Quillwood Podcast: Recent Episodes
Eric Garza
This is more an update than a proper episode, announcing that I am putting the Quillwood Podcast on hold while I work on other creative and educational projects. I might return to it at some point, but have no specific plans on when that might happen. I hope you have enjoyed and benefitted from the episodes I have released, and hope our paths cross at a Quillwood Academy event sometime soon.
Support the show
In this final episode of season one of the Quillwood Podcast, host Eric Garza thanks listeners, invites them to reflect on season one, and invites feedback about any element of the podcast. The first episode of season two will go live on the upcoming winter solstice, December 21 of 2022.
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Quillwood Podcast Episode 1: Two Stories
Support the show
Stephen Jenkinson is an author, storyteller, musician, and cultural activist. He is best known for his books Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, and Come of Age: A Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble. He founded the Orphan Wisdom School, located outside Ottowa, in Canada.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:19 — Episode introduction
- 02:19 - 08:48 — Broadening our understanding of ancestry
- 08:48 - 18:33 — Culture, limits, and the extension of the human will
- 18:33 - 22:45 — Entitlement and privilege
- 22:45 - 29:44 — The cultural poverty behind white supremacy
- 29:44 - 40:53 — Education, learning, and ambivalence
- 40:53 - 54:49 — Getting older versus becoming an elder
- 54:49 - 58:15 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Orphan Wisdom School
- Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul
- Come of Age: A Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble
- Quillwood Academy
- Telling Tales of Change
Support the show
Denise Casey works with people of all ages as a storyteller, performing artist, voice movement therapy practitioner, group facilitator, and mindfulness coach. She and Eric talk about the value in learning to tell our stories, liberating ourselves from stories that are not working, seeing the ways we lie to ourselves, and healing the pain that our bodies carry, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:11 — Episode introduction
- 02:11 - 09:33 — The value in learning to tell our stories
- 09:33 - 17:50 — Liberating ourselves from stories that are not working
- 17:50 - 27:39 — Seeing the ways we lie to ourselves
- 27:39 - 34:45 — Healing the pain that our bodies carry
- 34:45 - 41:34 — Struggling with the energy of people pleasing
- 41:34 - 46:34 — Fear as a barrier to telling our story
- 46:34 - 48:09 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- GotThisVoice.com
- Quillwood Academy
- Telling Tales of Change
- Inside Out Writing: I Got a Story to Tell (Denise's workshop)
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk
- When the Body Says No: The Hidden Cost of Stress, by Gabor Maté
- Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger, by Lama Rod Owens
- Lama Rod Owens
- Lama John Mckransky
- Playing the Game
- QP #2: Dancing with the Cannibal Giant, with Sherri Mitchell
Support the show
Layla AbdelRahim is an independent scholar who writes about our narrative attachment to predatory and parasitic economic systems. She and Eric talk about colonization and the colonization of our minds, epistemology and the foundation of our narratives, wildness versus domestication, the origins of domesticated and colonized narratives, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:44 — Episode introduction
- 02:44 - 20:00 — Colonization and the colonization of our minds
- 20:00 - 24:48 — Epistemology and the foundation of our narratives
- 24:48 - 34:15 — Wildness and domestication
- 34:15 - 47:04 — Origins of domesticated, colonized narratives
- 47:04 - 56:02 — Layla's vision of where things are headed
- 56:02 - 56:42 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Layla AbdelRahim's website
- Layla AbdelRahim's Patreon Page
- Quillwood Academy
- Undaunted Study Group
- Wild Children — Domesticated Dreams: Civilization and the Birth of Education, by Layla AbdelRahim
- Children's Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness, by Layla AbdelRahim
- Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism, by Jack D Forbes
- Mary Douglas (anthropologist)
- John Zerzan
- Claude Lévi-Strauss (anthropologist)
- Michel Foucault (philosopher)
- Pierre Bourdieu (sociologist)
Support the show
Jessica Canham co-founded the award-winning video production company LINK International Productions, and manages Caapi Cottage Retreats, a transformational retreat center on the island of Dominica. She and Eric talk about characteristics that support systems of mutual aid, turning necessary skills into novelties, ethics of service and the impacts of inequality, and planning and organizing systems of mutual aid, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:52 — Episode introduction
- 02:52 - 05:32 — Defining mutual aid
- 05:32 - 09:52 — Characteristics that support systems of mutual aid
- 09:52 - 12:34 — Turning necessary skills into novelties in the industrial world
- 12:34 - 18:43 — Ethics of service and the impacts of inequality
- 18:43 - 26:14 — Systems of mutual aid emerge in disasters
- 26:14 - 37:35 — Planning and organizing systems of mutual aid
- 37:35 - 42:41 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Watch on YouTube
- Love in Action Video Series
- Caapi Cottage Retreats
- Quillwood Academy
- Undaunted Study Group
- What Is This Global Crisis Asking Of Us (free webinars)
- Margaret Wheately (author)
- Front Porch Forum
Support the show
Dr. Elizabeth Boulton is an independent researcher who was a transport officer in the Australian Army who did tours of duty in East Timor and Iraq and who has done humanitarian work in Ghana, Nigeria, and Sudan. She and Eric talk about global warming as a hyperobject and a hyperthreat, expanding our awareness of the harm we cause, and the entangled nature of planetary, human, and state security, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:38 — Episode introduction
- 02:38 - 10:13 — Global warming as a hyperobject
- 10:13 - 15:49 — Global warming as a hyperthreat
- 15:49 - 18:52 — Expanding our awareness of the harm we cause
- 18:52 - 27:17 — Entangled nature of planetary, human, and state security
- 27:17 - 37:59 — Incorporation of depletion and consumption in hyperthreat narrative
- 37:59 - 51:41 — Role of conservation in security strategy
- 51:41 - 65:26 — Finding agency against the hyperthreat
- 65:26 - 78:18 — Censorship of alternative security narratives
- 78:18 - 80:55 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Watch on YouTube
- Destination Safe Earth
- Quillwood Academy
- Undaunted Study Group
- Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World, by Timothy Morton
- The Nine Planetary Boundaries
- The Great Simplification, with Nate Hagens (Quillwood Podcast #6)
- Plan E: A Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century Era of Entangled Security and Hyperthreats, by Elizabeth Boulton
- An Introduction to Plan E: Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century Era of Entangled Security and Hyperthreats, by Elizabeth Boulton
Support the show
Carolyn Baker is a writer and educator who most recently authored the book Undaunted: Living Fiercely into Climate Meltdown in an Authoritarian World. She and Eric talk about the meaning of undanted, living fiercely in an increasingly autocratic world, seeing today's converging crises as a rite of passage, learning lessons from our ordeal, and living with uncertainty, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:44 — Episode introduction
- 02:44 - 09:59 — The quality and value of being undaunted
- 09:59 - 17:26 — Living fiercely and an increasingly autocratic world
- 17:26 - 30:11 — Seeing today's converging crises as a rite of passage
- 30:11 - 33:05 — Learning the lessons from our ordeal
- 33:05 - 44:47 — Reflections on certainty and not giving up
- 44:47 - 46:34 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Watch on YouTube
- Carolyn Baker's website
- Undaunted: Living Fiercely into Climate Meltdown in an Authoritarian World, by Carolyn Baker
- Subscribe to Carolyn's Daily News Digest
- Quillwood Academy
- Reality Blind Reading Group
- Stephen Jenkinson's Orphan Wisdom School
- The Physics of Climate Change, by Lawrence M. Krauss
- Do the Work: An Antiracist Activity Book, by W. Kamau Bell and Kate Schatz
- Lyla June Johnston Interview on As Temperatures Rise
Support the show
David Blittersdorf is the President and CEO of AllEarth Renewables, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Post Carbon Institute as well as Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. He and Eric talk about the percentage of fossil energy we can reasonably expect to replace with renewable energy, the limitations of renewable energy, energy return on energy invested, and what drew David to the renewable energy industry, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 03:14 — Episode introduction
