How do the biological life forms of the Amazon rainforest — from pollen grains, fungal spores, to microbes — play active roles in their regional water cycle? How might we connect chemistry, biology, physics, ecology, and other less quantifiable measures of aliveness to look at our planetary crises in much more holistic ways? And if the Earth's “systems” were ever-emergent and everchanging, then how do we know what to orient healing and restoring balance towards ? In this episode, kaméa is joined...
Jan 21, 2025•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean that Hollywood and the entertainment industry are increasingly relying on AI and consumer data to make decisions about the stories that get funded and produced? How might we expand our perspectives on privilege so that the things we aspire to as being “better off” are more deeply rooted in what can truly enrich life, community, and our interconnectedness? In this episode, we are honored to welcome Nathalie Kelley, an actress of Indigenous Peruvian descent who is passionate abou...
Jan 07, 2025•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast How do we navigate friendships in the context of social change and increasing political divides? What does it mean to ground ourselves in concepts that are much older than us — collectively nurturing our “garden of ideas”? And how do we move away from cancel culture to lovingly call one another in — to return, re-root, and remember our shared values? In this episode, Kaméa is joined in conversation by adrienne maree brown, whose most recent book, Loving Corrections , is now available...
Dec 10, 2024•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast What can we learn from marine mammals in their practices of echolocation? What is the difference between identification as a colonial tool of control and separation, versus identifying with as an invitation to expand and blur boundaries? And how do Audre Lorde’s poetic dreams of survival continue to reverberate during our times — helping us to reorient the ways that we show up for ourselves, for our communities and our planet? In this episode, we are honored to welcome Alexis Pauline Gumbs, a Qu...
Nov 27, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast How is the common portrayal of Australia’s first peoples as hunter-gatherers who lived on empty, uncultivated land misguided, and wrong? What does the word “Country” mean in Aboriginal Australian thought? And what do we need to interrogate in terms of the subjectivity of how knowledge is produced or how stories are substantiated? In this episode, we are honored to speak with Bruce Pascoe, a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man best known for his book Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of A...
Nov 12, 2024•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast How might we listen to our hearts more and tune into this “age of loneliness”? What are some vital connections between our public health crises, the loneliness epidemic, and our eco grief and anxiety? And what are the possibilities of intergenerational longings — for things already lost and gone amiss that we may not even have personal relationships with anymore, but that we must nevertheless work to restore and regenerate? In this episode, Green Dreamer’s host, kamea, speaks with Laura Marris a...
Nov 01, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to expand political action beyond the voting booth? What are some ways that colonialism and imperialism persist today? And what is the relationship between building community locally and confronting issues abroad that we may be entangled in? In this honest, hard-hitting dialogue, second-time guest Nick Estes returns to invite us to think critically beyond the suffocating cycles of electoral politics. Join us as we honestly face the limitations of representational change, while ...
Oct 15, 2024•45 min•Ep 436•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Sadiah Qureshi invites us to unravel histories of science, race, and empire to understand the social dynamics that we have inherited in the present. How do we begin to heal from constructs of division and racialization that have led to real-life consequences and systemic injustices for so many? Join us as we discuss how historical contexts influence how knowledge is shaped, the presumptions underlying “conservation” and “de-extinction” projects to interrogate, and more. We invit...
Oct 01, 2024•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean that the labeling of “pests” often relate to how they challenge power and order? How do the ways that “pests” are often targeted and managed further exacerbate socio-environmental injustices? And how might we learn to relate with animals deemed “out of place” beyond the subjective framing of “pests” altogether? In this episode, we are honored to discuss all things related to “pests” with Bethany Brookshire, an award-winning freelance science journalist and author of the 2022 bo...
Sep 17, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to expand our perceptions of wealth — and question what it means to build freedom and security in life? How might we re-ground our understandings of democracy in traditional ecological knowledge? And how do we embrace an all-of-the-above approach when it comes to our possibilities for systemic change? In this episode, we are honored to welcome Joseph Gazing Wolf, who offers a wealth of wisdom drawing upon his life experiences growing up in landless, abject poverty. Join us as w...
