#30 - Serana Hunt-Hughes (Whitefeather): Practical Intelligence, Intuitive Intelligence, and Listening to Land

Practical intelligence and intuitive intelligence belong together. In this conversation, Serana Hunt-Hughes, also known as Whitefeather, shares the thread running through a life that has included camels, horses, photography, emergency towing, community building, regeneration, and healing work.

Sam and Serana explore listening to land, ancestral alignment, relanguaging, peace with Earth, and what it means to restore forms of intelligence many people were taught to dismiss. This is a generous conversation about courage, perception, and building a more relational way of being.

This episode explores:

• growing up where practical intelligence was everything
• spirituality, land, and being guided in the outback
• learning to listen to the wind
• Eagleheart, apprenticeship, and the name Whitefeather
• ancestral alignment and healing across past, present, and future
• practical, rational, relational, and intuitive intelligence
• relanguaging and peace with Earth
• community-led cultural work

Guest bio:

Serana Hunt-Hughes, also known as Whitefeather, is a medicine woman, healing practitioner, visual artist, photographer, and regenerative land practitioner based near Violet Town, Victoria. Her path has included work as a cameleer, horse trainer, tow truck driver, first responder, artist, and founder of Whitefeather Healing Centre.

Through healing work, photography, community cultural projects, and land-based restoration, Serana supports people to reconnect with inner strength, ancestral support, and a more relational way of living. Her work is grounded, intuitive, and deeply shaped by place.

Guest links:

• Serana Hunt-Hughes (Whitefeather): https://www.linkedin.com/in/serana-whitefeather/
• Serana's services writing: https://seranawhitefeather.substack.com/about
• Ancestral Alignment: https://seranawhitefeather.substack.com/p/services
• Eagleheart: https://www.eagleheart.com.au/
• Rose B Simpson: https://www.rosebsimpson.com/works
• Dookie Earthed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=3E_WWLmS_Pc
• Shepparton Art Museum (SAM): https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/collection/about-the-collection/
• Tiokasin Ghosthorse's work: https://firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/programs

Chapters:

00:00 Serana introduction
03:33 Practical intelligence and spiritual longing
07:22 Horses, land, and listening to the wind
11:46 Eagleheart, Whitefeather, and early sensing
17:31 Cancer, ancestral healing, and intuitive intelligence
29:58 Relanguaging, peace with Earth, and regeneration
41:26 Dookie Earthed, art, and community

Explore further:

Discover your Natural Genius one-on-one with Sam: https://naturalgenius.com.au
Learn more about Sam: https://samanthabell.com.au
Subscribe to hear future episodes

About Natural Genius:

Natural Genius is a podcast by Samantha Bell exploring how thoughtful people build, lead, create, heal, and live in ways that are true to who they are.

Across conversations with guests from many walks of life, Natural Genius looks for the live signal beneath the noise, and offers insight, encouragement, and practical wisdom for hearing what matters.

Credits:

Hosted by Samantha (Sam) Bell in Violet Town, 26 March, 2026.
Produced at the Violet Town office, 26 March - 2 April, 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast. We're here to help you tap into your natural genius. Let's go. You're about to meet one of my dear friends, Sarana, who is an incredibly competent person. She's been a Jillaroo, a camelia, raised camels, I think, in the desert areas of Australia and other places. A photographer for many years with a successful photography business. She has been part of the selection committee for the Shepherd and Art Museum, which sounds fantastic. She is a shaman and medicine woman. And for those who are unfamiliar with that term, it means healer. She can sense into other worlds and is incredibly wise. Recently, she was a tow truck driver. She has helped to bring thousands of people to a little town called Dohey, where she used to live. And she is amazing at building communities, growing to amazing humans, and she is a complete treasure to spend time with. Enjoy hearing from Sarana. My amazing friend Sarana, welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast. I might explode with joy.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Sam, it's just been such an honor to have crossed your path at all, let alone to be here on a podcast with you. I'm really grateful for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Well, I had a feeling I may start crying on this podcast and I've started already. Oh, you and I have developed a beautiful friendship.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yes, and you know when you when you meet people that are soul family.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, it certainly feels like that. And it's actually a lovely way to open because recently I flew back in from Queensland and you picked me up from the airport, and it is the most loving gesture. It's so so beautiful. And my auntie and others in my family always had she had that perspective to always pick people up, always drop them off at the airport. Tell me about that. Why is that so important?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

You know, our family always relished going and picking people up from the airport because they're coming to visit you, they're coming to spend time with you. And it's um it's an honor to be visited, it's an honor to have people, you know, come and be a part of your life. And it's it's it's just a beautiful thing to go and pick them up, and not only that, you get good talk time in the car on the way home.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Well, you and I both love a great road trip conversation. And I tell you what, so in all of the airport pickups being picked up that I have experienced, never before have I experienced your version, which included Turkish coffee and gelato. I mean, does it get any better?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

At the bottom end of the airport where you can watch the planes pretty much land on your head. Yeah. So that's another family tradition that goes way back to. So we just took a little here.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Oh goodness, I'm part of your family now. I love the gelato and the Turkish coffee at Melbourne Airport. Listen to that, people. If you're near Melbourne Airport, there's a bus, literally a bus that is uh underneath. Top of Oaklands Road. Oaklands Road. Gosh, I love you giving people good food advice. You have gone through so many incredible chapters of your life. As I mentioned before, as a friend of yours, to imagine you racing across the desert on a camel, or being on horseback in the middle of the desert in Australia, or supporting people that have broken down with their cars recently on the side of the Hume Highway in Victoria and Southern Australia, or seeing you regenerate the land or look after your horses or your dogs. Like there's just so many things that you can do. So, what makes you uniquely you these days?

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Well, I think what makes me uniquely me is something that has been a thread that's been a part of my life since I was born. So yeah, I was born into a beautiful family that was very practical, and practical intelligence was our religion. There was no spirituality, practical intelligence was everything. Um, and so I developed a really strong um ability to, I guess, you know, well, I guess that's why I ended up, you know, working as a tow truck driver and um, you know, working in the Outback as a horsewoman and you know, lots of other practical applications along the way because I was very familiar with it. Um and uh creativity has always been a part of who I am as well, sort of parallel to that. Um as I became an adult, I really moved to a sense of um uh spirituality that I also carried with me into visual arts and photography. And then there's also the thread of this deep spiritual longing, desire, drive that I really couldn't place, you know, as a child, it was very difficult because it was deep and it was it was driving. And there was no there were there was no spiritual, we were atheists basically, you know, it was it was just life is practical and that's that. There, you know, there was no spiritual conversation in in my world growing up at all, other than what was happening in my own being, which was a lot. Um, I suggested to Mum once that maybe we should go to church, and um, because I thought that maybe that's what that was where it would, you know, land for me. And mum in her infinite wisdom bundled me off in a car with neighbors that were really churchy and took me to some Catholic church in the middle of Melbourne that was extremely ominous, and you know, people were kind of lining up for their being given bread and wine, and there was a giant Jesus on the cross on the wall, and it was I'd never felt fear like it. It was just like this is this let me out of here and never ever send me back. So, I mean, that's that's you know, that's how my mum rolls.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

