S06E03: How Rethinking God, Gender, And Nature Can Heal A Burning World

A campfire changes the kind of conversation you can have. With scholar and wilderness guide Kimberly Carfore, we lean into that flame to ask why so much of Western faith and culture treats the earth—and women—as subordinate, and how we can reorient toward relationship in a century of fires, floods, and frayed trust. Kim’s journey from Catholic roots to ecofeminist theology and back into the woods becomes a map for courage: teaching friction fire as a spiritual discipline, founding Wild Women to empower outdoor connection, and wrestling honestly with appropriation, reverence, and responsibility.

We trace how dominionist readings of Genesis 1:28 fueled the Doctrine of Discovery, witch burnings, and modern domination systems, then pull forward correctives from multiple wells. Haudenosaunee wisdom reframes peace as right relationship with the natural world; cultural burning and Indigenous fire stewardship model care that prevents catastrophe. Ecofeminist thinkers like Val Plumwood expose the human superiority reflex, while theologians such as Sally McFague invite us to imagine the earth as the Body of God—and perhaps, as Kim suggests, as Mother—so power becomes care, not control.

Along the way, we get practical and personal: breath as a plant-human exchange, ancestry as orientation rather than shame, climate impacts on marathon times as a tangible signal, and the way a simple fire-making practice can restore agency without conquest. If we’re serious about climate solutions, we need more than technology; we need new theologies, renewed kinship, and places to gather, listen, and act together.

Join us to rethink dominion, recover relationship, and tend the ember that connects us. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves big ideas by a warm fire, and leave a review to help others find the conversation. What image of the sacred would help you live differently tomorrow?

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:24

And now introducing your host, Phil Arnold.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

All right. Welcome back to Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery. My name is Phil Arnold. I'm professor of religion and core faculty in Native American Indigenous Studies at Syracuse University. And founding director of the Scano Great Law Peace Center.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

And I'm Sandy Bigtree. Welcome. I'm a citizen of the Mohawk Nation at Aquasni, and I'm on the board of the Indigenous Values Initiative, as well as being on the Academic Collaborative at the Scano Center.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

This podcast is made possible by a grant from Luce Foundation. We want to thank them for that support. Today we have a special guest, our friend and colleague Kim Carfor. Kim, thanks so much for being with us today. Can you just introduce yourself to our audience?

SPEAKER_06 1:28

Yeah, sure. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a big fan of the podcast. I've listened to as many episodes as possible. You've taught me so much, so it's an honor to be here. So I'm Kim Carfor. I am a professor at the University of San Francisco. I teach in both the theology and religious studies department and the environmental studies department. So to me, I kind of traject these two very different worlds. In the indoors, I teach a Christian feminist theology class. And then my heart really, I mean, I love teaching that class, but my heart really lies in my outdoor work. Before I got my PhD, I was a wilderness guide for an outdoor uh program for at-risk youth. And so that's when I fell in love with nature and um being immersed in the natural world for, you know, we'd be out there for 12 days at a time, and then I get off trail and I'd just be like, what is truth? What is reality? What have people taught me about who I am?

SPEAKER_02 2:24

It's funny about the outdoors, isn't it? Yeah.

Wild Women And The Transformative Power Of Fire

SPEAKER_06 2:26

Oh my gosh, yeah. Just I have to study theology. What, you know, what is a human being? What are we doing in this planet? Are we doing the right thing? And so I teach outdoor immersion classes in my environmental studies uh department as well. And then I also just founded a nonprofit called Wild Women, trying to connect and empower and educate women in the outdoors.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Tell us more about that. What inspired that?

SPEAKER_06 2:51

Well, it was inspired once again by my work in uh the wilderness and seeing the transformative, seeing the wilderness as a catalyst for transformation and change. And so the groups out there were divided by gender. So there were women's groups and men's groups, and I worked both, but there was something about being um in the women's groups. I noticed they were uh the way that they'd problem solve would be very collaborative. Um, and I don't want to get essentialist on this point, but I'm just noticing group dynamics. Um, and then so for me personally, the the wilderness was a catalyst for my own personal transformation and growth and and and development. And so I just wanted to give this to other women. And so I founded this a couple of years ago. And I actually just got a grant from the AAR to start my own podcast. So I'm love to have you on the podcast at some point.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Is it called Wild Women?

SPEAKER_06 3:45

It's called uh Return to the Fire with Wild Women, yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_06 3:49

So highlighting these um conversations about um reconnecting people to place and planet and diving into some of these suppressed feminine narratives. So that's the goal.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Wow, that's fabulous. Yeah, so maybe we could do it around a campfire or something, you know.

SPEAKER_06 4:07

Yeah, exactly. No, what that's exact, and that's exactly why I named it that was because the conversations that I noticed happening over and over and over again were always around the campfire. It's when the lights were down that you know, the uh sunlight had gone down, and people were just very self-reflective and open. And, you know, I've created many different fires and I've had many different conversations around the campfire. But to me, fire is is alive and it's very uh there's a there's a spiritual dimension to it. I could watch a fire forever and just watch it dance. And I think that the way that the mind connects to that, it helps to um bring forth certain topics and and and the depth of awareness that I I I just fell in love with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

Yeah, I grew up with a fireplace, you know, and we'd have these, you know, great big fires in the fireplace all the time. But I when you were talking about this, I just recalled laying on these big pillows for a good chunk of my childhood, just staring at the fire by myself.

