Rev Wakil David Matthews (00:00.672)
Well, hello and welcome, everybody. I am the Reverend Wakil David Matthews, and I am very excited today to welcome my soon to be son-in-law, Asher Smith. Asher, who uses they, them pronouns, describes himself as a queer farmer, disgraced biologist, I want to hear more about that one, an occasional theater maker.

Annalouiza (00:44.748)
Yes, thank you so much for being here with us, Asher. And welcome everyone. I am the Rev. Mother Annalouiza Armendariz. Asher's master's thesis in food studies was a collection of three immersive performances that wove together human and wild stories to build a connection between audience members and Pennsylvania's forests. Asher resides in their hometown of Philadelphia and will soon be moving to a farm nearby on the Delaware River.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (01:14.164)
Yeah, yeah, the exciting news was a bit ago was from our daughter, Wendy and my daughter, Nina and her fiance Asher, and they had their offer accepted for a new farm north of Philadelphia. That's pretty exciting. We're glad to hear that. And of course, we'll put a note in the podcast notes with your permission to your… master's thesis so people can read more about that. It was really fascinating and I really enjoyed it. So we always like to ask about becoming aware of death, but actually maybe just combine that with specifically in your research, what did you find out about? And when was it really kind of triggered to all this for biological extinctions or threats to biology? And maybe it's yourself, if you remember when you first became aware of death in your life.

Asher (02:11.692)
Yeah, I've been thinking about this question. A lot of this stuff is before I feel like I had much cognition going on. But I feel that it was taught to me at a pretty young age growing up in a time of climate change that things are dying and the world is under threat.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (02:34.587)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (02:37.806)
You know, I watched a lot of Animal Planet growing up. You know, I was a voracious viewer of the, you know, the Amazon rainforest and the African savannas and, you know, these sorts of things that they put on TV. you know, I think at this, at that time that I was a kid in the early 2000s, you know, there was kind of always at least a tag at the end of like,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (02:41.876)
Hehehe.

haha

Rev Wakil David Matthews (02:53.066)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (02:53.262)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (03:07.032)
these places are disappearing or, you know, there's poachers and the white rhino is going extinct. So there's something I think about a lot that my ecological consciousness and that of my generation, it was almost something, you know, before I can remember learning about it, the death of species, the death of, you know, our

Rev Wakil David Matthews (03:15.626)
Mm.

Annalouiza (03:16.386)
you

Annalouiza (03:19.992)
Hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (03:30.474)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (03:35.352)
biosphere in some ways, or at least the threatened existence is something that was totally baked in to my upbringing.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (03:41.768)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we hear that from young people a lot. Yeah. So I can imagine, I can only imagine and I, because I'm not as young, but having spoke to my kids and other people that that's just got to be a huge part of kind of the, the background of your life in a way that maybe the background angst, you know, yeah.

Annalouiza (03:41.794)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (04:00.994)
Mm-hmm.

Well, you know, and I have two two children who are younger than you Asher and they went each in their own time went through a period where they were really hyper stressed and I don't want to say hyper stress as to diminish it, but like my son suddenly was really stressed about trash and was like trying to bring trash home from the streets and restaurants. And, you know, it was interesting because he was worried about animals in

Rev Wakil David Matthews (04:25.28)
You

Annalouiza (04:34.446)
bodies of water that would be, you know, having a hard time with all the plastics and stuff. And I remember people being adults would be like, oh, just knock it off. Like tell him to stop it and, you know, get that out of them. And instead we created like his own little receptacle that he could actually figure out where to put the recycling through. And, and he got to like talk it through and he's built like little altars for the Brazilian rainforest and stuff. And I feel like, yeah, you are young. These, everybody who is listening.

is experiencing, you know, like what is going on around us with all this information. So how has all this settled into you and how has it impacted the story of your life?

Asher (05:19.094)
Yeah, I mean, that's it's it's it's a fundamental question for me, where I, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't even know how to separate, you know, the idea of, know, the profound responsibility of care for the earth and, you know,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:21.642)
Yes.

