Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Futuresteading
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Titre
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Ep 215 Jodi Wilson - Learning to See the Earth with Your Body, Not Just Your Eyes. Summer Days Throwback 2026
25 Jan 2026
00:56:28
Author of Practicing Simplicity, Jodi Wilson faced a fear of complacently which grew bigger than her fear of change and it prompted her to pack her 4 young chillins into a caravan for a life on the road and the building of a whole new rhythm. Over the coming years, they got comfortable in the discomfort of change, uncertainty and discovered that the ritual of stirring porridge shouldn’t be underestimated, nor should the remarkability of the ordinary. She encourages us all to take small steps and make brave choices. We need to step outside our front doors, go for a walk and chat to our neighbours.
*Recorded pre federal election
Deciding, on a whim to take her 4 children around Australia in a caravan
Letting her intuition dominate her decisions towards a leap of faith
Consciously close mental tabs
Unravelling the sense of obligation to time frames and social norms
If we are privileged enough to make choice, we have a responsibility to make change
Why it’s important we don't get stuck in our bell jar
How a life on the road in a caravan with 6 people helped refine what we really need in our life.
Making conscious decisions
Sustainability as humans - constantly running,
Creating a life she believed in not one she was wedged into
Intuition led - heart and gut. If it doesn't feel right it can’t be continued
Why she cant access her intuition or gut instinct if she is anxious
Spending time in nature, barefoot on sand, in deserts,
Finding a sense of belonging and connection in ancestral landscapes
Making major decisions via a woven path of experiences
The romance of a roadtrip was appealing but the reality was that I had to get dirty
You carry the dirt of your travels are carried in the crevices of your skin
Reminiscent stories of they’re 2.5 years on the road
Settling in Tassie in a 1950’s bungalow
Defining what it is you DO WANT
Creating ritual and time for self while on the road
Looking at the stars and basking in the silence of the night
Creating more time in your life because of the choices we’ve made
Simplicity starts where you are with what you have - simplicity is an attitude and a mindset
Simplicity ebbs and flows with the demands of our lives
Collective heartache and collective exhaustion
We haven't evolved from the primal beings we are but we have been distracted.
Nothing gets done unless you take small steps towards it
Replacing the perfectionist hurdles of ‘shoulda’ with the compassionate reality of “I will when I can”
Feeling like a local when the neighbours stop for a chat and the shop owners know your name
Living with little and raising her kids to see this gives her hope
Ep 214 Billa - The Woman At The Wild School Shares Her Earth Wisdom. Summer Days Throwbacks 2026
18 Jan 2026
00:58:56
SHOW SUMMARY Join Billa, co founder of the Wild School, as we navigate back into our custodial selves. Where we use head, hands & heart to rebuild the connective processes that help us become deeply connected people to place & each other. This process requires us to not only think but to really feel, 'It needs to be remembered in the body at a cellular level. “In our bones as women we have generations of wisdom & the sisterhood brings this to life” 'We are designed to live in tribal sized groups & to take care of country but we lack the skills so it's time to unlearn & relearn.' The right environment will trigger the hard wired settings to make us what we are designed to be & the process of relearning how to live together will be more than just building houses & spaces or owning land. Billa & her husband Chief have been doing this earth connection & village making work their entire lives & she is measuring her experiences against something in her bones. She is doing this via 5 sacred pathways - these being food as medicine, nature connection, ceremony & ritual, village making & art is medicine. A pedagogy you cannot be schooled on, you need to embody them through experience. The most potent experience of all she says is to have gratitude for the mother. Us two-legged humans form a story - “we are merely the current fruiting mushroom of the ancestral mycelium”. its time to be reminded of this in our modern day story.
Show Notes: Moving towards a life that moves in circles rather than being square & rigid - finding the sisterhood, herbal medicine, permaculture. Women need women but we specifically need sisterhood where we share wisdom & DO together - craft, learn, share, DIY-ing her own home at 24 Intentional communities - are they a study in failure or can we really do this? Permaculture has been foundational alongside womens wisdom Being alive ‘in village’ Finding our way back through the cultural repair journey via the 8 shields movement & the 64 cultural elements Connecting to country to continue as a species Reconciling our history is foundational to rebuilding culture You can’t ground community without the land but you can’t just buy land & assume the community will come - the truth of the land needs to be reconciled. What we eat is our relationship to the earth mother - it plugs us back in Rebuilding deep connection requires all five sacred pathways to be present Are we existing in captivity Decolonising our body through food Building next level connection with our ancestors We’ve stopped knowing our bodies What else comes with your DNA? More than height or eyes colour The humble shall inherit the earth Check in with what your ‘baseline’ is - very high in western culture Taking care of the baseline & being able to appreciate it is freeing because you can let go of the noisy material things which takes up all the space & consume you. White privilege blinkers - question what was taken in order for us to have this
Ep 205 Dalee Ella - Connecting Humanity to the Inward and Outward Energies of Creativity
02 Nov 2025
02:07:49
Jade and Dalee wander through the tender terrain where creativity, womanhood, and everyday life meet. Speaking openly about the way our inner cycles shape what we make and how we show up in the world — and how hard it can be to hold space for both art and livelihood.
Together they explore the slow evolution of Dalee’s creative path, the courage it takes to collaborate, and the quiet emotional work of home-schooling while running a small business. Their chat drifts into community — the messy beauty of shared living in an intentional community, the texture that neurodiversity brings to family life, and the lessons learned from leaning into interdependence.
It’s a conversation about connection — to self, to others, and to place. About boundaries that protect passions, creativity and community so we are reminded of who we each are and what our individual work is to do - within the collective. Today we ask what it means to live a life guided by values — to curate something meaningful, slow, and true.
Ep 115 Kate Ulman - Fox's Lane Encourager of Creativity. Summer days throwback 2023
12 Feb 2023
01:00:15
This heart led Mumma of three has been luring us with images of a dreamy, bloom filled life on her Daylesford apple orchard & words of equal romance via her craft blog for over a decade. She laughs easily, has found balance in being real & makes the simplest of thoughts feel like genuine aha moments. Kate Ulman is wrenchingly honest about the reality of farm life with young children, turning inwards when self care is needed & whether her babies will return to life on the land. Although not at her kitchen table, the intimacy of this conversation feels very personal & will leave your cup full & your heart nourished.
Episode notes
Seeing your home the way others do
Realising she is driven by making, creating & beauty
Taking an ugly foundation & making it ‘beautiful’ slowly & sure
The essence of a creative soul raising more creative beings
Evolving with our children who are becoming the people they are going to be
Creating a ‘place’ for our children
The impact of an early childhood experience on a kibbutz
Learning to farm at 30 & retrospectively being amazed they could do it
Growing things organically was our religion but we actually didn’t know how
Life before social media - 10 years of ‘ugliness’ because we could afford the beautiful
Sharing the raw truth of life on the land with a small family
Expectation vs reality
Seasonal appreciation
“Every season is another chance to get last years mistakes better”
The annual pre Winter crises & assessment of reality
Pre farming life as a crafter & blogger
Acknowledging there's a time & place for everything
Filing your soul with the small &simple things but being realistic about doing whats possible
Being kind about expectations
“Being a martyr & running yourself ragged is NOT the solution but being aware & keeping it joyful means you can do it forever”
Saying “I don't know” comfortably
When we take our actions so seriously that it puts other people including the next generation off ever wanting to participate in something worth doing
Letting go of the little things like baking bread for the sake of the bigger picture
Actively engaging with community wherever a snippet can be garnered
Putting her energies into writing a book
Taking back her families story so it wasn’t available to the world online
Rediscovering herself post early childhood mother-dom
Being the complete opposite of organised
Creating a plan for ‘older life’ so the love of the farming life continues
Why bigger is not better. The active vision to make things simpler
Why her mum is her greatest inspiration for her approach to motherhood
How she became the encourager of creativity
Daily exclamation marks of ritual elude her because she follows inspiration instead
Why her good intentions for ritual get forgotten
Why deep diving quickly into real conversations is important to her
Her definition of success as living her truth & being filled with honesty, creativity, availability to the things she cares about
Ep 114 Paul West - his real life River Cottage. Summer Days Throwback 2023
05 Feb 2023
00:57:54
Strap in for a fast paced chat with this natural born story teller. From the heady heights of top restaurants, starring in his own reality tv program and radio shows to his definition of “enough” - which begins with rude health and healthy kids before settling with sovereignty of time and community belonging.
As practical and grounded as he is charismatic with a touch of aussie larrikin, ‘Westy’ is whip cracking fast making it easy to listen and laugh at his tales - like serving uncooked rice as his first attempt at cooking.
This high energy human wraps up the season for us with insights and stories that are endearing and inspiring in equal measure.
Episode notes
Choosing your island foods
Are you an eater or a foodie ?- Westie grew up as an eater until he was 17 before becoming a foodie
Embalmed cats above the fresh food aisles at the local supermarket
Moving from his first out-of-home cooked meal: Raw rice, frozen peas, ham and soy sauce to cheffing in lofty places
His first wwoofing experience that sowed the seeds for his ‘NOW’ life:
Witnessing the loftiest ideal for human life as life on the land growing food, connecting to community, physical work
His winding but whip fast hospitality adventure
Using the age good food guide as a way to get a job and crash landing into Vu De Monde to cut his teeth
Turning his back on fine dining cuisine to return to the roots of growing food.
A yearning desire to really understand the rhythms of food
How fatherhood changed him, from self to selfless. Why he never wanted to be a ‘phone in’ dad
Reframing his expectations of fatherhood for him, his kids and his wife.
Creating patterns to set up our kids for the rest of their lives and using food as the central guide for this
The virtues of tapping into the primal human nature.
Transitioning from kitchen to farm grew his understanding of long standing ecological needs.
River Cottage - the inside scoop on the steep learning curves and truth behind producing a reality TV program. The juggle of actually living a 365 day farm life but needing to fit in the production of a stage production alongside.
The hard work of farming! Far from white clothed lunches under a tree
The repetition needed for growing
Now living a life that's the amalgamation of his previous lives
Creating a life of belonging in a village across generations
The perfect combo of small-house big block.
Building ritual around food markers, what the gardens providing, when the crayfish and oysters are harvesting,
Making an effort to observe the natural spectacles and building ritual around it
Ep 113 Tammi Jonas - Degrowth for perpetuity. Summer days throwback 2023.
29 Jan 2023
01:02:32
Sharing her evolution from academic keyboard warrior to her current reality of being an agroecological pork and beef farmer who's pretty darned handy with the butchers knife and equally as sharp of mind in her contributions to the UN small scale farming policy initiatives.
Tammi Jonas is indeed a force of the natural world, never backwards in coming forwards but mellowing with every decade and sharing her successes and failures for the sake of thousands who are following in her footsteps towards a life of farming democracy.
Episode Summary
We dive right into how she fits it all in
Leadership - her style of leading from the front with doggedness and squared soldiers
Research and UN food systems mobilisation
Credibility that comes out of the dirt
Her commitment to food sovereignty across aaaalllllll the tiers of the movement
The brain breaking need to relate local practices to global policy
Linking good global initiatives to local practices
Applying food sovereignty thinking to general consumption issues
Taking power back one skill at a time
We can’t buy ourselves out of this mess - we literally need to joyfully work competently through the upskilling and sharing of
The illusion of choice when you see thousands of items for sale in a supermarket is not a place to genuinely begin
Why she considers herself an “agroecological” farmer (political, social, Agroecological theory of change is considered a science, social movement and practical - dedicated to circular bio economies rather than a purchasing of inputs. Agroecology rejects capitalism but values labour over yield.
‘Benefaction’ - enabling the farm to do their tasks joyfully
The rich reality of running internship programs - who are welcomed with the knowledge that they are becoming food sovereignty warriors
AFSA - first-peoples-first initiative
Solidarity - garnering unexplained wholeness but remembering we are all here for each other
Why there's value in building a new system rather than creating one from the ashes of the old one.
Why the rise and fall of farms and community orgs is part and parcel of the movement and should be encouraged
Being comfortable to share the successes AND the failures as a gift for the greater good
Building a de-growth mentality to avoid the ruthless capitalist system
Creating small scale farming businesses that are FUN rather than slaves to growth
Keeping her eye on the end game dilutes her need to be binary and rage filled
Why the States are not actually similar to the Australian culture - they are wedded to a growth mentality that we don't have so we have an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.
Why it’s ok to scale back from the initial vision
Framing ‘enough’ as being disentangled from the capitalist system - seeing the sky, feeding her community and others and being ok to go slow when needed.
Ep 112 Brooke McAlary - going slow & the farce of multitasking Summer Days Throwback 2023
22 Jan 2023
01:02:14
Brooke McAlary has built a life and brand around slow. She's the author of three books, the co-host of The Slow Home podcast and the voice of a movement that says, "Dear Joneses, I'm opting out of the rat race."
But hey, that doesn't mean she's exempt from overwhelm. This convo opens with Brooke and Jade swapping stories of exhaustion. File that under honesty.
So join us on the couch as we define our zone zero, get our inner turmoil sorted before facing the outer chaos, and discuss a potential inner care deficit.
We talk packaged up versions of “balance” “slow” and “simple” and why “tilting” may be more useful; leaning into the most pressing issue of the moment.
Why multi tasking is a farce but barefoot bushwalking creates a heady sense of lightness, wonder and awe that just might hold the answers.
Say no to fast and yes to slow living with Brooke McAlary.
SHOW NOTES
Why her books and pod are basically talking to herself to maintain a slower pace
Being diagnosed with severe postnatal depression
Googling in search of solutions
Letting go of the relentless ‘keep up’ approach to life
Stabilising mental health and finding a deeper sense of contentment
Living life with no buffer
Operating at 70% capacity to ensure there’s room for unplanned
Defining and protecting zone zero
Getting the inner turmoil sorted before facing the outer chaos
Avoiding an inner care deficit
The intrinsic link between inward care and capacity to give
Why the words 'balance', 'simple' and 'slow' are all fraught
The endless wrestle of living counter culturally
Learning to “tilt” rather than “balance”
The fraudulence of multi tasking
Experiencing a loss of connection, celebration and grieving as a result of covid
Facing into the need for ‘unlearning’ to build a brave new non-consumerist world
Building your tribe without preaching
Equating simple with ‘ease’ not ‘easy’
Why simplicity lives in the process of finding ease
Noticing = gratitude
Family rituals that offer hope
Barefoot bushwalking on a bliss wave
A designated slow room
Reconciling the footprint of travel by embracing her local area
Vision Quests
Why small actions of care, purpose and values are creating powerful ripples
Rebuilding rites of passage for our youth to test and expand resilience and tap into the wisdom from older generations
Ep 111 Damon Gameau - Are you part of the 'Re generation'. Summer days throwback 2023
15 Jan 2023
00:53:36
Damon Gameau - A call to arms for storytellers!
It's time to shine the spotlight on our story tellers; the creatives, film makers, artists, poets, chefs, writers and musicians. "If our storytellers cannot find a way then the way cannot be found". Join Jade & Damon in this conversation about defying the attention economy, ways to avoid being numbed but the inertia of the system (which is not actually our friend - despite it being dressed up that way) and why rites of passage could be the answer to rebuilding our culture . Finally, we ask the big question - how do you define ENOUGH. If you've loved Damon's films 2040 & That Sugar Film you're in for one exceptionally powerful convo with this captivating & clever creative.
Episode Summary
People are seeking leadership that doesn’t use language without humanisation So much of the story we are told now is dictated by extraction, competition, rivalry, The shift from humans with animus beliefs to industrialised beliefs Defining our collective stories through the feedback from our creative & soul stirring storytellers Defying the attention economy by stepping away from the barraging information torrent to allow for conscious decisions Finding your place in action Choosing to understand rather than polarising Slowing our judgement despite the push for pace - let a slowly defined opinion be yours Acknowledging we agree on a desire for community, healthy children, access to food….and we are not actually divided Taking responsibility of our own individual actions and teach our children to listen & to understand Why its NOT human nature to be greedy & selfish, because we've evolved through a deeply cooperative, symbiotic spirit. Rewrite our culture away from competitive nature & highlight our dependency on each other Finding your path of individualism within the collective Deradicalising the truth of what we need to do Considering context when storytelling to shift the needle Building a less fragile system Why it’s not a nationalist sentiment if you want sovereignty of independence Shifting from being a consumer to being a citizen Building wings that will allow us to fly high and thrive with our culture providing the wind Manifesting creativity and ingenuity by working with our kids Shaping, creating and changing culture through coexistence, lateral thinking and practical skills - starting with the education of our children The dance between peril and possibility Turning emerging science into magical stories to captivate kids imaginations Prison inmates in the States spend more time outdoors than our children The ongoing process of unlearning as flawed humans Deciding what’s enough. Do you keep working beyond your enough to go slower or do you keep going to give to others. Rites of passage as a pathway to regeneration Ayahuasca ceremonies, breath work Taking a glimpse into the “other” to fill the gap left by a crises of meaning
If you don't know this marvellous lass, that's probably because she keeps a pretty low profile online, preferring to spend her days in a state of sensuous connection with the world, pursuing everything money can't buy. And she has some excellent tips for helping you do the same.
Annie and Catie cover a lot of ground in this convo, from hitchhiking adventures and weed foraging to chronic conditions, choosing life over career and controversial acts in the face of climate change. We know we say this every time... but this one's a goodie!
SHOW NOTES
Single parent family taught her to be independent, responsible, frugal.
Epic hitchhiking journeys around Australia.
Discovering different ways of having fun that don’t cost money.
When hitchhiking becomes a form of talk therapy.
Attention as a practise.
What to do when Monkey Mind takes over and you stop seeing the beauty in the everyday.
Humans as story-addicted creatures.
Solistalgia — when you’re nostalgic for where you are.
The rate of change in modern society and how that disrupts a sense of place, belonging.
How to plant yourself in new places.
The sensory pleasure of the weather.
Weather makes landscape and landscape makes culture.
The origins of her love of weeds.
Plant-filtering laser eyeballs that seek out food.
There’s food you can eat that has zero environmental impact, beyond homegrown veggies.
Writing a novel in celebration of non-utilitarian, fruity, hyper-abundant language.
How a cancelled hike led to a quirky storyline.
How to orchestrate a life in which time and adventures are plentiful.
The beauty of turning down requests (even when they’re super impressive).
The conscious choice not to have children.
Giving work the flick in favour of life.
How a chronic health condition has affirmed her choices and priorities.
"I’d rather not eat out, not buy new clothes, and spend lots of my time at the beach (which is what I’m currently doing)."
Dealing with guilt about working less.
Why keep trying to accrue more money more once you have enough?
Protestant work ethic upbringing needs to be questioned right now.
The ‘work’ of being a low-consumer is valid too.
“I believe in the pattern of a society that these frugal habits are part of… and I want to perpetuate that.”
Controversial tips for changing the world.
Amazement as a tool for appreciating ordinary objects; being less wasteful.
It’s a novel time. The rules are now different. Having children being the norm can no longer be part of the status quo.
Drive less! Use your car if you would hire a car to do that thing, otherwise, find a different way.
Good times with human beings is not something to be lazy about.
Ep 109 Artists As Family. How brave are you? - Summer days throwback 2023
01 Jan 2023
01:15:37
This family of four live a largely non-monetary existence on a quarter-acre permaculture plot on Djaara peoples' country/Daylesford. They describe themselves as neopeasants, defined by the gardens & forests they tend, the resources they glean & grow, the community they're part of and the technologies they both use & refuse.
They practice permapoesis, which simply means permanent making or regenerative living -an antidote to disposable culture - & show us what's possible when creativity, reverence & reciprocity is placed at the heart of human existence.
SHOW NOTES
A frugal background + time on a kibbutz
Early skills in propagation and a deep desire to grow things
An attraction to counter culture & eternal questioning of injustices
Finding peace by the Mittagong creek
Working as a couple to overcome grief over the dominant culture
Growing a new story out of the old story -- about community, not just one idea
The holistic awakening of permaculture
Moving from clock time to ecological time
Daily connection to the natural world; chanting, observing, meditating
Creating an art practice that is not separate from everyday life
Avoiding monotonous and tedious work through neopeasantry
Why Covid has helped us register our collective exhaustion
Giving up cars and moving at an ecological pace
Being cash poor yet time rich in frugal abundance
Time offline allows a songful, interconnected, wildness that is about observation and interaction
The importance of rites of passage -- how do we bring them back?
Recognising the value of the child-to-adult process and parent/child separation
Grief circles -- “for crying out loud”. Sharing, howling, laughing, storytelling and bearing witness to each other.
Giving back to the forest via humanure, menstrual blood, tears
How fire has held our stories since the beginning of time
Daily gratitude ritual of naming the inputs needed for each meal
Growing layers and building gifts to share with our community by accepting ourselves
Getting the dance right between consciousness and overwhelm
Why being aware of ideology is important
Why activism and politics need complexity
A brief history of patriarchal dominance, removing feminine power in the popular culture
Ep 108 Alex Elliot - Cornersmith Cracker! A celebration of imperfect perfection
18 Dec 2022
00:46:57
Bugger off dogmatic rules - who wrote those anyway. Push off unfaltering sustainable existence - you're leave us feeling guilty. Shhhh up incessant Instagram perfection - its not real! Tune in to this fire cracker of fresh air to recalibrate your judgment beacon and give yourself a break while you learn to a make a difference in a way that works for you. Could that be quiet food related activism or perhaps sharing practical skills in your community, or waking up to the plastic explosion in our lives and actively curbing your contribution. Perhaps its pickling...everything in sight! What ever your path, Alex is unwaveringly supportive of anyone having a go at even the smallest of things & her final word of advice ' slow down, don't peak too soon...its a long path & its not getting any easier'
Growing up in a share house that loved to cook in her formative years Creating community around the share plate Being ok with fish fingers and frozen peas Letting judgement go to make a difference while being accepting Education to build hope & practical skills during this climate emergency The exhausting weight of being sustainable 24/7 Wanting to help people fall in love with their kitchens again without ideology Beginning a business with her husband despite limited experience Discovering pickling when her kids were tiny & she was losing her mind Pickling as an onramp to a simpler sustainable life Lying awake thinking about wasting cumquats Putting community abundance to good use in a pickling jar Crossing language barriers to learn food preservation methods from her neighbourhood Taking twists & turns in business Why now is the time to stand up & shout really loudly No person can avoid having to make regenerative choices Getting bolder with age Trading with locals who swap backyard produce for coffee Navigating a food business through covid Avoiding being black and white Making spaces where its simple for people to make a contribution Choosing her favourite pickle You don’t have to make mega batches of food to make a contribution Eating and using what you’ve got to reduce food waste Choose one thing, while you build your habits and reframe your practices Do we all need to be a little uncomfortable in order to make us all think and create other solutions, Wake up and stop being passive, owning your decisions or solutions Using scraps from the bin to create magic If it can be used - use it Saving money by using every single part of every single thing Lucky dip cupboard - food without labels The process of writing a cook book Replacing the guilt with creativity in the kitchen The disservice of instagram perpetuating perfection Pearl of wisdom - going slower in our change journey to ensure longevity
Ep 107 Diette Hochuli - Falling in love with nearby nature
04 Dec 2022
00:40:51
From your balcony to the nature strip, citizen science to observing recolionising birds - however you interact with the outside world, there are so many reasons and so many opportunities to do so every, single day!
As the co-author of the recently published book "A guide to the creatures in your neighbourhood" Diette encourages us in this conversation to reignite our childhood curiosity of the natural world by working harder to find the extraordinary in the ordinary - not just looking and seeing but asking WHY and taking the leap to contribute in some small way.
