For The Wild

“I’d  like to propose a toast to the garden, to this beautiful planet, and to the gardener. You know,  some people have gardens, some people don't. But, they need to have a garden because Grandfather used to say, “We are all a garden in the world." So, I give thanks to the garden and the gardener.” —Carlo Montesanti And so, we have gathered to the final course in this banquet, Dolce. Des...

“Mother Earth is really asking us to touch the soil… it’s not just enough to pray. We need to put our hands in the soil.”  —Carlo Montesanti Contorni. The side dishes, or the surroundings. In this fourth episode of our series Fat of The Land , we turn towards the question of taste: how it is cultivated and remembered. Through conversations with Carlo Montesanti and Arianna Gelpke, the episode trac...

“Before I came here, I dreamt about this land.”  —Jessie Jowers, Slow Life Family Farm The third course in our series, Secondi, brings us to the tensions of resistance and surrender. In this episode of Fat of The Land , Ayana speaks with Jessie Jowers of Slow Life Family Farm and Deborah Zapparrata of Cooking Sicily . Here, the episode asks us to consider what social and domestic roles do to us. F...

“Human hunger – not just for food, but for everything – drives us to do beautiful things, crazy things, horrible things, but that is the most human thing I can point to. We're a very hungry species, and that hunger moves us.” —Ayana Young, Host  Episode two of Fat of The Land grounds us further in Sicily with Jessie and Carlo of Slow Life Family Farm and Mila of Bimbi Naturali . Across the co...

“I really feel I was called here, and I really feel this land itself is calling for human touch.”  – Jessie, Slow Life Family Farm  Embracing hunger, desire, and a calling for connection, we’re delighted to share the first episode of Fat of The Land with you. Fat of The Land is a series that asks us what we mean when we look for connection between people and the land. Following a desire for real r...

We are so excited to share Fat of The Land , a new five-part series unfolding over the next five weeks.  This series began with a kind of romantic impulse. I traveled to Italy with a longing to be among people whose relationships to land and food have been tended over generations, particularly within the traditions of Slow Food.  As a settler of North America, I carry big questions around land and...

"The more I learn, the less I know. Sometimes learning more means accepting that we don’t really know." – Rachel Meade In the third episode of In The Company of Humpbacks , Rachel Meade joins Ayana to rethink what we mean by study, communication, and the goals of biology and conservation. What might change if we were more honest about our uncertainties and willing to admit what we don’t...

In the second episode of In the Company of Humpbacks , take a walk with Dr. Fred Sharpe and Ayana as we get to know him and his research team more intimately. Together, they reflect on grounding scientific work in awareness and relationality, offering insight into the deeper purpose behind conservation. The episode explores how our pursuit of knowledge shapes and is shaped by our relationships wit...

“Learning whale language is about being in right relationship.” In the first episode of For The Wild’s In the Company of Humpbacks , we hear from Joe Olson and Dr. Fred Sharpe about their approaches to analyzing whale sound. When we desire to understand whales, what more than human impulse are we activating? Immersing the listener in a world of exploration and investigation, this episode leaves us...

Hey, friends. Ayana, here.  We are so excited to announce our brand new audio documentary series in the company of humpbacks. Three episodes. One goal to take you into the quiet the thrums and the wild rhythms of Southeast Alaska.  How it started. Fred Sharpe, old friend, longtime explorer of these waters, and we're always running into each other at his field station in Chichagof Island. Now,...

“Connection to the land and knowing the plants that surround you and knowing what food your ancestor ate and trying to go back there is probably one of the most important things that we can do as resistance today.” - Aya Gazawi Faour In For The Wild’s series in collaboration with Olive Oddessey, we hear from their co-founder, Aya Gazawi Faour, who shares about plants indigenous to the Palestinian...

“If you don't forage for Za’atar, how are you going to feel connected to the land? How are you going to understand what your ancestors have been doing for thousands of years here?” - Aya Gazawi Faour In For The Wild’s series in collaboration with Olive Odyssey, we hear from Aya Gazawi Faour, their co-founder, who shares about plants indigenous to the Palestinian landscape and their deep ties...

