For The Wild

We are excited to announce the first season of our Earthly Reads series featuring conversations with some of our favorite authors including adrienne maree brown, Marcia Bjornerud, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Prentis Hemphill Tricia Hersey, and Céline Semaan.  This collection of books is meant to encourage grounded conversation that roots justice, imagination, and transformation within the soil and subst...

For The Wild is sending our deepest wishes for abundance and slowness as we enter 2025!  Now especially, the future of independent media and critical, thought provoking content seems uncertain. In times like these, the For The Wild team is even more dedicated to providing our listeners with meaningful listening experiences and media that embraces slow, deep learning. We are only able to do this wi...

For The Wild is thrilled to share that we’re launching our second Slow Study with Bayo Akomolafe and The Emergence Network. These slow studies are a unique collaboration between The Emergence Network and For The Wild focused on making the We Will Dance With Mountains course accessible in an asynchronous, self-paced manner so you can embrace slowness and integration in your study.  The segments fea...

We’re calling in slow media. Feeling into the need for slow, emotionally grounded, and resonant content, we’ll be pausing weekly episodes to fully embody a slow media approach. The past ten years of interviews have shown us how media should be slow, rooted, and steadying, and this shift to slow media will honor all that we have learned from years of beautiful conversations.  Over the coming months...

This  week we are rebroadcasting our episode with Dori Midnight, originally aired in October 2022. “With a prayer to imagine beyond the current structures and systems, and kind of weave ourselves into, and be wrapped inside of, the invisible cloak that is interdependence, that is mutual aid, that supports us to reach towards each other and reach towards a vision of mutually flourishing life.” This...

This week we are rebroadcasting our episode with Kimberly Ann Johnson originally aired in April 2023.  Feeling into the state of our nervous systems and our relationships with each other and ourselves, this episode offers a powerful perspective on the importance of recognizing and tending to how life feels. Together, Ayana and this week’s guest Kimberly Ann Johnson discuss the depths of pleasure a...

This week we are rebroadcasting our episode with Sophie Strand which originally aired in November 2022.  In this winding and lucid conversation, guest Sophie Strand invites us to investigate our relationality, to embrace rot and decay, to welcome our demons to the dinner table, and to prepare for uncertain futures with tenderness. Sophie brings to light the wisdom of the compost heap. What myths d...

This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Maya Khosla which originally aired in November 2022. What can the forest teach us of grief, of joy, of humanity? This week, poet and scientist Maya Khosla invites listeners into the forests of Northern California to find deep reverence for the power of biodiversity. Maya’s expertise on wildfires shines through this deep and well-informed conversat...

Inviting listeners into his deep connection with the forest and the natural world, Ross Reid brings an inspirational energy and commitment to this interview. Connecting around their shared love for old growth and wild places, Ross and Ayana consider what it means to get people interested in protecting the places that sustain us. How can we inspire the connection with the land that brings people to...

This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Jarod K Anderson, originally aired in January 2023.  Bringing us into his world of nature, awe, and magical poetry, guest Jarod K. Anderson reminds us that our human journey is worthy of just as much love and affection as the natural world around us. When we come to nature with intention, how might it guide us towards love and inspiration? In a ti...

This week we are thrilled to bring you a special conversation from a dear friend of the podcast, Bayo Akomolafe. Recorded while in Ghana for the Three Black Men Tour, this conversation features the voices of Bayo Akomolafe, Resmaa Menakem, Orland Bishop, Victoria Santos and Okhiogbe Omonblanks Omonhinmin, all of whom were involved with the conversation and presentation of the Three Black Men tour....

This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with adrienne maree brown which originally aired in April 2019. adrienne maree brown begins this week’s episode by asking, “If we were not ashamed of our pleasure, what would become possible? If we started to understand that pleasure is something that everyone should have access to, what would become possible?” This week on For The Wild, we are explori...

Introducing listeners to his way of worship and connection to the Earth, this week’s guest Erik Assadourian offers insight into the religious framing and practical applications of the Gaian way. Erik shares his spiritual path of recognizing interdependence with the Earth and shares how he dreams towards a future where we exist in a mutualistic relationship to the Earth. Ranging from topics of degr...