I adore your mum. I'm glad that she came into the conversation, but man, that does sound ominous.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Yeah, yeah. Um, so what makes me uniquely me, I think, has been, you know, still all throughout my life trying to place and belong in this sense of spirituality. Um that, you know, even when I took myself into the outback as a young woman, that was that was because I felt like I needed I needed to find someone to help teach me. I wanted someone to just take me under their wing and and show me, you know how to how to how to work with this. Um, and I didn't find it in a person, but I did find it in just being um out on land, riding horses. Um I was fortunate enough to have some extraordinary um opportunities when I was out there working, as you say, as a camelier, um, taking people out on guided tours along the western McDonald's ranges, and also um I got given the task of helping to re-educate and start a lot of uh old stockhorses on Deepwell Station because back in the early 90s they were one of the first cattle stations that sort of sensed into this there's an opportunity to make money through tourism. So I was employed um sight on scene um to take on re-educating their old stock horses, which had been running wild for several years. So it was no easy feat. But his fortune should have it, a beautiful old, well, he wasn't so beautiful actually, he was a bit of a rogue, but uh a stockman who was so old and he used to be one of Sir Sidney Kidman's stockmen. He he saw me in this you know yard with 20 very wild horses, and I was, you know, having to catch them one by one and work with them, and um, you know, any handling that they'd had had been pretty rough anyway. So he um he was a um natural horseman, and he showed me how to take one out of the main mob and put it in in a round yard, and within five minutes he had that horse following him and standing still while he put his saddle on its back, and he taught me that skill. It was just this beautiful synchronistic crossing of paths that that set me on a pathway of of learning and developing natural horsemanship. Um, and also it made my job a lot easier, and so part of that job was just riding horses from sunup till sundown across the most exquisite country. And what happened was was that I began to realize that that the country itself was guiding me in the sense that there are time there were times when the wind would just gush through if I was going to turn a certain direction. Oh, that's a beautiful little valley. I might just go and have a look down there, and the wind would just like crash over the top of me. I'm like, I'm not going there, we'll just go the other way, and you know, little trickles of wind that would help guide me home. And I began it began to really land in me that this that the country and place are very animate. Um, and when I when I retired from that job and I handed the reins over to the next fella who was going to be taking over the the well, I I got the horse riding established on that property. So anyone could come out and ride those horses. Um and when I when I handed over the reins, I did say to the to the new incoming uh horseman, just listen to the wind, you know, like because the country will tell you where you can go and where you can't. And yeah, I was fobbed off as a greenie. No, we're not doing that. And the very first ride that they took out, one of the horses spooked into a mulga bush, and the the person who was on the ride that had paid for a ride ended up with a molga stick in their leg, which is a poisonous and used for spears. Um, so they ended up having so many accidents that within 12 months the horses were set free again, they couldn't afford the insurance. So I think that um gracious, yeah, it it really helped me to uh for something of this spiritual realm that it began to land in me through land itself. Um so now um what makes me different is that um I've finally devoting myself to exploring this spirituality, and I've been very fortunate too because another crossing of paths for me has been um meeting up with a native Canadian shaman, Eagle Heart, um, who has helped and become that person who's taken me under their wing and helped to normalize um this deep spiritual sense that I have.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

And for those who don't necessarily know the word shaman and you use the beautiful word medicine woman, my very quick reference um is healer. Do you want to add to that? What else do you want to because I also I want to bring into the conversation that you've had this sense, you've had experiences from when you were really young, and that's what you're talking about integrating into the now as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

That's right. Yeah, so I've ever since I was a baby, I have had um the experience of having an ancestral guardian who was not from this time, is not from this place, but I can remember being a baby and being able to see through his eyes. He was showing me his own memory. Um, and it was so profound that I used to cry myself to sleep at night because I had two families, but I could only really see and feel and be with one. Um and so that character is is still with me. Um and when I when I met with Eagle Heart and I explained to him, look, I've got this character and that character, and then and all these characters that be really became so profound for me. And around 2017, they really rose up. And um, I wasn't sure if I was um needing uh to see a psychiatrist, or thankfully, my husband suggested I go talk to Eagle Heart. And when I did, I sat down, he said, it's textbook shaman, like sometimes you don't get a choice, and he explained that shamanism is basically a word or medicine person is a word that describes someone who can see, feel, or hear into different dimensions, and it's quite a normal aspect of being human, but for some people it's it's very loud. And what do you want to do about that? And I said, Well, I would really appreciate your support. And at that point, um, he invited me to um do an apprenticeship with him, which I did for a year and a day. Uh he's still a mentor today, and when I graduated uh from that uh apprenticeship, that's when I was gifted the name White Feather, and that's why I use the name White Feather because that's that's the work that I'm working with now. That's that's the walk that I'm walking.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

And Sarano, I want to get into what you're doing now and the services that you offer and and what you enjoy doing. From what you just said, one of the questions that comes to mind is from those winds through the valleys that you were almost going to go down in the um in when you're working with the horses, and through being a single mum or single parent through different years, or you know, raising two beautiful now adults to meeting Eagle Heart and training with him. Did you do your own version of healing through those times with your kids, or do you sort of reflect on the fact that you were actually naturally doing some of the work, or did it really take this apprenticeship with Eagle Heart, our dear friend, uh, to open up those channels?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

I think that it was something that I channed away with, channed away with in the in the background, um, for sure, that I was always, you know, trying to to research and find ground, you know, in in how I can land spirituality into real life. Um, but probably up until um meeting with Eagle Heart, my life was a huge process of karmic disaster. It was a lot. There was a lot, it wasn't, it wasn't pretty.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

You are a strong woman.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

It wasn't pretty. I got through a lot though, and um, and I did manage to weave a little bit of um of of healing um into my journey, you know, with people that cross my path. I was very lucky uh when I was living up on the east coast of Australia to have met um Cilantra King, who um is a woman who really opened my eyes to multidimensionality, um, and and helped me a lot, even just the simple act of understanding that you're connected to spirit and you're a part of earth, and to just take a moment every now and then to feel those two things moving through you, and that you are welcome here, you know, you are we all are a part of earth, and and Ron, sorry to interrupt you, that can be as simple as taking your shoes off and feeling the ground. Oh, yes, yeah, absolutely. And so I mean, a couple of years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and that was on summer solstice, and so it was radical. I I required radical surgery, it was a real shakeup for me. Um uh and at that point I realized that I I need to commit more to bringing this uh whatever you call it, this ability out of, you know, out of the closet. Because uh hiding it away, and I think you know, it was just turning to stone in my body. It was time. So that was a real catalyst for me to start to explore how to use this as a healing opportunity, um, and and it's evolved quite beautifully into a system of um ancestral healing. And also I'm really passionate about exploring perception beyond the thinking mind, um, you know, where life opens into relationships beyond the human world because we do have an expanded community of support, we do have an expanded family of support that I can see, and I used to see it when I was tow truck driving, you know, and first respondent. Um and I would see the the physical emergency services, and I would see the non-physical emergency services, and I it really started to land in me. This is only very recently, gosh, you know, like I just wish that people could see that there's this micro experience of being human, but there's this macro experience of being incredibly supportive. Um, and so another thing that I'm really passionate about now is helping people to strengthen relationships with sensing, um, and the more subtle intuitive intelligence that is present for us as a system of intelligence. Um, I call it the spirit mind, you know. We have a we have a practical mind and a spirit mind, we have a we have a rational mind and a relational mind, you know. Um, so I'm really passionate about helping people to um trust that that sensing is a form of communication and also um helping to build stability through expanded awareness because when we understand that we are so supported in ways that we we might not see, we also understand that we're a part of something much larger, and um and all of this was persecuted out of us a long time ago, um, well, and not so long ago for some. You know, women were burned at the stake. There was a lot of very cruel um process and propaganda that sadly still throws it, still flows through us in the sense of discomfort that we feel when someone talks about intuitive intelligence. Um and it's enough, really, it's enough. I I just even the word woo-woo, you know, um it's it's a word that that carries the essence of um distrust. Um this isn't really something, you know. And every time, you know, we use that word in a way that it kind of almost excuses a sense of unease. I feel like we're enabling a very old and cruel propaganda that still flows through our thinking and still flows through our language. Um, and so I'm really, really passionate about enough of that. You know, this is actually uh we need to restore the equilibrium of intelligence that includes intuitive intelligence.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

And what an incredible god you are, Sarana, because you have that base of incredible practical intelligence. And so many chapters of your life of so many different life experiences to have an empowered presence and credibility. And what I love, what I've enjoyed seeing in the last short while is you helping people to open up to their whatever their version of spirituality is or whatever their version of connecting more deeply into themselves. Tell me more about what you're enjoying right now, especially because you're starting to do more and more ancestral alignment sessions and even perhaps introduce what ancestral alignment means because it's such a profound experience from my experience.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

