Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast. I'm Emanuel Vaughn Lee, executive editor of Emergence

Magazine, located on the unseated ancestral lands of the Coast Mewalk people of present-day

Marin County. Each week we feature a new interview, narrated essay, or story,

exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.

In the midst of the ecological crisis,

a time in which our primordial dialogue with the Earth has been forgotten,

there are certain stories that

can awaken us to a deeper consciousness of connection.

For centuries now, we have placed the human at the center of our dominant narratives, as

a conqueror, a ruler, a hero.

And such hubris has silenced the voices that surround us, that call to us, offering

their wisdom. What would happen if our stories were, like ancient myths, alive and in conversation

with the world? What journey lies ahead if we listen?

Recently, we release a special multimedia experience featuring mythologist Martin Shaw called

Valamon the Bear, myth in the age of the Anthropocene, which takes us on a journey

to the deepest part of ourselves.

Adapted for the podcast, Valamon the Bear calls on bone memory and reminds us that we have

always been wedded to the wild.

As Martin recounts this tale, we not only hear the story of a daughter falling in love

with a bear, but also encounter a living myth that gossips across species. Myth is a wild way of telling the truth.

And this is a wild way of telling the truth.

And this is a story about a girl that fell in love with a bear.

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