense of home elsewhere. With me in particular, I've been traveling and living in different countries for the last 20 years since I was 22, so it's not even that I've had a geographical place that is my new home because I've moved around every four years. I'm in a new place a new community and new friends, so nature is my home.”
Claudia Bueno is an internationally recognized Venezuela born artist renowned for creating immersive technological wonders using light, sculpture, painting and sound. Claudia creates large scale, multi-sensory experiences that communicate a profound sense of wonderment and awe. Lights, motors, wind, and video power her creations with pulsations and movements. Detailed drawings, meticulous cutouts and elaborate structures leave evidence of the intimate dedication the artist has with her work. Claudia fills her art with a quality of mystical curiosity that mirrors her personal fascination with Energy, Consciousness and Nature - ultimately transforming her art into a celebration of Life and Creation.
· www.claudiabueno.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @ClaudiaBuenoArt
Photo credit: Laurent Velazquez, "Pulse" Meow Wolf Las Vegas
Claudia Bueno is an internationally recognized Venezuela born artist renowned for creating immersive technological wonders using light, sculpture, painting and sound. Claudia creates large scale, multi-sensory experiences that communicate a profound sense of wonderment and awe. Lights, motors, wind, and video power her creations with pulsations and movements. Detailed drawings, meticulous cutouts and elaborate structures leave evidence of the intimate dedication the artist has with her work. Claudia fills her art with a quality of mystical curiosity that mirrors her personal fascination with Energy, Consciousness and Nature - ultimately transforming her art into a celebration of Life and Creation.
· www.claudiabueno.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Photo credit: Morris Weintraub
“The harp or the instrument that I play is a traditional instrument from Columbia (I’m from Bogota, Columbia). We have traditional music there called Janetta music. It’s the music from the plains of Colombia and Venezuala. It’s like the cowboy music… I met the harp when I was seven years old. That’s the first time I saw this instrument. I was like–Wow! I knew I was born to play the harp that day!”
Colombian-born harp virtuoso Edmar Castaneda has forged his own path in music by bringing the harp into an unexpected genre–jazz. Castaneda’s style mixes jazz with the South American folk style harobo, and other Latin American styles. He has four acclaimed albums as a leader and several others in collaboration with artists like trombonist Marshall Gilkes and pianist Hiromi. He has performed with Sting, Wynton Marsalis, Paco De Lucia and many other acclaimed musicians.
· www.edmarcastaneda.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
Colombian-born harp virtuoso Edmar Castaneda has forged his own path in music by bringing the harp into an unexpected genre–jazz. Castaneda’s style mixes jazz with the South American folk style harobo, and other Latin American styles. He has four acclaimed albums as a leader and several others in collaboration with artists like trombonist Marshall Gilkes and pianist Hiromi. He has performed with Sting, Wynton Marsalis, Paco De Lucia and many other acclaimed musicians.
· www.edmarcastaneda.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
“There’s a wide range of reasons that we really need to understand the root causes of a lot of our social ills and environmental ills. I think we need to continue to come back to this question of how we heal this imposed divide between the natural world and human social constructs. And that healing is key to how we’re going to really unwind the perilous moment that we face right now. How do we reconnect with the natural world? Not just intellectually, but in a very embodied way.”
Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International dedicated to accelerating a global women’s climate justice movement. She works nationally and internationally with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralized, democratized energy future. She serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and Osprey is the Co-Director of the Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations, and actively leads WECAN’s advocacy, policy and campaign work in areas such as Women for Forests, Divestment and Just Transition, Indigenous Rights, a Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, and UN Forums. Osprey is the author of the award-winning book,"Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature."
· Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice: Solutions from the Frontlines and the Protection and Defense of Human Rights and Nature https://www.wecaninternational.org/womens-assembly
· WECAN COP26 Analysis Blog: Despite Government Failures at COP26, Peoples' Movements Continue Rising to Transform our World - https://www.wecaninternational.org/post/despite-government-failures-at-cop26-peoples-movements-continue-rising-to-transform-our-world
· WECAN Programs: https://www.wecaninternational.org/our-work
- WECAN Women Speak Storytelling Database: https://womenspeak.wecaninternational.org/
· Join the WECAN Network: https://www.wecaninternational.org/join-the-network
· WECAN Social Media Handles:
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WECAN_INTL
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wecan_intl/
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International dedicated to accelerating a global women’s climate justice movement. She works nationally and internationally with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralized, democratized energy future. She serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and Osprey is the Co-Director of the Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations, and actively leads WECAN’s advocacy, policy and campaign work in areas such as Women for Forests, Divestment and Just Transition, Indigenous Rights, a Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, and UN Forums. Osprey is the author of the award-winning book,"Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature."
· Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice: Solutions from the Frontlines and the Protection and Defense of Human Rights and Nature https://www.wecaninternational.org/womens-assembly
· WECAN COP26 Analysis Blog: Despite Government Failures at COP26, Peoples' Movements Continue Rising to Transform our World - https://www.wecaninternational.org/post/despite-government-failures-at-cop26-peoples-movements-continue-rising-to-transform-our-world
· WECAN Programs: https://www.wecaninternational.org/our-work
- WECAN Women Speak Storytelling Database: https://womenspeak.wecaninternational.org/
· Join the WECAN Network: https://www.wecaninternational.org/join-the-network
· WECAN Social Media Handles:
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WECAN_INTL
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wecan_intl/
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
"The sense of perfection in every sense. First of all, spiritual perfection, the expression in the portraits. The sort of deep understanding of the human soul. Also, when representing sacred subjects, representing the divine as though he had been able to see it. Just in front of God himself in a way. Because the expression in Saint Anne's face is so Christ-like and the expression of divine love over humanity. And this is very seldom represented in art. So this extraordinary way of representing this supreme feeling and also the perfection in the shaping, and the composition and everything was perfect with him."
Jacques Franck is a specialist in Leonardo da Vinci who has trained both as an art historian and as a classical painter. A consulting expert to the Louvre, the Armand Hammer Centre for Da Vinci Studies at UCLA, and other institutions, he has spent almost fifty years immersed in the Italian master’s body of work. Franck has made “critical copies” in order to better understand DaVinci’s techniques, which have been shown at the Uffizi, and has dedicated his life to raising awareness about the dangers of restoration based on insufficient knowledge. He spoke to Mia on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of DaVinci and his major retrospective exhibition at the Louvre bringing together almost 120 works from the most prestigious European and American institutions.
www.creativeprocess.info
Jacques Franck is a specialist in Leonardo da Vinci who has trained both as an art historian and as a classical painter. A consulting expert to the Louvre, the Armand Hammer Centre for Da Vinci Studies at UCLA, and other institutions, he has spent almost fifty years immersed in the Italian master’s body of work. Franck has made “critical copies” in order to better understand DaVinci’s techniques, which have been shown at the Uffizi, and has dedicated his life to raising awareness about the dangers of restoration based on insufficient knowledge. He spoke to Mia on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of DaVinci and his major retrospective exhibition at the Louvre bringing together almost 120 works from the most prestigious European and American institutions.
www.creativeprocess.info
Pinaree Sanpitak is one of the most compelling and respected Thai artists of her generation, and her work can be counted among the most powerful explorations of women’s experience in all of Southeast Asia. Her primary inspiration has been the female body, distilled to its most basic forms and imbued with an ethereal spirituality. The quiet, Zen-like abstraction of her work owes something to her training in Japan and sets it somewhat apart from the colorful intensity of much Thai art. Her rigorous focus on the female form, explored through a variety of media – painting, drawing, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, performance, and culinary arts, to name but a few – has resulted in an astoundingly varied and innovative body of work. For the past twenty years, a central motif in her work has been the female breast, which she relates to imagery of the natural world and to the iconic forms of the Buddhist stupa (shrine) and offering bowl. Often called a feminist or Buddhist artist, she resists such easy categorizations, preferring to let her work speak to each viewer directly, to the heart and soul, with the most basic language of form, color, and texture. Her work is not lacking in a conceptual framework, but it is one informed primarily by a deeply felt spiritual sense rather than by rigid dogmas or ideological constructs.
Pinaree’s work has been featured in numerous museum exhibitions in Asia and Europe during the past twenty years, and she has participated in major biennials in Australia, Italy, Japan, and Korea.
