Advertise on podcast: Everlutionary: Healing and Transforming the World

Have you ever stood before a tree and felt, unmistakably, that you were being seen? What if the climate crisis is not really about carbon at all, but about a relationship we broke? In this episode, Hawah Kasat welcomes back author and filmmaker Lindsay Branham, whose new book, Heartwood: The Wisdom and Healing Kinship of Trees, follows her earlier appearance in “Erotic Ecology” (Episode 31). For fifteen years Lindsay filmed in conflict zones, treating her body like a machine, until illness and the stillness of 2020 forced her to stop. On a quiet Colorado hillside, three ordinary aspens caught her attention. Not the tallest or the loveliest, just three she couldn’t walk past. They became her teachers, her refuge, and her kin. She has introduced only two people to them, and she explains why. This is more than one woman and three trees. Lindsay explains why healing is a spiral, not a destination, and what aspens, one organism joined at the root, teach about mutual care. She argues that the master’s tools can’t dismantle the master’s house, and that reciprocity is itself a climate action. Together they explore the rights of nature movement, from the Whanganui River to Ecuador’s constitution to a proposed personhood resolution for Colorado’s Roaring Fork River, and ask whether “protecting” nature can reinforce human superiority and what it means to ask a tree for consent. What we Explore: -Why Lindsay's autoimmune health crisis became the doorway to a healing relationship with nature -How three ordinary aspen trees became her teachers, and why she's only shared them with two human lovers -What aspen forests understand about community: one organism, no kings, no one left to fend for themselves -Why the heartwood, the dead center of every tree, is a meditation on the blurriness between life and death -What "sacred reciprocity" and "concentricity" mean, and why climate activism is a form of reciprocity -Why the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house, and what the new tools are -What the "relational tipping point" is, and why it may matter as much as the ecological one -How the rights of nature movement is granting legal personhood to rivers and watersheds -Why access to wild places is an equity issue, and how "protecting" nature can reinforce human exceptionalism -What it means to ask a tree for consent, and to listen in your body for the answer Honest, searching, and often surprising, this conversation invites us to rediscover kinship with the living world, because we protect what we love. Let's dive in. Mentioned “Erotic Ecology” (Episode 31) Social Links for Lindsay Branham: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaybranham Substack (Heartwood Notes) - https://lindsaybranham.substack.com/ Book: Heartwood: The Wisdom and Healing Kinship of Trees Social Links for Hawah Kasat: Linktree - https://linktr.ee/everlutionary Website - https://hawahkasat.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=everlutionary-ep48 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/everlutionary Substack - https://everlutionary.substack.com YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@everlutionary Everlutionary Merch: https://everlutionary.creator-spring.com/

What happens when a culture forgets how to initiate its young people? What can matriarchal cultures teach us about centering women, children, and future generations? And what would change if we stopped defining manhood through status, dominance, and accumulation and began teaching men to become stewards of generations? In this deeply personal conversation, Hawah sits down with Kale KaaleKahi, Native Hawaiian culture keeper, ceremonialist, and co-founder of Sacred Sons (a pioneering men’s group), to explore what modern manhood has lost and what ancestral wisdom might still have to teach us about becoming fully human. Kale shares about growing up without his biological father, the profound influence of his mother, her unexpected death, and how becoming a father to his daughter radically changed his relationship to love, grief, ancestry, and responsibility. His work with Sacred Sons and N.O.W. Academy is rooted in a belief that men need more than self-improvement: they need elders, brotherhood, ceremony, and rites of passage that teach them how to carry power without being controlled by it.

What have we forgotten in our relentless pursuit of progress? And what might we need to remember before it’s lost for good? In this solo episode, Hawah Kasat begins with a story from his own life. In December 2004, he left the southern coast of India just hours before one of the deadliest tsunamis in modern history struck. While hundreds of thousands of people were caught by surprise, the Moken people of the Andaman Sea recognized what was happening. An ancient story passed down for generations had taught them that when the ocean suddenly retreats, you run for higher ground. From there, Hawah explores what he calls “The Great Forgetting,” the slow loss of knowledge, relationships, and human capacities that can happen as technology and convenience increasingly do things for us. Moving from Indigenous knowledge and Aboriginal Australian Songlines to AI, GPS, grocery-store strawberries, and our everyday dependence on technology, this episode asks whether evolution is always about acquiring something new, or whether sometimes the most evolutionary thing we can do is remember something old. This episode invites you to notice what may be disappearing from your own life without you realizing it, and to reclaim some of the attention, knowledge, connection, and relationship that modern life can make easy to lose. You’ll come away with a different way of thinking about progress, and some simple ways to begin remembering what matters.

The first technology that transformed humanity wasn't the wheel. It was fire. For thousands of years we gathered around it—not simply for warmth, but for story, ceremony, silence, and belonging. Perhaps the question of our time isn't how intelligent our machines become, but whether we remember the ancient intelligence that first gathered us around the flame. In our latest episode, Hawah sits down with world-renowned yoga teacher, author, and sacred activist Shiva Rea to explore what it means to tend the "heart fire"—the inner source of vitality, compassion, creativity, and resilience that keeps us fully alive even in uncertain times. Drawing from decades of study in yoga, tantra, dance, somatics, indigenous traditions, Ayurveda, movement, and pilgrimage across India, Africa, and beyond, Shiva invites us into a radically different way of understanding healing. Rather than searching for answers outside ourselves, she reminds us that wisdom has always lived within the body—in breath, rhythm, ritual, and our relationship with one another. Together, Hawah and Shiva explore the science of the heart's electromagnetic field, why the heart may be leading the brain more than we realize, the forgotten role of fire as humanity's first meditation teacher, and how movement, music, drumming, dance, and ceremony have helped cultures around the world metabolize grief, restore belonging, and remember their humanity. This conversation is an invitation to slow down, reconnect with the pulse of life, and rediscover the ancient practices that help us move from fragmentation toward wholeness.

What if the world outside of us is a mirror of what we have collectively imagined, denied, and disowned? And, what if the figures and systems we condemn are reflections of the shadow parts of ourselves? In this episode, our host Hawah Kasat sits down with Sonya Renee Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of The Body Is Not an Apology, poet, activist, teacher, and visionary voice in radical self-love and collective liberation, for her second appearance on Everlutionary. Their first conversation explored home, belonging, Israel and Palestine, possessiveness, ego, and radical love. This time, they return to the thread they left open: POWER. This episode is not just about imagination as fantasy. It is about imagination as power. From Elon Musk and extreme wealth to the stories we tell about scarcity, separation, and who deserves what, Sonya and Hawah ask what we are unconsciously creating together and what it would take to create something else. What We Explore: - The difference between surrendering by choice and surrendering by collapse - Evolutionary love as the force reconciling life back to wholeness - The role of free will in how we participate in evolution - Why power lives in what we are able to imagine - How collective imagination shapes the people, systems, and realities we live in - Is Elon Musk a manifestation of collective desire and disowned shadow? - The difference between power over and power with - What it means to become intimate with complicity - How shadow work invites us to love the parts of ourselves we reject in others This episode is a reminder that imagination is not passive. It is creative, collective, and alive. If we are powerful enough to manifest the systems and figures we fear, perhaps we are also powerful enough to imagine something more whole. Social Links for Hawah Kasat: Patreon (Bonus Episodes) - https://www.patreon.com/cw/Everlutionary Linktree - https://linktr.ee/everlutionary Website - https://hawahkasat.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=show-notes&utm_campaign=everlutionary-ep44 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/hawahkasat/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@everlutionary Insight Timer - https://insighttimer.com/HawahKasat Everlutionary Merch: https://everlutionary.creator-spring.com/ Social Links for Sonya Renee Taylor: Website - https://www.sonyareneetaylor.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sonyareneetaylor/ Book - The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love Book - The Book of Radical Answers

What if almost everything we've been taught about peace is wrong? What if the greatest threat to our future isn't political polarization—but the trauma beneath it? In a world increasingly defined by outrage, division, and "us versus them" thinking, peace can feel naïve. But what if we've misunderstood peace all along? In this conversation, Hawah sits down with peacebuilder, author, and nonviolence trainer Kazu Haga to explore why violence is more than war or physical harm—and why healing our collective trauma may be one of the most important forms of activism available to us. Drawing from the legacies of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Buddhist philosophy, and decades of organizing for social justice, Kazu offers a radically different vision of nonviolence: not passive resistance, but an active practice of remembering that we belong to one another. Together, Hawah and Kazu explore what it means to move beyond binary thinking, why justice requires more than simply ending conflict, and how fierce vulnerability can transform the way we engage with our families, communities, political opponents, and ourselves. This conversation also ventures into one of the most inspiring parts of Kazu's work: his practice of the gift economy. By publicly sharing his family's finances and inviting people to give according to relationship rather than obligation, Kazu offers a living experiment in building communities rooted in trust and reciprocity, while directly challenging the engine of capitalism. Whether you're exhausted by political division, grieving fractured relationships, working for justice, or simply searching for a more hopeful way to be human, this episode offers something increasingly rare: Not easy answers—but a different way to see.

What happens when an injury becomes a teacher? After a six-month hiatus from the podcast, Hawah returns with a deeply personal reflection on healing, shame, grief, and our profound interdependence with one another. What began as a seemingly ordinary day in the ocean turned into a serious accident, months of hidden pain, and the discovery of a fractured collarbone that had been missed on initial X-rays. But this episode is not really about a broken bone. It is about the stories we tell ourselves when we are hurting. It is about isolation, self-reliance, vulnerability, and the ways many of us try to carry our burdens alone. Drawing from his own healing journey, Hawah explores the relationship between individual healing and collective healing, asking what becomes possible when we stop pretending that our suffering is private. Why do so many of us hide our pain? What happens when grief has nowhere to go? And what would it mean to build a culture that knows how to metabolize harm without reproducing it? Along the way, he reflects on wellness culture, nervous system regulation, trauma, violence, community, and the myth of separation that lies at the heart of so many of our individual and societal wounds.

This is the season of resolutions: big declarations, bold promises, and the familiar hope that this year will finally be different. But what if real change doesn’t come from resolutions at all? What if it comes from the habits we practice quietly, imperfectly, every single day? In this solo episode, Hawah Kasat explores what happens when we pause instead of push, interrupt patterns instead of clinging to them, and choose habits over promises. Recorded from Roots to Sky Sanctuary in the Appalachian Mountains, this episode weaves together personal transition, leadership, and the practice of revolutionary rest. Hawah shares why he’s taking a temporary pause from the podcast, how rest challenges a culture addicted to urgency, and why slowing down can create clarity, alignment, and joy. The episode closes with a brief guided breathing practice; an invitation to land in the present moment and step into the new year with intention, ease, and breath.

What happens when the wellness industry becomes the very thing we need to detox from? Why are some people more comfortable buying crystals than confronting capitalism? What if your yoga practice, your organic groceries, and your mindfulness apps aren’t actually making the world more just? In this episode, host Hawah Kasat sits down with Kerri Kelly, wellness activist and author of American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal. The conversation tackles the deep-rooted inequities within the wellness industry, examining how concepts like capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy infiltrate our self-care practices. Kerri shares her personal journey from losing her stepfather on 9/11 to realizing that wellness culture often perpetuates the very systems it aims to heal. Together, they explore collective care, the limits of individual wellness, and the need for systemic change to achieve true healing. This episode offers a profound perspective on how real wellness goes beyond personal optimization and moves toward collective liberation.

They told us that wanting free buses and healthcare was an apocalypse. They told us that fairness was communism. What if we stopped believing them? Healing our broken world means tearing down the stories designed to keep us small and scared. It means demanding an economy that serves people, not billionaires, and recognizing that our personal liberation is tied to collective justice. In this fiery solo episode of Everlutionary, Hawah Kasat draws inspiration from Zoran Mamdani’s unapologetic victory to unpack the billion-dollar propaganda machine that makes common sense seem radical. He breaks down how the ultra-rich hoard power, why they flinch at the word "taxes," and how we can dismantle the invisible kings of our time. This is a call to embrace the bittersweet work of building a world where billionaires are obsolete because our evolution as a species depends on it.

We’re all carrying stories, wounds, and moments that have shaped us, and the question becomes, what does it truly take to heal them? Healing isn’t just about fixing what’s broken or chasing some perfect version of ourselves. It’s about weaving ourselves back together – and weaving ourselves back to one another. In the latest episode of Everlutionary, Hawah Kasat sits down with therapist, somatics teacher, and bestselling author, Prentis Hemphill to explore what healing means, why it’s inseparable from justice, and how the work of personal repair can ripple outward into collective transformation.

What does it mean to “walk on a feather” in a world weighed down by history, systems, and inherited wounds? How do psychedelics—once outlawed and feared—become teachers of tenderness, reciprocity, and healing? And what wisdom emerges when a lawyer rooted in both Anishinaabe and European ancestry braids modern law with Indigenous wisdom? Ariel Clark has spent nearly two decades navigating the intersecting worlds of cannabis, psychedelics, and Indigenous rights, all while carrying the complexity of her biracial identity. In this episode of Everlutionary, Hawah Kasat sits down with attorney and advocate, Ariel Clark to explore how colonization has shaped our systems, why her identity and legal work are inseparable from questions of justice, and how the “red road,” a path of devotion, humility, and balance, offers another way forward.

Did you know a single childhood moment can shape how we see ourselves for years? Picture yourself at ten years old, pressured to reveal your crush, only to be humiliated when classmates say you could never date her because your children would be “half black and half white.” How does racism follow a child into adulthood, and what does true healing look like decades later? In this solo episode of The Everlutionary Podcast, host Hawah Kasat takes you behind the curtain of his own story. He shares the moment, as a ten-year-old kid, when a classroom betrayal left him standing alone and questioning whether he belonged. He brings you to the soccer fields of suburban New Jersey, where racist slurs became part of the soundtrack of childhood. And he opens up about the day he shouted at his mother never to speak Hindi to him again, trading language and culture for the false promise of acceptance. But this isn’t just a story of wounds. Hawah also recalls an encounter years later with a former bully, this time not hurling insults, but offering an apology that cracked open the possibility of healing. Through raw storytelling, Hawah invites us to see how internalized racism shapes identity, how reconciliation can emerge in unexpected places, and why belonging is a form of liberation that we all deserve. Let’s dive in!

What if money, so often a source of harm, could become medicine for our collective healing? In this episode of The Everlutionary Podcast, host Hawah Kasat sits with Edgar Villanueva—Lumbee tribe member, award-winning author of Decolonizing Wealth, and Founder of the Decolonizing Wealth Project—to explore how philanthropy can move from colonial extraction to reparative giving. Edgar shares how confronting the origins of wealth, telling the truth about harm, and embracing cultural healing can transform both communities and donors. From the $1.8 trillion trapped in philanthropic endowments to his bold $1 trillion “moonshot” for reparative justice, he reveals what it takes to liberate capital in service of racial equity. Along the way, he weaves stories of his own spiritual journey, the resilience of Indigenous traditions, and the urgent work of healing systems from within. For over two decades, Edgar has advised global philanthropies, Fortune 500 companies, and grassroots movements, influencing more than $1 billion toward repair. His latest initiative, a $20 million youth mental health fund, centers culturally responsive care for young people of color and LGBTQ+ youth. This episode is a call to reimagine wealth, not as something to hoard, but as a living force that can restore dignity, repair relationships, and move us toward collective liberation.

What does it mean to face the truth of your ancestors’ role in colonization and take responsibility for repair? Hilary Giovale has spent the last decade tracing her family history back to stolen Indigenous land and the enslavement of African people, and transforming that reckoning into a lifelong practice of reparations, solidarity, and truth-telling. In this episode of Everlutionary, Hawah Kasat sits down with writer, community organizer, and author of Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers Toward Truth, Healing, and Repair, Hilary Giovale, to explore the personal and collective work of becoming a “good relative” to the land, to one another, and future generations.