SUMMARY Getting interested in ‘nearby nature’ Not just telling people about nature but offering ideas for action and activities Working collaboratively and managing dynamics, Being intrigued by the combative nature of nature The role of creativity in science It's not so much about the facts but the way this knowledge is shared Learning to have public conversations about science to allow difficult conversations to unfold Amusing ourselves at ‘A’ rather than endlessly going from A to B The value of learning through codesign and collaboration The value of citizen science as a gateway to connecting with nature Storytelling as part of our intuitive human condition Wellbeing benefits of nature and all the reasons to get involved Accepting the way the younger generation learn We know so little about so much Reinstating rituals in urban environments for our young people Genuinely listening to the kids to understand their perspective and their needs Kids capacity to be resilient is being impacted by over connection Giving kids agency of their journey The adolescence dip in their connection with nature in whatever path interests them Practicing what he preaches - learning new things every day - relax, watch and observe Not just looking and seeing but asking WHY Did you know worker ants and bees are all females The pros and cons of personification of natural world elements Creating mindful moments in nature without the need to be an ‘expert’ What the the parts of the everyday that we should be talking more about? Our dependency on pollinators for our food security
Ep 106 Claire O'Rourke - Together we can... building solidarity in climate grief
19 Nov 2022
00:52:00
When was your moment of realisation that life, including our own, is finite & that the climate will impact our way of life. How are you processing this? Claire asks, ‘how are you using your skills, networks & privilege to add your weight to the climate movement & shares the value of processing our individual climate grief & collective efforts.
Processing climate grief
Catalysing change within your own community
You can’t work on any part of nature without understanding and working on climate
Cognitive dissonance of our every day existence
Becoming clear & present in the reality of what life will be for her later years & her children lives
Climate grief results in exhaustion, sadness, overwhelm,
Its ok to feel frustrated, distressed, anxious - things are NOT normal, we are collectively experiencing trauma
There are rising levels of pre traumatic distress due to the climate realities
It’s emcombant on me as a person in a position of privilege to share my skills and knowledge with those who have less agency
Coming to terms with the fact that life is finite
Stepping outside the western paradigm of endless productivity
Learning from first nations people
Using acceptance and commitment therapy as a way to move forward
Minimising ebbs and flows of grief with the agency that comes from action
Shunning a Pollyanna view of the world - there’s no hero coming to save us. We all have a role to contribute to our collective efforts and leverage existing relationships
We can all make a choice about fighting or flighting - being consructuve or active or distructive and dismissive is our choice alone
Acceptance of the inevitability that fossil fuels are on the way out
We are in the middle of an epidemic of loneliness - especially 19-25 years olds, this can spiral our community connection and collective
The value of participating without having to be the expert
Creating ancestral totems
Building gratitude practice into your every day via living creatures that connect us all to our ancestors
The way behaviour change flows through networks via those on the edge of multiple networks - this is often ‘everyday’ folks
Climate deniers are a very small percentage of Australians
Reframing success to celebrate the spirit of co-operation
Showing politicians that we want to be connected and interrelated will be transformational for politicians to see
Taking kids on this journey
Go where your interest is strongest and the need is greatest
We have to enjoy the world we are in otherwise whats the point in fighting for it
Imperfection is the beauty of human nature and imperfect is most liely to be the journey we go on as we decarbonise
Action on climete means more of the things we love (like the sun comig up) but less of the things we actually cant maintain (consumables)
EP 204 The Passage of Self: Dance, Grief, and Heart Wisdom with Eclectica (Demi Lee)
26 Oct 2025
01:08:00
In this episode, Demi Lee takes us deep into the story of Eclectica — a movement, a community, and a living expression of embodiment and transformation. Together, we explore how dance becomes a language for healing, how grief can serve as an elder and sacred teacher, and how true empowerment begins with self-responsibility.
Demi shares the evolution of Eclectica from a creative experiment into a profound rite of passage — one that invites people to come home to their bodies, their emotions, and their truth. Through honest reflections on community, relationships, and heart-centered living, this conversation reveals how we can turn life’s challenges into initiations that reconnect us with purpose and love.
It’s an exploration of what it means to live embodied, to honor our inner seasons, and to build communities that hold us through the cycles of becoming.
Key Takeaways:
- Grief is not just loss — it’s an initiation into depth, compassion, and the full spectrum of love.
- Movement and dance can reconnect us with intuition, release stored emotion, and ground us in presence.
- The Power of Community: holding people in the dark.
- Self-Responsibility in Relationships: Owning our patterns and triggers allows for more authentic, heart-based connection.
- Rites of Passage: rituals that mark transformation.
- Choosing love, responsibility, boundaries, and honesty as guiding principles transforms how we show up in the world.
- A journey into remembering who you are beneath the noise — embodied, empowered, and whole.
Ep 105 Rosemary Morrow - A life of global service through the sharing of knowledge
06 Nov 2022
00:47:16
Summary Akin to a cuppa while flicking through photo albums, this conversation is rich with stories of her lived experiences across every continent & through many decades. This wisdom holder has offered her life in service by knowledge sharing. A much respected permaculture educator, her foundation is science based, heart felt & relational in every way. Her practical generosity has contributed to refugee camps in war torn countries and her commitment to empowering communities without becoming a guru is refreshing.
Show Notes
Adaptation principles - Observe carefully, backup functions, seeing solutions, being prepared to make change & noticing Is water more destructive than drought? Creating a culture where people are comfortable to listen to their intuition The critical value of eco literacy - taught in childhood but forgotten in adulthood Building confidence in ourselves to enact change Operating as a community rather than individuals who are side by side Looking for change outside of ‘lobby groups’ The power of the collective rather than individual leaders Intuition is when you know something from a prior sensory input but haven't made it conscious yet - this relies on eco literacy and enables us to come up with solutions Her Vietnamese experience - connecting traditional knowledge with permaculture principles using the pyramid approach of community teaching Removing guru’ism by teaching locally and inbuilding principles that ensure the original teacher is no longer needed because the knowledge is in the community Her scientific background has ensured she is less inclined towards whims, rather its focussed on critical thought Making people eco literate by starting with a focus on the fundamentals Why permaculture is not western middle class - it is adaptable to traditional knowledge? The role of traditional ritual and custom in building community - the Songs of Community Singing to recognise climate, topography, people, direction, acknowledging the power and might of the natural over humans - keeps us small and in a sense of wonder Reading plants as secular or sacred Ritual is acknowledge of our small scope, observation and awe Seeing permaculture as a jigsaw where we can take the pieces we need for the places we are in Permaculture is not an armchair discipline - it’s a discipline of service through knowledge sharing We are all as poor as the poorest person The power of permaculture in giving individuals agency and the ability to bring change Why waving $500 each week and a vibrant garden is enough
Ep 104 Tanya Massy - Can love create unison of head, hands & heart?
23 Oct 2022
00:45:25
Spending time in wild places has taught this 5th generation farmer to quietly find ways to listen to others, those who often don't have a voice but have so much to teach the rest of us. The challenge is in finding ways to give them their own way of being deeply heard.
Engaging in relationships with local traditional owners is the beginning of her journey of uncovering history and rebuilding the path forward. To make this possible, Tanya leans on love, not the 'sugarised' popular culture version, but the kind that asks us to step into harder, more complicated challenges where climate is creating environments which are anti life. Tanyas 'tomorrow' is focussed on growing her heart big enough to lean into the challenges we all need to confront. "Despite it feeling vulnerable - we need big love to stay committed to our people, place and the challenges faced by humanity.
Show Notes
Navigating succession planning on the family farm Why she farms Her love of music took her to Tenant Creek and taught her how to listen Wilderness School in the USA Success = love for and from others, love for place, love for land Reckoning with the truth of farming land that was colonised by her family and never ceded Love for the visceral raw beauty of the country she calls home Doing the work required to repair the damage done. Using ‘invisibility’ to navigate a male dominated farming sector Her dads support to be what she wanted to be despite being female Identifying with women who were not ‘visible’ but were still offering valuable contribution Finding maturity and strength in your own way and time Being part of a team on family farms Deeply listening Exploring solo, observing the outside world until the connection with self is seamless Letting the outside wash over questions you are wrestling with The formative experience of living with indigenous Australians on country Experiencing what it feels like to be a white minority - a necessary unsettling experience to gain profound perspective and humility Diversifying her farming to incorporate horticulture as well as livestock Actively seeking time in community where collective efforts were her salve to city life Using community dance to release unspoken tensions Her love of music and dance since very early childhood - fluid, joyful, embodied wonder that gets us out of our heads - she now dances in the paddock with her sheep Breaking into song with her gran in her last week of life The power of community to dissipate grief Leaning into grief with open emotion and active presence while we celebrate and harvest memories Grieving collectively Being reassured by the sense of their being a collective effort Her freelance for Wonderground Being apprenticed to country as a way of caring
Ep 103 Luke Larson - Listening & learning from the stories in our walls
09 Oct 2022
00:59:58
Nestled in a multi hundred year old barn in Vermont, USA, is Luke Larson, his wife & children. Creating art with 600 year old timber is no mean feat, especially when it’s the wood which leads the way with a language that takes a lifetime to learn. As an analogy to the way we could all interact with the natural world, Luke's love affair with this way of life is absolute and pretty darned compelling when you hear him explain how he discovered it, why he continues it and what his community looks like within it.
Show Notes Walking a mile through the woods to his grandfather's woodshop Gratitude for his team who are as committed to ancient skills and community as he is. Marvelling at the walls of the barns which housed people, animals and creatures of all kinds Discovering 1870’s account ledgers - a window into a past way of existence One of 8 children with thoughtful, open, practical parents who sowed the seeds The onsite processing facility his parents built on their family owned, community scale dairy farm Hand tools offer an opportunity to learn the nature of individual trees and working WITH nature Right from the get go timber framing is about understanding how the timber will evolve over the coming 200 hundred years Woodworking teaches him to understand his place in the ecosystem - listening Accepting you are forever a student of the wood not the other way around Riving - the Scandinavian process of reading the timber to build boats by listening to the song that its singing What made him say yes to being on a television series Keeping Vermont's built culture alive and shared The plus’s and minus’s of having a modern day datasystem available to us. Ensuring this doesn’t replace face to face and generation to generation interactions His intentional approach to how he lives his life as students who are intentionally pursuing a lifestyle that he is in love with. His community encyclopedia of knowledge which becomes more available as trust is built and relationships are forged Raising his own barn with his community around him Translating the lessons he learns from trees to other spheres of the natural world. Rituals of barn raising Timber frames cannot be made alone - they require a team and this is part of its magic Ritualising the teams safety - taking the mundane and bringing reverence to it. Using the dark, quiet moments to maintain his hand tools and honour them Marvelling at the aesthetic touches of days gone by - why did they value these small touches when life was easily as busy as our modern day. Gratitude for his grandfather who allowed him to lean on his workbench Staying intentionally small Balancing business with the need to give back to community Why teaching 60 school kids in using hand tools and listening to the nature of wood has been the highlight of his career How centring it can be to hold and listen to wood. Learn from the tree.
Ep 102 Ronnie Khan - How a single Salmon showed this powerhouse how to take on the world one teaspoon at a time
25 Sep 2022
00:45:14
Beginning with gratitude, listening to her desire to be of service, seeking challenges and not seeing obstacles is the approach Ronnie Khan takes to keep her work nourishing. Her advice...do something, little things, every day. Even though the fire is so big, each and every one of us can use a teaspoon , if millions of us use a teaspoon , we can put the fire out through everyday actions that make a difference.
Her calling was in food relief, what's yours?