SPEAKER_06 5:14

By yourself, yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:16

Oh was there a do you remember what that how did that feel like, or did that inspire you in any way? It's really hard to it's not linear, I don't think.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

No, it's not at all. Yeah, not at all. Yeah. The movement and the power of it, and it's just fascinated with its life, you know, it's so powerful. It is so powerful and grounding to see and look at it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

I think it's important for for kids to get out and you know, experience fire and camping and outdoors, you know. I mean, it's it's uh it's just so in itself, it's just so, you know.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Oh, especially, especially today with everyone new to their iPhones or cell phones. Oh, yeah. What are we going to do to reorient the children?

SPEAKER_05 6:09

You know, uh weapons of mass distraction.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Yeah. Exactly. Oh, it reminds me so uh a couple of weeks ago there was a big article in the Wall Street Journal, I think. Not the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, I think, on um indigenous uses of fire. And it was I I used it in my class, and it was really situated in Northern California where you are, and they're utilizing like your rock traditions to fight, you know, because fire is such a you know, such a you know destructive force in California, and so they're trying to find new relationships to fire. And there were these videos in there, you know, kind of embedded in the article where they where this this native man is sort of like talking to the fire and moving it along in some ways, you know. So they're moving and and and sort of watching it very closely and stuff. And I thought, wow, and I showed it to my students, they were just captivated by the whole thing, you know. Um, but uh yeah, my my brother lives in Northern California too, so I'm always concerned about out-of-control fires, you know.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

I remember talking to our Tata Dow, Sid Hill. He said long ago they would manage fires here too, and protect the village where they were living, but the fire really still was able to you know exist and move and be a fire, but they could manage it.

Cultural Fire Stewardship And Controlled Burns

SPEAKER_02 7:45

So and the and the woods were were open. So we had buffalo here, actually. You know, that's why there's buffalo, New York, and so they had um, you know, like the canopy of the woods, of course, but the fires would not get hot enough to really burn the trees, they would burn the undergrowth, right? So that the animals and people could, you know, right. Um, you know, it would be regenerative as well. Regenerate the the soil.

unknown 8:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

So a lot of things about fire. I mean, I know you're this is kind of an aside, frankly, but but you know, it's it's uh it's it's you're on to something, I think, there.

SPEAKER_06 8:27

It's kind of an aside and it's kind of core to who I am as a person because when I um I love fire, I love it so much. Um, when I go hang out with my friends, they're always like, oh, Kim's gonna let Kim do the fire. And I'm kind of a purist about it. I don't like to use paper, um, unless we're calling it an emergency situation. Um, but it's also what brought me to your work. Uh, because when I was out teaching, uh being a wilderness guide, I learned how to make fire with sticks. So using the Baudrill method and the Flint and Steel method. And then it's this living question of mine that I have, which is, you know, as a non-Indigenous person, what is my what is a just relationship to um teaching or embodying um these ancestral skills? Right? Is it is it just for me to be teaching this? Um, but I to me it's a spiritual practice, and and I've I've constantly gone to fire and I've asked fire, you know, is it is it okay that I'm I'm um I'm keeping this practice alive? And and it always feels that it's more important to keep these traditions alive than for um for me to not. And so kind of going back to what you're saying about uh these wildfires and controlled burns, and so now they're doing a lot of controlled burns because if you're not doing controlled burns, then it's creating all of this um really dried grass, and then that's what creates the wildfires. And so it's like we've constantly, and this is the difference between this sort of colonial um Eurocentric um relationship to wilderness, right? The Wilderness Act of 1964 defines wilderness as a place where man doesn't live and man doesn't belong. Number one, it's man, and number two, in order to have that definition, you had to displace the indigenous people that were caretakers. And so indigenous people were constantly um using these controlled burns as ways to um allow the the regeneration of the earth because some species need fire to propagate. Um if you're if you're not doing that, then you're you know, certain species are getting overgrown, they get super dry with the drought, and then the wild fires come and sweep it up. And you know, if if they were practicing controlled burns, then it wouldn't get so hot to where it is charring the big trees.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

So no, the onslaught of colonialism and Christianity just wreaked so much damage to our cultures because they were not allowing us to be in proper relationship with the natural world. And our Tata Dao says peace cannot be obtained until attained until you're in proper relationship with the natural world. So anyone who's going to work towards re-engagement is not appropriating indigenous people. We're meant as human beings to engage with the natural world and have foster this kind of healthy relationship that was pretty much drilled out of us through um Christian contexts through all of us. Yeah, because everyone was indigenous at one point, right? But Christianity really instilled this dualistic world of good and bad, and life is a battlefield, yeah, to conquer what they've considered evil and bad or wild or dark, or yeah, you know, you go on with the list.

SPEAKER_06 11:59

Um I even think it's fascinating that wildness isn't an indigenous concept, it's because right there's no word for it.

SPEAKER_04 12:09

There's no word for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 12:11

Yeah, because there's no separation, it's all relationship. And so I think about this a lot because it's really central to my work, but it it's it's almost like okay, well, if because Christianity has created this dualistic worldview where humans are seen as separate and above nature, and that you know, humans are domesticated and nature is wild, then it's almost like we have to reappropriate, um, westerns need to reappropriate this concept of wild to even understand what it means to connect with nature anymore.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

Yeah. Well, you know, I'm and you know, there is there is a reality that we live in that we're always connected to nature. I mean, um, we are nature, in fact. I mean, you know, um uh the Hood and Ashoni say they're not environmentalists, they're the environment, right? Um, yeah, in a very real sense. I mean, you know, I was telling my students a couple maybe last week, maybe today, can't really remember, but it's one of those, it's kind of that point in the semester where it kind of blurs.

