Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast.

I'm Emanuel Vaughn Lee, host of this show, an executive editor of Emergence Magazine,

located on the unseated ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok people in present-day Marin County.

Each week, we feature interviews, stories, poetry, and author-narrated essays, exploring the threads connecting

ecology, culture, and spirituality. When I look back at the ways cultures have maintained

a relationship of reverence with the earth over thousands of years. Two essential elements that strike me over and over are humility and offering.

In this final talk from our Song of the Season's Retreat at the Wimpy Institute in May,

I speak about how humility can ground us in an attitude of respect for the power of the earth,

and how offering is a natural response to her unconditional generosity.

For me, it's incredibly important that we build these qualities into our daily lives

as the cycles of the Earth become more unpredictable and disruptive.

These are some of the first steps we can take in remembering how to be in relationship

with the earth.

When we are rooted in this space of humility and offering, we remain open, we want to be attentive,

and present with her beauty and loss.

To re-embody this way of being, we can begin by asking ourselves.

What attitude toward the seasons can help us develop our relationship to place?

How can we offer our love and response not only to the wonder, but to the pain of the earth?

It is important that we don't center our own needs

and bring an extractive mindset into our relationship with nature,

which can so easily seep in without our realizing it.

A walk in the forest becomes a balm and healing for ourselves

...