Transcript: END OF YEAR UPDATE (2023)
Ayana Young Hello For The Wild community. This week we are taking a pause from regularly scheduled episodes to reflect in the spirit of the Winter Solstice. This past year has been one of beautiful synthesis. We have released over 40 new episodes and conversations highlighting wisdom from folks like Andrea Gibson, Stephen Jenkinson, Rachel Cargle, Tricia Hersey, and so many more. We've published zines on gratitude, grief and ritual. On Patreon, we've published extended episodes, had lovely chats, hosted giveaways, and so much more. It's difficult to express just how proud I am of this body of work and how grateful I am for the community of listeners that support it. Thank you.
We released our first episode in September of 2014 and 2024 will mark our 10th year of episodes. Looking back at this decade of work, it's incredible to see the conversations, actions, and connections that have been sparked by For The Wild. And I can say on a personal note, these conversations have grown me.
If you haven't had a chance, take a look back through our catalog of episodes to find evergreen content from our library that spans hundreds of guests, topics, and heartfelt conversations over the years. As we reflect on this past year and many before it, our team and I are reminded that For The Wild is in a constant state of becoming. Throughout the years we have grown and shifted, responding to the provocations of our guests, the insight of our audience, and the challenges of our times. At our core, we believe that media should be slow, rooted, and studying. Our offerings at For The Wild are meant to ground and bring our audience insight that feels meaningful. Beyond fast-paced news cycles and the attention economy that thrives on distraction.
In 2024, we are looking forward to deeply embracing our slow media approach, bringing you well-researched, thoughtful, and soul provoking episodes and continuing to grow our podcast library as a resource for finding solace, rest, and contemplation in these times. We also have some very dear projects we'll be focusing on beyond the podcast, broadening and deepening our ethos of land protection, inquiry, and respite. We cannot wait to bring them to you so stay tuned for some very exciting updates on that throughout the year.
In an effort to continue this work and support our small team, we would deeply appreciate your support. As a grassroots, independent media producer, listener support is one of the main funding sources. If you have found value or meaning in our offerings, please consider making a one time donation at forthewild.world/donate or by joining us on patreon@patreon.com/forthewild.
With us, we want to extend our continual gratitude to you, our Patreon community, your commitment to our mission is vital. We'd love for even more of you to join us on Patreon before the year ends. We've recently launched a new set of tiers on Patreon aimed at creating a library of deeply-rooted resources for those who sign up.
At $2 a month, The Stacks tier offers supporters transcripts, music playlist, access to a gift guide with product discounts and extended episodes.
At $5 a month, The Study tier offers everything from The Stacks tier plus giveaways a monthly Field Guide zine and access to seasonal online gatherings at $25 a month.
The Archive tier offers everything from the previous tiers plus priority for q&a and gatherings and producer credits in the Field Guide Zines.
At $100 a month, The Living Libraries tier offers everything from previous tiers plus a contribution on your behalf of $25 a month to our current land protection project and seasonal letters from the land.
Thank you again for tuning in and for showing up for us in so many ways throughout this year and across For The Wild's history. For The Wild is so much more than what you see on the surface and I wanted to take a moment to honor all of the behind the scenes work that makes this organization possible. Your support means that as a community of artists, writers, producers, and organizers, we can come together to alchemize work that hopefully means as much to you as it does to us. It is such a dream come true.
Well, I'll let a few members of our team speak to this themselves today. Here, they share how they nourish for the wild productions and how they have been finding nourishment throughout the years. Thank you so much for listening.
Julia Jackson Hi For The Wild community, I'm Julia Jackson. I'm based in Washington DC and I nourish the For The Wild podcast and programming in general, as a Co-Director. And as a writer, I write the scripts and a lot of the comms that you see and it's just such a delight to be able to do this for work and I'm so grateful to all of you for your continued support of the podcast that makes this all so possible. As a team, we've been reflecting on the practices and traditions that have nourished us through 2023 as we take a look back on the year. And I wanted to share that the practice that has really sustained and nourished me through the year has been this almost sort of worshiping of the written word through journaling and reading and just really taking the time to sit down and spend time reflecting and reading. It's been a really beautiful practice for me this year and something that's definitely sustained me through all of the transitions that 2023 has brought. Regardless of what's going on, I can always turn to a book or to my journal and that's been so nourishing for me. I hope that you all are taking some joy in whatever practices sustain you at the end of the year and are looking forward to 2024. Again, thank you so much. I'm so, so grateful for this community.
Bailey Bigger Hello For The Wild listeners, my name is Bailey Bigger. I am based out of Charleston, South Carolina on the East Coast. I am new to the For The Wild this year, and I assist with running social media and creating content for posts. I feel honored to be part of such an amazing team of earthlings and I'm happy to help nourish this cause in any way that I can. One way I have nourished myself over 2023 is spending time with the animals. Whether that's feeding the chickens or taking the horses out for a ride back in my hometown or sitting with my dog or cat just observing the way they communicate or show affection. Sometimes, it's birdwatching or going to look for dolphins out on the water. We have so much to learn from our animal relatives and seeing the way they live forces me to slow down and remember my genetic makeup too. I remember to hibernate too, and flow with the natural cycles of our Earth. I'm wishing you all a happy new year and I'm excited for what's to come in 2024.
Jackson Kroopf Hi, For The Wild community. This is Jackson Kroopf. I'm the Special Projects producer for For The Wild and I'm based in Southern California. I nourish For The Wild by providing a lot of the musical curation for our episodes, making playlists for our zines, and really just thinking about the sonic accompaniment to these vital conversations and reading experiences we're trying to provide all of you. I also am part of the team thinking about longer form projects for 2024 multi-part audio series, films, books, vinyl records---all projects that continue to build off of the conversations Ayana has been having for 10 years that really reflects on what we can contribute to land protectors all around the world. This year, I've started a new ritual that has been very nourishing, which is just practicing gratitude in prayer before each meal. As someone who grew up in an atheist household where prayer wasn't a very common practice, it has been really meaningful to think about all of the organisms, all of the beings, all of the laborers, all of the farmers, all of the people and cultures that have contributed to the food that I'm about to eat with my loved ones. And not just showing gratitude to those entities and those collaborators and those lineages, but also spending some time thinking about the people who are struggling to find food that day and sending prayer their way. So as the year comes to a close, I wish you all nourishment, gratitude, and prayer headed into 2024.
José Alejandro Rivera Hi, this is Evan Tenenbaum as one of the audio editors here. I nourish For The Wild by supporting the rhythm, flow, and cadence of the conversations that Ayana has with our guests. I like to sometimes think of the creation of each episode as akin to baking bread. Ayana and our guests have put all the ingredients in, mixed it up, and set the dough aside to rest. And that's when myself and the rest of the team come in, lightly kneading the dough for a second time, slightly reshaping it into a loaf form and then baking the bread and helping it rise and solidify until it's perfectly golden brown, flaky, and ready to be enjoyed by all of you. This year, I have found nourishment in working with wood. Developing a new skill has been humbling and invigorating and discovering the traits and personalities of different tree species has been fascinating and mystifying. So when I'm not here baking audio bread, there's a good chance I'm next door in my shop covered in wood chips. Thank you all for being a part of this community and for your ongoing support. You really do make this all possible.
José Alejandro Rivera Hey, For The Wild community, my name is José Alejandro Rivera. I am one of the Producer Editors on the team and nourish For The Wild's podcast by offering my listening ear, open-hearted attention to detail, and various audio production skills. Given the substance of each interview that Ayana, Erica, Julia, and the guests co-create, I helped shape and finalize what eventually listeners hear across the web, radio, and extended episode versions. Introductions, the rhythm of questions, and the selection of music breaks are part of the garden soup that I tend to. I'm also very jazzed to share with you some exciting intermedia projects we are cooking up for you in the coming year. Over the past four or five years, I have been deeply nourished by being on the plant path. From learning herbalism and medicine making to grow food and seed saving, even simply being comforted by a warm cup of tea, these practices all connect me to the land, my ancestors, the wisdom of change, and the wider web of beings. I think this work with plants has invited me to cultivate an expanded sense of listening which beyond sound feels like, you know, an interconnected coming into presence. Similarly with plants to be woven in this way with the amazing For The Wild team, the inspiring guests and especially you our community is to collectively tend to a rich soil from which new life can grow. And like these beans that are being shelled, may this work be a seed for you in these times that can compost the past and invite in the present and wildly sprawl out into a yummy future for all of us. I'm so grateful to be part of this work and to you, our listeners. Thanks so much.
Thanks for listening to this end of the year update at For The Wild. The environmental recordings and music that you heard today were by Proxemia, and you also heard the voices of our team members. I encourage you to sign up for our newsletter where you can stay tuned to all of the amazing offerings and everything For The Wild. And also you can read our Co-director Erica Ekrem's end of the year update there as well. For The Wild is created by an incredible team—Ayana Young, Eric Ekrem, Julia Jackson, Bailey Bigger, Jackson Kroopf, Evan Tenenbaum, and José Alejandro Rivera.