Turning Season: Conversations with Changemakers in Our Adventure Toward a Life-Sustaining Society

News roundup of evidence of The Great Turning, for this month's New Moon:

• The Mother Tree project in British Columbia
• Tribes and Natures Defenders in the Philippines
• and Indigenous leadership on climate change in the Arctic (Native Movement, Indigenous Climate Action, Native Conservancy, as shared recently by Bioneers)

Turning Season Podcast is your regular dose of active hope, here with news and deep conversations with people following the thread of their own storyline in this adventure we're all weaving toward a life-honoring, life-sustaining way of being human in Earth. 

This show is for every one of you who's awake to our multiple crises, feels your love for the web of life, and is finding your way to participate in cultivating ways of living that we can believe in, making a life-honoring present, even in the face of an uncertain future. 

This New Moon episode is a very quick one. Since July of last year, on New Moons, I've been releasing short 10-15 minute episodes sharing news from each dimension of the great turning: Holding Actions; Life-Sustaining Systems; and Shifts in Consciousness.

I'm really enjoying gathering up all this evidence of the Great Turning in action. 

And I'm going to keep doing that. But after this one, I'll be sharing that on the New Moons by email newsletter. For the podcast, I'm returning to releasing only the deep conversation episodes, every Full Moon, where we get to really understand the work someone is doing in the world, plus what's happening in their mind and heart around the Great Turning and their personal role in it. 

This decision basically comes down to my own personal sustainability. I love this podcast. I love connecting with all of you listening. And I love all the other things I'm doing. Mothering is at the top of that list, and I'm running a fuller acupuncture and dreamwork practice than I did in the past, and now working with the School for the Great Turning to support all the incredible online and in-person programming provided there.

All while I also want to make more, not less, time and space for all the fun and the challenges of my family, community, and bioregion. 

So that's the plan: New Moon newsletter, Full Moon episodes. The newsletter will include a roundup of Great Turning news, along with links to other things I've come across that month that I've found heartening or inspiring, or have made me ask new questions, plus maybe a meme or two that made me cry-laugh.

Click Play to listen, and subscribe to the newsletter at turningseason.com,

Come back for the upcoming Full Moon episodes with guests from Brazil, Utah, and India. So excited to share these with you.

Thanks for being here, and for all the ways you play your part.

Show notes: turningseason.com/episode30

Music by East Forest.

I guess I was believing some "bright green fairytales" myself - because the truths in Bright Green Lies burst a few bubbles in my mind. In a tiny nutshell: Solar, wind, hydro, and recycling do worse than not solve our problems. They continue the harms of industrial society, and divert the attention of people who want to address our ecological crisis away from what matters most.

This book intensified some of my biggest personal questions, especially about relinquishment, and my ongoing participation in destructive ways of life.

So I was prepared to feel the weight of all this when I spoke with Max Wilbert, one of the co-authors of Bright Green Lies.

Instead, I felt lighter. I felt heartened. I felt grateful. Once again, I am reminded, there's nothing like connecting with someone who's bringing their whole mind, heart, and activist body to The Great Turning. Max is a community organizer, writer, photographer, and wilderness guide, living in rural Oregon with his family. He has been part of grassroots political work for 20 years.

He dove right in with me to: 

• what he loves about being alive
• what's breaking his heart
• his take on the "Business as Usual" story, emphasizing the short-term advantages gained by those who are willing to desecrate the living Earth and oppress other people
• his background in labor activism, and how we've come further now than simply wanting more just distribution of industrial measures of economic wealth
• the cautionary tale of the insatiable spirit of Wetiko, or Windigo (as described in the books Columbus and Other Cannibals, and Braiding Sweetgrass, among others), and the possibility of co-creating different culture by telling different stories
• how it's not that easy or obvious to relinquish the ecocidal aspects of the lifestyles we currently enjoy - and how social change has always been messy
• the campaign to protect the Nevada area known in English as Thacker Pass, and in Paiute as Peehee Mu’huh, from becoming an open pit lithium mine
• looking around wherever you are to find something worth fighting for
• and a future we can't imagine yet, knowing we can be creative about how we transform.