Annalouiza (05:24.52)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (05:41.592)
the weight that has sort of gone onto all decisions of my life. And of course, you know, it's worth saying that that has been the case for all generations, you know, forever, as long as we have had the agency to make decisions. But this, you know, this added layer of kind of catastrophe looming, you know, that's kind of

Annalouiza (05:45.294)
That's right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (05:52.584)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (05:53.943)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (06:10.412)
an additional emotional question. You know, you talked about the stress and I do think that that's an issue, know, generationally of the kind of the overwhelm. you are going to take on, you know, the pain and the mourning required of this moment that is globalized, you know, it's kind of...

Annalouiza (06:24.098)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (06:34.722)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (06:38.244)
more than one human, more than one body and story and contain. So

I kind of have gone through periods of my life, you know, when I was younger, maybe in late teenager, where I was trying to take on that task of, you know, understanding and rising to the occasion of the death of an entire biosphere by human activities. And that is something that I relatively quickly learned that

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:02.528)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (07:09.218)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (07:16.374)
you know, I need to discard and, you know, figure out what on the scale of my life, what am I able to learn and to accumulate or communicate rather. And, you know, that kind of leads into, you know, the thesis that I did and then these sorts of artistic communication progress projects that we'll get into.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:18.869)
Hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:32.969)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (07:33.036)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (07:39.351)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (07:44.192)
Yeah, yeah, perfect. Well, let's go ahead and yeah, yeah, very good job. Very good job. Yeah, why don't you tell us more about that? Tell us more about your master's thesis. Any stories you want to share about, you know, biodiversity loss that you've learned about? And like I said, we'll put a link to that in the podcast notes so people can see that brilliant work you did. I really enjoyed reading it myself. So tell us more.

Annalouiza (07:46.36)
Perfect segue.

Asher (08:09.892)
Yeah, so my master's thesis was in the Department of Food Studies at Chatham, and my whole experience there was interweaving a few different aspects of my life that had come before it.

one as a biologist, a former biologist who, you know, had studied wildflowers and phytoplankton, kind of in that realm of like scientific observation publication and

mixing that with my theatrical experience in making devised performances and making sort of experimental theater that is very kind of integrated with the audience, transformative, experiential things. And then lastly, kind of adding my experience as a farmer.

I'm a beginning farmer. started a few years before I went to grad school. So I have about three seasons of farming under my belt now and incorporating, you know, just my experiences working with the land, learning to relate to plants in a more participatory way.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (09:23.456)
you

Asher (09:29.718)
So the thesis itself, it includes three different performances. Each is about a specific plant that's native to the area I was living in, which is Western Pennsylvania. And I think the one that is of most interest here as we're talking about end of life is the American chestnut, which I could also share more about that specific story if you like.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (09:52.415)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (09:52.462)
Mm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (09:58.366)
Yeah, yeah, please. Absolutely.

Annalouiza (09:58.807)
Yes, share it. Yes.

Asher (10:01.604)
Yeah, so the, I mean, this is a very complex story. And it's a third of my thesis, so I'll try to rein it in. But the American chestnut is a species of tree native to Eastern North America. It grew from Maine to Georgia, kind of out until the Mississippi. It was

Rev Wakil David Matthews (10:09.024)
Yeah.

Asher (10:30.636)
a highly important food source for people who are indigenous here from, you know, over 10,000 years ago. And then later was also an important food source for settlers, European settlers who lived in this area. And some estimates say that American chestnuts made up a quarter of all trees in the eastern woodland. They were

Rev Wakil David Matthews (10:58.804)
Wow.

Asher (10:59.042)
highly prolific tree. They call them the redwoods of the east. They were, you know, in the southern parts of their range, giant, godlike trees.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (11:03.648)
Mm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (11:10.25)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (11:10.67)
you

Asher (11:14.168)
Very unfortunately in the early 20th century, some Asiatic species of chestnut were imported to, I believe, the New York Botanical Garden or Zoo, and they carry a chestnut blade that...

know, this blight is a fungal disease that co-existed with Chinese and Korean chestnut species. And, you know, so they were able to kind of cope with that well, but the American trees had never seen this disease before. And so that allowed this huge vulnerability to end up wiping out every single tree that existed on this continent.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (11:47.86)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (11:59.629)
Wow. Wow.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:00.457)
Wow, yeah.

