For The Wild - Collective Liberation & Communal Gathering at LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE ⧸128

00:00:00.000 For the Wild podcast is made possible by support from our partner, the Calliopeia Foundation.

00:00:06.980 Calliopeia believes in honoring all life as sacred, working with many projects towards a shared vision for the future, rooted in an interconnected approach to ecology, culture, and spirituality.

00:00:19.920 We are so grateful for Calliopeia's generous support to bring so many transformative projects to life and for helping us to bring our show to you every week.

00:00:29.580 Welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young.

00:00:34.000 Today we are sharing with you a special edition episode from our time at Lightning in a Bottle.

00:00:40.240 We started to challenge ourselves to think, how could we not only tell the stories from the communities that we represent, that we're accountable to,

00:00:47.660 but also facilitate in the cross-pollination of the stories that often go missing or mingled in mainstream media,

00:00:53.660 that we can say in our own first-hand truth, bear witness to that,

00:00:58.100 and have that be part of what dispels the myths that are created to keep us divided.

00:01:02.980 Music festivals have long since been a site of energetic convergence between music,

00:01:08.460 cultural transformation, art, celebration of life, and at times even political resistance.

00:01:14.720 Following Woodstock in the 1960s, we have since witnessed a surge of transformational festivals

00:01:19.920 across the country and around the world.

00:01:22.200 From Burning Man to Lightning in a Bottle,

00:01:24.440 the phenomenon of festival culture

00:01:26.140 seems to have taken hold of our generation's imagination

00:01:28.680 in a new way,

00:01:30.140 as these all-immersive experiences

00:01:32.100 that allow many to step into alternative realities

00:01:34.940 and explore new paradigms of community

00:01:37.300 and being in relationship with one another.

00:01:40.200 Given that festivals have become

00:01:41.500 such important sociocultural artifacts of our time,

00:01:45.000 it's incumbent upon us, participants and media makers alike,

00:01:48.300 to engage and wrestle with the complexities of these gatherings?

00:01:52.340 Does their transformative potential and creative energy get lost to escapism,

00:01:56.900 or create an opening for real change and chart a revolutionary path beyond the festival space?

00:02:02.520 Can we justify the immense resource use and environmental impact

00:02:05.920 of inviting tens of thousands of people and establishing entire power grids

00:02:09.660 in remote, sometimes fragile, desert ecosystems?

00:02:12.940 Though many transformative festivals are guided by principles of radical inclusion and participation,

00:02:18.880 How does this ethos take space in practice and in addressing barriers of access?

00:02:24.080 This year, I wanted for the Wild to attend the Compass at Lightning in a Bottle,

00:02:28.360 not only to explore these questions, but also to reconnect and support our incredible community of friends, allies, and collaborators in this work.

00:02:35.800 From workshop conversations to moments of pure joy and celebration,

00:02:40.340 these shared experiences and intimate connections help remind us of our deeper collective purpose

00:02:45.380 and ground for the wild in the greater web of resistance and resurgence.

00:02:50.720 So to kick off our Lightning in a Bottle or LIB episode and dig into some of these questions,

00:02:56.700 we have the incredible opportunity to hear from Isis Indria and Eve Bradford,

00:03:01.480 the co-directors of The Compass, the educational heart of Lightning in a Bottle.

00:03:06.580 Well, welcome, dear friends. I am so happy to have you today.

00:03:10.780 Thank you, Ayanna. So happy to be here.

00:03:13.140 thank you an honor to be here in the for the wild podcast yay so to jump right in i want to begin by

00:03:22.000 speaking to the separation that we're facing in these times and under our current dominant

00:03:28.040 capitalist culture i think so many of us are experiencing a felt sense of alienation and

00:03:34.760 isolation from our planetary kin a toxic cultural dissolution that strokes the flames of political

00:03:40.860 division, social marginalization, and violent extremism. In so many ways, we have lost the

00:03:47.120 ancient human tradition of gathering, making music, dancing, celebrating, and serving one

00:03:52.540 another. So Eve and Isis, to jump in today, I would love to hear more about how your work with

00:03:59.160 living village culture and the compass is breathing life back into village culture, as well as our

00:04:04.760 relationships with each other, the planet, and the sacred. How are you as leaders at the forefront

00:04:10.340 of this movement and architects of cultural initiation, honoring the old and nurturing

00:04:15.180 emergence of the new within the gatherings and experiences you create?

00:04:20.680 Well, you know, first off, in relation to festival culture, we've often talked a lot

00:04:25.300 about how we imagine that this is sort of a modern day desire to experience some sense

00:04:31.300 of village life again.

00:04:33.320 And we think that that's why festival culture has grown so rapidly, so quickly, because

00:04:38.360 we don't really have village experiences for those of us that weren't raised in indigenous

00:04:41.940 communities. I was born in Mesa, Arizona, raised on the island of Guam. I'm a Chamorro woman. My

00:04:48.420 culture is Chamorro. Guahan is our island. I'm also a quarter German. And I was raised in

00:04:56.380 villages. You know, I was raised with grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles and cousins

00:05:01.300 and nieces and raised in a household full of people all the time and you know I remember

00:05:08.180 growing up every village once a month would provide a full fiesta of food for all the other

00:05:13.960 villages to come and then the next village would do the same for all the other for all of us to

00:05:20.120 come to it was like this shared feasting feeding dynamic that happened on the island and

00:05:25.440 simultaneously this continued journey of colonization you know we're still being

00:05:30.420 colonized to this day. We're a U.S. territory. And moving from Guam to America was incredibly

00:05:40.360 traumatic because I just didn't really have a village experience anywhere. And I didn't know

00:05:46.320 how to find it. And I really think that's what led me to festival culture. And so we kind of

00:05:51.680 imagined that that's why this is happening. And also at this time where as the systems that we've

00:05:58.180 been programmed to function and are breaking down, and thus our own programs needing to

00:06:03.460 break down and transform too, these festival environments are really calling forth a consciousness

00:06:09.340 shift.