Sep 03, 2024•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it actually mean to build “movements” — understanding this word not as a loose terminology overarching certain causes but as a substantive call for intentionally spun and co-conspired webs of relations? How can clarifying the words we use around organizing help to prevent co-optation and dilution? And how do we navigate the paradox of needing funding from often “dirty” sources in order to get by — while simultaneously attempting to subvert the underlying structures of power themselves?...
Aug 27, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to understand laundering in the context of how Black rage often gets converted to fit the interests of capital — against the very people experiencing that anger as a response to state violence? How do we remain cautious of different forms of co-optation, including through the arts, that end up distancing people from the material conditions that originally sparked the rage? In this part one of our two-part conversation, we are honored to welcome the co-authors of Laundering Blac...
Aug 20, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast With a significant part of the global population now reliant on paved road systems for the daily functioning of our lives, it is easy to overlook the impacts they have on our human and more-than-human communities. But how did so many of us become seemingly locked into this dependence on the “normalized violence” of these networks? And what does it mean to support harm reduction in the context of built infrastructures — or even dare to lean into possibilities of regenerative road ethics? In this ...
Aug 06, 2024•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to sit with and tend to our grief as a regular practice rather than something to “get over” — so we can continue to sense and feel more deeply? How do we stay well amidst info overload and the increasingly fast pace of modernity — so we can contribute sustainably in ways that align with our values? How can we maintain our capacities to care for those we have responsibilities for and find things that bring us a bit more ease? In this episode, Camille Sapara Barton invites us to ...
Jul 23, 2024•40 min•Ep 429•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to remember ourselves as representatives of our rivers, oceans, and other earthly bodies of water? Why is it vital to recognize the failed logic underpinning regulatory systems that take on an “innocent until proven guilty” approach to water pollution? And how can we leverage our tools as artists, storytellers, and creatives to co-create felt change? In this episode, we dialogue with Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo and Blake Lavia of Talking Wings Collective for a synergistic conversatio...
Jul 09, 2024•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this conversation with Dr. Juanita Sundberg, we explore how our relationships with the more-than-human world are often shaped by our institutions and knowledge systems — which don’t always honor the diverse cosmologies and relationalities of life. Juanita draws on her work with Indigenous communities and organizations as she highlights how our existence is determined not only by political and societal constructs of borders and boundaries, but by some of the most overlooked elements of the liv...
Jun 26, 2024•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast How do we recalibrate the metrics of mainstream politics, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) often used to define a nation's “success” — and recenter them on our collective and planetary wellbeing? What could a truly regenerative economy encompass, and what might that mean for our immediate and long-term activism? In this episode, we welcome Amanda Janoo, who feels called to help build just and sustainable economies through goal-oriented and participatory design policies. Join us as Amanda sha...
Jun 11, 2024•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Sophy Banks shares her rich wealth of knowledge, teachings, and experiences about what it means to truly support ourselves and others through both collective and personal traumas. Cultures of individualism often lead us to navigate trauma on our own— without rituals of shared and collective space holding. For some, particularly those who have been victims of oppression, colonialism, and dispossession, the rivers and oceans of grief held within are often too vast and too deep to ...
May 29, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast What do the terminologies we often use to describe plants reveal about human and human-plant relations? How is the current landscape of the plant world entangled with human histories of desire, power, and imperialism? Drawing from her experience living across various countries and continents as a third-generation migrant, Jessica J. Lee delves into the nuances of shifting attitudes towards both plant and human migration stories throughout time. Join us as we explore how terms such as “weeds,” “n...
May 14, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast How do we show up as sensitive, creative and intuitive beings in a system that does not honor the uniqueness of our spirits? How can we stay true to our calling when we’re so busy simply trying to survive? In this episode, Niharika Sanyal shares sweet fruits of wisdom on the radical act of honoring our unique gifts as offerings during times of darkness. In guiding us towards the deepest desires and whispers of our hearts, Sanyal draws from her personal experiences, yoga philosophy, and Vedic myt...