Asher (12:02.926)
So there was no single tree that did not get the disease. However, chestnuts now are kind of in this purgatory state almost where the disease can only work on the above ground portion of the tree. So their root systems are all over, right? All over that range. And they send up shoots that

Annalouiza (12:24.61)
Hmm. Hmm.

Asher (12:32.206)
that can live for a time, sometimes even live, living long enough to produce nuts. But it's kind of this inevitability. The light will sort of, you know, travel back up and will knock down those new shoots. And so this leaves them in this kind of interesting space where there was a big period of mourning for the chestnut.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:37.28)
Hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:41.546)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (12:41.548)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (12:49.76)
Mmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:00.586)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (13:00.866)
that occurred when this disease first came through. And then there was this huge resurgence of hope when the first sprouts came back. And then this additional round of mourning when they realized that the light was still here. But then there's these efforts to use specialized breeding techniques and to use genetic engineering to make the chestnut viable again.

Annalouiza (13:13.08)
They're not gonna make it. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:13.994)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:27.498)
Mmm.

Asher (13:29.24)
so big part of what my performance is about is like, kind of this, this refusal to bury the chestnut in a sense, kind of hanging on to this possibility that it can be resurrected somehow through technology.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:37.12)
Mmm. Mmm.

Annalouiza (13:37.39)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (13:45.432)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (13:45.557)
Wow.

Annalouiza (13:48.409)
But as you're so the tree is actually trying to do something itself too, right? Like it sends up a shoot every once in a while. Do you think it's reconfiguring its own genetic like awareness? Do think it's like working on it or?

Asher (14:03.876)
Yeah, I mean, on the level of genetics, it's pretty stymied because it's just so rare that a tree would get old enough to be able to reproduce their obligate outcrossers. So you need to have sort of two of these trees in the same place at the same time that both reach mature age. you know, it's a...

Annalouiza (14:23.416)
whole nation.

Interesting.

Asher (14:29.026)
It's a forest tree we're talking about, it's many years. But otherwise, it's just, you know, it's still the same kind of sending up clones of itself.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (14:39.008)
I find that such an interesting metaphor for the way the settler colonialists wiped out many of the tribes that lived here. Similarly, they came over with diseases that they had never experienced, right? And alcohol. But just to, you know, it's just a really interesting parallels that between those two things. so could you, would you be willing to maybe describe a little bit one of those

Annalouiza (14:39.267)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (14:53.174)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (15:08.372)
one of those plays, those performances, kind of how it looked.

Asher (15:11.98)
Yeah, so this performance about the American chestnuts, it was sort of a guided walk through the forest. And the piece was created in collaboration with seven different chestnut trees. A couple of them were these large, mature Chinese chestnuts.

Annalouiza (15:25.198)
Mm.

Asher (15:37.112)
that were producing tons of nuts and those are the chestnuts that I used to feed people in the performance. And then also going to some of the American chestnuts in the forest.

that included a standing dead tree and the stumps of two quite large trees that had been recently cut down because they were dying from blight. And then the ending spot was going to this living American chestnut shoot.

The whole performance, you know, that we, had audience members read newspaper clippings from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. This was a performance in Pittsburgh. And we looked at newspaper articles from the 1800s to today that I had sort of embedded in the landscape.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (16:34.633)
Hmm.

Asher (16:35.614)
and we were sort of moving through and this was during the harvest season, which is in autumn, so it was like really gorgeous time to be in the forest. And, you know, my role was to kind of hold the presence of the mourner to...

Annalouiza (16:42.562)
Mmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (16:53.641)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (16:55.552)
see the loss and feel it. As we went to these different sites, I was placing stones at the foot of these trees, which is a Jewish practice of stones at grave sites. And as we moved from place to place, I also sang to these trees. The final beat of the show was this

Annalouiza (17:06.946)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:15.337)
Mmm.

Asher (17:22.742)
accordion vocal requiem that I had composed using some material from Mozart's famous Requiem that was sort of, yeah, just expressing the depth of the loss. And my goal really was to counter this spirit of hopefulness that was kept alive.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:25.216)
Hmm

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:30.826)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (17:30.839)
Hmm.