“The moment people are disconnected from their land and from the plants around them, it's easier to control them because they don't feel the spiritual connection to the land.”  —Aya Gazawi Faour, Olive Odyssey Co-Founder In For The Wild’s new series in collaboration with Olive Odyssey , we hear from their co-founder, Aya Gazawi Faour, who shares about plants indigenous to the Palestinian...

ILLUMINATING WORLDVIEWS on The Art That Reclaims Us S1:4 In this resounding end to our Illuminating Worldviews series, Ayana speaks with artists Dr. Aubyn O’Grady and Jackie Olson about collective art and creative processes. Aubyn and Jackie share about their work on The Willow Basket Project at the Yukon School of Visual Arts and explore the ways that art can root us in place, support mining recl...

ILLUMINATING WORLDVIEWS on AI and Courting the Otherwise S1:3 How might we face the end? Continuing our Illuminating Worldviews series, Vanessa Andreotti and Ayana delve into questions of what it means to live well during this fractured end of modernity. How can we best visualize the systems that have brought us to this point, and how might we bring ourselves out of them? Speaking to the complexit...

Continuing our Illuminating Worldviews series, we hear from X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell in conversation with Guná Jensen exploring the vital work of Tlingít language revitalization. Together, they reflect on the deep emotional resonance of speaking in one’s ancestral language, and how this practice opens an anti-colonial lens in which to see and feel the world. Set within the lands of the Yukon, this...

Over the past months, For The Wild has journeyed to the Yukon in partnership with Illuminating Worldviews. Illuminating Worldviews is a space for examining the worldviews in which we find ourselves and to learn how they actively shape the material realities of our lives. This project, rooted and colored by the land of the Yukon invites questioning, examination, and future visioning centered in Ind...

On July 19th, Joanna Macy, beloved teacher and past guest, passed away peacefully at home in Berkeley, California. In honor of her legacy, we are rebroadcasting her episode “The World as Lover and Self,” originally released in 2015 when the show was titled Unlearn and Rewild . In this deeply resonant conversation, Ayana speaks with Joanna on grief, change, and connection – themes that remain ever-...

We are rebroadcasting our extended conversation with Andrea Gibson as we honor their death on July 14th, 2025. The conversation, originally aired In September of 2023, was entitled “The Blessings of the Wound.”  For so many of us who have been touched by Andrea’s work, their death is a deep wound, one that will stretch and expand our hearts in accordance with its depth.   In the episode, Andrea co...

Hey For The Wild community, it’s Ayana. It’s been a minute. Life has been moving—fast, deep, and full. I’ve grown, and with that growth, a clearer sense of what I want to share with you has come into focus. After nearly a decade of digital episodes, I felt a longing—an ache to be in person, on the land, and heart to heart with our guests. That’s why you may have noticed we’ve slowed down on weekly...

In the sixth and final episode of our Earthly Reads series, we are honored to welcome back Prentis Hemphill, author of What It Takes to Heal : How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World . This episode offers a preview of the live Earthly Reads Book Study , join us there to access the full 75 minute episode. Offering embodied insight into the ways in which healing manifests in our personal and...

In the fifth episode of our Earthly Reads series, we dive into a conversation with the renowned Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde . This episode offers a preview of the live Earthly Reads Book Study, now available for purchase at forthewild.world/bookstudy . Throughout the conversation, Gumbs threads together her thoroughly-researched and deeply...

Join us for the fourth episode of our new Earthly Reads series. In this episode, we are joined by the incredible Céline Semaan, founder of Slow Factory and author of A Woman is a School .  Sharing stories from her childhood in Lebanon and across her lifelong work towards justice, Céline gives us a look at what it means to be a hakawati (storyteller). Céline asks listeners what it means to have fai...

Join us with Marcia Bjornerud for a brilliant conversation on a life dedicated to the physical Earth. This conversation is the third episode for our new Earthly Reads series. Together, Ayana and Marcia discuss Marcia’s new book, Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks, and contemplate a life lived in conversation with the very Earth that holds us. Marcia offers us her grounding pr...

Continuing the first season of our Earthly Reads series, we are thrilled to share a new conversation with beloved guest Tricia Hersey.  Sharing sweet balm from her new book WE WILL REST! The Art of Escape , Tricia reminds us of the art of being alive. In this meditative episode, Tricia asks listeners what it might mean to have faith in mystery and to begin without knowing the full course. Througho...