Brenna Quinlan

An episode from the 2021 archives with Brenna Quinlan, Australian illustrator, permaculture educator, and environmental activist. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi, I'm Sophie. Welcome to Big Things Little Things, a podcast series where I sit down with inspiring change makers to discuss the big things they're doing, the little things that make them who they are, and together we vision pathways towards a better future. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which I'm recording, the Gethabore people of the Bungelung Nation, and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. Well, well, well, we are back. It is the final episode, well, the final guest episode of the podcast for season one. I made it. I did a whole season of a podcast, and I'm shocked. I'm shocked I got here. But I'm really happy with how it's turned out, and um I'm really happy with the feedback that I've got so far. So thank you to everybody for tuning in. It's been um really lovely to connect with you, and I'm very happy to share this interview, which I know some of you have been waiting for a while for it. It's um because we had some technical dish difficulties, and you know, the interview's so good that we had to record it twice to get it because I lost it. So anyway, um today we're chatting to Brenna, Brenna Quinlan. So if you don't know her name, you probably know her pictures. So Brenna Quinlan is pretty well known to people who are involved in the permaculture community. She's an illustrator and uh permaculture activist. So she lived for quite a number of years at Meliadora, which is the property owned by Sue Dennett and David Holmgren, and it's a pretty magnificent property that you can check out on YouTube. There's a few really great tours of it. It's um just a beautifully designed uh permaculture property. So recently Brennan moved to Western Australia with her partner Charlie McGee, who is also a permaculture activist. He has a band called Formidable Vegetable and they bought into a um an intentional community over there and they are starting to build their own property. They're building a straw bell house and um, you know, doing the full design over there, um, and they're chronicling it on YouTube on a channel called Grow Do It. So Brennan works for a number of other people. She's done lots of book illustrations and things like that, but every, I don't know, I think it's like every week on Instagram. She releases um a really well-considered image which conveys sort of like a climate activism or just activism in general message. Um, and they're really powerful. You you see them once you've seen her her pictures, you'll see them popping up everywhere. Um she has a real knack for um doing like the the hard the hard work and the research, you know, prior to um doing her drawings. And she distills quite complex ideas into very simple and easily interpreted images, and they really resonate with everybody who who sees them, which is why they've you know become so popular. So um yeah, check around on Instagram, I'll put her link in the show notes and we'll also link to the YouTube Grow Do It if you want to check that out. So, as some of you might know, I'm planning on doing season two for the podcast, and I have my own list of guests that I would love to get on the podcast, but I'm also very open to suggestions because I haven't heard of everybody. So if there's an author who's written an amazing book, or you just know somebody who is just an incredible activist or somebody you want to hear from, let me know because I will, you know, potentially try and get them in for season two. So I'm gonna take about three months off and do some deep dives in um learning because that's how I develop my content is I I go and listen to podcasts, I do reading, um, I read a lot of books, and I um just kind of build up this body of knowledge that I want to discuss with a bunch of people. So um that's what I'm gonna go do over the next few months. So I'll be quiet for a little bit, but um I plan to get into some artwork during that time. So hopefully um you might you can see that on my Instagram, um, grow, reuse, create. I'll share anything that I do there. So if you like this episode or any of my episodes, it's really helpful if you can leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. I'm going to um potentially try to find some aligned sponsors for season two so that I can keep doing this. Um I would love to turn my passion into uh some sort of livable way, but it doesn't have to be heaps, but you know, finding some aligned sponsors would really help. And I feel quite passionate that I don't uh I don't really want to ask the listeners to to contribute because I think that this kind of content, I'm just doing it to help me and to help the listeners and to give people hope and ideas of what they can practically do in the future. And I just don't think that the everyday person should have to pay for that. I think it should be free. I think that, you know, corporations who are profiting from pillaging the earth should probably be contributing to, you know, some of the activists who are trying to undo the damage. So obviously I would only be aligning with people that, you know, um make sense with my messages. But um, yeah, if you have any brands that you're passionate about that you think might be interested to get on board with this kind of a project, definitely let me know because I'm open to it, but I would be wanting to keep any advertising minimal and um, you know, minimize all disruptions to the listener's experience. So that's what I'm thinking for season two. So anyway, I'll stop, stop the intro now, and we'll get into the interview. It's a fantastic interview and it really touches on a lot of things that I'm passionate about. So I'm keen to hear your feedback. All right, I'll chat to you at the other end. Bye. So I want to jump right in because I have a really great list of questions that just sprung into my mind last night. I sat down with my journal, which I don't normally do when I am um I normally kind of just type them on my phone or something and make a note with the questions, but I was like, I sat down with my journal and all of these questions just like flew out of me to ask you. So I'm I'm interested to get going. So I guess to begin with, I wanted to chat to you a little bit about your artistic process. So in particular, I