Apr 30, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast “We consume not only stuff but also knowledge, experiences, critique. And this consumption, many times, is not even digested. It is the consumption for consumption’s sake so that we can feel better.” What might it mean for humanity to reach a level of maturation to be able to confront the multilayered crises we now face—calling upon us to “grow up and show up” for ourselves and our planet? And how might recognizing the differing historical contexts that we were raised within help us to have more...
Apr 23, 2024•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast What could it mean to heal our relationship with the dead, the decaying, and the dark in order to move towards more liveable futures? What possibilities might arise when we shift from cultural narratives of fear, discomfort, and disgust with these unseen worlds — to ones which honor the wisdoms that they may be able to offer? In this episode, Perdita Finn draws on her book Take Back the Magic to invite us to find kinship and guidance from beings that have passed. Through a renewal of ancient pra...
Apr 17, 2024•40 min•Ep 422•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, geographer, writer, and sound artist AM Kanngieser invites us to reconsider the diverse ways in which we register both sound and silence — pushing back against the idea that listening itself is a virtuous act with universality in experience. Through their own journey as a geographer and sound artist, Kanngieser sheds light on the colonial repercussions of extracting sound, knowledge, and information from landscapes and communities that have historically been taken from without c...
Apr 03, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why is the North Africa and Middle East region so vital to center in discourses on climate justice? How does the current global energy transition reinforce colonial, extractivist power dynamics? And what is the meaning of “eco-normalization” in the context of the Arab world? Join us in this episode as Algerian researcher and activist Hamza Hamouchene dissects crucial narratives surrounding the notion of “green energy colonialism.” Posing critical questions about the current beneficiaries of rene...
Mar 21, 2024•44 min•Ep 420•Transcript available on Metacast Who does “fair trade” as a certification program speaking to conscious consumers really serve? How might it fall short of what it promises—supporting farmers and producers from falling into the deepest pits of poverty while paradoxically also keeping them at a certain level? What does the process of rebuilding power entail for communities who are grappling with local inequalities within a larger global corporate agricultural chain? In this episode, we converse with author and geography Lindsay N...
Mar 08, 2024•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it mean to recognize the limitations of “biodiversity” as a gauge of planetary wellbeing? How do we make sense of the heads of big corporations like Shell being major patrons of the largest conservation organizations? And how might a politics of disability justice shape diverse futures beyond an exclusive framework of Western-Scientific conservation? In this episode, we converse with scholar and anti-oppression activist Audra Mitchell on how intersecting forms of systemic violence work...
Feb 23, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast “What we’re talking about are plants that people desire for ornamental collection and will oftentimes go to great lengths to get them. Sometimes, that desire leads to conservation problems, and sadly… in the worst-case scenario, the extinction of an entire species.” Where does cacti and succulent life fit within the realm of illegal/illicit wildlife trade? What conversations might arise when we include them in a wider picture of political ecology and colonial histories? And how might the entangl...
Feb 09, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast What can grief teach us about being truly alive ? And how might seeds, and the compassionate acts of tending to them, be the “helpers and teachers” of mediating our collective grief? In this episode, we are honored to welcome Vivien Sansour, founder of the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Project—an initiative centered on caring for and preserving seeds as keepers of ancestral connection and models of subversive advocacy. Join us as Vivien shares about the systemic violence of disconnection and relatio...
Jan 26, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast What might the histories of human and gray whale relations show us in terms of how the stories we tell shape the texture of our relationships to our more-than-human kin? How can adopting a plurality of narratives and cultural perspectives in and around a particular species disrupt the kinds of binaries that so often underly academic research methods? And what might a more diverse, accessible, and context-specific approach to field research look like with humility and deep-listening at its core? ...
Jan 11, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a behind-the-scenes conversation with Gabes Torres, a contributor and the program advisor of alchemize , and Green Dreamer's team members Anisa Sima Hawley and Kamea Chayne. We explore the themes of imagination, escapism, dissociation, and discomfort when it comes to dreaming, sensing, relating, and becoming otherwise. Enroll in alchemize through January 12th, 2024: www.greendreamer.com/alchemize
Jan 03, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast