Emergence Magazine Podcast

How might our decision-making systems work differently if they were adapted to receive input from the more-than-human world? In this archive story, writer and ethicist Melanie Challenger examines the staggering expressive capacities of Earth's creatures, from the subtle vocalizations of turtles to the freckling of Humboldt squid. She urges us to act less as intermediaries and more as deep listeners to the voices around us. Pushing the idea further, she asks how we can expand our democratic processes to make room for the lives and interests of our animal kin.Read the essay. Photo by Annie Marie Musselman

Depicting a distant age in which river guardians, mothmen, and condor trackers strive to protect a dying world, novelist Lydia Millet asks whether we can navigate species loss not through visions of saviors, but through patient devotion to what might yet emerge through care. Amid extreme temperatures and invasive insects, this short story follows a team of caretakers who track, feed, and hatch the clutches of “the old ones”—ancient desert tortoises nearing extinction.Read the story.Discover our latest print edition, Volume 6: Seasons.Credit: Daniel Farò / Connected Archives

In this week’s story, biologist Brian Isett ponders the age-old question his young daughter will inevitably ask — Where did the Moon come from? — and uncovers how the Earth got Her seasonal song. He introduces us to Theia, the proto-planet that came crashing into the surface of our infant planet four and a half billion years ago, tilting the Earth on Her axis and birthing the Moon. This meeting ultimately shaped the passing of time, the movement of tides, and the cycle of the seasons as we have known them. With the seasons now changing in response to our neglect of the Earth, Theia offers a reminder that these rhythms have always evolved through relationship. Read the essay. Discover our latest print edition, Volume 6: Seasons. Image: Earth’s reflection on the Moon / NASA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How might our understanding of plants transform if it embraced the voices of plants themselves? In this conversation, research scientist Monica Gagliano speaks about her groundbreaking research on plant communication and cognition, informed by knowledge imparted by plants through visions, dreams, and sensations. Sharing stories of how her remarkable experiments have evolved alongside a relationship of reciprocity and trust with the plants she studies, Monica offers a model for how we can radically bridge the rigor of Western scientific methodology with the deeply human and spiritual act of listening to plants. Read the transcript. Photo by Andrea Pellerani. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earlier this year, the remarkable eco-philosopher Joanna Macy passed away at age ninety-six. Among her many gifts, she was a seminal translator of the great twentieth-century poet Rainer Maria Rilke. In our final episode of the year, we return to a selection of translations of Rilke from The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, by Joanna and award-winning poet Anita Barrows, that speak to the beauty and mystery present in worlds both seen and unseen, the unknowability of the Divine, and the union of nature and the transcendent. We share them this holiday period in the hope they nourish heart and spirit, inviting reflection on all that is given and all that fades away. Cover artwork by Claire Collette. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices