Emergence Magazine

“We look upon the world / to see ourselves in the brief moment that we are of the earth / a small fern in a crevice of the cliff face.” From our latest print volume, Time, read “We Look at the World to See the Earth,” by Ed Roberson. buff.ly/OPtSxQj

In celebration of Earth Day, this week's podcast invites you to offer your ears to the polyphony of sounds and silences that give the planet Her voice with two of our most cherished audio stories. Listen here: buff.ly/zCQxfK1 Illustration by Daniel Liévano. @dghaskell.bsky.social

Join us @pointreyesbooks.bsky.social on Earth Day! Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder in conversation with Katie Holten & Emily Raboteau to celebrate the publication of her book, MOTHER, CREATURE, KIN

TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 6pm PT / 9pm ET

ZOOM, register here: ptreyesbooks.com/event/2025-0...
#naturewriting

An abandoned sacred building space with arched ceilings and tall columns and patenaed brick walls and floors.

A steep hill with a crumbing flat stone foot path that winds along its edge and towards a lone evergreen and into the fog.

In honor of Pope Francis’s passing, we revisit his environmental encyclical, Laudato Si’—a call to care for our common home, the Earth. In this essay, Paul Elie explores how religion and the natural world might come together for shared renewal. Read “Ecological Conversion.” buff.ly/22enhOi

A Small King – Nicholas Triolo With a book of Thomas Merton’s writings in his pack, Nicholas Triolo walks the length of Portugal’s Rio Côa in search of what it means to rewild land and ourselves in a time of ecological collapse and...

This, by @nicktriolo.bsky.social, himself something of a fleet-footed mystic, on Thomas Merton, rewilding, the ghost of the Iberian lynx, and Portugal’s Coa River, is a stunner. @emergencemagazine.bsky.social emergencemagazine.org/essay/a-smal...

“i found god in myself
and i loved her
i loved her fiercely” ~
Ntozake Shange

A landscape of rocky hills and a stream running through them with growing patches of brush and tree growth in various shades of vegetation.

For Christian mystic Thomas Merton, the living world shimmered with a divine feminine presence—a fecund and endless substance, sprung from the unseen world, that spoke to him from grove, in birdsong, on the breath of wind. Read our newsletter: Rewilding in the Company of Mystics. buff.ly/c2UQiO2

A river as viewed from above within a lush valley filled with trees and large rocks below and open sky.

Wild horses group together, viewed from behind a tuft of wild brush on a hillside.

In this week’s story, writer Nicholas Triolo walks the 140-kilometer length of the Rio Côa in central Portugal and begins to feel a wild, relational divinity in the fields of broom and the snarls of boars around him. Read “A Small King: A Mystical Rewilding Along Portugal’s Rio Côa.” buff.ly/TivAReZ

A wide expanse of a beach beside the ocean with pools of water and a barnacle-encrusted tree stump in the foreground with a tree-covered hump in the distance surrounded by further tree stumps in the sand.

“The concept of an unchanging wilderness—its panoramas predictable, its seasons unrolling like backdrops in a school play—is a fiction.”

Listen to “The Fault of Time” by @ericajberry.bsky.social on this week's podcast. buff.ly/zCQxfK1

A landscape of rocky hills and a stream running through them with growing patches of brush and tree growth in various shades of vegetation.

With a book of Thomas Merton’s writings in his pack, Nicholas Triolo walks the length of Portugal’s Rio Côa in search of what it means to rewild land and ourselves in a time of ecological collapse and despair. Read “A Small King” by @nicktriolo.bsky.social. buff.ly/TivAReZ

Opinion | These Butterflies Fly 9,300 Miles to Survive The butterflies’ resilience shows that some species are capable of adapting to dramatic changes in climate, food availability and urban development.

“The Painted Lady’s migration, chronicled in the photographer Lucas Foglia’s new book, “Constant Bloom,” is a powerful reminder of our interconnections with nature and our shared stake in an ever-changing world.” @nezhukumatathil.bsky.social

Robin Wall Kimmerer: The 100 Most Influential People of 2025 Find out why Robin Wall Kimmerer is on this year’s list

“Just as nature finds a way, Robin has found her devoted readers. And during a time of tremendous environmental fear and uncertainty, we have found, to our immeasurable relief, our master teacher.” @lizgilbert.bsky.social on Robin Wall Kimmerer for Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2025.

A wide expanse of a beach beside the ocean with pools of water and a barnacle-encrusted tree stump in the foreground with a tree-covered hump in the distance surrounded by further tree stumps in the sand.

As humans, we long for stability, yet the Earth tells us in many languages—erosion, ice melt, the seasons—that all is fleeting in an endless cycle of creation and destruction. Listen to this week's podcast, “The Fault of Time” by @ericajberry.bsky.social.
buff.ly/7tok7pX

An archive photograph of waves of sand flowing diagonally across the frame.

“Once upon a time giants sculpted the sand, but now it is us who are the giants. The question we must ask now is how we use our power.” — @nickhuntscrutiny.bsky.social

Read this week’s essay from Volume 5: Time, “In the Wake of the Sandbound.” buff.ly/RWAooT0

An archive photograph of waves of sand forming layered formations on a dune.

