The AllCreation Podcast (BioIntegrity Partnerships / ALLCREATION.ORG)

Rev. Ragan Sutterfield is an accomplished author, journalist, iron man, family man, Wendell Berry scholar, and Episcopalian priest. In this episode we talk about Ragan's views on our "Interconnectedness" with nature. Visit ragansutterfield.com to learn more about Ragan's amazing works.

Discussed in this podcast

• What does the future look like if we get it right? 
• The importance of putting relationship first, in environmental solutions 
• “Humus beings”
• Interconnectedness

Books by Ragan

• Wendell Berry and the Given Life
• This is My Body
• Cultivating Reality
• Farming as a Spiritual Discipline

A few quotes

“What if we landscaped our yards in such a way that we provided home (for other creatures), and habitat for insects and birds and on up the trophic cascade? That’s what i’m trying to do in my place.”

“If everything was going right, in 20 years my place will be biologically-diverse and rich with insect life and bird life and all of the other creatures, and everyone else on my block will have adopted the same and we’ll be creating a corridor that will provide even more significant habitat.”

“We can do things in small ways in our particular neighborhoods and yards and that’s where i think the relationships can happen, where we can become human in a proper way, and that’s the best thing we can do, recover the art of creatureliness…”

“One of our problems, and it’s an old problem, is that we have avoided the reality that we are created beings, that we are creatures… a being that lives from breath… The Hebrew scriptures make no distinction between the breath of a dog and the breath of a human.”

“Being human and being a creature means that we are absolutely and totally entangled in the life of this world.”

"Going out into the soil, there’s such an amazing network of life going on all around us, all the time, and what we eat and how we live — all of those things are so deeply connected."

"Our lives are very dependent upon the soil. If you were born of your parents, your body is made essentially of the soil and the sun."

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This episode is hosted by Chris Searles, co-founder and exec. editor of AllCreation.org.
Visit allcreation.org/ragan-sutterfield to see this post on our website. 

Visit ragansutterfield.com for more of Ragan's work.

In this interview, Jeremy Lent, "one of the greatest thinkers of our age" according to renown journalist George Monbiot, discusses ecological reality, how we understand it, and what we should do next as a society. Jeremy contrasts our modern ways of thinking about existence with the ancient ways from China and the world's Indigenous communities. He shares how connectedness, "which is to say love," is the essence of these ancient worldviews and today's burgeoning complexity science. Jeremy describes the necessity of "deep transformation" into an "ecological civilization," the reality that "the health of the whole system requires the health of each part of the system", and he shares what keeps him going.

About Jeremy

Jeremy Lent is author of two breakthrough books on consciousness and Western Civilization. The Patterning Instinct is a cultural history of humanity’s search for meaning, and The Web of Meaning explores and weaves together wisdom from ancient China, traditional Indigenous communities, Western philosophy, and today's Sciences. Jeremy also recently launched a global network for ecological civilization called The Deep Transformation Network.

References 

• The Patterning Instinct (Jeremy's first book)
• The Web of Meaning (Jeremy's second book)
• The Deep Transformation Network
• Confucianism - a philosophy / ethics
• Taoism - a philosophy / religion
• Buddhism - a philosophy / practice
• Neo-Confucianism - rationality-based fusion of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism 
• Complexity science
• Gewu: to study nature in order to learn how to trive
• António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations
• Coral reefs will collapse
• UN predicts billions of people will be facing severe water stress
• Jevons paradox
• Slavlov Zizek 
• Dualism
• The Selfish Gene is not true
• Re: the belief, "Humans and nature are selfish"
• Systems orientation to the world, how things connect 
• Mutually-beneficial symbiosis
• Consensus trance
• Ecological Civilization

Program

0:00 Welcome & Intro

A REALITY CHECK

4:00 How series is the ecological crisis? 

7:40 How much disruption & suffering do you envision? 

10:30 What’s driving this?

16:15 How have we made “meaning” here in the West?

20:30 Why do we believe Nature is a machine?

A NEW VIEW OF REALITY

24:00 What ancient Asian, Indigenous, and complexity science wisdom are you drawing from now?

28:00 Chi & Li explanation 

29:00 The contrast between neo-Confucian Gei Wu, Materialism’s desire to conquer Nature 

34:15 Separation from Nature, our way of life, is madness, isn’t it?

38:00 And the opposite, re-connecting, brings out love?

CONNECTING to an ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION

39:50 So, is the first step to reconnect to our own bodies?

42: 50 What are the moral implications of our modern way of life? What is an Ecological Civilization? 

47:15 Please identify some “ecological principles”

51:10 What is The Deep Transformation Network?

53:50 What keeps you going as a “possibilitarian”? What is your spiritual source, what is helping you do this?

WRAP UP

58:00 “How are your connections?”

Quotes

 Even though in the West we’re just beginning to uncover the importance of making these connections, Traditional ways of making sense of things always focused on these connections. So in early China, for example, about 1,000 years ago, they integrated three of the great Chinese traditions from the past: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism…

You don’t have the universe without all the stuff and all the relationships…

Every one of (the big shifts) happened because of symbiosis with other species, where they take their specialist skills … and that is what we get from today, where if we walk in a forest we get … and transfer their seeds … and the fungal network underground… the whole thing is a symbiotic ecosystems. And if we can start to look at our human relationship, not at how can we conquer it, then we have a chance at shifting our trajectory.

We can really understand “love” as being really, like, the realization and embrace of (our) connectedness. When we open our eyes, to that connectedness, embrace it with our being, that is love. . . It’s all about this recognition of connectedness.

“I think therefore I am” … is saying that thinking capacity is the only thing that actually is fundamentally my identity… but again, this is where modern science shows how fundamentally wrong that is… It’s actually not the only part of our intelligence… What we really are as human beings is a combined, conceptual consciousness that allows us to think in those symbolic ways, and, what we can think of as our animate consciousness, our embodied wisdom, which actually is that vast bulk of what we are as human organisms and is also a gateway to connect us with the rest of life, because some of the deepest elements of what we have within our bodies are what we share with all life. And again, modern science validates that.

Half of the genes we see in a banana are shared with us.

… And that’s not just a gee whiz fact, what that basically points to is that the way in which our bodies organize themselves, the way in which they actually are coherent and allow us to have awareness and consciousness are deeply similar. . . In Biology this is called “homology,” the deep history of our evolution is shared with all these other creatures around us…

Once we realize that other animals, far from being machines, are actually sentient, feeling beings. and...

This episode of the AllCreation podcast, part 1 of our series exploring the Native American sense of "Sacred Relationship," was actually recorded during the interviews for our prior issue. Vance Blackfox, a citizen of the Cherokee nation and a breakthrough Lutheran theologian and minister, explained during that interview that the annihilation and relocation of Native American peoples during the colonization of North America didn't just tragically and traumatically affect Native American lives -- it destroyed sacred practices. Here, Vance shines a light on some of the gaps in the common understanding of Native American spirituality and relationship with our "non-human relatives." The Native American tragedy is not just about lives lost and lands lost, but also the loss of sacred relationships and ceremony.

About Vance
Vance Blackfox is Desk Director for American Indian Alaska Native Tribal Nations for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Indigenous Theologian and Coordinating Team Member for the ELCA’s Theological Round Table, creator and producer of the Vine Deloria Jr. Theological Symposium hosted at Lutheran School of Theology, founder/director of Other+Wise, and Indigenous Theologian for the Faith-Based Initiative for the City of San Antonio. He is also guest editor for our "Sacred Relationship" collection, Fall 2021.

Selected Quotes

"We are dependent upon everything in creation and yet none of the non-human relatives are dependent on us."

"We weren’t worshiping the tree, or the land, or the plants, or the animals, or the waters -- we were giving thanks to and honoring the tree, or the plants, or the animals, or the water."

"Everyone says we have to give thanks to Jesus because he sacrificed himself for sins and our salvation… What is the difference between understanding that and understanding that we need to say thank you to the water for giving us life. We have to have water to survive, and this river is full of fish."

"We are dependent upon our non-human relatives for understanding how we are in relationship with Creator." 

“Grace is also something that can be understood from our pre-existence here in this land.”

More
Listen to our prior interviews with Vance here (part 1) and here (part 2).
Check out Vance's numerous contributions to the AllCreation website here. 

Inspired by recent editions of the AllCreation magazine, we produced this public conversation "exploring Care as Identity," with the help of a distinguished panel and enthusiastic audience. What you're hearing here is live audio from the event. On the panel: Rev. Dr. Dan De Leon, The Venerable Jue Ji, Rev. Jimi Calhoun, Rev. Kiya Heartwood, Imam Islam Mossaad, Rev. Brad Highum, and Rev. Erin Walter. Our panel host is Rev. Dr. Stephen Kinney, and our event begins with a welcome from Rev. Billy Tweedie and an introduction by event creator, Chris Searles.

“What does Care mean from your Faith perspective and what does it mean to care for your community? How might caring more about individual relationships and cultivating nurturing communities help us all today? Can we default to care, as a society, rather than judgement? Why is that so hard? How do we create just relationships for every living creature? What does CARE for other life, each other, and self mean from your faith perspective?” 

 
This is the spirit from which this conversation springs. In Genesis 1:26 God calls Christians to care for all other-life on Earth. And in the New Testamant Jesus says, "Love neighbor as self." Why aren't ethically-Christian societies doing that and what do other traditions say? With this event, we tried to assemble a diverse community of clergy and secular and self-defined people to discuss the Biblical idea that humans are "called to care" for each other, self, and Earth's other life.

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Full video available: on YouTube.

Full video has a longer introduction from Chris Searles.

This event was part of G.I.F.T. FEST 2022, "Grow. Inspire. Feed. Teach."

Thanks so much to our hosts The GIFT and Episcopal Church of the Resurrection.

Thanks so much to Rev. Dr. Stephen Kinney, Rev. Billy Tweedie, and all of our GIFT FEST supporters.

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OUR PROGRAM

I. WELCOME
0:00    Music
0:20    Rev. Billy Tweedie (event host) welcomes everyone, reads invocation prayer
1:00    Invocation prayer, “For joy in God’s Creation“
1:50    Why We’re Here, Chris Searles (event creator) explains AllCreation.org and sets the stage for the conversation, i.e.: Genesis 1:26, Kinship & Care for other life, each other, and ourselves — “whether you’re secular, sacred, or self-defined.”
7:30    Introductions (by Chris Searles)
       Panelists:
         7:45    Rev. Dr. Dan De Leon … Friends UCC
         8:10    Ven. Jue Ji … Fo Guan Shan Xiang Yun Temple
         8:50    Rev. Jimi Calhoun … Bridging Austin; author; musician
         9:10    Rev. Kiya  Heartwood … UU Church of the Brazos
         9:40    Imam Islam Mossaad … North Austin Muslim Community Center
         10:40    Rev. Brad Highum … Abiding Love Lutheran Church
         11:15    Rev. Erin Walter … TX UU Justice Ministry; First UU Church
         12:10    “Celebrate our differences. Diversity is reality.” (Chris Searles)
       Panel Host:
         12:50    Rev. Dr. Stephen Kinney … retired pastor, All Saints Episcopal Church; exec director, The Front Porch Project; board president, Interfaith Action of Central Texas

II. PANEL DISCUSSION
14:10 Rev. Dr. Stephen Kinney -- Convo introduction — “How do we restore right relationship? What does CARE for other life, each other, and self mean from your faith perspective?”  
       Panelist responses: 
         17:25    Imam Islam Mossad (QURAN singing 20:30)
         22:50    The Venerable Jue Ji
         29:25    Rev. Erin Walter
         33:10    Rev. Brad Highum
         39:20    Rev. Jimi Calhoun
         44:30    Rev. Kiya Heartwood
         47:50    Rev. Dr. Dan De Leon

 

III. TOWN HALL 

55:20 Audience question, Brad Jacobson — “How do we bring counter-cultural values?”

         56:25    Rev. Walter 

         57:55    Rev. Kinney 

59:40 Audience comment, a neighbor — “It is about being a neighbor.”

         1:02:55    Rev. Highum

         1:05:00    Imam Mossaad

1:07:15 Audience comment, Rev. Meg Barnhouse — “Whoever wants to be first must minister to everybody.”

1:08:50 Rev. Kinney asks Chris S. — “What does “We must all learn to be Indigenous again“ mean?”

         1:09:25    Chris Searles

         1:11:40    Rev. Kinney on Food

1:13:15 Audience question — Rev. Mike Adams, “How do you guard against becoming dominating?”

         1:14:15    Rev. Calhoun
         1:20:25    Ven. Ji 
         1:28:10    Rev. Highum
         1:31:25    Rev. Heartwood
         1:32:00    Imam Mossaad
1:36:15 Audience comment, Mike Aaron — “Ask, “What is it that you need?”“

1:38:25 Audience question, a neighbor — “How do I cultivate courage?”

         1:40:40    Rev. Walter

IV. WRAP UP 

1:42:45 Rev. Dr. Dan De Leon  

1:46:00 Rev. Dr. Stephen Kinney  

1:46:30 Benediction, The Venerable Jue Ji sings/chants a sutra on "sharing our kindness, compassion, and joy with all beings."

 

 
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Thanks for listening.
This podcast is the keynote from our collection, Envisioning Transformation, coming Weds 12/21/22!
Thank you Kenshi Westover, for capturing this audio and adding the music.
Editing by Chris Searles. 
More AllCreation podcasts here.

The Rev and Rav Talk Sabbatical Year (Shmita). Austin clergy Rev. Daryl Horton and Rabbi Neil Blumofe talk about Shmita, the sabbatical year practice described in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy—exploring concepts such as economic justice, human nature, faith, and enoughness. Daryl and Neil are each respected faith and community leader in Austin, TX. They've each served as directors of Interfaith Action of Central Texas, working towards a common good for all. 

About Our Guests
Rev. Dr. Daryl Horton is Pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Austin, TX. He has served the Austin community in different capacities and leadership positions. Pastor Horton stands boldly for equity and justice as a leader and resource. His goal is to mobilize disciples for mission throughout the Austin community. Read his full bio here. Rabbi Neil Blumofe serves as Senior Rabbi at Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin, TX. He is involved in Jewish teaching and learning locally, nationally, and internationally, and is active in civic life and leadership in Austin. Read his full bio here.

Connect
Visit the "Rev and Rav" Facebook page here.

References
Question 1: Adventures

• Interfaith Action of Central Texas
• Rev and Rav Road Trips
• Rev and Rav Road Trip travel videos
• National Civil Rights Museum (Memphis, TN)
• The Legacy Museum (Montgomery, AL)
• The Civil Rights Memorial (Montgomery, AL)
• Pettus Bridge (Selma, AL))
• Slave trade tip of Manhattan (tiny plaque photo) 
• Slave trade Manhattan
• Ellis Island
• The Peekskill Riots
• Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
•  "" "" > Certificate in Jewish-Christian Relationship

Question: 2 Rest for the Land

• Exodus Chapter 23: 10-11
• Sharecropping 
• Historic St John's District Association (Austin, TX)
• St. John's District Association garden 
• Dominion
• God grants Adam and Eve dominion over animals (Genesis 1:26)

Question: 3 The Release of Debts

• Deuteronomy 15: 1-2
• "If we mistreat the land, then the land will vomit us up" (Leviticus 18:28)
• Theem Suum, getting out of your own way
• Payday lending 
• Hebrew Free Loan Society 

Question 4: Jubilee (Freedom & Returning Home)

• Leviticus 25: 10
• The Emancipation Proclamation 
• Juneteenth (June nineteenth) 
• This is the Hebrew year of 5782
• The Hebrew calendar
• 5782 is a Shmita year
• Shmita practices occuring in Israel now 
• "First Right of Return" (Austin, TX program; the opportunity to return to your neighborhood)
• Composting

Quotes

I think it is time to transition to the place, especially in the church, where we understand the need for people to have basic needs met. And so for churches that have enough property, you’re beginning to see churches that are planting gardens… — Daryl

God is saying, "You do not have dominion over the Earth." Rather, the Earth is the Lord’s, as it says in Psalms, and you are in fact part of a larger system, a larger ecosystem, a larger rhythm of how this world, your world, functions." — Neil

God is saying, do you have faith in me enough to let the land lie and rest for a year? And I think that that kind of challenge is an incredible challenge, and it’s something that in every generation we get to decide if we are up to. — Neil

So the land is providing food, but we have to understand too, that underneath all of that, ultimately, God provides for us, and we shouldn’t take that partnership or that sense of obligation of that land for granted in our lives. — Neil

Debt is a burden that can bury one or prohibit one from living a free life… How can we help our young peo...

Ideas discussed

• How has community gardening been transformative?
• Tell us about working with recently-released incarcerated people

Key quotes

(On ecojustice)... These issues affect us more than other people.

It took a while for church folk to get the therapeutic value of gardening.

They wanted to build fences.

You want to have the trust of your community.

Whatever the penitentiary wants to say, whatever the legal system wants to say, whatever society wants to say, we are still strong, beautiful and gifted children of God, who happen to be Black.
 
The gardens gave them a deeper feeling, a deeper presence of God.

But, yes -- it's definitely therapeutic. These are just individuals who wanted to contribute to God's creation. They learned skills and the effects of those skills and they were able to see what God could do, and has done, in their lives.

(The church) realized, "this isn't for us, this is for a greater purpose: the common good." 

What does it mean to be a steward? 

Success is doing it for a greater purpose. 

This episode is hosted by Chris Searles, exec. editor, AllCreation.org.
Listen to part 1: https://share.transistor.fm/s/ac361170

Listen to part 3: https://share.transistor.fm/s/d0eb3244

A Life of Transformation: Marj Barlow, PhD., is a historically-significant therapist, global-business-change leader, and self-care advocate from Texas. Most famous for her pioneering leadership at Interface Carpets, the world’s largest commercial carpet manufacturer, and first global manufacturer to try to reach net zero and net regenerative environmental impacts, Dr. Barlow built her success off of an identity rooted in honesty, family, Faith, science, and her own experiences. In this podcast, editor Chris Searles wanted to ’envision transformation’ from an American/Christian historical perspective, so he asked Marj to share about her early life. Born and raised in rural West Texas in the 1930s, mother to five, and more, Marj knows transformation. This interview is part of AllCreation’s collection, Envisioning Transformation. 

Learn More

• MarjBarlow.com
• The Pocket Grandmother
• The Possible Woman
• Interface eco-sustainability legacy  
• Listen to part 2 of this interview. 