· www.trfineart.com/artist/pinaree-sanpitak
· www.creativeprocess.info
"Humans have been partnering with fungi for an unknowably long time, no doubt for longer than we’ve been humans. Whether as foods, eating mushrooms, as medicines, dosing ourselves with moulds and other mushrooms that might help, parasites or others helpers with infection, mushrooms as tinder or ways to carry a spark, this very important thing that humans needed to do for a very long time, and as agents of fermentation, as in yeasts creating alcohol. So humans have partnered with fungi to solve all sorts of problems and so fungi have found themselves enveloped within human societies and cultures for a long time."
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation.
· www.merlinsheldrake.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation.
· www.merlinsheldrake.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
“It’s true. In Haiti, to a large degree more women were involved in the Revolution, in the war, in the fighting for the nation for the very simple reason that women had more opportunities. After a certain time, we became invisible. Once you’re in your 60’s, you are missing a few front teeth, in fact, some of the women used to take a stone and break up their front teeth so that they wouldn’t be noticed anymore. ‘That’s just an old lady with no front teeth. Okay, she goes about her business, nobody looks at her. She can do nothing.’And those were the fighters–the greatest fighters of our revolution.”
Professor Bayyinah Bello is a Afrodescendant Ourstorian, Educator, Writer and Humanitarian. With over 50 years of wisdom and extensive research, Professor Bello specializes in Ayitian Ourstory and linguistics.
She has taught in many parts of Africa, Ayiti, and America from the primary to the university level, including the State University of Haiti. She is the founder of Fondation Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité Bonheur Dessalines, popularly known as FONDASYON FELICITEE (FF), named after the Empress consort of Ayiti and wife of the revolutionary leader and founder of Ayiti (Hayti, Empire of Freedom), Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Emperor 1st of Hayti. As an author she publishes in Ayitian, English and French. Her latest work, Sheroes of the Haitian Revolution, highlights the lives of ten women in the Ayitian Ourstory who played a significant role in the nation’s journey to freedom. Professor Bello is based in Ayiti and serves as advisor to key eldership councils.
· www.marugekundi.org/SHEROES · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
Song credit: Jean Amédé Caze
Professor Bayyinah Bello is a Afrodescendant Ourstorian, Educator, Writer and Humanitarian. With over 50 years of wisdom and extensive research, Professor Bello specializes in Ayitian Ourstory and linguistics.
She has taught in many parts of Africa, Ayiti, and America from the primary to the university level, including the State University of Haiti. She is the founder of Fondation Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité Bonheur Dessalines, popularly known as FONDASYON FELICITEE (FF), named after the Empress consort of Ayiti and wife of the revolutionary leader and founder of Ayiti (Hayti, Empire of Freedom), Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Emperor 1st of Hayti. As an author she publishes in Ayitian, English and French. Her latest work, Sheroes of the Haitian Revolution, highlights the lives of ten women in the Ayitian Ourstory who played a significant role in the nation’s journey to freedom. Professor Bello is based in Ayiti and serves as advisor to key eldership councils.
· www.marugekundi.org/SHEROES · www.oneplanetpodcast.org · www.creativeprocess.info
Song credit: Jean Amédé Caze
“We are always students. We are students of the earth. We need to do better and we can do better because the capacity of the human spirit is quite expansive and we owe it to future generations to do the best we can do while we can…It’s about who is at the table or rather what is the table, meaning what are the terms of the debate. Setting the terms of the debate, but how do we even know what the terms of the debate are, who is being included, who is being heeded, and part of that is, therefore, a decolonizing of knowledge and power structures because it’s centrally or fundamentally a justice issue.”
Dr. Farhana Sultana is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University, where she is also the Research Director for Environmental Collaboration and Conflicts at the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflicts and Collaboration (PARCC).
Dr. Sultana is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary scholar of political ecology, water governance, post‐colonial development, social and environmental justice, climate change, and feminism. Her research and scholar-activism draw from her experiences of having lived and worked on three continents as well as from her backgrounds in the natural sciences, social sciences, and policy experience.
Prior to joining Syracuse, she taught at King’s College London and worked at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Author of several dozen publications, her recent books are “The Right to Water: Politics, Governance and Social Struggles” (2012), “Eating, Drinking: Surviving” (2016) and “Water Politics: Governance, Justice, and the Right to Water” (2020). Dr. Sultana graduated Cum Laude from Princeton University (in Geosciences and Environmental Studies) and obtained her Masters and PhD (in Geography) from the University of Minnesota, where she was a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow.