SPEAKER_06 13:10

Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

But uh, but I was telling them, you know, at some point that you know, my watch went off, you know, it says, okay, time to be mindful for a minute, you know, or or take some breaths or something like that. And so I'm thinking, so watch that it tells me to watch your breath. And I realized, I said, well, it's really not my breath, it's not my possession, because breath is always an exchange with plants, right? Yeah, I mean, that's just kind of a fact of existence, right? So so you're we can't exist outside of a kind of you know interaction with the world around us, you know, food, water, fire, heat, you know, all that. Uh we we are the environment. And yep, and if we look at it almost in that kind of I don't know, stem way, that biological way, you know, then from that, you know, follows the meaning of being human, right?

Dualism, Christianity, And Separation From Nature

SPEAKER_03 14:14

Profound. Well, there's there's moisture and water in everybody's breath, and we're inhaling you know, each other's breath as well, right? Yeah, especially when we're gathered together with any other person. So we are so interconnected, but it's our minds, the separation of mind and body that was also drilled into our awareness of who we are that we think we're we're separate, but we're really not, and um, the Hoden Shoney liked to say that we we carry in us the fire, our fire, our fire.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

All of us do, you know, it's your heart, um, it's our spirit in a way, right? So we have to tend to our own fire.

SPEAKER_05 14:59

Um, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Yeah, so so this is all kind of roundabout way to saying keep it up, you know. You know, so you know, you can you can do what you like, yeah and and think about how it you can. I mean, I I understand and appreciate that that you know you don't want to be extractive in any kind of knowledge or anything like that, and that's a good thought to have that you should talk about. But then on the other hand, we all need to we're gonna we only are gonna make it if we can somehow um put that gift economy of living uh in conversation with the other economic realities of our lives, right? That are seem to be driving climate change and all these other factors, right? So, anyway, I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_06 15:57

And I think that holding the question has been really important for aligning myself with the practice in a in a respectful way. Um, but also I don't think I'd ever lose a sense of reverence and respect for the practice because, like I said, it is a spiritual practice to me. And I really appreciate how you shared that um what is a Hodneshone um um attitude or idea or belief that uh we all carry our own fire and that it's our our job in this life in this world to attend to that. And that's what I teach my students. So every nature immersion class, I teach them how to make friction fire, and that it always to me is this practice of curating and um participating in and discovering your own fire, and and fire is a spiritual uh metaphor. And so I think it um, you know, that's partly why the goal of Wild Women is to empower women, and I see it all the time in in this fire-making practice. I remember I had a student who she said, you know, in all of my years at USF, I think my greatest achievement was when I finally started fire, because um I don't know, I don't know why. Actually, she didn't say why, but yeah, that it was an achievement. And I think it's that that spiritual recognition of of who we are and what our purpose is here, because back to your point about okay, yeah, so we're these beings that were trained to live in these economic realities. And of course, yes, I need to have a job in order to um feed myself and my loved ones. And but that's not all we are. And I think that practicing kind of like what you said, um, remembering our interconnections and and practicing having these spiritual practices of remembering, yes, and okay, yes, I have to put on this outfit, whether that's a human outfit, um, and techno-industrial human outfit, this you know, consumerist outfit just to thrive now. But yes, and I'm working towards a gift economy. Yes, I'm working towards wakening people up to their interconnected self that includes the whole evolutionary um of the planet, right? All the beings were interconnected. And um, one of my teachers, Brian Swim would always say, We're made of stardust and it's just recycled material over and over again. And I think okay, you can know that cognitively, but if we felt that as an embodied being, we would be living very differently on this planet.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Yeah, yeah. Well, I love Joni Mitchell, so yeah, that's a good that I like the reference. So yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:34

Um, it's a Joni Mitchell reference.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah, we are stardust Woodstock.

SPEAKER_06 18:40

Okay, all right, all right.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

That's where he got it. Okay, I'm gonna have to talk to him about this. Okay, he's not wrong either, you know. I mean, that's absolutely true. We're we're carbon beings, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Um, so this is a podcast about the doctrine of Christian discovery. Um and I think we've kind of touched on it a little bit, but you sent us a couple really interesting articles. Um, and I wonder they're very different, by the way, you know. I mean, um, and I wondered if you could kind of so the doctrine of discovery isn't mentioned in either one, but you know, I think there maybe you could just talk about how this topic sort of touches on your concerns, you know, one with snakes and the other with eco-feminism, right? So um I think something that Sandy was saying is about the impediments, right? The impediments to us really fully realizing our humanity, the language, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:44

This dualism of identity, right? Yeah, um, never in any kind of fostered to have any kind of relationship. It's always like, you know, at one end or the other. I was saying to Phil, you know, does what is it, the magnet magnetic pole in the north compete with a magnetic pole in the south? I mean, are they opposites? Are they good and evil or an opposition or trouble? One's a troublemaker and one's not. I mean, this is like insane, you know, our whole existence uh is oriented around this magnetic field, right? That that allows us to exist. So um, even in in that context, relating to the earth and the world, it's it gives you a different perspective of how interactive this all is, even at extremes of the polar opposite, not poles.