- 03:14 - 06:48 — What percentage of fossil energy we can replace with renewables
- 06:48 - 17:05 — Mineral limitations in large scale conversion to renewables
- 17:05 - 20:46 — The resource peaking process, and peaking of global oil supply
- 20:46 - 33:41 — Energy return on energy invested, and energy blindness
- 33:41 - 42:31 — What attracted David to the renewable energy industry
- 42:31 - 48:04 — Resistance to wind and solar generation capacity
- 48:04 - 52:07 — Navigating today's changing world
- 52:07 - 54:22 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Listen on YouTube
- AllEarth Renewables
- Quillwood Academy
- Reality Blind Reading Group
- Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, by Richard Heinberg
- The Energy Return on Invested of Biodiesel in Vermont, by Eric Garza
- Jimmy Carter's 1977 energy policy speech (YouTube)
- Pliocene and Eocene provide best analogs for near-future climates (K.D. Burke et al, in Proceedings for the National Academies of Sciences)
Support the show
Arthur Haines is a Maine hunting and recreation guide, forager, ancestral skills mentor, author, public speaker, and botanical researcher. In this episode he and Eric talk about the benefits of eating and gathering wild foods, how not all impacts we might have on wild plant populations are negative, practices for properly harvesting fiddleheads and wild leeks, and strategies for regulating the harvest of wild edible plants, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 03:11 — Episode introduction
- 03:11 - 07:17 — What Arthur and his family have been harvesting and eating
- 07:17 - 17:04 — Benefits of eating and gathering wild foods
- 17:04 - 31:11 — Interacting with wild foods, and how not all impact is negative
- 31:11 - 34:23 — Lamenting commercial harvesting of wild foods
- 34:23 - 52:00 — Practices for properly harvesting fiddleheads and wild leeks
- 52:00 - 64:30 — Strategies for regulating the harvest of wild plant foods
- 64:30 - 73:03 — Overcoming the mindset of exploitation and conquest
- 73:03 - 76:16 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Watch on YouTube
- Arthur Haines' website
- Quillwood Academy
- Reality Blind Reading Group
- Ingestion of Mycobacterium vaccae decreases anxiety-related behavior and improves learning in mice (Journal of Behavioral Processes)
- Immerse Yourself in a Forest for Better Health (New York Department of Environmental Conservation)
- Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources, by M. Kat Anderson
- Population viability analysis of American Ginseng and Wild Leek harvested in stochastic environments (Journal of Conservation Biology)
Support the show
Lyla June Johnston is a Diné writer, singer, spoken word artist, and activist. In this episode she and Eric talk about indigenous food ways, the deeper meaning of the word "food", power structures inherent in industrial food systems, and learning lessons from the rise and collapse of civilization, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:14 — Episode introduction
- 02:14 - 08:58 — What inspires Lyla to pursue indigenous food ways as a course of study
- 08:58 - 10:31 — Fragilities in modern industrial food systems
- 10:31 - 19:40 — Exploring the deeper indigenous meaning of the word "food"
- 19:40 - 25:22 — Indigenous food ways and the local food movement
- 25:22 - 31:04 — Power structures inherent in industrial food systems
- 31:04 - 37:48 — Learning big lessons from the rise and collapse of civilization
- 37:48 - 40:31 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Telling Tales of Change
- Authoritarian and Democratic Technics, by Lewis Mumford (Technology and Culture)
- An Interview of Lyla June Johnston (As Temperatures Rise, on YouTube)
- Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future, edited by Melissa Nelson
- We're Not Done With DAPL: How Investors Can Still Support Indigenous Rights, by Morgan Simon (Forbes, the article Lyla alludes to at the end of the episode)
Support the show
In this episode Eric reflects on how a lesson from an old martial arts mentor has influenced his thinking about today's converging crises, and how getting back to basics can help us feel safe in a changing world.