She was awarded the Glenda Laws Award from the American Association of Geographers for “outstanding contributions to geographic research on social issues” in 2019.
· www.farhanasultana.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Dr. Farhana Sultana is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University, where she is also the Research Director for Environmental Collaboration and Conflicts at the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflicts and Collaboration (PARCC).
Dr. Sultana is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary scholar of political ecology, water governance, post‐colonial development, social and environmental justice, climate change, and feminism. Her research and scholar-activism draw from her experiences of having lived and worked on three continents as well as from her backgrounds in the natural sciences, social sciences, and policy experience.
Prior to joining Syracuse, she taught at King’s College London and worked at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Author of several dozen publications, her recent books are “The Right to Water: Politics, Governance and Social Struggles” (2012), “Eating, Drinking: Surviving” (2016) and “Water Politics: Governance, Justice, and the Right to Water” (2020). Dr. Sultana graduated Cum Laude from Princeton University (in Geosciences and Environmental Studies) and obtained her Masters and PhD (in Geography) from the University of Minnesota, where she was a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow.
· www.farhanasultana.com
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
“Just getting to know what is Buddhism, which is the foundation of every monastery. The Shaolin Temple is in the core, first of all it’s a Buddhist monastery and when you are starting to read about Buddhism, one of the key sentence in the beginning is: With your thoughts you are creating the world…So it’s very rarely clearly stated that it is the thoughts that are creating the world. Nevertheless, if you are now looking at the practices that the Shaolin Temple offers, that is quite physical. There is a lot of physicality in there, so you might think but why are you saying with thoughts you create the world, but you have so many different physical activities. It is because if you want to have mental freedom. If you want to approach freedom, you cannot just approach freedom by doing things or trying to chase freedom. The freedom that we are looking for is the type of freedom that is derived and that is very closely related to its counterpart, which is very hard restriction or very hard structure. So if you want to experience what freedom is, look at the restrictions of your life.”
For more than 30 years, Master Shi Heng Yi has been studying and practicing the interaction between mind and body. His strength is the ability to smoothly combine this knowledge with physical exercises and to practice Martial art –Kung Fu and Qi Gong. He has an academic background but he prefers to live at the Shaolin Temple Europe, Monastery located in Otterberg, Germany. Since 2010 he has been taking care of the settlement and he personifies sustainable development and spreading Shaolin culture and philosophy.
· www.shihengyi.online
· www.shaolintemple.eu
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
For more than 30 years, Master Shi Heng Yi has been studying and practicing the interaction between mind and body. His strength is the ability to smoothly combine this knowledge with physical exercises and to practice Martial art –Kung Fu and Qi Gong. He has an academic background but he prefers to live at the Shaolin Temple Europe, Monastery located in Otterberg, Germany. Since 2010 he has been taking care of the settlement and he personifies sustainable development and spreading Shaolin culture and philosophy.
· www.shihengyi.online
· www.shaolintemple.eu
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
“I just want to make the poems like a living being…There are moments that I’m not at the desk, but I’m living life. And living life is actually what leads to writing. You have to have experiences to write about. Whether or not you are aware of those experiences as you are writing them down because if you’re doing music first, maybe you’re not aware of what you’re writing. And yet, those experiences are what come to fruition in your writing. You become aware. Oh, I did come on that roller coaster that time that I haven’t thought about in twenty years. Oh I did make love to that cute person that I haven’t thought about in ten years, but you’ve got to make love, you’ve got to get on roller coasters, you’ve got to get your heart broken. You’ve got to dance. You gotta get out and do things and that, too, is a part of writing. You have to trust you’re a writer by identity. And if you can trust that you’re a writer by identity, then you don’t have to be at a desk.”
Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.
· www.jerichobrown.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Jericho Brown discuss how the church influences the music, rhythms, metaphors and symbolism in his poetry. Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.
· www.jerichobrown.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Latest ARTS interview from The Creative Process’ MAIN CHANNEL. To listen to more of our interviews across the arts, visit tinyurl.com/thecreativepod, tinyurl.com/thecreativespotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This SPIRITUALITY & MINDFULNESS podcast focuses on interviews about spirituality, but you can find hundreds more conversations across the arts, culture, society & the environment on our main channel. We hope you’ll check it out!
