Death in The Garden

This week on “Death in The Garden” we return from our hiatus to share our interview with Jesse Smith, Director of Land Stewardship at White Buffalo Land Trust, a Savory Hub in Santa Barbara, CA. This was a pivotal interview which planted innumerable seeds in our heads, all of which have since germinated into such a deeper understanding about the direction of our project: "regeneration as self-preservation"; what regeneration truly means; what sustainability truly means; the reconciliation and healing from colonialism that is necessary for progress; the epigenetics of livestock/landscapes/humans; the energetic relationships between all things; the problems with Enlightenment thinking; how technology must “be in the service of more life”; the spiritual/cultural/physical regeneration that will punctuate our transition from this paradigm to the next; and understanding that we are surrounded by a living, mysterious world. There is so much gold packed into this interview. So much of what Jesse said here has informed our worldview today, even when many of the topics he discussed were outside of our comprehension at the moment of this interview.

This is a fantastic interview, and we’re glad we are revisiting it and releasing it now, as our understanding of the topics discussed has since become far more clear. This is where so many seeds were planted for us – we can’t wait to share this conversation with you all.
Thank you everyone for your patience. Please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast if you are enjoying the conversations we are having here. Check out our website and Instagram for more information about “Death in The Garden.”
Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we had a conversation with Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen of Nordic Animism, a project which aims to recover Euro-traditional animist knowledge and share it with a contemporary audience as a means of understanding ourselves, our kinship relations with other-than-humans, and ultimately working towards a resilient future for all life on earth. Rune is a Danish historian of religion, which an extensive background of fieldwork studying contemporary animist religions. Nordic Animism “bridges scholarship with cultural activism,” and Rune discusses many of the social issues that are most relevant in our times through an animist and mythic lens.

We talked about what animism is, and what it means to be in kinship relationships with the rest of the living community. We discuss the role of violence, death, and eating as something we can’t avoid, even within kinship relations, and the challenges that brings. We discuss the desacralization of our relationships with animals and plants which once held totemic value, and how that played a role in opening us up for the industrialization of food production. We discuss ecofascism, and the importance of uplifting heritage and cultural uniqueness consciously. We talk about the entanglement of white supremacy and colonialism in our collective histories, and how to engage with Euro-traditional ecological knowledge with consideration of the modern context. We break down the difference between cultural exchange and cultural appropriation, discussing how conscious cultural exchange is imperative in the globalized world that we all now live in. We talk about the complexity of being descendants of settlers, and how to be respectful of history while still seeking belonging in the places we live. Finally, we talk about Ragnarok and the Year of Aun, two Nordic myths that can help us understand our current societal and ecological predicaments.

Follow Rune on Instagram and Twitter, but especially check out his YouTube Channel. To get you started, check out the video below, which we mentioned in the episode:

Please like, subscribe, and share this podcast if you enjoyed it. If you’d like to financially support the multimedia project Death in The Garden, please consider becoming a paid subscriber on Substack, or joining our Patreon.

Editing: Maren Morgan & Jake Marquez

Music: “Helvegen” by Wardruna

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” as COP26 ends in Glasgow, Jake and Maren share their second interview with Dr. Mordecai Ogada, carnivore ecologist, activist for the Decolonization of Conservation, and co-author of The Big Conservation Lie. In our previous conversation with Mordecai, he mentioned the “Our Land, Our Nature” congress in Marseille, which we were lucky enough to attend and acquire this interview in person. This time we go deep into speculating about the more nefarious side of the global climate change narrative, including the obsession with the fertility of African women, the prospect of protected areas being refuges for elites, the establishment of decentralized colonies headed by colonizing NGOs, and conservation being a smoke screen for extraction and industry.

In a time where there are so many “solutions” being thrown up in the air about climate change, we feel it is very important to question everything and consider every detail. Where is the money coming from, and where is it going? Listen to Mordecai Ogada make the case for increasing our scrutiny of conservation NGOs, and demanding accountability and transparency for their dealings, as well as the narrative of climate change as a whole.

Please rate, review, and subscribe if you are enjoying the show, and give Mordecai a follow on Twitter, and be sure to check out his website.

For more information about “Death in The Garden,” follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and our website.
Editing: Parker Burningham

Intro music: Daniel Osterstock

Outro music: "Walk the Walk" by Gaz Coombes

This week on "Death in The Garden," Jake and Maren share their interview with experimental psychologist, professor, and author, Sheldon Solomon. This episode was recorded in May of 2021, but was always a seminal piece for our project: we talk about how death denying delusions are running rampant in modern culture, how the blind belief in the inevitability of progress is taking us down a dark road, and how the acceptance and awareness of our mortality can help us turn our attention to the vistas of awe and enchantment necessary to create the more beautiful world we all want to live in.

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Be sure to check out Ernest Becker's book, The Denial of Death and Sheldon's book, The Worm at The Core.

Editing: Parker Burningham

Outro music: "Parting of the Sensory" by Modest Mouse

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we’re sharing a more produced podcast version of the recording of The Quantitative Cosmology: The Historical Precedent for George Monbiot's Worldview and its Implications Today for our podcast listeners who might not be subscribed to our Substack.

In this essay, I (Maren) explore the historical roots of the mechanistic, reductionistic, and ultimately quantitative worldview that undergirds society today and dictates how we understand the world. I use George Monbiot and his book Regenesis as a jumping off point to discuss how this worldview was first concieved by Plato, Pythagoras, and Aristotle; was gestated in the thousands of years following with Ptolemaic mathematics; was ultimately born through Kepler and Galileo; and was raised lovingly by Bacon and Descartes. I break down how this worldview has disenchanted and abstracted our connection to life itself, to the point where we deny our own felt experience if it isn’t backed up by numbers and data, as was evident (to me) in reading Monbiot’s book. At the end, I discuss the utility of this worldview, and deeply question the path we’re on, which is taking for granted this worldview as the only way of understanding the world, and our place within it.

We hope you enjoy this reading, and please, if you haven’t, subscribe to our Substack. Consider becoming a paid subscriber so we are more able to produce essays and researched content like this in the future. Or if you’d prefer, consider joining our Patreon community. We just created a new tier for $3 a month, which is less than a cup of coffee and helps cover some of Patreon’s fees! Editing: Jake Marquez & Maren Morgan

Music: “Dusty Room” by Evgeny Grinko