#96 Kailea Rose Loften and Kate Weiner on building disaster-resilience through communities of care
“I think one step towards creating those infrastructures of care is to normalize feelings of anguish and anxiety and fear surrounding disaster. I think when we hold space for that, we make it easier for us to be in conversation with one another and to care for one another. ”
“So much of Compassion in Crisis just as a project is really a love letter to mutual aid organisers who have always been doing this work and exist in every community, weaving really tight knits of relationality and doing the work of centering those who are most vulnerable, despite this work oftentimes being overlooked, invisibilised, misunderstood, and defunded. ”
Disaster preparedness expands beyond short-term charity and immediate on-ground support, yet the “behind-the-scenes” relational work of ongoing organising and community resilience-building is often sidelined by the capitalist aid paradigm. How can leveraging the work of mutual aid organisers and providers through community publishing and media platforms help sustain existing infrastructures of care fortifying disaster preparedness?
In this episode, we are joined by Kailea Rose Loften and Kate Weiner, coeditors of the community publisher Loam and co-authors of the book Compassion in crisis: building disaster-resilient communities. Kailea Rose Loften is a mother of Tahltan, Kaska, and Black American ancestry. She has a background climate change policy with an emphasis on Indigenous rights, previously serving as a Climate Commissioner for the City of Petaluma, California. Kate Weiner works at the intersections of culture and climate justice as a writer and editor, and her work is shaped by her studies in environmental art, social practice, and community herbalism.
With the extended version of Compassion in Crisis launching in May, we explore the ways the book provides insight into relational practices and care infrastructures for disaster preparedness and management to support and build community resilience pre- and post-disaster.
What will be covered:
Kate and Kailea’s journey into publishing and print-making, including publishing Compassion in Crisis: Building Disaster-Resilient Communities
Paradigm shift from capitalistic aid and disaster management to disaster companionship and mutual aid
Strengthening infrastructures of care for disaster-resilience
Importance of open source sharing to make resources and knowledge accessible for communities, particularly translating technical legal language and frameworks around disaster rights and keeping resource base updated
Contributors not taking credit for work as resources are for the people, by the people
Weaving Earth’s offerings of Earth intimacy practices/rituals to equip ourselves with vital tools to support our communities during crisis e.g. learning bird language, children programmes, interpreting weather patterns
Building spiritual stamina to move from a place of fear and loss to love and power
Radical acceptance of the inevitability of mass loss
Printmaking and how crucial physical prints can be during disasters, as well as tapping into the sensual for building spiritual stamina
Recognising that we all have the capacity and agency to extend ourselves to the collective body by step up for our communities during times of crisis
More-than-human kinship being incredibly important for building resilience of the wider ecosystem e.g. plant kin and their ability to support recovery post-disaster
Episode resources:
Keep an eye out for the launch of the second edition of Compassion in crisis: building disaster-resilient communitieson May 19th 2026
Find out more about Loam and Weaving Earth
Connect with Kailea at kailealoften.com
SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST
Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all other major podcast platforms
Mind Full of Everything is a podcast calling for the radical healing of the self and community to outgrow the broken dominant culture of radical individualism and disconnection from our place as interdependent beings, so that we can collectively re-envision a safer, healthier and equitable world. Each episode takes a healing-centric approach to explore the embodied ways in which we can collectively restore and transform our journeys as stewards of community and earth through conversations with writers, researchers, coaches and educators, as well as reflection episodes with the host Agrita Dandriyal on her journey navigating the world as a deeply conscious, culturally-rooted and relational being. Learn more here.