References 

• Owens, TX 
• The Great Depression, 1930s
• Fundamental Baptist (West TX), Texas Baptist history 
• Cream separator (1935), driving a tractor (1939)
• Canyon, TX; Kingsville, TX; The King Ranch; Austin, TX; Corpus Christi, TX (1940s-2010s)
• World War II, 1940-1945 
• Plastics engineering, 1945
• BBA, professional opportunities for White US women, 1945
• Quantum physics, 1950s 
• Rev. Carlye Marney, Gov. Alan Shivers, 1950s
• Clifton Strength Finder, Don Clifton, 1960s
• Positive psychology, 1960s   
• Cleburne County community therapy, 1960s 
• Jean Houston  
• Mystery of what love is 

Program
0:00    Welcome & intro 

3:00    Marj shares about her childhood 

10:00    Adult life at 15

15:15    A Baptist, quantum-physicist, first husband  

21:00    Single mom with four children at 34

24:30    Becoming a counselor & second husband   

32:30    Massive American culture shift 

38:00    New life as a therapist

42:00    How her beliefs have evolved 

• respect for more pious people
• exploring other Faiths, different pathways 
• social life
• sampling other Christian denominations
• Jean Houston, Life Force  
• Life after death science 

Quotes  

Each little child is to be unfolded, not molded.
 
I think that’s all we have, is our story -- and everybody’s story is very important to me. So I try to help people join what I call ’’The Triple A’’ and become the Author, Actor, and Audience of your life story. You’re the only one who will watch your story from birth to death… I help people get their story into a form they can live with.

Each human being is unique and very significant. We are God in action and it is our sacred privilege to travel a lifetime and learn how to love.
 
Who are you really? What could you be? 

Thanks for listening.
This podcast is one of seven interviews from our
Winter Solstice 2022 collection, "Envisioning Transformation." 
It was edited by Chris Searles. 

This is ’’Pathways of Teshuvah, Part 3 - How Do We Move Forward, Together?’’ This recording is part 3 of a 3-part discussion with breakthrough academic, Dr. Pesach Chananiah, and youth mentor / gardener / veteran, Mr. Marcus Kar, on reconnecting to Nature for sacred communion and emotional wellbeing. In this segment, Dr. Chananiah and Mr. Kar share on how to apply their Nature-reconnection learnings to modern life.

About Our Guests

•  Dr. Pesach Chananiah (author) is a Jewish ecopsychologist, educator, and community organizer working in interfaith and environmental spaces. He writes about the psychological impact of disconnection from land, through a Jewish lens, and explores modes of healing through embodied spiritual practice in the natural world. Read his paper, Pathways of Teshuvah, on AllCreation.org.
•  Marcus Kar (special guest) is a decorated veteran and a native of “North” Minneapolis, a predominantly African-descent (African-American) community struggling to overcome racism, economic poverty, and other forms of America’s institutional biases. Marcus is program director at Youth Farm, North Minneapolis, “a multi-faceted youth development organization growing food and young leaders, healthy bodies and minds, positive identity, neighborhood connections, community opportunities, and healthy relationships.”

Program
0:00 Dropping into the session: a final summary.
                We are exploring 4 quotes and 4 keywords,
                re: Place, Possibility, Universal, Indigenous
       0:30 Rav. Korngold quote (place)

        0:50 Rav. Comin quote (possibility) 

        1:20 Dr. Channaniah quote (universal)

        2:00 Dr. Channaniah quote (indigenous)

2:25 Dr. Chananiah 

        2:55 Sharing “hitbodedut“ (Hebrew term for “alone time for spiritual purpose“) with kids

        3:55 Were always moving so fast, right?… but, when I can get out into the wilderness… 

        5:05 Sharing & exploring the things all humans share: Earth, lands, food, dreams …

6:15 Do you have more of a sense indigeneity today?
6:49 Dr. Chananiah 

        > Going Lech Lecha (Hebrew term for “Go! Leave! Go for you.“)

        > Eco-awakening: Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul

        9:00 10 years of exploring Nature & the human psyche

        9:30 Nature immersion essential for middle-childhood health and development, and the psyche 

10:30 Does Nature-Connection bring a stronger sense of identity, Life skills, kinship, process-awareness?

11:30 Mr. Kar 

        “The impact of Nature on everyone is the same.“

        “My kids are learning how to process their feelings in green spaces,“ but camping is not safe for Black people. I’m trying to get rid of that. (paraphrased) 

        13:30 Giving kids today the tools to process their feelings and Grow Everything (plants, foods, relationships, community, possibilities,,, everything)

        14:05 Marcus’s wish for this audience

14:30 Marcus & Pesach sign-off with gratitude

15:20 Official wrap-up 

        > Pesach’s paper: http://www.allcreation.org/home/pathways

        > Marcus’s interview: http://www.allcreation.org/home/marcus-kar

        > Envisioning Transformation: http://www.allcreation.org/home/winter-2022

        > AllCreation.org: http://www.allcreation.org
        > BioIntegrity https://www.biointegrity.net/

Teshuvah means to Return... Welcome to Pathways of Teshuvah: a discussion with Dr. Pesach Chananiah and Marcus Kar on Dr. Channaniah's breakthrough paper, "Pathways of Teshuvah: Repentance, Return, and Reconciliation Across Time and Place". This conversation is a continuation of a couple of features from AllCreations collection, Envisioning Transformation. In this event, AllCreation exec. editor Chris Searles interviews Chananiah and Kar about the revolutionary idea of finding truer identity, connection to the divine, deep-trauma healing, authentic community, and a more -- through deeper and more engaged relationships with Nature.

In part one we explore the ancient Jewish exile as separation from a number of "Nature-based" spiritual practices and how that led to the invention of indoor worship. In part two, Dr. Chananiah and Mr. Kar share personal insights and reflections on how living a more Nature-immersed life is both healing and energizing. And in part three, they talk about the necessity of getting one's own time to be safe, alone with, and connected to Nature.

About 

• Dr. Pesach Channaniah (featured author) is a community psychologist, author, educator, and organizer in Nevada, currently working to bring unions together on issues and opportunities around cleaner energy, with the Blue Green Alliance.  
• Marcus Kar (special guest), Program Director, Youth Farm, North Minneapolis, is a youth mentor and food justice champion. He is also co-chair of the Homegrown Minneapolis Food Council. 
• Chris Searles (host) is director of BioIntegrity and executive editor of AllCreation.org. He is also chief editor of the AllCreation collection, Envisioning Transformation.   

 

Program
0:00 Welcome, Introduction, Overview
06:30 Conversation begins
    - Chris Searles, host 
    - Dr. Pesach Chananiah, author
    - Marcus Kar, special guest
08:40 Part 1: Identifying the Separation
32:00 Part 2: The Power of Reconnection
1:01:00 Part 3: How Do We Move Forward Together?

References

• Dr. Channaniah's paper: https://allcreation.org/home/pathways 
• "Envisioning Transformation": https://allcreation.org/home/winter-2022
• Marcus Kar interview: https://allcreation.org/home/marcus-kar
• In this video introduction (see video: https://youtu.be/rOjVC1ThtVo) host, Chris Searles, shows a timeline of the most recent scientific assessments of the history of Life on Earth, from first microbes to modern humans. To read an overview of that science, check out, "The Value of Biosphere Earth, part one: Earth's Life Timeline," here: https://biointegrity.net/value 

   

Thanks for listening.
Visit AllCreation.org for more. 
PResented by AllCreation & BioIntegrity.net 

Vance Blackfox, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, is director of Other+Wise, coordinator for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s Theological Round Table, creator and producer of the Vine Deloria Jr. Theological Symposium at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, Indigenous theologian for the Faith-based initiative for the City of San Antonio, and a freelance educator on Cherokee and Native American culture. In this episode, Vance explains: 

• How "Development" has impacted Native Americans, their lands, and their relationships with Creation
• What the conversation on "reparations" is like today
• What non-Native people should do or learn from Native Americans

To learn more about, or connect to, Vance visit VanceBlackfox.com or contact Vance via LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.

A few key quotes: 

What does it mean to survive in a new way?

(Paraphrasing) Our lands were stolen, our diets taken away, we lost our medicines; the gifts of Creation were taken away from us.

One of the things that makes this conversation so challenging... Let the Indigenous population and our unhealthiness, because of our apocalypse, be an example to you for what you're about to experience that you created yourselves, as a people, as a culture...
 
I don't hate. What I hate is that no one is listening to the experience Indigenous Peoples have had, nor the wisdom that we can offer. Not just for our survival, but so that we can live in a new way.

(America's) need for comfort and self-gratification is so much more highly-valued than caring for your neighbor. 

For the most part it's built into the system and the culture in the United States, and now the rest of the world. . . Is there turning back? Absolutely. But will we? 

We don't want money, we want to return to our way of understanding how to be most healthy. 

Address the many things that can be repaired: relationships, resources held in the lands, get educated about Native Peoples... Who's land are you on? What was their culture? 

Become an ally; an advocate. 

Appreciate our experience and all the gifts we were blessed with and have been robbed of because of your ancestors. 

Our Creation stories are here. Ask, try to understand, what those gifts were like and what it might be like to be robbed. 

I want to challenge you to think about what it is that we might still be able to offer you: Take and Live. 

Our Creator created all of it that we might live, that we might love. 

Terms 

• Colonization
• The Colonial Project
• Reparations
• Landback

References 

• Maps of Native American territories: native-land.ca
• We have to consider the Seven Generations
• #landback

This episode is hosted by Chris Searles, co-founder and exec. editor of AllCreation.org.

Listen to episode 1: https://share.transistor.fm/s/2abf61b6

Mary DeJong, is founder of Waymarkers, a project offering an exceptional collection of curricula, retreat experiences, writings, spiritual companioning experiences, and nature-based art to help Christians and people of all backgrounds restore their relationships to the sacred in each other and the more than human world. "Waymarkers", the word, is derived from Jeremiah 31:21. Mary is also co-founder and chair of Cheasty Green Space, a 43-acre public park rewilding project in Seattle, and a noted theologian. In this podcast we discuss Apocalypse as the end of all things and Apokalypsis as a revelatory uncovering of transformative knowledge. 

Mary shares her views on: 

• The importance of place and how we understand the presence of the Divine
• Her journey into a Faith tradition rooted in Earth-based spirituality
• Apocalypse and Apokalypsis
• Living in "journey consciousness"
• What an optimal future looks like

To connect to Mary and learn more about her work visit Waymarkers.net. 

Key quotes

It is magical, this profound connection to place.

Rewilding is restoring whole relationships.

When we begin to recover ways of seeing the Earth as sacred, as recovering the numinous in Nature, of an imminent and wildly-present God — when we being to reconnect to that reality, then our posture shifts from this “I, it” way of relating to an “I, Thou,” with a capital T… where we see and interact with the Holy in every step we take…

"Put your ear to the Earth." (Job 14) Learn the basics... This is the Apokalypsis -- you’ll find revelation, you will find divine guidance and wisdom, you’ll find waymarkers when you listen well to your bioregion... When we do the work of putting our ear to the Earth, we find that we have revelation and great knowledge right, literally, in our own backyards.

Re-member who you are.

Randy offered me a challenge to convert my Western mind to an Indigenous mind. 

We have to have the courage now to emerge in new ways; through listening and learning from Indigenous communities, and that will bring us collectively into world views that will see the Earth as sacred once again.

Will this save us from the Apocalypse? ... Possibly. 

It’s very interesting to play with the idea of the apocalypse as invitation to "the (hero's) journey"... And we’re being asked to walk in or walk out, and when we return we’re going to hold The Village to account. 

We find the Apokalypsis through listening deeply to our journeys and finding the revelation that leaving the Village provides us, because ultimately the heroine has to come home. Because through this journey you return home utterly transformed.

What we are going for is a collective flourishing within the human and non-human communities alike. 

We have our courage as a resource... our flourishing is going to be dependent upon linking arms with everyone and no longer seeing ourselves as an isolated individual... "We are on a common journey on our common home." (Pope Francis)

Terms

• Indigeneity
• Numinous
• Rewilding
• Imminent
• Bioregion 

References

• Jeremiah 31:21 
• Job 14
• Martin Buber
• Hildegard of Bingen
• Veriditas
• Randy Woodley
• John Trudell
• Wendell Berry, "I go and lie down where the wood drake"
• Sallie McFague, "Talking about God in the metaphorical language of the Earth"
• Joseph Campbell
• Laudato Si, Pope Francis

This episode is hosted by Chris Searles, co-founder and exec. editor of AllCreation.org.

Waymarkers is currently offering "Wild Summer," part of a virtual rewilding course which provides guidance and accompaniment in moving through the seasons of the Earth with intentionality and sacramentality. Learn more at: waymarkers.net/wild-summer

Hola! (Español abajo) In this Spanish-language podcast, Argentinian cinematographer and forest-activist, Natay Etai Collet, is interviewed by Rev. Neddy Astudillo for our collection, "A Climate Transition Supported by Faith." Learn more here. Don’t miss Natay's exceptional cinematography in the videos here.

####### ESPAÑOL #######

SINOPSIS
En este podcast, el reverendo Neddy Astudillo entrevista a la directora de fotografía y activista forestal argentina Natay Etai Collet para nuestra colección "Una transición climática apoyada por la fe". Aprende más aquí. No te pierdas la excepcional cinematografía de Natay en los videos  aquí.

Del anfitrión, Reva. Dra. Neddy Astudillo -

Natay Etai Collet nació en la ciudad de Juan José Castelli provincia del Chaco, Argentina. Desde niña siempre tuvo relación con la naturaleza  y los animales de granja que a ella le tocaba cuidar junto a sus amigas y amigos que también eran de diversas culturas.  En su barrio había y hay una gran parte de gente que son descendientes de Alemanes del Volga, familias Criollas Campesinas y Familias Qom y un Sr. Wichí el cual vive debajo de un Quebracho Colorado. 

A los 9 años ya tenía una cámara de rollo y se pasaba sacando fotos al entorno donde vivían. A los 10 años se dijo, “esto es lo mío”, cuando vió en acción a un grupo de personas de un programa de Tv (“La aventura del hombre”), que venían a filmar el monte. Desde hace 14 años, y ahora como parte de Tortugas Producciones, realiza registros audiovisuales de la flora y fauna, paisajes y entrevistas a personas que viven en el departamento general Güemes y Brown llamado popularmente “el impenetrable”. Estos registros muchas veces lo hace en forma individual y muchas otras acompañada por personas conocedoras de la zona, vecinos y colegas guardaparques, con el objetivo de poder dejar un banco de imagen y sonido de lo que es la región. 

Natay ha trabajado en más de 100 proyecciones en comunidades Qom, Wichi, Criollos y para su pueblo. Entre ellas un Festival de cine Indígena impulsado por el Depto. de Cine de la Provincia y el CEFREC de Bolivia, donde ayudó con la producción y apoyo en los talleres, cine comunitario, cine donde la gente cuenta lo que quiere contar, la cámara como una herramienta de comunicación de la propia cultura escrita por la propia gente. 

Filmando conoció el desmonte, que de niña ya veía al pasar los camiones con árboles gigantescos. De grande ya eran camiones más máquinas topadoras con cadenas. Ha filmado el desmonte donde una vez filmó el monte. Ya no estaban los animales, ya no estaban las plantas. 

Y así, una mezcla de experiencias en Parques provinciales y las áreas naturales, más una crisis política y económica muy dura, la llevó recientemente a guardar la cámara viejita con su banco de imágenes, y a estudiar la carrera de Técnico Superior en Guardaparque en San Pedro Misiones. 

Desde hace un año Natay es guardaparque del Parque Natural Provincial Loro Hablador. Vive en el monte, trabaja para cuidarlo junto a la gente, y continúa haciendo cine móvil y filmando. Sobre todo, trata de disfrutar y colaborar para cuidar este último pedazo de monte que queda, con el sufrimiento de la gente, de la fauna, de la flora y de los ríos que se secan. Igual sigue filmando, poniendo el cuerpo y la esperanza, para que se preserve.

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Gracias por su atención. Este podcast es parte de nuestra colección, Una transición climática apoyada por la fe: de las voces de mujeres islámicas e indígenas, editada por el Reva. Dra. Neddy Astudillo. Consulte esa colección para obtener más información. Visite nuestra lista de correo electrónico, podcasts y canal de YouTube para obtener más contenido. Regístrese para recibir nuestros correos electrónicos trimestrales aquí. 

Sharing Shmita: The Shmita Project Northwest
Deirdre Gabbay, director of The Shmita Project Northwest, takes us on a journey of possibilities, exploring how shmita could inspire change in our communities. Does the world need a Shmita year? Deirdre Gabbay shares not only an explanation of what her group is doing, but her inspirations and thinking on the many  ways  a Shmita year is a good template for how we address modern social crises. Shmita isn’t just about letting the land rest, it’s about the release of debt, slaves, and property, including ancestral homelands. Deidre has a lot of amazing insights, challenging us to think about why need a Shmita and what a Shmita practice might look like today.

About Deirdre
Deirdre Gabbay is director of The Shmita Project Northwest, an organization dedicated to bringing attention to the Hebrew calendar's seven-year Shmita cycle which centers the relationship between the earth and the wellbeing of the human and more-than-human world, through education, inspiration, community-building, and programmatic support. She founded Ahavat v'Avodat HaAdamah, "Love and Service of the Earth," in 2015 to establish an environmental presence for the Pacific Northwest rooted in Jewish text, tradition, and practice, specifically to support a response to climate change. Deirdre is a member of Congregation Beth Shalom, Seattle, and a member of the board of directors of Earth Ministry/Washington Interfaith Power & Light. She blogs at shmitainseattle.com, where all of her divrei Torah (sermons) can be found.

References

• Parshat Behar-Bechukotai
• Torah

Quotes

The texts spoke to me and sort of gave me this vision. I was also really taken with the much more scary depiction that if we don't manage to get things right we're going to experience waves of increasing severity of really bad things, brought about by human pride, which actually creates the hostility of the landscape to the human being. . . "So what are you going to do? Are you going to continue along this course or are you going to reverse course?" Until in the end comes exile and the only way to set the land right, in that part of the text, is, you guessed it, through Shmita.

The global pandemic and overlapping climate and weather-related catastrophes that we all have been going through I think has taught us some really, really important lessons that I think are related to Shmita. And one of them is: really large calamities, like we read about in the Bible, these plagues, they can happen. They can happen in our time.

But then on the positive side, they really taught us that discontinuity of human behavior is possible... As scary as it was it was (the Covid years) it also encouraging. And now all of us, across the planet, have this muscle memory — that things can actually jump out of their ruts, and honestly we're gonna need to be able to jump out of our ruts if we want to try to live sustainably going forward.

So this pattern breaking, from Covid, in some ways gives us a hints of what a Shmita year could be. We sort of have a choice between, it could either be like the one we just had... and the Torah teaches that it gets worse not better if we don't learn the lessons that we're being offered. Or, we could learn to really welcome a Shmita year -- to actually accept voluntarily and lovingly that a year of rest can be a really positive thing. 

What if we were to embrace this, what would a Shmita year look like? 

One of the strengths of a Faith-based point of view is that there’s a vocabulary for a sense of commanded-ness... So how do we summon this sense of commanded-ness? One way is to appeal to these commandments. 

The maximalist vision I have is that someday the whole world will recognize the need for the land to rest for a whole year and that they will rest alongside of it in some meaningful way.  

The cool thing about Shmita, is that it's not even a human commandment at this level. It’s the earth, it’s the land that’s commanded to rest and to observe a Sabbath of complete rest for the Lord. It’s about a relationship that we’re not really even a part of. This is part of the way the world works. It’s part of an operating manual between God and the land. That's a perspective I like to keep.

What if ordinary people were to take a year off from their lives… The Shmita would open this up for ordinary people to think about how to bring this into our culture… I think the Shmita raises the possibility of thinking about this outside of a global pandemic. 

Shmita is deeply concerned about social justice. Shmita isn’t just about letting the land rest, it’s about the release of debts, and it's also about jubilee. . . If you can't repay a debt, then you're supposed to be allowed to walk upright. . .We're having a conversation about how much debt is good for a society. 

Even more intriguing, it has something to say about the need to prevent intergenerational poverty, the passing down of poor circumstances from one generation to the next. 

What could this correspond to today? How might it look? 

Inequality that's left to continue and roll-over from one generation to the next, particularly if it causes some people to be squeezed-out of full participation in society; this is addressed in Torah and a solution is put forward in Torah. We too should put forward a solution. 

For me, it's really important that we learn to take care of the actual place where we live. . . We need to be rooted in place. 

I really hope people feel they have been invited to make aspects of this real...

And just know that this is a very appealing idea that many people are interested in and it can help connect. The belief that we're all in this together is, I think, the most comforting and also the most powerful message we have. 

###############

Thanks for listening.
This podcast is part of our Winter 2021 series, Shmita Now.
Visit the AllCreation podcast site or AllCreation.org for more. 
Produced and edited by Chris Searles.
Audio processing and improving by Jeff Haley. 

A Life of Transformation: Rev. Jimi Calhoun. The son of a pastor, Rev. Jimi Calhoun was a teen and early adopter of Hippie culture in the San Francisco Bay area during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. As a prodigious young musician he worked with breakthrough stars like Wilson Pickett and Lou Rawls before he could drive. By the early 1980s he had played on 100s of credited and uncredited recordings, including Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones. He is best known today for classic recordings with Dr. John (including the album, Gumbo), Parliament Funkadelic, Sly Stone, and his own band, Creation. In 1983 he entered pastoral training and has been ministering ever since. He is currently Lead Pastor at Bridging Austin. Rev. Calhouns’ books explore how Rock & Roll and Religion can help each other create long-lasting reconciliations. He is interviewed here by AllCreation exec. editor, Chris Searles, as part of our Winter Solstice collection: Envisioning Transformation.

Learn More

• JimiCalhoun.com
• Jimi Calhoun author page
• Jimi Calhoun bass player page 
• A favorite early recording with Gene Redding
• BridgingAustin.org 
• Rev. Calhoun is also a guest panelist at: Called to Care.

  
  

References

• Genesis 1:26
• Genesis 2
• Teshuvah
• Restorative Justice
• Punitive Justice  

PROGRAM
0:00     Welcome & Intro

4:00     How have you experienced transformation?  

8:15     How does society come together around a common identity?

10:30     Were people less afraid of conflict and discomfort in the 60s? 

17:40     How did the Hippie movement and Civil Rights movements feel?  

25:00     How do you relate creation care to human care?

29:00     What do you mean by biblical ecology?

32:00     How do you view the long journey of healing, reparations, etc.? 

36:00     Restorative justice through kinship 

41:00     Why do we fight against and destroy Other-life?   

45:00     Doing service feels good, right?

48:30     Jimi’s comments on predictions & sticking together 

 

QUOTES  

“Who are we? Why are we here? Why are we doing this?“

We’ve lost our sense of mystery and wonder. We’re not looking beyond the everyday, mundane-accumulation of goods and materials-stuff. We’re not living in two places at once; we’re not living in the now and looking to the future.

There's no starting point for the common good. 
 
Our political system is adversarial by definition, but disagreements should only be on the issues, not the essentials. We’ve crossed a line from disagreeing with people to being disagreeable with people... You loved ’em before you found out who they voted for. So that same person you loved five minutes ago, you can still love. 

I’m not Utopian... I am altruistic and I do believe better is possible, but I believe it is hard to achieve. 

And I thought, Wow, what an illustration for how challenging it is in the broader culture to have people be patient with the other, while they’re pursuing what it is they’re trying to contribute to the overall...  We’re not a very patient society.   

My job is to be of benefit to everyone, to protect and serve.

In a covenantal relationship you have to keep going no matter what the other person does, you have to push ahead, you do your part regardless of the outcome, you do what you’re supposed to do... That is creation care.  

Where are my ’kind’? We really need to be careful when we assume we know who our KIND are.   

You can see diversity is already built into the universe. It should not take a degree from Harvard to figure out that diversity is a good thing.

They think they’re doing the right thing by assuming everyone has their worldview.

I could give you some answers from my reading or my religious training, but they wouldn’t be very satisfying because they would only cover a small segment of the population.

I would say the biggest adversary is laziness… Being aware and appreciative of the diversity that exists is hard work and I think we’re basically lazy. We want everything to come to us. I don't think anybody is afraid, I think they’re lazy.

As Western people, we’re result-oriented rather than process-oriented. To have transformation that’s going to be lasting or meaningful, sometimes it requires us to be process-oriented.

I’m doing this because. I’m doing this because. I’m doing this because.

 

 

###

Thanks for listening. 

This podcast is one of seven interviews 

from our Winter Solstice 2022 collection, 

"EnvisioningTransformation." It was edited
by Chris Searles. Visit our podcasts page 
for more.

"We are commanded to sustain the world."
- Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin & Rabbi Avram Resiner

“They shall forever inhabit this earth, the result of My planting, the work of My hands in which I glory.” (Isaiah 60:21)

Shmita is a set of commandments in the Jewish and Christian Bibles (The Torah) to practice and celebrate the cyclical "release" of agricultural lands, financial debts, slaves, and ancestral lands. "Shmita Live" was a conversation on Zoom, March 1, 2022 exploring the ancient shmita commandments' many meanings today. The event brought together a number of the amazing people who contributed to AllCreation.org's "Shmita Now" collection, created by guest editor Yaira Robinson. Our fun and incisive hour celebrates these fine folks, welcomes some outstanding guests, and gives everyone a chance to share some truly breakthrough ideas on how to integrate the ancient shmita commandments into our lives now. We hope you enjoy listening. Co-hosted by: AllCreation.org, National Wildlife Federation, Shmita Project Northwest, and Hazon. Presented by BioIntegrity Partnerships. Original event page: Shmita Live.

Background info: 

• The shmita verses: Exodus 23: 10-11, Leviticus 25:2–7, Leviticus 25:20–22, and Deuteronomy 15:1–3
• "Shmita Live" PDF with panelists' names & links (for download)
• Shmita explanation on Wikipedia

PANELISTS

• Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin of St. Mary's Seminary, and MDEHR 
• Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb of Adat Shalom, Interfaith Power & Light, and COEJL
• Dr. Mirele Goldsmith of Jewish Earth Alliance
• Simcha Scwhartz of Wilderness Torah
• Rabbi Laura Bellows of Dayenu
• Nati Passow of Dayenu, and Jewish Farm School
• Shmita Project Northwest's Deirdre Gabbay
• Hazon's Sarah Zell Young
• National Wildlife Federation's Naomi Edelson
• AllCreation.org's Chris Searles (moderator)

PROGRAM
I. WELCOME 

• 0:00 Preroll
• 0:08 Welcome & Introductions -- by Chris Searles (moderator), AllCreation.org 
• 3:35 "Shmita 101" by Deirdre Gabbay (co-host), Shmita Project Northwest

II. PANELIST SELF-INTRODUCTIONS 

• 6:30 Naomi Edelson, senior dir., National Wildlife Federation. references: Deuteronomy 30:19 (the life verse), and -> Sacred Grounds <- "Sacred Grounds" is National Wildlife Federation's native plant program for congregations. 
• 9:39 Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, conservative rabbi, St. Mary's Seminary; exec. dir., Maryland Campaign for Environmental Human Rights (MDEHR). references: The Kotzker Rebbi ("We are here to hold up the heavens."), Shabbas candles / Luminous light of Creation. 
• 13:22 Rabbi Laura Bellows, dir. of spiritual activism, Dayenu. references: The Talmud, The Boat story, With All of Our Might (Dayenu program). 
• 17:00 Sarah Zell Young, dir. of strategic partnerships, Hazon. references: Hazon's Shmita Project, Shmita Prizes, Shmita Sourcebook. 
• 19:45 Simcha Schwarz, dir. of development and communications, Wilderness Torah. references: Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Center for Earth-based Judaism
• 22:10 Deirdre Gabbay, co-fndr, dir., Shmita Project Northwest. references: Washington Interfaith Power & Light.
• 23:58 Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, rabbi, Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, chair, Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), board member, Interfaith Power & Light. references: Sacred Grounds, Mussar (enlightenment ethics), Anavah (humility), "Taking up the right amount of space," Chesed (loving kindness), Kavod (honor).
• 26:29 Dr. Mirele Goldsmith, co-fndr, co-chair, Jewish Earth Alliance. references: "messes that we're in": filthy air, mountaintop removal, fracking watewater.
• 40:57 Nati Passow (arriving later), opr. mngr., Dayenu. references: Jewish Farmer Network, Nati's pdf "Shmita year by year" (coming soon).  

III. PANELISTS' CONVERSATION & END

• 29:00 Deepening connections
• 43:12 Shmita...

Coming 12/21/21, our next collection, Shmita: The Sabbatical Year. The full collection, guest edited by Yaira Robinson, explores the meaning of "Shmita: The Sabbatical Year" today and features articles, artworks, and interviews. This podcast features a few short segments from our upcoming podcasts. We are excited to welcome six new guests. Heard in this collection, in order of appearance: 

• Deirdre Gabbay (fndr,dir., Shmita Project Northwest)
• Joelle Novey (exec. dir., Interfaith Power and Light D.C.MA.NoVA.)
• Yaira Robinson (guest editor, AllCreation.org)
• Dr. Mirele Goldsmith (co-founder, Jewish Earth Alliance)
• Dr. Rev. Daryl Horton (senior pastor,  Mt. Zion Baptist Church)
• Rabbi Neil Blumofe (senior rabbi, Congregation Agudas Achim)
• Naomi Edelson (snr. dir., National Wildlife Federation).

The full collection will be published on the Winter Solstice, 12/21/21.
Thanks for listening - Allcreation.org 

Cristian Daniel Camargo sobre Caricaturas y Ecoteología. En este podcast, Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo y Cristian Daniel Camargo conversan sobre el poder de los dibujos para inspirar, transformar y movilizar a las personas hacia otro mundo posible, con justicia social y ambiental. ¿Cómo nace un dibujo? ¿Qué papel juegan la fe y el amor en la realización de sus dibujos? Cristian nos cuenta la historia de la Red de dibujantes, su visión, su misión y sus sueños. Su arte se comparte públicamente y es de uso gratuito para cualquier persona. Cristian comparte sus consejos para otros artistas que sientan el deseo de sumergirse en el arte como herramienta transformadora y movilizadora.

 

Recurso
Novena por la Tierra: https://bit.ly/Novenaporlatierra

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Reddedibujantes

Acerca de Nuestro Invitado

• Cristian Daniel Camargo es dibujante y muralista de Mar del Plata, Argentina; misionero itinerante, uno de los dos coordinadores de la única Red de Dibujantes de América Latina basada en la fe.  
• Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo es editor invitado de nuestra colección Primavera 2023: Eco-Teología. Comparte dos podcasts adicionales en esta colección, ¿Qué es la “Ecoteología?" y What is “Ecotheology?"

Nota Especial
Cristian es tan amable que creó una galería especial de algunas caricaturas favoritas para nuestra colección de Eco-Teología. La galería presenta arte de él mismo y de otros en Cartoonists Network. Ver la galería de Cristian aquí.

¡Gracias por su atención!
Más podcasts de AllCreation (principalmente en inglés) aquí: https://allcreation.transistor.fm/ 

Janene Yazzie is a Diné Asa Navajo entreprenuer, community organizer and human rights advocate who has worked on development and energy issues with Indigenous communities across the United States for over 12 years. In part two of this interview, Janene shares about rights-based solutions, community-led efforts to regeneratively care for Creation, ways the world religions are related and connected to Mother Earth and our non-human relatives, and offers some words of encouragement. Janene is interviewed by Vance Blackfox, guest editor for our Fall 2021 collection exploring the Native American sense of "Sacred Relationship" with Earth's other living creatures. 

About Janene
Among her many accomplishments, Janene Yazzie is co-founder/CEO of Sixth-World Solutions and a co-convener of the Indigenous Peoples Major Group to the United Nations High Level Political Forum on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, where she works on climate change, water security, food security, energy development, and nation building. She is also a program manager for the International Indian Treaty Council and a co-founder of the Navajo Nation Little Colorado River Watershed Chapters Association, where her work ranges from infrastructure policy-making to restoration and protection of traditional ecological knowledge. To learn more about Janene, visit Sixth-World Solutions.

Selected Quotes

“It’s not about luxury, it’s about responsibility.”

“Our challenges are so complex. Our histories are so complex, and our solutions need to mirror that. In order to protect and restore biodiversity our solutions need to have the same type of diversity, informed by the limitations and types of relationships that exist within our ecosystems.”

“What are the social/cultural structures that need to be created so that we’re creating communities that are sustainable and regenerative? Those are the types of solutions we need everywhere... It’s going to look different everywhere.”

"Don't give up. Don't give up. A beautiful world is possible and it’s being birthed right now, and it needs all of us to be there to help guide it into existence. We do that by breathing love into the work we’re doing. By breathing love into the relationships that surround us. By breathing love into ourselves, because we often forget ourselves in all of this process. And if we can do that then we can find ways, no matter what challenges we’re facing, to continue to stand in our power and bring life to the solutions that are needed for our world and our communities." 

###

Listen to Part 1 of Janene's interview: https://share.transistor.fm/s/99049ea8. 

At age 17, Nick Loffree was diagnosed with schizophrenia and after years of searching for solutions he ended-up discovering QiGong ("Chi Gong"). Today Nick is a leading QiGong instructor and historian, helping people help themselves by reconnecting to their bodies and Nature around the world. In this conversation, Nick and Tom VandeStadt, co-founder of AllCreation.org, discuss QiGong, the history of Asian energy practices, Nick’s journey from illness to mastery, and more.

About Nick
Learn more at NickLoffree.com.

References (links coming soon)

• Lee Holden
• Qigong (“Chee-gong”) - Vital energy cultivation; the skill of cultivating vital energy
• Qi, Chi ("Chee") (Chinese)
• Ki (Iapanese)
• Prana (Yoga)
• Ruak (Hebrew) (also this)
• The Taoist Five Elements: Metal, Earth, Water, Wood, Fire

Program

0:00 Intro & Welcome

BASICS
4:00 What is Qigong? (Chi-Gong)

6:20 What is Chi? (Ki, Prana, Ruach, etc.)

NICK’S STORY

7:20 How has Qigong helped your personal healing?

NICK’S VIEWS

15:30 You say, “Most of Taoist practice, including Qigong, is a disciplined return to Nature.” What does that mean and why do we need a discipline to return to Nature?
21:00 Does getting back into our bodies help us experience ourselves as natural beings? 

23:00 What are the shamanic roots of Qigong? 

27:00 Can Qigong help us experience our animal selves? (Aren’t we animals, after all?)

30:20 Contrast the Taoist medicine understanding of the body with the Western medicine understanding.

33:20 How is Qigong an antidote to modern-day stress?

38:45 Can Taoism and Qigong serve as a spiritual practice that moves us to restore as much of this damaged connective tissue as possible, not just in our bodies but in the world around us?

WRAP UP 
42:50 Thank you, Nick, for inspiring this issue of AllCreation!

Quotes

From the Taoist perspective, Nature has an energy to it and different natural environments have different energies. So, a lot of Taoist monasteries would be built at the top of mountains… If you needed more of a physical healing you might want to go somewhere more Yin, to the valley of the mountain where the waters collect and you can more nourish your body with that sort of energy.

I think most people who’ve spent a lot of time in a city and then go camping or something like that, you notice a difference in the way you feel in your body, just being in Nature. And, the Taoist perspective is that that’s because there are energy fields. The trees, the mountains, the Earth, and everything are emanating an energy field our bodies are evolved to attune to with.

At the psychological layer, there’s no real, pure return to a natural state, but theTaoists try to push in that direction. So Taoism is often seen not as a movement forward and upward towards heaven or enlightenment, but a movement backwards, towards sort of an innocent, child-like wonder, a return towards a simpler, more natural state.

If you really wanna look at the Taoist path authentically, it’s a disciplined return. You don’t just fall back into Nature, you have to train yourself to fall.

In Chi-Gong we mirror nature in our movements, and you can never quite draw distinctions between where one movement ends and another movement begins.

Our bodies have a lot of information they give us that I think we’ve kinda been culture out-of being able to listen to. The body’s full of intelligence.  I think the body has a lot of wisdom that we tend to try and think our way out of.

You’re actually trying to become the Tiger and look through its eyes as you’re practicing. And so researchers think that because this is the oldest known form of Qigong it probably came from Shamanism.

A lot of the postures are still named after Nature, things like “mountain” or “moving like a river” or “standing like a tree.” But it really is those older forms where you were really being the animal, and looking and moving like these animals.

Speaking of people creating the future who don’t want to be animals, if you look at Silicon Valley where I lived for seven years, it’s full of people who are just up in their heads. And they think they can turn their consciousness into binary code and just stick it in a robot and become immortal that way. . . I think a lot of them really are out of their body. They often have a very hard time with the dating world. They can have a hard time figuring our how to navigate women, because women are looking for an animal. They’re looking for an animal that can think and do smart things… they’re looking for a physical being. Qigong I think really puts you in touch with that animal side of yourself. I think one of the under talked-about benefits of Qigong is it actually really helps your sex life…

There’s a weak interface between body and mind for most people, especially well-educated, smart upper-class people. I think people who work in those kind-of mental fields need something like this.

Stress narrows our perception.

All the great spiritual teachers have tried to tell us to go past the nation, to go past the tribe, to go past the religion.