“Literally during the last week of production, we kept having this conversation. We are part of a cultural moment and we know we are, which is a very out of body experience… Any iconic black show, did they know? Because a lot of those when you look back at their history they were one the bubble, and I always think about Girlfriends and Living Single––did they know that people would still be talking about them?”
Amy Aniobi is a writer, director and Executive Producer on HBO’s Emmy-nominated comedy, “Insecure,” starring Issa Rae. “Insecure” will premiere its fifth and final season on October 24th with Aniobi behind the camera as director of the seventh episode (#507) to be broadcast on December 5th. She also served as showrunner/head writer/EP for season one of the HBO stand-up special “2 Dope Queens.” Under her new production shingle “SuperSpecial” and overall deal with HBO, Aniobi already is in development on several projects, as well as two features set up at Universal. Amy recently directed the award-winning short film, "Honeymoon," which explores a modern-day Nigerian couple's arranged marriage. She also co-created, co-directed and starred in the web series, “Lisa and Amy Are Black,” created the web series, “The Slutty Years” and wrote for both seasons of “Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.” Amy is Nigerian, hails from North Texas, graduated from Stanford University and UCLA, and has lived both in the US (New York, the Bay Area) and abroad (France, Morocco).
· amyaniobi.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
(Photo Credit: Merie W. Wallace/HBO)
It is difficult to make generalizations about Neil Gaiman’s books. His contributions to practically every literary genre have earned him a place in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers. His work has been honored with many awards internationally, including the Newbery and Carnegie Medals. His books and stories have also been honored with 4 Hugos, 2 Nebulas, 1 World Fantasy Award, 4 Bram Stoker Awards, 6 Locus Awards, 2 British SF Awards, 1 British Fantasy Award, 3 Geffens, 1 International Horror Guild Award and 2 Mythopoeic Awards.
www.creativeprocess.info
“One of the things that is dying is our planet. We hear these sirens every single day. We’re being warned daily by experts and concerned people how vast that squandering is going. It’s a case of urgency and it’s astounding and a very sad, a very pathetic comment on modern life that most people are ignoring those signs. As a poet, it seems to me that one of the tasks that the poet takes on, it’s a vocation that’s born with it, it’s this consciousness, this serving as witness.”
Xicana activist, editor, poet, novelist, and artist Ana Castillo, was born and raised in Chicago. She is known for coining the term “xicanisma” which is defined in her book the Massacre of the Dreamers as, “a sociopolitical movement in the United States that analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersection of Mexican American women that identify as Chicana.” The term cross bred Chicana feminism, which came to include the indigenous ancestry of Mexican Americans, unifying us with our sisters on the other side of the border.
· www.anacastillo.net
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
It is difficult to make generalizations about Neil Gaiman’s books. His contributions to practically every literary genre have earned him a place in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers. His work has been honored with many awards internationally, including the Newbery and Carnegie Medals. His books and stories have also been honored with 4 Hugos, 2 Nebulas, 1 World Fantasy Award, 4 Bram Stoker Awards, 6 Locus Awards, 2 British SF Awards, 1 British Fantasy Award, 3 Geffens, 1 International Horror Guild Award and 2 Mythopoeic Awards.
www.creativeprocess.info
Xicana activist, editor, poet, novelist, and artist Ana Castillo, was born and raised in Chicago. She is known for coining the term “xicanisma” which is defined in her book the Massacre of the Dreamers as, “a sociopolitical movement in the United States that analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersection of Mexican American women that identify as Chicana.” The term cross bred Chicana feminism, which came to include the indigenous ancestry of Mexican Americans, unifying us with our sisters on the other side of the border.
· www.anacastillo.net
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
"The idea of writing memoir is about listening carefully. The way to find a story or, at least the story that needs to be told is that moment that you’re writing is the emerges from a deep kind of inner listening and finding the memories that are charged that don’t want to leave that have a certain kind of energy to them and, if you listen to them, and you allow them to be born in the writing, you discover your own story because your story is basically made up of all the memories that continue to hold the charge for you. All the memories that are lodged in your mind that you’ve secreted away and when you can excavate that story and you can write it down, then you can make sense of it and you can understand why you’re living the way you’re living and why you feel the way you feel. And you can also decide to to release those memories so that you can have new memories that can define and can shape your life."
Writer and producer Rebecca Walker has contributed to the global conversation about race, gender, power, and the evolution of the human family for three decades. Author and editor of seven bestselling books on multiracial identity, Black Cool and ambivalent motherhood, she has co-founded the Third Wave Fund, which makes grants to womxn and transgender youth working for social justice. For her efforts, she has been named by Time as one of the most influential leaders of her generation.
· www.rebeccawalker.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
Writer and producer Rebecca Walker has contributed to the global conversation about race, gender, power, and the evolution of the human family for three decades. Author and editor of seven bestselling books on multiracial identity, Black Cool and ambivalent motherhood, she has co-founded the Third Wave Fund, which makes grants to womxn and transgender youth working for social justice. For her efforts, she has been named by Time as one of the most influential leaders of her generation.
· www.rebeccawalker.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
INSTAGRAM @creativeprocesspodcast
www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast
“Take care of yourself. Bring that love and kindness and compassion into your dealings with self and others. And this world will change dramatically. I think you’ll find great reason for optimism and hope and viewing the way our world can go, but it absolutely involves a change from the status quo from our current direction.”
Eben Alexander, MD, was an academic neurosurgeon for over 25 years, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston. He experienced a transcendental Near-Death Experience (NDE) during a week-long coma from an inexplicable brain infection that completely transformed his worldview. A pioneering scientist and modern thought leader in the emerging science that acknowledges the primacy of consciousness in the universe, he is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Proof of Heaven, The Map of Heaven and Living in a Mindful Universe.
· ebenalexander.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Eben Alexander, MD, was an academic neurosurgeon for over 25 years, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School in Boston. He experienced a transcendental Near-Death Experience (NDE) during a week-long coma from an inexplicable brain infection that completely transformed his worldview. A pioneering scientist and modern thought leader in the emerging science that acknowledges the primacy of consciousness in the universe, he is the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Proof of Heaven, The Map of Heaven and Living in a Mindful Universe.
· ebenalexander.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
“I went to the Amazon and I got a canoe and I started rowing into the forest. It was absolutely like going back into the 17th century! I went around for six months on my own and that was fantastic because in this part of the Colombian rainforest there were absolutely no roads, no towns, no electricity, no flowing water. You are with the indigenous group. They are all still in their loincloths. They speak different languages. I went through about eight different ethnic groups. They all spoke different languages. I couldn’t understand what they said. They couldn’t understand what I said, but we got along well.”
Martin Von Hildebrand has dedicated the last five decades strengthening indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. During this time he obtained the recognition of their rights in the National Constitution, including the collective ownership of their land and the development of their governments. They now own 26 million hectares of continuous rain forest, their rights have been recognized, and they have set up many of their governments.
Currently, Martin, along with NGOs, indigenous organizations, civil society, governments, and private enterprises, is coordinating the protection of the largest stretch of rainforests on the planet (the northern part of the Amazon between the Andes and the Atlantic, 260 million hectares).
He is an ethnologist, with a doctorate from the University of Paris VII, founder, and the current president of the Gaia Amazonas Foundation. He has been awarded a dozen international awards, such as The Right Livelihood Award, the Talberg Award, The Golden Arc award, the Special Irish presidential Award for Irish Abroad, and the Colombian National Environmental Award.
Gaia Amazonas Foundation
· gaiaamazonas.org
Alianza Noramazónica website
· alianzanoramazonica.org
RAISG website
· amazoniasocioambiental.org/es/
Why is the Amazonia important?/¿Porque la Amazonia es tan importante?
· youtube.com/watch?v=_mO1bf8iTMI
Netflix: "El Sendero de la Anaconda"
Flying rivers/Los rios voladores en la Amazonia. El Corredor Andes Amazonas Atlantico
bbc.com/mundo/noticias-41038097#:~:text=Son%20%22r%C3%ADos%20voladores%22.,m%C3%A1s%20agua%20que%20el%20Amazonas
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Martin Von Hildebrand has dedicated the last five decades strengthening indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon. During this time he obtained the recognition of their rights in the National Constitution, including the collective ownership of their land and the development of their governments. They now own 26 million hectares of continuous rain forest, their rights have been recognized, and they have set up many of their governments.
Currently, Martin, along with NGOs, indigenous organizations, civil society, governments, and private enterprises, is coordinating the protection of the largest stretch of rainforests on the planet (the northern part of the Amazon between the Andes and the Atlantic, 260 million hectares).
He is an ethnologist, with a doctorate from the University of Paris VII, founder, and the current president of the Gaia Amazonas Foundation. He has been awarded a dozen international awards, such as The Right Livelihood Award, the Talberg Award, The Golden Arc award, the Special Irish presidential Award for Irish Abroad, and the Colombian National Environmental Award.
Gaia Amazonas Foundation
· gaiaamazonas.org
Alianza Noramazónica website.
· alianzanoramazonica.org
RAISG website
· amazoniasocioambiental.org/es/
Why is the Amazonia important?/¿Porque la Amazonia es tan importante?
· youtube.com/watch?v=_mO1bf8iTMI
Netflix: "El Sendero de la Anaconda"
Flying rivers/Los rios voladores en la Amazonia. El Corredor Andes Amazonas Atlantico
· bbc.com/mundo/noticias-41038097#:~:text=Son%20%22r%C3%ADos%20voladores%22.,m%C3%A1s%20agua%20que%20el%20Amazonas
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
“That’s just always been something that’s been inspiring to me which is helping people from the wrong side of the tracks, the misunderstood, the addicted, helping people step into their power and believe in themselves.”
Jessa Reed is a comedian and host of her own podcast called Awakening Orientation Dept. She describes herself as an 8th dimensional being disguised as a comedian. Reluctantly sharing pointers for “life in the Matrix”. She is also the host of her other podcast Soberish. Jessa has been featured on Comedy Central, This Is Not Happening, and more. She’s a bridge between worlds, a storyteller, a “galactic ambassador to the 3rd dimension”.
· www.jessareed.com
· podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/awakening-od/id1542888792
· www.soberishpod.com/page/1?season=1
· www.creativeprocess.info
Jessa Reed is a comedian and host of her own podcast called Awakening Orientation Dept. She describes herself as an 8th dimensional being disguised as a comedian. Reluctantly sharing pointers for “life in the Matrix”. She is also the host of her other podcast Soberish. Jessa has been featured on Comedy Central, This Is Not Happening, and more. She’s a bridge between worlds, a storyteller, a “galactic ambassador to the 3rd dimension”.
· www.jessareed.com
· podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/awakening-od/id1542888792
· www.soberishpod.com/page/1?season=1
· www.creativeprocess.info
“I think something happened in 2016, where I just snapped. There was a lot of a hateful news going around with American politics, and I didn’t know how to answer a lot of my kids questions then. Something I know I can do is to tell them things that I loved about this planet or things that I loved in other people because all they saw or heard about was just this weird ugliness, school shootings, leaders who were saying ‘build that wall’ to anybody who looked different than them, and so I remember the night I shut myself up in my office after the kids went to bed and just started writing about plants and animals that I loved from my childhood.”
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the NYTimes best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays and Kirkus Prize finalist, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks & Other Astonishments, which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s and has sold 5 million copies. She has four previous poetry collections: Oceanic, Lucky Fish, At the Drive-in Volcano, and Miracle Fruit. Her most recent chapbook is Lace & Pyrite, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and Tin House.
Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pushcart Prize, Mississippi Arts Council grant, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. She’s the first-ever poetry editor for Sierra magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
· aimeenez.net
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the NYTimes best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays and Kirkus Prize finalist, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks & Other Astonishments, which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s and has sold 5 million copies. She has four previous poetry collections: Oceanic, Lucky Fish, At the Drive-in Volcano, and Miracle Fruit. Her most recent chapbook is Lace & Pyrite, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and Tin House.
Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Pushcart Prize, Mississippi Arts Council grant, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. She’s the first-ever poetry editor for Sierra magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
· aimeenez.net
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
“I’ve always considered myself a believing historian and, in fact, most historians of religion are actually believing historians. Very frequently they emerge from the congregations that they’re writing about, whether new religious movements or traditional religions, this is true of Kabbalistic scholar Gershom Scholem, it’s true of people who have written probably the most important biographies of more recent religious figures like Mary Baker Eddy or Joseph Smith, a Mormon prophet. Although, historians don’t frequently acknowledge being believing historians because they feel that it might seem to compromise their capacity for critical judgement, but my impression is different. My impression is that being in very direct proximity to the nature of the philosophical, religious, ethical, therapeutic movements that you’re writing about can heighten your critical acumen.”
