The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society: Books, Film, Music, TV, Art, Writing, Creativity, Education, Environment, Theatre, Dance, LGBTQ, Climate Change, Social Justice, Spirituality, Feminism, Tech, Sustainability

In this special edition, we hear from our guests from across the arts and sciences. From composers and poets to forest ecologists and climate envoys, they tell the story of our planet. Moving beyond the data of destruction, we explore the intelligence of nature, the ethics of what we eat, and the empathy required to save our future.MAX RICHTER, Composer, Sleep, The Blue NotebooksCARL SAFINA, Author, Becoming WildADA LIMÓN, 24th US Poet LaureateCYNTHIA DANIELS, Grammy Award-winning Sound Eng.SUZANNE SIMARD, Finding the Mother TreeJOELLE GERGIS, Lead Author, IPCC 6th Assessment RptNOAH WILSON-RICH, CEO, Best Bees CompanyINGRID NEWKIRK, PETA FounderBERTRAND PICCARD, Solar Impulse FoundationDAVID FARRIER, Author, FootprintsKATHLEEN ROGERS, Pres, Earth Day NetworkODED GALOR, Unified Growth TheoryPETER SINGER, PhilosopherGEOFF MULGAN, Another World Is PossibleCLAIRE POTTER, Welcome to the Circular EconomyCHRIS FUNK, Dir. Climate Hazards Car.JENNIFER MORGAN, Special Envoy, International Climate ActionTo hear more from each guest, listen to their full interviews.Episode Website

On Music, Trust and Connection with the Animal World“Mostly I’ll play in a minor key, something sad, which I think can work for an animal because they can sense the sadness, and they try to reassure me and comfort me. I chose love songs because I'm convinced they are very intuitive and they can sense what I am trying to say to them, and profess my love in a way. I think there's always a way to connect, and if you're being cautious and don't threaten the animals, something beautiful can happen.”Musician Plumes takes his guitar to the world's most unlikely concert halls—farms, sanctuaries, and wild habitats. A passionate advocate for veganism and animal welfare, we discuss what animals hear, how trust forms, and what music can reveal when it enters a world not made for humans alone.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

How is music a pathway to understanding animals?Musician Plumes‍ takes his guitar to the world's most unlikely concert halls—farms, sanctuaries, and wild habitats. A passionate advocate for veganism and animal welfare, we discuss what animals hear, how trust forms, and what music can reveal when it enters a world not made for humans alone.“Mostly I’ll play in a minor key, something sad, which I think can work for an animal because they can sense the sadness, and they try to reassure me and comfort me. I chose love songs because I'm convinced they are very intuitive and they can sense what I am trying to say to them, and profess my love in a way. I think there's always a way to connect, and if you're being cautious and don't threaten the animals, something beautiful can happen.”Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

On the urgent need to reclaim our political voices, the forces that silence dissent, and how art and poetry are crucial tools for survivalOur guest today is an activist scholar who believes the classroom is inseparable from the public square. David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University and a founding faculty member of Stanford’s Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. But his work has long reached beyond the academy. Through his book, Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back, and his podcast of the same name, he insists that the great global crises of our time—from escalating wars and democratic failures to environmental collapse—are fundamentally crises of value and voice. “There is a dispute about what the American Dream is or how it would play out in different circumstances. The American dream has essentially been narrowed into a white Christian nationalist notion of things so that everything that falls outside what they imagine that to be is not only undesirable, but should be the subject of extermination, deportation, and detention. I am heartened by the fact that more of our 'better angels' are emerging with a more capacious and expansive notion of what the American dream could be.”Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

On the urgent need to reclaim our political voices, the forces that silence dissent, and how art and poetry are crucial tools for survival“There is a dispute about what the American Dream is or how it would play out in different circumstances. The American dream has essentially been narrowed into a white Christian nationalist notion of things so that everything that falls outside what they imagine that to be is not only undesirable, but should be the subject of extermination, deportation, and detention. I am heartened by the fact that more of our 'better angels' are emerging with a more capacious and expansive notion of what the American dream could be.”Our guest today is an activist scholar who believes the classroom is inseparable from the public square. David Palumbo-Liu is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University and a founding faculty member of Stanford’s Program in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. But his work has long reached beyond the academy. Through his book, Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back, and his podcast of the same name, he insists that the great global crises of our time—from escalating wars and democratic failures to environmental collapse—are fundamentally crises of value and voice.His recent work has put him on the front lines of campus activism, challenging institutions, resigning his membership from the MLA, a move that highlights the ethical cost of speaking truth to power. We’ll talk about what he calls the "carceral logic" of the modern university, why art and poetry are crucial tools for survival in times of war, and what he tells his students about preparing for a future defined by uncertainty. His perspective is rooted in literature, but his urgency is all about the world we live in now. We will discuss the forces that silence dissent, the "imperial logic" of AI, and what it means to be a moral, active citizen when the systems we rely on are failing.Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast