We are rebroadcasting our extended conversation with Andrea Gibson as we honor their death on July 14th, 2025. The conversation, originally aired In September of 2023, was entitled “The Blessings of the Wound.”

For so many of us who have been touched by Andrea’s work, their death is a deep wound, one that will stretch and expand our hearts in accordance with its depth. In the episode, Andrea contemplates the deeply rooted societal fears of disconnection and of death. Facing fear, confusion, and loss head on, Andrea reminds us that healing is a return to the self, a return to community.

Through poem and spirituality, Andrea draws us to see the beauty in being alive in this particular life, in our particular bodies, at this particular time. Their presence and attention is life-giving. As Andrea shares their journey connecting to the eternal, genderless “We,” they invite listeners to contemplate their identities beyond this life alone. As we let the need to know fall away, what miracles might reveal themselves to us?

While you listen to this episode, we invite you to consider their words in the poem “Love Letter from the Afterlife.” Andrea writes, “ I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive?” Learn more at https://forthewild.world/listen/andrea-gibson-on-the-blessings-of-the-wound-homage

As tribute to Andrea, we will be offering a free download of our zine, Grief, in our Friday, July 24th newsletter. The digital zine includes practice, ritual, and an extended reading of Andrea’s conversation with For The Wild. Sign up for the newsletter on our website.

Credits

Music by Katie Gray, John Carrol Kirby (Patience Records), and Kesia Negata.

This episode was created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, Julia Jackson, and José Alejandro Rivera with special thanks to Victoria Pham for the July 22, 2025 version

Cover art by William Baxter Closson, titled "Night Moths"

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Hey For The Wild community, it’s Ayana.

It’s been a minute. Life has been moving—fast, deep, and full. I’ve grown, and with that growth, a clearer sense of what I want to share with you has come into focus.

After nearly a decade of digital episodes, I felt a longing—an ache to be in person, on the land, and heart to heart with our guests. That’s why you may have noticed we’ve slowed down on weekly releases. Instead, we’ve been on the road, spending sacred, unhurried time with people we love—tending to conversations that are raw, intimate, funny, beautiful, edgy, and alive.

We were hoping to keep it under wraps a little longer, but we’re just too excited: the first season of our new walking series will be released soon, and it features the luminous Sophie Strand. This series is an in-person, land-based conversation that is intimate, weird, raw, beautiful exploration of land, grief, myth, pleasure, and more. These aren’t studio-perfect interviews, they’re alive.

But there’s more. We’re also creating an anthology—a wild, tender, and nonlinear book featuring Sophie and 20 other contributors like Tyson Yunkaporta, Sylvia Linsteadt, adrienne maree brown, Dori Midnight, and Stephen Jenkinson. It’s a distillation of 10 years of For The Wild: essays, art, poetry, rituals, and deep questions. It’s a strange and beautiful offering: an archive, an altar, a trail companion. It is not meant to behave. It’s tangled and wild. It asks us what it means to live in fragmentary times and still root deeply. We hope to print it later this year.

To bring these projects to life, we need your support.

We’re looking for funding partners, sponsors, and publishers—and we’re dreaming of a book tour from the West Coast to the East, and across the pond to Europe.

If you’re an individual, foundation, or aligned company that wants to support the Sophie Strand series, reach out.
If you’re a publisher or lit world comrade, I’d love to connect.
If you’d like to host a live gathering for the book tour, let’s talk—we’d love to share good food, real talk, and tender moments with your community.

Email us at connect@forthewild.world

Thank you for walking with us—whether you’ve been here since the beginning or just arrived. My heart is racing as I share this with you. It feels risky, but right. Vulnerable, but true. And I’m so grateful.

In the meantime, you can spend some deep time with us through our Earthly Reads Series and Book Study or Bayo Akomolafe's We Will Dance with Mountains: Vunja! course—both on our website.

And of course, we’ve got over 350 episodes waiting for you on your favorite platform.

Here’s to what comes next. With love,
Ayana

♫ The music featured in this update is “Das Nuvens (Live)” by Fabiano do Nascimento, courtesy of Leaving Records.

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In the sixth and final episode of our Earthly Reads series, we are honored to welcome back Prentis Hemphill, author of What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World. This episode offers a preview of the live Earthly Reads Book Study, join us there to access the full 75 minute episode.

Offering embodied insight into the ways in which healing manifests in our personal and collective lives, Prentis Hemphill brings a thoughtful and empathetic perspective to this crucial conversation. Exploring what the process of healing looks like within movements and the trouble with only focusing on the individual, Ayana and Prentis bring much-needed nuance and humanity to the dialogue. Dive right in for a conversation that invites us all to imagine new possibilities for justice, community care, and wholeness—one that fosters deeper belonging with each other and the Earth.

About the guest
Prentis Hemphill is the bestselling author of What It Takes to Heal, a groundbreaking exploration of healing, justice, and transformation. A therapist, somatics teacher, facilitator, political organizer, and writer, Prentis is also the founder of The Embodiment Institute and a leading voice in embodied leadership and collective healing.

About the series
Earthly Reads is a podcast series and online book study featuring conversations with some of our favorite authors including adrienne maree brown, Marcia Bjornerud, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Prentis Hemphill, Tricia Hersey, and Céline Semaan. This episode is just a small glimpse into some of the incredible live conversations that take place throughout the book study. For more details about the series and to purchase access to the full study, visit forthewild.world/bookstudy.

♫ The music featured in this series is “Nucleo (Live)” by John Caroll Kirby (featuring Logan Hone, Benny Bock, Paul Maramba, and Tamir Barzilay), “Joyous Dance” by Laraaji, and “The Rite Way” by Muwosi and Lionmilk from the compilation Staying: Leaving Records Aid to Artists Impacted by the Los Angeles Wildfires courtesy of our partner Leaving Records. Compilation proceeds are directed back into the community of artists and families impacted by the fires. Learn more at staying.bandcamp.com.

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