have this very specific query that I wanted to ask you. So I was talking to Katie from Future Study the other day, and we're both quite creative people. And we were talking about the problems with capitalism and this um sort of exponential growth paradigm that we seem to be existing in in society at the moment. And there's a certain sort of subcategory of people who are trying to move away from that constructive model. So Katie and I, when we were talking about our artistic process, we were speaking about how it can be quite challenging when you're a creative person and you're trying to create a living from what you're doing, but to not get lost in that exponential growth model where it's always about more, more, more, more likes, more views, more money, you know, that kind of thing. Because sometimes that that growth model can mess with the creative process. Like for example, you can have an idea for for a piece of art or something, and you feel like is this you know authentically arising within me, or is this driven by my need to maybe seek approval from other people or seek, you know, more followers, that kind of thing. So Katie was asking me, like, how do you know which ideas to pursue and which ideas not to pursue? And and when your ideas maybe have been tainted with this kind of um the ego, you know, that ego part of you that's just seeking more, more, more. Like, how do you navigate that particular issue in your creative process? I know that's a very long question, but I'm interested in what you have to say.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Oh, such a good question. It's something I think a lot about, and um permaculture. Well, most people see permaculture as being about gardening, it's really a design system based on ethics and principles. So it speaks a lot. People who do permaculture think a lot about their morals, and morals help to guide us in what we do and help us to design our our land, but also our communities, our households, and our lives with um an awareness of our morals, or as we say in permaculture, our ethics and our principles. So with my work as a creative, I mean, firstly, I've I've made what I love into my job, and you know, when you start doing that, a lot of people will line up and tell you you can't you can't get money from what you love, you can't turn your passion or your hobby into work because that'll destroy it. Um, and you know, people speak from their truth, but it's their truth isn't always your truth. So I'm really grateful that I've turned what I love into also a way to make a living. And yeah, the the flip side of that is that in permaculture we focus a lot about a right livelihood, something that's meaningful for us. So it was important for me to be able to use my art if I was going to use it as my career, to also do it in a way that was meaningful and actively making the world a better place. I talk a lot about solutions-based activism. And so my art is they're not just pretty pictures, they've got to be more than that, they've got to have a strong message. So while I'm I'm I'm making this art that has this message, I'm I'm thinking of my principles and my ethics. And if, for example, a company comes to me and emails me and says, Hey Brenner, I've seen you on Instagram, we'd really love you to do a drawing for us. If if their ethics and principles don't match mine, then I have a drafted reply that I'll send them saying, Thanks for getting in touch, thanks for the nice things you're saying about my work, but I only partner with uh projects that are actively making the world a better place in everything that they do. And if you move towards that, I'd love to talk to you in the future. But as far as it is your company selling watches or, you know, whatever pillowcases or Coca-Cola or whatever people do with their time, it doesn't, it doesn't fit my ethics at the moment, and I don't see that you're doing your best to make good in the world. So that's a fun way to open the conversation. The person at the other end of the email is just doing their job, and often they say, Oh yeah, cool, we have a back and forth for a little bit um respectfully, and um often they've approached me because they enjoy my ethics and principles. And so I hope by some token that uh by being in those positions, which happens quite a lot, um, yeah, I'm I'm giving people permission to follow their best life and to follow the ethics and principles that they hold true to their heart. There's more to it, of course. So that that's where client work is concerned. Um but with the work that I do for me, which is the stuff that you may have seen on Instagram or Facebook, I release a couple drawings a week for free for everyone to share and use, and they pop up in people's newsletters and uh courses and at universities and schools and all over the place. Um I I guess the way that I've structured that that system of sharing my art is really in tune with my morals as well. You know, wanting to create things that are accessible for people, that are free for people to use, that are useful for people. I'm constantly thinking, what can I draw today that people need right now? What what message do people need to hear? Is it about um climate-positive solutions, or is it about feeling empowered when your government makes you feel disempowered? Or maybe it's as simple as uh drawing about a repair cafe or a seed bank, you know, that that repair cafes and seed banks can use. I I try to keep that variety there, but I'm really kind of at service to the people and and doing things that are useful to them. So my focus isn't really on growth. No one as an artist ever thinks they're gonna get rich off their passion. And if I can pay the bills and keep my head afloat financially, that's that's more than enough for me. Um, but any growth in, I don't know, Instagram or any growth in uh podcasts or magazine articles, or I don't know, whatever other measure of success people might have is all incidental. It's really about following my passion in the world and with with a strong overlap with my ethics and principles, and yeah, all the rest is just a bonus for me.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Well, it sounds like you have a very clear picture of your your own ethics and values. And is that something that's sort of emerged through your um permaculture practice that it became clearer as you went further through this journey?