00:06:10.780 Now, sometimes it can lead to escapism because of the psychedelic movement.

00:06:15.140 Sometimes it can be an avenue to escape from the current paradigm and reality that we're

00:06:19.080 functioning in or programmed to function in.

00:06:21.760 And also it's in a way, sometimes a call for like personal initiation, transformation and collective initiation transformation.

00:06:31.820 Also to this time where there's a seek, a search to not only connect with each other and connect with the sacred in some form, especially for those that are spiritual orphans that weren't raised in any traditions or cultures that honor the sacred.

00:06:45.680 We often talk a lot about how we feel like this is sort of like the modern day desire, call, and reach for some sort of connection to each other, to village life experiences, community, and thus the sacred.

00:07:00.860 Oftentimes, you know, Michael Pollan said this thing at Bioneers last year, you know, in relation to the psychedelic movement, that the further we go into consciousness, we find our way to the sacred.

00:07:11.060 and we're finding this experience these experiences are happening for a lot of people

00:07:16.120 they go the journey with music and art and education and psychedelics and they have these

00:07:23.540 major self-initiations and collective initiations and we found over the years that there hasn't been

00:07:30.700 in the festival culture really until the last maybe like six or seven years a home where we

00:07:36.860 actually take the time to be with the elements of life, like the fire, the water, the air,

00:07:43.340 the earth, multi-generational wisdom keeper leadership, and youth voices. That's a new

00:07:52.780 part of festival culture that's been really growing and emerging in the last five to seven

00:07:56.680 years. And we found that the more that we tend to and care for holding a sacred container around

00:08:03.880 the fire, a sacred container with the water, with, you know, indigenous youth voices and

00:08:10.100 wisdom keeper elders all there at the same time, sharing around the fire, there is an

00:08:16.740 awakening that occurs in the hearts and minds of the people.

00:08:20.540 So I'm going to stop there.

00:08:21.420 And Eve, you want to hop in and continue forward?

00:08:25.220 Sure.

00:08:25.940 Yeah, I mean, Isis mentioned, you know, this vision that we had together of having been

00:08:33.280 inside of festival culture for quite some time since we were pretty young and watching it ebb

00:08:39.980 and flow and change and grow and both of us Isis and I have always kind of been like the secret

00:08:45.900 nerds at the party of always being the ones kind of interested in pushing the content because I

00:08:52.500 think even before we were consciously aware of it we felt the potential of this space for

00:08:59.140 being a place where culture was happening. Actually, one of the very first taglines for

00:09:07.480 our company, Living Village Culture, was culture as a verb. And that really grew out of our

00:09:12.960 participation in festival culture and seeing how something was happening around us. It was being

00:09:17.740 made. It wasn't just being talked about. And so when you have access to those spaces where you

00:09:24.020 feel culture being made around you, that is also a space where you have an opportunity to get

00:09:29.220 intentional about shaping culture as well. And so that began, I think, more subconsciously where

00:09:37.740 our own desire for sacred, you know, we started doing opening and closing ceremonies when we

00:09:43.800 didn't really, you know, when that wasn't really ever happening and beginning to present workshops

00:09:49.420 around the intersection of traditional earth-based wisdom cultures and contemporary festival

00:09:57.300 culture. And, you know, this grew and evolved over time. And we really became aware of this

00:10:03.880 notion that Isis spoke about of this latent desire for village life. And it felt like a really

00:10:11.920 worthy endeavor to take that from being more implicit to to make it more explicit and actually

00:10:19.800 say this is what we're doing this is what you're longing for whether you realize it or not so if

00:10:25.720 this is something that your soul is longing for how can we utilize this context of festival culture

00:10:32.860 to begin to actually create and cultivate the awareness the skill sets the connections the

00:10:39.500 relationships, the web of potentials that are going to allow that to actually move from festival

00:10:46.160 culture out into our lives beyond festival culture. And that's kind of been our guiding purpose

00:10:53.460 with Living Village Culture from the start is to really take what feels to us like the most fertile

00:11:01.120 potential, activist cultural potential of what we see in festival culture and bring that forward.

00:11:08.680 It's that principle of like, you know, we can look at festival culture and see everything that is really questionable about it. And we can see everything that's really amazing about it. And so our approach has always been to try to feed and nurture and cultivate what we see as the positive potential of it rather than standing back and just critiquing what's negative about it.

00:11:33.220 because people are there they're waiting to be guided into more meaningful more connected more

00:11:40.880 sustainable more participatory lives and and so we just that's what we want and so we want to get

00:11:49.200 together and all the people that have inspired us on our path create a platform for all the people

00:11:55.640 who have ways have really good information who don't necessarily have access to that audience

00:12:03.800 that is very hooked into social media very hooked into contemporary culture maybe not paying

00:12:09.140 attention to something like pioneers maybe have never found for the wild podcast on their own

00:12:14.780 so it's about building bridges between the audience who kind of wants that information

00:12:21.080 whether they realize it or not and the people whose lives are dedicated to that work but

00:12:25.640 don't necessarily have access to that audience.

00:12:29.460 Going off particularly this tension between the outside world

00:12:34.200 and the all-immersive co-constructed festival world,

00:12:38.240 I want to ask how you are making decisions around who

00:12:41.560 and what you bring into the compass.

00:12:43.940 I was reading an interview with Elliot Raznick,

00:12:46.860 the founder of Beloved Festival on the Oregon coast,

00:12:49.440 how he kind of responded to a similar question.

00:12:52.800 He said, quote,

00:12:53.460 if we don't take the time to be honest about what's happening in the world and take the time

00:12:57.980 to grieve, then there is something fundamentally shallow about any joy that we can experience,

00:13:02.700 end quote. And so while reading this quote, and of course, so many of my own thoughts over the

00:13:07.460 years, it really occurred to me that, and honestly, more and more, I feel this, that the joy and grief,

00:13:12.800 the lightness and the darkness, they all go hand in hand, constructing profound experiences

00:13:18.320 that connect people not only to deep pleasure and love and celebration of being human,

00:13:24.940 but also the very real urgent crisis unfolding before us.