SHOW NOTES
How her destiny has led her to a purposeful life The influence of a childhood in an apartheid South Africa When you see inequality visibly before your eyes, it’s very hard not to feel defensive of it The whiplash of moving from apartheid to a socialism centric kibbutz - You work according to your ability & get what you need. Why moving to Australia allowed her to find her destiny in the last 20 years of her life She felt Australia was home the moment she arrived. She would hate for someone to feel that you cannot find your destiny unless you have a deep connection to place. Why finding your calling is not LUCK - gratitude is the key Being 50 before discovering her calling Creating solutions not problems Empowering people to be food literate and nourish themselves with food Nurturing volunteers in the way they ought to be Why not everybody needs to start a charity but to find their empowerment to be themselves Her reasons to write a book - an ordinary person who ended up doing something that is extraordinary, a practical lesson for others to learn from. Mixing family and business Our options to address calamity - teaspoons are one way of putting the fire out. Why she gifts a teaspoon with each of her books Why there's nothing prescriptive on the path to change. Look in the mirror and you will see the joy & your purpose - you can’t buy purpose What brought you the most joy Her purpose does not waver because it is way bigger than her - her purpose is to serve. 4000 volunteers and still onboarding. People love their energy and love that they listen and value their most previous commodity (time) Free supermarket - take what you need and give if you can Oz Harvest cannot operate without magnificent people Finding ways to build volunteer retention Community is the new Immunity - we need connection and more value for more people Covid has lifted a veil - removed a mask for the potential for who we could be We had become human doings and not human beings - how do we be, on this planet, honor nature and stop destroying the things that keep us alive. The more you can see you can do Being able to use your voice Don’t ever underestimate the power of you as an individual and the actions you can take.
Ep 101 Harriet Goodall - Weaving a connection to landscape without ownership
11 Sep 2022
01:03:39
Discovering the value of craft in her early 20's led Harriet towards the natural dye revolution, forming her pathway into weaving. “I took a one day class in basketry & haven't had another job since ” As a talented weaver, Harriet now believes everyone can & should be creative. She shares the joys & challenges of delineating between a job and a creative passion and talks of our primal attraction to hand made things because of the energy &^ essence the otherwise inanimate object has. Join us in this conversation of 'communal remembering of weavery' and perhaps you too will make "can you pull over" your most said phrase.
Show notes Her first heartbreak when they had to leave her childhood home Rebuilding her identity Building a ‘good life’ as renters Contemplation of life on the trading cycle rather than a money oriented one Falling in love with fabrics and traditional village life Buying beanies as their first enterprise Her early adult years running an ethical trade business Iconography stories in weavings Weaving - a really easy way to be connected to nature Foraging, connecting to seasons, learning the way of the land and getting her hands in it “It’s a long relationship you have with your creativity, it ebbs and flows, it comes with you, sometimes it’s working but sometimes it's incredibly challenging” Mastering something is a fraught concept - there are always more angles to be explored. Honoring her Dad by using materials from a fallen tree on his property to create a table for her family. Passing objects of meaning from one generation to the next along with knowledge Why her ‘voice’ is defined by her creativity A drive towards beauty for beauty's sake gives her hope. Her Dads curiosity - “can this beauty be an accident or is there something more powerful than all of us. Why art is a disciplined practice The practice of weaving is an ancient memory - before agriculture even. It had a functional purpose Her ache to sit at the feet of those who are willing to teach the scholarship of basketry The communal remembering of basket weavery The double edged sword of using technology to share traditional skills The magic of weaving to crack open emotional connectedness and vulnerability Workshop junkies who adore the emotional release of the art Exploring the potential of a new material; hairy panic is her latest material The tactility of weaving - you can’t imagine it into being you have to get your hands in It opens your eyes to the seasons and the changes in the landscape Planting a weaving garden or a dye garden The hypocrisy of travelling Rewriting factory production by buying direct from fair trade craftsman There's no machine to make a basket - if its cheap, what were the conditions of the person who made it. Every decision you make requires us to be awake to the impact that decision has. Try not to buy things just because they are cheap Mutual reciprocity and obligation Hosting a street party in rural communities
Ep 100 Jodi Wilson - Learning to see the world with your body not just with your eyes
28 Aug 2022
00:56:28
Author of Practicing Simplicity, Jodi Wilson faced a fear of complacently which grew bigger than her fear of change and it prompted her to pack her 4 young chillins into a caravan for a life on the road and the building of a whole new rhythm. Over the coming years, they got comfortable in the discomfort of change, uncertainty and discovered that the ritual of stirring porridge shouldn’t be underestimated, nor should the remarkability of the ordinary. She encourages us all to take small steps and make brave choices. We need to step outside our front doors, go for a walk and chat to our neighbours.
*Recorded pre federal election
Deciding, on a whim to take her 4 children around Australia in a caravan
Letting her intuition dominate her decisions towards a leap of faith
Consciously close mental tabs
Unravelling the sense of obligation to time frames and social norms
If we are privileged enough to make choice, we have a responsibility to make change
Why it’s important we don't get stuck in our bell jar
How a life on the road in a caravan with 6 people helped refine what we really need in our life.
Making conscious decisions
Sustainability as humans - constantly running,
Creating a life she believed in not one she was wedged into
Intuition led - heart and gut. If it doesn't feel right it can’t be continued
Why she cant access her intuition or gut instinct if she is anxious
Spending time in nature, barefoot on sand, in deserts,
Finding a sense of belonging and connection in ancestral landscapes
Making major decisions via a woven path of experiences
The romance of a roadtrip was appealing but the reality was that I had to get dirty
You carry the dirt of your travels are carried in the crevices of your skin
Reminiscent stories of they’re 2.5 years on the road
Settling in Tassie in a 1950’s bungalow
Defining what it is you DO WANT
Creating ritual and time for self while on the road
Looking at the stars and basking in the silence of the night
Creating more time in your life because of the choices we’ve made
Simplicity starts where you are with what you have - simplicity is an attitude and a mindset
Simplicity ebbs and flows with the demands of our lives
Collective heartache and collective exhaustion
We haven't evolved from the primal beings we are but we have been distracted.
Nothing gets done unless you take small steps towards it
Replacing the perfectionist hurdles of ‘shoulda’ with the compassionate reality of “I will when I can”
Feeling like a local when the neighbours stop for a chat and the shop owners know your name
Living with little and raising her kids to see this gives her hope
We have lost a giant! Dan Palmers death has left many of us feeling not only shocked and deeply saddened but dismayed and destabilised. He was an individual who embraced his role as a 'challenger' of the accepted, he leaned into the hard questions and held the hand of a movement which was all the better for his efforts to make it stronger through open and honest conversation. He pushed his comrades to seek more, made us comfortable in the uncomfortable, offered us tools to navigate this and was beating the drum for all of us to transition our paradigm as quickly as we could manage. His trademark wit, disarming knack of bringing the personal into the professional and forever returning to the 'human' was a talent.
I've no words to reconcile our collective reality in having lost such a beautiful man and important voice - its hardly believable. But mustering your people, genuinely checking in on each others mental health and remembering we are mere humans who are fundamentally collective beings is an important place to begin. Go gently, be kind and love openly.
In honour of an incredible individual - enjoy his wise words. x
Ep 98 Gabrielle Chan - Why we should give a f*$#% about farming!
03 Aug 2022
00:51:52
Recorded just days after the Federal election, Gabrielle Chan doesn't mince words - even when bone tired. A celebrated journalist with the Guardian, outspoken advocate for rural Australia and encourager of individual agency. "Our system has been made up buy people and it can be rewritten by people". Lets not wait for Government to bring change but get active and organised now during times of abundance.
Show Notes Connecting the grass roots regen ag movements with top down politics The need for change in our food, water, land management policies “We export a lot of sausage sandwiches - beef and wheat” Why it’s time to change the narrative around Australia's ag sector Why ‘level playing fields’ are a farce The fragility of financial deregulations, long global supply chains increasing disease, increased drought - how do we as a sovereign nation reassure ourselves of continued prosperity The potential for rural policy to create the framework that allows smaller scale and regen practices to thrive The power of the colonial squatacracy How do we bring policy reform to ag so it has relevance for smaller scale 7 regen practices to thrive The potential of utilising the “voices for” movement as a model for local food to grow Why we need to re-engage with politics The thing that only Govt does is set the ground rules for how we conduct our business. People need to be involved in politics to influence its direction The need for strategic water policy to better support us on the driest continent on earth Talking about water, food and skills while we are in times of abundance Where does the role of govt need to stop and allow room for community to pick up The ongoing debate about why we do not yet have drought policy or food policy Refine what you want to change - get organised and get active in the arena from bottom up The big secret - we are ALL MAKING IT UP Her slow, gradual, accidental path to being a communicator. Her writing approach - just keep writing, push through the creative barriers The process of sitting down and ordering your thoughts results in a unique Connecting the systemic dots through political reporting The history of farming and nature control The Connectivity of farming to EVERYTHING ELSE Ag and environment are different political portfolios - WTF We cannot have an economy without an environment The need for the economy the environment + the desires of the humans involved in farming to be interacting The need to account for ecological resources
Questions the fundamental systems Finding optimism in the work done by others Having faith in humanity Connecting people to spark change
Ep 97 Sandra Henri - Making that ONE DAY define the rest of your life
17 Jul 2022
01:03:58
Summary
What can weddings teach us? To be intentional, to build ritual, to connect with our community, to co-create celebration, to build co-relational practices. Weddings are the perfect ‘on ramp’ for people to consider their long term shift for the way they live their life - its feel good activism that's fun, love filled and purposeful.
Show Notes
Creating a wedding carbon calculator
Her aha moment on the ground in Malawi
The average western wedding costs $35k
Incorporating more giving into our weddings
Using weddings as a chance to give back
The fundamental lack of sustainability mindsets in the wedding sphere
Creating a day that represents peoples truth
Rewriting wedding culture
Covid weddings - smaller, simpler and more meaningful
Reverse the wedding plan design to build from the basics up
A midday nap = success
Enough is living a life where I can look after myself, my family and my mental health
Learning to be satisfied with who we are within ourselves
The more grateful you are the more generous you are
Building your community through your wedding
Wedding rituals
Coregulating by placing a hand on each others heart and breathing together
Cocreating the wedding with your community
Slowing down and honouring the ceremony
Repeating the wedding rituals with a small group of special people
Weddings are one of our very last traditions and this means it carries much weighty expectation
The smaller weddings are more intimate and allow more room for open emotional vulnerability
Weddings that don’t follow the rules but create their own patterns
Ensuring that you are awake and heard by each other not just on your wedding day but for a lifetime
The way you celebrate your wedding day is the foundation for the way you will spend your life together
If the wedding planning is all driven by the bride does this set the tone for the relationship
Having the hard questions about values alignment before you get to the altar
Reframing value and reconnecting multi generations - yearning to recreate traditional connections
Shared stories across generations
Using our privilege to share knowledge and action resilience
Reducing travel and guest size is the single greatest way to reduce a wedding footprint
Avoid imported flowers opt instead for ‘slow flowers’
Not letting pinterest be the guide but the seasons
Think about every decision you make as something that can regenerate, sustain or degenerate something or someone
Small weddings are more relaxed
Defining a united vision and purpose of something thats greater than yourself
As the host of the the 'regen-narration podcast, listening, learning and storytelling is this mans lens. Join us in getting comfortable sitting in silence while we wait for the insights With an intent for working collaboratively and creating a community of care, this conversation is flowing and abstract, reflecting on our life of fat, comfort and ease while we need to to embrace the discomforts of our future - learning new skills to navigate a world without rose coloured glasses while maintaining action and hope that is meaningful and uplifting.
Show Notes
Why his podcast is its own entity
Why he is as curious and hopeful as all heck
Meta narratives of the regeneration movement
How communities are used as political pawns and divided when actually we are stronger when united
What he imagines life will be in 50 years
Why he believes our future is not yet written
Elite structures are the abstractions blocking all of us from connection to country
What he is doing to get around the colonial abstractions
Finding what it is you can bring to others and offering it with generosity
How can we all implement the things we are learning to the way we live our lives
Building a community of people
Navigating the complexities of human-ness in our efforts to rebuild our communities
Creating a Community of care
Prioritising the living systems - not just supplanting the current paradigm solutions
Owning and claiming your own storytelling narrative - be in it, share it, connect with it
Removing binary thinking
Revelling in the space of head/heart truth
Our mind (the way we think) is based in biological reality and so is the way we feel - how can we chart a holistic, intuitive, experiential way forward
More of us are going to feel the sharp edges of climate impact
The power of the in-between
While we’re nothing on our own we are magnificent as a sum of the parts
Minimising intellectual explanation and leaving room for a felt experience
It’s time to come together across cultures, across words, across knowledge barriers
Our divisions are usually accentuated by the powers that be
Ep 203 Meg Ulman - The Beautiful Weight Of Living a Neo Peasant Life
19 Oct 2025
01:09:41
In this conversation, Jade sits down with Meg Ulman (sadly not in person) — heart led writer, mother, educator, maker & one part of Artists as Family — to unpick what it really means to live on your own terms.