On tithing: "There’s a very weird relationship between the energy you’re putting out, generosity, and the universe.”

Thanks for listening.
This podcast is 1 of 4 keynotes from our Summer Solstice
2022 collection, "Restoring Connective Tissue." It was produced 
and edited by Chris Searles. 

This is the keynote interview for AllCreation's Spring 2022 edition, "Dominionism: Exploring religious relationships with other life," guest edited by Rev. Dr. Dan De Leon. Dan speaks here with Dr. Norman Wirzba about Genesis 1:26, the context it was written in, and how knowing all that changes the modern Christian perspective. 

"And God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.'" (Genesis 1:26)

About Dr. Wirzba
Dr. Norman Wirzba is the Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Christian Theology and Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke Divinity School. Dr. Wirzba’s research and teaching interests are at the intersections of theology, philosophy, ecology, and agrarian and environmental studies. He lectures frequently in Canada, the United States, and Europe. His research is centered on a recovery of the doctrine of creation and a restatement of humanity in terms of its creaturely life. He is currently the director of a multi-year, projected entitled “Facing the Anthropocene” where he works with an international team of scholars to rethink several academic disciplines in light of challenges like climate change, food insecurity, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, species extinction, and the built environment. Visit NormanWirzba.com for more.

Written Works

• Dr. Wirzba has published and edited numerous books, the latest of which is This Sacred Life: Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World. 

Program

• 00:02 Dan's Intro
•  01:57 Welcome Dr. Wirzba
• 02:37 Dr. Wirzba self-introduction, "It doesn't seem there could be a more important conversation than how to live together..."
• 08:50 Scripture conversation begins -- Genesis I: "I give you Dominion"
• 16:45 Understanding the context of the language is very helpful; some biblical metaphors can now be made literal 
• 20:20 "God created us for Intimacy with the Land”
• 28:00 Distinction between idolatry and iconic perception
• 34:55 Repositioning of our perspective; What is “Nature” and what is “Creation”
• 42:40 “The Gospel being for all creatures”
• 44:40 “Jesus as creator” 
• 51:25 "How to pray", re: The Lord’s Prayer and “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”. You write that in order to make that real we must restore relationships with the actual land on which people live… To make this sacred prayer realized, what are some practical ways we can restore relationships with the actual land on which we live?
• 56:00 re: Awakening & Connecting to other Life, Metanoia: a change of heart and direction, and Purification: giving one another the ability to see God’s creatures -- I hear that in you saying we need to have time for Metanoia. "What was your metanoia?"

References

• Dr. Seyyed Nasr lecture, 2009
• From Nature to Creation - Norman Wirzba book
• This Sacred Life - Norman Wizba book
• The Gerasene demoniac

Quotes

It doesn’t seem that there could be a more important question than to figure out how to live well, in our places, with each other.

How can we do this to our world? How can we be damaging it so badly?

Scripture assumes a God who loves the world… And the question for me is: how can we say we worship a God who loves the world but not give our love to the world at the same time?

These are Agrarian people.

As a farm kid, the first thing you know is that… you don’t ever presume to do with your land or your animals whatever you want… You know that as a farmer you are only successful in so far as your animals are healthy and your land, your soil, is fertile. Which means that good farmers are always very attentive to the needs of the land, to the needs of plants, to the needs of their animals… It’s the realization that you can’t possibly succeed if the world that feeds you does not do well at the same time.

Subduing means learning to come alongside fellow creatures so that in taking care of their needs you also take care of your own.

We are all together sharers in this divine breath that animates Ground into the diversity of Creatures that we see.

God understands that apart from soil, plant, and animal life, we can’t possibly survive, we can’t possibly thrive, and we can’t possibly be happy.

The first creatures that are presented to “the Adám,” as someone to help them in their loneliness, are animals.

Let’s go to the second creation story. We forget about the Garden. The image you get there is the first human being, Adam, being animated out of soil. God is the first gardener.

We are made to feel connection with soil, plants, animals, and people, because those are all the places where God is active.

Scripture affirms a position in which God is present to creatures all of the time, desiring for them to live into the fullness of their lives.

It doesn’t make sense to talk about human flourishing if everything (humans) need, in the form of water, and air, and food, if it doesn’t flourish at the same time.

All things came into being through His word.

When you’re living the life God wants you to, animated by this loving power, there is no better life.

I think the first thing to do is for people just to get outside, and: Notice. Look. Pay Attention. Smell. Feel. Touch. Grieve.

The thing to start is just to try to calm down and center yourself in your neighborhood.

Children can be our teachers, too. 

###############

Thanks for listening.
This podcast is part of our Spring 2022 series, Dominionism.
Visit the AllCreation podcast site or AllCreation.org for more.
Produced and edited by Chris Searles.
See the whole "Dominionism" collection here.

Achieving Transformation: Marcus Kar is a native of “North” Minneapolis, a predominantly African-descent (African-American) community struggling to overcome racism, poverty, and other forms of American-institutional abuse. Marcus is program director for Youth Farm, “a multi-faceted youth development organization growing food and young leaders, healthy bodies and minds, positive identity, neighborhood connections, community opportunities, and healthy relationships.” In this interview he shares garden-grown wisdoms on how and where to find healing and healthy-self. His insights are extensive (see Quotes, below). He is interviewed by friend, Rev. Louis Tillman and AllCreation exec. editor, Chris Searles, as part of our collection, Envisioning Transformation.

Learn More

• Youth Farm
• Marcus’s LinkedIN
• Marcus’s compelling music  

PROGRAM
0:00 Intro

2:45 Who are you?

   > about Youth Farm 

   > 4:00 about Marcus

   > 5:20 about working w kids 

   > 6:00 about redirecting energy and cultural identity

   > 7:30 about his homegrown Minneapolis Food Council 

   > 8:40 about his nature healing / nature wealth movement 

   > 10:00 on success & his vision

11:30 Does is take a village to raise a child?
   > 15:00 On separation and learned-behaviors

   > 15:50 “Nature is medicine... No one knows how to put the pieces back together... That’s what nature does“

   > 18:40 “I’ve been guided by powerful women“
   > 19:40 America’s worldview = Duality (duality is a divider)

   > 22:20 We have to find social balance.

   > 24:00 Comments on Bio-intelligence  

   > 28:35 “I want people to know…“ 

32:00 What is your message to the world?

   > 38:45 Coming together nonverbally, redirecting trauma, angst , pain and alienation

44:45 Wrap up

 

References

• “North“ = North Minneapolis 

 
Quotes

I’m an indigenous person. I’m a product of so many people.

What I try to tell people now is: I wish they would spend a little time with me when it comes to what they wanna see as far as change in their immediate environment, because I redirect energy...
  
No one is helping young people understand how to feel their feelings.       
 
I’m trying to create a movement around growing and I want people to use it as medicine. I wanna share what I gained from nature with my entire environment. 
  
One of the elders told me, “If you don’t move your physical, you lose your spiritual.”

Nature is medicine.

There’s a very thin line between a plant and a human being.

Everything we want for ourselves and we want to know about bettering this world, bettering our environment, you can find in the bio-ecosystem. We need to be a part of it, not necessarily be in control of it. You can’t control her.   

I tend to never be married to any one idea or approach. I’m not trying to sustain any of these (institutional) systems. I’m really trying to figure a way for us to be able to listen to each other and self-correct, in order to provide the kind of environment we need to thrive.

This idea of “intergenerational processes”: it keeps the Old young, and the Young wise.

It’s very hard for people who’ve never dealt with any kind of adversity or any issues with the police to understand, but a kid who got his arm broke by a cop will live his whole life feeling that phantom pain. We need to recognize how we can extract it: by holding him; telling him he’s ok; telling him how to avoid those things; and telling him where his power is or her power is…   

Instead of listening to people, you wanna write policy...

The new revolution has nothing to do with control or division. It has a lot to do with addition and it has a lot to do with balance. 

Seeing this stuff is traumatizing. . . Man, if you could only redirect that. I don’t want us to react. I don’t want us to live in the poison of guilt, anger, and sadness.     

Don’t ever keep this stuff to yourself. If you’re going through any depression or trauma, just do me a favor -- try to talk to someone.

I want to try and eliminate the number of shootings we have and green spaces have that impact on communities. The more we are outside together, eating together, living together, the less the shooters are there.   

I’m not special, I’m present. I know them, their grandmas, their aunties, their fathers, their mothers, and I get down to their level. They wanna call me in the middle of the night and talk to me about what’s happenin in the crib, I got you… I’m present.  
 
How do you keep the balance? This is something we don’t teach. We teach everyone they’re special and they all get prizes. No. Listen: In order to keep balance you need to learn how to follow… The idea of reacting isn’t a positive thing. 

If you’re not a kind man, you’re not my kind of man. (“Man” = human)

Everything that’s happening has an impact on everything else here. Be aware of that. Know that you’re important in the grand scheme of everything. 

We want to be one with [the seasons] so we can actually produce the thing that is our God-given right, what Nature provides us.

Every time we get an opportunity to rest and take our time, it seems like Capitalism is taking that away... I love being exhausted for a reason, like, if I get done shoveling 10 cubic yards of soil in a wheel barrow and running up and down a hill — yea, I’m tired, but for a reason. If you just wake up in the morning tired, there’s something wrong with that.

We should be in control of the technology… And I really hope we start using technology to Rest, first of all…

If you rest your mind, you’re capable of processing things -- not based on a forced system or process, you’ll be able to see many different processes and as long as there are shared values you’ll be able to take any approach to that end result… But, in order to choose one you have to rest; you gotta be in sync; you gotta be on time.

People think I’m growing all this, I’m not. This is a bio-ecosystem. I’m a part of it and I know...

Achieving Transformation: Dina Kunin. “It shifted my perspective that my life did not have to stay that way.” Reiki healer, harmonious dog trainer (family & child education, animal behavior improvement & relationship building), empath, stenographer, and more, Dina Kunin came to the US as Ukrainian Jewish refugee in her teens. In this interview, Ms. Kunin shares some of her personal story on overcoming that transition, takes us through one of her personal healing miracles, and shares powerful wisdoms related to personal healing and social progress (see Quotes section, below). Coming from a childhood where her grandparents “knew every leaf, plant and berry in the forest,” Dina goes on to share personal food and folk medicine regimens, talk about her work as a healer and dog trainer (aka. dog whisperer/human trainer), and much more. In this expansive conversation Dina is interviewed by guest editor and friend, Rev. Louis Tillman,  and AllCreation exc. editor, Chris Searles, as part of our Envisioning Transformation collection.

   

Learn More

• Dina’s Harmonious dog trainer website 
• Rev. Louis Tillman 

 

PROGRAM

0:00 Intro

1:30 Hello, what’s your story 

2:30 On migrating to the USA from Russia 

4:30 What is Reiki?

   > Definitions

   > 6:30 Her practitioner’s perspective 

  > 6:50 Her Reiki-healing miracle 

11:00 On achieving personal-healing / transformation 

13:15 To “envision transformation” one has to believe it’s possible; experiencing transformation helps…  

   > 14:30 Manifestation & visualization is such a beautiful thing; We are so powerful and we don’t even know it

   > 15:45 Breath. Matters.

16:15 How has Heath & Wellness impacted you, what do you recommend?

   > 17:00 Dina’s regimens 

   > 18:20 Fasting, Resting, Sleeping, Healing, Regenerating 

  > 19:40 On natural, folk & food medicines and healing 

   >20:30 Dina’s kitchen/health staples 

21:00 Louis asks about honey, food, community gardens, and … Crickets???

   > 24:30 What is keeping us from protecting our environment 

   > 25:00 Our Actual connections to the environment
  > 27:00 Meat & crickets 

   > 29:00 Wild locusts & honey 

   > 30:15  Crickets for manifesting good 

  > 31:00  Crickets for food…

32:20 Ahem,,, :) What institutional changes do we need?

   > 33:00 Dina’s mantra in life 

   > 33:30 Framing her opinions

   > 35:00 How do we bridge divides 

35:45 Positive change is intergenerational 

37:00 Are our Comforts creating despair? How do we move into being a convoy of hope as a Faith community?

   > 39:15 Connection, Community, & Community-knowledge

   > 39:50 Valuing our Elders    

   > 41:45 Give positivity

42:55 Is “Kinship “ the right thing to go for?

45:30 Louis inspired & grateful,,,  

   > 46:30 Yes: the essentials… We all have the same needs. > 47:30 Reconnect to our breath, our similarities   

   > 49:45 Connected care feels better   

   > 51:50 Breath: How to breathe 

   > 53:00 Creating peaceful feelings 

       > calming the dog  

       > breathing from your belly

55:45 What is your message to the world?

  > Choose: Connection. Choose: Positive Mindset. <

56:25 How can we help carry that out?

   > Choose: Kindness. < 

   > 57:30 Choose to do something good. 

 > 48:15 One action does make a difference. 

58:45 What keeps you going? 

   > 59:45 Re-connection; Coming back into focus 

   > 1:00:25 Vision: That We Realize Our Power as a Human Community.   

1:00:45 Wrap up

References 

• Reiki
• Diaphragmatic breathing
• Stenographer
• Product

 

Quotes 

Being compassionate is the key to all of this.

I have not been sick in years. 

We take breathing for granted and most of us don’t know how to breathe correctly...

We all just want to be happy, and we want to be secure, and we want to be free. We all have the same needs, every single person in the world.

For me to get to a peaceful state I picture myself sitting by the ocean, and listening to the water, and feeling the breeze and wind in my air, and smelling that salt air, and taking those deep breaths. . . I’m able to transition into that actual state. . . We are so powerful and we don’t even know it.  
 
It is always a balance of Western & Eastern Medicines coming together, but if I’m able to heal myself using natural foods that are available to me, that will always be my first go-to. 

I do feel the younger people will prevail, but we have to help them.   
 
Sometimes it’s just so overwhelming you don’t even want to think about, you don’t to even be there, so that’s why a lot people just numb themselves to this, because they feel if they can’t affect change then they just need to focus on themselves.
 
I know it’s cliche but, (our) similarities are so simple. You know, just listening to someone without having the need to respond, and just hearing their story — because our reality is only based in our perception and our experience of how we envision the world.

Even though it may not be your experience, and even though you may never be able to relate to exactly what they are going through…the humanity in all of us and just being compassionate — that is the key to all of this. Gratitude is the key to happiness, you know, being just mindful and grateful for things elicits peace for me.

Choose connection. Choose happiness. Choose gratitude.  Choose positive mindset — because a positive mindset does not change your situation, but it does change the way you respond to things. That will help you transform your life.

Choose kindness. Choose to take a deep breath before you react in a situation. Choose to do somet...

From AllCreation's Spring 2022 edition, "Dominionism: Exploring religious relationships with other life," guest edited by Rev. Dr. Dan De Leon. Dan speaks here with Imam Islam Mossaad about Dominionism from an Islamic scriptural perspective. 

About Imam Mossaad
Imam Islam Mossaad has served as imam for the North Austin Muslim Community Center (NAMCC) from May 2008 – January 2015 and returned to NAMCC January 2018 to the present time. He has also served as Imam for the Islamic Center of Little Rock from September 2003 until May 2006 and Imam for the Islamic Community of Bryan-College Station January 2017 – January 2018.  Imam Islam is a Hafidh of Quran (he has committed the entire Quran to memory) and has received life-long Islamic education from scholars of Islam here in the United States and through his formal studies with Mishkhâh University.  He has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Imam Mossaad has diverse professional experience.  He has worked as an engineer, engineering consultant, Islamic school principal, teacher, and Imam.  He strives to unite Muslims along the Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him).  He also seeks to educate people on the beauty of Islam while promoting tolerance and mutual understanding. Imam Islam Mossaad is a long-time Austinite, is American born and raised with Egyptian parentage.  He is married and has two children. This interview is one of the features from our Spring 2022 collection, Dominionism. Thank you, Imam Mossaad!

References

• Names of God: 
  • Ar-Rahman, The Most Merciful
  • Ar-Rahman / Ar-Rahmeen, "entirely merciful, most kind"
  • Al-Jabbar, The Compeller
• Arabic Words
  • Al-Aalameen, encompassing everything except Allah
  • Amana, trust, honesty, faithfulness 
  • Rabb, God (Allah)
  • Jinn, spirit creatures preceding humans 
• Dr. Sayyed Hossein Nasr
  • 2009 lecture discussed here
• Bible verses
  • Genesis 1:26
  • Leviticus 18:22

Program

• 00:01 Welcome & intro
• 00:30 Self introduction 
• 03:55 Cultural Ambassador. How much of your time is spent introducing Islam to people in the West? 
• 05:20 Islam & the Environment. What is a traditionally Islamic view of the environment, and how do Muslims understand their relationship with the environment in terms of having "dominion" over the Earth?
• 10:30 Accountability & Relationship. For Muslims, “dominion” cannot be separated from accountability?
• 13:30 Disconnect. In 1956, Dr. Sayyed Nasr predicted the environmental crisis (paraphrased), “There’s nothing as important in the world. Most Muslims do not realize there’s a disconnect, the environmental crisis is driven by a blindness to [our sacred] teachings about Nature."
• 21:55 "The All Encompassing." On Nasr's statement, “God is the environment into which we are born, in which we live, in which function, and in which we die.” 
• 26:10 Names of God. Christians see Christ himself, “as surely as you do it to what you see you do it to me." I hear similar themes. 
• 32:40 Self-love. "Love one another as we love ourselves."
• 37:15 Anthropocentrism. What is the Islamic view on Anthropcentrism, the idea that humans are the most important creatues in the world.
• 42:00 Sharia Law. Do Muslims actually abide by the environmental commandments of Islamic holy law?
•  49:20 Right relationship. What will happen to the tree if I don’t do right by it? How can I live in right relationship with the whole of creation? 
• 53:30 Metanoia. How do we need to change how we see? What is the Islamic view of "dominionism" and does that view need to change? 
• 56:25 Spiritual Growth. Has the way you see the environment changed over time for you or your family?

Quotes

“Allah” is the name in Arabic for “the one God.”

Islam means submission and peace through submission. So we submit along with the trees, the birds, the animals, the galaxy, they are Muslim, meaning they are in submission to God.

“The Prophet Muhammad’s divine inspiration came through being in Nature… We see nature as a sacred sign from God.”

This idea of having dominion, or “to subdue, and to dominate,” those are anathema actually in the Islamic context, but there is definitely an idea of what some modern day authors are [calling] stewardship; so, “halifa.”

You are answerable to God for what you do with the animals and the plants and the streams, and so there’s a lot of this feeling of accountability before God for the Nature that we are entrusted with.