Asher (17:52.942)
for 100 years and counting that struck me as kind of, as like I said before, refusal to bury what is dead and embedded in that, this kind of denial of loss, a denial of the learning that needs to happen of, you know,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (17:56.576)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (18:09.214)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (18:22.796)
we can't bring the disease in and then think, well, it's okay because we can undo it. Maybe there's, there will always be possibility for remediation of some sorts and for restoration in the forests. But that first step of acknowledging.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (18:28.832)
Hmm.

Asher (18:46.552)
wrongdoing, acknowledging harm, and that there's like real effect of that kind of needs to be the first step, especially as like reconciling settler relationships in this area.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (18:55.124)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:00.096)
Right. Yeah, beautiful. Is there a recording of that Requiem?

Asher (19:05.796)
only in the voice notes of my phone, just trying to record it, but yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (19:06.826)
You

Okay, it would be lovely to hear it. But anyway, if you do make one, let me know and I can put it in the podcast notes as well.

Asher (19:18.787)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (19:19.608)
So, how many performances did you do?

Asher (19:23.62)
of American chestnuts specifically. There were just two.

Annalouiza (19:25.23)
huh.

Annalouiza (19:28.664)
too. were people, they were walking from tree to tree, right? Alongside you. And did you capped the, the essence of what they were, what moved them about this? you like, I'm trying to imagine if it's a requiem to where we're going through like a funeral of sorts, right? Like, what, did those people experience like,

Asher (19:34.617)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (19:46.659)
Yeah.

Asher (19:53.251)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (19:57.167)
What did you hear back as feedback?

Asher (20:00.876)
Yeah, yeah, I had a lot of really interesting conversations with with audience members. And in each of the shows that I did for this thesis, I held talk backs afterwards, and that to me were kind of like, also part of the performances in a way that it's like, it's about negotiating how are we going to move forward here. In this one, I had the audience members do a writing exercise.

Annalouiza (20:16.44)
Great, great.

Annalouiza (20:22.51)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (20:29.9)
the talk back as, know, through the whole show, we were reading these newspaper articles, you know, going back 150 years. I asked them to write an article from the year 2100, you know, 80 years into the future. What might be sort of a speculative story of what our relationship to the forest or to the chestnuts would be. So I

Annalouiza (20:36.556)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (20:43.632)
Mm. Mm.

Annalouiza (20:51.724)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Asher (20:59.498)
I was moved by seeing their stories and the way that they kind of, some people were learning about Chestnuts for the first time, other people had a deeper familiarity with it, with the story. But I think that for the audience members, the...

Annalouiza (21:04.045)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (21:11.692)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Asher (21:24.92)
The feedback that I received is that like, sort of the specificity of the performance was the most moving part. That it's not, we're not talking about the loss of species in general.

Annalouiza (21:33.197)
Right.

Yep. In a big, big picture, right? That's what I was hoping to hear is like we're walking amongst these, these trees and hearing their story and listening to the song and touching them. And I would hope that, you know, your audience would be like, it's very real. Right? Because when we hear of death in our biosphere,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (21:53.94)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (21:58.103)
It's so far away. It's so far like far removed from our reading on our computer. You know, it's like, but it's so beautiful to have that experience.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (22:07.934)
Yeah, we need to have you do it some more.

Annalouiza (22:09.07)
With all kinds of elements of our sphere here.

So what was a challenge then in how you can share this information and try to encourage solutions?

Asher (22:29.484)
Yeah, I mean, there's, there are several routes I can go here because there was a lot of challenges making this thesis. I think like, one that came up pretty immediately and that I was sort of, you know, one of the anticipated challenges that I had and did experience was just the challenge of reconciling

my own positionality as settler, as the one telling this story and relaying, you know, relaying the information and sort of holding the space. My performance relied, you know, fairly heavily on Indigenous epistemology in terms of like...

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:09.216)
Mm.

