Letters to Earthlings

Ecological thinking with Amy Martin
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Society & Culture

Audio transmissions to supporters of Letters to Earthlings and Threshold letterstoearthlings.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 2d ago

    The Ice Cream Lady Cometh

    In the last few weeks several people have reached out to tell me that listening to Hark is causing them to pay more attention to the sounds of the more-than-human voices around us. To me, this feedback is true nourishment. Downloads, donations, press and prizes and all that sort of thing: necessary, valuable, appreciated. But knowing the work is actually impacting how people relate to the living world? That’s the end-all, be-all for me. That’s why I make the show; to help myself and hopefully other people open up to and feel and think about and delight in and grieve over and just connect to our beautiful, powerful home planet. If you’re one of those people who has reached out recently—or ever—thank you. I have zero expectations of hearing from listeners, but when I do, it really means something. One of things that was important to me in making Hark was to avoid a “nature good / people bad” dichotomy. First of all, because people are nature and nature is people. But also because with all the ugly, aggressive, thoughtless noise our species is making right now, it’s easy to fall into an overly simplistic, finger-waggy narrative, and forget all the ways that humans add lovely and interesting sounds to this world too. One of those sounds rolled past my door a few minutes ago, so I decided to share it here. This is 30-ish seconds of me pausing to listen to a fellow human, unknown to me but appreciated from afar. Well, not too far, really. She passes through my neighborhood, and I look up from doing dishes in my kitchen, writing on my front stoop, or pulling weeds in my yard. And I smile. Thanks, Ice Cream Lady. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com/subscribe

    1 min

  2. May 29

    Welcome to The Corridor

    Next week, Threshold will be releasing The Corridor, a new series about a stretch of land between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that is often referred to as Cancer Alley. Over seven episodes, The Corridor examines how this part of Louisiana became a center of industry and an epicenter of disease, with some communities facing cancer risks among the highest in the nation. Hosted by Jaha Nailah Avery and written and produced by Erika Janik and Sam Moore, this series connects the dots between current battles for environmental justice and the history of slavery and segregation. It’s the story of a place, and the people who live there and love it. It’s also the story of products all of us use every day, and the industries that depend on the rest of us to not get interested in the question of who and what gets sacrificed in the process of making them. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com/subscribe

    4 min

  3. May 15

    Bufo bufo

    I’ve been recording the voices of a lot of big, dramatic, eye-and-ear-catching creatures lately — cranes, geese, swans. But on one recent night, when I wandered down to the water’s edge in the darkness, someone a bit more mysterious and shy was making itself heard. Tentatively. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com/subscribe

    1 min

  4. Mar 19

    The Swans are Back

    Whoop! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com/subscribe

    1 min

  5. Feb 17

    Ladybirds Sing Too

    Related links: * Threshold Conversations: Feminism in the Wild, with Ambika Kamath and Melina Packer. Listen here. * One of Michelle Hall’s most important papers: Female song is widespread and ancestral in songbirds, Odom, K., Hall, M., Riebel, K. Nature Communications (2014). * A more recent paper Michelle was involved in: Global incidence of female birdsong is predicted by territoriality and biparental care in songbirds, Odom, K.J., Araya-Salas, M., Benedict, L. et al. Nature Communications (2025). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com/subscribe

    9 min

  6. Jan 30

    Fire and Ice

    The sounds, images, and stories from Minnesota are crushing. Enraging. Disorienting, heartbreaking, and all of the other descriptors you don’t need me to name because you’re feeling them too. I don’t know what to do, what to say, how to respond, how to be of use, how to even take in that this is reality. I still don’t. This is not a post in which I walk myself or anyone else from despair and confusion into any sort of clarity. All I know is this: I went to bed feeling overwhelmed with feelings about ICE. And I woke up with a clear, simple urge to meditate for a moment on fire. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com/subscribe

    1 min

  7. 09/09/2025

    Sonic Bubbles in Paris

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com For every minute that makes it into a Threshold episode, there are so many minutes that end up getting cut. Some of them, like this clip I’m sharing today, make it all the way to nearly-final draft. Some get half-developed and then cast aside. And many, many never get past the sketching stage.

    2 min

  8. 08/19/2025

    Lisbon Duet

    I’m going to let the audio speak for itself on this one, except to say this: poetry is everywhere, if I remember to listen for it. Thank you to these two poets, and to Leonard Cohen. Hallelujah. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com/subscribe

    4 min

  9. 06/17/2025

    Walking So They Can Fly

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com A man walked 53 miles across the English countryside dressed as a giant curlew. Do you need to know more? I didn’t. I heard that much I knew I wanted to talk to him. The result is this conversation with Matthew Trevelyan, a man who combined his passion for curlews with his puppet-making skills to help raise awareness about the rapid decline of this iconic bird. I hope you enjoy it.

    1 min

  10. 06/03/2025

    Close Encounters of the Elephant Kind

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com Elephants. I still can’t quite believe I got to see them. Listen to them. Touch their map-like skin, as creased and dry as the land they walk on.

    1 min

  11. 05/27/2025

    We Call This Ambi

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com One of my favorite parts of making Threshold, and just being a person alive on this planet, is sitting somewhere and listening to a place. Whatever happens to be there, doing its thing. Creatures and weather, plants and Earthly processes, all joining in to make little rhythms and melodies. Harmonies and dissonances. Blending, colliding, pausing, crescendoing, subsiding. When you’re making a narrative podcast like we do, or a radio feature, these sounds of places are called “ambi,” as in “ambience.” The stuff that’s not in focus. Background. Ambi can include human voices and human-made sounds, of course. But generally, if a person is talking, our ears snap to it, and focus on it. What was ambi becomes story, or wants to. This is cool! It shows how much we’re wired to pay attention to each other. But there’s a downside too. Our intense, instinctive tendency to prioritize human voices can and often does lead us to think of ourselves as the lead character in every situation, the star of every show. There’s us, and there’s ambi. So here’s my invitation to you: listen to this five minutes of sound from an undisclosed location, and let your imagination roam a bit. I’ll tell you ahead of time that little to nothing “happens” in this five minutes—at least not from a human perspective. And maybe not from any perspective. But is it ambi? Just an acoustic background? Or something else, maybe something more? Who decides?

    1 min

  12. 05/19/2025

    Urgent: Endangered Species Act at Risk

    What follows here is an op-ed I wrote too late in the game to pitch around very well. TLDR version: the Trump administration is seeking to change the Endangered Species Act in a way that would essentially gut it. The deadline to submit public comments on the proposed change is today Monday, May 19, at midnight eastern time. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letterstoearthlings.substack.com/subscribe

    3 min
  • 12 Episodes

About

Audio transmissions to supporters of Letters to Earthlings and Threshold letterstoearthlings.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Ecological thinking with Amy Martin
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    12
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Amy Martin
  • Show Website
    Letters to Earthlings