e172 beth carruthers - a living sentient place

conscient podcast

• What would change things is love. … We ask people to act, to change, to make sacrifices, or what may be perceived as sacrifices, which in the end can turn out to be incredible things as we open up a world we didn't consider possible for ourselves; it was always love that got people to take those steps and those decisions.

Born and raised in the occupied unceded sovereign territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and səlil̓wətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples on the wild West coast of colonial Canada Beth Carruthers is an artist and researcher whose work and practice focuses on how aesthetic engagements, and especially arts and design based praxis, can seed and nurture transformative change in socio-cultural systems leading toward a sustainably flourishing future for all life.

My first conversation with Beth was in October 2019, e05 carruthers – art that informs, forms and transforms so I wanted to reconnect with Beth some 5 years later to get an update on what this amazing creative mind is up to.

She told me many new things, for example, about her origins:

• I come from a family of Highland Scots who were driven off their land and shipped to Canada to be placeholders for the empire about five or six generations ago. For some reason the Scots, Irish and Celtic peoples have managed, despite the church and all kinds of other occupations, to hang on to a kind of animist understanding of being in the world and an understanding of the world as a living sentient place. That's not what school tells you and that's not the narrative of modernism in the West.

At one point Beth referred to this poem, A Walk, by Rainer Maria Rilke, from his Uncollected Poems, which opens Beth’s book chapter, Response: Deep Aesthetics and the Heart of the World, in Aesth/Ethics in Environmetal Change (2013). Beth asked that it be mentioned in the episode notes:

‘Already my gaze is on the hill, that sunlit one,

up ahead on the path I’ve scarcely started.

In the same way, what we couldn’t grasp grasps us:

blazingly visible, there in the distance –

and changes us, even if we don’t reach it,

into what we, scarcely sensing it, already are;

a gesture signals, answering our gesture…

But we feel only the opposing wind.’

Beth recommended the following reading and viewing materials:

• At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics and All the Other Emergencies by Dougald Hine
• The world is not a problem: a conversation between Dougald Hine and Iain McGilchrist

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END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). It’s my way to give back and be present.

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and it's francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I publish a Substack newsletter called ‘a calm presence' which are 'short, practical essays about collapse acceptance, adaptation, response and art’. To subscribe (free of charge) see https://acalmpresence.substack.com. You'll also find a podcast version of each a calm presence posting on Substack or one your favorite podcast player.

Also, please note that a complete transcript of conscient podcast and balado conscient episodes from season 1 to 4 is available on the web version of this site (not available on podcast apps) here: https://conscient-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes.

Your feedback is always welcome at [e-mail] and/or on conscient podcast social media: Facebook, X, Instagram or Linkedin.

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible.

Claude Schryer

Latest update on July 20, 2024