Mitch Horowitz is a historian of alternative spirituality and one of today’s most literate voices of esoterica, mysticism, and the occult. Mitch illuminates outsider history, explains its relevance to contemporary life, and reveals the longstanding quest to bring empowerment and agency to the human condition. Mitch is a Writer & Lecturer in Residence at the New York Public Library and the PEN Award-winning author of books, including Occult America, One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life, and The Miracle Habits.
· www.mitchhorowitz.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
Mitch Horowitz is a historian of alternative spirituality and one of today’s most literate voices of esoterica, mysticism, and the occult. Mitch illuminates outsider history, explains its relevance to contemporary life, and reveals the longstanding quest to bring empowerment and agency to the human condition. Mitch is a Writer & Lecturer in Residence at the New York Public Library and the PEN Award-winning author of books, including Occult America, One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life, and The Miracle Habits.
· www.mitchhorowitz.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
“Think of yourself as a tree. You’ve got neighbours that you live beside for hundreds if not thousands of years, and none of you can move around, so you just have to communicate in other ways. And so trees have evolved to have these ways of communicating with each other, and they’re sophisticated, they’re nuanced. They include things like transmitting information through these root networks that link them together. They transmit information to each other through the air, so they perceive each other, they communicate and then they respond to each other. And that language is complex.”
Dr. Suzanne Simard is a professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia. In 2016, she gave a TED talk about her groundbreaking discovery of how trees communicate with each other. Most recently, Dr. Simard has published a book called Finding the Mother Tree. Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls in James Cameron’s Avatar) and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide.
· suzannesimard.com
· mothertreeproject.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Dr. Suzanne Simard is a professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia. In 2016, she gave a TED talk about her groundbreaking discovery of how trees communicate with each other. Most recently, Dr. Simard has published a book called Finding the Mother Tree. Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls in James Cameron’s Avatar) and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide.
· suzannesimard.com
· mothertreeproject.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Photo by Brendan Ko
“At first when I began writing these books, people told me that they didn’t think there was an audience for them. They thought it was a kind of niche subject, nobody was really that interested in it. And then gradually it became clear that there’s a surprisingly big audience of people that really have a craving for Classical wisdom and are interested in history, in the relationship between history and self-improvement and philosophy and psychotherapy.”
Donald Robertson is a writer, cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH). He is known as an expert on the relationship between modern psychotherapy (CBT) and classical Greek and Roman philosophy, specifically Stoicism. He has been doing public speaking for over two decades and has spoken on over a hundred podcasts, webinars, and conferences. He has also published six books on philosophy and psychotherapy that have been translated into several languages. Titles include Stoicism and the Art of Happiness and the bestselling How to Think Like a Roman Emperor. His graphic novel, Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, is due for publication around Autumn 2021.
· donaldrobertson.name
Plato’s Academy: donaldrobertson.name/2021/02/10/rebuilding-platos-academy/
· www.creativeprocess.info
Donald Robertson is a writer, cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH). He is known as an expert on the relationship between modern psychotherapy (CBT) and classical Greek and Roman philosophy, specifically Stoicism. He has been doing public speaking for over two decades and has spoken on over a hundred podcasts, webinars, and conferences. He has also published six books on philosophy and psychotherapy that have been translated into several languages. Titles include Stoicism and the Art of Happiness and the bestselling How to Think Like a Roman Emperor. His graphic novel, Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, is due for publication around Autumn 2021.
· donaldrobertson.name
Plato’s Academy: donaldrobertson.name/2021/02/10/rebuilding-platos-academy/
· www.creativeprocess.info
“This generation really does hold the future of the planet in its hands.”
Peter Singeris often described as the world's most influential philosopher. The author of important books such as Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, and The Life You Can Save, he helped launch the animal rights and effective altruism movements and contributed to the development of bioethics. Now, in Ethics in the Real World, Singer shows that he is also a master at dissecting important current events in a few hundred words.
· petersinger.info
· www.thelifeyoucansave.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Peter Singeris often described as the world's most influential philosopher. The author of important books such as Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, and The Life You Can Save, he helped launch the animal rights and effective altruism movements and contributed to the development of bioethics. Now, in Ethics in the Real World, Singer shows that he is also a master at dissecting important current events in a few hundred words.
· petersinger.info
· www.thelifeyoucansave.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info
Photo courtesy of Leif Tuxen