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Yeah, when I first, I mean, before I'd heard about permaculture, and there's this two-week long intensive course called the PDC, the permaculture design course. If you hear that people have done a permaculture course, that's most likely the course that they took. It's offered in thousands of places all over the world. I took mine in Chile. And before I took that course, I cared deeply about lots of things, but I'd find it a bit overwhelming because there's, you know, do we save the whales or do we save the children or do we plant trees or do we get involved with the local food co-op? I just there were so many things I didn't know where to start. And permaculture really said, hey, it's all related. If you're living your life based on your ethics and your principles, you're you're walking in the right direction. So you don't have to do all the things at once. Go after what brings you the most joy or what you're the most interested in and keep working at it because yes, it's very important that we all do something, but you don't have to do all the things. And so the ethics that we talk about in permaculture are earth care, people care, and fair share. And really, if you're thinking about earth care, people care, and how to make things just or fair, then you've got most of the boxes ticked. Sometimes you hear of like a company who does maybe the they say they do the earth care, like, oh, we're recycling and planting trees, but you know that the people working in their factories are having a really terrible time. So that's an example of something that's not permaculture, and we would call that greenwashing. Permaculture, you know, or or even if it's not called permaculture, you know, projects that are really ethical are looking after all three bases. And I try to do that in my work. I'm not going to just look after social justice issues and fight for people while trashing the environment. I'm going to try to do that in tick tick all three boxes in in every phase of my work and also my life.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

So, with your drawings that you that you do, in terms of like the ideas for the drawings that you do, can you tell me a little bit about how the ideas come to you? Like, do you kind of what's your artistic practice like with generating ideas? Do you feel like you generate them or do you feel like the ideas arise almost within you from somewhere else?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

They say the ideas float around uh on the breeze, and every now and again they'll accidentally cross paths with a person, and then the ideas will be realised. And sometimes they hit you at a moment when you're, you know, trying to do the groceries or drop the kids off at school and that's not the right time, so then they leave you and float off to find somebody else. Um ideas generating is my favorite part of the creative process. And when I was in university, I studied art, but I also studied journalism, and I find that I get the same thrill from creating illustrations as I did from creating a putting together a concept for an article and doing the research, the investigation, getting all of the facts, who's involved, and then piecing that design together, whether it's the design of an article or the design of an image. That's all part of this, the first part before you even put pen to paper, whether you're writing or drawing. So I'm always on as far as ideas generation goes. Every time I borrow a book from the library, I'll make some light marks in the margins of the whole book, and then um the library will say, Brennan, are your books due back in two days? And I'll go, oh no, and I'll have to drop everything and get out um a notebook and spend sometimes the entire day writing out all of those ideas. Oh my goodness. I mean, depending on the book, sometimes I might as well just purchase a book and you know, the whole thing is worthy of noting it down. But it's a great practice for me because in noting it down, I'm re-revising the information and then I've got the bits that I really wanted to learn written down in a notebook that when I'm feeling like being inspired, when I'm feeling like doing a drawing, when I'm preparing to teach a course, I'll go back and read over that. And I actually have so many of these identical A4 notebooks, they're they're just blank pages, they take watercolor really well, so I can draw the ideas down, I write down all the quotes. Um, so that's probably my biggest store of ideas. Then I've also got a smaller ideas book where I draw, say I'm listening to a podcast, I get a lot of ideas from podcasts, um, from short workshops, all the courses that I do, uh, even conversations. If I hear something brilliant that I think, oof, that'll be a great drawing someday, I draw a little thumbnail sketch in that book of what it could be. And I find that the ideas headspace is very different from the drawing headspace. So I can't, I really struggle to combine the two. If I if I say, okay, I've got a full day today, I'm drawing, and I try to do both. What ends up happening is I'll spend eight hours looking at ideas and I'll draw nothing. So I really need to separate them. Yeah, have have the ideas. Maybe the night before I'm going to draw, I'll I'll I'll give myself a half-hour time limit and just pick the three best ideas from my ideas book, and then the next day sit down and draw them, you know, without without letting any other ideas come in, because the ideas can kind of overwhelm the actual drawing. So it brings it brings a lot of excitement to my life. It's kind of like an extra technicolor lens through which I see the world that any book is enjoyable in itself, but also this extra bonus of you know 10 or 12 potential drawing ideas.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Yes, I I find the idea of like the the origin of ideas, especially creative ideas, really fascinating because just in my experience with some of the things that I've created, it's like I'll be lying in bed at like 3 a.m. in the morning. And it is too for me. Often I'll be inspired through podcasts and things like that. Um I don't know what it is about podcasts, but like the intimacy of the discussions, I think. And there's a lot of rich conversations, especially at the moment, um, being had. So they're they're very inspiring. But sometimes an idea will come to me and it's almost like it comes, it just comes from nowhere. And it's like when people describe it as like a download or something, it's like there is this information just kind of going. And sometimes it's just funny because sometimes you um you're overwhelmed with creative ideas, like there is not enough time in a day to execute all of the creative ideas that you have. And then sometimes, like right now for me, I feel like I, you know, you get in a bit of a rut where you like you're just not too sure, like things don't seem to be flowing naturally. Like, do you go into those ruts too where you struggle?

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Yeah, the way that it mostly affects me these days, I think I've found my system to catch and store the idea energy, and so I can always open those pages and tap into that. Um, now that I've drawn so much over the past few years, and so I I release these images on social media a couple of times a week, like I was saying, but then I also do client work, so work for other projects like you know, a book or um a council's 2030 Net Zero Vision or an NGO or whatever. So I draw a lot, and sometimes what's hard for me is actually sitting down to do the drawing, um, the grunt work of it all and And so that's where I find having a store of ideas there already can really help me with the side of actually doing the illustration work. It has an idea that's so good. Like I was teaching a permaculture design course last week in Margaret River in Western Australia. And one of the students on the very first session said, Oh, yeah, you mean ecosystem. I always think of our current political ecosystem as more of an ego system. That has to be a drawing. And I said, Can I use that as a drawing? They said, sure, I'd never thought of that. That's awesome. So now I'm excited about that idea, and that will actually motivate me to sit down and do the drawing and figure it out. The other thing I wanted to say was that you know, I'll hear ideas like a good quote, or maybe a line from a song that that has a double meaning, or something like ecosystem that everyone can sort of relate to. And the it's it's sort of one half of the idea, and then the other half, of course, is thinking how do you draw that? How do you use a visual metaphor to convey that, or how do you show what a net zero 20 by 2030 plan looks like for a council? And so they're quite different parts of the brain. The one that grabs onto something that's catchy and that people will relate to, and then the other part that that actually brings it to life. There's sort of, I guess it's the design phase, but it really is generating ideas around how to show that in illustration. Um, I've just released an online course with Ceres in Melbourne. It's a permaculture demonstration site, cafe, education centre, nursery, they do all the things.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

