IN THE HEAT of a midsummer day, I wade into the glacial waters of my favorite alpine lake. I’ve been swimming here for as long as I can remember. Floating on my back, I look up at the open sky, which is framed by the silhouettes of spruce and pine. The world seems as small as it does infinite. I stretch out my left arm, reaching for the fingertips of a friend floating beside me. Like otters, we lock hands and drift further into the center. The sun warms our bellies, and I let the feeling sink in: I am not discrete.

We exist in a world of entangled relations. That is to say, we are not self-enclosed individuals. In every exchange among humans and across species, we are transformed—and actively transform the world around us. We emerge from, and are contingent on, more-than-human relationships that shape existence in unfathomable ways and at innumerable scales. In the reciprocity of self-and-other transformations, kinship takes root.

This year’s edition of SAGE is dedicated to imagining and re imagining kinship. In an era of climate crisis, political division, enduring colonialism, and genocide, we call on kinship as a reminder that environmental justice is social justice. From algae blooms of the Barents Sea to the olive trees of Gaza, the contributors to this magazine challenge us to reflect on our own understandings of kinship. These stories explore multicultural, multispecies, often magical kinships. And they don’t shy from the complexities of interdependency either. As our contributors acknowledge, kinship can be messy, muddled, and mournful. Yet it is simultaneously healing and generative.