Futuresteading – Details, episodes & analysis

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

References

Practicing Simplicity  - book, blog and socials of Jodi Wilson
Kirsten Bradley Futuresteading conversation
Radical Hope Club

Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters

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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.

Things we chatted about
Wildschool
Gaia University
8 shields movement - Jon Young
Tyson Yinkaporta - right story, wrong story

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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

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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.

Buy their co-created perennial Futuresteading calendar

Links You'll Love
Dalee Ella Substack

Loved this? Try another:

EP 151, Dani Wolf, Mashing Together Mama Wisdom and Earth Wisdom

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Buy the Book - Futuresteading - live like tomorrow matters, Huddle - creating a tomorrow of togetherness

Pod Partners Rock: Australian Medicinal Herbs    Code: Future5

We talked about:

Creativity rises and falls with our cycles; honouring them deepens the work

Flat moods are quiet ground where truth takes root

Art reminds us we belong to something vast

Balancing commerce and creation asks for courage and clarity

Our art shifts as we do — mirroring each inner season

Collaboration thrives on bravery, honesty, and deep listening

Homeschooling stirs chaos, wonder, and unexpected insight

When values lead, both life and art hold meaning

Creativity wanders, retreats, and blooms anew

Awareness keeps our creative fires tended

Simplicity and making offer a gentle kind of wealth

Neurodiversity brings texture, colour, and grace to family life

Community living teaches patience, humility, and belonging

Shared spaces grow empathy and reciprocity

Boundaries make tenderness possible

Home reveals itself slowly, like a seed choosing where to root

Living together reminds us how to give and receive with care

Discomfort is the soil where growth begins

Intentional living ripples outward in quiet legacy

A meaningful life is curated through focus and gentle discernment

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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 
• Having the confidence to live from your heart
• Gifting your future self by thinking ahead

References

Fox’s Lane

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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

His ENOUGH

References:

Aftertaste ABC Series
River Cottage Australia SBS on demand series
The Edible Garden Cookbook and Growing Guide - Paul West 2013

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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.

References

Jonai Farms
Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms
Farming democracy
Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Thanks to our podcast partners:
Wwoof Australia
Nutrisoil

Buy the Book
Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters

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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
• Writing a letter to your younger self
• Jump starting our memory making function 

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• ZenHabits
• Slow - Brooke McAlary
• Destination Simple - Brooke McAlary
• Care - Brooke McAlary
• Rites of passage institute
• Alone - SBS series
• Vision Quest Challenges

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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

References
“Surviving the future, culture, carnival and capital”  - David Flemming
Rites of Passage Institute
Recapture the Rapture - rethinking god, sex and death in a world that's lost its mind - Jamie Wheal
2040 Film - Directed by Damon
That Sugar Film - Directed by Damon

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Annie Raser-Rowland is the co-author of two of our most treasured books; The Weed Forager’s Handbook and The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More. Annie is an artist, horticulturalist and adventurer who has a knack for thwacking you with the truth -- in the best possible way.

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. 
• Cultivating the skill of conversation. 

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

The Weed Forager's Handbook ~ Annie Raser-Rowland & Adam Grubb
The Art of Frugal Hedonism ~ Annie Raser-Rowland & Adam Grubb

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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

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• Artist as Family -- YouTube, Instagram + blog
• How Goats are Regenerating a Forest and Protecting This Town from Bushfire -- Happen Films
• A Branch From the Lightning Tree - Martin Shaw 
• The Wild Edge of Sorrow - Francis Weller
• The Invention of Capitalism - Michael Perelman

Podcast partners ROCK!

Nutrisoil  Wwoof Australia

Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters

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