Episode 16: News on Amazonian Women’s Healing Center, International Treaty on Plastics, and Reconnection Ecology at Wildlife Sanctuary

This is the first “news” episode of Turning Season Podcast. I had the idea to do short episodes like this while listening to a 5-minute NPR podcast a few months ago. It was a very quick, back-to-back series of stories with the sense: “Here’s what you should know.” It included something like, updates on war in Ukraine, the stock market, NBA basketball, and a mass shooting in the U.S.

And yes, it is good for me to know about those things. To hear them, to breathe them through, to let them impact me and inform my life. But I also felt like it would be good for me – and for you – to know about other kinds of stories, stories of The Great Turning in action. To hear a quick, back-to-back series of stories about people caring for each other and the rest of the web of life.

So, to complement the longer conversations I’ll continue to release on Full Moons, on the New Moons you’ll now hear shorter episodes from me solo, each sharing about three news items.

As I was choosing which three things to include in this brief episode, I realized: Wow, I cannot keep up with all the ways, all the ideas, all the groups, enacting The Great Turning, and that is good news. 

Click Play above to hear about:

• The Casa de Mujeres Amazonicas (or Home of Amazonian Women) in Ecuador, where women fleeing violence directed at them as land defenders, and/or domestic violence, come to rest, recover, and reimagine,
• The agreement by the UN to begin writing an international treaty on addressing global plastic pollution,
• and the Earthfire Institute, a wildlife sanctuary and rehabilitation center helping people and animals reconnect, awakening a sense of love in people that leads them to make different choices.

More info on these 3 stories:

Casa de Mujeres Amazonica

Indigenous women battle growing Amazon violence with trauma center (Thomson Reuter Foundation News)

Activist Nina Gualinga Connects Indigenous Women Leaders Through Amazon Watch’s Women Defenders Program (Marin Magazine)

United Nations Resolution on Plastic Pollution

The World Is Awash in Plastic. Nations Plan a Treaty to Fix That. (New York Times)

United Nations Adopts Historic Resolution to End Plastic Pollution (Ocean Protection Council)

text of the United Nations draft resolution “End Plastic Pollution”

Earthfire Institute

Earthfire Institute’s website

Earthfire local wildlife nonprofit receives major gift (Teton Valley News)