Abby Reyes: Engaging ‘the slow work’ in the face of urgency and crises
Green Dreamer: Seeding change towards collective healing, sustainability, regeneration
Kaméa Chayne
4.8 • 694 Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1999, Terence Unity Freitas, the partner of our guest today, along with two other Indigenous activists Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa and Lahe’ena’e Gay, were murdered in Colombia after they left the U’wa territory, where they were visiting to support the Indigenous U’wa community.
Now, in one of her first interviews about her new book, Truth Demands: A Memoir of Murder, Oil Wars, and the Rise of Climate Justice, Abby Reyes is here to share her story — and her journey of navigating grief and healing while fighting for truth and accountability from Big Oil.
How has the U’wa community been resisting against colonial-capitalist interests? What does it mean to depart from urgency culture and to tap into the “slow work” of deep, social change? And what is the relationship between engaging in the “inner” and “outer” work of systemic transformation?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I have a quick but important ask. As you're probably aware, Green Dreamer is an independent |
| 0:07.9 | podcast and we don't take on corporate advertisers to fund our work because we don't want those |
| 0:13.7 | considerations to influence our curiosities or our abilities to question whatever it is that we want to question. |
| 0:22.3 | So if you value and believe in our work, this is our call out. |
| 0:26.8 | We need your direct support in order to continue this podcast. |
| 0:30.7 | And you can help us out so, so much through a paid substack subscription to my newsletter at |
| 0:37.3 | camaya.substack.com or through a one-time |
| 0:40.4 | donation at greendreamer.com slash support. It really means a lot to have you here and we're so |
| 0:47.6 | grateful for whatever form or level of support that you're able to share with us. |
| 0:54.5 | Maintaining the still point, even in the face of urgency or in the face of crisis, |
| 1:00.7 | it is for me an active daily practice. |
| 1:05.1 | The allure of urgency, the allure of responding at the clip and at the intensity of the harms that are coming our way, |
| 1:15.9 | that allure is strong. |
| 1:17.9 | And so my community, we do a lot of physical, somatic practice to make sure that we're tapping into a deeper source, a deeper current, a |
| 1:30.7 | stronger current than the urgency. |
| 1:40.2 | In 1999, Terence Unity Freitas, the partner of our guest today, along with two other indigenous |
| 1:48.4 | activists in Grid, Washinawatek Elisa and Lahaina-ege were murdered in Colombia, after they |
| 1:56.5 | left the Uwa territory where they were visiting to support the indigenous Uwa community. |
| 2:02.6 | Now in one of her first interviews about her new book titled Truth Demands, |
| 2:08.6 | a memoir of murder, oil wars, and the rise of climate justice. |
| 2:13.6 | Abby Reyes is here to share her story and her journey of grief and healing while fighting for truth and accountability from Big Oil. |
| 2:23.8 | I was really moved to my core learning about Abby's story and the resistance efforts of the Ua community, |
... |
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