Outline
- 00:00 - 03:09 — Episode introduction
- 03:09 - 08:15 — A lesson on staying safe from a martial arts master
- 08:15 - 13:20 — Five needs we must meet to feel safe
- 13:20 - 14:45 — Invitation to reflect on how to avoid violence
- 14:45 - 16:52 — Invitation to reflect on how to stay warm or cool
- 16:52 - 18:33 — Invitation to reflect on how to maintain access to water and food
- 18:33 - 20:13 — Invitation to reflect on how to find community and social engagement
- 20:13 - 21:33 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Overshoot Reading Group
- Bujinkan Indianapolis Dojo
Support the show
In this episode Eric reflects on different ways of framing and talking about collapse, using metamorphosis as a metaphor to help us make sense of collapse, choosing our metaphors for collapse wisely, and the various physical, ecological, and social forces that are driving today's changing world.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:25 — Episode introduction
- 02:25 - 05:56 — Different ways of framing and talking about collapse
- 05:56 - 09:44 — Metamorphosis as a metaphor to help us make sense of collapse
- 09:44 - 16:17 — Adaptive cycle as a model to put collapse in a broader context
- 16:17 - 21:41 — Reckoning with our blindness to the ubiquity of change
- 21:41 - 24:23 — Choosing our metaphors for collapse wisely
- 24:23 - 29:48 — The role of energy, materials, and money in forcing social change
- 29:48 - 34:26 — The role of ecological and social turbulence in forcing social change
- 34:26 - 37:58 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Overshoot Reading Group
- The Great Simplification (Nate Hagens' podcast)
- The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age, by John Michael Greer
- The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, by James Howard Kunstler
- How Does A Caterpillar Turn Into A Butterfly, by Ferris Jabr (Scientific American)
- Adaptive Cycles (Resilience Alliance website)
- The adaptive cycle: more than a metaphor, by Shana M. Sundstrom and Craig R. Allen (Ecological Complexity)
- How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse, by John Michael Greer
- Analysis: World has already passed 'peak oil', BP figures reveal (Carbon Brief)
- Simon Michaux: "Minerals Blindness" (The Great Simplification podcast)
- Joe Rogan Experience #1245 - Andrew Yang (YouTube)
- The Social Dilemma (trailer on YouTube)
Support the show
Lyla June Johnston is a Diné writer, singer, spoken word artist, and activist. In this episode she talks to Eric about making peace with European heritage, colonial histories, place-based identities, reconnecting with our indigenous heritage, the sophistication of traditional ecological knowledge, and the fragility of American society, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:03 — Episode introduction
- 02:03 - 07:47 — Making peace with European heritage
- 07:47 - 18:50 — Colonial histories, trauma, and place-based identities
- 18:50 - 22:41 — Processing a fear of remembering
- 22:41 - 29:06 — Reconnecting with our indigenous heritage intuitively
- 29:06 - 33:42 — Showing courage as we reclaim an indigenous identity
- 33:42 - 36:55 — Creating parallel systems rather than repairing broken systems
- 36:55 - 42:53 — The sophistication of traditional ecological knowledge
- 42:53 - 46:57 — American society as a fragile, precarious system
- 46:57 - 48:54 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Overshoot Reading Group
- The Story of How Humanity Fell in Love with Itself Once Again, by Lyla June Johnston
- Mamwlad, a song by Lyla June Johnston
Support the show
Dr. Kate Booth and Tristan Sykes co-founded the platform Just Collapse. In this wide-ranging episode they talk to Eric about justice and collapse as place-based phenomenon, overshoot and the Seneca effect, collapse risks in Hobart, Tasmania and Vermont, USA, collapse awareness and collapse acceptance, structural violence as collapse avoidance, and seeing overshoot ecology and justice as issues of accountability, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:04 — Episode introduction
- 02:04 - 04:03 — Dr. Kate Booth and Tristan Sykes introduce themselves
- 04:03 - 07:47 — Justice and collapse as place-based phenomenon
- 07:47 - 13:08 — What a just collapse might look like in Hobart, Tasmania
- 13:08 - 18:30 — Overshoot and the Seneca effect
- 18:30 - 26:34 — Collapse risks in Vermont, USA, and how some places matter more than others
- 26:34 - 29:57 — Regions buying their way out of collapse
- 29:57 - 34:23 — Collapse awareness, collapse acceptance, and talking collapse