They trace the winding road toward a neo-peasant life — one defined less by nostalgia & more by intention. They talk about living with a fundamental trust in yourself to make decisions, parenting within community & the grit & grace of staying true to your values.
Meg describes herself as cash poor but time rich, together they explore what that trade-off really feels like.
They talk about the ache of impermanence — how everything we love we will lose — what it means to become good at grief rather than trying to outrun it. What it feels like to feel alive, trusting your instinct to survive & holding a desire to be part of that holding — the invisible web that keeps us tethered to one another & to the earth itself.
Meg shares her reflections on solitude, on listening deeply to the land beneath her feet & on the quiet privileges of aging — not as decline, but as initiation. There’s talk of ritual, of story & of the small daily acts that remind us who we are.
It’s a conversation that doesn’t romanticise simplicity but celebrates the beauty & honesty of a life well noticed.
Ep 95 Kristine Harper - Seeking & designing a sensorial existence
19 Jun 2022
00:56:49
Sustainability is not just what you consume. It's a deeply fulfilling way to be in the world. We ask why we can’t just build arks & sail away with a few privileged like minded people & instead define value in seeking a sensorial life w a connection to place & community. Since moving to Indonesia Kristine has learnt that you can’t count in minutes & hours the value of what you produce, she has watched her little boy learn to read nature & that when you unlearn some things it gives you space to learn new things.
Author of Anti Trend. Kristine is a Dane now living in Bali, with a long and celebrated career in Design Tech. Her research focuses on sustainable product design, philosophical aesthetics, aesthetic nourishment and above all else the social and ecological responsibility of the design world.
Show Notes
Throwing it all in & moving to Bali for a new family life
Recalibrating from a design first approach to a minimalist existence
So many discarded things in our world - deems things valueless
Focussing on permanence rather than short termism
Starting by understanding your aesthetic & pleasure preferences
Avoiding dogma and rules for evolution towards regeneration
Looking to designers to take responsibility for what they put into the world
How life altering it is to be outside all the time in her tropical life
How going barefoot & being out-of-doors connects you to your surroundings
Convenience is the biggest sinner in the face of a sustainable existence
Ep 94 Claire Dunn - Rewilding our soul with the Natures Apprentice
05 Jun 2022
01:00:06
What would it be like to rely solely on yourself, lean into ecological literacy, to really notice the changing patterns of the season & offer yourself the time it genuinely takes to live intimately with the earth . Claire tells of her pathway to following a calling to initiation - a need to let her social identity rot away on the forest floor & go into a place of deep introspection. Spurred by a primal knowledge that we are living in a world with a deficit in: nature, elders, community, ritual & skills, Claire is rewriting her story & rebuilding the culture around her to become one of eco awakening - it starts with something as basic as an intentional 'wander' or journaling & accepting awkwardness as we relearn the art of village building using pan cultural tools like rhythm, percussion, scent, song, body movement, repetition, nature noticing,
Show Notes Spending a year off grid, alone, connecting to her human identity To do what I could to be a voice for the voiceless Her psyche turned towards a deep interconnectedness which heals the rift between the human soul & nature The constant flow of the forest sees an intruding human as a benign presence Rewriting her patterns of productivity, structure, Growing from a solo wolf into a community being Why she never felt lonely when in the bush Learning the art of community generated & self designed ceremony which links nature & culture Vision quests - multiple days along in a wild place. A way to mark a transition that's already happening. A strong ceremony with an element of ordeal which humbles us & marks us porous to some of the quieter conversations. Deep adaptation is what we’re needing. How can I live well on the land, in community with a thriving culture with wisdom around the journey of adolescence to adulthood. Reclaiming what we've lost, what we've buried but reclaiming culture in a contemporary setting. Hunter gatherers challenge - eating only what you grow, forage or bartered Feasting on community through intention, dedication, time, conflict, conversations Grief as a community builder Sparking ourselves through rewilding - a full expression of our animus being - creativity, love, vision, vitality, quiet, deep attuned listening, Removing abstractions from our ability to connect to our life support systems - our embeddedness with the web of life “Don't ask what the world needs of us, ask what makes you come alive and go do that because what the world needs most right now is a population of people who are alive”
Ep 93 Woodstock Flour on 'grain' the last frontier of the local food system
22 May 2022
00:57:30
Do you know where your grain comes from... the farmers name... how they grow it? Woodstock flour are doing their level best to change the last frontier via the power of building relationships and connecting. Join Jade and Courtenay as they get gritty on grains and hear why we need to value its diversity and regionality just like we do wine or cheese.
Show Notes
Why food production is the avenue to create the most significant environmental change
Finding a way to fit into the family farm as the 2nd generation via a stone mill & farmers markets
Getting people to think about their grain consumption as they do their veggies or fruit
Venturing onto their own farm in Rutherglen
Diversifying & de-risking as part of the succession plan
Maintaining identity in the succession process
Building a farm business that is totally collaborative & openly shares knowledge
The importance of transparency in building a movement
The power of open minded, interactive relationships
Building a business via the lens of socio-political factors
Land ownership & its connection to class & race - privilege
Facing the confronting reality of land ownership on unceded land
CSA model for grains
Covid experiences of customer demands
Open Road Project
Education about true cost of food & reconciling the inaccessibility of this reality
The journey of creating a path to market from scratch
The value of putting yourself into things regardless of financial return in the short time
Holistic management
Collaborating with community is often an opportunity to connect with land, find joy through connection to others & learn from all that’s around us
Acknowledging the slow pace of us as humans
How do we get the next generation interested in food production?
The beauty of rural communities being accepting of each others ways & thinking
Finding solidarity in the wine growing community
Rising early to paint - no excuses, no interruptions
Defining business roles in a small family business
Being deliberate about the daily decisions to ensure balance
Ep 92 Become a creature of the planet with INDIRA NAIDOO
08 May 2022
00:46:34
Following the shocking & heartbreaking death of her younger sister Indira leant into grief with the help of the natural world. She formed a deep friendship with a tree, learnt the power of self trust & became conscious of death in a way that led her to see puddles as portals into another world. Despite the genesis, this conversation is joyful & powerful.
Show Notes
Forced to be present - the pressure is off
Living the now is how the body and mind forces you to be in grief
"The ‘now’ is not muddied by the past or the expectation of the future"
Tackling the big topics and being prepared to sit with loss, grief and unexplained emotions
Discovering that the answers to all the questions sit within you if you're prepared to lean into the discomfort
Discovering it's possible to feel closer to people in death than in life
The forgiveness that comes with death
Deliberately seeking the wondrous memories to overcome the sadness
Becoming much more contented and grateful in the face of grief
Live while you are alive and don’t die until you are dead - suck the marrow out of life
Why the fuzziness has been taken out of life - she is rarely not sure anymore
Learning to listen to herself
Learning to make your backyard your world
Why her tree is her favourite place on earth
Waiting for a generation before we see the impact of our actions
By being still you realise you're not separate from nature but part of it.
Why she no longer sees where her skin ends and the bark on the tree begins
Let’s go fly a kite together
Reminding people to seek healing capacity through nature
Finding ways to create a sense of boundless space
Understanding the impact of the colour green
Allow yourself to be where you are
Trust how you’re feeling, what makes you feel better
The varied faces of grief
Why acceptance wasn’t enough - seeking meaning is the next phase
Learning we are in ‘the line’
Becoming livened by the idea that death won’t elude any of us
Discovering how much knowledge is already in your DNA - but learning how to unlock it
Unlearning ‘being the one with all the answers’
Spending time with people who are “experts in life”
Stepping away from manufacturing experiences
Discovering intoxication by being aware of the nature around me rather than the addition of stimulants
The power of observation
Becoming conscious of the subtle nuances in life
Being drawn to the force of a tree
Baby steps to bring change NOW to open a crack of light in life
Ep 91 SUMMERTIME Throwbacks Hannah Maloney on following your shen!
06 Feb 2022
01:03:27
Summer is for going slow with your people. We're making the most of this too here at FS HQ. But don't worry, we've created a short & sexy summer season of thought provocation by delving into the archives & reloading some of the best conversations we've recorded over the last two years.
If there's a human who represents the quintessential qualities of living like tomorrow matters, it just might be Hannah Maloney.
A former front line picketer, Hannah transitioned to a more sustainable approach to advocacy for climate action and First Nations justice when she founded Good Life Permaculture and is now based in Tassie on Muwinina country where days of voluntary simplicity provide time for her community which she collaborates with to teach, design and live with love.
Hannah is a radical homemaker who has just released a book, blogs her knowledge for all to learn from and has recently forayed into the world of television presenting on Gardening Australia.
SHOW NOTES
Hannah's transition from frontline activism to a more sustainable pace to avoid burnout
Why a simple life can be a hard life but when infused with joy, a wonderful life
Following your Shen energy
Choosing to sit on the edge of comfort and forcing yourself to cope with discomfort where often the greatest outcome is achieved
Showing up despite adversity, for the sake of the individual AND self assurance
Discovering the wonders of planting, food flowers and fibre
Going to bed in a state of love every day
Practical ideas for swapping resources with our neighbours like your vacuum
Ep 90 SUMMERTIME Throwbacks - Steph Green - Raising wildlings, romancing the self and removing the noise
30 Jan 2022
00:56:58
Summer is for going slow with your people. We're making the most of this too here at FS HQ. But don't worry, we've created a short & sexy summer season of thought provocation by delving into the archives & reloading some of the best conversations we've recorded over the last two years.
Get to know the wild, wise and wonderful Steph Phillips (aka Green and Growing Things) who's living the simple life in rural Tassie.
Steph shares her four year transition from “Stiletto Steph” to “Simple Steph”, now raising three nature-loving wildlings in a frugal, seasonal and rhythmic fashion that's our kind of inspirational.
In this slow paced and honest convo, Steph talks about everything from making paint from foraged materials to self-compassion, community bonds and her love/hate relationship with social media.
One of those positive and affirming conversations that'll make you feel a whole lot better about the world. Listen in.
SHOW NOTES
Raising wildlings
From having a purpose-built shoe wardrobe to her current life
The influence of Sir David Attenborough in kicking off her life changes
Bedding down small changes before you leap to the next change
The importance of hibernation time: read, think, sit in order to gain strength for the busy times
Helping kids fall in love with the earth
Avoiding comparison-itis with really strong boundaries on social media
Why we need to stay connected to self, our surrounds, the natural world
The ‘say and do gap’. The power of leading by example and sitting in your crap.
Guiding children with the mantra: “Use your manners and trust your heart.”
Moving to Tassie four years ago
A day in the life of a family of five who are living intentionally and simply
Creating a farm of ‘pets’
Natural activities for kids: foraging, paint-making, collections
Forcing yourself to see the beauty in things; to stop, observe and give them the reverence they deserve.
The delight of writing a book that fosters creativity and curiosity
Being kind to ourselves despite feeling the weight of hypocrisy
Participating in things that are out of our comfort zones; womens circles, chanting groups
Everyone has a story
Treating your phone like the inanimate object that it is
Ep 89 SUMMERTIME Throwbacks - Rob Greenfield Embodying the change you wish to see!
23 Jan 2022
00:57:17
Summer is for going slow with your people. We're making the most of this too here at FS HQ. But don't worry, we've created a short & sexy summer season of thought provocation by delving into the archives & reloading some of the best conversations we've recorded over the last two years.
Warning: this episode with Rob Greenfield might make you want to do something crazy - like sell all your material possessions, set off on an adventure with only a backpack and faith in human kindness, or build a tiny home from reclaimed materials with your mates.
Rob is an activist & humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable, just & equal world.
He embarks on extreme projects to bring attention to important global issues & inspire positive change.