00:13:28.960 So I'd like to ask you two, how do you balance these two twin elements in your programming?

00:13:34.920 Yeah, God, I so appreciate that.

00:13:36.740 And I appreciate you bringing in Elliot too,

00:13:39.120 because he's someone who's really made an effort to be evolving festival culture

00:13:44.500 and be receptive to critique and you know really be in the dialogue about how festival culture

00:13:51.560 itself can learn and grow and evolve um so it's nice to hear his name in the mix and our our

00:13:59.460 process of curation is it's so interesting we reflect on it sometimes it's so organic it is

00:14:06.020 methodical if you happen to be like a chaos magician but it's so much about deep listening

00:14:12.480 I mean, that is the core of our curatorial process. And just every year, you know, we never really stop curating for the Compass. It's happening all the time because we're always just paying attention to all the ways that the world is speaking to us about what's needed and what's wanted and what will actually penetrate, you know, in a way that offers hope.

00:14:41.700 And it's so true that there needs to be a balance of fearless engagement with the truth of the intensity and the challenge of the times that we're living in and the possibility of joy and celebration and presence in this moment of aliveness and sensuality and direct engagement with the beauty of the world.

00:15:07.660 That is what makes the crisis a tragedy, because if we don't acknowledge that beauty, then we don't actually connect to what's tragic.

00:15:16.200 And so I'm currently engaged in a deep study of Taoist philosophy and, you know, opposites give rise to each other like that's part of the natural law of the universe.

00:15:27.100 And so what we have learned over time is that by going deeply into the challenge and being fearless about engaging with the real crux of the matter, you know, bringing Dr. Vandana Shiva, bringing Project Drawdown, bringing, you know, incredible activists who are directly engaged with some of the stuff that's really hard to look at and not resisting that and opening ourselves to it.

00:15:55.960 there's a relief that arises from knowing that you're not having a good time at the expense of

00:16:02.740 being in denial of the reality of the situation. Because we know somewhere in us that if we're

00:16:09.220 celebrating from a place of denial and escapism, then the celebration is hollow and superficial,

00:16:15.300 and it's not actually feeding our souls. It's just escapism. And so if we can engage fearlessly with

00:16:24.920 and vulnerably and just honestly with the conundrum of our times, then it's almost like

00:16:33.080 from that naturally arises this authentic celebration of life and what it is to have

00:16:40.060 been given this gift of life that becomes so much more precious and valuable when we

00:16:45.320 are really aware of all the things that threaten it and all the things that we want to directly

00:16:53.580 engage with in order to be protectors of it and to stand for that beauty but if we're not also

00:17:01.300 taking time to appreciate it and to be in the sensual pleasure of having a body and being in

00:17:07.600 the world then what are we fighting for then why are we engaging and so they really naturally feed

00:17:13.480 each other which is why like for example climbing poetry is such a powerful example of both of those

00:17:21.140 things at once, of the direct engagement with the challenge that gives rise to the celebration of

00:17:25.560 being alive, which gives us the resource to re-engage with the challenge. And it's this

00:17:30.280 cycle that we all get to be in together that gets so much more deep and so much more authentic

00:17:35.880 when we actually fully, completely engage in both sides of the spectrum.

00:17:42.380 My goodness. I just want to thank you both so much for being so intimate and personal and

00:17:47.420 really sharing the depth of or some of the depths of your work and we're going to be

00:17:53.720 playing some of the recordings we were able to get while we were at lib and i'm just so excited

00:17:59.400 for our listeners to hear some of the snippets from this year's lib festival and you know of

00:18:05.440 course all coming from the compass and just wanting to let everybody know you'll be hearing

00:18:10.960 excerpts from desiree harp and nydia alicia on indigenous women's spiritual rights and

00:18:16.200 Responsibilities, a visionary performance with activists Alicia and Naima of Climbing Poetry,

00:18:23.160 the incredible Vandana Shiva on Earth Democracy and Paul Stamets on magic and medicinal mushrooms,

00:18:28.980 and just so much juiciness coming your way. We want to preface this conversation with the

00:18:35.980 sentiments shared by Dee Dominguez during Desiree Harp and Nidia Alicia's presentation,

00:18:41.000 Indigenous Women, Spiritual Rights and Responsibilities. Dee not only acknowledges

00:18:45.940 the land and ancestral territory that LIB takes place on, but also shares the ways it has been

00:18:51.020 altered and changed due to past and present colonial power. In our culture, when we like

00:18:57.540 something, we give a big, oh, can I get a big, oh, oh, thank you so much. So a part of our protocol

00:19:06.640 that we have learned from our elders is whenever we are in a space, we always honor the indigenous

00:19:14.340 people whose ancestral territory that we are in. And so we just wanted to give these elders a chance

00:19:21.120 to talk about what's happening with the waters right here in this territory. My name is Dee

00:19:26.660 Dominguez. I'm Ketanamak and Yalamni Yokets. And I wanted to let everyone know that where we are

00:19:32.520 standing today, this is the land of the Tulamni Yokets, the people of the lake. And where we

00:19:41.800 were standing, we're actually underwater. And this was actually two lakes, one right here and

00:19:50.280 another one, Kern Lake, just east of us. And the rest is marsh. All the way along these little

00:19:57.760 mountains up to Tulare Lake going north to San Francisco Bay. When these waters are all here as

00:20:06.100 they should be, we could take a boat from here to San Francisco Bay.

00:20:12.060 Where is the water?

00:20:14.480 This lake that is here is naturally fed fresh water from the Kern River

00:20:21.640 that comes from the mountains from the east.

00:20:25.040 The water doesn't go here to the lake.

00:20:27.420 This water in this lake right here is now man-made.

00:20:31.160 It comes from the water from the California aqueduct,

00:20:33.960 the waters that come from the north.

00:20:36.100 And these two lakes, they were here in all this marsh.

00:20:39.980 We had many species of fish, turtles, tulis, and many other plants.

00:20:47.440 The turtles are gone.

00:20:50.060 The native fish are gone.

00:20:52.620 There are some tulis now in this water and man-made lake.

00:20:58.060 When all these waters were in place,

00:21:01.340 new people came to this land around the 1880s.

00:21:04.940 one man looked at all the water

00:21:07.720 wow it's so beautiful

00:21:09.820 look at all the water

00:21:10.840 and the tulis

00:21:12.280 if I could take all this

00:21:16.060 water away

00:21:16.900 the soil underneath will be so fertile

00:21:20.140 for agriculture

00:21:21.720 so the water

00:21:24.080 from the Kern River that was the fresh water

00:21:25.820 that fed these large lakes

00:21:27.400 was stopped

00:21:29.340 and it was channeled north

00:21:31.100 and all of the other creeks that came

00:21:33.980 from the mountains, those waters pretty much don't exist anymore. And in order to prevent the water

00:21:40.920 from the Kern River to come down there, because that water is very strong, he built, he brought

00:21:46.220 this modern equipment of that day. They were bulldozers and built these big berms to divide

00:21:53.680 the waters from the lake. The water was so strong with the waves, it would knock down the berms. So

00:21:59.060 they went up in these mountains and brought rock

00:22:00.880 and built berms from rock,

00:22:03.420 and the waters then could not beat those down.

00:22:07.400 So this is referred to as an engineering marvel.

00:22:12.480 I spoke to someone the other day when we talked about this,

00:22:16.120 and the person said, but D, this is an engineering marvel.

00:22:20.120 I couldn't even respond.

00:22:22.660 The words behind my head said,

00:22:25.080 an engineering marvel?

00:22:27.300 You killed two lakes.

00:22:29.060 We killed all the marshes. Tulare Lake is no longer there.

00:22:32.460 That lake was more than two or three times bigger than the lakes that were here.

00:22:37.460 So we have to ask ourselves, we did this.

00:22:42.820 What are we doing to our water that we need to drink?

00:22:46.340 Not only the fish, healthy fish and plants,

00:22:52.140 but we need clean water for ourselves and for them,

00:22:55.300 and we're taking the waters away.

00:22:56.940 but here, these people that lived here

00:23:00.620 in these hillsides were the Tulamni

00:23:02.440 the Buena Vista Lake Yokits, people

00:23:05.400 Yokits means people

00:23:06.640 the whole San Joaquin Valley here

00:23:09.500 all the way to Sacramento 1.00

00:23:10.800 are filled with people, Yokits

00:23:13.700 but you say, well I'm Yokits

00:23:15.880 you say, well where are you from?

00:23:17.360 which Yokits are you?

00:23:19.280 well I'm Tulamni, from this lake

00:23:21.720 or you say, I'm Yolamni

00:23:25.200 you're from a little bit further over there

00:23:26.800 The alumni means white wolf people, the white wolves,

00:23:29.420 because we called ourselves white wolves

00:23:31.080 because of the white wolves that were here.

00:23:34.200 White wolves are no longer here anymore either.

00:23:36.300 The people were still here, though.

00:23:37.800 We were hanging in there.

00:23:41.140 So we as people must remember to try to do what we can

00:23:47.220 to listen to when we come up with an engineering marvel.

00:23:52.740 Think about it for reals.

00:23:54.020 we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past

00:23:58.040 and thank you all for being here

00:24:00.420 we've had so many beautiful prayers

00:24:02.180 and beautiful people that have come here

00:24:03.660 the spirits of the people are still here

00:24:05.660 people don't live here no more

00:24:07.740 but the spirits are here and we live elsewhere

00:24:10.180 and I have heard so many beautiful songs

00:24:14.180 and prayers last night and all day

00:24:16.100 and today

00:24:16.740 and the people are listening

00:24:18.620 and it's hopeful

00:24:20.880 and from the heart we thank you very much and I cannot say thank you enough

00:24:26.600 for all the good spirits that you have brought here. Thank you.

00:24:35.340 I want to begin by sharing some of the many conversations at LIB that encourage us

00:24:40.040 to ground down in the truth of the present. We must require ourselves and one another to be

00:24:46.060 attuned to the struggles before us, the violence wrought on earth, the oppression of our human

00:24:50.880 communities, and of course, our interconnected liberation. You'll be hearing from my own talk,

00:24:57.000 Wild Revolution, as well as from Desiree Harp and Nidia Alicia, who speak so fiercely about the

00:25:02.700 intertwining of body and land. And what I hear a lot from the forest and from plants and mosses

00:25:08.720 and mushrooms is help do something devote your life to us look at us acknowledge us see us be

00:25:20.140 with us as we are being slaughtered do not look away stop sitting in denial stop pretending like

00:25:28.320 we are not being raped in front of your very eyes so that you can continue living your consumer

00:25:32.140 lifestyle okay okay okay and it's also a lot of love i hear a lot of love from the forest of

00:25:38.940 belonging of deeper meanings of a connection beyond just my own little life and the despair

00:25:47.500 and the grief and the sadness that we have literally touched every inch of this planet

00:25:53.580 and poisoned and extracted and that i'm a part of this inheritance it was so much for me to take in

00:26:00.940 but then something happened something happened where this voice said there's nowhere to run

00:26:08.860 so stand where you love and fight like hell and the relief in that just knowing that i don't have

00:26:16.580 to keep running from the big bad guy or the big bad toxic spill or the oil spill it's everywhere

00:26:22.880 and we need to just roll our sleeves up and get ourselves in the soil we just need to get involved

00:26:30.040 there's not no next land or a next project we're in it something that's really been coming to me

00:26:36.660 lately is how do we slow down how do we have pleasure how do we have joy in these end times

00:26:47.300 and we are in end times may sound kind of dramatic to say that but it's not dramatic

00:26:52.260 to the 76 orcas in the salish sea that if they lose five more orcas they're completely going

00:26:56.080 extinct. Yeah, it's real. Knowing where we're heading with climate change to an extent, knowing

00:27:04.100 how bad things are, why are we not willing? Or maybe the question is, what would it take for us

00:27:10.260 to be willing to be a part of this wild revolution, to give all of ourselves? What are we waiting for

00:27:18.400 and what are we trying to live for on the other end when there's nothing left?