Breath, Interbeing, And Tending Inner Fire

SPEAKER_06 20:42

That's fascinating. Yeah, I always so um I got into the work of ecofeminism through an eco-feminist philosopher, her name is Val Plumwood, who actually she uh came head-on with a crocodile, and she got taken down and uh was rolled around three times with the crocodile death roll and then lived to tell the tale. And she is talking about kind of what you're saying, Sandy. So I'll go back to the poll uh in a minute, but that she didn't realize how even her, as this um decolonial figure who's advocating um against colon the colonial forces, that even her at a moment of death, she realized that she was still seeing herself as separate as a natural world, right? Oh, I'm more than just food, I'm better than this, and how easy it is to get co-opted into those narratives just by living in these worlds. And so um she really critiques this dualistic worldview, um especially aligning how she identifies the logic of colonization, where it's the same logic that um humans have used to justify the historical domination of nature that men have used to justify the historical domination of women that men have used, right? And so thinking about that logic and how it kind of gets its um its claws in you and it structures the whole hierarchy of the colonial project. And so this was my way in. And so thinking about okay, how does this connect to the doctrine of discovery? Well, it's the foundational, the framework that justified them putting into law these ideologies, right? It was um the logic of colonization was the ideological scaffolding that upheld what justified the the doctrine of Christian discovery. And so I've done a lot to, especially in my Christian feminist theology class and then in my work in feminist theological circles, I do a lot to critique and deconstruct this monotheistic male god because I think, you know, in the Christian tradition, it's blasphemy to even exactly. I mean, I like questioning is a big no-no. Pushing back is also okay, you're gonna go to hell. Um and what is hell, we don't know. But those are the tools that Christianity has used to kind of maintain this ideological scaffolding. It keeps us in these fear, um just like a fear response where and I I've I've gotten really into now tracing the line of okay, logic of colonization, doctrine of Christianity discovery, um, domination of women by men, and then how also the papal bulls that justified the witch burnings. Um yeah, so um yeah, Mary Daly. Thank you, Adam. If God is male, then male is God. And so it's it's the material and the ideal, right? If you um have these theologians or philosophic philosophers who are creating the world views or the ideas that then the people who are then creating the material world, right? The economic structure, the governmental structure, the politics, then then it justifies and then um instilling that with genocidal practices or the witch burnings. And so that creates the bodies that then um just abide, right? Because once again it's back to survival.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

So ideological fear, right? Yeah, and then you find yourself confronting a copperhead snake.

SPEAKER_06 24:43

Oh yeah, and that was it's no longer ideological. No, exactly, but that's so funny because I spent so many years of my life um after my undergrad, and I went, I went and I lived in India, and I, you know, lived in spiritual ashrams, like a Hindu ashram, and then I practiced Buddhism, and then and then I went to a Sufi camp. And so I was exploring my own Christianity. I don't haven't revealed to people I grew up Catholic. Okay. Whoa, big, oh no. And you're in a Catholic institution, and I teach at a Catholic institution right now, yes. So I feel like I'm really looking at these frameworks through a microscope, right? Whether that's my own worldview that I was raised in, kind of deconstructed in my different spiritual exploration. And then when I came face to face with a copperhead snake, which I didn't realize at that moment, I was still holding on to this, this, this male godhead because it's so deeply instilled in you. Even if you consciously I I'm not gonna speak for anyone else, even if I consciously tried to deconstruct this. Oh, I don't abide by a male god, but when they get you so young, yeah, it's it's like in psychology, they have critical periods, right? Or language when you're um learning a language, it's it it's like your brain creates those neurological connections, and it's really hard to undo those.

SPEAKER_04 26:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 26:13

So I think about you know, teaching these frameworks of Christianity at a young age. So yeah, being face-to-face, the copper head in the wilderness when I was um a wilderness guide for Arasque Youth, it it just blew open these concepts, and I didn't even realize I was still abiding to this male godhead. Where when I was looking in the eyes of that snake, I realized, oh my gosh, human superiority complex is real. It's it's it's in the mind because this thing can kill me just as much as I can kill it. It's just that we we hide in these buildings and you know, these solid walls and forget how interconnected we are. And interconnected does mean that that we're food for other beings sometimes. Even if that's something like a small flea or a tick. I think ticks are the things that get my students the most. I think it's the smaller things that get my students to just their skin crawl. Because once again, you think, oh, I'm this big, powerful being, I'm bigger than it, but oh man, those microscopic entities. Don't mention ticks.

Friction Fire, Appropriation, And Right Relationship

SPEAKER_03 27:24

Okay, okay, okay, okay. So you two didn't care last week, it found its way, and uh it was a very tiny one, and they're the most dangerous. So yeah, right, you got there in time. Was it on Mickey? You said no, it well came, I'm sure it came off Mickey, but it was on me.

SPEAKER_06 27:44

Oh no, Sandy, did it bury it? Did it bury its burrow?

SPEAKER_03 27:48

I think I flew to the urgent care. Phil went off to work and I just hopped in the car when I saw it early in the morning, and I'm like shaking, getting myself there so someone can remove it for me.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Yeah, she sent me a picture. She sent me a picture, you know, it's like but I guess it doesn't it doesn't have the bullseye.

SPEAKER_06 28:06

You didn't get the bullseye, did you? I didn't, no. That's good, that's a good sign. Yeah, you know, you can get them tested. So if you pull them out, you can get them tested to see if they have blind disease.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Yeah, I had it, but Phil recycled the little I screwed up.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

I don't know. I mean, it was it was like several days later, and I didn't see a bullseye, it was behind her ear, so I kept checking. And uh you're fine, you're fine.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Let's it hurt though. Yeah, it really hurt, really hurt. I mean, I've been bitten before, and um, but this one really hurt. Oh no, experienced that, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 28:41

I wonder why.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

Very strange.

SPEAKER_06 28:43

Yeah, I wonder if it's because it's the smaller ones. I don't know. I I'm not here to talk about deer tick.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

But it is changing the subject. It is a symptom of our times, right? So, you know, the logical extension of this theology of colonialism of the doctrine of discovery is we're going to experience more and more aggressive um behaviors towards us, you know. Uh, if it's fire, you know, I mean all the fires you have out in California, or you know, the you know, or ticks or tsunami, yeah, um whatever else, right?

SPEAKER_04 29:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Um, so this is coming at us in a big way.

SPEAKER_04 29:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Um, so we're not paying attention to to what's what's happening just in our yards, you know, in a way.

SPEAKER_06 29:33

Yeah, it's really true. It's it's really true. Um, I just heard I'm also uh a long distance runner. I just saw an article because the New York Marathon was this, oh yeah, you're New York.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

Um we don't we don't go to the marathon though.

SPEAKER_06 29:49

Yeah. That's what is it, four hours from you?

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Yeah, it's a waste.

SPEAKER_06 29:54

Well, I found out you done that?

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Have you raced in the marathon?

SPEAKER_06 29:58

I've raced this not the New York one. I'm my I'm going to, well, as I announced this to the podcast, now I'm gonna really have to do it. I'm gonna do it. Yeah, I'll do it next year.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Sometime in the future, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:12

Oh I okay, so I will do it next year. Um but and I'll come swing by. Now that I'm betting myself a little bit more. Oh, sure. Any time.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

That would actually be really fun.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Do you need help catching up on today's topic? Or do you want to learn more about the resources mentioned? If so, please check our website at podcast.doctrine of discovery.org for more information. And if you like this episode, review it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And now back to the conversation.

SPEAKER_06 30:42

But yeah, so I saw an article that said that um, and I've thought about this in terms of human evolution, and you see it in sports, and people are always breaking records, and it's a constant growth. And you think, wow, the human potential, human evolution. And I just saw an article that said uh climate change is going to affect elite marathon runners. So now their times are actually going to start going down. And I thought, wow, this might be some evidence where people, because it's easy, once again, the cognitive dissonance for people to think, oh yeah, climate change isn't real. Um, but then once you see elite runners' times go down, which I can't, you know, since maybe the 1900s, the times have gotten higher and higher and higher. But this goes back to us backgrounding nature as if, you know, human superiority complex, look how great we are. Well, actually, we needed clean air and this very specific um temperature for us to be thriving.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

And that, and the, and the, and the, as Oren says, the uh the good weather is over, you know. You know, yeah for millennia, we've had good weather. You know, that's really has been the fluorescence of culture around the world and all that, but I think it's going to be changing now. So that's what he constantly talks about.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

Yeah, so there is an urgency to reorient, right? Yeah, we are so divided, you know, and men are are suffering today with this movement as women are trying to step up and be seen and be heard, and many are just taking um the male model and and you know, leaving men wondering what are what are we supposed to be doing, you know?

SPEAKER_02 32:29

Everything is so chaotic right now, and there's so much work that needs to be done and yes, inspire people, and especially but it's our conviction that it's it's a theological issue, the doctrine of this Christian discoveries. So colonialism is a theological issue, and it can only be solved with re-theologizing, if you um, so because it's not that we're not gonna have like a fix to climate change, we're not gonna have a technological fix to climate change, you know, unless people have a different or are reoriented somehow, you know, people and cultures and traditions.

SPEAKER_03 33:11

And even though these categories, when they were formed, were were divisive, I mean, to theologize about your world, I mean, we're in a real bind right now. We've got to reorient and we do need new theologies and places to gather and talk and meet and try to create a new direction, yeah, of re-engagement with each other and the world.

Ecofeminism, Val Plumwood, And The Logic Of Colonization

SPEAKER_06 33:36

Yeah. Well, and I think that's why I started Wild Women, the nonprofit, is getting people together and re-inspiring, because sure, I have read eco-feminist theologians and books. I've read, you know, womanist theologians, makarista theologians, um, indigenous people, and but I think that there's a disconnect where okay, let's apply this. So great. So we could be studying this in the academy, but then there's that public-private divide or the academic public divide. And so, how do we recreate? How do we make these theologies generate real world change? Um, but I really, you know, I really appreciate what you spoke to, Sandy. Uh, so I want to go back to that because I got into feminist theology because it explained it, it gave me this new worldview where it gave me the tools to think, okay, well, I was raised in the Catholic tradition. It's a monotheistic male God who exists over and above this world, untouchable, right? There's no relationship there except through Jesus. But to me, I was like, I don't, is there something wrong with me? I don't really, it's not, I don't know, I don't know how to have a personal relationship with God or with Jesus. And is there something wrong with me? But and so, you know, reading these eco-feminist theologians gave me the tools to think theology in a sort of liberatory way, in a way that was liberating for me. But then I get in the university and I'm teaching feminist theology, and I I tell my students every time on day one, I say, you know what? Sometimes I feel like my job is harder than say a mathematician, because you go in, it's so objective. Nobody has an opinion about math. Nobody gets mad when you say the word zero. But when I start class, everybody already has a preconceived opinion about what the word feminism is. And then I always joke and I say, it's the new F-word, right? Like I feel like my job in the classroom all semester is just to try to deconstruct their preconceived notions about what this word means. And so going back to your point, it has created a huge divide. And so I question whether or not it's helpful to use that word because it's so divisive.

SPEAKER_04 35:59

Right.