And it it's about art as activism, which is what I do. And the most challenging thing was putting into words what just happens in my mind and in my heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's when you're so deep into it, it's really hard to articulate these things.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Well, I mean this kind of goes into the the next question, I guess, because part of the artistic practice is like intangible and cannot really be described because it's like I don't know, it's just like uh there's this weird cosmic thing that just happens. There's some cosmic magic that's just like the right time, the right place, the right, I don't know, thing. That's what that's just what I feel. Like it's all can always be like a spiritual kind of experience. And I was um interested to ask you are you a spiritual person? And not spiritual in like I don't want to attach anything to that word, but I'm interested in what what connects people to something bigger than them, and you know what is spirituality to you and what is your, if any, spiritual practice?

SPEAKER_01 24:58

It's um about 10 years ago I went on a journey overseas to kind of find out what I was looking for, and I was gone for six years in total, and in that time I rode a bicycle for 11,000 kilometers across the Americas, and I volunteered in all of these different farms and permaculture places and communities. I worked really hard for those few years to really, I guess, find out how the world worked. And at the start of that trip, um, I was in India for a few months, and India, you know, it's a spiritual mecca of the world, and everyone's you know, traveling there to become more spiritual, and everyone who lives there has their own way of being, and I just wasn't vibing with it. I was thinking, oh, I don't know. I I wonder if it's just broken people, you know, the tourists particularly looking for something and and talking about it more than they are actually working on it. Yeah, and then six years later, when I finished the trip, I definitely cultivated a spirituality. Um and so where did that come from? That came from learning about soil, that came from learning about the ecology, how a tree is an ecosystem, how a forest talks to other trees within it, and how no part of that forest or that system can really be isolated without impacting all of the others. It came from learning that I'm not a person in an office in a city, I'm an animal that evolved to do certain things and live a certain way, and that we as humans have been removed from our needs in so many ways and are really longing to get back to it. And so I started to appreciate this deep form of connectedness with the natural world that I had never had before. It had just, you know, we have our little suburban lives, urban lives, and we're distracted by so many things, and I was going to be an artist, and that's what my focus was. And yeah, it took a lot of experiences with a lot of people who were far more evolved in that sense than I was to really show me that it was okay to feel connection. And I mean, we we did traditional ceremonies with people in Peru where we made up a parcel of all these different things, you know, a bit of tobacco and a bit of cacao and a bit of you know, whatever the plants that they had growing around their place, and then offered it to the mother tree, the oldest tree in that part of the forest. And I mean, if if if nothing else, a practice like that really shows you that there are beings around us who've been there for much longer than we have, and that we should honour them and respect them, instead of seeing them as some sort of nature over there, locked up behind a fence, only to be accessed by hikers and forestry and never never to be appreciated or touched by anyone else. So, and you know, hearing indigenous people in Colombia saying the the mountains have spirits, they are alive. I didn't really understand it at first. And after a time, I I really yes, they they are alive, we're watching them. They're they're watching over us. Where we have a connection there, and it was interesting that it took me so long to really feel that connection, but once I felt it, it's it hasn't gone away, it's still there, and so most of what I do is gear towards uh a mutual respect for other living beings, and you know, on my little block of land, we're building soil, we're building biodiversity, we're trying to create habitat for the other species that share that piece of land where moving to involve um traditional owners in the management of the forest in the intentional community where I live. We have a we have 44 acres of shared land, and so how can we share that further over and above what what the legal title says ownership is? How how do we kind of reach out and and expand that network? So I I think that's my form of spirituality.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Oh, I completely it totally um hits you know home with me because I, you know, while my experiences have been different, I think that it's been similar things that have started that process of connection to something bigger and and really it was just through growing a project of doing stuff out in the backyard and seeing literally the magic of putting a seed in the ground and it turning into like a beautiful plant and then like a delicious dinner, you know. It's all um it's all just wit in witnessing that I think it's also really yeah brought to light the interconnectedness of so many different things. Um so I I did want to ask um you spoke a little bit about um borrowing books from the library before and and how you've had, you know, there are certain you know thought leaders that have really inspired you. And I was interested to ask, you know, who are your um the most influential thought leaders who have really um changed your thinking in a big way?