An archive photograph of waves of sand forming layered formations on a dune.

Home to vast sands raised from the sea five thousand years ago, the wooden throne of a giantess, and legends of a vindictive dragon, the Curonian Spit on the Baltic Sea is a storied landscape that has been profoundly shaped by humans. Read this week's newsletter.
buff.ly/XAeSq7I

Telling the Bees – Emily Polk Bees have long been witness to human grief, carrying messages between the living and the dead. Finding solace in the company of bees, Emily Polk opens to the widening circles of loss around her and an...

4. Telling the Bees (Emily Polk, @emergencemagazine.bsky.social)

"I love how Emergence Magazine publishes pieces that combine science, nature, and memoir. This mix of fact and personal perception makes for the most interesting reading."

emergencemagazine.org/essay/tellin...

Scene from a film of a man with short curly hair in a sweater and jacket, looking outwards into the canopy of the forest and light coming faintly through the tops of trees. With text: Shifting Landscapes Film Series Engagement Guide

The Nightingale’s Song asks: What would it mean if the nightingale and its song were lost from the English landscape? Explore our new film series engagement guide, and reflect on how experiencing love and grief simultaneously can deepen your connection with your landscape. buff.ly/FwlqroV

A person standing in a field of wildflowers in a beekeeping jacket with hood and net covered head holds a frame of bees up towards the light of the sky.

“While bees have long been understood to be conduits between the living and the dead, bearing witness to tears from God and the grief of common villagers, less is known about the grief of bees themselves.”

Listen to “Telling the Bees” by Emily Polk. buff.ly/geOZH2J

An archive photograph of vertical breaking lines in a large and tall facing sand dune.

Traversing the Curonian Spit, home to vast sands that move, rise, and may disappear entirely due to human activity, @nickhuntscrutiny.bsky.social journeys through the landscape’s buried past to understand how we have altered geological time. Read “In the Wake of the Sandbound.” buff.ly/VldxZZf

Graphic with stylized text: Offprint London, 16–18, 05.2025, Tate Modern, Turbine Hall, Bankside, London SE1 9TG

Join us for Offprint London at Tate Modern in London for three days of sharing and celebrating creativity within the publishing community. From Friday, May 16, through Sunday, May 18. buff.ly/KjPq8Ro

Headline: Telling the Bees Dek: Finding solace in the company of bees, Emily Polk opens to the widening circles of loss around her and an enduring spirit of survival. Tagline: Emily Polk for Emergence Magazine A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”

"Maybe the lesson then was the same as it is now: We are all just trying to survive. We are not done yet." —Emily Polk for @emergencemagazine.bsky.social

longreads.com/2025/04/07/t...

Shifting Landscapes Film Series – by Adam Loften & Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee Our new four-part Shifting Landscapes documentary film series, directed by Emmy- and Peabody-nominated filmmakers Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, explores the power of art and story to orient us...

This series of documentaries from @emergencemagazine.bsky.social looks absolutely gorgeous

emergencemagazine.org/feature/shif...

A person standing in a field of wildflowers in a beekeeping jacket with hood and net covered head holds a frame of bees up towards the light of the sky.

In this week’s podcast, Emily Polk learns of the enduring generosity and spirit of survival of these tiny creatures, and glimpses the greater circles of loss that connect us with the more-than-human world. Listen to “Telling the Bees.” buff.ly/ofwBkko

Telling the Bees – Emily Polk Bees have long been witness to human grief, carrying messages between the living and the dead. Finding solace in the company of bees, Emily Polk opens to the widening circles of loss around her and an...

"While bees have long been understood to be conduits between the living and the dead, bearing witness to tears from God and the grief of common villagers, less is known about the grief of bees themselves."

– Emily Polk, from Telling The Bees

[via @emergencemagazine.bsky.social]

This is gorgeous:

A person standing in a field of wildflowers in a beekeeping jacket with hood and net covered head holds a frame of bees up towards the light of the sky.

Referred to as sacred tears of God, emissaries for the ancestors, and message-carriers to the afterlife, bees have long resided at the heart of cultural practices straddling life and death. Read this week's newsletter, Telling the Bees Your Grief. buff.ly/20DO78t

A fine thing to listen to today, to set my soul in the right place for good trouble.

A cloud forest from below looking up at the canopy fading into the fog and tall tree trunks covered in a multitude of moss and plants.

“I love that the origin of the word “reciprocity” comes from the Latin word that means “back and forth.” So there is a back-and-forth, a dance. The birds give, we give back, and we engage in a continuous dance of reciprocity.” —César Rodríguez-Garavito
Listen to “Song of the Cedars.” buff.ly/pj6hs6M

I really loved this podcast. The song that emerged from it is beautiful and haunting. And, I have been left with a lot of questions about how I co-create with nonhumans in my work and how I can grant them the moral authorship they deserve...

A person standing in a field of wildflowers in a beekeeping jacket with hood and net covered head holds a frame of bees up towards the light of the sky.

Bees have long been witness to human grief, carrying messages between the living and the dead. Finding solace in the company of bees, Emily Polk opens to the widening circles of loss around her and an enduring spirit of survival. Read this week’s essay, “Telling the Bees.” buff.ly/zHqQbvs