Podcast

In this narrated essay, author Lacy M. Johnson reflects on what can be rebuilt and what must be mourned as our environments shift, fracture, and sometimes disappear. Walking through a wetlands that was once an upscale neighborhood in Houston, Lacy comes into contact with a landscape transformed by oil extraction and subsidence—one haunted by cycles of destruction. Feeling for the edge of change, she examines the value of restoration in the aftermath of disaster, and considers what futures could emerge, what places would survive, if we didn’t simply repair what is broken but adapted to what lies ahead.

Photo by Linda Murdock

In this narrated essay from our archive, Nigerian writer Bayo Akomolafe deconstructs old stories of colorism and puts forward “monstrosity”—that which upends the familiar, that which challenges and resists the order of things—as a site to truly meet ourselves. He presents race as emergent and dynamic, and identity as unwieldy, deeply composite, and intertwined with the living world. As the Anthropocene lays bare the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life, and dispels boundaries between human and nonhuman, Bayo invites us to disturb, rethink, and remake how we construct identity and race.

Illustration by Jia Sung

One year has passed since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The conflict has unleashed unspeakable violence, killing hundreds of thousands of people, displacing millions from their homes, and inflicting untold suffering. And the war’s impact on Ukraine’s more-than-human life is just as unfathomable and long-lasting. In the face of such impossible reckoning, author Anna Badkhen brings together a compilation of vignettes by journalists, poets, and environmentalists in close proximity to the war. From the radioactive Red Forest of Chernobyl’s Nuclear Exclusion Zone, to the liberated but heavily-mined Izium and the fragile ecosystems of the Ukrainian steppes, “The Fallout”’ coalesces into what Anna calls “a schrapneled bearing in time” and makes visible a landscape fractured, disoriented, and deeply harmed.

© Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum Photos

In this essay, author Lucy Jones brims with awe upon discovering slime molds in the woods near her home. As she is increasingly drawn down to the forest floor and into their world of nonconformity, she explores what might happen if, rather than trying to decipher such creatures, we instead bask in the wonder of their obscurity. Lucy is a journalist and author living in England, whose books include Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild.

Photo by Barry Webb

In this immersive listening journey from our archive, acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton guides us into the Hoh Rain Forest—one of the quietest places in North America. In a world drowned out by the din of modern life, Hempton offers a way to attune our ears to the sounds that emerge in the absence of noise and reconnect with the silence of the living world.

David Hinton is a poet, translator, and author whose works are informed by ancient Chinese philosophy and deep ecological thought. In this interview, David discusses his latest book Wild Mind, Wild Earth, which looks to ancient modes of seeing and being as a way to ground the modern environmental movement. Advocating for a return to a deep kinship between humans and the Earth, David speaks about how reweaving consciousness and landscape might help us navigate the sixth extinction with an ethics tempered by love.

Photo by Phil Dera

This week we revisit our conversation with Richard Powers, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Overstory, a story that reweaves the fabric of our reality by entangling us within “plant consciousness.” Richard discusses the kind of storytelling that acknowledges the reciprocal, communal existence of all living things, how life-changing these stories can be, and how they might help shape our response to the ecological crisis.

Photo by Dean Dixon

This week we’re re-sharing our interview with Irish teenage author, naturalist, and conservationist Dara McAnulty. His debut book, Diary of a Young Naturalist—which he wrote at the age of fourteen, and which is in part an intimate portrait of his love of the living world and his distress at its destruction—is a testament to the power and importance of joy, a joy that encircles his relationship with nature. In a world where many are incentivized to act out of fear, Dara’s instinct to wonder at all that unfolds around him feels regenerative—a return to the essence of our connection with the living Earth.

In this conversation we spoke about the importance of approaching living in an era of crisis from a place grounded in joy, and his realization that writing, music, and art can be activism.

Photo by Kate Peters

Jamie Figueroa is Boricua (Afro-Taíno) by way of Ohio and a long-time resident of northern New Mexico. She is the author of the novel Brother, Sister, Mother, Explorer. In this narrated essay, Jamie considers the kind of world she wants to inhabit and the stories that will make it so. Confronted with narratives of catastrophe and colonialism that restrict her spirit, she summons the imagination, sovereignty, and courage needed to restory herself and rebirth the world.

Illustration by Tara Anand

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh died nearly one year ago, on January 22, 2022. To honor his passing, we are re-sharing his “Ten Love Letters to the Earth,” a series of meditations that engage us in intimate conversation with our Earth. As we now approach the one-year anniversary of his death, we offer these recitations in remembrance.

Image Credit: NASA

In this talk given at St. Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in London, Sufi teacher and Emergence Executive Editor Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee speaks about what it looks like to live in an unfolding apocalyptic reality and the creative possibilities that are waiting to be embodied. In this time of deep uncertainty, he reminds us of the ancient, primordial covenant of relationship with the living world that can give us a ground to stand on, and the sacred nature of creation that is always there, waiting for us to return to it.

As we come to the end of Living with the Unknown, we begin again at the beginning. For the final story of our third volume, we journey into the fictional, post-apocalyptic landscape of acclaimed Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri. In this short story, superbly narrated by British actor Colin Salmon, a man and a woman inhabit a world abandoned by humans, grappling with what is at stake in beginning a new civilization.

Emergence Magazine, Vol 3: Living with the Unknown explores what living in an apocalyptic reality looks like through four themes: Initiation, Ashes, Roots, and Futures. Experience “Chapter Four: Futures.”

Artwork by Studio Airport