Asher (23:21.406)
Yeah, just how to how to conceptualize the loss of this species. There was an article that I relied pretty heavily on that was written by someone at SUNY. I can't remember which one. I'll overdub this later. But he's from the Tuscarora Nation in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. And he was talking about

Annalouiza (23:25.464)
Right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:41.353)
He

Asher (23:50.456)
you know, bringing in a lot of these ideas about mourning that I ended up guiding the performance that the Haudenosaunee creation story involves loss and mourning and renewal. It's more of like this this circle of life and death. And that's where a lot of the the critiques of this sort of Western scientific way of looking at the Chess Nut as like

Annalouiza (23:54.094)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (23:56.415)
Mmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:07.188)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (24:07.448)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (24:17.646)
here's the problem, here's how we solve it. And so anyway, it's like there are these strongly competing narratives of what should happen with the chestnut. Some people have devoted their entire lives, multiple lifetimes to this project, bring back the chestnut. And then you have another contingency of people who...

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:39.712)
Mm.

Asher (24:45.612)
are saying, you know, this is not what we should be working on. You who are we bringing back the chestnut for? You know, if you bring back this transgenic chestnut that, you know, people have no relationship to, like, what good does that do the forest? And what good does it do the forest if you're not restoring treaty rights, letting people who stewarded the chestnut for thousands of years, you know, still preventing them from doing the work that they would need to do into the future?

Rev Wakil David Matthews (24:48.48)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (24:48.686)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:00.928)
Mm.

Annalouiza (25:07.682)
Right. Right.

Annalouiza (25:14.7)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm-hmm.

Asher (25:15.606)
maintain the species. So that's the challenge of just like, this is such a complex issue and like, I am sort of specifically situated in that. So I'm not in a place to kind of tell people what to think about it or to offer solutions. You know, I mean, I think as

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:17.107)
Yeah, good point.

Asher (25:39.446)
As an artist, our role is not to answer questions most of the time. Our role is to state the problems as accurately as we can.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:44.672)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (25:52.192)
Just to create that awareness, yeah.

Annalouiza (25:52.545)
Mm-hmm. Right. Or hold that space for a multiple of answers and no answers, right? Like, it's the paradox. Huh. Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:02.196)
Yeah, yeah. Another wonderful paradox. We love those. Wow. Thank you, Asher. This has been a great conversation. Is there anything that frightens you around the loss of diversity? You kind of talked about that a little bit early on. But I'm just wondering if there's specific angst or specific anxieties that you feel around that or that have

Come up while you're doing this work.

Asher (26:34.7)
Yeah, I I think that this emotional question is a complex one. I mean, I think that...

Like fear is one of many emotions that I feel about, you know, about extinction and biodiversity loss. You know, I mean, I think like the primary emotion is like sadness and loss. And, you know, paired with that is just like the anger of the injustice of the situation.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (26:47.592)
Hmm. Right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:01.888)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:09.663)
Yeah.

Asher (27:14.424)
you know, knowing that these are our lives that we're talking about, you know, both of the species going extinct and the other species, including humans, that are in deep relationship.

Annalouiza (27:30.38)
in the web.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:31.71)
Yeah, yeah.

Asher (27:33.186)
You know, nothing... No species ever goes out alone.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (27:38.238)
Right. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. Very, very thoughtful answer. I really appreciate that. Very important for us to remember and to really acknowledge and to feel, feel all those things and recognize that others are feeling it and support each other. thanks for, thanks for bringing all those forward. Appreciate it.

Annalouiza (27:38.296)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (27:54.883)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And Asher, as you, I I, I've witnessed how hard it is to have these thoughts and feelings because it is a heavy, it's a heavy lift. It's a heavy, like paradoxical life to live, right? Cause we're always having to make these choices around our, our kin in the forest.

and our cells and our humans, right? And so in those moments, how do you find yourself becoming, getting back to groundedness and feeling like you can manage another day? What gives you the strength to keep going?

Asher (28:37.954)
I would say that usually it is going outside and just like being in the forest, know, mean, the forest is the, you know, that's the ecosystem where I live, these deciduous forests that put out lush leaves in the spring and lose them in the fall. And, you know, I mean, when I was making...

Annalouiza (28:43.692)
Yay!

Rev Wakil David Matthews (28:44.756)
You

Annalouiza (28:54.082)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Asher (29:06.276)
these performances, I spent more time in the woods, you know, than I had by far in the previous year, you know, that I was here at school, that it was just like, I knew that to make these performances, you know, I had to have something to offer. And the way to learn, the primary way for me to learn was to...

