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When you’re feeling caught between a rock and a hard spot about how society treats animals (as animals) and how you treat them (as kin).
Episodes
Wednesday Mar 05, 2025
Wednesday Mar 05, 2025
This is true kinship with animals, a podcast that offers you stories, conversations and possibilities on how you might deepen your relationship with animals and relate to them through a new place of understanding. It’s also a reminder that true kinship is how you participate, not how others receive it. My name is Janet Roper, your companion on this journey.
Episode guest is Jen Pavich, an Executive Coach & Facilitator currently residing and resisting in Austin, TX. She has served on many nonprofit boards, and currently serves on the board of The New Philanthropists. Her experience in advocacy and policy work has enabled Jen to engage in conversations about economic, gender justice and equity.
Jen shares deeply personal stories about cats Luke & Wanda and we discuss the impact & process of grieving animal family members in our society today.
NOTE: You may need to adjust volume towards the end of the episode.
Episode Quote
Jen: “I don’t want to control [dog] Maisy, I want to communicate with her.”
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Thursday Feb 13, 2025
Thursday Feb 13, 2025
This is true kinship with animals, a podcast that offers you stories, conversations and possibilities on how you might deepen your relationship with animals and relate to them through a new place of understanding. My name is Janet Roper, your companion on this journey.
This episode addresses navigating rough spots when you come across folx who may not be open to hearing about true kinship.
Episode Quotes
“As a matter of fact true kinship is the antithesis of a colonized system. It’s not a one-size-fits-all practice. Rather it is different things to different people at different times.”
“True kinship is how you participate, not how others receive it.”
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Subscribe to Janet’s Newsletter
Shop the True Kinship With Animals Bling! collection
Thursday Jan 30, 2025
Thursday Jan 30, 2025
This is true kinship with animals, a podcast that offers you stories, conversations and possibilities on how you might deepen your relationship with animals and relate to them through a new place of understanding. My name is Janet Roper, your companion on this journey.
This episode addresses our human tendency to infantilize animals when we only see them as cute. Later in the episode I’ll be telling you about a book I’m writing on grieving the loss of animal family members and then requesting we work in reciprocity with the free online content I offer.
Episode Quotes
“I’m not sure why, because it’s a basic truth that I do not spider as well as Spider nor hedgehog as well as Hedgehog and neither do you.”
“True kinship with animals works to eliminate the need to experience animals like humans in animal form. They are not. They are their own species with their own integrity and agency.
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Monday Oct 21, 2024
Monday Oct 21, 2024
This is true kinship with animals, a podcast that offers you stories, conversations and possibilities on how you might deepen your relationship with animals and relate to them through a new place of understanding. My name is Janet Roper, your companion on this journey.
This episode asks if the true kinship path is right for you.
Episode Quotes
“It’s a relief to not have to downplay my relationship with animals and true kinship and what they are to me. It’s cathartic to be with an animal in kinship and not as a human overseer or master. Justifications are a thing of the past.”
“True kinship with animals is a service to the world that offers a vision and perspective for the future, not one that is marooned in the present.”
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Sunday Jul 14, 2024
Sunday Jul 14, 2024
On this episode of The True Kinship With Animals Podcast, I’m sharing a connection I see between true kinship and Lord of the Rings.
This podcast gives you stories, conversations and suggestions on how you can deepen your relationship with animals by freeing yourself from the inherited, colonized beliefs and assumptions we’ve all been socialized into and start relating to animals through a new place of understanding.
Episode Quotes
“We create community together as we journey along in true kinship. As a matter of fact, it’s our individuality that builds true kinship and encourages us to know the community in our unique perspective. How does it get better than that?”
~Janet Roper
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Saturday Jun 29, 2024
Saturday Jun 29, 2024
On this episode of The True Kinship With Animals Podcast, frequent guest Deb Fate-Mental joins me in conversation about trivializing the weather and the effects that has nature.
Episode Quotes
Your teacup is full, I can’t fit anything more tea in it. The guy thought he knew everything. So you really have to commence this and try to exist within this beginner’s mind and of course it’s really difficult sometimes to get it. I’m often having to stop myself feeling but do I really know this? Do I really know what’s going on or can I learn something there. Can I soften and open myself to what’s really going on. And you know, that often happens with animals.
~Deb Fate-Mental
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Guest Deb Fate-Mental’s Website
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Thursday Jun 13, 2024
Thursday Jun 13, 2024
Does perfectionism have a spot in true kinship with animals? That probably depends on your cosmology and perspective. Perfectionism - that’s what we’re exploring in today’s episode of the True Kinship With Animals Podcast.
Episode Quotes
“Listen up folx, this is important: Animals are not an extension of our agency. But it’s so insidious how that assumption sneaks in!!! Here I was thinking I was doing the best I could for cat Raven, having his best interest at heart, and at the same time I was invalidating his agency.”
“Then I had the sudden realization — like a light bulb going on — that’s not realistic. That’s an illusion that points the spotlight on ME and what I want, what I think our life together SHOULD be. It left Raven’s wants and needs out of the picture and assumed he wanted what I did.”
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t spider nearly as well as a spider does.”
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Friday May 31, 2024
Friday May 31, 2024
Wondering about what reciprocal relationship looks like with animals? You’re in the right place - that’s what we’re covering in this episode!
Episode Quotes
“Reciprocal kinship is not about you, it not about getting your needs met. It’s not about what you think you’re entitled to receive from the animal. That’s privilege.”
“Kinship involves reciprocity. We all claim we practice this, because that is our intent. But when we examine our actions closer and with an honest appraisal, are we practicing reciprocity or entitlement?”
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Tuesday Apr 23, 2024
Tuesday Apr 23, 2024
In this episode we’re talking about some changes we humans can make in practicing true kinship with animals.
Episode Quotes
“You're sentient, the animals are sentient, it's time to come together.
Come together is such a nebulous phrase though, isn't it? I mean you already live with them, care for them, love, honor and respect them. What more is there to coming together?”
Janet Roper
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Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
This episode explores the vast topic of how you’re supported while you’re grieving animal family members. Because you don’t have to be alone.
Episode Quotes
“It’s easy to forget we humans need care too. We need tending, nurturing, conversation, community and support. We need witnessing, not fixing.”
Janet Roper
“What would it be like to have a support team, both in every day life and online, that you reach out to when you’re feeling the need to have your grief witnessed, acknowledged or even held for you until you’re ready to take on the grief mantle again?”
Janet Roper
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Subscribe to Janet’s Newsletter