I have so much appreciation for the work Max is doing in the world, and deep gratitude for this wide-ranging conversation. Hit Play now, and after you listen, come to the show notes for links to the books we mention, more about protecting Thacker Pass / Peehee Mu'huh, and great resources from Max.

Let's carry the weight together, and keep enacting our active hope.

Show notes: turningseason.com/episode29

Here at the new beginning marked by the Lunar New Year, come back with me to the beginning of Turning Season Podcast, for what is still one of my favorite conversations yet, with dreamworker, beekeeper, and new mother, Ariella Daly.

A warm hello to all of you who've started listening since this show was born. I know not everyone has gone back to Episode 1 - so please join me in enjoying this rich conversation. If you've heard it before, listen again and let me know what strikes you this time!

We can each be guided by what we love, and by what breaks our hearts. Ariella Daly's heart is with the bees.

If you've listened to The Dreamers' Den series, you heard Ariella in Episode 31, speaking about dream mirroring, bee shamanism, and the dreamweave of the earth.

She joined me again in Autumn 2021 to kick off Turning Season Podcast, opening her heart about how she relates to this time of ecological crisis and possibility, humans as a part of nature, and teaching natural beekeeping.

Click Play to hear us talk about:

• the 3 stories of our time -- Business as Usual, The Great Unravelling, and The Great Turning -- and how these three stories are playing out for bees, and for beekeepers.
• the differences between conventional beekeeping, natural beekeeping, and other ways of being with the bees
• the "alarm bell" bees have been ringing, with their deaths and "colony collapse," and what we can do
• bees on almond trees and bees on city rooftops
• what it feels like to bring a child into the world while feeling great love for life on Earth, and going through times of ecological apathy and dread
• and looking through multiple lenses to realize there are no simple answers, so we focus less on policing each other or exiting a destructive system, and more on nourishing new ways of life

You'll hear the voice of Ariella's baby, too (6 months old at the time of this conversation), and hear her get distracted by the beauty of leaves outside the window. I love those moments, because no matter what else we're focused on, parenthood and trees in the wind are present too, all the time.

Subscribe to Turning Season Podcast to get every dose of active hope. Returning to this conversation now in February 2023, I'm thrilled by how this expanded podcast has grown and is fulfilling the original vision: bringing you into conversation with healers, changemakers, visionaries, wisdom-keepers, and all kinds of people doing the on-the-ground work of The Great Turning.

Show notes and resources: turningseason.com/episode28

Music by East Forest

Which is easier to feel in your own mind and body: 

The sense of living in The Great Turning (aka, our transition toward a life-sustaining way of being human on earth), or the feeling of "Business as Usual," a way of being human that values being productive, consuming, succeeding, and never feeling like you've done enough or have enough?

My guest in today's Full Moon episode, Nisha Mody, explores with me how these different stories live in our bodies and minds, and play out in our lives. She brings her experience as a feminist healing coach, writer and speaker. 

In her work, Nisha explores the intersection of anti-oppression, intergenerational healing and relationship. She helps people sit with their feelings, claim their agency, and relate to the world with care.

Click Play now to hear us talk about:

• relational vs. transactional connections (with other people, our own bodies, the Earth) 
• some of the mindsets and the medicines her parents brought with them when they immigrated from India
• feeling like a failure, and mixing up your "work" with your "worth"
• your healing story as a massive, epic love story...
• ...and how that doesn't mean it only includes loving, loveable moments; just like The Great Turning, which is an adventure story, full of positive change but also peril and heartbreak

and lots more. 

I have very much enjoyed getting to know Nisha over the last year and a half or so. I find her writing and coaching to be such a heartening example of The Great Turning taking place within someone in their own unique way. 

I especially appreciate that even though she doesn't present her work as being particularly about ecology, or Nature, or Earth-connection, she brings her own connection with the Earth to her work, and supports clients in tending to theirs.

Of course, I celebrate each and every one of us who does describe our work in terms of ecology and Earth-love - but I am also excited to see this sense of interconnection and reciprocity with the rest of the living Earth woven into all kinds of work and ways of life. 

And bonus: In one of Nisha's former careers, she was a librarian, so she has great book recommendations. You can find the books she mentioned in our conversation and others she recommends in the show notes at turningseason.com/episode27.

You'll also find links there to Nisha's website and Instagram.

If you're listening to this episode close to the date it comes out, you still have time to sign up for a free online workshop I'm hosting on Tuesday, January 10th called:

Keep it Moving: Practical Wisdom from Chinese Medicine and Deep Ecology about your Emotions, Your Health, and the State of our World. 

Come to turningseason.com/moving to sign up to attend live, or get access to the recording. 

I'll share with you a Chinese Medicine-inspired way of looking at stress and stress relief that might be new to you, explain how different emotions affect the body differently, and how our physical health also affects our emotions, plus teach you a couple of practical techniques from self-acupressure massage and qigong for moving the stagnation caused by emotional stress.

We'll also do a little bit of the Work that Reconnects and explore how Joanna Macy and a Deep Ecology perspective teach us how our emotions about what's happening in the world can help us serve and make change - how our human emotions might be a crucial way that life on earth sustains itself. 

Sign up at turningseason.com/moving to attend live or have access to the recording.

Turning Season Podcast is here to bring you regular doses of Active Hope, through news and deep conversations about our adventure toward a life-honoring, life-sustaining way of being human on Earth. This show is for every one of you who's awake to our multiple crises, feels your love for life on Earth, and chooses to participate in cultivating ways of life we can believe in, making a life honoring, present, even in the face of an uncertain future. 

Hosted by me, Leilani Navar. I facilitate the Work that Reconnects, I practice acupuncture and dreamwork, and I believe in the power of conversation. This podcast is one way The Great Turning happens through me. Thank you for being here. 

Show notes: turningseason.com/episode27

Click Play for 13 minutes of Active Hope to hearten you today, in the latest news episode of Turning Season Podcast. Hear about:

• the work of a young refugee in Uganda named Irenge Mudekuza Gloire, founder of Plethora Social Initiative, teaching permaculture and regenerative agriculture to fellow refugees and host communities
• Fossil Free Research campaigns to get universities to break ties with oil and gas companies - and never let them fund research on climate, energy, or environmental studies
• and the Declaration of Revolutionary Love, written by civil rights leader and visionary Valarie Kaur

Turning Season Podcast is here to bring you news and deep conversations about our adventure toward a life-honoring, life-sustaining way of being human on Earth. This show is for every one of you who's awake to our multiple crises, feels your love for life on Earth, and chooses to participate in cultivating ways of life we can believe in, making a life-honoring present even in the face of an uncertain future.

Hosted by Leilani Navar, acupuncturist, dreamworker, and facilitator of the Work that Reconnects.

Free workshop January 10: Keeping it Moving: Practical Wisdom from Chinese Medicine and Deep Ecology on Your Emotions, Your Health, and the State of Our World

Show notes: turningseason.com/episode26

It can be hard enough to find your "purpose" in the best of times - and it's a whole other level of challenging when you're reckoning with the prospect of ecological and societal breakdown. My interviewee for this Full Moon episode, Gwyneth Jones, describes herself as a "Deep Adaptation Coach," serving as a life coach for people who are aware of our collective predicament.

She's rising to her role in the Great Turning also as a writer, a gardener, a teacher of her native language, Welsh, and a connector, having one-on-one conversations with people around the world in her interview series, "The Story Anew."