Annalouiza (29:15.81)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:27.06)
Yeah.

Asher (29:35.384)
be in relationship with these specific plants in person. And so I can say that in the process of making and sharing these shows, I felt very little hopelessness. It wasn't like sort of a slog.

Annalouiza (29:39.822)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (29:54.336)
Mmm.

Asher (30:01.558)
learning about these things. It was always a creative act and it was always, you know, these experiences that I was having that were really precious to me in the woods and also the knowledge of like, being able to share those with community and for people to have these kinds of emotional cathartic experiences, you know, that I think is kind of

Annalouiza (30:07.491)
Mm.

Annalouiza (30:15.342)
Mm.

Asher (30:31.788)
a big part of what we need when we're thinking about ecological crisis. know, of course, like what we need is, you know, change and political action. you know, knowing that we can't do that as individuals, you know, the whole way.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:34.933)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (30:38.872)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (30:44.64)
Thanks

Annalouiza (30:44.941)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (30:54.998)
Right.

Asher (30:55.876)
figuring out where we slot in, you I think that that is, it's inherently this spiritual question, you know, so the feeling that I was doing that for myself and that, you know, I was opening that space for others and received a lot of, you know, encouraging feedback from people about how they saw the woods differently after part of these shows, you know, that gave me a whole lot of hope.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:03.21)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (31:03.234)
Yeah, yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:18.176)
Mmm.

Annalouiza (31:23.874)
I really love it. You're describing having a relationship that goes deeper and deeper as you spend time with that other, right? That becomes one, actually the other then becomes one because you're now in relationship and deep intimate relationship. And what a lovely response that you gave these people this opportunity to see your relationship and perhaps begin their own relationship with this forest. And I feel like we should just keep doing this.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:33.578)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (31:52.637)
haha

Annalouiza (31:52.683)
more people in order for, you know, there to be conscientious traction with, you know, what we need to do to, to collectively help our entire web of life. We have to have more of these opportunities because people have forgotten how to, you know, have an intimate relationship with the grass and the trees and the clouds, right? Like there's just, there's just such a, like, yeah. So I,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (32:20.024)
It's beautiful. And it also offers people an opportunity to really feel those things you talked about, you know, to feel the anger, feel the frustration and the despair, but also to feel the hope and to feel the way that they can slot in. love that word. Okay, how can I be a part of the change that needs to happen? And how can I do that in a way that I stay balanced and healthy? And yeah, so it's just, it's really a full spectrum

Annalouiza (32:21.546)
I love this.

Annalouiza (32:36.578)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (32:49.46)
Yeah, it was a good experience and really wonderful. Thank you again. I really appreciate all you do.

Annalouiza (32:50.572)
Immersive.

Annalouiza (32:57.176)
Yeah, I think.

Asher (32:57.464)
Yeah, I this this kind of gets at one of the this sort of thesis behind the thesis, which, you know, I mean, I, felt that what you know, what what we need is collective ways of creating a culture of responsibility and care. And that this is, you know, this is something that I believe comes with time and

Rev Wakil David Matthews (33:02.676)
Uh-huh.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (33:15.432)
Yeah, yeah.

Asher (33:24.546)
relationship to place, you know, that there it's, it's, it's a ritual and a spiritual thing. And that, you know, for me, I can't create that, you know, that continuity of culture. And my goal was to create things that were very personal and like non-appropriative. And that what

Rev Wakil David Matthews (33:48.308)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (33:50.894)
presented itself to me was theater, that like in a more secularized world or culture, that like art is this really powerful tool to have these experiences of transcendence. And so that is kind of this side door that I was trying to get at.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:09.429)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (34:09.518)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:13.34)
Mm.

Yeah, beautiful. That's really true. We've had a couple other people on here that speak to the artists, the need to be creative and how that does open a door. Yeah, open a door for people to deal with some of this really intense stuff. Yeah, thank you. Where are we? That's right, one last question. This one is the coverall. there anything we missed?

Annalouiza (34:37.174)
What do you wish we'd asked you?

Annalouiza (34:43.507)
Hahaha

Asher (34:47.608)
Well, this isn't really an answer to that question, but it is another thing that I thought of to say. It's actually a follow up to your question about the challenges. And that in this, I, you know, you've talked to many people who are very experienced in grief work and.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (34:52.287)
haha

Mm-hmm.

Asher (35:13.802)
in moving people through these transitions. you know, I am not one of those people, you know, this was kind of my first experience putting on this show of like, I think I didn't realize until I was doing it, because I had just been doing it alone by myself. But.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:21.888)
Mm-hmm.

Asher (35:37.096)
the energetic container of now. It's not just my experience of mourning. It's this audience of 12 people. And I found myself after that performance just completely depleted. Just feeling... It was like, you the process of creating a ritual, creating a show. It's like constant work all the time.

Annalouiza (35:45.334)
Right.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (35:53.749)
Wow.

Annalouiza (35:54.284)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (36:04.994)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (36:05.045)
Yeah.

Asher (36:05.752)
then after the first showing, you know, after actually doing it and seeing the way that these audience members were moving through these emotions, at that point I was like, wow, this is like huge work. it gives me certainly a deeper appreciation, you know, for what it is that you do and, you know, the guests that you're bringing on who are, you know, devoted specifically to this work.

Annalouiza (36:11.308)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (36:20.493)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (36:31.15)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm. And Asher, you know, I'm really grateful that you did have that experience because two things. One, I hope you continue to do this work and share getting to know you, getting to know the American chestnut kind of experiences for people and recognizing how energy works, energies working through the trees, through the soil, through you.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (36:35.508)
Yeah, yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (36:49.279)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (37:02.23)
you start learning how to take care of yourself energetically as well so that you can continue to do this because there are ways to do it in a very well balanced and regenerative way. So it's kind of cool that you experience that though because that could be like a launching point for another immersive experience for you to share.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:06.304)
Mm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:14.73)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:18.431)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:23.274)
Yeah. It also occurred to me that maybe bringing a grief counselor along with you as a co-facilitator might be another way to do that, to have somebody who's really steeped and knowledgeable and skilled in recognizing and helping people through that. But yeah, wonderful, wonderful. Wow. I I've read about this and seen some stuff that you've taught, pictures you sent about it.

Annalouiza (37:29.55)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (37:45.196)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (37:53.409)
Just hearing this description has really, really moved me deeply. So thank you so much.

Annalouiza (37:58.103)
It's moved me too. I sat here and wrote a note about, know, what kill you and I have our morning walks and we talked to certain trees and we have, we have our ways, right? And, and I am intimate with some aspects of my, landscape around me, but I wrote myself like, can I find a way to do this in real and more of a relationship, right? To like be very intentional because I think that's how we get to.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:11.348)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (38:26.54)
to support, even if it's not supporting politically and collectively with the culture, we're supporting that individual tree or that individual planes or the birds in it, right? Like it's important. It's important, at least to me. I think it's going to be important to you too. Yeah. Like.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:37.952)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And to the people who hear this, hopefully.

Asher (38:45.092)
Yeah, I mean it's...

Rev Wakil David Matthews (38:47.7)
Go ahead.

Asher (38:48.764)
yeah, I mean, it was, it was remarkable to me in some ways of just like how much connection for me was built just in the simple act of like, doing the rehearsals for this performance that, you know, being able to

Annalouiza (39:04.13)
Yeah. Yeah.

Asher (39:08.76)
go up to a tree to offer this being, you know, water and song and, you know, stones symbolically. I mean, I knew from the beginning that I was choosing to enmesh myself in this tragic story, you know, and I think on the level of like...

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:18.698)
You

Rev Wakil David Matthews (39:30.281)
Right.

Asher (39:35.704)
the artist, you know, I know kind of what is theatrically interesting and what makes a good story and how to tell that story. And then there was this, you know, the other element of it, of my own personal practice, that like, I think that it can kind of feel big and abstract of like, how do you...

Annalouiza (39:52.738)
Yeah.