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Oh it's it's like the um the dinner party list. Who would you invite to have a chat with? And you know, which ones of them would you like to be able to talk to other people as well? I've really enjoyed um, I mean, Vandana Shiva's work is so important about food sovereignty and local food systems, seed sovereignty, resisting multinational corporations, and she's just an activist in everything that she does, and she's inspired a global movement. Um, so her writings are really important. There's also Joanna Macy's work with um deep ecology and you know how we can grieve for the state of things, but use that grief to propel us forward and turn turn the sad feelings into positive ones. I love listening to the you know the big players in the climate scene, like um George Mombio and 350.org and that whole team. Uh, it's it's just so well, you don't have to agree with everything that every great writer says. It's so refreshing to hear people articulate themes that are maybe whizzing around in our heads um in new and fresh and exciting ways. And on that note, I also love Damon Gammo's work. He did the film 2040 and before that, the um that sugar film. And they're expanding into other areas now, and the overlap between 2040, which is a vision for the day in the year 2040 when emissions start going down, and the parties that we'll have around the world, what what would have brought those emissions down, and it's all based on things that are actually proven to work, technologies that we have right now. Um his his passion is, and you know, there's a whole team behind that film, their passion is communicating this stuff in a way that's empowering, and that's something that I really focus on as well. So I I do get a glimmer of hope seeing so many other great people out there thinking about you know new ways that we can package long-term problems to keep people hopeful, keep people active, keep people engaged.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Yeah, no, it's it's always good to hear other people's um recommendations, you know. For example, Deep Ecology, I've heard, I think Mora Gamble mentioned that, um, but I haven't read it. Is it so the Deep Ecology is that like a book, textbook kind of?

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Yeah, it's a book, and she's Joanna Macy has a few different works. She also focuses on how to teach this sort of stuff. So she has some really great teaching resources that you know one's like, oh, you're you're someone, you're sort of my great-great grandchild, and you've come back from the future to tell me, to thank me for being part of the generation that turned everything around and made that change, and then I explained to that person how we did it, and it's just reframing things in a really positive way. So she's pretty revolutionary in that respect. I I have to say that the best series of books that I've read in a long time is the First Knowledges series, which is spearheaded by Marg O'Neill through I think it's the Museum of Australia, and they've released three so far. There are three to come in the next two years. The first one was um Marg O'Neill and Lynn Kelly, and it's called Song Lines, and it touches on how traditional societies uh used used non-written memory systems and how we can learn from that and grow from that, and it really delves deep into how uh Indigenous peoples in Australia use these ways of passing on knowledge and expanding on knowledge. And the most recent one, um the second one's called Design, and the the most recent one is called Country, and it's by Bruce Pasco and Bill Gamage, who've both written extensively about Aboriginal agriculture in Australia. And this book, Country, really focuses on how the use of fire in the landscape can help us to avoid catastrophic fires of the type we're seeing today. And it's really user-friendly, really interesting, deeply interesting, and so empowering and important for everybody living in Australia or other nations where huge fires are becoming the norm. So that series, First Knowledges, is really one to look out for. We've been able to get ours from the library.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Oh, that's that's awesome. I actually, the Songlines book, I just downloaded like a bunch of books to start preparing for season two because I find that uh yeah, a lot of the inspiration for what I discuss with people comes from books and and podcasts and things like that. And um, yeah, Songlines was was one of the ones that I just I saw and I downloaded. I haven't read it yet, so I'm pretty excited to read it.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