One of the names of God is The Most Beautiful, and so when we see beauty it should draw us closer to the wonder for the beauty of God himself, the beauty in Nature and the patterns and the colors, and as you mentioned, just the wind blowing thru the leaves, and so on. It can take a person to another mystical plain.

How we treat animals really says a lot about our inner spirituality or our inner world and our inner self.

A very powerful feeling to have, is to feel communion not just with your fellow human being but even with the blades of grass, with the molecules in the air, and this oneness with everything. Go out into Nature -- into a stream, into a lake -- and just watch the ripples, and just enjoy that whole feeling that you’re getting of closeness to God. 

Nature connects us to God and we don’t want to lose that.

###############

Thanks for listening.
This podcast is part of our Spring 2022 series, Dominionism.
Visit the AllCreation podcast site or AllCreation.org for more.
Produced and edited by Chris Searles.
See the whole "Dominionism" collection here.

Called to CARE with SCOTT SABIN, ceo, Plant With Purpose. Solving Poverty with environmental care. Learning from "the Poor." Redefining "Inclusion." Choosing to grow a future we can all look forward to. Leaving things better than you find them. Creating abundance by caring for the living members of the creation... That's what this podcast is about. Hope you enjoy Called to CARE with Scott Sabin. 

"Right now we are directly serving about 500,000 people and having a measurable impact on just over 1,000,000 people." - SCOTT  

CARE: Curious. Appropriate. Responsive. Empathetic.

In this interview world-changing Christian leader, Scott Sabin, whose organization is currently helping more than 1,000,000 people in nine countries, shares some insights after 30 years of leading breakthrough sustainable development work. Scott is joined by legendary funk bassist, noted author, and care-centric pastor, Reverend Jimi Calhoun, as well as the co-founder/executive editor of AllCreation.org, Chris Searles.

Plant With Purpose is a nonprofit organization utilizing globally-strategic reforestation, regenerative agriculture, purpose groups, community-savings groups, church partners, and open-hearted, Christian-community values to lift roughly one million of the world's most isolated and under-resourced people out of poverty today. When Scott started with the organization as executive director, 30 years ago, they had one program and just 80 participants. 

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Learn More

• ScottSabin.com 
• PlantWithPurpose.org

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COHOSTS
Rev. Jimi Calhoun is lead pastor at BridgingAustin.org, an influential musician and a noted author (JimiCalhoun.com) who's just published his fifth book. Chris Searles is founder/director at BioIntegrity Partnerships (biointegrity.net), an environmental solutions nonprofit which produces AllCreation.org, and co-founder/executive editor at AllCreation.org. 

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PROGRAM
0:00 Welcome
5:45 SCOTT

13:10 INCLUSION
30:30 REDEEMING “WORK”

39:25 “POVERTY”

46:40 THE FUTURE WE CHOOSE 

59:55 WHAT IS A #1 PRIORITY? 

WELCOME
0:00 Chris Searles, co-host/producer

0:45 Intro' Rev. Jimi Calhoun, co-host

2:15 Intro' Scott Sabin, special guest
5:45 Scott on PlantWithPurpose: “We stand on the shoulders of giants... Literally, everything we’re doing now, we learned from our local partners... It's so easy to approach things as if we have all the answers... They're planting the trees, not us, almost 62 million trees now... Managing over $12 million of their own money... making about an 18 to 20% return on their investments...

INCLUSION
13:10  Jimi, story on Landi the landscaper and being a Christian missionary in Belize (Central America). "The first thing I learned (as a missionary) was to value people as you find them... When you're inserted into a different culture you have two choices,  try and convert them to what you're bringing, or allow yourself to be stretched a little bit... Sensitivity and humility, those are our bywords."
20:30 Scott, on the prejudices against subsistence farmers, “The people we work with are our Partners not our projects... We have as much to learn from them -- or more, than we have to offer and it’s in working together that anything’s accomplished.”
22:25 Jimi, story on Castillo the part-maker, "Ingenuity doesn't come from regurgitating what came in, it comes from your observation and what you're able to do with what you see!"
24:50 Scott, "Most of us couldn't survive in these environments, so people we might look at as uneducated, or who might be discriminated against by their own governments, are incredibly resourceful and managing to survive in conditions that would kill us. They've got a lot to teach us."
26:00 Jimi, "I have a responsibility to love you as you are, to serve you when I can, and to love you whatever it is that you need. That's what I mean, and Bridging means, when we say the word, Christian."
27:20 Scott, "I've become convinced that part of our purpose is to serve others..." Scott talks about one of his first visits to the Congo and the freedom fighter turned peace-maker, “I realized I had gifts to offer...”

REDEEMING "WORK"
30:30 Chris, "We should take pride in our potential..."
31:30 Jimi, “In work and worship you find God." ... "You have to define work... I never think of any call I make or any conversation I have as work... It’s all geared towards improving the life of someone else in whatever way they need it..."
33:50 Scott, "I don't want to romanticize things… There’s a lot of places and a lot of people where work is drudgery or slavery, or serves no purpose, or is abusive, so I don’t want to romanticize that. But I do think that, at its best, in the Kingdom of God there’s an alignment between purpose and what we do, and that we were made to be co-creators… But again, I don't want to romanticize: being a subsistence farmer on a barren hillside somewhere in East Africa is HARD."
35:25 Jimi stories on the banana lady; Indentured-Irish "slaves" and African slaves
38:30 Scott, "Some of Plant With Purpose's work is to bring good news of Redemption and offer opportunities to redeem work."

"POVERTY"
39:40 Chris, "How do you define Poverty and relate it to caring for "the least of these"?"
40:00 Scott - “Poverty: “A state of hopelessness.” Western definitions tend to be a lot about a lack of material things. Those of the global south, talking about poverty, it tends to be much more: hopelessness, discouragement, embarrassment… My definition, a lack of agency or perceived agency and opportunity, which can be closely connected to hopelessness. If you’re hopeless you don’t exercise what agency you might have.”
41:25 Jimi - “What does poverty mean to you when you hear that word? … Poverty has more components to it than economics. . .”  … It took men a long time to realize that they were acting exactly as they should. You know, I thought I could come down and offer some pointers… And that’s NOT what they needed. They needed somebody to come along and say, I understand your attitude. I get why you see the world the way you do... there’s not a lot of good options on your horizon, you don’t see a way out of this.”
44:40 Scott: "Your comment about those who are economically wealthy, but spiritually-impoverished is important... We come in many ways impoverished as well.”

FUTURE WE CHOOSE

46:20 Chris, "Biospherically, the system is designed to renew; we’re just sitting on top of potential all the time." 

48:20 Scott, “First we saw a vicious cycle between environmental degradation and the impoverishment of their farms… We had a vicious cycle, what I learned from them is there is a possibility in that of creating a virtuous cycle, and actually a win-win…  We often look at human need and environmental issues as a zero sum game... and I think there’s tremendous potential if we: 1) seek out the win win, 2) approach everything from a spirit of abundance rather than scarcity, 3) partner...

This episode begins with two quotes from Paul's book, The Ground Beneath Us, then jumps into the conversation. Paul Bogard is author of The Ground Beneath Us: From the Oldest Cities to the Last Wilderness, What Dirt Tells Us About Who We Are, a must-read book about humans and soils. Paul is also author of The End of Night, an internationally-acclaimed book on our vanishing relationship with the night sky. This interview explores Paul's thoughts on soils and the many, many ways we are connected to them. 

Here's a rough layout of interview: 

• 0:00 Intro
• 3:00 Solution
• 6:00 Physicality
• 9:30 Community
• 11:00 Majesty
• 14:00 Estrangement 
• 19:00 Transgressions
• 21:00 Sacredness
• 25:00 Reconnection

Thanks, Paul!

Visit Paul's website for more info.
Visit AllCreation.org for more content. 

What is “Eco-Theology?" In this podcast, guest editor Rev. Dr. Astudillo explores the meaning of eco-theology. What does it mean to see our relationship to the Earth, to each other and to God through this lens? How does eco-theology dialogue with Science, Church history, and Scripture to seek solutions to the environmental and climate crises? Rev. Astudillo points to three, biblical, eco-theologies that come to our rescue and harness the power of faith communities.

About Our Guest  

• Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo is guest editor of our Spring 2023 edition, Eco-Teología / Eco-Theology, our first-ever bilingual collection. A Presbyterian pastor, a co-founder of the Angelic Organics Learning Center, coordinator of the Climate Justice and Faith Spanish program at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, and more, Rev. Astudillo currently teaches in Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, the USA and Venezuela. Her written works are published widely. Perhaps most notably, she is a co-author of the National Council of Churches declaration, God’s Earth is Sacred, along with Bill McKibben and numerous of America’s leading clergy, and the book, God’s Earth is Sacred: Essays on Eco-Justice. We are truly honored to welcome Rev. Dr. Astudillo and her work to the AllCreation collection. 

Dr. Astudillo on “Eco-Theology"
From her guest editor’s overview: 

“The environmental and climate crisis threatens to silence the voices of hundreds of species of animals and plants on a planetary level, but for more than 500 years, the voice of peoples and cultures has also been threatened by the same forces responsible for the environmental crisis: patriarchalism, anthropocentrism, dualism, racism and colonization.

“To assist in the dialogue between the diverse materials of this issue we are guided by Eco-Theology, a critical discipline of reconstructing the relationship between God, human beings, eco-systems and the universe.

“There are those who say that the Earth can survive without us, but if... everything God made was very good, in times of environmental crisis it is up to us to find out why; to save our faith..."  

 
Thanks for listening!
Learn more about this collection: http://www.allcreation.org/home/spring-2023
More AllCreation podcasts here: https://allcreation.transistor.fm/

(Greetings, this episode of Called to Care is entirely in Spanish. Watch with English subtitles on YouTube.) ¡Saludos! Estamos orgullosos de presentar este episodio completamente en español. Nuestro segundo episodio de Llamados a cuidar, 2023, presenta al Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo, Rosa del Valle Araoz de Machaco (miembro de la Asociación Benditos Los Pobres) y Alirio Cáceres Aguirre (Movimiento Ladauto Si, Red Eclesial Panamericana). Ellos discuten: "Litio, Fe y Justicia Climática. ¿Qué es una Transición Justa desde la perspectiva de las comunidades religiosas en el Sur Global donde se extrae el Litio?"

“Nada se puede hacer solo. Todo tiene que hacerse de manera comunitaria”. — Rosa de Machado

Los autos y las computadoras modernas requieren un aumento dramático en la extracción de litio y otros minerales críticos, extraídos de la Tierra, para funcionar. Esta poderosa conversación, creada y dirigida por el Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo, reúne a dos ambientalistas católicos, Rosa del Valle Aráoz de Machado y Alirio Cáceres Aguirre, para discutir experiencias de primera mano con el tema, cómo se relaciona con su fe. , y cómo avanzar hacia una identidad más “circular”.

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Llamado a CUIDAR: Explorando el cuidado como identidad en el mundo moderno.

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PROGRAMA
0:00 Bienvenida
2:45 ROSA
5:30 ALIRIO
9:00 NEDDY
9:30 Music video, "Todo está interligado" (https://youtu.be/uQvRnfPsn6g)
16:00 Pregunta 1
16:45 Rosa
23:30 Alirio
31:30 Neddy
34:00 Pregunta 1
34:30 Rosa
47:30 Neddy
49:00 Pregunta 1
49:30 Alirio
58:00 Rosa
1:03:00 Neddy

Sobre Anfitriona e Invitadas
RDO. DR. NEDDY ASTUDILLO (Anfitriona). Eco-teólogo venezolano y pastor presbiteriano radicado en EE.UU.; co-fundador, Angelic Organics Learning Center; coordinadora del programa de Español Justicia Climática y Fe en el Seminario Teológico Luterano del Pacífico. El Rev. Dr. Astudillo fue recientemente editor invitado de nuestra colección Eco-Teologîa. Actualmente enseña en todo el continente americano y se publica ampliamente. Es coautora de la histórica declaración del Consejo Nacional de Iglesias, La tierra de Dios es sagrada, y del libro, La tierra de Dios es sagrada.

ROSA DEL VALLE ARÁOZ DE MACHADO. En sus propias palabras, “Aráoz es el apellido de mi padre (el de mi madre desapareció en los registros oficiales de identidad de las personas). Y Machado es el apellido de Lacho, mi compañero de vida, con quien sigo transitando este camino de encuentro y transformación. esa es nuestra existencia. Nací en 1950, a los 15 años me enamoré, y en 1970 tuvimos al primero de nuestros siete hijos, cinco niños y dos niñas.  Mi segundo nombre es "del Valle", y efectivamente , nacimos y crecimos en un valle, con el abrazo de los cerros, de esas magníficas y prodigiosas fuentes de agua que nos permiten vivir, soy parte del Territorio habitado desde la antigüedad por el pueblo Diaguitas, y que oficialmente la historia llama Catamarca, en el noroeste de la República Argentina. También formo parte de las Comunidades Eclesiales de Base, de la asociación Be. Pe., "Bienaventurados los Pobres", y, en representación de estos espacios territoriales, soy parte de la Comunidad Eco-espiritual de la Red Iglesias y Minería (Red de Iglesias y Minería)."

ALIRIO CÁCERES AGUIRRE. Diácono Permanente de la Arquidiócesis de Bogotá (2002). Casado con Andrea y padre de Daniel Esteban, David Felipe y Laura María. Ingeniero Químico, especialista en Educación, Magíster en Teología. Fundador y Coordinador de la Mesa Ecoteológica Interreligiosa de Bogotá - MESETI. Actualmente trabaja como Campaña de Incidencia Hispanoamericana del Movimiento Laudato Si'. Asesor de la Red Eclesial Panamazónica, REPAM y de la Red Eclesial Ecológica Mesoamericana, REMAM. Miembro de varios equipos de Ecología Integral de la Iglesia Católica en América Latina y el Caribe.

Mas: http://allcreation.org/care

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Gracias por su atención.
Creado, grabado y presentado por Neddy Astudillo.
Producido y editado por Chris Searles.
Presentado por AllCreation.org y BioIntegrity.net.
Visite AllCreation.org/Care para obtener más contenido.

To view this conversation with English subtitles: 1) Go to the YouTube video here. 2) Click the wheel on the screen, then choose: Subtitles, then Auto-translate, then English, and close the window. 3) Click play on the video, then click on "CC" for closed caption subtitles.  

This is ’’Pathways of Teshuvah, Part 2 - The Power of Reconnection (to Nature): Divinity, Healing, Reconciliation.’’ This recording is part 2 of 3-part discussion with breakthrough academic, Dr. Pesach Chananiah, and youth mentor / gardener / veteran, Mr. Marcus Kar, on reconnecting to Nature for sacred communion and emotional wellbeing. In this segment, host Chris Searles invites Dr. Chananiah and Mr. Kar to share about their own Nature-reconnection, Nature-immersion experiences. They relate powerful connections to Divinity, Healing, Self-identification, Community-membership, and more. “This isn’t just about growing food and saving the environment.“

About Our Guests

•  Dr. Pesach Chananiah (author) is a Jewish ecopsychologist, educator, and community organizer working in interfaith and environmental spaces. He writes about the psychological impact of disconnection from land, through a Jewish lens, and explores modes of healing through embodied spiritual practice in the natural world. Read his paper, Pathways of Teshuvah, on AllCreation.org.
•  Marcus Kar (special guest) is a decorated veteran and a native of “North” Minneapolis, a predominantly African-descent (African-American) community struggling to overcome racism, economic poverty, and other forms of America’s institutional biases. Marcus is program director at Youth Farm, North Minneapolis, “a multi-faceted youth development organization growing food and young leaders, healthy bodies and minds, positive identity, neighborhood connections, community opportunities, and healthy relationships.”

Program
0:00  Welcome & Intro  

                “Reconnecting to the Land Life is our best asset for a whole number of NON-environmental solutions… This reconnection to nature is healing traumas and helping people grow into greater relationship with the other people around them.“ (Searles)

2:00 Session begins: 

     Accessing our positive potential thorough connection to Nature. 

2:25 Dr. Chananiah 

     On Connecting to the Divine outdoors, in modern times

4:30 Mr. Kar

     On connecting to mentors and ecosystems for answers:

       > Avri Zen

       > People, plants & sky 

       > Dean, the veteran

       > West African culture

       > Mom

       8:14 Doing better than ’’surviving’’

       9:30 Honesty, Apologizing, Integrity, Direct communication 

       10:30 Building Trust with Youth

       11:15 Taking away the Trauma

        > Farms & gardens as safe spaces 

        where people are challenged, respected, 

        and connected to each other… 

       12:45 Living in rhythm and harmony, instead of ’’control’’

15:00 What is ’’I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.’’ ?

16:00  Dr. Chananiah 

       On visiting the West Bank 

       16:45 ’’Sin’’ vs. Missing the mark (Cheit)

       18:15 Apologizing, repenting, making amends 

       19:20 Tending olive trees and *Ho O Pono Pono* 

       19:55   Just do it! (Expressing care for God’s creation = stress avoidance)

21:30 Mr. Kar  

       On Reconciling and Returning

       23:00 Systematic Oppression in America is Real for Black People. 
                “This is how I got to Nature.“ (Kar)

        24:00 What Black Americans Need. 

        24:30 Marcus’s experience of oppression: treated like a criminal not a decorated veteran   

        24:55 Going to Nature for healing

25:30 How did you gain enough healing to be a leader? 

26:10 Mr. Kar  

                “I don’t want to pass the trauma on, I want to enjoy myself as I am and share it with everyone.“ (Kar)

         27:45 Back to Reconciliation

                ’What I need is the ability to spend the rest of my life enjoying and producing and creating my own healthy environment, and that will impact everyone around me.’’

A Life of Transformation: Marj Barlow, PhD., is a historically-significant therapist, global-business-change leader, and self-care advocate from Texas. Most famous for her pioneering leadership at Interface Carpets, the world’s largest commercial carpet manufacturer, and first global manufacturer to try to reach net zero and net regenerative environmental impacts, Dr. Barlow built her success off of an identity rooted in honesty, family, Faith, science, and her own experiences. In this podcast, AllCreation exec. editor Chris Searles asks Dr. Barlow to share about being a feminist co-leader, caring more for Other-life, and achieving right transformation. This interview is part of AllCreation’s Winter Solstice collection, Envisioning Transformation. 

Learn More

• MarjBarlow.com
• The Pocket Grandmother
• The Possible Woman
• Interface eco-sustainability legacy 

Listen to part 1 of this interview.

 Transformational Virtues Discussed

• Seeking love
• Awe
• Gratitude
• Healing
• Play
• Curiosity about positive potential   

PROGRAM
0:00    Feminism: How are we doing? 
10:00    The 4 levels of love: 

• Eros - attraction
• Agape - true friendship
• Philia - true familial love
• Caritas - sacrificial love, giving your life for the good of others (“a calling, a joy, a happiness“) 

15:00    How do you relate to the living creation?

19:00    How should religious institutions transform to achieve a better future?  

QUOTES

Studying Happiness has helped me have a sense of the value of our choice-making. Everyday I get up and I say, “What is today?” And I have a sense of awe. And every person that comes into my life, I have a sense of awe. That makes it new and real and exciting, and nothing every dull or boring, so perhaps curiosity and awe are valuable attributes at institutional-identity scale.

I kind of have an inner path I follow: I prefer to be curious, rather than certain. I think that has led me to a lot of diversity... There’s not just one way, as many of the Fundamentalist sermons I heard suggested. 

Most of the people who initiated (therapy in the early days) were female. It would be the mother bringing in the son, or the mother bringing in the whole family. The mother would be the one always organizing that.   

(In the 1960s, White America) was very paternalistic and I had to prove that I had done right by his money and his children.
 
The male does tend in our species to focus; he makes a good TV-watcher! The female is more the Gatherer; she’s born to shop! That is the problem right there: Can the shoppers and the focusers get together to declare the universe needs one song?! :)
 
We’re not done yet. We’re still evolving.

We have the joy of being present, listening, and seeking something new.

Love that stretches and a mind that is eternally curious, that’s how I see our evolutionary drift. 

The biggest change that’s on the horizon is the fact that we are hooked-up and we can communicate -- and, therefore, we can’t keep pockets of secrecy, and I think more and more are enlightened as to our environmental emergency.

I have a sense of gratitude and awe about how it all works. It’s the most fascinating thing in the world to think of Life as it exists here on this little blue, tiny planet. . . I am so in awe of the people who are learning how to be good stewards of our physical environment.

.... “Whatsoever thing thy neighbor doeth that pulleth thy chain, puncheth thy button or ringeth thy bell — that thing hath more to do with thee than thy neighbor!” :)

###

Thanks for listening.
This podcast is one of seven interviews
from our Winter Solstice 2022 collection,
"Envisioning Transformation." It was pro-
duced and edited by Chris Searles. Visit
our podcasts page for more.

Shmita and the Climate Crisis.
In this insightful podcast, Joelle Novey and guest editor Yaira Robinson discuss Shmita, who "owns" the Earth, the rhythms of Jewish sacred time, how to sustain activism, living with paradoxes, and more.

About Joelle 

Joelle Novey is director of Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA). She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University where she received a BA in Social Studies and a minor in the Study of Religion. She is also co-author of Green and Just Celebrations, a purchasing guide that Jews United for Justice (JUFJ) distributes to local congregations for assisting families in making greener purchasing decisions around weddings and bar/bat mitzvah celebrations. She is also an active leader in her local Jewish community.

About Interfaith Power & Light

• National office
• State affiliates

References

• Joelle's purchasing guide (book): Green and Just Celebrations
• Jewish community Joelle co-founded: Tikkun Leil Shabbat
• Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb
• Environmental Torah
• Dobb’s source sheet (to inform a Jewish response to climate change)
• Rabbi Joseph Karo
• 5782 is a Shmita year
• Faith community land acknowledgements 
• Jewish Brachot (blessings said before eating and at other times)
• Rabbi Simcha Bunim
• Rabbi Levy, Talmud scholar 
• Katharine Hayhoe, Saving Us
• Joelle Novey and Katharine Hayhoe discuss Saving Us

Quotes 

I come from people who get involved and take action when life is at stake. Certainly, with the climate crisis we are in such a moment right now, and I feel like if I get anything from my tradition in facing this moment it's that I need to take action rather than look for reasons to delay.

The older I get the more I feel like we just have to live with irresolvable paradoxes and that if we can navigate through them with some kind of balance, and feeling tension on both sides, that's the wise path, that's the way forward. 

I think we have to have weekday consciousness in one pocket and Shmita consciousness in the other pocket.

I am grieving for so much that I love. I am grieving for the people I love who will experience a warmer and more dangerous world. I am grieving for the species that will not make it. I am feeling grief that is grounded in tremendous love. And then suddenly, with my heart open and my hands open, that's a tremendously powerful thing. It's like, I'm gonna be a warrior in the world for the things I love. I'm gonna have fierce, mother-bear protective energy for all that  I love. And, I'm in the fight of my life for all that I love.

What I appreciate so much about what I think a lot of our sacred traditions are bringing to this moment is putting an asterisk next to our feeling that we own the Earth, and own land. And there are many ways that I think Shmita and the teachings that, whether or not it feels like you own land, on a regular cycle you have to release it back to some collective--is one way the Jewish tradition, at least in principle, was trying to vet out a way of living in which everyone would sort of have a permanent asterisk after the idea of "owning the Earth." And I see so many ways that the communities we work with are trying to add that asterisk in a world where we are encountering so many negative consequences of not understanding our position in the world as interdependents.

Shmita forces everyone to think differently about land ownership and to put huge brackets and a big asterisk next to the idea that we have pieces of the Earth that we own, on which we can do anything we want, without thinking about our interdependence or the consequences to other creatures and species.

We have to make time to release and restore.

There’ s a role for everyone that’s completely authentic to who they are... Everyone already is who they need to be, to respond to the climate crisis, because they all already love someone who will be harmed by the climate crisis. And, we can never invite people to be someone else, but we can always invite them to be more fully who they are. 

###############

Thanks for listening.
This podcast is part of our Winter 2021 series, Shmita Now.
Visit the AllCreation podcast site or AllCreation.org for more. 
Produced and edited by Chris Searles.

From AllCreation's Spring 2022 edition, "Dominionism: Exploring religious relationships with other life." Guest editor, Rev. Dr. Dan De Leon, interviews Rev. Erin Walter on the Unitarian Universalist understanding of the Genesis 1:26 concepts of "dominion" and "dominionism." 

"And God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.'" (Genesis 1:26)

About Erin

Rev. Erin J. Walter (she/her/hers) is Minister and Executive Director for the Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry (TXUUJM), coach for Beloved Conversations, and a community minister at Wildflower Church in Austin, TX. Erin is a winner of the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation Sermon Award, a former journalist, and singer/songwriter/bassist for the band Parker Woodland. She is a lifelong Unitarian Universalist (UU), an adviser to the SIMS Foundation, currently serving on the board of Texas Impact. 

Program

• 00:00 Intro
• 01:39 About Erin’s band, Parker Woodland
• 02:30 About Erin’s UU ministry and the Texas UU Justice Ministry
• 03:15 Why is environmental stewardship a priority for you and the TX UU
• 05:10 Do UUs believe they have “dominion” over the Web of LIfe?
• 06:20 Dominionism comes from Genesis I. Many people believe that’s an open and shut case for taking without replenishing and having domination. But that changes with the “web of life” connotation, it changes the relationship with the word. What is the identity of humankind in the web of life for a UU? 
• 11:20 The here and now… Seeing the Earth as divine increases our sense of urgency to take care of the here and now… Tell us more about a UU take on the present in contrast with a Christian.
• 14:00 “When Jesus instructs us how to pray, he gives us two prayers: the Lord’s prayer and in Revelation, which ends with saying that "God comes to live with them" — us! God comes to be with us. Why wouldn’t we want to take really good care of the Creation in order to make way for the Creator?”
• 19:00 The Christian Climate lament: "Do I work for companies that are going to perpetuate doing with Creation whatever they want? Or, do I help the Earth and go broke? ...That’s the world we’re living in?!" This is difficult to counsel on. 
• 23:00 What are you working on politically right now? 
• 26:30 Is the Creation Coalition limited to UUs only? 
• 27:30 Metanoia. Some of what I’m learning from editing this issue is there’s a common thread, “Nothing’s going to change unless we change our perspective. How we look at the environment has to change. Nothing can be more encouraging than the recognition that I’m not alone. If we can unite across our differences, that will foster more of that change of perspective.
• 30:53 Where do you get your hope from? 

References

• Rev. Darrick Jackson
• Meadville Lombard Theological Seminary
• Rev. Fred Small  
• The Creation Coalition
• UU Ministry for Earth (UUMFE)
• Build Back Fossil Free
• Beloved Conversations
• Woyaya

Quotes

We’re a non-creedal faith, so the folks in the pew sitting next to you might not believe the same thing about the Divine.

Our faith connections are around principles and values, not so much around creed or dogma. So for us, one of those principles is the interconnectedness of the web of life that we consider us all to be a part of.

Many of us fall into that category where our spirits are concerned about how we care for each other and how we steward our relationships, our lives, and our actions in the here and now.

I was raised UU, and “dominionism” is really not a word I heard at church.

We meet in a place of community, sustenance, and sustainability for this home.

If all of this is God’s Kingdom, can we treat it as holy? And, what do we have to lose?

Yes, I often just feel incredible awe and gratitude to just be in this world, it’s, it’s amazing.

I hadn’t thought about humankind as being at the top of any living creature hierarchy.

There’s a lot of economic and justice layers to how we make our work choices to reflect our values.

We have this balance to strike, of facing the hard work that we have to do and making sure we have support to do the work.

If not us, who?

Spiritual tools are really important. One of the things I’m constantly talking about is that we do not fall into despair. We need our joy practices, our spiritual practices, our sustenance practices, to keep us uplifted enough to be doing the work.

If there’s one thing that I would hope people across all kinds of political and religious differences could unite around, it would be stewardship of the Earth.

I always want to encourage people to find one thing that they can do WITH the interconnected web of our lives; we're not going to each be doing it alone.

I mean, the coalition work feels like "The Way" to me, you know. Again, it's this inherent worth and dignity of every person, like, yes, I want to be affirmed for who I am as an individual, but the liberation for the Earth and for Each other is going to be achieved Together.

We need to be willing to meticulously make small steps, build relationships one conversation at a time, one meeting at a time, one experience at a time, while also holding this radical, amazing vision of the beloved community we can be building together. We need to see the big, glorious picture while also being willing to do what you and I are doing right now, just have one on one conversations.

What’s your theme song?

###############

Thanks for listening.
This podcast is part of our Spring 2022 series, Dominionism.
Visit the AllCreation podcast site or AllCreation.org for more.
Produced and edited by Chris Searles.
See the whole "Dominionism" collection here.

"What does Black Advancement look like?" Louis lists numerous facets of Advancement for Black Americans, starting with dismantling White dominance and amplifying Black and multicultural existentialism. Louis discusses institutionalized racism, institutionalized privilege, new ventures for voices that have never been heard or are unvalued. "How do we keep investing into those minds that are going to shape the generations to come for hundreds of years?"

Key quotes

I'm trying to address: "What is the infectious disease of racism in this county?"

"The root, not the branch." - Nat Turner

In God's kingdom accomplishments, color, mistakes, preferences, will never matter.

In this season of Covid-19 we have been called to make a new mindset shift.

I'm trying to learn how to put flesh on my Faith in order to move forward in this fight for equal freedom of one another.

Terms

• Hegemony
• Assimilation
• Existentialism

References

• The Birth of a Nation (2016)

This episode is hosted by Chris Searles, exec. editor, AllCreation.org.
Listen to part 1: https://share.transistor.fm/s/ac361170

Listen to part 2: https://share.transistor.fm/s/3ee55c03

Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Notre Dame and a research pioneer integrating work on child flourishing, human moral development, healthy psyche, and Indigenous Peoples' worldview. Professor Narvaez talks here about her breakthrough works, the meaning of "The Evolved Nest," and her new book, "Restoring the Kinship Worldview." She also shares principles and strategies for restoring feelings of connectedness, calm and security to your own life and to couples, families, and communities.

About Darcia

In addition to being Professor Emerita of Psychology Emerita at Notre Dame, Darcia is a fellow at the American Psychological Association, and at the American Educational Research Association. She has written, co-authored and edited more than 20 books. Her book, Neurobiology and The Development of Human Morality won the William James Book Award. Her newest book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview, is co-authored with Indigenous worldview scholar, Four Arrows.

References

• The Evolved Nest
• Neurobiology and The Development of Human Morality
• Restoring the Kinship Worldview
• Four Arrows (co-author / co-editor, “The Kinship Worldview”)
• 9 components of the Evolved Nest
• Alloparents 
• Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary
• Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Honorable Harvest (from Braiding Sweetgrass)
• Linda Hogan (Chickasaw Nation)
• Genevieve Vaughan,  Maternal Gift Economy
• Nature’s Gift Economy
• David Abram, Spell of the Sensuous 
• Human microbiome 
• Symbiosis
• Melvin Konnor
• James Prescott 
• Allan Schore, neurobiological attachment
• Jon Young, Coyote games
• Tamarack Song, games to develop intuition
• David Bohm, physicist, “The real intelligence is insight intelligence and it comes in from the outside.”

Program

0.00 Welcome & Intro

I. THE KINSHIP WORLDVIEW 

2:50 What is a “worldview”? 
4:30 What is a “Kinship” worldview?
6:58 Contrast the Indigenous worldview of connection with the Western worldview of disconnectedness 

II. THE EVOLVED NEST

9:35 What are the characteristics of an “evolved nest”? 

11:35 Components of the Evolved Nest:

>>  11:45 Soothing perinatal experiences

>>   13:00 Breast feeding

>>   14:25 Lots of affectionate touch, no negative touch

>>   15:20 A welcoming social climate

>>   16:25 Alloparents who are responsive 

>>   16:55 Self-directed play with multiple-age playmates

>>   17:55 Nature connection 

>>   19:14 Routine healing experiences 

22:20 On being an animal 

III. RESTORING THE KINSHIP WORLDVIEW

24:55 Talking about the book -- What are you trying to convey with the precepts? 

30:18 Darcia: To understand our Nature as a Human species is to understand what Thriving looks like

>>   happy, calm, quiet minds, gleeful, childlike

>>   sense of humor that’s not hostile

>>   holding hands, sitting together, enjoying being together… 

>>   try to make the other person laugh and feel safe

>>   there’s no big ego, it’s “us”.
32:00 The Honorable Harvest, Darcia shares favorite quotes, including: “Sustain the ones who sustain you and the Earth will live forever.”

34:50 What healing medicine feels like; Tom shares a quote

37:05 Darcia: We have a lot of unhealed grief and trauma we pass on, instead of taking time to heal

37:30 What is the relationship between the Sacred Feminine and The Maternal Gift Economy? 

40:25 Communion, holy union, co-creation, and our interconnectedness 

41:10 Darcia on Nature connection and her “Ecological Attachment”, experiment

42:30 Rooted and connected: “Our roots extend out from our skin and our other body cavities.” 

43:20 The microbiome; "We are communities"

44:00 Where does your passion for restoring kinship come from? How are you teaching this? 

IV. RESTORING OUR WORLD
48:10 What should we be doing to restore The Nest?

>>   Make sure you yourself are centered; Nature connection is one of the best ways to heal. 

>>   Learn to get back to social joy. 

>>   Learn to guide the conscious mind into connection; build the communal imagination. 

52:12 What is sustaining your spirit right now?

>>   I sing to the 6 directions

>>   I sing on my land

>>   Lying on the Earth, leaning against a tree, huggling with spouse

>>   Try to make my husband laugh, sing and dance together.

>>   Keep aware: "I am and always will be part of the Earth."

V. CONCLUSION

54:30 Final thoughts

>>   The first precept: the recognition of spiritual energy in Nature; find that guardian spirit... 

57:00 Tom reads a final quote, on Community Welfare (Dona Enriqueta Contreras)

57:56 End

Quotes

Everything the baby experiences engraves the brain for life. So you want to make sure you don’t distress the baby because then you’re shifting the trajectory away from wellness towards illness or ill-being or adversity.

(In a) welcoming social climate, the mother feels supported, the baby is wanted, the community is delighted with having the baby around, and the baby feels like they belong, that they can make a difference, make other people smile and laugh as they are made to smile an...

Our first Called to CARE session for 2023 begins like a dinner conversation among friends. In this podcast, AfricaExchange.org co-founders and co-directors, Sam and Melody Harrell, share how their Baptist American-African lives led them to become global leaders in “integrated” sustainable development... “I am blown a-Way.” (Rev. Jimi Calhoun, co-host, legendary musician, author and pastor)

Sam and Melody are saving lives and ending poverty with education and holistic, community care. Now celebrating their 25th year, AfricaExchange (AE) has built 14 “integrated child development” preschools in Kenya’s most-isolated / least-resourced regions. AE’s projects are providing and fostering nutrition, clean water, education, sanitation and infrastructure, jobs, job training, Creation care and restoration, and more, on an ongoing basis in these places to help these children and their communities defeat poverty.

Meet. Notice. Exchange. Serve. AfricaExchange’s model is rooted in the best of Christianity’s and Africa’s worldviews. As the children of Baptist missionaries in Africa, Sam and Melody’s foundational insight is that CARING FOR OTHERS means: listening, noticing, and being empathetic before acting. AfricaExchange helps communities build upward-spiraling personal and collective assets which benefit the whole community and their local biosphere. AE is exemplar in their work. This podcast is worth multiple listenings for those interested in “learning the lessons that will propel us forward.” (Sam Harrell)

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About our guests

 • Melody Harrell, spiritual director, AfricaExchange.org

 • Sam Harrell, executive director, AfricaExchange.org

 • Rev. Jimi Calhoun, pastor, BridgingAustin.org, author/musician, JimiCalhoun.com

 • Rev. Julaine Calhoun, pastor, BridgingAustin.org

 • Chris Searles, director, BioIntegrity.net, exec. editor, AllCreation.org 

About this series

In this time of polarizations and extremes we seem to be going to our Media for answers, and yet our Media is not designed or intended to give us answers. Media is a business (not a healer). Looking honestly at today’s shared social challenges, all indicators indicate it is Care through kinship, attention, gentleness, safety, honesty, support, process, nurturing, love, detail, nutrition, structure, generosity, time, etc. — that humans today need most to overcome our current complex, human-made crises. 

What can More CARE do for modern people? Our guests are asked to share about the effectiveness of greater care for all in the living Creation through greater empathy, mutuality, relationship, conversation, listening, hearing, seeing, connecting, processing, balancing, healing, and nurturing of ourselves, each other, Earth’s biodiversity, and “the environment.” 

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REFERENCES

• R.D. Laing

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PROGRAM

I. 0:00 WELCOME

II. 2:00 INTRODUCTIONS 

III. 6:30 INVOCATION, Melody Harrell

 • “I love the concept of being called to care. It feels like an invitation and it feels like something I already have tools and capacity-for."

 • RD Lang reading.

12:00 Sam, Real-life story 

 • “We were building an integrated child development center on the side of a mountain in Northwest Kenya…”

18:30 Rev. Calhoun 

 • “…Now I go out of my way to make sure they know I’m aware of them and they matter and they count.”