- 34:23 - 39:46 — Structural violence as collapse avoidance
- 39:46 - 43:40 — Hope, hopelessness, and motivation
- 43:40 - 50:20 — Managing our nervous system responses while engaging with collapse
- 50:20 - 56:20 — Seeing overshoot ecology and justice as issues of accountability
- 56:20 - 64:05 — How hard it is to find a path to redemption
- 64:05 - 68:08 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Overshoot Reading Group
- Just Collapse website
- Just Collapse on Facebook
- Brave Little State, on Vermont Public Radio
- Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Collective
- Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, by Donna Haraway
- Post Doom, Michael Dowd's website
- Global Footprint Calculator
- Slavery Footprint Calculator
Support the show (http://quillwood.org/product/donate/)
Host Eric Garza invites listeners on a deep time walk that explores the energetics of human evolution and human development. He begins this journey as our lineage parts ways with ancestors of today's chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), taking us through the development of stone tools, the harnessing of fire for warmth and cooking, the crafting of spears, clothing, and bows and arrows, and lastly more modern technologies designed to harness exosomatic energy sources often derived from fossil fuels.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:59 — Episode introduction
- 02:59 - 06:18 — Pedagogical benefits of deep time
- 06:18 - 09:07 — Looking at human evolution and development through an energy lens
- 09:07 - 16:52 — Early human development, stone tools, harnessing fire
- 16:52 - 19:08 — The Great Escalation: spears, clothes, and the bow and arrow
- 19:08 - 22:56 — Agriculture and the expansion of ecological debt
- 22:56 - 31:05 — Modern energy innovations, and exosomatic energy
- 31:05 - 32:03 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Overshoot Reading Group
- Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, by William Catton Jr.
- Deep Time Walk
- Work that Reconnects
- Fat, Not Meat, May Have Led to Bigger Hominin Brains, by Richard Kemeny (Scientific American)
- Every human culture includes cooking—this is how it began, by Graham Lawton (New Scientist)
- The First Spears, by Zach Zorich (Archeology)
- The History of Clothing and Textiles (Wikipedia)
- Bow and Arrow Hunting, by K. Kris Hirst (Thought Co.)
- History of agriculture (Wikipedia)
- Marion King Hubbert
Support the show (http://quillwood.org/product/donate/)
Cliff Berrien is a drummer, percussionist, DJ, and music educator who uses music to develop creativity, catalyze connections, promote cultural dexterity, help to heal trauma, and deepen contemplative somatic awareness. In this episode he and Eric talk about the deep time perspective, contemplative practice and dissociation, and generative catastrophe, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 06:12 — Episode introduction
- 06:12 - 17:13 — The deep time perspective
- 17:13 - 23:33 — The influence of Race and the Cosmos
- 23:33 - 39:54 — Contemplative practice and dissociation
- 39:54 - 55:34 — Exploding stars and generative catastrophe
- 55:34 - 56:25 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Quillwood Academy
- Race and the Cosmos, by Dr. Barbara Holmes
- Bayo Akomolafe
- Walter Earl Fluker
- Rasmaa Menakem
- Alexis Pauline Gumbs
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
- The Radiance Sutras, by Lorin Roche
- Vanessa Andreotti and the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Collective
- The Four Denials
- The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow
- Thomas Berry
- Brian Swimme
- Limits to Growth, by Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William Behrens
- Study pinpoints timing of oxygen's appearance in Earth's atmosphere, by Jennifer Chu
Support the show (http://quillwood.org/product/donate/)
Bayo Akomolafe is an author, speaker, a trans-public intellectual, post-activist, and a father, among many other things. In this episode he and Eric talk about resilience, the generative qualities of failure, finding safety amidst uncertainty, trauma as a capitalist project, cancel culture, individualism, and belonging as an artifact, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:18 — Episode introduction
- 02:18 - 07:40 — Going into the cracks
- 07:40 - 15:58 — Resilience, giving up, experimentalism
- 15:58 - 21:11 — Nervous systems and feeling safe in uncertainty
- 21:11 - 30:50 — Staying balanced, embracing failure
- 30:50 - 57:21 — Trauma, cancel culture, and belonging
- 57:21 - 58:15 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Bayo Akomolafe's website
- The Unbusinesslike Nature of Business
- Railway spine as a post-traumatic disorder
- Lauren Berlant, author
- Achille Mbembe, philosopher
Support the show (http://quillwood.org/product/donate/)
Nathan Hagens founded the Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future, and hosts The Great Simplification podcast. In this episode he and Eric talk about the genesis of his phrase The Great Simplification, the link between debt and growth, energy blindness, the three grand challenges facing us today, finding our people, and attending to our mental health and resilience, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:33 — Episode introduction
- 02:36 - 14:24 — The genesis of The Great Simplification
- 14:24 - 19:22 — Avoiding binary outcomes
- 19:22 - 26:24 — The link between debt and growth
- 26:24 - 33:44 — Energy blindness
- 33:44 - 36:19 — Energy and power density of fossil carbon
- 36:19 - 40:04 — Three grand challenges
- 40:04 - 44:22 — Finding our people, talking this through
- 44:22 - 48:09 — Attending to our mental health and resilience
- 48:09 - 54:27 — Walking the talk and staying grateful
- 54:27 - 55:24 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson
- The Oil Drum: Discussions About Energy and Our Future
- Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future
- The Great Simplification, with Nate Hagens
- Olympic Cyclist Vs. Toaster: Can He Power It? (YouTube video)
- Human-powered Tesla Model X Charger (YouTube)
- Energy Blind, Part 1 of 5 / The Great Simplification Series (YouTube)
Support the show (http://quillwood.org/product/donate/)
Sophie Strand is a writer, poet, and compost heap based in New York's Hudson Valley. Her writing focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and ecology. In this episode she and Eric talk about rewilding the sacred masculine, apocalypses past and present, healing and trauma in this age of turmoil, making kin, and embracing incompletion, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 03:36 — Episode introduction
- 03:36 - 07:58 — Lunations of masculinity
- 07:58 - 10:37 — Apocalypses past, present, and future
- 10:37 - 23:31 — Healing and trauma in this age of turmoil
- 23:31 - 30:07 — Making kin with life and land
- 30:07 - 37:16 — Looking critically at trauma
- 37:16 - 46:30 — Embracing compost and incompletion
- 46:30 - 49:38 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Sophie Strand's Instagram (@cosmogyny)
- Sophie Strand on Facebook
- SophieStrand.com
- Sophie Strand's Substack
- The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine, by Sophie Strand
- Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, by Donna Haraway
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolks
- Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism, by Vanessa Machado de Oliviera
Support the show (http://quillwood.org/product/donate/)
Grace Aldrich and Emma Redden founded the Full Story School and produce the Freedom Means Podcast. In this episode they talk with Eric about talking to children about challenging topics, the relationships between practice, perfection and performance in our communication, and building agency and honesty into our conversational praxis, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:36 — Episode introduction
- 02:36 - 06:43 — Grace and Emma introduce themselves
- 06:43 - 11:41 — Emma and Grace introduce the Full Story School and Freedom Means Podcast
- 11:41 - 22:51 — Talking to children about challenging topics, and building trust by not lying
- 22:51 - 29:14 — Practice, perfection, and performance in our communication
- 29:14 - 37:18 — Language and dissociation
- 37:18 - 40:44 — Building agency and honesty into our conversational praxis
- 40:44 - 53:15 — Resisting the language of separation
- 53:15 - 55:20 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- The Full Story School
- Freedom Means Podcast
- Resmaa Menakem and Somatic Abolitionism
- Jill McFarlane and The Sharing Place
- Bayo Akomolafe
- Polyvagal Theory
- Gabor Maté
- Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus
- Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address
Support the show (http://quillwood.org/product/donate/)
In this episode of the Quillwood Podcast, host Eric Garza talks with Harlan Morehouse. Harlan teaches at the University of Vermont and has a keen interest in how people negotiate their futures with regard to 21st century social and environmental uncertainties. He talks with Eric about how catastrophism and apocalypticism show up in modern film and literature, how they tend to favor individualism over collectivism, and how he stays balanced while immersed in these narratives, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 01:47 — Introduction