SPEAKER_06 35:59

And just because it was helpful for me, because I've read, you know, so many books and thought about it for myself. But when you go into dialogue and talk to people, people just kind of shut down. And so I'm like, I don't know if it's liberatory in the public space. Um, but it does really put into question um these relationships. It's like, okay, so we had this Christianity created this hierarchical relationship between men and women. And now women are kind of showing up in a different way. They got empowered by the feminist movement after four waves. And now men are just, I don't think men and women know how to relate to each other anymore. At least I see that as young people sometimes. There's just so much fear there. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

I I I'm curious what I think added to that, of course, is is uh online dating and you know, the internet and you know, meeting meeting a potential partner through your phone. I mean that just seems to me bizarre, always has, but but you know, you know, that's that's the way it is these days, you know. And I and I don't know, I don't know, you know, that kind of exacerbates the whole problem, the uh uh, or I guess the dilemma.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

But it is a journey. I mean, you do need these steps to move out of the right confinement everyone is in. Um, have to constantly be creating new ways of relating and expanding our worldview. Um, I mean, the opportunity when colonists came onto this continent, because they had already suffered um genocide and ecocide in Europe, and the and the lost opportunity to come to this continent and see the indigenous people that had already worked through a lot of that. I mean, our whole creation story is about um, you know, arriving on earth, living plentiful, rich lives, but then falling away from our responsibilities, which eventually led to warfare among one another thousands of years ago. And that's when the peacemaker came to show a way through it. So there's an opera, and then for thousands of years, the Huden and Shoney lived in peace, but that narrative, that creation story involves, you know, total discord and violence, and it showed a way through it. And so by the time Europeans came here, Huden and Shoney already knew how to work through this, they knew how to read the signs that these people are off on the wrong track. And right from first contact, indigenous people were trying to warn European colonists coming in here that this is going to be trouble, you know. Um so for thousands of years been trying to sort this stuff out. Here we are, you know. Yeah, well, I find from here.

SPEAKER_06 39:00

Yeah, I find it fascinating that so to the Hodenoshone, is it Skywoman falling? Oh no, you you told me the yeah, Sky Woman fell from yeah, and it was all about relationships and and the natural world.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

They held counsel on how they could save her. The geese flew up to cradle her and set her gently on turtle's back. She didn't appoint anyone to do this, or yeah, um, it was just this nonverbal exchange, and the animals gathered together and you know, welcomed her. Um, and then even when the peace was restored and the peacemaker first selected Jigonsase, who was trying to bring the soldiers together, the warriors together in her um house by feeding them and lodging them. And the peacemaker said, You have a big heart, but you're enabling so many words he didn't speak English, of course, keep in mind, but you're enabling them to continue on this way, and it's not gonna be resolved through uh reasoning and conversation, right? Gave her instructions that came from the creator that she had to go into the forest with the women, and then one by one, they over a period of time, um, one by one, different animals would present themselves to each clan, each woman, and the animal would identify what clan she would represent. And that's that's the story. So it's this relationship with the natural world. They're they sustain our lives in more ways than we think, you know.

SPEAKER_06 40:39

Wow, wow. So it's foregrounding the the natural world, the natural world chooses what clan you belong in, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:48

That's the natural world is is in charge. Oh, definitely. That's what we're gonna find out, you know. Climate change is gonna teach us that painful reality, you know.

Witch Burnings, Fear, And Theological Scaffolding

SPEAKER_03 40:59

Our medicines are often replicate what organ is is good for you, you know, how it can heal, you know, specific part of your body. And and then, of course, it's been told that through dreams and you know, sweat lodges, sometimes um it'll be revealed to you what you need to consume to heal yourself, which plants. Um yeah, it's very um this, it's a real thing, and there's different ways of being in communication with the natural world and each other. But we've we've been taught that's of the devil, you know, block it off. And so here we are, it's evil. It's totally isolated, you know. And then the women in Europe who carried this knowledge were burned at the stake as they exactly country.

SPEAKER_06 41:49

It's like I know it's that severing do this and set it back on track, but that goes back to the spirit, the fire, the spiritual connection, because when I was face to face with the copperhead snake, that transformed my whole direction in life. And so then my goal was okay, now I want to bring out more women into the natural world, maybe to connect with their their, you know, and this is where it goes back to appropriation. I can't, I don't, I can't use the term totem animal because it's not part of my lexicon, but there is something when you have could be could be your um your uh your symbol for this wild women, you know, the copperhead snake could be your logo. Oh okay, I'm gonna change my logo. I am, you know, it's funny. I thought that, and then I thought, oh, that's too powerful. I shouldn't do that. So I switch it. But this goes back to how we're trained as women in Christianity is there's that fear of of of power, of of real spiritual connection, of of women connected to the earth, right? A witch was just a woman who was either a midwife or a medicine woman or a community healer, right? So so actual power that that she held.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

Right. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

But that was integrative. You know, a lot of people are are afraid of being successful in their lives and and gaining that kind of power because you're in isolation, you know, that's a whole different sense of being powerful, you know, and you lose friends with the more powerful you become. I mean, it's a whole different construct where when you're connecting with the regenerative forces of the natural world, that's something that's inviting, you know, it's not to be feared, but it's threatening to uh hierarchy.

SPEAKER_06 43:46

Higher powers, yeah, that's true. I like that distinction that it's threatening, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

So let me ask you another kind of thing because I'm kind of obsessed with my my ancestry, right? So yeah, so uh I think we talked about this when you visited, but you know, um so my ninth great grandfather, and I think we have something like what did you say? Almost 3,000 nine ninth great grandfather.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

Oh, I can't remember the number, but something like that.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

We have a lot of great grand uh ninth great grandfathers and mothers. Uh, but he was a jurist in the witch cry witch trials at Salem, right? So he burned he burned women.

