Unfurling the Spiral – A Talk by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

We are in need of stories that can help us navigate the complexity of our moment: both the unfolding ecological catastrophe and the love we feel for our burning world. This second talk in a series given by Emergence executive editor and Sufi teacher Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee at our Song of the Seasons retreat on Whidbey Island explores how the story of birth, growth, decay, and death told by the seasons, regardless of where one is in the world, invites us into a space of reverence that offers a container for holding love and loss amid the vast ecological changes reshaping our Earth. Read the transcript.  Discover our latest print edition, Volume 6: Seasons.  Artwork by Thoth Adan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As an introduction to the themes within our latest print volume, Seasons, we’re sharing a series of talks over the next few weeks given by Emergence executive editor and Sufi teacher Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee at our Song of the Seasons retreat on Whidbey Island. This first talk explores the cyclical nature of the seasons, and how when we devote our attention to these cycles over time, their continuous variation reveals itself, unfurling like a spiral that draws us deeper into kinship with the Earth. If we find the courage to remember ourselves not as impervious to the rhythms of the seasons, but as profoundly connected to them, we can begin to open to their sacred invitation.    Read the transcript. Discover our latest print edition, Volume 6: Seasons. Artwork by Thoth Adan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the destructive fires of 2020, writer and facilitator Maya Pace awakens to how California’s essential dry, scorched nature has been repressed to realize a vision of economic and social prosperity across the state. Searching for what it means to love a place that is harsh, uncomfortable, or increasingly unfamiliar, she connects with communities living in landscapes removed from our ideals of paradise. What does it mean to live fully in the reality of a place, rather than how we wish it to be? she asks. What if our relationship with the land grew not from a practice of control, but from surrender? Read the essay. Photo by Young Suh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A companion to our Breathing with the Forest feature, this conversation from our 2023 Shifting Landscapes exhibition with Marshmallow Laser Feast director Ersin Han Ersin explores the importance of imagination in making visible the often invisible threads that bind us together with the living world. He talks about the collective’s work creating spaces where people can step into deliberate acts of connection with the more-than-human, and how art can allow us to embody the experiences of other beings by playing with the plasticity of our perception.  Read the transcript.  Explore Breathing with the Forest online experience. Image courtesy of Marshmallow Laser Feast and Sandra Ciampone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nonfiction writer Stephanie Krzywonos opens a door into the histories of our most iconic and desired pigments, from ochre to bone black, lapis lazuli to mummy brown. In our earliest attempts to recreate the magnificent colors of Earth for our art, garments, make-up, and more, we mixed and alchemized matter drawn from the flesh of the Earth Herself. Stephanie follows a spectrum of colors from these origins, through the entangled webs of colonialism, capitalism, and the more-than-human world, to their synthetic replication and mass production, inviting us to see how our colors hold stories of both lightness and darkness.  Read the essay. Artwork by Studio Airport. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if we had only decades left before the final harvest capable of feeding the world? Accustomed to Earth’s abundance year after year, can we imagine an end to something so eternal? In thirty short passages, from pruning dandelions with her four-year-old to grappling with the mathematical theory of infinity, art historian and writer Annabel Howard moves through a mind-warping process of fathoming a world where the cycles that have sustained us since the beginning of time cease. Following her fascination with the apocalyptic imagery in Botticelli’s Mystical Nativity, she contemplates how imagining the end of the infinite is not radical for our time, but rather an enduring way of giving shape to inconceivable realities. Like all of us, she reaches for certitude amid the fear of a world aflame, only to glimpse the paradox of apocalypse: that in ending there lies beginning.  Read the essay. Image © Carolyn Drake / Magnum Photos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In honor of the recent passing of the eco-philosopher, Buddhist scholar, and dear friend Joanna Macy, we return to our interview with her from 2018. In this conversation, she traces the ways a life-long heart connection with the living world cultivated a resounding ecological awareness within her work and spirituality; and explores how we might return to an “ecological self” as a way to be of service amid the climate catastrophe. Joanna was also a seminal translator of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry, finding his contemplations on the entwinement of grief, beauty, and spiritual life deeply resonant. You can hear Joanna recite, alongside Anita Burrows, a selection of their translations in our audio story Be Earth Now.  Read the interview transcript. Photo by Adam Loften. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re living in a world that is perpetually bathed in artificial light. We repel the dark. Yet, we live in the midst of what is often referred to as “dark times.” How can gazing upon the night sky connect us to a greater sense of space, beauty, and possibility? Are we able to come into a relationship with something infinitely bigger than ourselves? How can we be present and engaged amid the realities of environmental crisis, inequality, and shifting political tides? Whether you live in the city or someplace where the outdoors is more accessible, this final episode in our summer of practice audio series invites you to immerse yourself in nightfall and welcome the night as a window into mystery and awe. Explore the online version of this practice. Illustrations by Aldo Jarillo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean to listen without judgement, allowing your ears to be present, open, and curious? Inspired by our virtual reality film Sanctuaries of Silence, which follows acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton as he documents the sounds of the Hoh Rain Forest in western Washington State, this practice invites you to discover how a new experience of sound and silence can profoundly impact your relationship to place. By taking in sounds with equal value and becoming aware of the presence and absence of noise, voices, and quiet, the simple act of listening can help us come to know a landscape through the senses, rooting us in the power of sound and silence. Explore the online version of this practice. Illustration by Aldo Jarillo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Biologist David G. Haskell calls the practice of listening to other species the original “augmented reality.” In opening our minds to the language of the species around us, we can experience connection and meaning that far transcends anything offered by an electronic substitute. This week, we’re sharing the next instalment in our Summer of Practice podcast series with a practice David wrote for us that invites you to attune to the birdcall near your home; become aware of the ecological rhythms and connections around and within you; and step into a sense of belonging as the conversations of humans and birds intertwine. Explore the online version of this practice. Illustration by Aldo Jarillo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices