Tyson Yunkaporta on Pattern, Kinship, and Story in a World of Decontextualized Minds

Listen to this episode from The Emerald on Spotify. In his book Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, author, teacher, artist and Apalech clan member Tyson Yunkaporta presents a model of five minds — kinship mind, story mind, ancestor mind, pattern mind, and dreaming mind — that together form a way of seeing, knowing, and interacting with the world in a relational context. This episode looks at the rampant fragmentation in the modern world — which impacts everything from spiritual movements to transhumanist science to conspiratorial worldviews to progressive discourse — through the lens of these five minds. From Aboriginal rain rituals to QAnon pattern-seekers, from sorcery and curses to alternative communication models, this vibrant and polytropic discussion between Tyson and Josh explores what context means in a fragmented world, and how to truly find it requires seeing beyond obvious dichotomies into deeper layers of connectivity. Support the show