ABSTRACT That night that he agreed to our suggestion that we accompany him outside, for the whole night or until the overflow has passed, M seemed to be in direct contact with all the layers of astronomy, inhabiting all temporalities simultaneously. Outside, lying/sitting on the picnic table, in the pitch‐black darkness of the night in the woods, under a few stars, he explained to us why we are still, always, in the Big Bang. He made noises of speed, gestured with his arms; his face was tender and laughing. He wanted us to understand; he used all his senses, smoking cigarette after cigarette. The picnic table we're sitting on was made in a “mental health” day center by the same people who made the bench that I sometimes hang around, inscribed: “Différ a nt des autres”, which translate as “Differ a nt from the others.” I don't believe, though I'm not certain, that the person who wrote it did so with reference to Derridean différance . But that's the idea that immediately struck me, like a door opening onto the possibilities that haunt the bench, those who made it, those who will sit on it, those who will ignore it, those who do ignore it. This sentence on a bench, which makes an unintentional reference to philosophy, suddenly reveals: power relations, diffractions, gaps, injustices, poetry, beauty, and the unalterable impossibility of sameness. Taking the form of a fragmented narrative, this article proposes an investigation into the atmospheres surrounding lived experiences with people who are said to “live with mental health disorders”, proceeding through literary‐terrestrial back‐and‐forths between their breath and the rigidity of our capacity to receive them.

ABSTRACT Psychedelic research has opened unexpected avenues for advocacy. This paper explores the intersection of advocacy and an ethnographic study on psychedelic integration in the Southeast United States. Mental health professionals aim to make information about the safe use of psychedelics more accessible, even in a legal climate where these substances are illegal and enforcement has historically targeted people of color. This case study examines the challenges of proposing a panel on psychedelic medicine for a university symposium on substance use and social justice. The panel sought to discuss how clinicians and scientists could collaborate with communities to use psychedelic therapies to address addiction and its underlying causes, such as racial trauma, in equitable and community‐centered ways. However, resistance from organizers—due to concerns about the legal status of psychedelics and limited clinical trial data—highlighted the complexities of advocating for such discussions in academic settings. This paper explores how people from diverse communities “stand in the gap” together to challenge structural power imbalances and shift paradigms around these critical issues. It underscores the significance of knowledge politics in university spaces and the risk of tokenism in community‐engaged research, calling for more inclusive, courageous, and equitable approaches to these conversations.

ABSTRACT In the vast north, ghostly experiences are common for locals and outsiders alike. Here, we explore how cultural‐natural attributes, like remoteness and extreme seasonal variation, compound experiences of the haunting in visceral ways. This provides the Arctic region with an unusually pronounced baseline of other‐than‐human agency, which in the Sápmi region is further accentuated by unsolicited traumas of the past. Among the more recent tragedies is the never‐before‐seen cataclysm of the Second World War, which in a short time swept through the indigenous lands in both a metaphorical and physical sense. The destruction and loss of life left in their wake fading memories and questions yet unanswered. The seemingly untouched wilderness holds an abundance of material reminders that may seem better left forgotten. But holding on to these material traces and respectfully telling and remembering the stories embedded within them—many yet to be told—activates the affective agencies that populate the northern memoryscape.

ABSTRACT One barrier to mental health and a common focus of psychotherapy is the tendency to identify with relentless, often self‐critical thinking that searches for faults, becomes easily distracted, and pulls individuals away from the present moment. Identifying with such thinking distances people from each other, the external world, and important aspects of internal experiences that have been pushed out of awareness and relegated to the unconscious. This paper explores some origins of this tendency, drawing on anthropological research of isolated peoples who adopted this way of thinking after being colonized by modern cultures, alongside contemporary psychoanalytic and developmental theories. These sources illuminate the role of trauma and the dependence on language as a filter for reality and a mechanism of repression. Mindfulness meditation is proposed as a method to untangle over‐identification with thinking and facilitate a more direct, embodied experience of the present moment. The neuroscience explaining the underlying mechanisms of these effects is also included. Additional support for these concepts is drawn from the author's experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer, clinical psychologist, and meditation instructor, as well as reports from graduate students beginning a meditation practice.

ABSTRACT The Ecovillage Findhorn Community (EFC) in Northeast Scotland seeks to live in harmony with nature. How the community has done this over its 60‐plus years has changed from social communalism, where residents lived in cheap caravans, to now mostly privately‐owned expensive ‘eco’ houses with green technology. Embedded in this historical‐present transition is a troubled tension of both resisting and perpetuating capitalism—the malevolent specter fueling genocide and ecocide. However, there is an ‘eco’ paradox of “cruel optimism” here, whereby paying for expensive ‘eco’ housing and green technology infrastructure to mitigate capitalism's specters inherently fuels capitalism, which created the need for ‘sustainable’ solutions in the first place. This paper attends to how EFC residents, human and other‐than‐human, grapple with capitalism's spectral entanglement with affective infrastructures.

ABSTRACTHealers of the Shipibo, known as onayas, reside in Eastern Peru and build relationships with plant spirits through dreams seen during a training process called samá. Since they comprehend the process of building relationships with plant spirits by interpreting their dreams, dream interpretation serves as the medium through which the onayas learn how to build relationships with plant spirits, ultimately acquiring the healing capacity to aid others. Focusing on this role of dreams, this study connects an onaya's interpretations of dreams seen during samá to Shipibo cosmology, and examines the onaya–plant spirit relationship formed in dreams through the lens of their cosmological beliefs. The analysis reveals a wide variety of relationships in which the onayas personalize each plant spirit while differentiating its unique representations.

ABSTRACTThis essay explores the intricate interplay between fear, consciousness, and human evolution, positing fear as a critical catalyst for the emergence of self‐awareness. Beginning with the role of fear as a reflexive survival mechanism, the discussion extends to its evolutionary transformation into a driver of complex cognitive traits. By examining the gradual emergence of inner experience, the essay highlights how early humans transitioned from instinct‐driven responses to self‐awareness, enabling them to adapt to hostile environments. Integrating theories of emotional processing and adaptive function, the framework presented emphasizes the iterative nature of consciousness, shaped by environmental pressures and the necessity for survival. The essay further bridges evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and philosophy to provide a comprehensive understanding of consciousness as an adaptive tool. Ultimately, it underscores the pivotal role of emotions, particularly fear, in shaping human cognition and the dynamic trajectory of human evolution.