Sounds of SAND

The third conversation in "The Great AI Unraveling", recorded live with our community on July 10, 2026.

Throughout time, humanity has experimented with playing God, and each time we have been humbled by forces larger than ourselves. Many Indigenous Nations consciously chose not to pursue certain technologies, recognizing that not every innovation serves life, and that wisdom lies in understanding the boundaries of nature and those of our human condition.

As artificial intelligence promises ever greater efficiency, productivity, and control, we are invited to ask a deeper question: Which problem are we really trying to solve? Beneath the relentless pursuit of more—more knowledge, more power, more convenience—lies a profound inquiry into sufficiency, relationship, and meaning.

Guests

Dr. Lyla June Johnston (aka Lyla June) is an Indigenous musician, scholar, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages.
Her messages focus on Indigenous rights, supporting youth, traditional land stewardship practices and healing inter-generational and inter-cultural trauma.

She blends her study of Human Ecology at Stanford, graduate work in Indigenous Pedagogy, and the traditional worldview she grew up with to inform her music, perspectives and solutions. Her doctoral research focused on the ways in which pre-colonial Indigenous Nations shaped large regions of Turtle Island (aka the Americas) to produce abundant food systems for humans and non-humans.

Ashley Nicole Leitka comes from the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and the Oglala and Sicangu Lakota nations. She lives on Absentee Shawnee land in so-called Oklahoma and is the Director of the Department of Sovereignty and Self-Determination at Honor the Earth.

Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez is a native spirit-rooted social activist, community educator, traditional blackware potter, and fluent Tewa language speaker from the Tewa Pueblo of San Ildefonso in New Mexico. For more than two decades, she has been a guiding force within Tewa Women United, advancing environmental justice, cultural revitalization, healing, and social transformation.

A respected elder, teacher, and mentor, Kathy developed the acclaimed Two World Harmony Butterfly Model and Trauma Rocks, innovative frameworks that support cross-cultural understanding and intergenerational healing. Her lifelong work bridges Indigenous wisdom, environmental stewardship, community empowerment, and the protection of cultural and spiritual traditions. Through local, national, and international advocacy, she continues to inspire pathways of healing, resilience, and right relationship with the Earth and one another.

Topics

00:00:00 — Welcome and The Great AI Unraveling

00:04:00 — Superfluity: what if we don't need it

00:08:00 — The maple syrup story

00:12:00 — Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez on natural law

00:19:00 — Data centers on Native land

00:24:00 — Falsely generated demand and cognitive decline

00:27:00 — The data center toolkit and Stop Data Colonialism

00:30:00 — AI as ancestral intelligence: the Butterfly Model

00:38:00 — Why ceremony is never filmed

00:39:00 — Water, energy, and the growth curve

00:48:00 — Surveillance, ICE, and biometrics

00:57:00 — Yvette Running Horse Collin on Lakota science

00:58:00 — Einstein, Hiroshima, and being humbled

01:01:00 — Choosing oral tradition

01:08:00 — Love is the greatest technology

01:10:00 — A litmus test for any technology

Resources & Links

Lyla June — lylajune.com

Tewa Women United — tewawomenunited.org

Honor the Earth

Honor the Earth data center toolkit

Stop Data Colonialism, national coalition and manifesto

Big Tech Is Now Targeting Native American Land for Massive Data Centers, The New York Times, July 2026

Yvette Running Horse Collin on Lakota science, interviewed in Science

ACLU campaign on Flock surveillance cameras

Ashley Nicole Leitka and Dallas Goldtooth in conversation

The Great AI Unraveling series

#1 AI risks, societal impacts, and apocaloptimism: Tristan Harris

#2 Reclaiming the Conversation and the Commons: Tiokasin Ghosthorse and Pooja Prema

Upcoming guests: Christian "Zacatecho" Ortiz, Bayo Akomolafe, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, Alnoor Ladha, Baratunde Thurston, and Thema Monroe-White

Contact SAND

podcast@scienceandnonduality.com

Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

Recorded live at our May 2026 online gathering celebrating Little Singer, the Diné film in The Eternal Song series, this conversation with psychologist Eduardo Duran (Apache/Tewa/Lakota) begins with the prophecy of Crazy Horse and moves through the teachings of the elder who trained him, the soul wound and the origins of the term historical trauma, why Indigenous languages of verbs change how we understand diagnosis, and the Diné teaching of K'é: the universe wired in complete relationship. Trauma, he reminds us, is a movement and not an identity, and the medicine is in the song itself. Eduardo joins the teaching panel of our upcoming live course, Liberation Psychology: Roots, Memory & Practice.

Eduardo Duran (Apache/Tewa/Lakota) is a psychologist and Vietnam veteran who has spent most of his career working in Indigenous communities, informed by Buddhist practice, Native teachings, and heart knowing. His work introduced the concepts of the soul wound and historical trauma into clinical practice. He is the author of Buddha in Redface, Healing the Soul Wound, and Native American Postcolonial Psychology.

Topics

00:00:00 — Introduction

00:01:00 — The prophecy of Crazy Horse

00:04:00 — Meeting the elder

00:10:00 — Ordered to write

00:13:00 — Languages of verbs

00:19:00 — "They're there"

00:22:00 — Ceremony and the eternal song

00:26:00 — Quantum entanglement and K'é

00:30:00 — Trauma is not an identity

00:35:00 — Healing the land with prayer

00:40:00 — "Already holy, sacred, and divine"

00:44:00 — The dream had you

00:49:00 — Finding your own roots

00:55:00 — Closing gratitude

Resources & Links

Eduardo Duran

Buddha in Redface

Healing the Soul Wound: Trauma-Informed Counseling for Indigenous Communities

Native American Postcolonial Psychology (with Bonnie Duran)

SAND & The Eternal Song

Liberation Psychology: Roots, Memory & Practice — a new live course by SAND, registration is now open

Watch Little Singer — the Diné film in The Eternal Song series

The Eternal Song film series

Watch Sila — streaming now



Referenced in the conversation

International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers

Contact SAND

podcast@scienceandnonduality.com

Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

Clinical psychologist and longtime Buddhist meditator Dr. Nicole Wordlaw joins us to talk about her new memoir, Waking Up Alone: Navigating the Narrow Passage Through Master-Slave Narratives. Nicole came to practice to end suffering, and found instead that enlightenment as an arrival, all bliss, all peace, was one more construction of the conditioned mind. The conversation moves through the single pattern she came to see beneath white supremacy, patriarchy, and the harm spiritual teachers do to their students; writing as prayer; pain as a door; and the intergenerational line of women whose voices run through the book. A tender and unflinching conversation about telling the whole story, uprooting the internal oppressor, and the quiet, still voice that always sounds like Love.

Dr. Nicole Wordlaw is a clinical psychologist and longtime practitioner of Buddhist meditation whose work bridges psychology, spirituality, and identity. The daughter of a white mother and a Black father, Dr. Wordlaw brings a deeply personal understanding of belonging and self-discovery to her writing and teaching. A Stanford University graduate with honors and distinction, she went on to earn her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UC Berkeley. In her forthcoming book Waking Up Alone, she vulnerably shares her story of trauma and awakening, and offers gentle guidance for her readers to tune into the quiet voice of truth within.

Topics

00:00:00 — Introduction

00:01:00 — Coming to Buddhism

00:02:00 — Enlightenment as construction

00:05:00 — Love meeting pain

00:06:00 — One pattern of harm

00:09:00 — Writing as prayer

00:11:00 — A naked story

00:15:00 — Somatic abolitionism

00:19:00 — A long line of women

00:23:00 — Shadow and teacher misconduct

00:24:00 — The Sangha Sutra

00:34:00 — Risking making sense to no one

00:38:00 — The Word Story

00:42:00 — The inner teacher

00:47:00 — Love is not an idea

Resources & Links

Dr. Nicole Wordlaw

Website: nicolewordlaw.com

Waking Up Alone: Navigating the Narrow Passage Through Master-Slave Narratives — out now

Substack

Referenced in the conversation

Sounds of SAND — Somatic Abolitionism: Resmaa Menakem & Gabor Maté

Sounds of SAND — The Architecture of Silence in Spiritual Culture

Steve Hagen — Buddhism Plain and Simple

Nisargadatta Maharaj — I Am That

Contact SAND

podcast@scienceandnonduality.com

Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

Three Kalaallit Inuit women sit with Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo, who met them while filming on their traditional land in Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland). Ikimaliq Pikilak carries the revival of Inuit tattooing, Nuka Alice carries drum dance, and Avianja Rakel Sanimuinaq carries her family's lineage of healing. Together they speak about what colonization severed, what gratitude makes survivable in the Arctic, and Sila, the word that holds weather, breath, and the consciousness connecting all living things. Recorded in June 2025 during the launch week of The Eternal Song, this conversation arrives now to celebrate Sila, the new film from Science and Nonduality featuring all three women, streaming at theeternalsong.org/sila.

Guests

Ikimaliq Pikilak is a Kalaallit tattoo practitioner. Trained in the Western tattoo industry in Denmark, she returned to Greenland and, through the traditionally tattooed mummies of Qilakitsoq, began an eleven-year journey of reclaiming Inuit women's markings: their meanings, their protocols, and their place in healing.