Click Play to enjoy Gwyneth's company with me and hear us talk about:

• what "Deep Adaptation" is, and the 4 R's of Resilience, Relinquishment, Restoration, and Reconciliation
• the stories we tell about what's happening in our world right now 
• shifts in consciousness Gwyneth has noticed at home in Wales, and in conversations with people from the Philippines to the Democratic Republic of the Congo
• helping people tap into a feeling of calling, duty or mission (and how it's more than okay to have more than one, and have your work be hard to describe!)
• and teaching the Welsh language in connection with decolonization, as people reconnect with nature-loving ancestral cultures in the British Isles.

I read the "Deep Adaptation" paper myself for the first time early this year, and it's had a profound effect on me. Gwyneth is someone who has integrated these considerations into her personal and professional life, and she remains so full of vitality and love. I'm very happy to be connected with her as we all meet these times together. Enjoy the conversation.

Thanks for listening to Turning Season Podcast, your regular dose of Active Hope in the Great Turning, bringing you news and deep conversations about our adventure toward a life-honoring, life-sustaining way of being human on earth. This show is for every one of you who's awake to our multiple crises, feels your love for life on Earth, and chooses to participate in cultivating ways of life we can believe in, making a life-honoring present, even in the face of an uncertain future. 

Hosted by Leilani Navar, a facilitator of the Work that Reconnects, an acupuncturist and dreamworker, and a believer in the power of conversation.

Show notes with links to connect with Gwyneth, hear the TED Talk she mentions, and learn more about Deep Adaptation and connect with community: turningseason.com/episode25

Healing Season: Practical Wisdom from Chinese Medicine and the Work that Reconnects

Listen in for today's dose of Active Hope, in the latest news episode of Turning Season Podcast, covering:

• words from one of the courageous Iranian women protesting in Iran, about seeing The Great Turning in process, and how the type of practices we do in the Work that Reconnects have impacted her
• indigenous fire stewardship returning to forests in Minnesota in a collaboration between the Fond du Lac Band (a Chippewa / Anishinaabe band) and the Cloquet Forestry Center
• and Robin Wall Kimmerer continuing to foster the shift in consciousness toward a renewed relationship of love and reciprocity with the living Earth

Turning Season Podcast is here to bring you news and deep conversations about our adventure toward a life-honoring, life-sustaining way of being human on Earth. This show is for every one of you who's awake to our multiple crises, feels your love for life on Earth, and chooses to participate in cultivating ways of life we can believe in, making a life-honoring present even in the face of an uncertain future.

Links to more info on all these stories: turningseason.com/episode24

When I heard from Bioneers about a new children's book about the story of Thanksgiving, written by Native authors, complete with curricula for elementary school students – I signed up for their presentation right away. Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with two of the authors, Alexis Bunten and Anthony Perry.

If you too have wanted to share a more accurate, more complete story of Thanksgiving with children - appropriate for their ages - you're going to love Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun's Thanksgiving Story. It's co-written by three Native authors, including Danielle Greendeer, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Citizen, Hawk Clan.

The story is told from the perspective of Corn (Weeâchumun), and emphasizes human relationship with the plants and animals who feed us, and the generosity and care we can show by feeding each other.

(And, my dreamers and dreamworkers will love this: Weeâchumun sends dreams to the First Peoples, urging them to help the hungry newcomers.)

To me, the Great Turning toward a life sustaining society requires us to take a deep look at our history. Especially for those of us without direct access to the wisdom of our indigenous ancestors, it requires learning from more life-sustaining societies, past and present. As a mother of elementary school aged children, I relate to the authors' perspective that the stories we tell young children shape their views of themselves and the world around them.

This means we can participate in the "shift in consciousness" dimension of the Great Turning by sharing books like Keepunumuk with our kids.

Click Play now to hear me, Alexis, and Tony explore:

• how the mainstream Thanksgiving story landed with Tony and Alexis when they were children
• ways we can decolonize and indigenize our own Thanksgiving celebrations
• the cultural shift toward recognizing and respecting the Indigenous peoples of North America
• the authors' choices about gently mentioning the history of colonization, pandemic and genocide among Native American people, before and after the first Thanksgiving
• contemporary food issues, including the challenges and the possibilities around reconnecting with what we eat
• and curriculum resources for children in elementary through high school

I loved hearing the care that both Alexis and Tony have for children and families of all backgrounds, as together we face the challenges of these times. I'm grateful they've written this book, and hopeful it will nurture a deeper understanding of our history, and our interconnection with the life that feeds us, and with one another.

Show notes with links to more resources, and to connect with Alexis and Tony: turningseason.com/episode23

Healing Season: leilaninavar.com/healingseason

***

Turning Season Podcast brings you regular doses of Active Hope in The Great Turning, our adventure toward a life-honoring, life-sustaining way of being human on Earth. Every Full Moon, we share a deep conversation with people playing their own unique part in this shift. On the New Moons, we share brief, heartening news stories. This show is for every one of you who's awake to our multiple crises, feels your love for life on Earth, and chooses to participate in cultivating ways of life we can believe in, making a life-honoring present even in the face of an uncertain future.

Turning Season is hosted by Leilani Navar, a facilitator of the Work that Reconnects, an acupuncturist and dreamworker, and a believer in the power of conversation.

Music by East Forest.

turningseason.com

Listen in for your dose of Active Hope in today's news episode of Turning Season Podcast, here to bring you news and deep conversations about our adventure toward a life-honoring, life-sustaining way of being human on Earth. This show is for every one of you who's awake to our multiple crises, feels your love for life on Earth, and chooses to participate in cultivating ways of life we can believe in, making a life-honoring present even in the face of an uncertain future.

In today's quick episode:

• the movement to grant the "right to repair" our electronic devices, plus why we throw away and replace them so quickly
• introducing the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Western Mining Action Network, and the Climate Justice Alliance
• and sponge cities: what they are, why they matter, and a few examples of cities around the world shifting toward sponginess

Links to more info on all these stories: turningseason.com/episode22

Healing Season: Practical Wisdom from Chinese Medicine and the Work that Reconnects, with Leilani Navar: leilaninavar.com/healingseason

How much power do you think you have to affect rainfall, or to influence how vulnerable a landscape is to wildfire? Do we have any agency in our situation of "running out of water"? 

Until recently, I didn't think those things were in our hands at all. I've been excited to learn from water experts devoted to regenerative practices that together, people can powerfully impact all of these things.

For this month's Full Moon episode, I spoke with Charles Upton, a land restoration consultant with Oso Eco working to leverage natural systems to rehydrate watersheds, regenerate soil, and ensure the long term vitality of human communities. He became fascinated by water while climbing in the Middle East, and then spent years studying water in a master's degree program, and on the ground, learning the traditional water wisdom of indigenous desert peoples. He continues to put theory into action, in California, Colombia, and beyond.

Click Play now to hear us talk about:

• how working with water empowers you to do something good, right now, right where you are
• how we've dehydrated our landscapes, and how we can fix that (plus, how this impacts rainfall, and vulnerability to catastrophic fires)
• Charles' biggest takeaway from his time spent with local people in desert landscapes like Rajasthan, India and the Arabian Peninsula
• new ways to approach land management in California, in relationship with indigenous peoples and traditional ecological knowledge
• how cities in deserts, even with big populations, could be more self-sufficient with water
• some of the practical ways to regenerate soil, and to slow water flow, sink it into the ground, and spread it
• and the importance of human relationships, in cultivating a better relationship with water

This is truly an on-the-ground example of The Great Turning in action. To connect and learn more, find all the links through the show notes: turningseason.com/episode21

Ready to find balance in your personal health, how you relate to your pain for the world and your role in The Great Turning? Interested in Chinese Medicine's wisdom about how our emotions and physical health relate? Check out the 12-week small group journey I'm hosting, beginning in January: leilaninavar.com/healingseason