Ep #12 | Michelle Dowd | Forager

The Wild Spectacle Podcast

Show Notes

Welcome to The Wild Spectacle Podcast, a flash-cast limited series with host Janisse Ray about ongoing and meaningful participation in a world that matters.

Michelle Dowd is the author of Forager: Field Notes on Surviving a Family Cult. The book showcases her life growing up on an isolated mountain in California as part of an apocalyptic cult, called The Field, started by her grandfather. In the Angeles National Forest she learned to identify flora and fauna, navigate by the stars, forage for edible plants, and care for the earth. Her memoir details how she found her way out of poverty and illness by drawing on the gifts of the wilderness. What saves her, ultimately, is her biblical relationship with the natural world. Michelle is a contributor toThe New York Times, The Los Angeles Book Review, The Alpinist, and other fine publications. A journalism professor at Chaffey College, she founded their award-winning literary journal, The Chaffey Review and has been named lecturer of the year.

Highlights

2:30—Michelle chooses an 8 on the wild scale. Find out her three reasons why.

3:26—She tells about her wildest experience, living off and sleeping on the land when she was 16 years old.

4:09—“In my case I did not hunt.”

5:45—Why Michelle was afraid to talk about her childhood for a long time.

6:10—Embarrassment and shame.

7:00—How the cult used the latrine while on mission trips to Mexico.

7:27—Michelle’s feelings on the proselytizing she was asked to do as a child.

8:39—What her yard looks like.

9:00—She has never used a pesticide of any sort.

9:15—Concerns about the word “natural.”

10:30—The question Michelle asks herself every day.

10:55—Michelle suggests a surprising way to rewild.

11:20—Finding a relationship with the earth through the feet.

11:37—How this changes your relationship with the sky.

12:00—How we can become more comfortable eating wild food.

“Think about epiphany. Think about change. Think about the moments that make your face burn, your fingers tingle. Wild Spectacle is about those shocks, encounters that shift the way we see the world and ourselves in it…If the water we drink is maybe older than the sun, then ancient magic pounds inside our skins, too. So speak it. Tell it forth. Cry aloud and call it back home.”

-Joni Tevis, author of The Wet Collection and The World is On Fire

Thank you for listening.

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Janisse Ray’s book Wild Spectacle: Seeking Wonders in a World Beyond Humansinspired the podcast. If you’d like a copy of the book, visit your favorite bookstore or library. Or you may order at www.janisseray.com/bookshop.

Find Janisse on Facebook at Janisse Ray and on Instagram @janisseray_writer.

Thanks to Axletree for their beautiful music, “Clothe the Fields with Plenty,” an orchestral piece inspired by a traditional Hampshire folk song, “The Painful Plough,” from Axletree’s project “Music from a Hampshire Farm.” Thanks to the Free Music Archive.

We’re eager for new voices on the show, so if you’d like to come on and tell a story, be in touch at Janisse Ray’s website, janisseray.com/contact.

Go Out & Play

If we’re going to make a dent in changing our world, we have to understand what kind of amazements it contains. So many people begin to work on behalf of the planet because they see a natural phenomenon, large or small, that infuses them with admiration and wonder. So get out in nature. Take a friend with you. Especially a child. Go see a wild phenomenon. Amaze yourself. Connect yourself. Let’s get wild!