Nuka Alice Lund is a drum dancer and teacher from the west coast of Kalaallit Nunaat. Taught by Paulina, who gathered songs from the elders of East Greenland, she works to normalize the use of Inuit drum dance and its songs, teaching adults and carrying the stories, intentions, and patience the practice asks for.

Avianja Rakel Sanimuinaq is a healer working within her family's ancestral lineage. Her practice spans soul retrieval, putting souls to rest, and the older responsibility of rebalancing relations between people, land, and the spirit world. Of mixed Inuk and Danish parentage, she speaks in the conversation about finding her roots through her ancestors and helping others use her roots to find their own.

Timestamps

00:00 — Introduction: The Eternal Song, the new film Sila, and the July 28–29 live gathering

00:05 — Ikimaliq: the mummies, the gap in memory, and the return of Inuit tattooing

00:07 — What the markings mean: confession, womanhood, gratitude, kinship

00:13 — Nuka Alice: unlearning the colonial narrative, finding the drum at 19

00:19 — Sila: weather, consciousness, the universe we have in common

00:22 — Aviaja: a family of shamans and the responsibility of the angakkoq

00:29 — Trailer: Sila, streaming now at theeternalsong.org/sila

00:31 — Soul sickness, mind sickness, and the body as self-healing land

00:42 — Drum battles: conflict resolution, truth-telling, and lifelong bonds

00:49 — "Start looking in the mirror": finding your own ancestral roots

00:55 — Eyes as pathway to the soul; growing up between Inuk and Danish worlds

01:02 — Loneliness, homesickness of the soul, and dandelion root medicine

Resources & Links

Watch Sila — streaming now

The Eternal Song film series

Sila Live Online Gathering, July 28–29, 2026: two days of conversations with guest speakers and Inuit wisdom keepers

Ikimaliq Pikilak on Instagram

Nuka Alice Lund at Arctic Sounds

Avianja Rakel Sanimuinaq on Instagram

Contact SAND

podcast@scienceandnonduality.com

Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

Restoration ecologist and author Dr. Maceo Carrillo Martinet joins us to talk about his new book Healing the Land Teaches Us Who We Are: How Indigenous Cultural Resistance Can Restore the Earth, Recover Community, and Create Sustainable Futures. Grounded in over two decades of community-based restoration work across New Mexico, Maceo makes the case that the climate solutions we're searching for already exist and are already being practiced by communities around the world. The book is structured around the four elements — water, earth, fire, and air — treating each not as a category but as a relative with something to say. We move through the memory of ancient Pueblo dry-land farming still visible on La Bajada Mesa, the racism embedded in the history of American fire suppression, and the idea that culture and science were never actually separate to begin with. A conversation about returning to first principles, in a time when the polycrisis makes that return feel urgent.

Guest

Dr. Maceo Carrillo Martinet is an award-winning restoration ecologist who has spent over 20 years co-creating community-based restoration and education projects across New Mexico and beyond. Since 2008, he has worked with the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program, assisting private landowners, tribes, cities, and counties. He holds a PhD in biology from the University of New Mexico with a focus on ecology, freshwater sciences, and environmental education. He teaches a hands-on course at UNM on watershed and community restoration.

Topics

00:00 — Introduction

00:02 — The Rio Grande community tree planting during COVID

00:06 — Wounds as portals: what the pandemic revealed

00:09 — La Bajada Mesa & ancient Pueblo dry-land farming

00:14 — Redefining Indigenous science as communal science

00:20 — The four-element framework of the book

00:23 — Elements as relatives, not categories

00:26 — Wildfires, racism & the history of fire suppression

00:33 — The Oakland Museum's "Good Fire" exhibit

00:37 — Fire as community energy, fire inside us

00:42 — The metacrisis & the land as teacher

00:47 — Closing: no silver bullets, only relationship

Resources & Links

Dr. Maceo Carrillo Martinet

Website: maceocm.com

Healing the Land Teaches Us Who We Are: How Indigenous Cultural Resistance Can Restore the Earth, Recover Community, and Create Sustainable Futures — North Atlantic Books, June 2026

Publisher page & book description at Penguin Random House

Read an excerpt

Referenced in the conversation

Jessica Hernandez — Fresh Banana Leaves

Dr. Lyla June Johnston — Architects of Abundance dissertation

Stephen Pyne — fire historian, ASU

Arundhati Roy — "The pandemic is a portal"

Bioneers Conference

Contact SAND

podcast@scienceandnonduality.com

Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member