IV. 23:00 METHODOLOGY

24:30 Values

 • S- “Melody and I are the product of missionary parents”

 • M- “God had already been there… He or She didn’t have to be brought from America”

 • S- “The example of Jesus (is) our motivating factor, but that does not mean you come into an empty slate. People already have an experience of God”

30:30 Kutana

 • “KUTANA means to meet and exchange profound mutuality... so that we can love according to the way that love should be” 

 • “You won’t discover what a need is, unless you have dialogue and interaction… And that takes time and context and interaction and mutuality."

 • Melody, “The beautiful practice of story-telling takes time and being close and the space for that to happen.”

39:30 Services

 • “We started with street children in Nairobi.” 

 • “I discovered there were a ton of children who didn’t have their needs met in the rural areas"

 • Their Integrated model: listen to the community, address food, water, health, school/center construction in participatory way. 

 • CHANGE FOR CHILDREN (program): Clean water, Nutrition, Immunity, Malaria prevention, Deworming ($1 per child), Teacher training, Help community maintain school

48:30 Connections

 • Sam, “The incarnation is Kutana. It’s not God from afar, it’s God coming close. It’s conversation and hands and flesh. Our model is Jesus” 

 • Rev. Calhoun, "What’s happening globally does have an affect on you”

 • S, African philosophy is based on this one thing, UBUNTU, “I am because we are.” “I don’t have an existence on my own, I need others.” 

 • S, UJAAMA: “Without each other the whole thing collapses.”

 • Rev. Julian Calhoun, “I think it’s important to remind us that we do need each other."

V. 58:00 CARE AS IDENTITY

 • 58:45 Melody, “A very natural response to our upbringing in that place, our love for the place and for the people, and our calling as people of Faith to love and care for others” 

 • 1:02:00 Sam, “We came about it naturally, we had good examples in our parents... and liminal spaces and events have led me to be conformed after the way of Christ, for the good of humanity…

 • “If we can be active in trying to engage the world, but also introspective enough to actually see what it is that we’re doing and listen for direction, then some wonderful things can happen. That’s all I’m looking for”

 • 1:06:30 Rev. Jimi Calhoun, “I want to address the missionary aspect — Julaine and I have led and received teams that come to paint buildings, pass out tracks, etc. — some kind of doing and very little being. What I’m hearing tonight, and what the importance of what I understand AfricaExchange to be, is the latter. They’re asking people to come and take part and BE with the people. I can unequivocally say that’s the most important thing we can do as Westerners” 

 • 1:11:15 Melody, “The work we do is made possible by incredible partners...and I can almost see God making these connections where maybe some resources can cross our borders”

 • 1:12:45 Sam, “We have a lot of volunteers, amazing people who teach us every day.”

This is ’’Pathways of Teshuvah, Part 1 - Identifying the Separation: Judaism's land-return.’’  This recording is part 1 of 3-part discussion with breakthrough academic, Dr. Pesach Chananiah, and youth mentor / gardener / war veteran, Mr. Marcus Kar, on reconnecting to Nature for sacred communion and emotional wellbeing. In this segment, host Chris Searles shares a synopsis of Dr.  Chananiah’s primary points on the impacts of the Exiles on Judaism’s disconnection from Nature, and Mr. Kar relates his own experience, seeking to be a vessel for positive change.

About Our Guests

•  Dr. Pesach Chananiah (author) is a Jewish ecopsychologist, educator, and community organizer working in interfaith and environmental spaces. He writes about the psychological impact of disconnection from land, through a Jewish lens, and explores modes of healing through embodied spiritual practice in the natural world. Read his paper, Pathways of Teshuvah, on AllCreation.org.
•  Marcus Kar (special guest) is a decorated veteran and a native of “North” Minneapolis, a predominantly African-descent (African-American) community struggling to overcome racism, economic poverty, and other forms of America’s institutional biases. Marcus is program director at Youth Farm, North Minneapolis, “a multi-faceted youth development organization growing food and young leaders, healthy bodies and minds, positive identity, neighborhood connections, community opportunities, and healthy relationships.”

PROGRAM

0:00  Welcome & Intro  

2:30 Part I: Identifying the Separation from Nature: Judaism’s land-return

   2:50 Temples were metaphors for homelands 

   3:30 Exiles were environmentally-harsh (from the Fertile Crescent to the barren desert)

4:25 Dr. Chananiah 

   4:50 Professional disclaimers, backstory, search for identity, field work

   7:15 Teshuvah: ’’to return’’

8:45 Mr. Kar 

   9:35 Self-acceptance, identity, feelings 

   11:30 Being a vessel, not an expert, for positive change

12:10 The Separation from Nature

   12:30 Benstein quote 

   13:00 Rev. Korngold quote  

13:00 Dr. Chananiah: quick chronologies of the Exile

   13:15 the Temple   

   15:00 from Rites to Teachings

   16:15 Laws > Connection (to the lands,  other life, and Earth) 

   17:30 Rabbi Nachman’s hitbodedut

19:00 The Divine IN Nature? 

20:00 Dr. Chananiah: on “Diveykut“ and hugging, wrapping & “cleaving“ to the Divine  

   21:00 Nomads’ literal connections: 

   e.g. Abraham goes to the teacher tree

   e.g. Moses and the Burning Bush

 
23:00 Could I, a modern person, also experience Divinity in the wilderness?  

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#Teshuvah

#hitbodedut

#diveykut

#lechlecha

We begin this 3-part conversation by asking Rev. Louis Tillman to share about his work providing baptisms, funerals, memorial services, counseling services and church services all over the Mid-Atlantic US, since Covid. When asked how he remains rooted under extreme pressure Louis tells about his background as a prodigious but reluctant preacher, the hardest eight years of his life, his parents, his early church life, his passions for: trusting God, helping people in transformative ways, overcoming incredible obstacles, and building relationships in and out of church. He also shares views on Black elitism, in and out of the church and what's ruining Black America, "day in, day out." Throughout this segment Louis interweaves thoughts on the varying generational perspectives of what Black advancement means with his own first priorities.

Questions discussed

• Tell us about your last two weeks
• How do you find rootedness to be a leader day after day?
• Which word is best now? African-American, Black American, Black public, African-descent, etc.
• The Black American apocalypse and Black advancement today

Key quotes

There is a lack of equal access.

"If I leave my community, if I get educated, then I'll be able to get out of my community and do something better." This is what's ruining us, day in, day out, as a people of color.

We have to be able to create liberation out of lamentation.

In this country, "the land of the free"...

We as people of African descent, we're not fighting for equality, we're fighting for our existence.

The Black public is invisible to a White society that is indifferent to Black life.

This is all because the relationships don't exist. We fear people before we hear people.

I don't see us advancing... Society is constantly reminding me I'm a young Black male, a thug. 

It's open season in the streets and in the classroom. . . Individuals running the educational institutions are creating unequal classrooms. 

(Advancement is being) the best person today God has created me to be (and to) stop competing against my neighbor and only compete against myself. I want to be better today than that person in the mirror was yesterday and I want to be better tomorrow than this person is today.

"Make the Negro fight the Negro." That exists today. This is one of the main apocalyptic issues we face. 

How will the Black community advance over the next 100 years?

If advancement gets focused on self-improvement instead of barrel of crabs competition within the race, then YES, we are talking about actual progress and advancement. 

We listen to respond, we don't listen to receive. 

Jesus is in the midst of every single mess and everything we're gonna go thru. 

Do what you can to enlighten your community. 

Terms

• Kronos time
• Kairos time

References

• The Tuskogee experiment
• Ecclesiastes 3:2
• Louis' sermon on 2 Corinthians, "Cracked Pots"
• High on the Hog (Netflix) (Book)

This episode is hosted by Chris Searles, exec. editor, AllCreation.org.
Listen to part 2: https://share.transistor.fm/s/3ee55c03

Listen to part 3: https://share.transistor.fm/s/d0eb3244

¿Qué es la eco-teología? con Neddy Astudillo. En este podcast, el editor invitado Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo explora ¿Qué es la eco-teología? ¿Qué significa ver nuestra relación con la Tierra, entre nosotros y con Dios a través de este lente? ¿Cómo dialoga la eco-teología con la Ciencia, la historia de la Iglesia y la Escritura para encontrar soluciones a las crisis ambiental y climática? Neddy señala tres eco-teologías bíblicas que vienen a nuestro rescate y aprovechan el poder de las comunidades de fe.

 

Sobre Nuestro Invitado 

• Neddy Astudillo, eco-teóloga venezolana y pastora presbiteriana (PCUSA), ha enseñado eco-teología en seminarios teológicos de América Latina y Estados Unidos. En 1998 Neddy y su esposo Thomas Spaulding, co-fundaron el Centro de Aprendizaje Angelic Organics, una organización sin fines de lucro basada en una granja orgánica, donde las personas se conectan con la agricultura, los alimentos, y el cuidado de la tierra. Durante catorce años, Neddy sirvió a la Parroquia San José, una congregación conjunta de ELCA y PCUSA de habla hispana en Beloit, WI. Hoy en día, Neddy comparte funciones de coordinación con GreenFaith como organizadora para la región de América Latina; y el Centro para la Justicia Climática y la Fe en el Seminario Luterano del Pacífico, como Coordinadora del programa de Certificado de Español.  En 2020, recibió el premio anual Presbyterians for Earth Care por su compromiso con la Justicia Ambiental.

 

Música

• "Es nuestro Tiempo", por la maravillosa Red Crearte: https://youtu.be/E-9_fVa0Tig

Dr. Astudillo sobre Eco-Teología 
De la descripción general de su editor invitado:

La crisis ambiental y climática amenaza con silenciar las voces de cientos de especies de animales y plantas a nivel planetario, pero desde hace más de 500 años, la voz de los pueblos y culturas también se ve amenazada por las mismas fuerzas responsables de la crisis ambiental: patriarcalismo, antropocentrismo, dualismo, racismo y colonización.

“Para ayudar en el diálogo entre los diversos materiales de este número nos guiamos por la Eco-Teología, una disciplina crítica de reconstrucción de la relación entre Dios, los seres humanos, los ecosistemas y el universo.

“Hay quienes dicen que la Tierra puede sobrevivir sin nosotros, pero si... todo lo que Dios hizo fue muy bueno, en tiempos de crisis ambiental nos toca a nosotros averiguar por qué; para salvar nuestra fe..."

¡Gracias por su atención!
Más podcasts de AllCreation (principalmente en inglés) aquí: https://allcreation.transistor.fm/ 

Vance Blackfox, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, is director of Other+Wise, coordinator for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s Theological Round Table, creator and producer of the Vine Deloria Jr. Theological Symposium at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, Indigenous theologian for the Faith-based initiative at the City of San Antonio, and a freelance educator on Cherokee and Native American culture. In this episode, Vance explains: 

• Indigenous land acknowledgement
• What name to call Native Americans today
• How Native Americans talk about Apocalypse

To learn more about, or connect to, Vance visit VanceBlackfox.com or contact Vance via LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. 

A few key quotes: 

It is important to do a land acknowledgement before meetings and other special occasions. 

If you know someone's tribal affiliation, citizen or member, name the tribe... 

I cannot think of a better description of who we are as a people than "En Dios." 

I just need people to talk about us. Learn something about us. Ask the question, learn how to be in relationship with people who are different. 

Christianity wants us to believe there's only one apocalypse. 

"Kill and take" was not prevalent (for our peoples). Instead it was, "How do we engage with them? How do we care for them?"

They took us away from our places. It was an apocalypse for Cherokee people and for our non-human relatives who's purpose it was to help us survive. 

Terms 

• Survivance
• En Dios

References

• Land acknowledgement resource: native-land.ca
• Vance's booklist: bookshop.org/shop/nativereads
• Vine Deloria, Jr. Vine Deloria, Jr. 
• 574 recognized tribes in the US today
• Apocalyptic prophecy of the Ojibwe people
• The true history of
  • Plymouth Rock
  • Jamestown
  • First thanksgiving
  • Pochahantas

This episode is hosted by Chris Searles, co-founder and exec. editor of AllCreation.org.

Listen to episode 2: https://share.transistor.fm/s/4ca9b6fd

What is "apocalypse" and is it happening now? Rev. Matthew Syrdal is senior pastor at Shepherd of the Hills Presbyterian Church, co-founder of Seminary of the Wild, and founder of Church of Lost Walls. In this interview / conversation between friends, AllCreation editor Chris Searles asks Matt to share his thoughts and views on Apocalypse and Apokalypsis. Matt discusses ancient Hebrew, New Testament texts, mythology, modern pyschology, indigenous identity, and more; worth repeat listenings.

Visit SeminaryoftheWild.com and ChurchofLostWalls.org for more on the content discussed in this interview.

References 

• "Unveiling" - the traditional Hebrew meaning
• "Ontology" - our way of being
• The apostle Paul (paraphrased) -- (Apocalypse was) a reckoning of the practices and destructive habits of the dominant culture with the original intention of the Divine for humanity, in the context of how we relate to Earth.
• Thomas Berry, We have been ripped from the universe.
• Carl Jung, We are living in an age between myths.
• James Hillman, In order to love we must personify.
• Sean Kane, Wisdom of the Mythtellers
• Bill Plotkin, founder, Animas Valley Institute, and Geneen Haugen, Animas guide 
• Joel 2:28, "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions."
• T. Berry Brazleton, Touchpoints

Selected writings by Matt: 

• Liminal Grief (Oct. 2020)
• Let It Fall (March 2020)
• Christian Imagination and the Return to Myth (Jan. 2020)

Key quotes  

When we talk about Apocalypse we're also talking about awakening; new visions.

It wasn't necessarily doomsday, it was meant to be understood in a broader context (as) a reckoning (of) the practices and destructive habits of the dominant culture with the original intentions of the Divine, within the context of how we relate to Earth, how we relate to our planet.

Apocalypse is an evolutionary necessity - that we pass through this time of unraveling so that we can be rewired on a new level of functioning as a human society.

If love is the goal, it changes the whole equation... Loving our planet and the diverse beings that inhabit our planet, we're designed to be in relationship with, is an end goal in and of itself. If we can live from that place, real magic can happen.

We don't know where we're going and that creates unimagined possibilities... We have the capacity to imagine new futures.

Everything has a self. (Genesis)

(Apocalypse is) not just a revolution of ideas, it’s a revolution of ontology and how we understand ourselves to be human.

Hola! (Español Abajo) In this Spanish-language podcast Salvadorian/USA farmworker, Letty Pineda, is interviewed by Rev. Neddy Astudillo for our collection, "A Climate Transition Supported by Faith." Learn more.

####### ESPAÑOL #######

Por el Rvda. Dra. Neddt Astudillo, editor invitado y presentado del podcast -

En EE.UU., los trabajadores agrícolas sufren una inseguridad alimentaria 400% mayor que el resto de la población.(1) En todo el país, el 83% de los que recogen verduras y frutas se consideran hispanos.(2) Florida es el segundo mayor productor de frutas y verduras. En tiempos de cambio climático, los trabajadores al aire libre de este Estado, incluidos los trabajadores agrícolas, se encuentran entre los más vulnerables a las olas de calor, y los menos protegidos.

Actualmente en Florida no existen protecciones estatales o federales contra el estrés térmico para los trabajadores al aire libre. En cambio, en el Congreso se está intentando aprobar el proyecto de ley 433,(3) que impediría a las comunidades locales aprobar leyes para proteger a los trabajadores al aire libre de la exposición excesiva al calor y de las lesiones relacionadas con el calor, señalando que, de lo contrario, podría acabar con el negocio de la construcción; mientras tanto, los trabajadores agrícolas ven afectada su salud, su riqueza y sus medios de vida.(3) En 2023, un joven trabajador agrícola murió en el trabajo, de un golpe de calor fácilmente evitable, si las leyes estuvieran ahí para apoyar a los trabajadores, y no sólo a los beneficios empresariales. 

Dado que el acceso al agua, la sombra y los descansos es vital para la salud de los trabajadores agrícolas, la Asociación de Trabajadores Agrícolas de Florida, en colaboración con la Escuela de Enfermería de la Universidad Emori,(5) se ha propuesto la misión de educar a los trabajadores, supervisores y empleadores sobre cómo prevenir, reconocer y responder al estrés por calor en el trabajo, y evitar muertes. 

En este episodio, Letty Pineda, salvadoreña que trabajó en Florida como trabajadora agrícola durante 20 años, comparte su experiencia sobre los efectos de los pesticidas en la salud de los campesinos, y el aumento de las olas de calor de los últimos cinco años. Para ella, ambas cosas se hicieron insoportables. Hoy trabaja con familias de trabajadores agrícolas para la Asociación de Trabajadores Agrícolas, como organizadora del programa de Agroecología. En su nuevo puesto, Letty facilita oportunidades para que las familias de trabajadores agrícolas cultiven alimentos orgánicos en una parcela comunal, o Huerta comunitaria. Lo que crece en los campos pertenece a la empresa o al propietario de la tierra. En la Huerta, la gente es libre de recoger y disfrutar de lo que se planta y se cosecha. Como los propios trabajadores del campo eligen lo que se cultiva y participan en el mantenimiento de la huerta comunal, todo lo que crece tiene un valor cultural. 

Letty cree que la Creación está ahí para que la disfrutemos, y ha visto cómo la Tierra responde, dando y sanando, cuando la cuidamos bien.

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Gracias por su atención. Este podcast es parte de nuestra colección, Una transición climática apoyada por la fe: de las voces de mujeres islámicas e indígenas, editada por el Reva. Dra. Neddy Astudillo. Consulte esa colección para obtener más información. Visite nuestra lista de correo electrónico, podcasts y canal de YouTube para obtener más contenido. Regístrese para recibir nuestros correos electrónicos trimestrales aquí. 

In this podcast guest editor Yaira Robinson explores different ways shmita values are being put into action today. Naomi Edelson, senior director of Wildlife Partnerships at The National Wildlife Federation and Dr. Mirele Goldsmith, environmental psychologist and co-chair of Jewish Earth Alliance, tell us about their projects to restore wildlife on congregational grounds and advocate for a greener, more equal, local community.

