Earthkeepers: A Circlewood Podcast on Creation Care and Spirituality

Send us a voice note             Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.” Sometimes, we need artists to remind us how to see well, and how to “rightly consider” what lies beyond the surface of nature. In this episode we feature two artists whose work helps us to see b...

Send us a voice note In this episode we’ll have a conversation with Milmer Martinez Vergara, a Program Officer with the international development organization Plant with Purpose. Milmer works with the organization’s Latin American projects to incorporate conservation biology into their development work with the poor. According to him, protecting natural ecosystems also has the effect of creating r...

Send us a voice note In this episode I’ll be chatting with Ryan Metzger, the CEO of Ridwell, a groundbreaking organization that is pioneering a different approach to recycling and repurposing. Ryan and his young son Owen cofounded this growing company that now helps people by picking up materials and items that recycling companies normally won’t take. They saw a problem, and took risks to try new...

Send us a voice note This episode is cohosted with Beth Knox, President of the Seattle Sports Commission and a board member of Circlewood, the parent organization of this podcast. Together we talk to Roger McClendon, Executive Director of the Green Sports Alliance—an organization that leverages the influence of sports to promote healthy, sustainable communities. According to Roger, sports has the...

Send us a voice note In this episode we talk with Mary DeJong, founder of Waymarkers. The mission of Waymarkers is to help people to deepen their relationship to the sacred in all of creation. In particular, Mary helps people to shift their world views—and to embrace the profound understanding that we as human beings are not separate from the rest of creation, but instead are an integral part of i...

Send us a voice note             In this episode we talk to Timothy A Wise, author of Eating Tomorrow: Agriculture, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food. Recently, I interviewed a guest on this show representing the African Green Revolution Forum—an entity that promotes large-scale agriculture involving multinational companies as the key to Africa’s economic development. In respon...

Send us a voice note In this episode we’ll be talking to author Hannah Anderson, and her husband and illustrator Nathan Anderson. Together they’ve collaborated on a book that will be released this week called Turning of Days: Lessons from Nature, Season, and Spirit . Through poignant meditations and detailed drawings, this moving work helps readers to perceive the lessons that are present in every...

Send us a voice note A Life of Meaning: An introduction to permaculture with Dave Boehnlein In this episode in this episode we’ll be talking to Dave Boehnlein—cofounder of Terra Phoenix Design and author of the book Practical Permaculture. In our conversation today, Dave helps us to understand some of the basic tenets of permaculture thinking and practice. According to him, there is a place in per...

Send us a voice note In this episode, cohosts Forrest and James look ahead to our second season. They discuss exciting new directions for 2021, even as they draw key lessons from recent episodes from 2020.    Keywords : Debisi Araba, African Green Revolution Forum, East Africa Energy Solutions, Randy Woodley, indigenous theology, Paris Climate Accord, solar panels, electric vehicle, permaculture,...

Send us a voice note In this episode we connect to three friends at East Africa Energy Solutions—friends who are creating ways to provide energy to rural Ugandans that is both cheap and sustainable. By helping people to create their own methane gas with low-tech waste processors called biodigesters , they are giving people a clean alternative to cooking with wood and charcoal—thus helping Ugandans...

Send us a voice note In this episode we’ll be talking to Dr. Debisi Araba, Managing Director of the African Green Revolution Forum. The AGRF is an organization that fosters community and collaboration among countries across all of Africa. Focusing on agriculture in particular, the African Green Revolution Forum works to accelerate the continent’s drive toward economic growth, human flourishing, an...

Send us a voice note In this episode we’ll be talking to Dr. Chris Elisara--visionary educator, social entrepreneur, and filmmaker. Having grown up in New Zealand, Chris’ international perspective makes him especially suited to his role as chair of the World Evangelical Alliance's Creation Care Task Force. He is also the founder of Creation Care Study Programs—an organization that provides op...