What I really enjoy, Sam, and it's it's probably one of the things that I that just really brings me to life at the moment, is when people do come in for an ancestral alignment, which is um it's a it's a process of healing whereby I can, you know, see um ancestral grandfathers and ancestral grandmothers and and various other guardians of the spirit of the waters of our being and our and our spirit. I like to explain it a bit like you know, we we have the above-ground world, and when you go underwater, it's a completely different world, but it's still the same world. And when I'm moving into an ancestral alignment, it's a bit like going underwater. It's I'm seeing into the spiritual world and how the past, uh, not only for the person that is with me, but their ancestral past flows through them in the present and how that also affects the future. And um, so where there is some something in the past, whether it be their personal past or ancestral past, I don't necessarily see that. I just see um something that symbolizes uh the disentanglement of whatever is uh discordant energy in the past. And I see how that then flows in equal measure through to the future. So if there is something really blocked in the past, it's it's equally blocking the future in equal measure. And so it's it's quite different. Um, and a lot of people come in because it's it's a shamanic healing, but it is very different. But what I love is that people have the courage because there is something in them that is saying, This is for me, don't quite understand it. Um, but when they when they do and when they hear back um what I've witnessed and what messages have come through and what um healings have happened, it's like an acupuncture point has has reached deep into them and and it's often extremely moving for them. Um, and that that is a great joy for me to help this process of um of weaving in the spiritual realm for help and assistance um when it's it's such a positive and optimistic experience for them that they carry forward in a way that they feel deeply supported.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

And I've often remarked to you that it must be such so fascinating and such a delight to see the video play while you're doing them, both of past and future, and to have a glimpse into somebody's life and spirit world, and to gain their own learning through that process as well. And uh when the two times that you've been good enough to do them for me, I still think you're absolutely remarkable to go through that process and then to jot things down, but you know, still be in the process, so you're not taking out too much time to jot things down, but the debrief to be able to be so specific about the film that you saw play out or the experience that you experience that you had, that to me it feels delightfully fair that you get to see these incredible experiences while helping to heal others and that you get to learn as well.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah, there's a lot of beautiful wisdom that comes through, but there's also some times where I'm just like, I do not understand what I'm seeing here. It's like, and it's really important to me that I be able to report back. And so I'll stay with it until I I understand it.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Um does that mean that you actually say to the guides, like, explain it to me more so that you can actually get it across. Yeah, I love that. I mean, you're so it's you it feels like you're chosen for this in part because you do have that drive to be able to report back. That's like that honesty and that drive for truth.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Yeah, the drive for truth. It's really quite astounding and how it how it's received to people because to me it can it can be very abstract. What I'm seeing. It doesn't it doesn't make sense to me. Um but when I am sharing the the movie with with someone as I've seen it, it you can it's that point where it does bring tears to their eyes because it has reached somewhere really deep within them. Um and like I was saying before about it like an acupuncture point, it's almost like a a spiritual action, acupuncture point, and that moment of of release you can just feel so much flowing through that was that was previously um you know stuck.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Absolutely incredible. Is there anything there else that you wanted to mention around that process?

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Um I think that I think that it's you know, going back to what I'm passionate about, it it's normalizing. It's helping. I I hope that in some way it's helping to uh to normalize something that is was has been uh it needs to return. You know, this this more relational, it's not just necessarily, you know, the and the ancestral work that I do, but you know, within humanity itself, I feel like there is a real need at this point to restore um a less dominating, like human-centric uh presence, you know, that all solution needs to be human, because uh I feel that that that solution um in its proper way is communicative with way more than just the human world. And this relanguaging I think is uh is well worth looking at and something that I myself am really passionate about because I do believe and through experience that I mean land is animate, that place is animate, and that um and we are held and heard more than we realize, and that there is an intelligence there to tap into.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

And you're putting your money where your mouth is because your beautiful property, you're uh bringing it back, for want of better words. Um I'd love to hear more about that, and I'd love to hear more about this relanguaging that you're passionate about.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Yeah. Um, so we're we have uh 35 acres of land just out of Violet Town that you know it's beautiful. It's also been cleared, um, and it's had plantation trees put around, which is really beautiful. Um, but we are about to uh embark on a big re-regenerative project here that we've been doing for a while. For years now, I've been weeding around wildflowers and identifying what grasses belong here, and um, and so there are little patches of land where the wildflowers are able to establish and and the native grasses are able to establish, and that brings me so much joy. You know, we don't have wrens here. I look forward to the day that you know that this regeneration brings the little birds back onto the land. Um and so yeah, that's that's an underlying project on uh the land here. Um it also holds the healing center that I that I run, and um I'm sure that more will come through with you know potentially working with the horses and um and also you know other land-based practices. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

I love that you brought your two horses, Luna and Orlando, into the conversation. So tell me more about relanguaging that you're passionate about. I want to hear more about that. I've not heard heard you say those words before.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Um I think that our English language it keeps us very much in a dualistic framework of reality.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Um dualistic, do you mean competitive? What tell me more? Uh good and bad.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

That light is good and dark is bad, but you know, there's yeah, there's all there's the yes, the no, the it's it's very divisive. It's it tends to be a very divisive uh language and society that we live in. And I feel like uh it's really very important at this point in time to just be cautious of that divisiveness. Um I think it's really important that we do all that we can to restore um a sense of strength that is uh that is founded in um helping, assisting with peaceful outcome, uh peaceful process. So I'm really lucky to be living in a community that's very connected. Um, there's a lot of uh grassroots cultural projects here and you know the the mental health and collective well-being that comes from that that is re-encompasses all people, you know, of all different types of thinking. Um, but I I mean getting back to the relanguaging, I think that it's really, really uh something to look at that you know how often we do tend to exclude uh nature's the intelligence of nature.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Any other tips as to certain words that that you could suggest in the relanguaging?

SPEAKER_00 34:29

I think that um there is you know equilibrium ways of sort of bringing in, for example, our relational mind and a rational mind, you know, that there is a rational mind and it's very, very important. But also to um put some emphasis on relational as well, that it's equally more important, um logical and intuitive. Um they're both there is just just to bring back into our language uh a sense of trust in uh you know the process of understanding that is not always necessarily scientific and um logical, but that there is to but to put trust in the in the mystery as well that is beyond what we can see. Uh and so using words like you know relation relationality as well as rationality, using words uh such as uh intuition in a way that is held with strength. Uh it's the way that we hold these words, I think, that is a big part of the relanguaging, holding them um without any sense of discomfort. Because that is that old propaganda that still exists.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Something that you said a moment back reminded me of chatting to Auntie Barb uh yesterday, Ani Barb who we just had we've already done a episode of with. And she was talking about Uncle Bob and when they would drive to Melbourne, and he would we were talking about the difference between chat these days, like getting on and chatting to somebody on WhatsApp or other platforms, versus just picking up the phone. And she said, Oh, Bob would always just pick up the phone. And the first thing he would always say would be uh, where are you? Because place is so important. And I I do love hearing that. I guess that might be back to the relational comment that you just made. It feels very special to hear those tips and to learn a learn different way.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yeah, and I think that um you know there are places that we love, and maybe that's because those places love us. I mean, why not explore that?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

