I first encountered Yuvan and his remarkable story in the book Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane. An undercurrent that pervades all of Rob’s river journeys, from Ecuador to India to Canada, is the conflict between hope and futility. In the face of such great forces of power and destruction, how do we go on? Why do we go on? There is a moment in his journey with Yuvan in Chennai, when Rob says, ‘There is something in what Yuvan and his friends are doing here in which I can put my hope’. It is this hope in the dark, this regenerative force that radiates through Yuvan and his work, that made him one of the first people I wanted to interview on my podcast.
About the Episode
In this conversation, we speak about the possibility of composting pain and recasting suffering within ourselves and the land, the interconnectedness of inner and outer landscapes, and the discipline of hope in dark times.
Yuvan Aves is a prominent Chennai-based writer, naturalist, educator, and environmental activist. His work centres on ecology, nature education, and defending the environment against industrial violence and ecocide in South India.
Chapters
00:00 Transforming Trauma into Beauty
06:57 The Power of Attention and Action
13:21 Hope in the Dark: Activism and Resilience
19:20 Interconnectedness of Inner and Outer Landscapes
24:45 Imagination as a Site of Recovery
27:05 The Co-evolved Psyche and Nature’s Influence
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