- 01:47 - 14:19 — What intrigues Harlan and Eric about apocalypticism and catastrophism
- 14:19 - 20:07 — Catastrophic roots of the modern environmental movement
- 20:07 - 27:20 — Catastrophism as an opportunity for the accumulation of capital
- 27:20 - 33:49 — Catastrophism as an object of desire for individualistic people
- 33:49 - 39:14 — Individual versus collective survival
- 39:14 - 52:03 — How Harlan remains well balanced in the face of his research
- 52:03 - 63:54 — Reflecting critically on James Howard Kunstler’s writing
- 63:54 - 64:13 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Harlan Morehouse’s faculty website at the University of Vermont
- The Population Bomb (Paul Ehrlich, Sierra Club/Ballantice Books)
- Silent Spring (Rachel Carson, Houghton Mifflin Company)
- The Great Insect Dying: Vanishing Act in Europe and North America (Jeremy Hance, Mongabay)
- Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Rob Nixon, Harvard University Press)
- The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Naomi Klein, Random House)
- Chicago, New Orleans, and rebirth (the op-ed in which Kristen McQueary longs for Chicago’s version of Hurricane Katrina, which Harlan incorrectly attributed to Mayor Rahm Emanuel)
- The Road (Cormac McCarthy, Alfred A. Knopf)
- Learning to Die in the Anthropocene (Roy Scranton, The New York Times)
- Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Donna Haraway, Duke University Press)
- A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things (Raj Patel & Jason Moore, University of California Press
- Erik Swyngedouw’s website with a list of his research and writing
- Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer, Milkweed Press)
- Zoe Todd’s website, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton College
Support the show (http://quillwood.org/product/donate/)
In this episode of the Quillwood Podcast, host Eric Garza talks with Sherri Mitchell, a Penobcsot attorney who speaks and teaches around the world on issues of indigenous rights, environmental justice, and spiritual change. She is the author of the book Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change, and talks with Eric about the Wabenaki legend of the Cannibal Giant, the connection between overconsumption and trauma, and waking up to the pervasive grief of patriarchal colonialism, among other things.
Outline
- 00:00 - 02:23 — Introduction
- 02:23 - 07:50 — Origins of the Cannibal Giant story
- 07:50 - 10:41 — Demonstrating the truths we see in our lives
- 10:41 - 14:43 — Trauma and people’s susceptibility to consumerism
- 14:43 - 20:24 — Helping people wake up to the impacts of consumerism
- 20:24 - 25:11 — The connection between depression, anxiety and grief
- 25:11 - 30:05 — How trauma is cumulative
- 30:05 - 33:46 — Sherri’s approach to healing collective trauma
- 33:46 - 39:18 — The wounds we carry from patriarchal colonialism
- 39:18 - 48:56 — Amplifying emotional intelligence
- 48:56 - 50:56 — Exploring our inner landscapes
- 50:56 - 52:59 — Episode wrap-up
Links and Resources
- Quillwood Academy
- Eric's Patreon page
- Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change, by Sherri Mitchell
- Sacred Instructions (Sherri’s website)
- Columbus and Other Cannibals, by Jack D. Forbes
- Report: Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2018 (Anti-Defamation League)
- Sacred Instructions Facebook Page
Support the show (http://quillwood.org/product/donate/)
In this first episode of the Quillwood Podcast, host Eric Garza tells two stories that explore its motivations, values, and goals. The first story expands on advice Eric was given by a courageous black-capped chickadee in 2009. The second explores a case of mistaken identity in a northern Vermont forest in 2016, and the learnings that arose from it.
Outline
- 00:00 - 01:10 — Introduction
- 01:10 - 06:07 — Learning from chickadees
- 06:07 - 11:58 — Barefoot walking as a core practice
- 11:58 - 16:39 — Origins of the Quillwood name
- 16:39 - 21:22 — A crisis of sense making
- 21:22 - 22:03 — Episode wrap up
Links and Resources
- Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System, by Donella Meadows
- Thinking in Systems: A Primer, by Donella Meadows
- Quillwood Academy
- Deep Adaptation Reading Group
- Sacred Instructions Reading Group
- Eric's Patreon page
Support the show (http://quillwood.org/product/donate/)