We are you have to catch up on the new ones as well.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yeah, yeah. I'm reading um the Charles Eisenstein, one of his books at the moment. Um the I think it's like the more beautiful world we know is possible, something like that. The Hearts Know Is Possible, yeah. And gosh, that's really giving me some solace right now because um we we've just moved out. I think we saw last time we spoke, um I was just about to move. Um we've moved out sort of up on the mountains of like near the rainforest. And um something that I did not expect to hear happen is that I have been hit with the most incredible like grief, you know, being that that close to like this beautiful, because I grew up around that that region, you know, and my memories of my childhood are driving like through the rainforest and driving through the creek crossings and you know, like paddling in those little rock pools. And it's just uh being immersed out there in that beautiful landscape, but also seeing the way that it's being mismanaged and cleared and polluted, and seeing how you know how you can see nature responding, you know, to to the trauma by, you know, trying to regenerate itself through them, you know, the the different species that are arising that um, you know, like the Lantana. Um like it's just but it's really devastating to to me to just be in witness to that. And I've been overwhelmed with like a lot of grief and um concern for the future. So um I don't even know how I got to talking about this or the deep ecology book, I think. You said how she like can turn that grief into um something good. And I was going to ask you, like, I don't know, does anything come to mind from like of how to navigate that grief? Because it's really very, very all encompassing for me right now, that sadness.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

I mean, we all inhale and exhale in our lives, emotionally speaking, at different points. The turning point for me um was really finding an outlet for that, finding the meaningful way that I could be an activist on an almost daily basis and feel like I was contributing to the global conversation, the global movement for change. And so that came in the form of illustration. But it's you know, I also teach permaculture, we teach sustainability and permaculture in schools, and every time I do a drawing or teach a group, I've I feel a little bit better. It's it's an interesting thing that you know it's been and studies have proven that whenever we're doing something, whatever our voice is in the arena, it feels like the the enormity of it all is is somehow reduced. Um but also being okay with grief, we have every reason to be sad at the moment, and people are presenting to counselors and psychologists with anxiety and depression around climate change and inequality, and there's anxiety is really you know an overactive system that's freaking out about nothing, but this this is really good reason. So it's not it's completely founded anxiety. Um, the the tiger is is pacing around outside our door, so to speak, and we we need to make room for that in our lives and know that that's a really important part of accepting what the issues are. Uh it's it can be really useful to find two or three friends who feel things deeply as well and just check in on each other every now and again. I know if I get too overwhelmed with things, I've got a couple friends who I can call and I know they'll top up my emotional batteries because I'm no use to anyone, less at least of all myself, if I'm just lazing about crying and spreading negativity, and it's it's not a great place for me to be in, and it doesn't really help move the movement forward at all. So yeah, it's it's nice to know that you've got someone to write a letter to or an email or have a phone call with who really understands these things, but who's also doing exciting stuff and can get you motivated to get up tomorrow and and you know, throw yourself into the next thing that you're excited about that moves the conversation forward.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Someone who I recently spoke to who very much did that for me was um Elisa Rathjee. She um she makes the have you seen her Apple turnover videos? They're like activism videos on YouTube where she just I don't know, she just chronicles her life and the little bits of activism she's doing in her day-to-day life, but how um how that can benefit you know things on a on a grander scale. And what bringing it back to Charles Eisenstein's writings is that I love how he he delves into the interconnectedness of everything means that the small decisions that you make on a day-to-day basis don't just affect you in that moment, but they have the the potential to change everything. And his ideas have such a strong um meaning, and you can really uh he articulate articulates things so beautifully, and it really doesn't make you feel hopeful in that the small things that you do can create the ripples to create bigger change and bigger change, you know, that that really does make you feel a glimmer of hope for the future, which is uh, you know, what I'm needing right now. Because when you were speaking with Jade um recently in the Future Steading podcast, um you said that you're not really one to plan much for the future. Um, but you did say that you spend a lot of time um thinking about the future of climate change. Um and I was interested to ask you, you know, how do you feel about the future at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 41:39

I mean, I'm always hopeful that you know, there there's only there are there are limits to how bad um things can get. There's only so much fossil fuels we can take out of the ground and pump into the atmosphere before the repercussions of that become so expensive that um it's not worth taking them out in the first place. That said, the effects of climate change are already devastating communities all around the world and mostly the poorer ones. So it's it's a problem that's very much here and now. I mean, we just had another heat wave in Western Australia, and we've had 10 days at 40 degrees in Perth this year so far, and it is only January. So that's a record. Um, good at breaking records at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

