The one thing that I always tell people when people ask me like what should I do to prepare for a disaster is I tell, a theologian, a mother of dragons and a

and a healing justice facilitator for social movements

living in rural Minnesota.

And I'm Adrian Marie Brown,

author of Emergent Strategy, co-editor of Octavia's Brood, writer, facilitator of primarily

black liberation work, Auntie Extraordinar Dula Dula, and pleasure activist living in Detroit.

And this is How to Survive the End of the World.

Our podcast about learning from apocalypse with grace, rigor, and curiosity. And to start off our show today, I'm going to jump right into a reading from Octavia Butler's

Parable of the Sewer that I hope will give you some context

for what we're about to dive into.

The character is Lauren Olamina who is the protagonist of the story in this scene.

I think she's 16 15 or 16 years old and she is living in apocalyptic conditions with her family behind a gate, a big gate and walled community.

And she is preparing herself for the worst.

Saturday, June 7, 2025. I finally assembled a small survival pack for myself, a grab and run pack.

I've had to dig some things I need out of the garage and the attic so that no one complains about my taking things they need. I've collected a hatchet, for

instance, and two small light all metal pots. There's plenty of stuff like that around

because no one throws anything away that has any possibility of someday being useful or

saleable. I packed my few hundred dollars in savings, almost a thousand. It

might feed me for two weeks if I'm allowed to keep it and if I'm careful about what I buy and where I buy it

I've kept up with prices questioning dad when he and the other neighborhood men do the essential shopping.

Food prices are insane, always going up, never down.

Everyone complains about them.

...