Winding through questions of philosophy, science, and meaning making, this week’s episode brings together vital thoughts on what it means to live an embodied life in an entangled world. Guest Merlin Sheldrake shares the motivations that drew him to study fungi and the complex ways this study has shaped his life and thought.  As Merlin shares, “An account of life that doesn't include fungi is...

This week, Ayana is joined by Sky Hopinka in a conversation that dives deep into the meaning of art and film and the stories and emotions we share between generations. Sky grounds the conversation in his incredible expertise and thoughtful approach to media. Touching on the very questions of who we are and how we make meaning, the questions in this conversation cut to the core of what it means to...

This week we are excited to continue our collaboration with UC Berkeley's Othering and Belonging Institute to bring you a conversation from The Othering and Belonging Conference in Berlin, Germany. This conversation is introduced by Monica Jiang, is moderated by Cecilie Surasky and features the voices of Udi Raz and Yasmeen Daher.  Speaking on the theme “Turning Towards Each Other, Not Agains...

Tracing ancestry through the motherline, this week’s guest Sylvia V. Linsteadt introduces listeners to the world of matrilineal myth and wisdom. For Sylvia, story and myth are very much alive and can offer valuable insight especially as we consider what it means to inhabit a place. From stories of female monks, to the practical wisdom of weaving, to the veneration of The Virgin Mary, Sylvia remind...

What beckons us, calls to us from beyond? Tuning into a magic that flows from the universe, not from an individualized self, Tyson Yunkaporta offers lucid insight into the current state of the world in this week’s episode. In maddening times of dissonance and disconnection, Tyson speaks to the need for the Right Story, for LORE. As he dives into his new book Right Story, Wrong Story , Tyson discus...

In a timely and heart-wrenching episode, returning guest Layla K. Feghali shares the power and perseverance of homeland, even in the face of colonial violence. As the genocide in Palestine continues and worsens, Layla offers a powerful call to listen to our rage and take real action against empire.  Layla reminds us that in urgent times, action must come before grief and before healing. You cannot...

What if we started with gratitude? With love? In this episode Ayana is joined by longtime mentor Molly Young Brown in a discussion that tends to what it means to be human in times of polycrisis and unraveling. Grounding the conversation in practice of group processing, activism, and relationality, Molly speaks to the reality of our time. We simply can’t go on like this, and it is dizzying to prete...

In the spirit of the solstice, we are taking a pause from our regular episode schedule. We’re also taking the time to express our immense gratitude for the wonderful community that makes For The Wild possible – our lovely team, our community of guests, our Patreon community, and our listeners all over the world. The past year has been one of beautiful synthesis. We released over 40 new episodes, a...

Continuing the conversation series, “The Edges in the Middle,” presented in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute, For The Wild is delighted to share this conversation between Báyò Akómoláfé, Sa’ed Atshan, and Cecilie Surasky.  Starting from the premise that all people belong and all lives are grievable, Bayo, Cecilie, and Sa’ed will explore how honoring each other’s gr...

“No organism is an island.” As Sandor Katz reminds us in this delightful and informative episode, all life on earth is deeply interdependent. Though modern food systems alienate us from our environments and from the ways, we cannot totally sever ourselves from the environments and nutrients that make life possible. Sandor shows that alienation and disconnection will not free us. Rather, settling i...

In this week’s episode we tap deep into the trust, desire, intimacy, and vulnerability that come from relationality. Betty Martin offers her vast knowledge of bodywork, somatics, and consent to give listeners insight into what she calls “The Wheel of Consent,” a quadrant that details a practice of giving and receiving.  Betty reminds us that access is a gift. No one is born with the knowledge of h...

How can a relationship with one animal open the door to the depths of humanity? In this episode, returning guest Kurt Russo shares how he came to see the world through Tokitae, a Southern Resident Orca held captive in the Miami Seaquarium for decades. As he mourns Tokitae’s recent death, Kurt reflects on the ways nature gives us signs of the greater mysteries of life.  This conversation is equally...