00:27:26.080 so I just wanted to take a moment to honor where we stand something that our sister Sheridan

00:27:38.820 who's not here with us right now but she's also a part of this prayer journey with us something

00:27:43.680 she always says is water is not a what water is a who who are your waters and so when we can really

00:27:53.580 begin to understand that we are connected to these waters if you are on this land right now

00:28:01.340 you have a connection to these waters right here and it's because we're made of water

00:28:08.640 and our sister Havani something else that she always says that's so beautiful she says that

00:28:15.020 you know the waters inside of us they're longing to connect with with the waters the oceans and

00:28:21.680 the lakes and the rivers, right? And so it's important for us to release whatever it is that

00:28:30.460 we need to release in order for us to complete this journey that we call life. And so the biggest

00:28:38.500 lesson that I've learned on this Run for Salmon prayer journey is that we are the salmon. We are

00:28:44.120 reflections of the salmon. We embody those salmon. As we are going upstream, we have to be willing

00:28:49.680 to transform in the same way that those salmon are willing to transform through the delta as they

00:28:55.580 shift from salt water into fresh water and so this prayer journey if you join us you're really

00:29:03.840 in for a journey and i just wanted to name that protecting mother earth is not just the

00:29:11.740 responsibility of indigenous peoples wherever it is that we sleep that we live that we call home

00:29:19.340 we have a responsibility to know what is happening with those waters to know what is happening with

00:29:26.500 that land and to know what has happened to the original caretakers of that land we have that

00:29:33.560 responsibility why because those waters also run through our bodies and we we are also those rivers

00:29:41.460 we are also that land and so it is our sacred responsibility to tend for the waters to be in

00:29:48.020 service to listen to the earth and to come with humble hearts speak into existence what media

00:29:54.080 just stated um you know something else that we're dealing with is um the murdering of our

00:30:00.860 indigenous woman and so something that we've noticed is that the same way that we treat the

00:30:05.340 woman is the same way that we treat the earth so when we don't have that reciprocical relationship

00:30:10.880 with the earth when we just are paying attention to what we can extract from the earth that's the 0.98

00:30:17.260 same way that we're treating our woman we're treating our woman in this way that we are 0.99

00:30:22.940 tossing them around like objects and we are asking ourselves what can we get from them rather than

00:30:29.900 asking ourselves what can we give back to our woman and also something else that's very important

00:30:37.100 is this idea of consent with mother earth we always ask for permission we understand that it

00:30:45.120 is important for us to to pray to mother earth and to really listen to what her needs are

00:30:53.180 and so it's important for us to listen to what our woman's needs are it's important for us to

00:30:59.540 ask for consent and not to assume that we know what she needs you know i hope that that your

00:31:06.840 hearts are soft enough to to feel the pain of our earth and strong enough to keep moving and keep

00:31:14.000 pumping through what mother earth is asking us to do in this time in defense of her maybe we can

00:31:19.720 all close our eyes for for one moment and take a moment to just be in our bodies

00:31:26.680 and to be with the waters that that we are carrying in our bodies to be with the waters

00:31:38.060 that we hold in our DNA

00:31:39.880 ancestrally, all the rivers

00:31:41.720 that make us who we are,

00:31:44.180 all the rivers that fed our ancestors

00:31:45.960 and the rivers

00:31:47.740 that nourish us today.

00:31:51.300 And say a prayer

00:31:51.900 for these waters that

00:31:53.460 we may remember their

00:31:55.620 sacredness, that

00:31:57.780 we may remember our sacredness

00:31:59.620 and that we may walk

00:32:01.720 in beauty and walk in peace

00:32:03.300 in these crucial times.

00:32:08.060 And we want to offer a beautiful song by one of our sisters, Nicole, who's another Run for Salmon organizer.

00:32:16.940 Me and Nidia were actually singing this song backstage before we came out here, so let's go in full circle.

00:32:21.000 We're sending our prayers with the water for the healing of this land.

00:32:32.220 We're sending our prayers with the water

00:32:37.600 On our journey through rocks, waterfalls, and sand

00:32:44.540 We're sending our prayers with the water

00:32:50.560 And this is what we'll send

00:32:56.220 May balance be restored 0.97

00:33:00.980 And the Sam may come home once again

00:33:09.640 Thank you so much.

00:33:14.980 Can we get a big O? 1.00

00:33:18.140 Please take away all this little mama 1.00

00:33:24.000 Remember me, remember me, remember 1.00

00:33:27.800 Please set me free

00:33:30.220 Remember me, remember me, remember me

00:33:33.840 Remember me, remember me, remember me

00:33:38.960 We're about to play you some snippets from Climbing Poetry's life-giving performance

00:33:43.480 Creativity is the Antidote to Destruction, Artistic Tools for Urgent Times

00:33:48.660 Alixa Garcia and Naima Peneman deep dive into the importance of creativity

00:33:54.320 How we have the power to create and bring forth direct means to dismantle the powers of oppressors.

00:34:00.940 These boundary breakers exemplify how vital performance, storytelling, and testimony is to movement building and liberation.

00:34:09.940 What's up, y'all? My name is Alixa.

00:34:12.140 Peace, family. My name is Nayima.

00:34:14.220 Our powers combine. We are climate poetry.

00:34:17.140 And I feel so blessed that we've been collaborating now for 16 years.

