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Lifeworlds

Lifeworlds

Alexa Firmenich 76 episodes Latest Apr 2, 2026

Lifeworlds is an intimate dialogue with our planet's ecologies and with those who are translators and bridges between the human and beyond-human. Guests include farmers, lawyers, scientists, investors, indigenous scholars, artists, and more, exploring the mindsets, skills, and actions required to forge deep connections with nature. The podcast aims to heal a culture steeped in duality by understanding multiple perspectives and redefining our human role on Earth.

Episodes

36. Stingless Bees, Ancient Honey & the Amazon's Future – with Dr. Rosa Vasquez Espinosa Apr 2, 2026 1:11:09 What if one of the most powerful tools for saving the Amazon rain-forest was a bee most people have never heard of?Enter the stingless bee – a 65 million year old resident of Earth that produces honeys teeming with medicinal molecules and has co-evolved with indigenous Amazonian communities across millennia. Today, these bees are at the keystone species at the heart of a pioneering conservation mo
35. From Stardust To Sentience: Astrobiology & Life in the Cosmos – with Adam Frank Mar 6, 2026 59:38 What is life, and are we alone in the universe?In this episode I sit down with Adam Frank, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Rochester, prolific science communicator, and author of five books including The Blind Spot and The Little Book of Aliens. Adam is one of the most compelling voices working at the intersection of astrobiology, philosophy, and the human future.We journey from the
34. Black Mountains College: Rethinking Education for Our Times - with Ben Rawlence Feb 2, 2026 58:12 Today’s episode explores a simple but urgent question: is our education system still fit for the world we’re entering? Climate disruption, AI, and uncertainty demand new forms of education fit for complexity and change.A rich lineage of alternative and experimental education has been evolving for decades, seeking to make learning more holistic, place-based, creative, and ecologically grounded. The
Poetry | Fruitful Darkness with Rilke Oct 26, 2025 17:42 This Lifeworlds episode is a devotional journey into the work of Rainer Maria Rilke, the lyrical German poet of thresholds and embracing transformations.Through readings of his most luminous poems and writings, we explore how Rilke guides us deliciously in reconciling suffering and turmoil with tremendous beauty. It’s an offering for anyone standing in the in-between, for those moving through subl
33. Empatheatre: Social Sculpture & Feeling Across Worlds - with Dylan McGarry Oct 16, 2025 1:17:20 In this episode, we explore the role of theatre and empathy in transforming worldviews. Dr. Dylan McGarry is one of the founders of Empatheatre, a South African theatre-making company and methodology that turns research and storytelling into living social sculpture. Their plays create what they call amphitheatres for empathy - spaces where art, ritual, and dialogue help people listen across differ
32. Depth Psychology and Soul Initiation – with Bill Plotkin from Animas Valley Institute Jul 11, 2025 1:14:45 In this episode, I sit down with Bill Plotkin, founder of Animas Valley Institute. Over the past 40 years, Bill has developed intricate, nature-based models of human development and education that challenge dominant psychological frameworks and invite us into a maturation process rooted in wholeness, wildness, and the more-than-human world.We explore their three major maps of a person’s “soul-cent
31. Holistic Landscape Restoration and Inspirational Returns – with Willem Ferwerda from Commonland Jul 2, 2025 1:08:40 Almost 40% of Earth’s land is degraded, meaning that the natural cycles that sustain biodiversity, water, food, and livelihoods are breaking down. This degradation is an ecological crisis, and, it also lies at the root of massive social breakdown, displacement, and conflict. And it’s accelerating.In this episode, I speak with Dutch ecologist and entrepreneur Willem Ferwerda, founder of Commonland,
From Orbit to Intimacy | Beyond the Overview Effect Jun 10, 2025 16:24 What if the next shift in planetary consciousness didn’t come from looking back at Earth from space, but from listening deeply to the voices already here? In this thought piece I propose the “inworlding effect” as the overview effect of our time: one where developments in science, technology, law, and many other disciplines are revealing our entangled presence within a multispecies world.Medium Ar
30. Grief, Song and Ceremonies of Mourning - with Alexandra “ahlay” Blakey May 20, 2025 1:05:29 Today we’re joined by artist, musician and communal grief ritual facilitator Alexandra “ahlay” Blakey to speak about the cultural forgetting of communal mourning, the sacred role of professional mourners, and the re-emergence of grief ceremonies as necessary spaces of remembrance, healing and repair.Ahlay brings her experience weaving song, body, and ritual into collective spaces where grief is gi
29. Carbon and the Grammar of Life - with Paul Hawken Apr 22, 2025 1:03:25 In this episode we’re joined by the renowned environmentalist, activist and author Paul Hawken to explore the lifeworld of carbon and its role as a vital agent in the story of life.Paul speaks about the dysfunctions in Western language on how we speak about climate and nature, and why metaphors of war, control, and fixing actually perpetuate the very mindset that created the crises in the first pl
28. Whale Dreaming & Ocean Songlines - with WHAIA Apr 3, 2025 1:19:08 In this episode, we journey into the vibrational worlds of sound, ancestry, and deep listening with Whaia, a Ngāti Kahungunu woman of Māori descent and First Nations sonic weaver and multi-instrumentalist.Raised between the salt of the Pacific and the red dust of the Australian desert, Whaia’s voice carries ancient songlines, blending traditional Māori instruments, crystalline singing bowls, and h
Poetry | The World Thinks in Poetry Mar 26, 2025 7:05 In a remote cabin in Vancouver Island in 2019, far away, I sat by the shore. I listened. I re-read poetry. I swam with jellyfish. I ate bright salmon berries and raw samphire. I gazed around and listened to the songs of the land. This piece of writing is a result of my days there. Full poem on Lifeworlds Website Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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