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Dear For The Wild Community, 

As hints of autumn dawn, as seasons draw to a close, as endings beckon and beginnings stand before us, the spirit of urgency, franticness, and anxiety feels deeply present. 

This month, the For The Wild Team is leaning into ways to find slowness amidst the chaos, to find steadiness in societies of rupture, and to find dedication in a culture of distraction. 

Our newest zine, From the Well of Resistance: The More than Human Call Towards Change, touches on some of these anxieties. How can we make meaningful commitments to change? How can we hold ourselves and our communities in times of transformation? How can we remain accountable to Earth and each other? 

Cover art by Cassie Normandy White

The long, beautiful tradition of resistance is a well from which we may draw rooted wisdom, fortitude and guidance.

Liberation is not a single act, a static destination to which we can arrive whole and the same as when we began the journey. Liberation is a project – one which requires many hands and visions.  

With wisdom from Antonia Estela Pérez, Rowen M White, Dr. Larry Ward, Morgan Curtis, and K’asheechtlaa Louise Brady, accompanied by poetry and writing from For The Wild community members, Nicolette Elensky, Katelyn Rivas, and zulaikha cara, this zine is a testament to the power and potency of collective action. 

Let this zine be a reminder that the project of resistance is tended to by many daring and beautiful souls, and that we all may find our own spaces to contribute meaningfully as we usher in a new world. 

This digital zine also features incredible art from the For The Wild community. This month’s featured artists are Cassie Normandy White, Rithika Pandey, Stephanie McKenna, Mary Porter Kerns, and Khushboo Jain.

What you get:

• A 45-page study guide & resource zine in PDF format with live url links

• Once checkout is completed, you'll have 24 hours to download your PDF file before access expires.

As a sneak peek, here is an excerpt from this month’s zine: 

Art by Mary Porter Kerns

Sometimes, the most difficult part of dreaming towards new worlds is finding the space within ourselves to believe that they are possible. The practice of radical imagination — it is called a “practice” for a reason. We must stretch our imaginative muscles. Give them a chance to grow, to thrive. Let this ritual be the space for this practice.

1. Make the space for yourself. Indulge in things you normally find silly, impractical, but that bring you joy. Take the long road in brewing your tea. Walk to the tree that otherwise feels out of the way. Startle yourself into a new space by creating unexpected joy.
    

2. Clear your mind. Take deep breaths. Set down your immediate worries for a moment. 
   

3. Let yourself release the need to be “practical.” Silence the voices that have told you you’re dreaming too big. There is no such thing. 
   

4. Relinquish yourself to your imagination. Begin to build your dream world. 
   

5. Embrace the wild, the weird. 
   

6. Consider the details of this dream world. What does transportation look like? What do meals look like? Go deep. You have permission to be outlandish, impractical, bold. 
   

7. Write it. Draw it. Dream it. 
   

8. What steps can you take to make this dream closer to reality? 
   

9. Try putting one of those steps into action, whether that be anything from joining a community organization to talking to someone on the bus. How does it make you feel? 
   

10. Remember that your imagination is limitless. When you are feeling despair, come back to the endless well of your imagination. Consider all that is possible.

Want to contribute?

If you are an artist and would like to have your art featured in one of our zines, submit your work here. 

If you are an author and would like to have your writing featured in one of our zines, submit your work here.

• How can you find slowness and sacredness in transition?
  
  

• What transformations are you dreaming towards?
  
  

• How do you find balance between fluidity and structure?
  
  

• What thresholds have been important to you? How have you honored these moments?
  
  

• What joy is there to be found in the imaginative potential of the unknown?

Episodes to honor change, growth, and cycles of beginnings and ends.  

“I validate the idea that survival is the ultimate act of creation in a world that has reduced us to fascist arithmetic, of being a quantitative statistic, not a human soul. So we still found a way to care, love, and create - isn't that art? I teach people to decipher the art that they’re already doing, recognize the artistry and the everyday miracles of life around them, and create from that place.” — Alok

We immerse ourselves in the aforementioned call to recognize the myriad of creations all around us from guest Alok, who guides us in an ever-expansive dialogue around spiritual wellbeing, the importance of creative literacy, and the tremendous freedom that awaits us when we make gender unknowable.

“We forget that so much is given freely, that this world is meant to be enjoyed.” — Ella Noah Bancroft

We heed this powerful reminder by guest Ella Noah Bancroft. As our belief systems have become entwined with the dominant economic structure, we see the commodification of our wellness, intimacy, and connectivity – a phenomenon that is severely hindering our ability to connect authentically.

In conversation, Ella traces the powerful connection between our ability to go against mainstream capitalist ways of being and our capacity for deep connection with ourselves and each other. With intimacy as an entrance point, our conversation explores what happens when we derive our pleasure from extraction, the kind of deep embodiment and connectivity that threatens capitalistic and colonial structures, and how we can journey back into spaces of trust through practices that don’t have to cost us a thing.

How many times have you questioned whether or not your life was in alignment with your purpose for being here? With the ever common phenomenon of burnout, fatigue, and drain, it’s becoming increasingly common for us to have these never-ending thoughts.

We take a moment for some deep heart salve with Niria Alicia who guides us to think about ancestral instruction, precious purpose, rituals for liberation, and what it means to be human in this time. This warm and rich conversation looks at spiritual crisis in tandem with climate crisis, the allure of self-sabotage, and the problem with the many “solutions” we are offered to the problems our world faces in this epoch.

Praise the Rain

by Joy Harjo

Praise the rain; the seagull dive
The curl of plant, the raven talk—
Praise the hurt, the house slack
The stand of trees, the dignity—
Praise the dark, the moon cradle
The sky fall, the bear sleep—
Praise the mist, the warrior name
The earth eclipse, the fired leap—
Praise the backwards, upward sky
The baby cry, the spirit food—
Praise canoe, the fish rush
The hole for frog, the upside-down—
Praise the day, the cloud cup
The mind flat, forget it all—

Praise crazy. Praise sad.
Praise the path on which we're led.
Praise the roads on earth and water.
Praise the eater and the eaten.
Praise beginnings; praise the end.
Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.
Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

May you, as Joy Harjo suggests, praise all that comes across your life – the beginnings, the ends, the hurt, and the hope.