And as you grow your healing center in just outside of Violet Town and regenerate the land, there's more and more that can come to be more and more great energy, more and more great views, more and more um personal insights and more that comes from that.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Yeah, well, let's hope I'll just keep staying my course.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Um, I want to bring in a little bit of a uh backstory of a previous chapter of yours when you were running your photography business and you were part of the Dookie Arts uh experience. Yeah. And also having helped to curate uh with the Shepherd and Art Museum. Tell me about those experiences and what you enjoyed about them.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Well, I moved to a little town called Dukey um as a single mother when I first separated with um my partner and I had two children. And I moved to Duke because, as a part of my photography, it was one of the towns that I had um photographed as uh for a magazine that was featuring small towns in regional Victoria and rural Victoria. So um I really fell in love with the town, it wasn't far from Sheppard and where I had been living, and I was fortunate enough to buy a very cheap house there. Oh, it was a beautiful connected community, and so within I think I'd only been there perhaps six months when one of the ladies in town said, Regional Arts Victoria have just come up with this grant. It's um a small towns transformation grant, and it's$350,000. Maybe we should go for it. And so there was a we all gathered at the local cafe after hours. There was about six women, all farming women, or I was living in town, but I had a farming background, and and we put together an application, and it became it was a successful applicant. Um, so we along with a lot of other people external from Dookie who were creatively connected, we put together an event called Dookie Earthed, which was a 12-hour arts event that basically took over the entire town, and we were very fortunate to have uh in town one of the people that lived in town in their backyard, they have an enormous quarry, a disused quarry that is just over the road from the uh football club. So that quarry became a center of the arts um event, as well as uh you know, a lot of interactive stuff happening all across town for 12 hours, and it was it was really quite extraordinary. Um, and so this little town of 300 people uh in the course of 12 hours swelled to 6,000 people and uh and flowed through over that 12 hours, 6,000 people flowed through that town over 12 hours. It was phenomenal. And what was beautiful was that you know, well, A, there was a lot of resistance in town to a$350,000 arts event because there wasn't so much the legacy. There were there were certain projects that certainly did create things that were a legacy for the town, but there was that old, but what about the roads, you know, like we need to we need to spend money on the more practical things. But after that event, you know, people came up and they were so grateful. They said, you know, I really didn't think this was a good idea, but this was you know, this is just phenomenal, and thank you so much. Um so it was beautiful on that level, um, because in the end, you know, it brought it really brought the town together in such a beautiful way. Uh, and yeah, we had our challenges, but that's all part of it too. You know, coming to the table with all kinds of different thoughts and opinions, and how do we get around this and what can we do to sort of make this work for everybody? Um so that was a really that was a really powerful experience being part of that huge collaborative project. Um, and then I was also a committee member uh for the Shepherd and Art Museum Acquisitions Committee for 10 years, and so for 10 years I had the honor of being a part of seeing all of the work that was coming into that gallery as um you know as a part of their collection and being able to understand and hear why, you know, who the artist is and what's the significance to the collection, and um, and that was a really that was a really beautiful experience too. So I still I have a real soft spot for the Shepherd and Art Museum and all of our local galleries and uh you know the creative community. It's beautiful, and for a long time, you know, um that was that was the way in which you know uh this awareness that I have expressed through my work, you know, as an artist, as a photographer, through you know deep observation and um storytelling, you know, and um an achievement to place. It it creative creativity really gave it a place to land and still does.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

And Ron, tell me, was it mainly artists that were creating works that represented the Sheppard and region, or was it international or or national?

SPEAKER_00 43:41

Uh all of the above. So, you know, the gallery have a very specific uh there there is that they specialize in ceramics. And so they have a very specific uh framework around their collection, and um, you know, you they weren't they weren't just pulling anything in.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

into the uh into their collection it it had uh it had to have uh more meaning for place and um yeah so it it there was a bit of a there was a framework around what they accepted there wasn't many that they didn't but some just didn't suit it just didn't suit so I love hearing the ceramic uh aspect and you were good enough to introduce me to Roseby Simpson in the US and what a delight to both see her ceramics and also the amazing her like to see an artist that loved cars and ceramics and had her indigenous background and her family background of um of well-known artists and to put the two together and did she say that she went back to become a mechanic or uh to to learn more so that she could actually put the glaze or do the right thing for the outside of the car and when you see the images of her car that's been on display in many different galleries and places uh showcased in America I mean those that unique individual to be able to bring those two things together and then to work out methods it's just so inspiring.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

I really want to see Rose B. Simpson's work in the Shepherd and Art Museum A because it's a it's a ceramic museum and and Shep's a car culture. Oh my god yes there's a lot of car culture in Shep so I think it would go let's make that happen. Let's make that happen I think uh isn't that the wonderful time that we live in to be able to see inspiration or be inspired by all sorts of things from all different lands is there anything that we haven't covered that you would like to talk to I'm deeply grateful for you and for all that you do I'm so pleased that you're doing what you're doing you're bringing shining light on other people you know and you shine very bright yourself and may this be something that is very rewarding for you as much as you bring through a lot for other people well it is a podcast that is partly powered by an ancestral alignment because that was part of its origin.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

I've been wanting this conversation to happen for a while as you well know and it is everything and more than I hoped for. Thank you so much for your time and what a pleasure and honour it is to be able to share the natural genius within you. Thank you Sam I really appreciate it. Lots of love. Thanks for listening to the Natural Genius podcast please share this with anyone who came to mind and visit us at naturalgenious dot com dot AU Thanks so much