Photo by Monis Yousafzai

For The Wild presents Homebound as an offering of curated episodes from the archives intended to share perspective and guidance in the midst of a time of tremendous uncertainty and possibility.

In light of the personal and global impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak, our team has been drawing on wisdom from the archives to anchor us and help us to navigate this new reality. We understand that while society appears ripe for transformation, we are also being inundated with information that may feel paralyzing and that also perpetuates a culture of fear. As a response, we offer this series that explores physical, emotional and spiritual preparedness, self-reliance and community sovereignty.

We invite you to join us on Fridays to hear seeds of wisdom from the weavers of transformation and mobilizers of personal and cultural shift featured in Homebound. We hope that this may serve as a North Star as we all traverse through our grief and fear that accompany this perplexing time fraught with shattering of systemic injustices alongside opportunities to co-create the world anew.

As our second offering, we’re re-releasing our conversation with Dr. Rupa Marya on “Decentralizing the Power of Healing.” As you listen, please take moments of gratitude for the incredible healthcare workers and frontline responders, like Dr. Marya, who are showing up every single day. 

Initially aired in January of 2020, this episode reminds us that the blatant neglect for people’s wellbeing amidst this global pandemic is not coincidence or negligence, it is the result of a global system that has historically centered profit over people.

Rupa reminds us that “the health of the people should be our guiding light and principle” so we ask ourselves the following: 

• How can we begin investing in our own economies of care? 

• Why is healthcare for all and the abolition of medical debt and the for-profit medical system absolutely imperative? 

• And most importantly, how can we derive our medicine in relation to one another, as we acknowledge that the wellness of self is inextricably connected to the wellness of others?

Rupa Marya, MD is Associate Professor of Medicine at UC San Francisco and Faculty Director of the Do No Harm Coalition, a collective of over 450 health workers committed to addressing structural issues that make health impossible for communities.

Dr. Marya has been working to make visible the health issues at the nexus of racism and state violence through: her medical work; The Justice Study (national research investigating the health effects of police violence on Black, Brown and Indigenous communities); helping set up a free community clinic for the practice of decolonized medicine under Lakota leadership at Standing Rock (the Mni Wiconi Health Clinic and Farm); and international outreach with her band, Rupa and the April Fishes. She is currently working on a book with author Raj Patel looking at the health impacts of colonization and capitalism.

♫ Music by Rupa & the April Fishes