About Our Guests
Naomi Edelson is the Senior Director of Wildlife Partnerships for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). In this role, she leads partnerships with state wildlife agencies and other state based partners to secure greater funding to prevent wildlife from becoming endangered, including legislative, communications, grassroots, and coalition building elements of the campaign. On the federal side this includes the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act campaign. Naomi has also developed a toolkit for wildlife leaders on “Strengthening State Wildlife Agencies” that includes securing state-level funding for wildlife with numerous tips, tools, and case studies. She also works with Gardening for Wildlife program to restore wildlife habitat where people live, work, learn, play, and worship, including creation of the Native Plant Finder and Sacred Grounds, a program for faith communities. Naomi is a wildlife biologist with a M.S. from the University of Florida where she studied wading birds and wetlands, and a B.S. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Dr. Mirele B. Goldsmith is an environmental psychologist, educator, and activist. She is an expert in how to change human behavior to solve environmental problems. As director of Hazon’s Jewish Greening Fellowship, she guided 55 community-based organizations to save energy, invest in renewables, implement sustainable operations and educate youths and adults. She co-founded Jewish Earth Alliance, a national network mobilizing Jews to raise a moral voice for action on climate change to the US Congress.

Naomi References 

• Dr. Doug Tallamy
• Dr. Tallamy’s native plant research (“super plants”)
• Dr. Doug Tallamy, “Bringing Nature Home”
• Plantings on sacred grounds 
• NWF.org/sacredgrounds
• NWF.org/gardenforwildlife
• NWF.org/nativeplantfinder
• NWF.org/nativeplants

Mirele References

• Jewish Community Relations Council 
• Jewish Earth Alliance
• Speak Truth to Power: A Guide for Congregations Taking Public Policy Positions 
• Thrive Plan 2050 (“Thrive 2050”)

Naomi Quotes

“Sacred Grounds” helps congregations green the outside of their grounds. Our effort is focused on what is outside your door and how can we make that more hospitable for both wildlife and people. 

We’re encouraging the replacement of lawns with native plants. The idea is to replace lawns with the plants that have co-evolved with wildlife, and when you plant them they provide food and cover and homes for wildlife. But at the same time, they help people because they’re actually changing how the water is on the land. 

The basic program is to green some of your grounds, and it can be a very small area. Engage your congregation members. Then also reaching beyond your congregation and being leaders within the community, and getting neighbors and other congregations and other institutions in your community to do this. We’re really working to create a movement with congregations being at the center of it. 

We want to create, even in urban and suburban areas, biologically-important areas. 

We don’t have to just do it on our public lands. We have to help by doing it where we live, work, play, and worship. And we can make a huge difference by, all of us together, putting in these native plants. 

Saving wildlife saves us. 

It’s a simple food web story that most of learned going to school. And we, in our own yards and at our congregation grounds, can help support that and really make sure our landscapes are Life-sustaining. 

It’s very exciting and it’s very fun. 

It gave people a way to plant with purpose. Not just to plant something that’s beautiful, but to plant something that really matters for people and wildlife. 

The most essential ingredient is getting a green team going.

You could do something for even a few hundred dollars to start, and you’ll have to take out some lawn. But luckily, what’s beginning to happen is, some local governments are offering incentives for this. My county offers congregations up to $20,000 to put in features that will slow the flow. They also offer up to $7,000 for homes to put in native plant gardens. 

There’s a huge problem with storm run off and it’s getting worse, and so I do think is something that is going to happen more. 

(Some) towns have very updated ordinances around what a yard should look like. And so National Wildlife Foundation have actually created a tool kit to advocate for changing ordinances at the local level so you can change that. 

All religions have a concept of “caring for creation.” They may or may not use that exact language. But it is that idea that we’re part of this beautiful world, and we have responsibilities to help it continue, and that we’re totally interconnected and that saving wildlife saves us, and we really need that in this time, and it’s a fun way, positive, very significant way to make a difference in the world a Jew would call, “Tikkun Olam,” repairing the world. 

And most religions also talk about caring for neighbors and this is a way we can do that. . . by putting in these native plants. 

Mirele Quotes

Congregations are tax exempt organizations, but yes congregations can lobby on legislative issues and policy matters… according go the IRS they’re allowed to engage in lobbying as long as they’re an insubstantial part of their activities. The only thing they’re not allowed to do is engage in political campaigns. 

Lobbying is to be encouraged. . . We like to say that people of faith walk in a different door than other advocates and may get a little more of an attentive hearing because of that. . . We can really make a difference. 

In our congregation and particularly our climate action team we were thinking about, “what would be an appropriate project for us to get inv...

About Christina

Christina Conklin is an artist, researcher and writer. As a former religious studies major, she spends a lot of time exploring the intersections of belief systems and natural systems. She shares deep insights, stunning artworks, and terrifying research from her latest book, The Atlas of Disappearing Places.

Show Notes

1. At the very end of this podcast, AllCreation producer Chris Searles jumps in with a final question for Christina. 
2. Click here to see the video of Christina's presentation, including the slides she shares from 12:00-38:00.

References

• Deep Time
• Stephen Jay Gould
• The Life Timeline
• Deep Ecology
• Arne Naess
• Deep Adaptation
• The Atlas of Disappearing Places (book)
• Jeremy Lent
• The Deep Transformation Network 
• Deep Adaptation Network 
• Global Colab
• Transition Towns
• Breakthrough Communities

Program

0:00 Welcome & Intro

TERMS

1:40 What do “Deep Ecology, Deep Adaptation, and Deep Time” mean?

THE OCEAN

5:10 What important roles does the ocean play and how is everyone on Earth connected to it?

8:30 What are some parallels between the Oceans, bodies of water, and our own bodies — also bodies of water

CHRISTINA’S SLIDE PRESENTATION 

12:00 “THE ATLAS OF DISAPPEARING PLACES: OUR COAST AND OCEANS IN THE CLIMATE CRISIS"
To see the video or this presentation go here (link coming later today).

FOLLOW UP 

36:00 If the ocean were a body, how sick would it be?

38:45 How optimistic are you we can make the changes we need to?

CHRISTINA’S ARTWORK

44:00 It’s stunningly beautiful, tell us more 

DEEP TRANSFORMATION

46:00 What are your hopes from participating in the Deep Transformation Network?

48:30 (An interruption from producer Chris) How does the metaphor of “restoring connective tissue” relate to your ecological work and understanding?

52:00 Wrap Up

Quotes

We’re used to thinking in terms of decades and centuries, but really we’re on this much bigger timeline of Life, and I like locating myself on that timeline, it’s more grounding to me. Seeing the continuity between humans and other species, AlLL the way back into the algae, right? Let’s go ALL the way back and see the continuity.

We’re pretty sick and headed toward the hospital.

So much of what needs to happen is a paradigm shift where we re-member, Re-Member, like “belong again to the world,” and stop the idea of extraction, mastery of resources… All of these ideas came from a specific place and time in history. They have not always existed. It is not necessarily capital T, truth, in any sense.

Every religion in the world has pointed to humanity’s role as stewards of nature, as parts OF the natural order.

In much of the Developing World this is real right now.

The planetary systems are remarkably resilient. if you just leave them alone for a little while, they will find their homeostatic place again. We saw that with Covid. So, we really do have the opportunity to write new stories.

I think it’s about everybody waking up and doing everything they can. It’s now. Now is the time.

Thanks for listening.
This podcast is 1 of 4 keynotes from our Summer Solstice
2022 collection, "Restoring Connective Tissue." It was produced 
and edited by Chris Searles. 

Janene Yazzie is a Diné Asa Navajo woman from the Navajo Nation. She is a community organizer and human rights advocate who has worked on development and energy issues with Indigenous communities across the United States for over 12 years. In part one of this interview she talks about her background and identity, steps for personal and societal transformation, and how to stay "in a good way." Janene is interviewed by Vance Blackfox for AllCreation's Fall 2021 collection exploring the Native American sense of "Sacred Relationship" with Earth's other living creatures. 

About Janene
Among her many accomplishments, Janene Yazzie is co-founder/CEO of Sixth-World Solutions and a co-convener of the Indigenous Peoples Major Group to the United Nations High Level Political Forum on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, where she works on climate change, water security, food security, energy development, and nation building. She is also a program manager for the International Indian Treaty Council and a co-founder of the Navajo Nation Little Colorado River Watershed Chapters Association, where her work ranges from infrastructure policy-making to restoration and protection of traditional ecological knowledge. To learn more about Janene, visit Sixth-World Solutions.

References 

Philmer Bluehouse (in memoriam)

• "Our objective is harmony"
• On Navajo peacemaking

Selected Quotes

“As much as I'm seeing the non-Indigenous world really get overwhelmed and experience new things like climate grief — what we’re seeing as Indigenous Peoples are all the necessary signs that are telling us, “A new way is coming. A new way is possible.” And it is our responsibility to rise to that occasion and recognize those signs and dig deeper within ourselves to create those pathways that are needed to change the direction and course of our future by restoring our relationship with all of life on this planet.”

“Where do the stars know your name? Where is that place, that moment where you have that first memory of looking up to the stars and recognizing that you’re this speck in the universe. Where is that experience rooted? And how can you use that to reclaim your connection as a human being living on this Earth, tied to an interdependent and interconnected relationship to everything from the stars in our universe to the soils under your feet."

"ALL of our places need to be protected. We need relatives that are willing and able to stand in defense of all sacred life and do it in a way that is meaningful, in a way that is authentic and genuine to their real histories, to where they’re connected, to where they come from."

“When you don’t understand the histories of where (our) practices come from, then you’re not honoring them the way you think you are."

“If we’re not able to tap into something deeper, into a deeper connection and a deeper imagination based on where we’re connected to, to place, then we’re gonna continue to be limited in our solutions and our understanding by that dominance worldview.”

"That’s part of the beauty of it: It’s not a quick fix. We can be patient with ourselves. We each have a responsibility to take on that journey, to take on that path of self-discovery. And when we do that and we invest in right relationship with those around us and with other forms of sacred life, non-human life, that’s how we win.”

“Not only do we inherit the resiliency of our ancestors, we inherit their tremendous love and their tremendous power of believing and hoping for a different way, a different future, different outcomes.”

“We’re not here to save the Earth. We’re here to re-establish and remember our deep connection to our Mother and what a gift that is. But, we’re actually here to really grow and evolve as a species and to remember and restore our connection to each other, and to rebuild our own ecosystem -- the ecosystem that sustains us as human communities so that it’s back in balance with the natural ecosystems that exist around us. And we’re perfectly capable of doing that. For everything we have done wrong, we are capable of creating a solution to heal that, to address it, to take responsibility for it and to create a new way. And that’s what gives me hope and that’s what keeps driving me.”

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Listen to Part 2 of Janene's interview here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/b0803102.

Amber Morning Star Byars is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and a descendant of the Chickasaw Nation. In this podcast Amber reads her reflections from the Line3 pipeline resistance at Red Lake River in Northern Minnesota. View Amber's article on AllCreation.org to see a photo gallery from the resistance effort and read the text in this recording. This piece is part of AllCreation's Fall Equinox 2021 collection, Sacred Relationship, exploring the Native American sense of sacred relationship with Earth’s other living creatures. The photo here (by Amber) shows Red Lake River, one of just 15 rivers in the world that flows north. Red Lake River, the homelands of the Anishinaabe, and the Mississippi River are currently threatened by the Line3 tar sands pipeline replacement project.

Visit StopLine3 to help support the resistance.

About Amber
Amber Morning Star Byars has a BA in Indigenous Liberal Studies and an AFA in Studio Art from the Institute of American Indian Arts. She will graduate from the University of Arizona College of Law in 2022. 

Selected Quotes

"This article is dedicated to all the brave land defenders and water protectors holding space on frontlines around the world. May the Ancestors bless and hold you."

"Line 3 is an oil pipeline expansion constructed by Enbridge, a corporate pipeline giant responsible for the largest inland oil spill in the United States. Enbridge proposed this pipeline to carry almost a million barrels of tar sands oil per day from Canada to Wisconsin, crossing under the headwaters of the Mississippi and endangering the wild rice beds of the Anishinaabe, a violation of Anishinaabe treaty rights."

"To come to the frontlines, I left behind my elderly mother whom I care for, my animals, my work as a full-time law student, and my job as a legal research assistant. Like many others, I dropped everything."

"Yesterday morning I watched as a bald eagle circled over the river, diving to catch a fish."

"I am constantly reminded that in this place and all places, I am not separate from nature. I am the Earth, and the Earth is me. Camp is a reminder of the way we should all be living. We are not meant to sit in an office eight hours a day, staring at a screen... We should be out on the river and sleeping on the earth. We should be working with the land, preparing food for one another, telling stories, and singing songs around a fire. White culture would have us embarrassed at this notion... But I don’t care because to me, it’s the only real way to live. The rivers, lakes, land, animals, plants, stars, wind, and rain are all very real to me... All the best teachers exist in the natural realm."

"To restore balance, we must remember that we are the river... We are all related."

Hello! Welcome to "From Tsunamis and climate change, towards a Green Reconstruction for Forests and People -- Lessons from an Islamic spiritual journey" our conversation with Nana Firman from COP28 in Dubai.

Nana Firman is an Islamic climate activist and faith leader from Indonesia with an extensive background partnering with many of the world's most important climate initiatives. In this interview Nana shares with eco-theologian, and host, Rev. Dr. Neddy Astudillo, about her spiritual journey.

Here is a synopsis from, Rev. Dr. Astudillo:

While attending Climate Change negotiations in Dubai (COP28, the United Nations annual climate conference, 2023) Nana shares her very unique spiritual and ecological journey as a Muslim woman. After the destructive Tsunami of 2004, which affected her homeland, Indonesia, and many other island countries, Nana was summoned by World Wildlife Fund to support green reconstruction efforts in Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country.

It wasn’t until she was encouraged to discover and engage in the reconstruction efforts, the ecological tenants of her Islamic faith, and work with local religious leaders, that she began to be heard. She was able to mobilize many -- to protect remaining forests and replant affected mangrove coastal areas, even in the midst of loss and human suffering.

In this podcast Nana shares about her journey, the lessons learned, and her faith, which together led her all the way to starting new movements and serving as co-director of the Islamic Society of North American’s Green Initiative. She also shares what is happening with the forests in Sumatra today.

For a further look into Islamic teachings to save Creation, we recommend Nana’s article: “Enjoying Good and Forbidding Wrong”; where she elaborates how Islam can be an enormous source of cultural, moral and political influence for Creation Care. 

Thank you, Nana!

• Nana Firman is founder of Eco-Fab Living and initiator of the Eco-Hijrah Movement. She is a senior ambassador of GreenFaith’s, an interfaith coalition for the environment and a student of Bayan Islamic Graduate School. Originally from Indonesia, Firman now lives in California. 

• Neddy Astudillo is a Presbyterian pastor with a PhD in Greening the Church, coordinator of the Climate Justice and Faith Spanish program at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, and more. Rev. Astudillo teaches internationally and in the USA, is published widely, and is a co-author of the National Council of Churches declaration and book, God’s Earth is Sacred: Essays on Eco-Justice. 

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• Nana's article: "Enjoying Good and Forbidding Wrong"
• Artículo de Nana: "Disfrutar del bien y prohibir el mal"

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Learn More

• Where is: Indonesia
• World Wildlife Fund green reconstruction 
• Islamic Society of North America
• Islamic Society of North America’s Green Initiative

Rev. Jared Michaels is a Zen Buddhist priest, therapist, activist, and family man. In this conversation we discuss "Interconnectedness" and Buddhism, psychological health, sacredness, and child rearing. Jared finishes the episode by leading a meditation on Interconnectedness. Don't miss. Visit JaredMichaels.com for more on Jared's breakthrough work.

From AllCreation's Spring 2022 edition, "Dominionism: Exploring religious relationships with other life." Guest editor, Rev. Dr. Dan De Leon, interviews Rabbi Matt Rosenberg on the Jewish, religious meaning of "dominion" and "dominionism," which appear in the Jewish and Christian Bibles. 

"And God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.'" (Genesis 1:26)

About Matt
Rabbi Matt Rosenberg began his tenure as the executive director of the Albert Einstein Residence Center, Sacramento’s senior Jewish housing community, in January 2021. A California native, Matt earned his undergraduate degree in geography from UC Davis, earned his masters degree in rabbinic studies from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, and a masters degree in geography from CSU Northridge. He spent 18 years operating the ThoughtCo.com website, is  author of two books on geography, and currently lectures in geography at Sacramento State University.

Program

• 00:00 Welcome
• 01:25 Self intro
• 02:45 Is there an environmental ethic in Judaism & what does that look like?
• 05:15 Expansions on: "Helping the Earth be all that God dreams of it to be.” Anthropocentrism means humans can take whatever we want. Is there an anti-Anthropocentricism? Is there an interpretation of Dominionism that is not so narcissistic as today’s?
• 08:00 Are you a vegetarian? To what extent is that rooted in your faith?
• 08:45 Did you grow up looking at the environment through the lease of the Creation stories, as “God made this?”, or as something that could be compartmentalized?
• 10:22 Being reminded of our “creaturely identity” comes from being in Nature. 
• 14:40 In Deuteronomy 20:19. I can hear, “Trees are better than you”, how does this ethic expand? 
• 16:30 Would an understanding of Tu-B’shivat now look at the Earth and feel that we’re doing enough? 
• 19:00 In the last 5% of human history, fundamentally, what changed? Why did we go from such a long history of belonging and relationship with the Creation to this? 
• 22:00 “Metanoia” means a change of heart, a change or direction based on a change of perspective. How we see the world is directly going to effect how we treat it. Has your environmental view always been a part of your Judaism or more of a metanoia over time where you’ve been able to incorporate it as a piece of your Judaism? 
• 25:00 What gives you hope? 

Quotes

God created the universe and therefore has complete ownership over all creation, and humans are God’s partners in bettering Creation.

Religious traditions are human-focused—they’re not for the whales and the dolphins, but it’s our job, according to my understanding, to maintain the basic balance to this order of Creation.

Yes, the mitzvah (the commandment) to not destroy, comes from Deuteronomy 20, which says you can eat of the fruit trees but you cannot cut them down. Trees are people, too, and we should prevent all unnecessary destruction.

We have this concept of “All the more so” … If you cannot cut down trees in wartime, all the more so should you not cut down trees when it’s not war.

We can absolutely do better. There’s no greater crisis right now, and we should be observing Tu BiShvat everyday; we’re on this path of destruction of humanity. The Earth will survive for billions more years and I think God has put us on this Earth to find this balance, to find a role where we can use the Earth’s resources and not abuse the Earth’s resources. There’ve been humans on Earth for 200,000 years. We’ve only recently disrupted the balance.

We have but a few years to figure out where we’re going to go from here and how we’re going to protect our planet for our children and our children’s children, truly.

My hope comes from that fact that humans are creative and we can come up with solutions, and there are answers to climate change and the problems we see on our planet, and I have faith that my children’s generation and their children’s generation will do better. I see this long arc towards the betterment of the world.

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Thanks for listening.
This podcast is part of our Spring 2022 series, Dominionism.
Visit the AllCreation podcast site or AllCreation.org for more.
Produced and edited by Chris Searles.
See the whole "Dominionism" collection here.