Send us a voice note In this episode we’ll be talking to Professor Eric Long, a biology professor who has learned to live in the space between science and theology. In our conversation about wildlife ecology and ecotheology, we consider the important truth that everyone can and should choose to be an ecologist—or a theologian for that matter. Eric reminds us that anyone can find ways to work for t...

Send us a voice note In this episode we’ll be talking to Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley—Keetoowah Cherokee teacher, theologian, activist, farmer, and the author of several books. In our conversation today, we focus on a Native theology of land and environment—a subject of particular interest to Earthkeepers, who have come to understand the Western world’s desperate need for new ways of being in and with c...

Send us a voice note In this episode we talk to Bonnie Cretton—founder and director of Woodsong Forest School in southeast Tennessee. Bonnie is committed to raising up a generation of children who see themselves as integrally connected to all life on earth. She believes that when children are educated in ways that promote a sense of belonging to all nature, they will inevitably grow up to be earth...

Send us a voice note             In this episode we talk with Tri Robinson—rancher, environmentalist, retired evangelical pastor, and the author of several books. He is also the subject of a recently released film entitled Cowboy and Pastor: The Life and Times of Tri Robinson. In this strange era when so many religious folks deny climate change, and actively ignore issues of environmental injustic...

Send us a voice note This episode features an employee of a federal land management agency who has much to say about the current administration’s systematic dismantling of programs and laws that have been developed over the years to preserve and restore the health of the environment. According to the Brookings Institution, in this last summer alone the current administration has loosened restricti...

Send us a voice note In this episode we’ll be talking to Rachel Jones, who teaches at a college in Tennessee, and Jason Lyle, who leads an international nonprofit and serves in a church in Georgia. Both live in places where there is cultural ambivalence about the importance of earthkeeping, and for some, even outright denial of climate change realities. Rachel and Jason though have each found crea...

Send us a voice note In this episode, Forrest and James Amadon review the episodes that we’ve created in the first six months of the Earthkeepers podcast. We identify some of the themes that have emerged, consider some of the personal lessons we’ve learned, and  dream a bit about where the podcast is headed in the future!  Find us on our website: Earthkeepers Support the Earthkeepers podcast Check...

Send us a voice note   In this episode we’ll be talking to Randy Borman, a respected leader among the Cofán  indigenous people of Ecuador. Randy was born at the headwaters of the Amazon; he grew up among the Cofán  people, speaking their language and living life in the forest as any young Cofán does. However, he also learned American culture from his missionary parents, and later pursued a Western...

Send us a voice note Forrest Inslee and  James Amadon talk with Victoria Loorz, founder of the Wild Church Network and author of a forthcoming book called Church of the Wild . The Wild Church Network is a broad association of religious communities that practice faith life in ways that foster connectedness to all of creation. A key practice of a wild church is holding some or all of their community...

Send us a voice note In this episode we talk with Christi Renaud, Director of Marketing and Development for an organization called Plant with Purpose. Plant with Purpose works with impoverished communities around the world, helping people to build strong local economies by encouraging good agriculture and financial management practices. What sets Plant with Purpose apart from many other internatio...

Send us a voice note Lenore Three Stars is a member of the board for Circlewood—the larger creation care community to which the Earthkeepers belongs. In many ways, Lenore has had a shaping influence on the priorities and values of this podcast. In particular, as a member of the Lakota people, she has helped us to understand and embrace elements of an indigenous world view. In this episode we discu...

Send us a voice note In this episode we’ll be speaking with Leah Kostamo. Leah and her husband Markku co-founded A Rocha Canada, and today she provides leadership and spiritual direction at A Rocha’s Brooksdale Environmental Center in the greater Vancouver, BC area. We’ll be talking about her work, and also about a book that she wrote, called Planted: A Story of Creation, Calling, and Community ....

Send us a voice note In this episode we talk to Matt Ryan, and urban farmer in Chicago whose makes it his mission to educate the community about the social and environmental justice dynamics of growing food. The conversation includes crucial topics such as the intimacy of a farmer’s relationship to the land; the sustainability of small-scale farming; urban and backyard farming; the global food sup...