Green Dreamer: Seeding change towards collective healing, sustainability, regeneration

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 b...

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...

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...

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 s...

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...

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, colonialis...

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 pl...

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 an...

“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...

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 i...

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, knowled...

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 not...

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 g...

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 sch...

“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 in...

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 su...

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...

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/al...

“One in four bites of our food is pollinated by honeybees, but at what cost in the system that we are in now? How could that look different if our agriculture was more localized, regionalized, and sustainable?” In this episode, we warmly welcome Ang Roell—founder of They Keep Bees —to discuss their practice of working and learning with honeybees as models of resilience, care, and responsiveness. A...

In Green Dreamer's episode 413, we welcome Dr. Hilding Neilson, who shares with us his knowledge of the night skies and expertise as an astronomer traced by his Mi’kmaw lineage. Trained in the Western-scientific sphere of astrophysics and shaped by Mi'kmaq methodologies, Dr. Neilson aims to disrupt the Euro-centric claim on the night sky as codified through historical and modern Astro-colonial pur...

In this episode, we are joined by A. Laurie Palmer: a writer, artist, and author of the book The Lichen Museum . In paying attention to lichen, Laurie looks to these symbiotic organisms as a template for enriching human and multi-species relationality. How might lichen, and their refusal to be scientifically categorized, offer a model of living that nurtures slowness, adaptability, and diversity?...

In this episode, we welcome our guest Dekila Chungyalpa, who reminds us of our intra-dependant existence with all of life. Traced by a lineage of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, Dekila weaves together teachings from her cultural and religious upbringing with her work as an environmental program director—from which she invites us to reflect on the ways in which Western conservation efforts fall sho...

“My life goal is to get our governments to understand that Indigenous sovereignty and freshwater fish futures are completely linked.” In this episode, we welcome Dr. Zoe Todd, who invites us to think alongside a critical lens of Indigenous fish philosophy and examine relationships between Indigenous sovereignty and fish well-being in Canada. By asking how we can learn with fish as they “listen wit...

In this episode, we welcome our guest Charlotte Wrigley, who invites us to contemplate the upheaval of extinction as a discontinuous process—a becoming, rather than an end. Charlotte’s inquiry into this matter straddles the edges of human relations, geography, climate science, and ethics against the backdrop of permafrost and its changing form. Unveiling the intra-connected worlds of thawing perma...

“Once folks start to pick away at that scab of understanding how much of a role microbes play in the lives of other things in good ways and bad ways temporally, spatially, physically, and spiritually, it really does open up a rich vein of a new dimension — to start considering the world around us and how we fit in that world.” In this episode we are joined by Siv Watkins, founder of the platform “...