In this episode we meet the sole remaining fluent speaker of the Tolowa Dee- ni’ language and his family who are grappling with what is at stake if they lose their language.
The Tolowa Dee-ni’, Karuk, Wukchumni, and Kawaiisu Indigenous communities of California share the colonizing histories that attempted to erase their cultures and the importance of keeping their languages alive.
As she bears witness to the decomposing body of a deer, Lia Purpura considers the forces of restoration at play: the processes which transform bodies from one state to another and the beginnings that emerge from endings.
Daisy Hildyard examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn our attention to the space between things and how these “negative spaces” reveal points of connection.
Twenty thousand years into the future, an exploration of the Earth uncovers the final notes and unfinished stories left behind by the last sentient human beings in the twilight of their history.
In an exchange of letters between an uncle and a niece—a demonologist and a mother—two members of a family respond to our addiction to technology as they divulge their thoughts about the otherworld, possession, and fatal temptation.
David Abram discusses our current moment of ecological and societal instability and calls on us to remember the animacy of our bodily senses and our participation in the collective, embodied flesh of the Earth.
Born with the gift of second sight, Valur Sveinsson encounters supernatural beings called the Inkborn and witnesses their telling of an apocalyptic vision of the future.
In this short story, Lydia Millet explores the loss of extinction as a man seeks the company and friendship of the last Tasmanian tiger, housed in a failing zoo.
The Lord God Bird: Apocalyptic Prophecy & the Vanishing of Avifauna – Chelsea
Steinauer-Scudder
July 7, 2020
As the existence of the famed ivory-billed woodpecker is increasingly left to the realm of myth, Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder explores the widespread disappearance of birds in the narratives of apocalyptic prophecy that run through our collective consciousness.
Crystal Wilkinson offers this contemplation on the intimacy of breathing and breath as she considers how we live, die, and love.
Mythologist and storyteller Martin Shaw on initiation, agency, and the move into the mythical.
Poet Jake Skeets explores apocalypse, time, and futurity from a Diné perspective.
Roy Scranton on what we mean when we say "the world is ending."
Amaud Jamaul Johnson explores the loneliness and fear that arise in the wake of inexplicable tragedy where personal losses highlight histories of suffering and the deep uncertainties of our time.
As Kalyanee Mam cooks for her family members who have fallen ill during the pandemic, she reflects on food as a conduit for healing.
George Prochnik reminds us of Heinrich Heine’s account of Paris’s 1832 cholera pandemic and asks: What is necessary passion and courage?
Join acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton on an immersive listening journey to the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park.
Responding to questions asked by readers from around the globe, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Robert Macfarlane discuss dandelions as global citizens, the role of the writer as a conduit for story, and the spirit of reciprocity that lies at the heart of our relationship to place.
Self-quarantined and isolated in her apartment in Brooklyn, Hala Alyan asks how we can make room for grief, empathy, and hope as we move through this pandemic together.