Rob’s life is an embodiment of Gandhi’s philosophy, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” He believes that our actions really do matter & that as individuals and communities we have the power to improve the world around us. Rob donates 100% of his media earnings to grassroots nonprofits and has committed to living simply and responsibly for life.
This conversation strikes the balance between inspiration & groundedness, & will leave you feeling both comforted & courageous.
SHOW NOTES
From shining his car on Sundays at age 25 with dollar signs in his eyes to dumpster diving over 2,000 times and being a beacon for radical change around the world.
The decision to transform his life so he stopped destroying the earth
Making one positive change every single week for two years
Intersectional environmentalism - deeply intertwined problems and their solutions
Building feedback loops towards empowerment and a sustainable foundation
Holistic decision making
Travelling the world for the same price as the annual cost of a car
Building freedom by avoiding the minimum monthly repayment trap
Living a life that's not so 'protected’ or ‘insured’
The truth: a quality existence takes time, travel, eating, learning, conversing.
Spreading excess when you have it so life is more equitable - from those who have enough to those who have too little.
Demonetising life relies on more human kindness
The illusion that money makes us independent
Teaching our kids critical thinking and about relationships to thrive in a post carbon economy
Skill sharing
The power of needing each other
The problems with convenience
The psychology of change
The value of minimising judgement and enhancing compassion and understanding
Starting with the things which excite you the most
Ep 88 SUMMERTIME Throwbacks - Tricia Hogbin - Earning a resilient life!
16 Jan 2022
00:57:17
Summer is for going slow with your people. We're making the most of this too here at FS HQ. But don't worry, we've created a short & sexy summer season of thought provocation by delving into the archives & reloading some of the best conversations we've recorded over the last two years.
Have you spent much time in the bush on your own? Do you listen to your heart when making life's big decisions? What about social media - ever given it the flick?
This conversation with Tricia Hogbin of little eco footprints might inspire you to do more of all three.
Tricia lives with her husband and daughter in a downscaled shipping container, and while her “husband earns the money, she earns their resilience”.
She takes her cues from Mother Nature and the moon, and knows the power of taking a breather, slowing down and seeking answers by turning inwards.
With a good dose of open and healthy conversation about the life stages of women , all things moon cycles, shamanic witchcraft and spending time alone in the bush, this might just be the conversation all women need to hear to inspire that curious path of listening to one's heart.
SHOW NOTES
Avoiding the debt trap
Childhood commitment to protecting nature
Obscene naive materialism where consumption is dictating our choices
Nature connection gatherings for women, focus on slowing down, tuning into inner self, ritual
Barefoot bushwalking, women’s circles
Living a life by the cycles of the moon
Experiencing a wilderness solo
Stepping away from the grip of social media & taking a six month sabbatical
Having the same rules for online communications as we do in the real world
Raising children who are resilient, creative and courageous
Shamanic Womancraft: reconnecting with the earth seasons and the lunar cycles. “A way to facilitate healing by reclaiming our feminine knowledge.”
Facing menopause
Pre Menstural Supervision
Maiden, Mother, Maga, Crone
“The deeper the journey, the more inwards I face and the smoother the road out in front.”
Seeking time with wise elders
Taking time in the forest for wild solitude to create a clear vision and gift yourself time
The beauty of being uncomfortable and inconvenienced
Turning the volume of others down so we can listen to our wise hearts
Ep 87 SUMMERTIME Throwbacks - Kirsten Bradley of Milkwood Permaculture
09 Jan 2022
00:52:38
Summer is for going slow with your people. We're making the most of this too here at FS HQ. But don't worry, we've created a short & sexy summer season of thought provocation by delving into the archives & reloading some of the best conversations we've recorded over the last two years.
Kirsten Bradley has dedicated the last 13 years (in cahoots with partner Nick Ritar and a host of thinkers and doers) to helping people learn permaculture skills for living like it matters.
We’re referring to Milkwood, of course. And today we get a backstage pass to the brain of its co-creator; a joyous conversation indeed.
Kirsten has a knack for distilling big ideas into bite size words of wisdom, bringing decades of lived experience to our cuppa-tea-with-a-mate interview that will leave you feeling affirmed and hopeful.
She shares her trajectory from inner-city artist to iconic permaculture educator, author and champion of back-to-basics living. Her thoughts on long-term renting, community sufficiency, ways of stewarding land (that don’t necessarily involve buying a massive property), how to bypass hypocrisy and why to get comfy with shades of grey.
Post-episode, you’ll probably want to knock on your neighbour’s door and offer them surplus garden greens - because, according to Kirsten, community connection is the bedrock of a better life (and planet). Listen, absorb, enjoy.
SHOW NOTES
Living in Tassie - autonomy and community sufficiency.
Insights from their trials of different ways of living (including family farming, community living, homesteading, share houses).
Alternative ways to steward land (other than ownership)
Actions to consider now foro a better future: 1. Growing food, anywhere/anyhow. 2. Community involvement - get enmeshed, get involved. 3. Figure out your greatest skills and what you can contribute to and learn from your community.
Reframing life towards what matters
Why helping people reclaim lost skills is the most incredible life path she could have chosen.
Bypassing the guilt of hypocrisy and embracing good habits.
The value of seeking out ‘wild spaces’.
Why getting to know your ecosystem is fundamental to living a good life (your watershed, the First Nations title for the land you reside on, your climate, your seasons)
The evolution of thought and practical outcomes which has come from living in different environments and communities.
Accepting shades of grey over black and white.
Stepping past the one family/one house concept.
The tension between tenancy, tenure, community values, land use/management and ownership.
Ep 86 SUMMERTIME Throwbacks - Sadie Chrestman from Fat Pig Farm. It’s never too late to start farming!
02 Jan 2022
00:57:08
Summer is for going slow with your people. We're making the most of this too here at FS HQ. But don't worry, we've created a short & sexy summer season of thought provocation by delving into the archives & reloading some of the best conversations we've recorded over the last two years.
This week, Sadie Chrestman that beautiful soul from Fat Pig Farm shares her story of moving to Tassie with partner Matthew Evans to start a new, rural life - in her forties. We ask her what it’s like being ‘that famous treechanger’, why she’s obsessed with the soil, about her pledge to drink tea with strangers, and how she discovered her dream job at 50.
Her humble, level-headed wisdom is the antidote to overwhelm and an inspiration for anyone wanting to radically change their life - one pig at a time.
SHOW NOTES
Sadie’s unconventional childhood in India and Indonesia.
The impacts of COVID-19 on Fat Pig Farm’s long table lunches.
Pros and cons of homesteading (in covid times)
Why you can’t isolate yourself from your community (even if you’re pursuing self-sufficiency).
Why to knock on your neighbour’s door and say hello - even if you live in the city.
How to stop worrying so much about what people think.
The beauty of finding something in common with a complete stranger.
A pledge to connect at the school bus stop.
Why growing food and replenishing the soil helps reassure her in a time of climate emergency.
How you can generate your own sense of place - even if you’re a long way from home.
Words of encouragement for first generation or “older” farmers.
The simple ways we can all begin a transitional path to a better tomorrow.
Has Sadie ever doubted the path she’s on?
Sadie’s one piece of advice for a better tomorrow.
Ep 202 Navigating community - Life in an eco village with Suzie Brown
12 Oct 2025
01:05:01
What does it really look like to live inside the dream of community? To share walls & gardens, decision-making & dinner tables — & to raise children in a village that actually lives its values?
In this conversation, we sit down with Suzie Brown, long-time advocate for sustainable living & proud resident of the Narara Eco-Village. Suzie opens the gate & lets us wander through the realities of intentional community life — from the joy of shared purpose & spontaneous connection, to the inevitable challenges of governance, regulation & difference.
She shares how Narara’s unique decision-making structures help navigate conflict, why research & planning matter long before the first foundation is laid & what it takes to keep a community diverse, accessible, & truly alive.
This chat is as much about belonging as it is about building — about the quiet power of volunteering, the laughter that spills from community events & the deep satisfaction of knowing you’re part of something larger than yourself.
So settle in & join us as we explore what happens when a group of humans decides to live more lightly — & more together.
Ep 85 Brenna Quinlan - ‘Moonthly' Cycles, Sociocracy and a Weekly Dose of 'Soupie'.
12 Dec 2021
00:50:21
Much has changed since we last spoke with this illustrating educator. She shares the ins & outs of life in a house truck, seeking ‘normalcy’ while building her new home in WA & her lived experience of life in intentional communities all over the world. She delights at her recent discovery of sociocracy as a tool for empowering and engaging individuals and we delve into her efforts to stay kind, creative and connected in this time of great transition.
Episode Summary
Becoming comfortable with really big changes Her tick boxes for the place she is happy to live in Life in their vegetable oil truck - big red bev Creating her own vision with partner Charlie McGee Sourcing her food without having a place to grow it herself Creating a life that is less transitory Land ownership was always an elusive idea Finding safe places to live by trading social capital Building a long term home Coming to terms with a forever home and think long term - building soil, growing perennial crops, Using legacy thinking to make your decisions Throwing her creative energies behind making change New Year ceremony - writing a recap of previous year and hopes for the coming year Animals really tie us to the deep ancestral seasonal existence, sun up, sun down Moonthly cycle - celebrating every full moon with your people The fund and games of building your own home Living in a 2 x 3 metre truck Breaking the cycle of the endless to-do list The nitty gritty of life in an intentional community Peace Street community Her lived experiences of life in intentional communities all over the world Sociocracy - details of this process in action Dividing into working groups for action and accountability Defining your roles in a new social environment Designing her home using permaculture design thinking Moments of reflection are an investment in a future work life balance. ”Sometime by taking a step back allows different and new ideas to flourish that take more than one step forward” Tuning into creativity when things are quiet Why hope sits in action The main thing we need right now if for everybody who can - to do something, no matter how small Seeking feedback loops which connect you to the issues surrounding us Sourdough isn't going to save the world but if it connects all the middle class people in the world to do something then this is where the awakening will occur. Observing how differently people approach the art of creating ripples. We’re in this for the long haul - there isn't time for weekend activism The role of the arts in making sense of the challenges and our response to it. “Soupie” a community gathering excuse Kindness for humanity lessons from around the globe Finding ways to be happy with not much Most of the world lives with so much less than what Australians call normal If we have privilege and we live lives of abundance, the least we can do is actively contribute to our community.
Ep 84 Tyson Yunkaporta - Living with pattern, lore & the real human economy of mutual aid
05 Dec 2021
00:59:16
Tyson Yunkaporta is an Apalech man who is an academic, researcher arts critic & father. He is also the author of Sand Talk, an extraordinary reading experience. Like many of Australia’s First Peoples, he has a complex identity and history but it's this that gives him authority to write and speak in a way which connects the wisdom of the past to the needs of the future.
The way he thinks demands a longer term perspective. He is both philosophical and practical, compassionate yet realistic. He is filled with an other-worldly understanding of humanity. In this conversation he urges us to consider the non linear complexity of the world.
He challenges our expectations, points out cultural shortcomings and invites us to recognise indigenous concepts and their history. Importantly he shows how these patterns have the potential to be incorporated into our non indigenous thinking which builds hope and possibility to benefit us all.
“I don’t have answers but I know that stories connect us to country. Country knows the answers. Notice it and be a custodian".
Episode Summary Minimising abstractions between lore and land The illusion of the environment which is hidden by siloed systems Let’s look like dickheads for a minute while we work out the path forward Looking for seasonal signs and responding to them Lore carries recipes for how to live our lives with story and pattern Coming back into rhythm with the natural world Running out of time - the time to reconnect with country is now The dominating authoritarianism in the western world demands people are disconnected from the landscape Mutual aid activism - not about throwing bombs but making sure everyone is fed. Self determination being thwarted by authoritarianism Stop looking at things and look at structures, systems and patterns instead Quietly getting on with it - syndicate your neighbourhood with the next neighbourhood The bullshit of nation building is key in the decimation of connection to country. Activism is an industry Positive and negative feedback loops to understand how symbioses interlock with others Story, ceremony and ritual for real thinking and real meaning making Until art became capital it was something that every human did every day to understand their place in the world How do we find a way of storytelling without reducing it to words "Image, dance, song - can all portray story but they have no depth of meaning if they don't have place" The lore is in the land "Leave those who are pecking over the carcass of the earth to their dying beliefs and the rest of us can get on with rebuilding relationships, stories, knowledge and place. Quietly and with people" Why we need to stop self flagellating acknowledgments of country and start building relationships
Ep 83 Naturally Well with Jo - Being an intuitive generalist, surrendering to reality & not pretending!
28 Nov 2021
00:58:57
Jo Smith is a self proclaimed generalist who juggles life as a twin mama, market gardener, yoga therapist & active contributor to her tiny Tasmanian community on Bruny Island. Jade & Jo shoot the breeze about farming life & decide that despite the hardships, she wouldn't trade it for the world - even the wind. Join them for tangents & truths of this beautiful, grounded, physical & dirty existence at the bottom of the world.
Episode Summary Growing food for others to navigate mental health Being a twin mama, type A, vata personality Finding solace in the garden letting mother earth heal The endless lessons that are taught by gardening Learning to surrender to the reality that there’s no control If we nurture mother nature she nurtures us and then we can nurture others Seeing gardening as being a nutritionist From no knowledge about growing food to feeling deeply connected to land Keep growing food no matter what the success or failures Learning from others regardless of fundamental beliefs Considering water, wind, soil type and access to markets before going into farming/growing The truth of country life - it’s bloody hard Farming is the LONG game - Don't get into farming if you’re seeking instant gratification 10 years to build up the soil as a no dig garden Wanting to grow food rather than go to the shops Prioritising self care; daily meditation, nightly restorative yoga, excellent diet, Starting with 2.5 x 2.5 metres to learn the art of gardening before expanding into market scale Reminding ourselves that we can’t do it all Having $ to set up a farm and juggling that balance Sharing the farming experience honestly, Hope driven by the increasing enthusiasm from people who want to be part of the change Identifying and sharing the ‘WHY’ behind our lives It took a couple of years to recalibrate her pace & become comfortable with the quiet The art of entertaining yourself - taking ownership of our leisure time Yogic Dharma - your life purpose Reconnecting back to self Building self belief and learning to really listen Circular reciprocity Living naturally and sharing with others as her way to offer service We make change by creating communities of sharing wisdom and knowledge and playing the part that we are supposed to. Living in community requires incredible patience, tolerance and open mindedness Embracing identity as ALL the things that we are not just the curated brand Being YOU Becoming adept at adapting Being an intuitive generalist rather than an academic specialist Not pretending - Finding your flow Leaning on community Re establishing our culture to acknowledge those around us
Ep 82 Su Dennett - going lateral in bare feet, prioritising ritual & patterning over institutional education
21 Nov 2021
00:53:30
Absorb permaculture wisdom from an elder who encourages us to look up to the sky and then act out across the earth, in unison with others and with dirt beneath our bare feet. Su Dennett lives at Meliodora a 2.25 acre, 35 year old permaculture demonstration property she has established with her partner David Holmgren. She is a force - as strong as she is soothing. This conversation pushes us to connect with self, place & community & to create a life that is small, localised, abundantly rich and with community shared responsibility for the village.
Summary
Women being in their power Growing up just after the war more or less self sufficient as her life foundation The value of learning through adversity Her journey to living a ‘feeling’ ‘human’ life Lessons learnt while living in Europe - growing food and connecting to the earth Going lateral rather than climbing to the top which is futile and disconnecting Buying marginal land in the country rather than a city block to avoid a mortgage Letting kids learn by ‘osmosis’ through doing rather than ‘teaching’ The limitations of the school system learning about nature and the patterns of life before we learn about everything else While there are limits to a seasonal life, this does not have to be limiting Our focus needs to be on the limitless growth areas of community Learning to be alongside those who think differently Being alienated from nature requires a pathway to get back in - family and household economies are the baseline for that Even the village fool had a role to play The intellectual is only one part of us Avoiding a sanitised world for the sake of a diverse gut health Living expansively Begin with bare feet - stop isolating ourselves from the earth Lockdown silver linings Removing the back fence to create community Sharing your excess as a stepping stone to relationships Looking for the positives in what otherwise felt like negatives - bikes over cars, simple peasant foods, seed sharing, Discovering a happier state with simplicity Exploring ONE thing at a time A lateral existence Respecting earth, water, air by actively considering them and slowing down Womens place is in the home but so is mens and childrens How much is enough? Why don't we sit on the floor more, live in smaller spaces, White mans burden of ownership - but how we transition away from it is the challenge Learning about our own cultural heritage in order to understand our first nations heritage Respecting elder wisdom Reintroducing rites of passage to honour all stages of life Building support networks for our youth Avoiding sanitisation from food to ideas You cannot become a well grounded individual if you don't suffer adversity - endless happiness is farcical Fulfilment is about being valued, thinking laterally, be an individual.
Ep 81 Megan O'Malley - Dancing & walking her way to a new education vision for the next world
14 Nov 2021
01:00:17
A story teller for change, voice for young people and founder of Humiform. Megan became a professional dancer at 14, a fair fashion advocate who walked across South East Asia to share stories of good in her early 20’s and now has turned her efforts to working with kids in a way that gives them agency and a connection to the outside world. She speaks not only from her lived experience but also from a place of realness that is easily relatable and that kids gravitate towards. She asks ‘what if’, and walks her talk.
Episode Summary
Changing her view of the world through the lens of passionate social and environmental activist kids
Giving kids the chance to drive their own projects
Do screens change our kids worlds
Having parents who trusted her 100%
Starting a full time dance career at 14 until she was 27
Cruise ships are a microcosm of the real world where inequality is prevalent and impossible to ignore
Leaving cruise ships once she realised her white privilege
Why it’s so hard to live your values when the systems are set up to maintain status quo.
The difficulty in finding time to appreciate nuances especially in the fashion industry
The inconvenience of nuances in marketing
Looking to nature for the diverse solutions and embracing it
Young people are the way forward because they JUST GET IT
Young people are powerful. They see the interconnectedness of the world
The future our children face is vastly different to the world we faced
Coming to terms with knowing that the world is going to change and there will be loss
Acknowledging that change has always happened and being ok to be part of the adaptation
Building a business as a force for good
Businesses taking action where the government is not to create deep change
Businesses need to give back to the world rather than just taking
The loneliness of being an edge dweller in the things she chooses to do
The education system is a dinosaur
Avoiding projects that perpetuate the white saviour mentality
Walk Sew Good - her walk across South East Asia to share stories about people creating good fashion stories
15k kg of clothing goes to landfill every 10 minutes in Australia
If we were as connected to our clothing as the people she met on her walk it could change the world.
Creating a space for kids that have no rules
Her vision of an education system
We don’t know what the world is going to look like in the future so who are we to dictate what our kids should be learning
We need to ask “what is the purpose for education in our time”
Be obsessed with not knowing things and let your thinking be challenged
Ep 80 Hannah Maloney - go on, get some of the good life!
07 Nov 2021
00:52:19
Hannah Maloney: Our fave IT girl is back in your ears to share her message of radical hope, living a life of joy and pushing past the overwhelm at the state of the world despite being furious at current politics. In her usual effervescent manner, we chat about all the hard things including her 'unlearning journey' and the power of self reflection. As charismatic and breathtaking as she is accessible-girl-next-door, listen in to this convo with Hannah Maloney for a little taste of the good life ... but don't expect it to be the easy life.
Episode Summary
Released her first book recently.
Radical Hope: how to have active hope.
Code red for humanity. IPCC report.
How to deal with sadness of the state of the world?
Being furious at current politics and industry leaders.
The climate conversation is everyone’s conversation. We need to connect through open-minded, honest conversation. How do you have those conversations on the divide? How are you expressing your deepest concerns without being more divisive?
Start normalising the hard conversations without the fear of stuffing it up, without the fear of offending or misunderstanding the topics and indigenous knowledge.
Creating a cultural revolution where we rebuilt what success looks like Our individual sense of enough in a society that heavily relies on intellect, academia and consumption.
Talk about social justice and how the death of her mother at a young age strengthened desire making to make it a part of your identity.
Family relations: Having a healthy distance in family. In our culture we have this assumption that you have to be close to family and can rely on support from them but that is not always the case for us.
Talk about unlearning all sorts of things! unlearn to dislike the traditional education system and capitalist approach and fear of speaking up.
The importance of reflecting on our own response and to pay attention to our internal landscape. Our capacity to heal ourselves is important in our capacity to heal our environment.
The Hot Box Hack...
Living your best life living below the poverty line.
Ep 79 Claire Riley - Living like tomorrow matters with a diagnosis of MS
31 Oct 2021
00:46:54
Clare is so much more than her MS diagnosis but when she contacted us, eager to share how living like tomorrow matters plays out after a diagnosis, we realised we'd never considered her perspective on the show and in that, our privilege became acutely apparent. 40% of Australians have a chronic illness yet so often it goes unacknowledged. With a pod of her own and a young family she is building awareness by sharing her every day reality while building solidarity for those in similar shoes. This is her story.
Show Notes Suburban childhood that was filled with camping and hiking trips that set her up for an outdoor life Finding her people at Wollangarra What is Wollangarra and how it defined her life Getting a diagnosis of MS Taking multiple years to accept her diagnosis Needing more words for pain to describe what life with MS is like Living like tomorrow matters for those with a life long health diagnosis Why its not always possible to make big moves on sustainability actions "If I can grow and eat a tomato plant from seed - that’s a huge achievement" Getting a teaching degree for the single reason to work at falls creek primary school Redefining herself as someone with a diagnosis "I’m still the same person I was, I just have another chapter" Women are more likely to be diagnosed so the way MS is communicated is very story-like Looking after yourself with MS is a full time job Not having the luxury of ignoring self care needs Fitting in the necessary exercises around the every day needs Embracing being in the cold - swimming every day in the Melbourne bay Being hopeful because of the way her son responds to the world around you Success sits in daily satisfaction and making a difference to all things big and small, moment to moment The value of giving yourself a break - Go gently Take one step - you don’t have to do all the things The open arms of the MS community which encourages conversation, open grief and removing shame 40% of the population have a chronic illness but we are so shamed by this that we don’t talk about it publicly People with disabilities are not necessarily ignored but they are often not seen Planning her days around her health but not wanting to live like its all there is
Ep 78 Beau Miles - a rather odd, story telling hermit who defines community when doing the dishes
24 Oct 2021
00:51:20
Our most downloaded backyard adventurer is chatting with us again but this time with better sound and more sleep under his belt so we are witness to a more true version of this humorous, odd character. A self titled 'polyjobist; a generalist at many things, he shares the challenge of writing a book after a decade in academia, worrying about breaking the law to make films and shares why he took up his granddads wood chopping axes despite his mediochre capability. Our conversation is all 'Miles' - it follows tangents, is really personal and stays true to his advice giving allergy.
Show Notes
Falling short on expectations and promises
Fear of being sued - breaking the law to film documentaries
Reframing your view of the world from your child-like baseline
“Bad River” - soon to be released film series
‘I don’t like being a negative storyteller but the time for me to have an opinion is here
I suppose I love attention but I’ve got hermit written all over me
A really quiet kid that began to bust out into his physicality which helped define him
Was he an undiagnosed dyslexic kid? Is that formative in creating who he is?
Learning maths by building things
Why he took up grandads ax’s to become a wood chopper
Being the mouth piece for those who you surround yourself with
Storytelling via various mediums: Film, book
Being Beau - thinking in tangents, following abstract thoughts, speaking in first person, finding your voice
My greatest skill in life is being a hard worker
Why recording his book as an audio book taught him where his writing faults are
Phenomonology - crating definition and essences out of subjectivity
The challenges of being a story teller
Our life is about defining our essences
While being attracted to individualism - life is simply just better when lived with others
Being watered down as an individual by becoming a parent
Why community is defined by doing the dishes
Reducing moving parts - from film making to doing dishes
Island foods - planning a trip with Paul West, Jade Miles and Beau Miles and three basic foods
Describing himself in three words: Hardy, Resilient, Odd
I think we are all odd but I'm just willing to say it
His allergy to advice giving
If a story teller is doing their job, there will be a million outcomes as others interpret the insights. This is desirable rather than a singular outcome
Living like tomorrow matters MUST look different for every single one of us -that's where the magic sits
Living life with an intentional unknowingness
As a film maker he doesn’t want to know what the outcomes will be, he wants a surprise and that raw, honest reality of one day at a time.
