Emergence Magazine Podcast

Throughout the ages, many cultures have understood the importance of walking as a vehicle of transformation. Pilgrims journey in a state of reflection and prayer, often experiencing a profound sense of embodied devotion. This episode of our Remembering Earth practice series engages you in the awareness of breath and love as you walk. One doesn’t need to travel across vast lands to tune in to the ancient rhythm of the Earth. All that is needed is an intentionality as we place one foot in front of the other, conscious of what we step upon. Discover Remembering Earth: A Spiritual Ecology

Our series of Remembering Earth audio practices begins with an episode all about breath. We share breath with plants, trees, oceans, and animals. It is the great connector, bringing us into a cycle of reciprocity with the more-than-human world. Across spiritual traditions, breath practices are often seen as a technology that bridges spirit and matter, helping us move beyond the mind into a more porous state of being. In three practices that build upon one another—Awareness of the Moment, Breathing from Our Essence, and Shared Breath—attend to one of our most simple exchanges with the Earth. Discover Remembering Earth: A Spiritual Ecology.

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