[Editors note 2022: I’ve come to see Eisenstein’s thinking as deeply flawed listen to this podcast for what I agree are many of the problems with his work]

It’s Memorial Day in the U.S. which means that most of our domestic readers are probably not reading Root Simple blog posts. For those few of you who are, allow me to suggest a podcast to listen to while you recreate, garden, or mix a cocktail. It’s a lecture by Charles Eisentein delivered last year at St. James Church in London. He begins with the need to stop the paradigm and language of being at war with everything: bugs, people, germs etc. My favorite bit comes during the question and answer session when Eisenstein addresses a concept of interconnectedness he calls, “interbeing.”

Interbeing is the truth. You can only suppress it at great and growing effort, temporarily, until you become exhausted. It’s like a parking lot covered in cement. If you don’t constantly maintain it in a state of ugliness, then beauty will erupt. Dandelions will come up, it’ll crack, and in fifty years it’ll be beautiful. And we are getting exhausted now at maintaining an ugly world.

You can read a transcript of the lecture here and listen to more of Eisenstein’s podcasts here.