SPEAKER_06 44:29

Can we go back? What's a ninth grade? What did you say? A ninth grade. Ninth great grandfather. Oh, ninth great grandfather, got it.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

Ninth great grandfather, sorry.

SPEAKER_06 44:38

That's okay, keep going.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Yeah, so so you know, so I have so and we all have these ancestors who I feel are still present in our in our bodies, right? Um, we are the you know, the the the living embodiment of those who came before us, you know, that's a kind of indigenous sensibility, right? We're where we we have these um um these traumas from the past in a variety of ways, like Sandy was saying, but also we've we've we've done horrible things, you know, if we want to claim it from our ancestry, right? So so I'm kind of obsessed with this idea that that you know we and and this really came from Jake Edwards, who uh who's on our board, and he he says, you know, everyone ought to figure out how they came to be here, and what it and then you can figure out what it means that you're here, and that's a kind of indigenous sensibility, right? So good and bad, like Bell and Shoney have real, you know, traumas in even in their story of you know battles and and um you know killings and all that, right? What does it mean for colonists to investigate their ancestry in this kind of a way as a kind of meaningful exercise of of how you came to be here, right? The fact that this was like the 1650s and or something like that, can't remember exactly, but but that but we've been here almost 400 years, you know, our families, and yet I wouldn't say we're indigenous. So how it's not a it's not a function of time, you know. Time lived in a place that makes you indigenous, right? It's a kind of way of being in the place, and how you can how do you reconnect with that through you know, all of these right?

SPEAKER_03 46:50

Well, you're connected to your ancestors because you carry their DNA, right?

SPEAKER_02 46:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

Is there a fire in each DNA molecule? I mean how how in involved does this get? I mean, the body itself is it's just all these colonies of uh microorganisms, you know, are we just hosts to all these um traumas, colonies and traumas, and it's yeah, it there is no separation of mind and body, I I think you know, yeah, it's all integrated, yeah, and we should talk about it and consider it, and yeah, and we could be maybe helping our ancestors through the process because they're living that's kind of a mormon through us, yeah. Do you say that's a that's kind of a Mormon thing?

SPEAKER_02 47:40

I mean we can we can we can somehow help our ancestors, but they would put it more like you can save your ancestors. So I don't know.

Ticks, Climate Signals, And Everyday Ecologies

SPEAKER_03 47:49

No, I'm not putting it in that context, but we are, and and I I have always kind of felt that with my dad that yeah, I do this work to help clarify um where we came to, but back to fire.

SPEAKER_06 48:07

I I always think of I picture the nucleus as having fire, every little is a spark of fire, life is fire, right? So if that spiritual fire connects us to all living beings, including our ancestors, then it is the work of this spiritual fire that draws us into the future. And so um, there's a philosopher, his name is Jacques Derrida, he talks about the past that's never been present. And so I think about my embodied existence is to reclaim or um navigate the past that's never been present. So if I feel my ancestors calling me to do something that drives me into the future, like this podcast, I think this conversation. I do remember you talking about um your ninth great-grandfather being a jury trials.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

And oh yeah, terrible, you know, but but I'm looking, I kind of look for these terrible people in my past, you know. It's like, how did how did I it how did they justify leaving home and coming here? You know, that's kind of my question, right? And and that needs to be solved for all of us, I think.

SPEAKER_06 49:20

Well, I mean, engaged with, I don't know if solving oh not solved, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

Well, solved for me, I guess.

SPEAKER_06 49:27

Yeah, but it is that which draws you to the work because if if you felt like you had no injustices in your history, then you just go retire on a beach, and then you know what what's the purpose of living? Um, so I'm not saying that these are good, but I also just really appreciate navigating these tensions with you because we laugh about it, and it feels very light, and I think that's something that is so difficult, and I get I get this in teaching from mystiology is the guilt and the shame. I'm like, that's not getting us anywhere. It wasn't me, you it wasn't you nine generations ago. It's just this is where we're at now, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:05

Right, right. No, I'm not assuaging any guilt, I'm just thinking that no, it's not that, it's not that at all. It's more like how did we come to be here in this kind of way, right? Um, it's it's a way of mapping, mapping the doctrinal discovery in a way. Um yeah, right.

SPEAKER_06 50:31

Yeah, I think um now a word from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

Tagline now. So yeah, but you know, um, but it's a it's uh an important exercise, and it's found, I mean it's taken us all kinds of different places, um, which has been really fascinating.

SPEAKER_06 50:50

So you I like they use the word exercise because uh it's almost like engaging in the work of digging into our past and bringing in the future that we want to see. It's an exercise, it's a practice, but it's like exercising ghosts, exercising that spirit that has been part of your I don't like the word genetic because it feels very bloodlined. Um, but the connection to our ancestors, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

Well, I think that's there's something theological about it too. I mean, you know, I think there's something something that some it has something to do with God talk because you know it's it's that uh it's that uh these people then I can't remember his name. Anyway, he was justifying this activity of burning women as uh part of his religious worldview, right?

SPEAKER_05 51:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

And so I can understand what's happening now, for example, with white Christian nationalism, you know, from that kind of vantage point, right? So it's not it's you know, I I I in some ways understand the drive that you know that would have created that sort of worldview. Um and I think then from that that's an important information, then you can start to unravel it.

SPEAKER_05 52:26

Yeah, well, then you probably understand what's going on in the world way better than me from your viewpoint.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

Well, Adam actually, our producer Adam, who is looking at us, he understands it much better than any of us on this screen. So yeah. Why don't you say something, Adam?

SPEAKER_01 52:49

You're very kind, thank you. I appreciate this. And was your ancestor John Hawthorne?

SPEAKER_02 52:56

No, no, it begins with a C. It was like a I'll I'll find yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:02

Well, we I'd love to know never mind.

Dominion Theology And The Need To Re‑Theologize

SPEAKER_01 53:04

I was googling it as you were talking, but I do think that where we tie all of this together, and where I really appreciate you taking us, Ken, is to this place about the right and proper relationship. And within the Christian tradition that you've been highlighting, you've been showing how there's a collision of values, that there's this dominionist theology strain that goes back how far, question mark. It goes certainly back to Dum Diversaw, it goes back to the Canary Island Papal Bulls. Um, Sandy has highlighted how it goes back to the Crusades, Peter DeRico and Stephen T. Nukum are collaborating on a project to push it back to Constantine. But what I heard and what you were saying, Kim, right, is it starts at the moment when the manuscript traditions take Genesis 128 to mean dominion over the earth versus being in relationship to the earth. And as soon as Christians start imagining the idea of the Imago Day, of being in the image of God, maybe that's where they get off track. Maybe that's where this dominionist theology piece comes in, and where feminist theologians like yourself and Sally McPhag offer a really vital course correction of saying, no, maybe the entire earth is in the image and the body of God. And maybe what's happening with humans isn't so different. Um, and I think of Jacques Derrida, who you mentioned earlier. Um and I spent a lot of time in the religion department at Syracuse. Everybody talks about Jacques Derrida. And his question about animals do animals suffer? And if they can suffer, and humans can suffer, and it certainly feels like suffering is a condition of existence these days, then we're not that different from them. And we need to be better relational caregivers and neighbors to the animals, to be in responsibility to animals like um Mickey, who is the dog that Phil and Sandy rescued, uh an infrequent guest on the podcast as well. And what we've high just highlighted here in tracing that strain of what y'all have been talking about is pulling out that there's this sort of subterranean Christian tradition that is pushing against this dominion theology of domination, and that gives us the domination code and framework that Newcomb talks about, and the dominion theology of the present moment that we're all experiencing with Project 2025, etc. And so what I really appreciate about y'all's conversation today to wrap this up is to think about inviting listeners to think about uh what are the resources and strategy for change and transformation and liberation. Kim, you did a wonderful job of highlighting elements for resistance and liberation from within the Christian tradition. And all three of you really highlighted the wisdom that comes from the Hodenatchoni Confederacy and Indigenous traditions and the natural world outside of the Christian tradition. And to plug a recent book, The Urgency of Indigenous Values.

SPEAKER_02 57:15

Thank you, Adam. I'll give you the last word, Kim, on anything that uh Adam has sort of like expounded on.

SPEAKER_06 57:24

Man, that was a great overview. Thank you for that. That was that was impressive. Um, so my my my response is going back to this Genesis 128, right? Dominion theology, that we have to think, and when I do feminist theology, I always think about context, right? Ecofeminism is to me foregrounding that which has which has been backgrounded historically, whether that's women's voices, the work of women to create the foundation to where men could do philosophy and theology, um, the natural world that you know we only exist because the trees exist because the oxygen that we breathe. And so thinking about context and applying that to Dominion theology, it makes sense when early humans were farmers, right? Agricultural workers, when Dominion is okay, well, I can only survive going back to evolution. I can only survive when my crops don't fail. And so, yes, it makes sense, right? I live on a farm now. I when I plant my cum free, I don't want the deer coming to eat it or the rabbits, so I have to put up a fence, right? So Dominion makes sense in that context, but now most, you know, more than half of the world lives in cities. And so thinking about okay, what does Dominion mean in that context? Um and so then, uh Adam, you also said something about you referenced Sally McFeague, um The Body of God, which I really appreciate you bringing that to the conversation. Uh, as you were talking about that, I was thinking, you know what, I think part of my work in this world is, and I haven't published on it, but maybe an essay is coming up, which might take a book form at some point once I get the podcast going, um, is to think about the earth as mother god, because if father god is the monotheistic godhead in the Catholic or Christian tradition, has been, you know, that is the God that we know. That has been at the suppression of the earth. And so what if it has been this dualistic um tension this whole time? And so trying to kind of like in women's bodies historically, we realized it back in you know the early 1900s that oh, actually we're made equal. We're made equal in the image of God, so let's act like it. So politically, let's get the right to vote and put us. Equal at 1919. So maybe I'll start doing theology to do that with Mother Nature as as a complement to this monotheistic male god. So I suppose I'll end that. So now I have way too much to do. I have a book to write, I have a marathon to run.

Feminism In The Classroom And Public Language

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

So yeah. Yeah, get busy.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:22

All right. I like being busy. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:26

Well, thanks very much, Kim. It's been delightful to have this interview. And um, we'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:32

Yes. Oh, at the AAR. I'll see you all so soon. Oh my gosh. And if any listener is gonna be at the AR, come see our panel. I don't remember when it is, but you can look it up in the app. But thanks again for all your great work and thanks for having me. It had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:50

The producers of this podcast were Adam DJ Brett and Jordan Lawn Cologne. Our intro and outro is Social Dancing Music by Oris Edwards and Regis Cook. This podcast is funded in collaboration with the Henry Lewis Foundation, Syracuse University, and Hendrix Chapel, and the Indigenous Values Initiative. If you like this episode, please check out our website and make sure to subscribe.