Ep 77 Tammi Jonas - hands-in-the dirt activist encouraging a de-growth model of farming
17 Oct 2021
01:02:32
Sharing her evolution from academic keyboard warrior to her current reality of being an agroecological pork and beef farmer who's pretty darned handy with the butchers knife and equally as sharp of mind in her contributions to the UN small scale farming policy initiatives.
Tammi Jonas is indeed a force of the natural world, never backwards in coming forwards but mellowing with every decade and sharing her successes and failures for the sake of thousands who are following in her footsteps towards a life of farming democracy.
Episode Summary
We dive right into how she fits it all in
Leadership - her style of leading from the front with doggedness and squared soldiers
Research and UN food systems mobilisation
Credibility that comes out of the dirt
Her commitment to food sovereignty across aaaalllllll the tiers of the movement
The brain breaking need to relate local practices to global policy
Linking good global initiatives to local practices
Applying food sovereignty thinking to general consumption issues
Taking power back one skill at a time
We can’t buy ourselves out of this mess - we literally need to joyfully work competently through the upskilling and sharing of
The illusion of choice when you see thousands of items for sale in a supermarket is not a place to genuinely begin
Why she considers herself an “agroecological” farmer (political, social, Agroecological theory of change is considered a science, social movement and practical - dedicated to circular bio economies rather than a purchasing of inputs. Agroecology rejects capitalism but values labour over yield.
‘Benefaction’ - enabling the farm to do their tasks joyfully
The rich reality of running internship programs - who are welcomed with the knowledge that they are becoming food sovereignty warriors
AFSA - first-peoples-first initiative
Solidarity - garnering unexplained wholeness but remembering we are all here for each other
Why there's value in building a new system rather than creating one from the ashes of the old one.
Why the rise and fall of farms and community orgs is part and parcel of the movement and should be encouraged
Being comfortable to share the successes AND the failures as a gift for the greater good
Building a de-growth mentality to avoid the ruthless capitalist system
Creating small scale farming businesses that are FUN rather than slaves to growth
Keeping her eye on the end game dilutes her need to be binary and rage filled
Why the States are not actually similar to the Australian culture - they are wedded to a growth mentality that we don't have so we have an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.
Why it’s ok to scale back from the initial vision
Framing ‘enough’ as being disentangled from the capitalist system - seeing the sky, feeding her community and others and being ok to go slow when needed.
Ep 76 Alice in Frames - Squeezing the bejesus out of life!
10 Oct 2021
00:53:05
You might remember this pocket rocket from Masterchef, perhaps you've heard her on the wireless, has she entertained you at a conference or was she the genius who convinced your kids to love their veggies via 'phenom-e-nom '.
Alice-in-frames loves life and doesn’t take herself too seriously but definitely has multi dimensional attributes. A poly-math who's mischevious pixie like-grin and twinkling eyes defy her hard working focus on reaching her singular goal of 'getting us all to love food - fresh food - especially kids.
Her self proclaimed super power is seeing everyone else's gold and connecting people to create an outcome of alchemy. If her best selling book 'In praise of Veg is anything to go by, this dynamo is on a ticket to success - What a gift to those in the kitchen...and the farm...and the classroom...and the family dinner table!
SUMMARY Her current lockdown project - writing a new book and launching tumami Eating more plants as a self care mechanism Recalibrate your resolution in Spring Teaching skills is in her wheelhouse - reconnecting kids to their food Harnessing pester power for good and allowing kids an agency to share Talking about food from a place of curiosity and open hearted kindness Seeing kids more like a garden than like a piece of wood - soft, evolving, in the moment Pandemic acceleration of people valuing food Creating food markets that are direct to consumer Going without other things to ensure food is her priority Food empowers people to connect in a sensual way Tumami is the everything spread - what actually is it though? 40 days of two ingredients Being a poly math because its fun and it adds value to her community Why she wears a lot of hats and a lot of frames Being a chameleon in the way she presents Four eyes and proud! Her self proclaimed myopic ambassador role Powered by people - plugged into a battery and flying high Her legacy vision - changing the way we speak about food to kids, getting them to love veg Why she can’t meditate but can lose hours potting broad beans Futureproofing the relationship that the next generation has with food Coming at projects from a place of hopefulness and seeking allies Food is the hook to engage kids early and teach them everything from there 'Phenomenom' - a free resource for everyone to engage kids in knowing their Enough is a feeling, its a spark, connection, growth, fulfilment, my family. She wants to finish every single day and feel like she's squeezed the bejesus out of it. Super power: seeing the super powers of others and connecting people. Contagious enthusiasm, she's been gifted a voice that people listen to and find comforting
Ep 201 Tim Pilgrim - Creating Wild Spaces: The Art of Natural Design & The Interplay of Landscape & Storytelling
05 Oct 2025
00:59:00
Today we wander into the layered world of Tim Pilgrim—a landscape architect and gardener who sees soil, water, and wildness as teachers. Tim invites us to connect with the land rather than control it, to design gardens that honour both human need and ecological integrity.
Together we explore the art of observation and the quiet discipline of water management, learning how these practices build truly sustainable landscapes. Tim shares how gardens evolve over time, shaped by climate change and by the gentle hands—and sometimes heavy footprints—of people. We tackle the prickly debates too: lawns that demand more than they give, the dance between native and non-native plants, and the cultural stories that every planting choice can tell.
Tim also speaks to the community side of gardening: how diversity—of species, of people, of ideas—creates resilience; how food can slip seamlessly into ornamental spaces; how the rhythm of a gardener’s life becomes a legacy of naturalistic design.
This is a conversation for anyone ready to see gardens not just as pretty spaces but as living narratives—places where history, ecology, and our shared future root down together.
We chatted about:
Landscapes shape the stories we tell & vice versa
A holistic approach to gardening fosters biodiversity
Designing for wildness requires sensitivity & observation.
Gardens should evolve with the needs of their inhabitants
Next season will kick off next Monday but in the meantime, we are satisfying your insatiable hunger with throwbacks to our fave episodes from season 1. Enjoy these wonderous humans and all their brilliance.
Before you ask, yes this is Charlie Showers of Black Barn Farm - Jade's other half.
Charlie is a fair food advocate, holistic orchardist, landscape scientist and insatiable reader, with an appetite for knowledge that sees him getting up before the birds to devour scientific papers, books and teachings, before putting it into practice at Black Barn Farm.
In this conversation, he shares decades of wisdom with his trademark patience, clarity and intellect. He covers the power of community and regional pride, a new way to frame our 'hypocrisy' in this time of transition, the reality of first generation farming and a sugar-free account of a 'working marriage' and unified vision. You'll get to hear Jade's answers too ;)
No hopium, all clarity in this complex interview that inspires action!
SHOW NOTES
Sitting with the contradiction inherent in your morals and lifestyle
Reconciling hypocrisy in your everyday existence
Being self aware without it becoming unbearable
His childhood role-modelling of ‘family statesmen’ who committed to the needs of their community equally with their own
Maintaining curiosity about our system, culture and economy to impart change
Why farming is the best place for him to share knowledge at a community level and make meaningful change
Why showing rather than telling is the most powerful way to inspire
Being exposed to those who have a different way of being, whirrs the thinking cogs
The importance of self time to recuperate and maintain balance when you’re an introvert
Why endless hope is not always helpful, and hopium is a recipe for ignorance
What a new future might look like
The raw reality of starting up a long-game farming enterprise
The potency of creating a dream together
Undertaking change journeys as a couple
Ideas to ‘blow your mind’
Living examples of how systems interact with and impact on each other
Awe of the Indigenous Australian cultural understanding of the complex web of the world
Making ‘complexity science’ more mainstream for the betterment of all
His evolution of changemaking from panicked urgency to slow and steady solutions
Why being more settled will make his children better change makers
Next season goes live Monday 11th October. Until then we've selected four of our faves to share with you again - they are just SOOOOO good, they're worth hearing again so enjoy having these wonderous humans back in your ears!
If you've never met a Perma Pixie, prepare to be delighted.
Taj, aka. The Perma Pixie, is bringing a little old school witchcraft and spades of permaculture wisdom to Melbourne - and now, to you.
This chick beats to a drum of ‘reciprocity’, a philosophy that acknowledges that we’re part of a cycle that should give as much as it takes.
She’s been delivering permaculture education courses for over a decade (not bad for a young sprout!) and has recently started clinical work as a qualified herbalist. Social patterns and interactions are her greatest love, equal to her fascination with plants and their healing capacity.
This conversation is a must for anyone interested in natural medicine, staying grounded in the fray, the freedoms - and struggles - of running a small business, how to balance impassioned action with self care, and how to be regenerative within a culture programmed to run us dry.
Her deeply felt connection to the seasons, and life steeped in reciprocity and relationship, will either resonate deeply or sow seeds in the garden of your mind.
Enjoy!
SHOW NOTES
How her early ADHD diagnosis encouraged her to seek calm in the natural world.
Taking a circular approach to living in reciprocity with nature.
The power of seasonal acknowledgement; combining the ‘doing’ with the ‘sensing’.
Having the courage to trust your instincts to follow the path of the heart.
Finding balance in the juxtaposition of being an anti-capitalist while running a small business.
Reframing financial stability.
How being an extrovert has enabled her to build a network of nourishers.
Ways to create nurturing community hubs and nodes, which in turn create valid community connection.
Why it's worth summoning the gumption to talk to total strangers and be open to spontaneous interactions.
The fundamental need to have a relationship with our own bodies to take ownership and responsibility of our most important asset - and avoid being a ‘baseline’ human.
Actively avoiding a sedentary body and mind.
Her permaculture and herbal medicine journey - and how it led her to the plants which nourish her.
Why a world filled with sharing is better than a life lived alone.
How she calms the voice urging her to "do more".
Finding balance as a one-woman show when her greatest desire is to be outside - not behind a screen.
Why to do a "needs analysis": What are your needs and what can you offer?
Why relationships are what fundamentally give her hope.
We hear Dan’s thoughts on consciously shaping a vibrant and beautiful life, getting paid for your passion, how to be vulnerable and cut to the chase (rather than participating in superficial BS), the deception of ideas, the illusion of separation from the natural world and why to ask better questions.
SHOW NOTES
Away from reductionist thinking and towards a holistic framework.
Discovering holistic management and the influence of Allan Savory.
How to uncover the deeper intention beneath the goal or dream.
What are the core ingredients of a fulfilling life?
How linear thinking sustains our industrialised society.
Why you can’t just ‘join your life back up’ to create a whole - you need to go right back to the DNA of your values and beliefs.
How to tap into deep harmony and coherence.
Why life can’t be like a knitted jumper.
“Deciding your way” towards the life you want.
Why self work isn’t selfish - it’s a precursor to genuine altruism.
Honouring the need for financial security in a world that hinges on money.
An uncompromising approach to making profit from your passion.
Having hard conversations vs. modern ‘communities’ that stroke our egos.
Why Dan’s excited to be alive at this time in history.
Sending positive ripples into space and time.
The gnarly question of how to instil hope, buoyancy and knowledge in your kids.
Approaching each day as a living whole.
Our obligation to contribute to the beauty of the universe.
How we’ve been hijacked by the idea that the world is a machine.
How to lead with feeling and back up with thinking.
“The intellect is too crude a net to catch the whole” - Christopher Alexander
Why we don’t need to “reconnect” with nature - we have never been separate.
How to relax back into underlying non-separateness.
Understanding “life sheds” rather than arbitrary borders.