88: The Story of a Wildcat: Community Resilience and Cultural Connection

Our latest LiveWell podcast episode features an enlightening conversation with Dr. Dan Wildcat, a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University and a profound thinker on Indigenous perspectives of ecology, technology, and community. Dr. Wildcat shares his transformative journey from Sociology to Environmental studies, deeply influenced by his mentor, Vine Deloria Jr.

In this episode, we discuss:

·       His unique approach to understanding the relationship between nature and culture through an Indigenous lens

·       The concept of eco-kinship and moving beyond anthropocentric thinking

·       His experience writing "Red Alert" and finding hope in the face of climate change challenges

·       The power of storytelling, gratitude, and generosity in creating resilient communities

·       The importance of reframing technology to enhance life for all living beings, not just human convenience

Whether you're an environmentalist, educator, or anyone interested in Indigenous wisdom and sustainable living, this episode offers profound insights into reimagining our relationship with the natural world.

Listen now and subscribe for more stories that challenge conventional thinking and inspire holistic well-being.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Wendy Slusser: Thank you so much, Dr. Dan Wildcat, for agreeing

to be part of our LiveWell UCLA podcast. It's such an honor to have you here.

[00:00:10] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Well, thank you for the invitation. I always like to

talk about living well, and that's close to my heart.

[00:00:18] Wendy Slusser: You bet. Can you tell us how you got started on

your journey as a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University?

[00:00:24] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So, I was one of those kind of typical grad

students. I just did undergraduate, went into a graduate program, and I was all

three years in, and I was thinking — well, what am I gonna do? When I get the

doctorate, you know, where am I gonna go?

[00:00:49] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And I was at Kansas University in Lawrence,

Kansas — right in the backyard of Haskell Indian Nations University. I had the

GI Bill. So, when I got out of the service, I decided — well, I'm gonna go to

Kansas University. I had cousins that [00:01:00] were attending Haskell when I

was in the service. And then when I got out, I had a cousin — good cousin,

Dennis Barnett, that was attending Haskell.

[00:01:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So, I knew about Haskell. I really appreciated

what Haskell did in its role in Indian country and education. A funny thing

happened. I started teaching as a graduate teaching assistant at Kansas

University, get this — in the Western Civilization program, and they used to

have a two semester sequence for all liberal arts majors — Western civilization.

[00:01:33] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We used to jokingly call it Plato to NATO.

Anyway, I had about three years in my graduate studies, getting a little bit

burnout because I had gone right in. Right after finishing my bachelor's degree,

the dean from Haskell came up to see me at KU and he said, “I understand

you're a sociologist.”

[00:01:55] Dr. Dan Wildcat: He said, “we've got a position in sociology at

[00:02:00] Haskell, and would you have any interest in coming down there and

teaching?” It just — it was one of those things — it was like, “Wow, yeah, Ithink I would.” And so, I went to Haskell. Haskell is a unique place. Indigenous

students from all over the contiguous 48 states and Alaska.

[00:02:21] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We cannot serve Hawaii natives. That's because

they have a little different legal classification. They're US citizens, but Hawaii

natives are not treated the same way that American Indians and Alaska natives

are. Long story short, when I went to Haskell, the incredible diversity there

blew me away and I fell in love with that place.

[00:02:46] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I fell in love with this kind of incredible richness

of native Indigenous culture I found at that campus. I started teaching there a

long time ago. I'm getting ready to go into [00:03:00] 40 years of teaching there.

I went there in January of 86, but the thing that really sold me on Haskell was

the incredible diversity of Indigenous peoples — their cultures.

[00:03:12] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And I began to make this connection between

Indigenous peoples in their cultures and the places they lived. And that really

made it real easy for me to work with my mentor, Vine Deloria Jr. He was a

great mentor to me. We wrote a book together, “Power and Place: Indian

Education in America.”

[00:03:36] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I started my journey, really in what I'm doing

today — going to Haskell. Falling in love with the incredible diversity I saw

among Indigenous peoples in the United States. And then I started working with

Vine Deloria Jr., and that was kind of a dream come true. So that's how I got

started on this journey.

[00:03:59] Wendy Slusser: [00:04:00] Wow. So I didn't know you were a

sociologist because I, when I first met you, I listened to you on an incredible

panel that was during COVID, so it was all virtual and you were talking all

about the environment.

[00:04:16] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes.

[00:04:17] Wendy Slusser: Tell me, how did you get from Sociology to

focusing more on the environment?

[00:04:24] Dr. Dan Wildcat: See, this is a great question because I don’t get a

chance to talk about this often. So part of the beauty of Haskell now is that

Haskell is a small liberal arts college now. When I went there in 86, it was still

essentially a two year, like junior college and it had not really transitioned to

that four year baccalaureate granting status.[00:04:52] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And so it was small, about 800 students — 600 to

[00:05:00] 650 of them living on campus. So it's a residential campus and the

departments were small, so for some reason they had the Social Sciences and

the Natural Sciences all in the same college under the same dean. And so I

began talking to biologist ecologists, environmental scientists in the department,

and that's when I really started to formulate the thinking in my own work that

was so heavily influenced by Vine Deloria Jr.

[00:05:36] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Who made thinking about history and culture

from a spatial perspective — one of the Cornerstones of his work. And so when

I got to Haskell, I just started talking to the natural scientist. They were a small

department and they welcomed me. They said, “oh yeah, we're really interested,

you know, in those kinds of questions.”

[00:05:59] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And we see [00:06:00] that connection too. When

we talk to our students, a lot of the students wouldn't know the Latin, scientific

names for plants, but they were amazed at how students could identify plants in

their native language. Words for sunflower, words for purple cone flower, words

for dandelion. And they began to say, “oh, there's a real cultural connection

here.”

[00:06:25] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I was so lucky because when I got to Haskell, my

dean just basically said, “Dan, what do you wanna teach?” And so I just started

developing these kinds of hybrid courses and I was teaching sociology. But that

connection to me between culture and nature — I never saw this tension.

[00:06:50] Dr. Dan Wildcat: A lot of people see between, well, “is it nature or

is it culture?” In my traditions, it's both. Simultaneously, [00:07:00] our cultures

are symbiotically connected to the natural world. Really being at Haskell

allowed me to begin working with environmental scientists and atmospheric

scientists and physical scientists, probably in a way that — if I had gone to

another large institution, I wouldn't have had that opportunity.

[00:07:23] Wendy Slusser: What you're touching on, which is a big movement

right now, is this whole trans-disciplinary approach to solving the challenges of

our time. And then you certainly landed on it 40 years ago, which is really a

harbinger for the kind of forward thinking that you do every day that I've really

been impressed by.

[00:07:45] Wendy Slusser: I'd like to hear a little. You keep mentioning Vine

Deloria Jr. You say he was so important to your first stepping stone at school.

Give me a little bit more background on that.[00:07:59] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah, so [00:08:00] Vine Deloria Jr. is probably

one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. An incredible intellect.

He was an iconoclast. There was something about the late sixties. Now, you and

I can reminisce on this, right? But there was something going on there that we

haven't seen since then.

[00:08:20] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And in 1969, two New York time bestselling

books were by American Indians. One of them by. N. Scott Momaday, our own

Pulitzer Prize winning poet, novelist, and artist — House Made of Dawn. And

then a book written by Vine Deloria Jr, provocatively entitled “Custer Died for

Your Sins.: And part of that generation, just when I read that book, I said, “wow,

here is a guy — a native guy — who gets it, who understands it and can

[00:09:00] be funny, irreverent, and very insightful at the same time.”

[00:09:05] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So I became a big fan of Vine Deloria early on,

and then this is really fortuitous. The second year I was at Haskell, a couple of

folks out at UC Berkeley put together a six weeks seminar and it was called,

“Great American Indian Intellectual Traditions with Clara Sue Kidwell.

[00:09:30] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Professor Clara Sue Kidwell was one of the

conveners of that seminar. Each week she invited in different native scholars. I

think it was about the fourth week she invited Vine Deloria Jr. to come. So here

I was, finally face to face with a man, you know, I just really revered for his

intellectual and his scholarship.

[00:09:53] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We hit it off. I think the book, I'd highlight for

people who are listening, if they wanna know more about [00:10:00] Vine

Deloria's influence on contemporary Indigenous studies today. I think it was his

fourth book. “God Is Red.”

[00:10:14] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Again, kind of a provocative title, but in that

book, he really lays out what I refer to as the nature culture nexus: this idea that

you could never separate native people's identity, their culture, and their history

from the places, the spaces where their people emerged over time and as distinct

Tribal peoples. That really resonated with me. It was just such a great way to

start a career in teaching.

[00:10:42] Dr. Dan Wildcat: He really appreciated the fact that I knew a lot

about the Western tradition. I had taught in the Western Civ program for three

years as a graduate student at Kansas University. So I really understood it and I

knew when I went to Haskell, you'll get a kick out of [00:11:00] this.[00:11:00] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I told the Dean, he said, “what do you wanna

teach?” I said, “I wanna offer Western civilization here,” but I told him, “I’m

not gonna do it the way they do it. At K.U., we're gonna do a comparative

approach.” So when we go through the classic thinkers, the topics they raise,

I'm gonna find Indigenous Counterpoint.

[00:11:21] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So when we'd read, St. Augustine’s confessions, I

had them read Black Elk Speaks. When we read Locke and Hobbes, and all of

their social contract theory, I'd have them read Vine Deloria Jr’s essays on this

kind of connection between people and their culture and the institutions they

built that were often modeled after natural systems.

[00:11:48] Dr. Dan Wildcat: The one thing I have to emphasize, I have just

been so fortunate in my life. I've just had so many wonderful opportunities

[00:12:00] that came before me, and I took advantage of most of them. And, the

rest is history. But Vine Deloria is a scholar. I wish every person in America

would read at least one of his books. I'd start with, “Custer Died For Your Sins.”

And then my next favorite would be, “God is Red,” but he's got — I think it's

close to 20 books. So he was prolific.

[00:12:27] Wendy Slusser: So from Plato to NATO at Kansas University to

nature and culture, and then merging the two of them together.

[00:12:38] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes, right.

[00:12:39] Wendy Slusser: That’s really cool. And from my discipline, they

always say nature versus nurture, but it shouldn't be versus — it’s nature and

nurture.

[00:12:51] Dr. Dan Wildcat: It should be, yes.

[00:12:53] Wendy Slusser: Yeah. Your book called “Red Alert.”

[00:12:57] Wendy Slusser: You have a great quote about our [00:13:00] human

knowledge of reality must always be approached with humility. And I'm hearing

a lot of humility in what you're sharing here. As a sociologist who is really

blending this whole nature piece, you've actually really immersed yourself in

climate science.

[00:13:22] Wendy Slusser: And there was a point there though that you felt

deeply discouraged and, what helped you move through that despair?[00:13:31] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You've heard me mention this before, but I was,

again, talk about incredible opportunities. So in about late 2000, and then in

2001, an East European scholar who I had met by virtue of her love of Vine

Deloria works, who I had met in the United States.

[00:13:55] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Her name was Irina Sumi. She was a sociologist

[00:14:00] from Ljubljana, Slovenia. And, I got an email from her and she said,

“Dan, I want you to come to Eastern Europe. I'm doing a proposal, for the

Soros, foundation and his open society initiative to get Eastern European

societies, you know, Make sure their institutions became fully democratized and

things.” Anyway, long story short, I went to Eastern Europe. I was going back

and forth for three years in that project. An amazing project. It really opened my

eyes to my own ethnocentrism as an American Indian and then as a US citizen.

But, during that time, every time I would come back from Europe, we'd be

talking about the crazy weather that people were experiencing and people were

talking about climate change.

[00:14:51] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Al Gore had started the time climate change, you

know, [00:15:00] almost, two decades earlier. And, I thought, you know,

something's going on here. So when I wrapped up my work in Eastern Europe, I

thought, I’m gonna do a book on climate change.

[00:15:10] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So this is about 2005 now. So I've been in Eastern

Europe, I had a great experience. 2006, I said, okay, I'm gonna take a year, and

all I'm going to do is immerse myself in climate science. So, I just started

reading everything I could find. Books. international reports on climate change,

and I tell you, I did that for a year and I got so depressed, Wendy.

[00:15:43] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I thought, “oh my God.” I wasn't reading just,

your, whole wheat tree hugging kind of lovers of nature. I was reading NASA

scientists, NCAR [00:16:00] scientists, NOAA scientists and the forecasts were

saying, we're in for some big trouble if we don't do something soon.

[00:16:10] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And I got depressed and I said, “why am I even

gonna think about writing a book about climate change?” I got so immersed in

the science that I got depressed. I was like, “oh man, I shouldn't waste the time

to write a book about something that we're doomed,” you know? And, about

that time, I always had my support network, so I was reaching out to people like

Albert Whitehat, beautiful man from Sinte Gleska Tribal College on the

Rosebud Sioux Reservation.[00:16:45] Dr. Dan Wildcat: The legendary Billy Frank Jr. of the Northwest

Indian Fisheries commission. All of these Indigenous elders who I had met

through the years, who had always been really [00:17:00] kind and open to me.

Even my aunts, my aunties, Josephine Bigler, one of our real important elders in

helping revitalize the Yuchi language again.

[00:17:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: They said, “Dan, put the books down. You need to

get outdoors again.” And, it was like, yeah, that's where life is — outdoors. I

always took my dog for walks every day, and we started taking walks down

along the Kansas River.

[00:17:36] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I live fairly close to the Kansas River, maybe

about a 10 minute walk from the North Bank of the Kansas River. As it

meanders across the northern edge of Lawrence. And you know what, Wendy,

after about three or four months of putting the books down and just getting

outdoors and walking my dog and I just realized, [00:18:00] “Wow, Dan, you

forgot.

[00:18:04] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You got so immersed in this Western science and

way of thinking. You forgot what you really wanted to write about, and this is

what you wanna write about: our relationship to the land, the air, the water, the

plants, the animals.” And I tell you, it was almost an epiphany of sorts.

[00:18:25] Dr. Dan Wildcat: One day after a walk, I just started thinking about

that. I said, “why do I feel so good?” It is horrible, the situation we’re in, but I

felt good. And then I thought, I feel good because my relatives had been giving

me some good medicine. Not just my human realties, but that river, those trees,

the wind. And I thought, you know what?

[00:18:50] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I'm gonna write this book because that's the

message that we need to convey. That is that, when we think of our [00:19:00]

communities, our kin, we have a tendency to think very anthropocentrically. We

think just about our human selves. What evolutionary biology teaches is that

we're related to all life on the planet.

[00:19:15] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And that's part of ancient Indigenous wisdom.

And so that was really the thing that made me realize, “Oh, Dan, you got too

tied up in this human perspective and you need to write that book because

you've gotta share that broader Indigenous perspective. So that's when “Red

Alert” really took off and I thought, you know what?[00:19:42] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I've read enough science. I'm gonna write Red

Alert now.

[00:19:46] Wendy Slusser: I have to say to all listeners, everyone should read

Red Alert. It’s digestible and it's a great Christmas present. I totally have been

giving it to all my friends and relatives. [00:20:00] There's a couple of terms

that you've mentioned. One is the anthropocentric, which I guess as I

understand is to understand our relationship to the environment.

[00:20:10] Wendy Slusser: Can you explain what it means? More precisely

how I just said it, and also, what's the difference between that and echo kinship?

[00:20:20] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So, an anthropocentric view is a kind of

humanism that basically declares that humans are the center of everything —

that we're the smartest, we're different than the rest of life. And so really,

everything. It's all about us. And so that’s anthro for man, pocentric. It's

thinking that somehow, humans are the measure of all things that, you know,

everything revolves around what we do and how we act and what we behave.

[00:20:53] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And then it can [00:21:00] sometimes lead into

when it's in its most hubris written, arrogant kind of notion is, oh, all these

problems in the world are therefore for us to fix. And so that's the

anthropocentric view. Now, I would suggest to you that.

[00:21:19] Dr. Dan Wildcat: For 99, I'm not gonna say every Indigenous

people in the world, but it's gotta be 99 point something percent of Indigenous

people who still hold their traditional tribal worldviews, and understand that is

the most foreign idea you could ever imagine because from an Indigenous lens,

yeah, we're different, but we see kinship and understand the trees, the

[00:22:00] plants, the soil, the wind, the water.

[00:22:05] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Not as resources, but as relatives. And people

have asked me about my name. I always think it's really funny when people ask

me about my name, Wildcat. They say, how did you get that name? And I say,

well, and among my people, Wildcat is not an unusual name. we have deers, we

have wind.

[00:22:28] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Many of us, some of us were fortunate that after

the deadly Trail of Tears, my people were part of those Eastern Indians that

were removed to Oklahoma territory. And some of us were lucky because

somehow or other when they were working with translators, my great-

grandfather was identified by his clan totem.[00:22:54] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Wildcat. So our clan totems are basically an

ecological [00:23:00] map. Wind, raccoon, deer bear. you can, and then even,

some plants, you can kind of see, okay. These are the places, these are the kinds

of animals that they identified kinship with, and that meant looking at them as

relatives.

[00:23:19] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We had respect for them and we were just

incredible observers of the natural world. And so to us, Robin Wall Kimer has

this great line in her book, “Braiding Sweet Grass,” where she talks about how

her Potawatomi relatives, always human relatives, always understood that the

trees and the plants — we’re their elders.

[00:23:48] Dr. Dan Wildcat: They evolved. They've been here longer. They

evolved way before humans did. And so, we can learn things in our relationship

with those. [00:24:00] Again, not resources, that's the key trick, right? Not

resources, but relatives. And that means then you develop a whole different kind

of relationship. And I think that’s when I talk about eco kinship.

[00:24:16] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That's exactly what I mean, and I want people to

know I'm not speaking euphemistically. I'm not trying to be romantic. I'm

speaking Indigenously. I'm speaking scientifically that we misspeak every time

we talk about the world full of natural resources because they're not our

resources, they're our relatives.

[00:24:44] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And that's what modern science teaches us now.

So even modern science has come around to understanding that, although we

still have this resource thinking that we're burdened with.

[00:24:58] Wendy Slusser: Yeah, it reminds me [00:25:00] of something that a

lot of people are trying to shift in the thinking and about when are we going to

make a dead tree? They say dead trees are worth more than a living tree, but

how can we change that incentive?

[00:25:13] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes. Yes, exactly. And so again. You mentioned

humility, and I wanna say something about this because this is something I think

we desperately need today, and that is this culture of, you know, everyone

thinking you gotta have the smartest person in the room, and if you're bitten

with that horrible hubris, you have to think you're the smartest person in the

room.

[00:25:42] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That arrogance is something that I think is totally

foreign within Indigenous cultural traditions because the person who thinks theyknow it all and among my relatives is the most dangerous person you could ever

be around [00:26:00] because we know it's foolish. How could any of us know

it all? We're much wiser when we learn from others, right?

[00:26:10] Wendy Slusser: So true. And it gets back to one of the points you

actually bring up in Red Alert, which really resonates with me, is this

hopefulness. I think your nature and culture nexus really speaks to that and

gives you some action oriented. So could you define your nature culture nexus a

little bit more detail for our listeners?

[00:26:34] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes. So Vine Deloria, the book that we did

together is entitled “Power and Place: Indian Education in America.” We wrote

that in 2000 and 2001, early 2001. And, a great opportunity to work with, one of

my idols and, he was just, so [00:27:00] generous with me, but his idea was that

power permeates the world, the universe, and most of it we can't see, we can't

touch, but it's there.

[00:27:14] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And now, of course, modern scientists will tell

you there is no empty space and the cosmos may have these nine nanoparticles

of energy, of physical elements and, so there is no empty space. Deloria thought,

power permeates everything. And he said, but it expresses itself uniquely in

different places.

[00:27:41] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And because it expresses itself uniquely, the

people of those places have unique personalities. So that was Deloria's axiom

for Indigenous metaphysics — power and place equals [00:28:00] personality.

I'm a sociologist and I thought, “wow, this explains the incredible diversity

Indigenous people have.”

[00:28:09] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Now it makes sense. It's obvious that Cherokee of

the South Eastern United States are nothing like the Lummi or the Tulip on the

Northwest coast. Now why is that? Because their identities, their personalities,

their cultures were emergent out of what I began to call the nature culture

nexus.

[00:28:35] Dr. Dan Wildcat: The symbiotic relationship that we can never

break. At least not until we get to modern society, and some people are so

ignorant of this relationship that they don't even realize what they're doing to it,

right? That's because they think we're separate. We're above the rest of nature.

[00:28:56] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We're in charge. We're in control. Foreign

[00:29:00] idea to indigenous people. I think the hope goes back to the story Ishared with you when you asked me about writing Red Alert. When I got so tied

up in that reading of Western science that I forgot that, “hey, my community and

my kinship is not just with other humans.”

[00:29:26] Dr. Dan Wildcat: It's with the river, it's with the earth, it's with the

life that resides here. And so when I got outdoors again, started making those

connections, all of a sudden I started feeling better again. I was situated in

community. Now, again, not just a human community, but an eco kinship

community.

[00:29:56] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So here's where ultimately I think hope [00:30:00]

resides. As much damage as humans have done to the earth. We are still

surrounded by beauty and we just have to slow down. We have to take the time

to realize that there are lessons that we humans can learn if we adopt that

position of mindfulness, of humility.

[00:30:35] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And again, for me, Wendy, you've heard me say

this before, that's not Indigenous romanticism. That's ndigenous realism. The

world that we live in has much to teach us. Yeah, if we are mindful, if we pay

attention, and [00:31:00] to me. It means I don't just have to depend on my

human relatives. My family's bigger than that.

[00:31:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I've got a gigantic family. The plants, the animals,

the earth, the soil itself, the water, the wind. Of course, in my people, I don't

know if I ever shared this with you. I think I did, the Yuchi or as we would refer

to ourselves, the Zoyaha. That translates as the children of the sun. We

recognize the sun too, as, one of our parents.

[00:31:37] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And it's really interesting when you start diving

into Indigenous worldviews and cultures, because I can't think of a single one

where you don't, as you get into it, you start to realize, wow, the Navajo

Pueblos, how they were [00:32:00] connected to the desert, to the sun. How

when you get to the Northwest coast, it was the salmon, it was the waters.

[00:32:10] Dr. Dan Wildcat: It was the trees, the forest. And we go up and

down the Great Plains. What was the greatest, most important relative, the

grandpa of them all — the American bison, the buffalo. And so, you know, hope

resides in realizing we don't have to be in this alone and I wanna say something

just for a minute about this, because I've been seeing all the reports and stuff

about this.[00:32:46] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I think we can call it a crisis. A lot of our students,

high school age, even college age now, are reporting loneliness as one of the

primary things they [00:33:00] causing depression, causing them, sometimes to

not feel very good about life. And what I would like to encourage them, all of

young people and old people too, we do need our human relatives.

[00:33:20] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That's important. But remember, we’ve got

relatives too that are outside the walls of these buildings that we're sitting in

right now. And sometimes that's good medicine. Sometimes that's the medicine

we need. And so I think for me, hope really resides in everything we should do.

At this point, Wendy, with everything that we're facing economically, politically,

culturally, technologically, I think community is more important than ever. We

need to focus on [00:34:00] building, human communities, but not just human

communities in isolation from the places they call home, but really including

those places as part of the community. I am dying to hear what your engineers

and material scientists and architects are doing with the rebuilding there, with

the fires you folks had there in Los Angeles County. I'm hoping that someone

you know, is raising up this issue that as we think about rebuilding, let's be

mindful of this larger, sense of community that we need to be a part of, because

I think it could really be an incredible opportunity to illustrate how we can live

well, in our human [00:35:00] communities by recognizing the deep

relationship we have in kinship with the places that we call home.

[00:35:10] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So it’s, to me, there's just all of the things that

we're seeing. These incredible. natural events fueled by climate change or at

least, I won't say fueled by — they are exacerbated often by climate change.

They're not the sole cause there are a lot of things that are causing the kinds of

flooding we see.

[00:35:32] Dr. Dan Wildcat: It's fires that we see. But climate change is a

factor. And I think part of what we need to do now is reaffirm. Reaffirm a kind

of eco kinship with the balance of life on this planet. I'm absolutely hopeful that

we can create more [00:36:00] vibrant, more healthy, more resilient senses of

communities.

[00:36:07] Wendy Slusser: I so agree. And all the different points, and trying to

wrap it up in your theme of it being attentive. Where you live and who you're

living with and what's living around you or part of your environment can not

only bring great joy and uplift your spirits like it did for you, and inspire you to

write Red Alert, but also the fact that it can also really touch on other parts of

your life, like the loneliness part, which you don’t have to feel lonely if you’re

out there, just as long as you can practice that muscle of being attentive.[00:37:03] Wendy Slusser: And I'm thinking, you mentioned climate change,

but not necessarily as one that [00:37:00] is the fault of all that we're

experiencing right now. But what you've discussed in other writings, and also

just in your conversations is the interaction. There are three Cs that you've

identified that are prioritized currently, and then you suggest three other Cs that

you think we should be speaking to. You wanna share some of that with us?

[00:37:26] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Oh, I'd love to. So I just finished an article. It's

gonna come out in the Journal of Geography, which is a journal that's dedicated

to geography education. It's just called Journal of Geography. Be watching for

the next issue. I just finished a piece with a scientist at Ncar and wanted to write

about this age of the Anthropocene, the age of humans that we're now living in.

[00:37:55] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Many big picture scientists would say, we've

really [00:38:00] created a new almost geologic epoch here. The age of the

Anthropocene, the age of humans. We wanted to write about technology. And, I

told Tim I'd been playing around with this for about 20 years, and it dawned on

me that the dominant way that humans, and again, here we go.

[00:38:25] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Now we're thinking, see. an anthropocentric kind

of perspective. It's all about us. When we think about technology, we think

technology is good, so long as it promotes human convenience. Human

comfort, puts money in our pocket capital gains. Those are the three Cs I said of

modern thinking technology is here to promote human convenience, human

comfort, and capital gains.

[00:38:49] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I said, let's counterpoint that. So I started playing

around and thinking about reading Deloria and [00:39:00] thinking about all the

Indigenous scholars and elders I've worked with. And I said, you know what?

We're not anti-technology, but we reframe it.

[00:39:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So for us, okay. Technology is equal to another

three Cs. Community, culture, and communication. And those values, those are

the numerator. What's the common denominator? The earth, and I kept thinking

we really need to reframe technology.

[00:39:35] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So we've written a piece about this in the Journal

of Geography. I hope people can get access to that. And technology ought to be

about, how I end Red Alert, promoting systems of life enhancement and life

enhancement, meaning not just human life.

[00:39:59] Dr. Dan Wildcat: But [00:40:00] all life on the planet.[00:40:01] Dr. Dan Wildcat: What we put back usually isn't that good for the

Earth in terms of pollution and waste. But the other view would be to say, no,

we need to go back to that world of relatives and our technology should be one

that enhances our community, not just the human community. It can do that.

[00:40:30] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Our culture give us resilient kinds of opportunities

to express beauty in the world we live in. And I think, now at least, I think it's

worth us talking about, and I'm hoping people will read it and maybe people

will have a way to tweak it or improve it or say, maybe you got this wrong.

[00:40:53] Dr. Dan Wildcat: How about this? But it's not about being right, it's

just about being [00:41:00] honest and trying to share something. And I always

tell people, look, all I can promise you is that I'm gonna speak honestly. Now,

that means that I might honestly be wrong, and so therefore, when you hear me

misspeak, I welcome you to correct me.

[00:41:24] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You might help me understand something better.

Now, again, think of that attitude. See that, that twisting that around. Now that

you're not attacking me. You're being a good relative. You're saying, Dan, I like

that point, but maybe you ought to think about it this way. You're not being

negative. You're being a good relative.

[00:41:46] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You want me to understand something more fully

and better? I'm lucky I have a lot of good relatives who are always saying, Dan,

I think you better rethink that and work on [00:42:00] this a little bit. So I mean,

isn't that, isn't that beautiful though? Think of what the academy would be like

if we could have that kind of interaction.

[00:42:08] Wendy Slusser: So, I'd love to lean in on the communications part,

especially given that communicating with stories is such a powerful means of

communicating. And I'd love to hear a little bit about what kinds of stories could

you think of to drive for culture and cultural change.

[00:42:33] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. I think they're all there. Everyone has a

story. Everyone has a story. Now, some people don't get a chance to ever share

their stories, but everyone has a story to tell their experience, their life. To me, I

think the most powerful stories are the ones that center around [00:43:00] our

relationships in this world.

[00:43:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: How we all experience in this life hurt. We feel

pain, not just physical pain, but emotional pain. And to me, the most powerful

stories are the ones where you don't back off the painful, hurtful part, but thestories don’t end there. They always have the good stories that are the ones that

have this sense of almost — a sense of redemption, a sense of, finding peace.

[00:43:55] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Finding understanding as a result of [00:44:00]

something, you know, that, may be very painful and, and maybe was very,

hurtful, in one's life. I think right now, what we really need to think about in a

very deep way is how our relationships — and I'll give you a theme that I share

with a lot of scholars — but the one I think of almost immediately — a couple

come to mind — N. Scott Momaday, but then my biologist sister, Robin Wall

Kimmerer. Here’s a metaphor to think about. Life is a gift. Now, sometimes

when when you get gifts, they might not be what you think they are, they might

[00:45:00] not even be what you want. But when you begin to think about the

idea of gifts. Gifting. Then you begin to recognize that we don’t have to be

credit worthy when we come into this life because that first breath of air we take

is a gift.

[00:45:16] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We didn't have to see if we were credit worthy to

take that first breath of life. And I think this metaphor of life as a gift is

powerful because I've heard her talk about it.

[00:45:44] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And what comes with that is then that attitude of

gratitude.

[00:45:51] Dr. Dan Wildcat: A world full of gifts promotes a sense of gratitude.

And here's the really [00:46:00] powerful part. It ends with a responsibility to

be generous. Generosity is what really helps the world go round. And I tell you,

I don't know about you, Wendy, but I was so offended when I heard a person

who's been in the news quite a bit frequently actually say that he thought

empathy was the biggest weakness of modern humans to have empathy.

[00:46:40] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I couldn't disagree more. Empathy, gifting, gift

giving, gratitude, generosity. The three Gs. The three Gs. I think that is the

stories that [00:47:00] I think of in my life and my stories are, those are pretty

common elements. And remember, again. Sometimes the stories start in a bad

place, but it's not where they start, it's where they end up.

[00:47:18] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I think we need, we desperately need good

storytellers today.

[00:47:26] Wendy Slusser: And I think that what you just identified is some

life enhancing activities, in order to incentivize behavior.[00:47:34] Wendy Slusser: Is there anything else you'd like to share with the

listeners about within our new economy or the current economic system?

[00:47:44] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. I keep thinking about this a lot. I think right

now, what we need more than ever is community. We need to stand together.

[00:48:00] You and I don't know, we're maybe coming up on a two year

anniversary of actually, meeting each other on this flat screen, but, you are kin

and it means something when we know someone has our back, when we know

that I’m not in this alone.

[00:48:15] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So we're separated by a great amount of land, but

this use of the technology might be a good example of how we could use this

technology in a good way that promotes culture, communication, and

community. And so I'm just thankful.

[00:48:49] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I think right now, don't let the loneliness, don't let

the craziness surrounding us. And by the way, it's mostly human made

[00:49:00] craziness. Let's be very specific about this, it's human made

craziness. Let's not let that blind us to the beauty around us, and I think there's

great healing powers in the world around us.

[00:49:20] Wendy Slusser: We just have to figure out how to open ourself up to

them. Thank you. I love that advice and I'm gonna follow it, I’m going to go out

and enjoy the sun for a few minutes.

[00:49:32] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Oh, that's a great thing to do.

[00:49:35] Wendy Slusser: Yeah. we're winding down now. I'm sad, but we'll

have hopefully other opportunities to share conversations with each other. But

we usually like to end our interviews with a question with all of our guests, and

that is, how do you live well?

[00:49:54] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. How do I live well? I’ll tell you what I

[00:50:00] try to every day: begin every morning with a very mindful

expression of gratitude. For that gift. Everyday is a gift and I want to use it that

gift responsibly. I wanna be generous with the gifts that I've been given, and

that's why I have to express incredible gratitude to you, Wendy, because you've

given me another opportunity to share, and I'm just filled with gratitude that I've

got a good, strong sister out there on the West coast.

[00:50:42] Wendy Slusser: I feel very honored to be part of your circle and I

feel the same. So much gratitude and, you have opened up a whole world to methat I haven't thought about, and I feel very comfortable in. Yes, thank you. And

also, we will [00:51:00] definitely, include all of those incredible books that you

described.

[00:51:05] Wendy Slusser: We’ll share that on our website for sure. All your

writings, you not only wrote Red Alert, but many other books. So we will

include those for all our listeners. Yes. And again, thank you Dr. Dan Wildcat.

[00:51:22] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. Thank you so much.

[00:51:27] Wendy Slusser: Other thing. Okay. The other thing, Dan, is I will be

formally introducing you, uh, with another clip. So right now I won't have to do

that, so we'll

[00:51:38] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Okay,

[00:51:39] Wendy Slusser: yeah. So

[00:51:40] Dr. Dan Wildcat: cool.

[00:51:41] Wendy Slusser: thank Okay. So thank you so much Dr. Dan

WildCat for agreeing to be part of our LiveWell UCLA podcast. Uh, it's such an

honor to have you here.

[00:51:52] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Well, thank you for the invitation. I'm, uh, I

always like to talk about living well and, uh, that's [00:52:00] kind of close to

my heart. You bet.

[00:52:02] Wendy Slusser: Great. Well, um, we'll get to it soon in this

interview, how we met originally.

[00:52:10] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah.

[00:52:10] Wendy Slusser: I'd love to first start with, um, can you tell us how

you got started on your journey as a professor at Haskell Indian Nations

University?

[00:52:20] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You bet. So, uh, you know, I was one of those

kind of typical grad students. I just did undergraduate, went into a graduate

program, and I, I. I was all three years in, um, and I was thinking, well, what,

what am I gonna do? You know, when I get the doctorate, you know, where am I

gonna go? And I was at half at Kansas University, Lawrence, Kansas.[00:52:50] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Right in the backyard of Haskell Indian Nations

University. I had the GI Bill. So when I got out of the service, I decided, well,

I'm gonna go to Kansas University. [00:53:00] I had cousins that were

attending, uh, Haskell when I was in the service. And then when I got out, I had

a cousin, good cousin, Dennis Barnett, that was attending Haskell.

[00:53:09] Dr. Dan Wildcat: But I, I, so I, I knew about Haskell. I really

appreciated what Haskell did its role in Indian country and education. A funny

thing happened. I, I started teaching as a graduate teaching assistant at Kansas

University, get this in the Western Civilization program, and they used to have a

two semester sequence for all liberal arts majors, Western civilization.

[00:53:37] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We used to jokingly call it Plato to nato. And

anyway, uh, I had. About three years in my graduate studies getting a little bit

burnout 'cause I'd gone right in, right after finishing my bachelor's degree, the

dean from Haskell came up to see me at KU and he said, you know, I

understand you're um, [00:54:00] sociologist.

[00:54:00] Dr. Dan Wildcat: He said, we've got a position in sociology. At

Haskell. And would you have any interest in coming down there and teaching

and, you know, it just, it was one of those things, it was like, wow. Yeah, I think

I would. And so, um, I went to Haskell. Haskell is a unique place. You have

students from, uh, indigenous students from all over the contiguous 48 states

and Alaska.

[00:54:30] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We cannot serve Hawaii natives. That's because

they have a little different legal classification. They're US citizens, but Hawaii

natives are not treated the same way that American Indians and Alaska natives

are. Long story short, when I went to Haskell, the incredible diversity there

blew me away and I fell in love with that place.

[00:54:55] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I fell in love with this kind of incredible richness

of [00:55:00] native indigenous culture I found at that campus. And, you know,

um, the rest is history. I started teaching there, um, a long time ago. I'm getting

ready to. 40 years of teaching there. I went there in January of 86, but the thing

that really sold me on Haskell was the incredible diversity of indigenous

peoples, their cultures.

[00:55:25] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And I began to make this connection between

indigenous peoples in their cultures and the places they lived. And, um, that

really. Made it real easy for me to work with my mentor, um, Vine Deloria Jr.And, um, you know, we had, we had, he was a great mentor to me. We wrote a

book together, power and Place, Indian Education in America.

[00:55:53] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I sort of started my journey really, um, you know,

in what I'm doing today, [00:56:00] going to Haskell. Falling in love with the

incredible diversity I saw among indigenous peoples in the United States. And

then, um, you know, started working with Vine Deloria Jr. And that was kind of

like a, a dream come true. So that's how I got started on this journey.

[00:56:22] Wendy Slusser: Wow. So I didn't know you were a sociologist

'cause I, when I first met you, I hearing, I listened to you on a incredible panel

that was during COVID, so it was all virtual and you were talking all about the

environment.

[00:56:39] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes.

[00:56:40] Wendy Slusser: Tell me, how did you get from sociology to, uh,

focusing more on the environment?

[00:56:47] Dr. Dan Wildcat: See, this is a great, this is a great question because

I don't. Get a chance to talk about this often and up. So part of the beauty of

Haskell now, Haskell is a small [00:57:00] liberal arts college now, when I went

there in 86, it was still essentially. A two year, uh, like junior college and it had

not really transitioned to that four year baccalaureate granting status.

[00:57:16] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And so it was small, about 800 students, 600 to

650 of them living on campus. So it's a residential campus and, um. The

departments were small, so for some reason they, they had the social sciences

and the natural sciences all in the same college under the same dean. And so I

began, um, talking to. Uh, biologist ecologists uh, environmental scientists in

the department, and it really was just, um, that's when I really started to

[00:58:00] formulate the thinking in my own work that was so heavily

influenced by Vine Deloria Jr.

[00:58:06] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Who made, you know, thinking about history,

culture from a spatial perspective, one of the. Cornerstones of his work. And so

when I got to Haskell, I. I just started talking to the natural scientist. They were

a small department and they welcomed me. They said, oh yeah, we're really

interested, you know, in those kinds of questions.

[00:58:30] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And we see that connection too. When we talk to

our students, a lot of the students wouldn't know. The Latin, uh, scientific namesfor plants, but they were amazed at how students could identify plants in their

native language. Words for sunflower, words for purple cone, flower words for

dandelion. And they began to say, oh, there's a real cultural connection here.

[00:58:57] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And so, um, [00:59:00] yeah, it was, I think. I was

so lucky because when I got to Haskell, my dean just basically said, Dan, what

do you wanna teach? And so I just started developing these kind of hybrid

courses and uh, I was teaching sociology. But that connection to me between

culture and nature. I never saw this tension.

[00:59:27] Dr. Dan Wildcat: A lot of people see between, well, is it nature or is

it culture? In my traditions, it's both. Simultaneously, our cultures are

symbiotically connected to the natural world. And so, you know, it, it, it really

being at Haskell allowed me to begin working with environmental scientists and

atmospheric scientists and physical scientists, probably in a way that, you know,

if I had gone to another large institution, I wouldn't have had that [01:00:00]

opportunity.

[01:00:02] Wendy Slusser: Well, what you're touching on, which is a big

movement right now, is this whole transdisciplinary approach to solving the

challenges of our. A time, and then you certainly landed on it 40 years ago,

which is really a harbinger for the kind of forward thinking that you are, you do

every day. That I've really been, um, impressed by.

[01:00:25] Wendy Slusser: Um, I'd like to hear a little, I you keep mentioning

Vine Deloria Jr. What was, uh, you say he was so important to your. First

stepping stone at school. Uh, gimme a little bit more background on that.

[01:00:41] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah, so Vine Deloria Jr is probably one of the

most important thinkers of the 20th century. He, uh, you know, he was, uh, in an

incredible intellect. He was, uh, an iconoclast and, um. He, it's, it's [01:01:00]

interesting, there was something about the late sixties. Now you and I can

reminisce on this, right? But there was something going on there that we haven't

seen, uh, you know, since then.

[01:01:11] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And in 1969 2 New York time bestselling books

we're by American Indians. One of 'em by. N Scott Momaday our own Pulitzer

Prize winning poet, novelist and artist and, um, House Made of Dawn. And then

a book written by Vine Deloria Jr. Provocatively entitled Custer Died. Four

Your Sins. And uh, that book. I part of that generation that that book, just when

I read that book, I said, wow, here is a guy a, a native guy who gets it, whounderstands it and can be funny, irreverent, and very insightful at [01:02:00] the

same time.

[01:02:01] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So I became a big fan of Vine Deloria early on,

and then this is really fortuitous. The year, the second year I was at Haskell, um,

a couple of folks out at uc, Berkeley put together a six weeks, uh, seminar and it

was called, uh, great intellectual. Amer great intellect, great American Indian

intellectual traditions, Clara Sue Kidwell.

[01:02:34] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Professor Clara Sue Kidwell was one of the

conveners of that seminar. Each week she invited in different native scholars. I

think it was about the fourth week she invited Vine Deloria Jr. To come. So here

I finally face to face with a, a man, you know, I just really revered for his

intellectual, um, uh, inside and his scholarship and, um.[01:03:00]

[01:03:00] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We hit it off. And, uh, I think the book I'd

highlight for people who are listening, if they wanna know more about Vine

Deloria's influence on contemporary indigenous studies today, they should read

his, um, I think it was his fourth book. Um, God Is Red. Uh, again, kind of a

provocative title, but in that book, he really lays out the, this, this kind of, um.

[01:03:29] Dr. Dan Wildcat: What I refer to as the nature culture nexus, this

idea that you could never separate native people's identity, their culture, and

their history from the places, the spaces where their people emerged over time

and as distinct. Tribal peoples. And that really, that really resonated with me.

And so, um, you know, it was just, it was just such a great way to start a

[01:04:00] career in teaching.

[01:04:01] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Uh, meeting Vine Deloria we hit it off

immediately. Um, uh, he was really, I think, uh. He really appreciated the fact

that I knew a lot about the Western tradition. I had taught in the Western Civ

program for three years as a graduate student at Kansas University. And um, so

I, I really understood it and I knew when I went to Haskell, you'll get a kick out

of this.

[01:04:29] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I, I told the Dean he said, what do you wanna

teach? I said. I wanna offer Western civilization here, but he said, but I told him

I'm not gonna do it the way they do it. At ku, we're gonna do a comparative

approach. So when we, you know, go through the classic thinkers, the topics

they raise, I'm gonna find Indigenous Counterpoint.[01:04:50] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So when we'd read, uh, St. Augustine's, uh,

confessions. I had them read Black Elk Speaks when we'd had them, when

[01:05:00] we read, uh uh, Locke and and Hobbes and all of their social contract

theory, I'd have them read Vine Deloria Juniors essays on this kind of

connection between a people and their culture and the institutions they built that

were often modeled after natural systems.

[01:05:23] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So. Again, it was just like, I've been so fortunate.

The one thing I have to emphasize, I have just been so fortunate in my life. I've

just had so many, uh, wonderful, uh, opportunities that came before me, and I

took advantage of most of them. And, um, you know, the rest is history. But

Vine Deloria as a scholar. I, I wish every. Person in America would read at least

one of his books. I'd start with, um, [01:06:00] Custer Died For Your Sins. And

then my, my next favorite would be, um, God is Red but he's got a, a, you know,

I think it's, it's close to 20 books. So he was prolific.

[01:06:13] Wendy Slusser: Wow. It's so from Plato to NATO at Kansas

University to nature and culture, and then merging the two of them together.

[01:06:27] Dr. Dan Wildcat: yes. Right.

[01:06:28] Wendy Slusser: That's, that's really cool. And you know, from my

discipline, it's, they always say nature versus nurture, but it shouldn't be versus

it's nature and the, and nurture.

[01:06:41] Dr. Dan Wildcat: exactly, exactly. It should be, yes.

[01:06:44] Wendy Slusser: Yeah. Like, well, you know, in your, your book

called Red Alert, you.

[01:06:50] Wendy Slusser: You have a great quote about our human knowledge

of reality must always be approached with humility. And I'm hearing a lot of

humility [01:07:00] in what you're sharing here.

[01:07:02] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[01:07:05] Wendy Slusser: what as a sociologist who is really blending this

whole nature piece. Uh, you've actually really immersed yourself in climate

science,

[01:07:21] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Oh,[01:07:22] Wendy Slusser: uh, and there was a point there though that you felt

deeply discouraged and

[01:07:27] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Oh,

[01:07:28] Wendy Slusser: helped you move through that despair.

[01:07:31] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You know that, you know, you've heard me

mention this before, but um, I was real, again, talk about incredible

opportunities. So in about 2000. Late 2000. And then in 2001 A, a East

European scholar who I had met. By virtue of her, her love of Vine Deloria

works, who I had met in the United States.

[01:07:59] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Her name was [01:08:00] Irina Sumi. She was a,

um, uh, sociologist from, uh, Ljubljana Slovenia. And, um, I got an email from

her and she said, Dan, I want you to come to Eastern Europe. I'm doing a

proposal, uh, for the Soros, uh, foundation and his open society. Uh, you know,

um, initiative to get Eastern European societies, you know, um.

[01:08:29] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Make sure their institutions became fully

democratized and things. Anyway, long story short, I I, I went to Eastern

Europe. Um, I, I was going back and forth for three years in that project. A

amazing project. It really. Opened my eyes to my own ethnocentrism as an

American Indian and then as a US citizen. Um, and uh, but during that time

things were, every [01:09:00] time I would come back from Europe, uh, you

know, we'd be talking about the crazy.

[01:09:07] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Weather that people were experiencing and people

were talking about climate change. Al Gore had started the time climate change,

you know, almost, uh, at this point, you know, two decades earlier. And, um, I, I

thought, you know, something's going on here. So when I wrapped up my work

in Eastern Europe, I thought.

[01:09:28] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I'm gonna do a book on climate change. So this is

about 2005 now. So I've been Eastern Europe, had a great experience. 2006, I

said, okay, I'm gonna take a year, and all I'm going to do is immerse myself in

climate science. So I just started reading everything I could. I could find books.

You know, the um, uh, international reports, you know, on climate change, and I

tell [01:10:00] you, I did that for a year and.

[01:10:04] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I got so depressed, Wendy. I thought, oh my God,

I now remember these aren't, you know, I'm, I I wasn't reading just, you know,your, your, you know, whole wheat tree hugging kind of lovers of nature. I was

reading NASA scientists NCAR scientists. NOAA scientist and they're. Forecast

were saying, we're in for some big trouble if we don't do something soon.

[01:10:35] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And I, I got depressed and I said, you know, why

am I even gonna think about writing a book about climate change? I, I got so

immersed in the science that I, I, I got depressed. I was like, oh man. I shouldn't

waste the time to write a book about something that we're doomed, you know?

And, [01:11:00] um, about that time, you know, I, I always had my support

network, so I was reaching out to people like Albert Whitehat hat, uh, uh,

beautiful man from, uh, uh, Sinte Gleska uh.

[01:11:18] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Tribal College on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation.

Uh, the legendary, uh, Billy Frank Jr. Of the Northwest Indian Fisheries, uh,

commission. Uh, all of these indigenous elders who I had met through the years,

who had always been really kind and open to me. And, um, even my aunts, my,

my aunties, uh, uh, Josephine Bigler, one of our real, uh.

[01:11:48] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Important elders in helping revitalize the Yuchi

language again. Um, they said, Dan, put the books down. You [01:12:00] need

to get out of doors again. And, you know, it was like, yea that's, that's where life

is out of doors. So I started taking, um. I always took my dog for walks every

day, and we started taking walks down along the Kansas River.

[01:12:20] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I live fairly close to the Kansas River, maybe

about a 10 minute walk from the North Bank of the Kansas Rivers. As It

meanders across the northern edge of Lawrence. And you know what, Wendy,

after about three or four months of putting the books down and just getting out

of doors and walking my dog and. I just realized, wow, Dan, you forgot.

[01:12:48] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You got so immersed in this Western science and

way of thinking. You forgot what this, you really wanted to write about, and this

is what you wanna write about [01:13:00] our relationship to the land, the air,

the water, the plants, the animals. And uh, I tell you it was, it was. Almost it, it

was almost an epiphany of sorts.

[01:13:16] Dr. Dan Wildcat: One day after a walk, I just started thinking about

that. I said, why do I feel so good? It's, it is horrible, the situation where, but I

felt good. And then I thought, I feel good because my relatives had been giving

me some good medicine. Not just my human realties, but that river, those trees,

the wind. And I thought, you know what?[01:13:40] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I'm gonna write this book because that's the

message that we need to con convey. That is that, you know, when we think of

our communities, our kin, we have a tendency to think very, an anthropocentric,

we think just about our human selves. But you [01:14:00] know, what is, you

know, evolutionary biology teaches. We're related to all life on the planet.

[01:14:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And, um, you know, that's, that's part of ancient

indigenous wisdom. And so that was really the thing that, that made me realize,

oh, Dan, you got too tied up in this human con, you know, perspective and you

need. To write that book 'cause you've gotta share that broader indigenous

perspective. So that's when Red Alert really took off and I thought, you know

what?

[01:14:37] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I've read enough science. I'm gonna write Red

Alert now.

[01:14:42] Wendy Slusser: Well, I have to say to all listeners, everyone should

read Red Alert and it's, uh, digestible and. It's a great Christmas present. I

totally, uh, have been giving it to all my friends and relatives that every I can

get. Um, you mentioned, there's a couple of terms that you've [01:15:00]

mentioned. One is the anthropocentric, uh, which I guess as I understand is to

understand our relationship to the environment.

[01:15:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: yeah. Right.

[01:15:09] Wendy Slusser: Can you explain, um, what it means? Um, more

per, you know, more precisely how I just said it, and also, uh, what's the

difference between that and echo kinship.

[01:15:20] Dr. Dan Wildcat: yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, you know, uh. So an

anthropocentric view is, is a kind of humanism that basically declares that

humans are the center of everything that, you know, we're the smartest, we're

different than the rest of life. And so really, um, everything. It's all about us. You

know? And so that's, that anthro for man pocentric it's, it's, it's look thinking that

somehow humans are the measure of all things [01:16:00] that, you know,

everything.

[01:16:02] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Revolves around what we do and how we act and

what we behave. And then it can sometimes lead into when it's in its, you know,

most hubris written, arrogant kind of notion is, oh, well all these problems in the

world are therefore us to fix. Right? And so that's the anthropocentric view.

Now, I would suggest to you that.[01:16:30] Dr. Dan Wildcat: For 99, I'm not gonna say every indigenous

people in the world, but it's gotta be 99 point something percent of indigenous

people who still hold their traditional tribal worldviews, uh, and understand

those, that is the most foreign idea. You could ever imagine because from an

indigenous lens, [01:17:00] yeah, we're, we're different, but we see kinship and

understand the trees, the plants, the soil, the wind, the water.

[01:17:17] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Not as resources, but as relatives. And so, you

know, people have asked me about my name. I always think it's really funny

when people ask me about my name, Wildcat. They say, how did you get that

name? And I say, well, and among my people, Wildcat is, is is not an unusual

name. You know, we have deers, we have wind, you know, we have.

[01:17:44] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Many of us, um, some of us were fortunate that

when after the deadly Trail of Tears, my people were part of those Eastern

Indians got that were removed to Oklahoma territory. And [01:18:00] uh, some

of us were lucky because somehow or other when they were working with

translators, um, my great-grandfather was identified by his clan totem.

[01:18:12] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Wild cap. So our, our to our clan totems are

basically an ecological map. Wind, raccoon, deer bear. You can, you can, and

then even, you know, some plants, uh, you can kind of see, okay. These are the

place, these are the kinds of animals that they identified kinship with, and that

meant looking at them as relatives.

[01:18:41] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We had respect for them and we were just

incredible observers of the natural world. And so to us, Robin Wall Kimer has

this great line in, in her book, um. Braiding Sweet [01:19:00] Grass where she

talks about how her Potawatomi Relatives, always human relatives, always

understood that the trees and the plants. We're their elders.

[01:19:12] Dr. Dan Wildcat: They evolved. They've been here longer. They

evolved way before humans did. And so we can learn things in our relationship

with those. Again, not resources, that's the key trick, right? Not resources, but

relatives. And that means then you develop a whole different kind of

relationship. And I think that's, when I talk about eco kinship.

[01:19:40] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That's exactly what I mean, and, and I want

people to know I'm not speaking euphemistically. I'm not trying to be romantic.

I'm speaking indigenously. I'm speaking scientifically that we misspeak every

time we talk about the world full [01:20:00] of natural resources because they're

not our resources, they're our relatives.[01:20:09] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And. That's what modern science teaches us now.

So even modern science has kind of come around to understanding that,

although we still have this resource thinking that we're, you know, burdened

with

[01:20:25] Wendy Slusser: Yeah, it reminds me of something that a lot of

people are trying to shift in the thinking and about like a dead, we need to, when

are we going to make a dead tree? They say dead trees are worth more than a

living tree, but how can we change that incentive?

[01:20:41] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes. Yes, exactly, exactly. And you know, so

again. You mentioned humility, and I wanna say something about this because

this is something I think we, we desperately need today, and that is [01:21:00]

this culture of, you know, everyone thinking it's. You know, you gotta have the

smartest person in the room, and if you're bitten with that horrible hubris, you

have to think you're the smartest person in the room.

[01:21:12] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That arrogance is something that I think is totally

foreign within indigenous. Cultural traditions because the person who thinks

they know it all and among my relatives is the most dangerous person you could

ever be around because we know it's foolish. How could any of us know it all?

We're much wiser when we learn from others, right?

[01:21:43] Wendy Slusser: So true. And it gets back to, um, one of the points

you actually bring up in Red Alert, which I really, really resonates with me, is

this hopefulness.

[01:21:54] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes,

[01:21:55] Wendy Slusser: I would love you to, I think your nature and culture

nexus [01:22:00] really speaks to that and gives you some action oriented. So

could you, uh, define your nature culture nexus a little bit more detail for our

listener.

[01:22:10] Dr. Dan Wildcat: yes. So this idea, so Vine Deloria, the book that

we did together is entitled, uh, power and Place Indian Education in America.

We wrote that in 2000 and 2001, um, early 2001. And, um. A great opportunity

to work with, you know, one of my, my idols and, and, uh, he was just, uh, so

generous with me, but. His, his idea was that power permeates the world, the

universe, and most of it we can't see, we can't touch, but it's there.[01:22:55] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And now of course modern scientists will tell you

there is no empty [01:23:00] space and the cosmo may have these nine

nanoparticles of energy of, of. Physical, you know, elements and, uh, so there is

no empty space. Well, Deloria thought, you know, power permeates everything.

And he said, but it expresses itself uniquely in different places.

[01:23:25] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And because it expresses itself uniquely the

people of those places. Have unique personality. So that was his, that was

Deloria's axiom for indigenous metaphysics, power and place equals

personality. Well, I'm a sociologist and I thought, wow, this explains the

incredible diversity indigenous people will have.

[01:23:54] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Now it makes sense. It's, it's obvious that, you

know, uh, Cherokee of the [01:24:00] South. Eastern United States or nothing

like the Lummi or the two Ellips on the northwest coast. Now why is that?

Because their identities, their personalities, their cultures were emergent out of

what I began to call the nature culture nexus.

[01:24:21] Dr. Dan Wildcat: The symbiotic relationship that we can never

break. Okay. Uh, at least, uh. Not until we get to modern society and some

people are so ignorant of this relationship that they don't even realize what

they're doing to it, right? That's because they think we're separate. You know,

we're above the rest of nature.

[01:24:44] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We're in charge. We're in control. Foreign idea to,

to indigenous people. I think the hope, the hope goes back to the story I shared

with you. You know, when you asked me about. [01:25:00] Writing red alert.

When I got so tied up in that reading that Western science, I, I forgot that, hey,

my community and my kinship is not just with other humans.

[01:25:17] Dr. Dan Wildcat: It's with the river, it's with the earth, it's with the

life that resides here. And so when I got out of doors again. Started making

those connections, you know, all of a sudden I started feeling better again. I was

situated in community. Now again, not a, not just a human community, but an

eco kinship community.

[01:25:49] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So here's, here's where ultimately I think hope

resides. As much damage as humans have done [01:26:00] to the earth. We are

still surrounded by beauty and we just have to slow down. We have to take the

time to realize that there are lessons that we humans can learn. If we. Adopt that

position of mindfulness, of humility.[01:26:29] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And I again, you know, for me, Wendy, you've

heard me say this before, that's not indigenous romanticism. That's indigenous

realism. The world that we live in, you know, has much to teach us. Yeah, if we

are mindful, if we pay attention, and to me. It means I don't just have to depend

on [01:27:00] my human relatives. My family's bigger than that.

[01:27:04] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I've got a gigantic family. Uh, you know, the

plants, the animals, the earth, the soil itself, the water, the wind. Of course, in

my people, I don't know if I ever shared this with you. I think I did, but you

know, the Yuchi or as we would refer to ourselves, the Zoyaha That translates as

the children of the son. we recognize the son too, as, you know, one of our

parents.

[01:27:36] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And, and so, uh, yeah, it's, uh. It's really

interesting when you start diving into indigenous worldviews and cultures,

because I, I can't think of a single one where you don't, if as you get into it, you

start to realize, wow, [01:28:00] the Navajo. Pueblos, how they were connected

to the desert, to the sun. How when you get to the northwest coast, it was the

salmon, it was the waters.

[01:28:14] Dr. Dan Wildcat: It was the trees, the forest. And we go up and

down the great plains. What was the greatest most important relative, the

grandpa of them all the American bison, the buffalo. And so, you know, it's it to

me. Hope resides in realizing we don't have to be in this alone and you know. I

wanna say something just for a minute about this, because I've been seeing all

the reports and stuff about this.

[01:28:51] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Um, I think we can call it a crisis. A lot of our, our

students, um, high school age, even [01:29:00] college age now are reporting

loneliness as one of the primary, um. Things they fight and causing depression,

causing them, you know, um, sometimes to not feel very good about life. And

what I would like to encourage them, uh, all of of young people and old people

too, we do need our human relatives.

[01:29:31] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That's important. But remember. We've got

relatives too that are outside the walls of these buildings that we're sitting in

right now. And sometimes that's good medicine. Sometimes that's the medicine

we need. And so I think for me, hope really resides in everything we should do.

At this point, Wendy, with everything that we're facing. [01:30:00]

Economically, politically, culturally, technologically, I think community is more

important than ever. We need to focus on building, you know, human

communities, but not just human communities in isolation from the places they

call home, but really including those places. As part of the community, I am, Iam dying to hear what your, you know, engineers and materials scientists and,

and architects are doing with the rebuilding there, you know, with the fires you

folks had, you know, there and, uh.

[01:30:43] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Los Angeles County. I mean, I'm, I'm hoping that

you know, someone you know is raising up this issue that as we think about

rebuilding, let's be mindful of this [01:31:00] larger, you know, sense of

community that we need to be a part of, because I think it could really be an

incredible. You know, uh, opportunities to illustrate how we can live well, you

know, in our human communities by recognizing the deep relationality we have

in kinship with the places that we call home.

[01:31:29] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So it's, it, it's just, to me, there's just all of the

things that we're seeing these incredible. Uh, natural events fueled by climate

change or, or at least I won't say fueled by, they are exacerbated often by

climate change. They're not the sole cause there are a lot of things that are

causing the kinds of flooding we see.

[01:31:52] Dr. Dan Wildcat: It's kind of fires that we seen. But climate change

is a factor. And I think part of [01:32:00] what we need to do now is reaffirm.

Reaffirm a kind of eco kinship with the balance of life on this fa on this planet.

And if we do so, I'm absolutely hopeful that, you know, we can create more

vibrant, more healthy, more resilient.

[01:32:28] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Senses of communities and I, uh, sense of

community, and that's I think what we desperately need right now.

[01:32:38] Wendy Slusser: I so agree, and all the different points, and trying to

wrap it up in a, your theme of it being attentive. Where you live and who you're

living with and what's living around you or part of your environment can not

only bring great joy and uplift your spirits like it did for you and [01:33:00]

inspire you to write red alert, but also the fact that uh, it can also.

[01:33:06] Wendy Slusser: Really touch on other parts of your life, like the

loneliness part, which

[01:33:11] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Absolutely.

[01:33:12] Wendy Slusser: don't have to feel lonely if you're out there, just if

as long as you can practice that muscle of being attentive.

[01:33:20] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes,[01:33:21] Wendy Slusser: big piece of it. And I'm thinking, um, you talk

about, you just me mentioned climate change, but not necessarily as one that is

the fault of all that we're experiencing right now.

[01:33:36] Wendy Slusser: But what you've discussed in other. Writings and

also just in your conversations is the interaction. Uh, there are three Cs that

you've identified that prioritized currently, and then you suggest three other Cs

that you think we should be speaking to. You wanna share some of that with us?

[01:33:59] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Oh, I'd [01:34:00] love to. So I just finished an

article. It's gonna come out in, uh, the Journal of Geography, which is a, a, a

journal that's dedicated to geography education. It's just called Journal of

Geography. Be watching for the next issue. Um, I just, uh, finished a, a piece,

uh, with, uh, a scientist at ncar and we did, wanted to write about this age of the

Anthropocene, the age of humans that we're now living in.

[01:34:34] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Many big picture or scientists would say, you

know, we've really created a new almost geologic epoch here. The age of the

Anthropocene, the age of humans. We wanted to write about technology. And,

uh, I told Tim I'd been playing around with this for about 20 years, and I,

[01:35:00] it, it dawned on me that the dominant way that humans, and again,

here we go.

[01:35:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Now we're thinking, see. An an anthrop post

century kind of perspective. It's all about us. When we think about technology,

we think technology is good, so long as it promotes human convenience.

Human comfort, of course, puts money in our pocket capital gains. Those are

the three Cs I said of modern thinking technology, you know.

[01:35:34] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Is is here to, to

[01:35:35] Dr. Dan Wildcat: promote human convenience, human comfort, and

capital gains. I said, let's counterpoint that. So I started

[01:35:42] Dr. Dan Wildcat: playing around and thinking about reading

Deloria and thinking about all the indigenous scholars and elders I've worked

with. And I said, you know what? We're not anti-technology, but we reframe.

[01:35:53] Dr. Dan Wildcat: it So for us, okay. Um, the algorithm [01:36:00]

for the value of, of technology is technology is equal to another three Cs.

Community, culture, and communication. And those values, those are thenumerator. What's the common denominator? The earth. Place and I, I kept

thinking that, you know, we really need to reframe technology.

[01:36:28] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So we've written a piece about this in the Journal

of Geography. I hope people can get access to that. And, um. We really say the

we're not anti-technology anything, but that we just need to reframe technology.

Technology ought to be about, as you know, how I end red alert, promoting

systems of life enhancement and life [01:37:00] enhancement, meaning not just

human life.

[01:37:03] Dr. Dan Wildcat: But all life on the planet. And yeah, so I, I, it's,

um, it's a, a neat device, uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, mnemonic device to help us

remember how maybe we could think about technology differently because that

anthropocentric way of thinking about technology means we just keep taking

and taking and taking out of the earth.

[01:37:34] Dr. Dan Wildcat: What we put back usually isn't that good for the

earth in terms of pollution, uh, and waste. But the other view would be to say,

well, no, we need to go back to that world of relatives and our technology

should be one that enhances our community, not just the human community. It

can do that,

[01:37:59] Wendy Slusser: [01:38:00] And what example?

[01:38:00] Dr. Dan Wildcat: community.

[01:38:02] Wendy Slusser: Yeah.

[01:38:03] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Our culture give us resilient, you know, kinds of

opportunities and, and, and opportunities to express beauty in the world we live

in. And, and then, you know, culture, you know, communication, community,

and I think. now, at least I, I think it's worth us talking about, and I'm hoping

people will read it and maybe people will have a way to tweak it or improve it

or say, well, maybe you got this wrong.

[01:38:37] Dr. Dan Wildcat: How about this? But, you know, it's not about

being right, it's just about being honest and trying to share something. And um,

you know, I always tell people, look, you know. All I can promise you is that

I'm gonna speak honestly. Now, that means that [01:39:00] I might honestly be

wrong, and so therefore, when you hear me misspeak, I welcome you to correct

me.[01:39:12] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You might help me understand something better.

Now, again, think of that attitude. See that, that twisting that around. Now that

you're not attacking me. You're being a good relative. You're saying, Dan, I like

that point, but maybe you ought to think about it this way. You're not being

negative. You're being a good relative.

[01:39:33] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You want me to understand something more fully

and better? I'm lucky I have a lot of good relatives who are always saying, Dan,

I think you better rethink that and work on this a little bit. So I mean, isn't that,

isn't that beautiful though? Think of what the academy would be like if we

could have that kind of interaction.

[01:39:56] Wendy Slusser: So. So I, I'd love to [01:40:00] lean in on the

communications part, especially given that communicating with stories is such a

powerful means of communicating. And I'd love to hear a little bit about what

kinds of stories could you think of to drive for culture, cultural change, what.

[01:40:21] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they're all there.

There if you, everyone has a story. Everyone has a story. Now, some people

don't get a chance to ever share their stories, but every everyone has a story to

tell their experience, their life. To me, I think the most powerful, uh, stories are

the ones that center around how in our relationships in this world, how.

[01:40:58] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We all [01:41:00] experience in this life hurt. We

feel pain, not just physical pain, but emotional pain. And to me, the most

powerful stories are the ones where you don't back off the painful, hurtful part,

but the stories don't. end there, they always have. Um, the good stories are the

ones that have this sense of almost a, a, a sense of redemption, a sense of, you

know, finding peace.

[01:41:47] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Finding understanding as, as a result of

something, you know, that, uh, maybe very painful and, and maybe [01:42:00]

was very, um, hurtful, you know, in one's life. I think right now what we, what

we really need to think about is. In a very deep way how our relationships, and,

and I'll give you a, a theme that, uh, I've, I share with a lot of scholars, but the

one I think of most immediately, a couple come to mind, N Scott Momaday but

then my, you know, my scientist, my biologist sister Robin Wall Kimmerer and,

um.

[01:42:47] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Here's a metaphor to think about. Life is a gift.

Now, sometimes when you, when when you get gifts, um, they [01:43:00] might

not be what, what you think they are, they might not even be what you want.But when you begin to think about the idea of gifts. Gifting. Then you begin to

recognize that

[01:43:22] Dr. Dan Wildcat: none of us have to take a, have to get a, um, we

don't have to be credit worthy when we come into this life because that first

breath of air we take is a gift. We didn't have to see if we were credit worthy to

take that first breath of life. And I think this, this metaphor of life as a gift is

powerful because I've heard her talk about it.

[01:43:54] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And what comes with that is then that attitude of

[01:44:00] gratitude.

[01:44:04] Dr. Dan Wildcat: A world full of gifts promotes a sense of gratitude.

And here's the really powerful part. It ends with a responsibility to be generous.

Generosity is what really helps. The world go round. And I tell you, I don't

know about you, Wendy, but I was, I was so offended when I heard person

who's been in the news quite a bit frequently actually say that he thought

empathy was the biggest weakness of human, modern humans to have empathy.

[01:44:53] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I could, couldn't disagree more. Empathy,

[01:45:00] gifting, gift giving, gratitude, generosity. The three Gs. The three Gs.

I think that is the stories that, uh, I, I think of in my life and, and my stories are,

those are pretty, those are pretty common elements. And remember, again.

Sometimes the stories start in a bad place, but it's not where they start, it's where

they end up.

[01:45:34] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That's important, you know? And, um, so anyway,

I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I think we need, we desperately need good storytellers today.

[01:45:50] Wendy Slusser: And I think that what you just identified as some

life enhancing activities, uh, in order to incentivize behavior. 'cause there's a

nice. [01:46:00] Is there anything else you'd like to, um, share with the listeners

about within our new economy or the current economic system, what you would

like

[01:46:09] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. You know, I, I keep, I keep thinking about

this a lot, you know, I think one of the things is, um, so right. Let, let's, let's go

back to kind of where we, we began. I think right now what. We need more than

ever is community. We need to stand together. You and I, you know, uh, you

know, I don't know, we're maybe coming up on a two year anniversary of, of

actually, you know, meeting each other on this flat screen, you know, but, um,

uh, you are kin and it means something when we.[01:46:59] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We [01:47:00] know someone has our back when

we know that I'm not in this alone. So we're separated by a great amount of

land, but this use of the technology might be a good example of, you know, um,

how we could use this technology. You know, in a good way that promotes

culture, communication, and community. And so I'm, I'm, I'm just thankful.

[01:47:37] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I think right now, don't let the loneliness, don't let

the craziness surrounding us. And by the way, it's mostly human made

craziness. Let's be very specific about this, you know. Uh, it's human made

craziness. Let's not let that blind us to the [01:48:00] beauty around us, and I

think there's, there's great healing powers in the world around us.

[01:48:12] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We just have to figure out how to open ourself up

to them. Mm-hmm.

[01:48:19] Wendy Slusser: Thank you. I love that advice and I'm gonna follow

it. Uh, after this call or this, uh, interview, I'm going to go out and enjoy the sun

for a few minutes for

[01:48:31] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Oh, that's a great, that's a great thing to

[01:48:33] Wendy Slusser: Yeah. So, um, we're winding down now. I'm sad,

but we'll have hopefully other opportunities to share, um, conversation with

each other. But we usually like to end our, our interview with a question with all

of our guests, and that is how do you live well.

[01:48:55] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. How do I live? Well, I tell you what

[01:49:00] I try to every day begin with that morning a very mindful expression

of gratitude. For that gift and, and I, I just, every day's a gift and I want to use it.

That gift responsibly. Well, I wanna be generous. You know, uh, with the gifts

that I've been given, and that's why I have to express incredible gratitude to you,

Wendy, because you've given me another opportunity to share and I'm just filled

with gratitude and, uh, so glad that, uh, you know, I've got a good, strong sister

out there on the West coast.

[01:49:49] Wendy Slusser: Well, I feel very honored to be part of your circle

and I feel the same. So much gratitude and, um, you, uh, have [01:50:00]

opened up a whole world to me that I haven't thought about. Uh, and I feel very

comfortable in. So, yes, thank you. And also, uh, we will definitely, uh, include

all of those incredible books that you described.[01:50:16] Wendy Slusser: We'll, uh, share that on our website for sure. All

your writings, you, you're not only, you not only wrote Red Alert, but many

other books. So we will include those for all our listeners. Yes. And um, again,

thank you Dr. Dan Wildcat.

[01:50:34] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. Thank you so much.

[01:50:40] Wendy Slusser: I.

[01:50:40] Wendy Slusser: Other thing. Okay. The other thing, Dan, is I will be

formally introducing you, uh, with another clip. So right now I won't have to do

that, so we'll

[01:50:51] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Okay,

[01:50:52] Wendy Slusser: yeah. So

[01:50:54] Dr. Dan Wildcat: cool.

[01:50:55] Wendy Slusser: thank Okay. So thank you so much Dr. Dan

WildCat for agreeing to [01:51:00] be part of our LiveWell UCLA podcast. Uh,

it's such an honor to have you here.

[01:51:05] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Well, thank you for the invitation. I'm, uh, I

always like to talk about living well and, uh, that's kind of close to my heart.

You bet.

[01:51:15] Wendy Slusser: Great. Well, um, we'll get to it soon in this

interview, how we met originally.

[01:51:23] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah.

[01:51:24] Wendy Slusser: I'd love to first start with, um, can you tell us how

you got started on your journey as a professor at Haskell Indian Nations

University?

[01:51:33] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You bet. So, uh, you know, I was one of those

kind of typical grad students. I just did undergraduate, went into a graduate

program, and I, I. I was all three years in, um, and I was thinking, well, what,

what am I gonna do? You know, when I get the doctorate, you know, where am I

gonna go? And I was at half at [01:52:00] Kansas University, Lawrence,

Kansas.[01:52:03] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Right in the backyard of Haskell Indian Nations

University. I had the GI Bill. So when I got out of the service, I decided, well,

I'm gonna go to Kansas University. I had cousins that were attending, uh,

Haskell when I was in the service. And then when I got out, I had a cousin,

good cousin, Dennis Barnett, that was attending Haskell.

[01:52:22] Dr. Dan Wildcat: But I, I, so I, I knew about Haskell. I really

appreciated what Haskell did its role in Indian country and education. A funny

thing happened. I, I started teaching as a graduate teaching assistant at Kansas

University, get this in the Western Civilization program, and they used to have a

two semester sequence for all liberal arts majors, Western civilization.

[01:52:50] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We used to jokingly call it Plato to nato. And

anyway, uh, I had. About three years in my graduate [01:53:00] studies getting a

little bit burnout 'cause I'd gone right in, right after finishing my bachelor's

degree, the dean from Haskell came up to see me at KU and he said, you know,

I understand you're um, sociologist.

[01:53:13] Dr. Dan Wildcat: He said, we've got a position in sociology. At

Haskell. And would you have any interest in coming down there and teaching

and, you know, it just, it was one of those things, it was like, wow. Yeah, I think

I would. And so, um, I went to Haskell. Haskell is a unique place. You have

students from, uh, indigenous students from all over the contiguous 48 states

and Alaska.

[01:53:43] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We cannot serve Hawaii natives. That's because

they have a little different legal classification. They're US citizens, but Hawaii

natives are not treated the same way that American Indians and Alaska natives

are. Long story short, when [01:54:00] I went to Haskell, the incredible

diversity there blew me away and I fell in love with that place.

[01:54:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I fell in love with this kind of incredible richness

of native indigenous culture I found at that campus. And, you know, um, the rest

is history. I started teaching there, um, a long time ago. I'm getting ready to. 40

years of teaching there. I went there in January of 86, but the thing that really

sold me on Haskell was the incredible diversity of indigenous peoples, their

cultures.

[01:54:38] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And I began to make this connection between

indigenous peoples in their cultures and the places they lived. And, um, that

really. Made it real easy for me to work with my mentor, um, Vine Deloria Jr.And, um, you know, we had, we had, he was a [01:55:00] great mentor to me.

We wrote a book together, power and Place, Indian Education in America.

[01:55:06] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I sort of started my journey really, um, you know,

in what I'm doing today, going to Haskell. Falling in love with the incredible

diversity I saw among indigenous peoples in the United States. And then, um,

you know, started working with Vine Deloria Jr. And that was kind of like a, a

dream come true. So that's how I got started on this journey.

[01:55:35] Wendy Slusser: Wow. So I didn't know you were a sociologist

'cause I, when I first met you, I hearing, I listened to you on a incredible panel

that was during COVID, so it was all virtual and you were talking all about the

environment.

[01:55:52] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes.

[01:55:53] Wendy Slusser: Tell me, how did you get from sociology to, uh,

focusing more on the [01:56:00] environment?

[01:56:00] Dr. Dan Wildcat: See, this is a great, this is a great question because

I don't. Get a chance to talk about this often and up. So part of the beauty of

Haskell now, Haskell is a small liberal arts college now, when I went there in

86, it was still essentially. A two year, uh, like junior college and it had not

really transitioned to that four year baccalaureate granting status.

[01:56:30] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And so it was small, about 800 students, 600 to

650 of them living on campus. So it's a residential campus and, um. The

departments were small, so for some reason they, they had the social sciences

and the natural sciences all in the same college under the same dean. And so I

began, um, [01:57:00] talking to. Uh, biologist ecologists uh, environmental

scientists in the department, and it really was just, um, that's when I really

started to formulate the thinking in my own work that was so heavily influenced

by Vine Deloria Jr.

[01:57:19] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Who made, you know, thinking about history,

culture from a spatial perspective, one of the. Cornerstones of his work. And so

when I got to Haskell, I. I just started talking to the natural scientist. They were

a small department and they welcomed me. They said, oh yeah, we're really

interested, you know, in those kinds of questions.

[01:57:43] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And we see that connection too. When we talk to

our students, a lot of the students wouldn't know. The Latin, uh, scientific namesfor plants, but they were amazed at how students could identify plants in their

native [01:58:00] language. Words for sunflower, words for purple cone, flower

words for dandelion. And they began to say, oh, there's a real cultural

connection here.

[01:58:10] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And so, um, yeah, it was, I think. I was so lucky

because when I got to Haskell, my dean just basically said, Dan, what do you

wanna teach? And so I just started developing these kind of hybrid courses and

uh, I was teaching sociology. But that connection to me between culture and

nature. I never saw this tension.

[01:58:40] Dr. Dan Wildcat: A lot of people see between, well, is it nature or is

it culture? In my traditions, it's both. Simultaneously, our cultures are

symbiotically connected to the natural world. And so, you know, it, it, it really

being at Haskell [01:59:00] allowed me to begin working with environmental

scientists and atmospheric scientists and physical scientists, probably in a way

that, you know, if I had gone to another large institution, I wouldn't have had

that opportunity.

[01:59:15] Wendy Slusser: Well, what you're touching on, which is a big

movement right now, is this whole transdisciplinary approach to solving the

challenges of our. A time, and then you certainly landed on it 40 years ago,

which is really a harbinger for the kind of forward thinking that you are, you do

every day. That I've really been, um, impressed by.

[01:59:38] Wendy Slusser: Um, I'd like to hear a little, I you keep mentioning

Vine Deloria Jr. What was, uh, you say he was so important to your. First

stepping stone at school. Uh, gimme a little bit more background on that.

[01:59:54] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah, so Vine Deloria Jr is probably one of the

most important thinkers of the [02:00:00] 20th century. He, uh, you know, he

was, uh, in an incredible intellect. He was, uh, an iconoclast and, um. He, it's,

it's interesting, there was something about the late sixties. Now you and I can

reminisce on this, right? But there was something going on there that we haven't

seen, uh, you know, since then.

[02:00:24] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And in 1969 2 New York time bestselling books

we're by American Indians. One of 'em by. N Scott Momaday our own Pulitzer

Prize winning poet, novelist and artist and, um, House Made of Dawn. And then

a book written by Vine Deloria Jr. Provocatively entitled Custer Died. Four

Your Sins. And uh, that book. I part of that generation that that book, just when

I [02:01:00] read that book, I said, wow, here is a guy a, a native guy who getsit, who understands it and can be funny, irreverent, and very insightful at the

same time.

[02:01:14] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So I became a big fan of Vine Deloria early on,

and then this is really fortuitous. The year, the second year I was at Haskell, um,

a couple of folks out at uc, Berkeley put together a six weeks, uh, seminar and it

was called, uh, great intellectual. Amer great intellect, great American Indian

intellectual traditions, Clara Sue Kidwell.

[02:01:47] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Professor Clara Sue Kidwell was one of the

conveners of that seminar. Each week she invited in different native scholars. I

think it was about the fourth week she invited Vine Deloria Jr. [02:02:00] To

come. So here I finally face to face with a, a man, you know, I just really

revered for his intellectual, um, uh, inside and his scholarship and, um.

[02:02:13] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We hit it off. And, uh, I think the book I'd

highlight for people who are listening, if they wanna know more about Vine

Deloria's influence on contemporary indigenous studies today, they should read

his, um, I think it was his fourth book. Um, God Is Red. Uh, again, kind of a

provocative title, but in that book, he really lays out the, this, this kind of, um.

[02:02:42] Dr. Dan Wildcat: What I refer to as the nature culture nexus, this

idea that you could never separate native people's identity, their culture, and

their history from the places, the spaces where their people emerged over

[02:03:00] time and as distinct. Tribal peoples. And that really, that really

resonated with me. And so, um, you know, it was just, it was just such a great

way to start a career in teaching.

[02:03:14] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Uh, meeting Vine Deloria we hit it off

immediately. Um, uh, he was really, I think, uh. He really appreciated the fact

that I knew a lot about the Western tradition. I had taught in the Western Civ

program for three years as a graduate student at Kansas University. And um, so

I, I really understood it and I knew when I went to Haskell, you'll get a kick out

of this.

[02:03:42] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I, I told the Dean he said, what do you wanna

teach? I said. I wanna offer Western civilization here, but he said, but I told him

I'm not gonna do it the way they do it. At ku, we're gonna do a comparative

approach. So when we, you know, go through the classic thinkers, [02:04:00]

the topics they raise, I'm gonna find Indigenous Counterpoint.[02:04:03] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So when we'd read, uh, St. Augustine's, uh,

confessions. I had them read Black Elk Speaks when we'd had them, when we

read, uh uh, Locke and and Hobbes and all of their social contract theory, I'd

have them read Vine Deloria Juniors essays on this kind of connection between

a people and their culture and the institutions they built that were often modeled

after natural systems.

[02:04:36] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So. Again, it was just like, I've been so fortunate.

The one thing I have to emphasize, I have just been so fortunate in my life. I've

just had so many, uh, wonderful, uh, opportunities that came before me, and I

took advantage of most of them. And, um, you [02:05:00] know, the rest is

history. But Vine Deloria as a scholar. I, I wish every. Person in America would

read at least one of his books. I'd start with, um, Custer Died For Your Sins. And

then my, my next favorite would be, um, God is Red but he's got a, a, you know,

I think it's, it's close to 20 books. So he was prolific.

[02:05:26] Wendy Slusser: Wow. It's so from Plato to NATO at Kansas

University to nature and culture, and then merging the two of them together.

[02:05:40] Dr. Dan Wildcat: yes. Right.

[02:05:41] Wendy Slusser: That's, that's really cool. And you know, from my

discipline, it's, they always say nature versus nurture, but it shouldn't be versus

it's nature and the, and nurture.

[02:05:54] Dr. Dan Wildcat: exactly, exactly. It should be, yes.

[02:05:57] Wendy Slusser: Yeah. Like, well, you know, [02:06:00] in your,

your book called Red Alert, you.

[02:06:03] Wendy Slusser: You have a great quote about our human knowledge

of reality must always be approached with humility. And I'm hearing a lot of

humility in what you're sharing here.

[02:06:15] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[02:06:18] Wendy Slusser: what as a sociologist who is really blending this

whole nature piece. Uh, you've actually really immersed yourself in climate

science,

[02:06:34] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Oh,[02:06:35] Wendy Slusser: uh, and there was a point there though that you felt

deeply discouraged and

[02:06:40] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Oh,

[02:06:41] Wendy Slusser: helped you move through that despair.

[02:06:44] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You know that, you know, you've heard me

mention this before, but um, I was real, again, talk about incredible

opportunities. So in about 2000. Late [02:07:00] 2000. And then in 2001 A, a

East European scholar who I had met. By virtue of her, her love of Vine Deloria

works, who I had met in the United States.

[02:07:12] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Her name was Irina Sumi. She was a, um, uh,

sociologist from, uh, Ljubljana Slovenia. And, um, I got an email from her and

she said, Dan, I want you to come to Eastern Europe. I'm doing a proposal, uh,

for the Soros, uh, foundation and his open society. Uh, you know, um, initiative

to get Eastern European societies, you know, um.

[02:07:42] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Make sure their institutions became fully

democratized and things. Anyway, long story short, I I, I went to Eastern

Europe. Um, I, I was going back and forth for three years in that project. A

amazing project. It really. [02:08:00] Opened my eyes to my own ethnocentrism

as an American Indian and then as a US citizen. Um, and uh, but during that

time things were, every time I would come back from Europe, uh, you know,

we'd be talking about the crazy.

[02:08:20] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Weather that people were experiencing and people

were talking about climate change. Al Gore had started the time climate change,

you know, almost, uh, at this point, you know, two decades earlier. And, um, I, I

thought, you know, something's going on here. So when I wrapped up my work

in Eastern Europe, I thought.

[02:08:41] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I'm gonna do a book on climate change. So this is

about 2005 now. So I've been Eastern Europe, had a great experience. 2006, I

said, okay, I'm gonna take a year, and all I'm going to do is immerse myself in

climate science. So I just [02:09:00] started reading everything I could. I could

find books. You know, the um, uh, international reports, you know, on climate

change, and I tell you, I did that for a year and.

[02:09:17] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I got so depressed, Wendy. I thought, oh my God,

I now remember these aren't, you know, I'm, I I wasn't reading just, you know,your, your, you know, whole wheat tree hugging kind of lovers of nature. I was

reading NASA scientists NCAR scientists. NOAA scientist and they're. Forecast

were saying, we're in for some big trouble if we don't do something soon.

[02:09:48] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And I, I got depressed and I said, you know, why

am I even gonna think about writing a book about climate change? I, I got so

immersed in the [02:10:00] science that I, I, I got depressed. I was like, oh man.

I shouldn't waste the time to write a book about something that we're doomed,

you know? And, um, about that time, you know, I, I always had my support

network, so I was reaching out to people like Albert Whitehat hat, uh, uh,

beautiful man from, uh, uh, Sinte Gleska uh.

[02:10:31] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Tribal College on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation.

Uh, the legendary, uh, Billy Frank Jr. Of the Northwest Indian Fisheries, uh,

commission. Uh, all of these indigenous elders who I had met through the years,

who had always been really kind and open to me. And, um, even my aunts, my,

my aunties, uh, uh, Josephine Bigler, one of our [02:11:00] real, uh.

[02:11:01] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Important elders in helping revitalize the Yuchi

language again. Um, they said, Dan, put the books down. You need to get out of

doors again. And, you know, it was like, yea that's, that's where life is out of

doors. So I started taking, um. I always took my dog for walks every day, and

we started taking walks down along the Kansas River.

[02:11:33] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I live fairly close to the Kansas River, maybe

about a 10 minute walk from the North Bank of the Kansas Rivers. As It

meanders across the northern edge of Lawrence. And you know what, Wendy,

after about three or four months of putting the books down and just getting out

of doors and walking my dog and. I just realized, wow, [02:12:00] Dan, you

forgot.

[02:12:01] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You got so immersed in this Western science and

way of thinking. You forgot what this, you really wanted to write about, and this

is what you wanna write about our relationship to the land, the air, the water, the

plants, the animals. And uh, I tell you it was, it was. Almost it, it was almost an

epiphany of sorts.

[02:12:29] Dr. Dan Wildcat: One day after a walk, I just started thinking about

that. I said, why do I feel so good? It's, it is horrible, the situation where, but I

felt good. And then I thought, I feel good because my relatives had been giving

me some good medicine. Not just my human realties, but that river, those trees,

the wind. And I thought, you know what?[02:12:53] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I'm gonna write this book because that's the

message that we need to con [02:13:00] convey. That is that, you know, when

we think of our communities, our kin, we have a tendency to think very, an

anthropocentric, we think just about our human selves. But you know, what is,

you know, evolutionary biology teaches. We're related to all life on the planet.

[02:13:21] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And, um, you know, that's, that's part of ancient

indigenous wisdom. And so that was really the thing that, that made me realize,

oh, Dan, you got too tied up in this human con, you know, perspective and you

need. To write that book 'cause you've gotta share that broader indigenous

perspective. So that's when Red Alert really took off and I thought, you know

what?

[02:13:50] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I've read enough science. I'm gonna write Red

Alert now.

[02:13:55] Wendy Slusser: Well, I have to say to all listeners, everyone should

read Red Alert and it's, uh, [02:14:00] digestible and. It's a great Christmas

present. I totally, uh, have been giving it to all my friends and relatives that

every I can get. Um, you mentioned, there's a couple of terms that you've

mentioned. One is the anthropocentric, uh, which I guess as I understand is to

understand our relationship to the environment.

[02:14:21] Dr. Dan Wildcat: yeah. Right.

[02:14:22] Wendy Slusser: Can you explain, um, what it means? Um, more

per, you know, more precisely how I just said it, and also, uh, what's the

difference between that and echo kinship.

[02:14:33] Dr. Dan Wildcat: yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, you know, uh. So an

anthropocentric view is, is a kind of humanism that basically declares that

humans are the center of everything that, you know, we're the smartest, we're

different than the rest of life. And so really, um, everything. [02:15:00] It's all

about us. You know? And so that's, that anthro for man pocentric it's, it's, it's

look thinking that somehow humans are the measure of all things that, you

know, everything.

[02:15:15] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Revolves around what we do and how we act and

what we behave. And then it can sometimes lead into when it's in its, you know,

most hubris written, arrogant kind of notion is, oh, well all these problems in the

world are therefore us to fix. Right? And so that's the anthropocentric view.

Now, I would suggest to you that.[02:15:43] Dr. Dan Wildcat: For 99, I'm not gonna say every indigenous

people in the world, but it's gotta be 99 point something percent of indigenous

people who still hold their traditional tribal [02:16:00] worldviews, uh, and

understand those, that is the most foreign idea. You could ever imagine because

from an indigenous lens, yeah, we're, we're different, but we see kinship and

understand the trees, the plants, the soil, the wind, the water.

[02:16:30] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Not as resources, but as relatives. And so, you

know, people have asked me about my name. I always think it's really funny

when people ask me about my name, Wildcat. They say, how did you get that

name? And I say, well, and among my people, Wildcat is, is is not an unusual

name. You know, we have deers, we have wind, you know, we have.

[02:16:57] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Many of us, um, [02:17:00] some of us were

fortunate that when after the deadly Trail of Tears, my people were part of those

Eastern Indians got that were removed to Oklahoma territory. And uh, some of

us were lucky because somehow or other when they were working with

translators, um, my great-grandfather was identified by his clan totem.

[02:17:25] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Wild cap. So our, our to our clan totems are

basically an ecological map. Wind, raccoon, deer bear. You can, you can, and

then even, you know, some plants, uh, you can kind of see, okay. These are the

place, these are the kinds of animals that they identified kinship with, and that

meant looking at them as relatives.

[02:17:54] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We had respect for them and we were just

incredible [02:18:00] observers of the natural world. And so to us, Robin Wall

Kimer has this great line in, in her book, um. Braiding Sweet Grass where she

talks about how her Potawatomi Relatives, always human relatives, always

understood that the trees and the plants. We're their elders.

[02:18:25] Dr. Dan Wildcat: They evolved. They've been here longer. They

evolved way before humans did. And so we can learn things in our relationship

with those. Again, not resources, that's the key trick, right? Not resources, but

relatives. And that means then you develop a whole different kind of

relationship. And I think that's, when I talk about eco kinship.

[02:18:53] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That's exactly what I mean, and, and I want

people to know I'm not speaking euphemistically. I'm [02:19:00] not trying to be

romantic. I'm speaking indigenously. I'm speaking scientifically that we

misspeak every time we talk about the world full of natural resources because

they're not our resources, they're our relatives.[02:19:22] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And. That's what modern science teaches us now.

So even modern science has kind of come around to understanding that,

although we still have this resource thinking that we're, you know, burdened

with

[02:19:38] Wendy Slusser: Yeah, it reminds me of something that a lot of

people are trying to shift in the thinking and about like a dead, we need to, when

are we going to make a dead tree? They say dead trees are worth more than a

living tree, but how can we change that incentive?

[02:19:54] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes. Yes, exactly, exactly. And you know, so

[02:20:00] again. You mentioned humility, and I wanna say something about

this because this is something I think we, we desperately need today, and that is

this culture of, you know, everyone thinking it's. You know, you gotta have the

smartest person in the room, and if you're bitten with that horrible hubris, you

have to think you're the smartest person in the room.

[02:20:26] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That arrogance is something that I think is totally

foreign within indigenous. Cultural traditions because the person who thinks

they know it all and among my relatives is the most dangerous person you could

ever be around because we know it's foolish. How could any of us know it all?

We're much wiser when we learn from others, right?

[02:20:56] Wendy Slusser: So true. And it gets back to, um, one of [02:21:00]

the points you actually bring up in Red Alert, which I really, really resonates

with me, is this hopefulness.

[02:21:07] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes,

[02:21:08] Wendy Slusser: I would love you to, I think your nature and culture

nexus really speaks to that and gives you some action oriented. So could you,

uh, define your nature culture nexus a little bit more detail for our listener.

[02:21:23] Dr. Dan Wildcat: yes. So this idea, so Vine Deloria, the book that

we did together is entitled, uh, power and Place Indian Education in America.

We wrote that in 2000 and 2001, um, early 2001. And, um. A great opportunity

to work with, you know, one of my, my idols and, and, uh, he was just, uh, so

generous with me, but. His, his idea was that [02:22:00] power permeates the

world, the universe, and most of it we can't see, we can't touch, but it's there.

[02:22:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And now of course modern scientists will tell you

there is no empty space and the cosmo may have these nine nanoparticles ofenergy of, of. Physical, you know, elements and, uh, so there is no empty space.

Well, Deloria thought, you know, power permeates everything. And he said, but

it expresses itself uniquely in different places.

[02:22:38] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And because it expresses itself uniquely the

people of those places. Have unique personality. So that was his, that was

Deloria's axiom for indigenous metaphysics, power and place equals

personality. Well, I'm a sociologist and I [02:23:00] thought, wow, this explains

the incredible diversity indigenous people will have.

[02:23:07] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Now it makes sense. It's, it's obvious that, you

know, uh, Cherokee of the South. Eastern United States or nothing like the

Lummi or the two Ellips on the northwest coast. Now why is that? Because

their identities, their personalities, their cultures were emergent out of what I

began to call the nature culture nexus.

[02:23:34] Dr. Dan Wildcat: The symbiotic relationship that we can never

break. Okay. Uh, at least, uh. Not until we get to modern society and some

people are so ignorant of this relationship that they don't even realize what

they're doing to it, right? That's because they think we're separate. You know,

we're above the rest of nature.

[02:23:57] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We're in charge. We're in control. [02:24:00]

Foreign idea to, to indigenous people. I think the hope, the hope goes back to

the story I shared with you. You know, when you asked me about. Writing red

alert. When I got so tied up in that reading that Western science, I, I forgot that,

hey, my community and my kinship is not just with other humans.

[02:24:31] Dr. Dan Wildcat: It's with the river, it's with the earth, it's with the

life that resides here. And so when I got out of doors again. Started making

those connections, you know, all of a sudden I started feeling better again. I was

situated in community. Now again, not a, not just a human community,

[02:25:00] but an eco kinship community.

[02:25:02] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So here's, here's where ultimately I think hope

resides. As much damage as humans have done to the earth. We are still

surrounded by beauty and we just have to slow down. We have to take the time

to realize that there are lessons that we humans can learn. If we. Adopt that

position of mindfulness, of humility.

[02:25:43] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And I again, you know, for me, Wendy, you've

heard me say this before, that's not indigenous romanticism. That's indigenousrealism. The world that we live in, you know, has [02:26:00] much to teach us.

Yeah, if we are mindful, if we pay attention, and to me. It means I don't just

have to depend on my human relatives. My family's bigger than that.

[02:26:17] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I've got a gigantic family. Uh, you know, the

plants, the animals, the earth, the soil itself, the water, the wind. Of course, in

my people, I don't know if I ever shared this with you. I think I did, but you

know, the Yuchi or as we would refer to ourselves, the Zoyaha That translates as

the children of the son. we recognize the son too, as, you know, one of our

parents.

[02:26:49] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And, and so, uh, yeah, it's, uh. It's really

interesting when you start diving into [02:27:00] indigenous worldviews and

cultures, because I, I can't think of a single one where you don't, if as you get

into it, you start to realize, wow, the Navajo. Pueblos, how they were connected

to the desert, to the sun. How when you get to the northwest coast, it was the

salmon, it was the waters.

[02:27:27] Dr. Dan Wildcat: It was the trees, the forest. And we go up and

down the great plains. What was the greatest most important relative, the

grandpa of them all the American bison, the buffalo. And so, you know, it's it to

me. Hope resides in realizing we don't have to be in this alone and you know. I

wanna say something just for a minute about [02:28:00] this, because I've been

seeing all the reports and stuff about this.

[02:28:04] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Um, I think we can call it a crisis. A lot of our, our

students, um, high school age, even college age now are reporting loneliness as

one of the primary, um. Things they fight and causing depression, causing them,

you know, um, sometimes to not feel very good about life. And what I would

like to encourage them, uh, all of of young people and old people too, we do

need our human relatives.

[02:28:44] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That's important. But remember. We've got

relatives too that are outside the walls of these buildings that we're sitting in

right now. And sometimes that's good medicine. Sometimes that's the medicine

[02:29:00] we need. And so I think for me, hope really resides in everything we

should do. At this point, Wendy, with everything that we're facing.

Economically, politically, culturally, technologically, I think community is more

important than ever. We need to focus on building, you know, human

communities, but not just human communities in isolation from the places they

call home, but really including those places. As part of the community, I am, I

am dying to hear what your, you know, engineers and materials scientists and,and architects are doing with the rebuilding there, you know, with the fires you

folks had, you know, there and, uh.

[02:29:56] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Los Angeles County. I mean, I'm, I'm hoping that

[02:30:00] you know, someone you know is raising up this issue that as we

think about rebuilding, let's be mindful of this larger, you know, sense of

community that we need to be a part of, because I think it could really be an

incredible. You know, uh, opportunities to illustrate how we can live well, you

know, in our human communities by recognizing the deep relationality we have

in kinship with the places that we call home.

[02:30:42] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So it's, it, it's just, to me, there's just all of the

things that we're seeing these incredible. Uh, natural events fueled by climate

change or, or at least I won't say fueled by, they are exacerbated often by

climate [02:31:00] change. They're not the sole cause there are a lot of things

that are causing the kinds of flooding we see.

[02:31:05] Dr. Dan Wildcat: It's kind of fires that we seen. But climate change

is a factor. And I think part of what we need to do now is reaffirm. Reaffirm a

kind of eco kinship with the balance of life on this fa on this planet. And if we

do so, I'm absolutely hopeful that, you know, we can create more vibrant, more

healthy, more resilient.

[02:31:41] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Senses of communities and I, uh, sense of

community, and that's I think what we desperately need right now.

[02:31:51] Wendy Slusser: I so agree, and all the different points, and trying to

wrap it up in a, your theme of it being attentive. [02:32:00] Where you live and

who you're living with and what's living around you or part of your

environment can not only bring great joy and uplift your spirits like it did for

you and inspire you to write red alert, but also the fact that uh, it can also.

[02:32:19] Wendy Slusser: Really touch on other parts of your life, like the

loneliness part, which

[02:32:24] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Absolutely.

[02:32:25] Wendy Slusser: don't have to feel lonely if you're out there, just if

as long as you can practice that muscle of being attentive.

[02:32:33] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yes,[02:32:34] Wendy Slusser: big piece of it. And I'm thinking, um, you talk

about, you just me mentioned climate change, but not necessarily as one that is

the fault of all that we're experiencing right now.

[02:32:49] Wendy Slusser: But what you've discussed in other. Writings and

also just in your conversations is the interaction. Uh, [02:33:00] there are three

Cs that you've identified that prioritized currently, and then you suggest three

other Cs that you think we should be speaking to. You wanna share some of that

with us?

[02:33:12] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Oh, I'd love to. So I just finished an article. It's

gonna come out in, uh, the Journal of Geography, which is a, a, a journal that's

dedicated to geography education. It's just called Journal of Geography. Be

watching for the next issue. Um, I just, uh, finished a, a piece, uh, with, uh, a

scientist at ncar and we did, wanted to write about this age of the Anthropocene,

the age of humans that we're now living in.

[02:33:47] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Many big picture or scientists would say, you

know, we've really created a new almost geologic epoch here. The age of the

Anthropocene, the [02:34:00] age of humans. We wanted to write about

technology. And, uh, I told Tim I'd been playing around with this for about 20

years, and I, it, it dawned on me that the dominant way that humans, and again,

here we go.

[02:34:21] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Now we're thinking, see. An an anthrop post

century kind of perspective. It's all about us. When we think about technology,

we think technology is good, so long as it promotes human convenience.

Human comfort, of course, puts money in our pocket capital gains. Those are

the three Cs I said of modern thinking technology, you know.

[02:34:47] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Is is here to, to

[02:34:49] Dr. Dan Wildcat: promote human convenience, human comfort, and

capital gains. I said, let's counterpoint that. So I started

[02:34:55] Dr. Dan Wildcat: playing around and thinking about reading

Deloria and thinking about all the [02:35:00] indigenous scholars and elders I've

worked with. And I said, you know what? We're not anti-technology, but we

reframe.

[02:35:06] Dr. Dan Wildcat: it So for us, okay. Um, the algorithm for the value

of, of technology is technology is equal to another three Cs. Community,culture, and communication. And those values, those are the numerator. What's

the common denominator? The earth. Place and I, I kept thinking that, you

know, we really need to reframe technology.

[02:35:41] Dr. Dan Wildcat: So we've written a piece about this in the Journal

of Geography. I hope people can get access to that. And, um. We really say the

we're not anti-technology anything, but that we just need to reframe technology.

[02:36:00] Technology ought to be about, as you know, how I end red alert,

promoting systems of life enhancement and life enhancement, meaning not just

human life.

[02:36:16] Dr. Dan Wildcat: But all life on the planet. And yeah, so I, I, it's,

um, it's a, a neat device, uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, mnemonic device to help us

remember how maybe we could think about technology differently because that

anthropocentric way of thinking about technology means we just keep taking

and taking and taking out of the earth.

[02:36:47] Dr. Dan Wildcat: What we put back usually isn't that good for the

earth in terms of pollution, uh, and waste. But the other view would be to say,

well, no, we [02:37:00] need to go back to that world of relatives and our

technology should be one that enhances our community, not just the human

community. It can do that,

[02:37:13] Wendy Slusser: And what example?

[02:37:14] Dr. Dan Wildcat: community.

[02:37:15] Wendy Slusser: Yeah.

[02:37:16] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Our culture give us resilient, you know, kinds of

opportunities and, and, and opportunities to express beauty in the world we live

in. And, and then, you know, culture, you know, communication, community,

and I think. now, at least I, I think it's worth us talking about, and I'm hoping

people will read it and maybe people will have a way to tweak it or improve it

or say, well, maybe you got this wrong.

[02:37:51] Dr. Dan Wildcat: How about this? But, you know, it's not about

being right, it's just about being honest and trying to share [02:38:00]

something. And um, you know, I always tell people, look, you know. All I can

promise you is that I'm gonna speak honestly. Now, that means that I might

honestly be wrong, and so therefore, when you hear me misspeak, I welcome

you to correct me.[02:38:25] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You might help me understand something better.

Now, again, think of that attitude. See that, that twisting that around. Now that

you're not attacking me. You're being a good relative. You're saying, Dan, I like

that point, but maybe you ought to think about it this way. You're not being

negative. You're being a good relative.

[02:38:46] Dr. Dan Wildcat: You want me to understand something more fully

and better? I'm lucky I have a lot of good relatives who are always saying, Dan,

I think you better rethink that and [02:39:00] work on this a little bit. So I mean,

isn't that, isn't that beautiful though? Think of what the academy would be like

if we could have that kind of interaction.

[02:39:09] Wendy Slusser: So. So I, I'd love to lean in on the communications

part, especially given that communicating with stories is such a powerful means

of communicating. And I'd love to hear a little bit about what kinds of stories

could you think of to drive for culture, cultural change, what.

[02:39:34] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they're all there.

There if you, everyone has a story. Everyone has a story. Now, some people

don't get a chance to ever share their stories, but every everyone has a story to

tell their experience, their life. To me, I think the most powerful, uh, stories are

the ones that [02:40:00] center around how in our relationships in this world,

how.

[02:40:11] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We all experience in this life hurt. We feel pain,

not just physical pain, but emotional pain. And to me, the most powerful stories

are the ones where you don't back off the painful, hurtful part, but the stories

don't. end there, they always have. Um, the good stories are the ones that have

this sense of almost a, a, a sense of redemption, a sense of, you know, finding

[02:41:00] peace.

[02:41:00] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Finding understanding as, as a result of

something, you know, that, uh, maybe very painful and, and maybe was very,

um, hurtful, you know, in one's life. I think right now what we, what we really

need to think about is. In a very deep way how our relationships, and, and I'll

give you a, a theme that, uh, I've, I share with a lot of scholars, but the one I

think of most immediately, a couple come to mind, N Scott Momaday but then

my, you know, my scientist, my biologist sister Robin Wall Kimmerer and, um.

[02:42:00]

[02:42:00] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Here's a metaphor to think about. Life is a gift.

Now, sometimes when you, when when you get gifts, um, they might not bewhat, what you think they are, they might not even be what you want. But when

you begin to think about the idea of gifts. Gifting. Then you begin to recognize

that

[02:42:35] Dr. Dan Wildcat: none of us have to take a, have to get a, um, we

don't have to be credit worthy when we come into this life because that first

breath of air we take is a gift. We didn't have to see if we were credit worthy to

take that first breath of life. And I think this, this [02:43:00] metaphor of life as

a gift is powerful because I've heard her talk about it.

[02:43:07] Dr. Dan Wildcat: And what comes with that is then that attitude of

gratitude.

[02:43:17] Dr. Dan Wildcat: A world full of gifts promotes a sense of gratitude.

And here's the really powerful part. It ends with a responsibility to be generous.

Generosity is what really helps. The world go round. And I tell you, I don't

know about you, Wendy, but I was, I was so offended when I heard person

who's been in the news quite a bit frequently actually say that he thought

empathy was the [02:44:00] biggest weakness of human, modern humans to

have empathy.

[02:44:06] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I could, couldn't disagree more. Empathy, gifting,

gift giving, gratitude, generosity. The three Gs. The three Gs. I think that is the

stories that, uh, I, I think of in my life and, and my stories are, those are pretty,

those are pretty common elements. And remember, again. Sometimes the stories

start in a bad place, but it's not where they start, it's where they end up.

[02:44:47] Dr. Dan Wildcat: That's important, you know? And, um, so anyway,

I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I think we need, we desperately need good storytellers today.

[02:45:00]

[02:45:03] Wendy Slusser: And I think that what you just identified as some

life enhancing activities, uh, in order to incentivize behavior. 'cause there's a

nice. Is there anything else you'd like to, um, share with the listeners about

within our new economy or the current economic system, what you would like

[02:45:22] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. You know, I, I keep, I keep thinking about

this a lot, you know, I think one of the things is, um, so right. Let, let's, let's go

back to kind of where we, we began. I think right now what. We need more than

ever is community. We need to stand together. You and I, you know, uh, you

know, I don't know, we're maybe coming up on a two year anniversary of, ofactually, you know, meeting [02:46:00] each other on this flat screen, you know,

but, um, uh, you are kin and it means something when we.

[02:46:12] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We know someone has our back when we know

that I'm not in this alone. So we're separated by a great amount of land, but this

use of the technology might be a good example of, you know, um, how we

could use this technology. You know, in a good way that promotes culture,

communication, and community. And so I'm, I'm, I'm just thankful.

[02:46:50] Dr. Dan Wildcat: I think right now, don't let the loneliness, don't let

the craziness surrounding us. And by the [02:47:00] way, it's mostly human

made craziness. Let's be very specific about this, you know. Uh, it's human

made craziness. Let's not let that blind us to the beauty around us, and I think

there's, there's great healing powers in the world around us.

[02:47:25] Dr. Dan Wildcat: We just have to figure out how to open ourself up

to them. Mm-hmm.

[02:47:32] Wendy Slusser: Thank you. I love that advice and I'm gonna follow

it. Uh, after this call or this, uh, interview, I'm going to go out and enjoy the sun

for a few minutes for

[02:47:44] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Oh, that's a great, that's a great thing to

[02:47:46] Wendy Slusser: Yeah. So, um, we're winding down now. I'm sad,

but we'll have hopefully other opportunities to share, um, conversation with

each other. But we [02:48:00] usually like to end our, our interview with a

question with all of our guests, and that is how do you live well.

[02:48:08] Dr. Dan Wildcat: Yeah. How do I live? Well, I tell you what I try to

every day begin with that morning a very mindful expression of gratitude. For

that gift and, and I, I just, every day's a gift and I want to use it. That gift

responsibly. Well, I wanna be generous. You know, uh, with the gifts that I've

been given, and that's why I have to express incredible gratitude to you, Wendy,

because you've given me another opportunity to share and I'm just filled with

gratitude and, uh, so glad that, uh, you know, I've got a good, strong sister out

there on the West [02:49:00] coast.

[02:49:02] Wendy Slusser: Well, I feel very honored to be part of your circle

and I feel the same. So much gratitude and, um, you, uh, have opened up a

whole world to me that I haven't thought about. Uh, and I feel very comfortablein. So, yes, thank you. And also, uh, we will definitely, uh, include all of those

incredible books that you described.

[02:49:29] Wendy Slusser: We'll, uh, share that on our website for sure. All

your writings, you, you're not only, you not only wrote Red Alert, but many

other books. So we will include those for all our listeners. Yes. And um, again,

thank you Dr. Dan Wildcat.