Asher (40:02.734)
how do you start forming connections with other species? And it was actually like, in terms of on the ground, what I was doing, you know, very simple. It's mostly a matter of time and of listening.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (40:05.235)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (40:08.013)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (40:15.796)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (40:18.86)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm. Mm-mm-mm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (40:19.85)
Yeah, and intention, yeah, setting the intention, showing up, right? Beautiful. Well, I love the two quotes that you shared with us too, because there are two incredibly brilliant authors who speak pretty much about this stuff in brilliant ways and about what we're talking about, about how to create this connections. So we have something from Sophie Strand and Robin Wall Kimmerer. Would you like to read those to us? Or would you like us to read them?

Asher (40:46.788)
I can read them, yeah, I just need to pull them up. But yeah, these are two authors that I am very indebted to, among many other people, but both of them I cite in my thesis, and that's how I got these quotes.

Asher (41:06.276)
Okay. I have a lot of emails.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (41:10.345)
You

Annalouiza (41:12.014)
We can put it in the chat too for you to read.

Asher (41:18.084)
Let me, what, I just search end of life. Okay, yeah, that'll work. Okay, I have them.

Okay. Sophie Strand. We have been numb for so long, we no longer understand that the body we are harming is an extension of our own. When we clear cut a forest or drive another population of birds to extinction, we are twisting a knife in our own side. Robin Wall Kimmerer. Even a wounded world is feeding us.

Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily, and I must return the gift.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (42:06.176)
Wow. Choosing joy. That's our work. Yeah. Well, again, thank you so much, Asher. We really appreciate you. We'll be letting you know when this goes live. I think we're all the way out in December somewhere. But anyway, yeah, so we'll say goodbye to you and then...

Annalouiza (42:07.404)
Wow.

Annalouiza (42:14.892)
It is the work.

Asher (42:25.326)
Yeah, thank you for having me on. It's great to finally...

Annalouiza (42:27.49)
Thank you Asher.

Asher (42:30.862)
Heh.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (42:35.568)
and I always do a little tag at the end about how cool you were. Thanks so much. We'll be in touch. Thanks. I will be in touch very soon because we're still working on travel stuff. All right. Take care.

Annalouiza (42:39.341)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (42:42.744)
Thank you, Asher. Blessings.

Asher (42:50.36)
Yeah, take care and it great to meet you.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (42:55.456)
I'm so glad to such a great son-in-law.

Annalouiza (42:59.328)
Yeah, you are so blessed with all these really beautiful people around you. And, you know, I really love this also. Like we didn't get a chance to get into it, but hospice, right? Like it's it's it serves as a reminder that we have we can hospice the the ecology around us each in our own small ways. And I'm also really curious,

Rev Wakil David Matthews (43:03.177)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (43:11.274)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (43:17.952)
planet. Yeah.

Annalouiza (43:27.502)
I kind of, I like that he pulled up the two, I guess I would say opposing viewpoints of like, let it go. And then the other was like, no, we got to hold onto it, which I was like, the medical industrial complex wants us to always hold on. And there's another part in science, right? So there's another part of me is like, do we just bear witness to the loss of it and just, and just recognize that we ourselves are also going to die, right? Like, I don't know. So it was really interesting.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (43:34.58)
Yeah.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (43:40.99)
Yeah. And science.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (43:48.629)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (43:56.056)
kind of paradox to sit with as I was listening to him, but beautiful to include people in this work and to share in this intimate relationship.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (44:08.104)
Yeah, yeah, I really love it. And it's such a great example of how artistry and creativity can guide us through these really difficult things and help us really set our own intentions to make things better. I just spoke to somebody today who will be on a future podcast a couple of weeks after this one, maybe, or maybe one week. And so hope everybody will tune in because she is specifically going to speak to us about the difference. What is hospice?

Annalouiza (44:20.439)
Mm-hmm.

Rev Wakil David Matthews (44:37.406)
and what is palliative care and why people are fearing it and why they shouldn't fear it and why they should embrace it. So I'm really looking forward to that conversation. So I hope you will all join us for that and in such a wonderful time. Thank you so much. Adios.

Annalouiza (44:37.872)
Mmm, good.

Annalouiza (44:49.004)
Yes!

Annalouiza (44:53.354)
Adiós!