00:34:21.320 really since the jump, dedicating our creativity as the antidote to destruction, recognizing

00:34:29.960 that what we can all create is literally the antidote to the violence that's dismembering

00:34:36.480 our communities on so many levels, past, present, and hopefully not so far into the future,

00:34:41.760 if we can interrupt that. We have a motto that art is our weapon, our medicine, our voice,

00:34:47.240 and our vision and that's just what we're going to practice into today it's us that's going to

00:34:52.040 shift this we got to shift the culture the only way to shift the culture is to get into the heart

00:34:56.080 if you get into the heart what's the best way than art right it's the straight arrow into it

00:35:00.840 so we're going to kick a piece for y'all right now and then and then we will get y'all moving

00:35:06.140 and talking back to us okay i woke up this morning and my soul crawled up my skin and

00:35:14.120 whispered in my ear the revolution starts within but without justice in this world my poetry seems

00:35:22.740 paper thin because somewhere in the world a girl is counting stars and grains of rice and praying

00:35:30.980 hard to save her life and pain and strife are the only cards she had to play with and somewhere in

00:35:37.980 Haiti a mother's counting her dead children and somewhere in New England another's counting

00:35:42.840 multi-millions. And somewhere in Chicago, a broken soul grows old in prison. And somewhere

00:35:50.460 in Colombia, the land's too poisonous to live in. And people live there. And somewhere 1.00

00:35:59.380 in the world, landmines and pipelines and high-rises circumvent the land like lines

00:36:06.380 Designing palms of hands

00:36:08.100 Printing futures we will never understand

00:36:11.520 Until our ancestors become our children

00:36:14.940 And right now, the amount of bling the U.S. spends

00:36:21.020 On Hollywood, pet food, cosmetics, and balms

00:36:25.240 Would be enough to make fair trade 1.00

00:36:27.740 Cough of reparations and feed away starvation

00:36:30.960 Right now, on the G-train 1.00

00:36:34.360 An Indihina woman is force-feeding her newborn formula 0.99

00:36:38.200 Cause the nation's breast was drained by Texaco

00:36:41.360 And there was nowhere left to go

00:36:43.160 But underground railroads into sweatshops

00:36:46.400 In this land of opportunity

00:36:49.020 Opportunity? Nah, cause right now in West Philly

00:36:53.000 A born and raised stranger is misplacing his pain in bullet holes

00:36:57.200 And our saviors are growing old in the silent regions of our consciousness

00:37:00.960 and this poem is not supposed to be depressing

00:37:07.400 because somewhere in the world a newborn is taking her first breath in

00:37:14.640 somewhere someone is caressing the face of their first love

00:37:18.700 and someone is dancing despite the hunger

00:37:22.840 and sometimes I dream in colors our eyes haven't even learned to see yet

00:37:28.200 I dream peace is peeled off every banner and bumper sticker and swallowed like hard candy and we can all feel it deep within us.

00:37:38.700 I dream justice is pulled down from tree limbs and freedom untangled from purse strings.

00:37:43.940 And we all trust each other enough to help each other enough to love each other in colors we couldn't even dream up.

00:37:51.600 and we need dreams now we rise and we let go and turn our dreams into proof because our liberation

00:38:02.920 lives beneath our imagination's roof but vision without execution is just a hallucination

00:38:12.580 and i grew tired of pretending freedom was around the corner when i never gave her my address or

00:38:21.320 invited her over. Only longed for her company without dismantling my borders. Our words are the

00:38:32.960 water reshaping rock. Our actions are sledgehammers to apartheid blocks. Our dreams are the keys to 0.91

00:38:41.180 prison guards' locks. Our consciousness a collection of awakening thoughts that decided one day to

00:38:48.200 release all the fear we were taught and give in unfiltered sun to the dawn unconditional mother

00:38:55.500 to son unexpected the enemy who put down his gun against the command that hailed from above

00:39:03.140 a peace prayer of thousands of drums the power of the people is the power of us

00:39:11.800 this year at lib many were exploring how we reclaim sovereignty and humanity in the throes

00:39:20.120 of colonialism what are the tools and practices we can cultivate amidst this time of creation

00:39:25.300 and destruction we pick back up with climbing poetry and then you'll hear from dr vandana

00:39:31.220 shiva's presentation earth democracy as she addresses the ongoing colonization of mind and

00:39:36.620 imagination martin luther king said sometimes you gotta preach to a crowd so they remember how to

00:39:41.460 sing to the choir so they remember how to sing you got to preach to the choir so they remember

00:39:44.720 how to sing right that's important but we're at the point where we are midway into a crash

00:39:50.620 and we need first responders now we're beyond just talking we need to create first responders in our

00:39:56.600 movements we started to challenge ourselves to think how could we not only tell the stories

00:40:02.140 from the communities that we represent that we're accountable to but also facilitate in the cross

00:40:06.500 pollination of the stories that often go missing or mingled in mainstream media, that we can say

00:40:12.100 in our own firsthand truth, bear witness to that, and have that be part of what dispels the myths

00:40:17.640 that are created to keep us divided. The one thing that colonization did the best was make us believe

00:40:23.820 in the one story, the single story. There's this one narrative that we all got to believe in. And

00:40:28.860 so our liberation is really bound, not in the diversity even, but in the multiplicity of our

00:40:34.040 stories and the multiplicity of our stories and the more that they that we create room for them

00:40:39.320 we start to see each other you know the only enemy that you will ever ever ever have is the

00:40:44.320 person whose story you don't yet know that's the only enemy you'll ever have and so how do we start

00:40:48.840 to connect each other how do we become the oak trees right hurricane katrina when the storm came

00:40:53.560 all foundations were uprooted except the oak tree because the oak tree instead of digging its roots

00:40:58.700 deep and solitary into the ground digs wide and interlocks with surrounding oak trees you can't

00:41:03.980 bring down 10 oak trees or 100 oak trees. And so there is nature telling us how we survive

00:41:09.260 this time of unnatural disaster, right, of great catastrophe.

00:41:15.360 Where are our oak trees at? Let's make sure we stay connected in the underground, my people, okay?

