This is a WILD WITH SARAH WILSON conversation, investigating ideas and practices that can help build our new, life-generating future. We are in a liminal time, between an old world that is no longer holding and a new world - “the what comes next” - that’s yet to emerge. Now is the time to be imagining this future together. If this episode inspires you, please share it with loved ones.
Today’s guest is John Seed (Deep Ecology OG, global rainforest steward), who says the planetary crisis is not a failure of information or awareness. Instead, it’s a failure of human identity. We have the story and the mindset all wrong. And we need to change it (from human chauvinism to deep ecological connection) if we’re to keep spinning in the Earth’s embrace.
In this chat John and I chat through some of Joanna Macy’s ideas (he co-created a number of projects with her), like how to do “the work that reconnects”, how to use our despair and numbness to lift into action and how to get around our fear of “woo woo”.
John will be joining in the comments
Post your questions and reflections here…John and I will chime in.
About John
John is a globally respected Australian rainforest activist and one of the foundational figures of the global Deep Ecology movement. He collaborated for decades with the late Joanna Macy – they co-wrote How To Think Like a Mountain and developed a “re-earthing” technique called Council of All Beings.
John’s activist work - via the Rainforest Information Centre he founded - has seen rainforests around the world receive various forms of protection status, including World Heritage listings.
Shownotes
Join John’s upcoming workshop, DEEP ECOLOGY with John Seed, Tema Milstein & friends, Narara Ecovillage, Central Coast. You can find more dates here.
Here is the Features of Narara Ecovillage that John mentions at the end of the episode.
You can subscribe to John’s Substack.
Learn more about the Rainforest Information Centre here, and follow him on Instagram and YouTube.
You can catch up on my episode with Meg Wheatley (in which we discuss “islands of sanity”) here.
Sarah xx