00:41:22.480 Dr. Vandana Shiva reminds us that earth democracy is the coalescence of earth and human creativity.

00:41:28.420 It's Columbus's mistake that united us all.

00:41:32.680 And we should use the mistakes and errors of our colonizers to unite us for this last phase of what is really being called a global emergency, a planetary emergency.

00:41:47.640 And the reason your movement is so important is because it can't be rendered into an algorithm of artificial intelligence.

00:41:56.480 you will always be free like the seed will always be free and this is earth democracy

00:42:05.140 where human creativity and the creativity of the earth become one unleashing of energy

00:42:11.680 there's a war on life itself and reclaiming life is the challenge of our times we've got to

00:42:21.720 reignite the recognition that we are part of an earth family. And therefore, the true freedom

00:42:27.760 we have is not the freedom to be enslaved through our minds, through Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.

00:42:37.280 That's not a freedom. That's the ultimate slavery. So earlier, it used to be

00:42:42.320 terra nullius, the land is empty if it's not populated by white Christians.

00:42:46.360 then they said life is empty if it's not toxic with our genes and therefore not patentable 0.96

00:42:52.660 and now i'm saying they're saying our minds are empty mentanulias our minds are empty if

00:43:00.540 if facebook and mr microsoft and google hasn't occupied and colonized it this is the freedom

00:43:07.920 of our time our freedom to unleash all our intelligences and our intelligences include

00:43:13.800 the intelligence of cooperation, of working with other life, the intelligence of love called

00:43:20.000 emotional intelligence now. They're waking up to it suddenly, oh, there's an intelligence in loving.

00:43:27.380 We've got to reclaim our intelligence. We've got to reclaim our life. We've got to reclaim

00:43:31.880 our freedom. And the reason I'm so happy to be with you is the 500 years of colonialism,

00:43:38.900 the 200 years of fossil fuels, a century of poisons, putting it aside means the ultimate

00:43:46.920 creative expressions that unites us in our hearts. Thank you. We want to leave you with some

00:43:54.040 sentiments from media and Desiree, as well as the panel with myself, Dr. Vandana Shiva and Paul

00:43:59.660 Stamets on what is required in building a deeper collective purpose in being in right relationship

00:44:04.960 with one another and addressing urgency so what does that really mean to walk together as one

00:44:11.840 it means that we need to listen it means that we need to be present and sometimes it's hard

00:44:19.280 for us to be able to hear the voices of our elders of our ancestors it's hard for us to be able

00:44:26.580 to see with non-clouded eyes because we have so much noise going on inside of our heads

00:44:34.560 this whole idea of unity and conformity is unrealistic unity and diversity is what we're

00:44:40.380 seeking we're seeking to be able to live together and to be able to be aware of how we are affecting

00:44:49.420 one another something else that i've learned is that we don't just carry ancestral trauma

00:44:55.400 we carry ancestral wisdom in our dna so even if you have been displaced from your traditional lands

00:45:02.080 you can remember those stories you can remember those songs they can come back to you through

00:45:07.380 your dreams and the best way that you can reconnect with your ancestors is through the earth

00:45:14.380 and so what we really need to learn how to do is to listen to the stories of this place that's why

00:45:20.540 it was so important for her to come up here and tell us the stories of the place which we're

00:45:24.340 standing on right now what is the earth saying here the earth is saying that this man-made lake

00:45:29.620 was never meant to be here.

00:45:31.240 The earth is saying that the water needs to come back here.

00:45:34.400 Not the way in which we are having this idea

00:45:37.800 that we dominate, that we dominate the earth,

00:45:40.640 we dominate the water, we coexist with them

00:45:43.580 and we help to tend to them.

00:45:46.800 Just reading, Mr. Ramazon,

00:45:51.680 Chip Bezos is making a whole new escape module

00:45:55.180 called Blue Moon to get to the moon.

00:45:56.680 And Mr. Elon Musk is making SpaceX to get to Mars.

00:46:04.580 People like Stephen Hawking, brilliant scientist, said,

00:46:08.760 at this point of extinction, there are only two options,

00:46:13.900 extinction or escape.

00:46:16.360 I said they forgot the real one as earthlings,

00:46:20.900 as citizens of the earth, as living beings

00:46:23.060 who have sustained our lives on the earth over millennia.

00:46:27.840 And if we only remember how to do it,

00:46:31.360 we can continue to do it.

00:46:33.480 That's what we are being called to do.

00:46:35.640 That is earth democracy.

00:46:42.960 So much of my research and my innovations

00:46:45.100 that I have rediscovered from nature

00:46:47.060 is recognizing the fact that nature,

00:46:49.420 through hundreds of millions of years,

00:46:51.000 has come up with the very solutions

00:46:52.220 that we need to put into place today,

00:46:54.720 but it's whether we can see them.

00:46:56.920 And the organization, the mycelium,

00:46:58.720 and that of the computer internet in our brains,

00:47:00.660 and even dark matter,

00:47:01.800 but you have nodes of crossing.

00:47:05.400 And at nodes of crossing,

00:47:06.660 you have exchanges of information.

00:47:09.040 We here, right now,

00:47:11.120 all of you are the seeds of knowledge

00:47:13.540 to go out into your communities

00:47:15.740 and spread this message.

00:47:17.360 You can become nodes of crossing.

00:47:20.160 You can then go out into your communities

00:47:21.980 and talk about Vantana's work and my work and other people's work

00:47:25.880 and support those people.

00:47:27.540 You don't have a place and there's not a community meeting?

00:47:30.720 Create one.

00:47:32.100 Get like-minded people.

00:47:34.260 When we still have fossil fuels and we still have access to excavators, 0.83

00:47:38.120 let's take those dams down.

00:47:39.880 Let's stop old-growth logging, a moratorium on old-growth logging.

00:47:43.180 Starting in the United States, we can do that.

00:47:45.460 I think about stopping any new mining projects

00:47:49.320 and dealing with the tailing ponds issues.

00:47:51.980 all up and down these incredible rivers of the Pacific Northwest.

00:47:57.520 And what I think we need to do to achieve that is get really engaged

00:48:01.500 and stop making excuses, stop staying in denial,

00:48:05.980 stop thinking it's too big or too small or something's more important,

00:48:09.340 but really getting involved day after day after day

00:48:13.020 and pushing for these things to happen because it's possible,

00:48:16.300 but we need to apply force and we need to continually apply force

00:48:20.340 and we need to show them that we mean it.

00:48:22.780 Not that we'll rah, rah, rah, show them for 10 minutes

00:48:25.460 and then go home, click on Netflix

00:48:27.440 and drink our kombucha and think that we're done.

00:48:30.440 That's not what it's gonna take.

00:48:32.160 And so when I think about a vision,

00:48:33.560 I think about us actually really committing

00:48:35.660 and saying, if we think this is important,

00:48:38.640 then we are putting our lives on the line for this

00:48:41.480 because it's not gonna happen any other way.

00:48:44.200 They know that we will go home

00:48:46.640 and just get into the consumer model again.

00:48:48.980 And if they keep feeding us, whether it's with organic coconuts or whether it's with GMO Doritos, it doesn't matter because we're still going to stay in that mindset until we can push out of it.

00:48:58.800 And so I want that vision for all of us where we decide that the land and the earth and our more than human kin and all of our human relatives are more important than this modern, industrialized lifestyle.

00:49:11.880 Then honestly, it doesn't make us happy.

00:49:14.260 It doesn't fulfill us.

00:49:15.440 And as far as I'm concerned, every time it has looked like an impossible problem, the idea that a handful of toxic corporations would control and own the seed, collect royalties from our farmers, destroy the biodiversity, is the seed that gave me the inspiration of how to do it.

00:49:33.880 and what I learned from Gandhi

00:49:38.760 was you don't take on the power

00:49:42.300 of the empire

00:49:44.280 on the terms of the empire

00:49:46.040 like Audrey Lowe said

00:49:47.300 you don't bring down the master's house

00:49:49.620 with the master's tools

00:49:50.940 so the three that I have

00:49:53.760 been guided by

00:49:55.380 the first is the idea

00:49:57.800 that you can govern yourself

00:49:59.920 and the earth governs herself

00:50:01.660 by being an amazing self-organized Gaia.

00:50:05.340 Just that switch changes the way we think of solutions to climate change.

00:50:09.840 They need to think more Gaia, less amount of parts per million in the atmosphere.

00:50:14.560 More Gaia, less CO2 obsession.

00:50:16.960 Our self-organizing, Gandhi called it Swaraj, self-rule.

00:50:19.920 I was in Hawaii to launch the GMO-free movement.

00:50:23.700 It's amazing.

00:50:24.800 They talk self-rule and home rule.

00:50:26.620 That was the language at that time.

00:50:28.940 At the time of colonialism.

00:50:30.040 we've got to start being sovereign people.

00:50:35.120 The second is because it's the economy of destruction

00:50:39.660 that is enslaving us, including our minds,

00:50:42.300 because the new economy of the digital barons,

00:50:45.940 the robber barons, is really colonize our minds.

00:50:50.200 Mine our brain and then occupy our brain.

00:50:53.740 Lovely book out from Harvard called Surveillance Capitalism.

00:50:57.740 Do read it.

00:50:59.300 Surveillance capitalism, like how our thinking and communications

00:51:04.560 are the raw material for this next industrial age of capitalism.

00:51:09.160 We are the next raw material.

00:51:12.380 Like the seeds became the raw material of the genes.

00:51:15.700 Like the soil became the raw material.

00:51:18.160 Like the fossilized fuel became the raw material.

00:51:21.680 But the third, which for me, so self-making becomes very, very important.

00:51:25.920 No matter where the creativity of producing what you need, it could be your music, it could be your food, and I very consciously decided to focus on food.

00:51:41.740 You know, I used to be a quantum physicist, thought solving a few things could, you know, I needed paper, pencil, and maybe food once in five days.

00:51:50.880 It's possible, you can eat very little, you can fast a lot.

00:51:54.600 If I today focus on food, I realize it's at the heart of so many problems.

00:51:59.940 75% destruction water, 75% destruction of soil, 80-90% destruction of biodiversity,

00:52:07.300 50% damage to climate, uprooting of farmers everywhere.

00:52:13.160 And then we are forced to eat food that's making us sick, 75% chronic diseases.

00:52:18.360 So if you start becoming more thoughtful of what you eat beyond mushrooms, the other stuff too, we can start addressing the extinction of bees and the butterflies.

00:52:34.360 And the mycorrhizae will come back as they have.

00:52:37.040 Our soil has zero mycorrhizae in 94.

00:52:41.080 It's full because they make themselves.

00:52:44.540 And that's the point about life.

00:52:46.460 it makes itself. Life is not engineered. Life makes itself and evolves and living change

00:52:55.200 makes itself. I think it's vital to not feel that our smallness is a disadvantage.

00:53:03.840 That's mycorrhizal fungi doesn't feel that way. It turns its smallness into the advantage.

00:53:08.960 We have to turn our smallness, our solidarities, our joining, our communication

00:53:14.860 into the largeness of life's renewal.

00:53:20.120 Thanks for listening to another episode of For the Wild Podcast.

00:53:40.300 I'm audio producer Andrew Storrs.

00:53:42.760 I'd like to thank our host, Ayanna Young.

00:53:44.940 Our researchers and writers for this episode

00:53:47.720 Were Francesca Glassbell and Hannah Wilton

00:53:50.380 Our social media coordinator is Aaron Wise

00:53:53.600 And our music coordinator is Carter Lou McElroy

00:53:56.680 The music you heard today was by The Thrive Choir

00:53:59.660 Thanks for listening, we'll see you next week

00:54:14.940 Amen.

For The Wild - July 17, 2019

Collective Liberation & Communal Gathering at LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE ⧸128

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