So, I mean, the good thing about heat waves in Australia, which is quite an affluent country and one of the world's biggest polluters, is that it's a wake-up call for our government. And I think almost everybody deeply cares about the future. We all want to leave the world a better place and how we found it. But there are some deeply entrenched issues like what you were saying before, exponential growth, GDP being held up as the measure of success, and the the fossil fuel money and lobbyists from fossil fuels and other interest groups having such a presence in Parliament. That said, what used to be kind of like marginal conspiracy think when people talk about these sorts of things has really entered into the mainstream. There's been TV shows on it, there are movies on Netflix about this sort of stuff. There are countless books, there are articles, writers, podcasts about it. There's so much of a conversation about the deep institutional issues that have led us to get to a point where we're so disconnected from nature and when we're destroying the world around us as a global community. So the conversation has never been this nuanced before. It's never been this loud before. And also through the help of social media and the internet. People have never been so connected before. It's really hard to change global systems when you're the only one in your town thinking this way. But now you can link up with billions of other people and gain some power through that, become the bigger fish that can influence the small, the small fish of the government. So we're in very exciting times. And I know that while we're living in this decade of change, everything we do now does have an impact for the future. So now let's give up. No, there'll still be people around and we will still be trying to make things less bad no matter how many emissions have been released. There's always there's always a reason to try. So I think we're while we're seeing unprecedented emissions and um impacts of climate change, we're also the flip side of that, we're seeing these uh social tipping points happen. We're seeing you can ask almost anyone on the street, what do you think about climate change? What do you think about inequality? What would you like to change in politics? And they'll have a strong opinion. And I dare say that had you asked those same people the same questions five, ten years ago, they might not have had an opinion. They might not have had an answer. They might have shrugged their shoulders and said, I don't really know, I don't think about that. So things are ramping up more so than ever before. People are engaged more than they ever have been. There may be a point when lobbyists are taken out of politics or the financial donations to politicians are made more transparent in real time. All these things are in the works. Umcial media algorithms have a huge part to play in how in election results. There are groups focusing on that as well. So while you're doing your bit in your town, other people are doing great stuff all around to help this the broader conversation move forward. And once we check off a few of these crucial things like the social media algorithms, uh positive change can cascade from there on in. So we just keep chipping away at it, knowing that other people are doing their bit as well, and the future is hazy, but it's definitely interesting, and we definitely still have a chance to make real change and do some things that will have real impacts. There's, I mean, there's still air, there's still water, there's still sh sunshine, there are trees, there are animals still. So it's we haven't completely lost the fight yet. And while ever we haven't completely lost, I'm I'm still going to show up.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

So I know you're designing your house and um your food forest garden uh in the new eco-village that you've moved to in Western Australia. So can you tell me in terms of climate change, like how how has uh your design been influenced by preparing for the future? What kind of um things are you incorporating into your house and garden design to make you more resilient going into the future?

SPEAKER_01 47:21

Yeah, so we were um fortunate enough to get the last block of land here at this little intentional community that we call Peace Street in southwest western Australia. And we've bought a quarter acre of land, and there are it's 60 acres in total. So there's 18 different households here, and then all the rest of that land is common land. So part of that, there's a field that'll become the kids' playground area, another part's a netted orchard, another part's a community garden. There's a whole bunch of forest which we're trying to manage well and help to thrive. And my partner and I, on our little quarter acre, we're building a straw bow house. So thinking about warming climates, straw boughs are the best insulation insulation as far as housing materials go that you can get your hands on. They're also a waste product and they're local. So we can get the materials for our walls from less than 30 kilometers away. They're cheap as chips, they're also a really user-friendly building material. So people without experience, kids, community members, friends can all come by and help us put up the walls, and then we're covering those walls with a render made from the clay from our own block. So we have a big pile of clay sitting there at the moment. Cool. And that will one day be put onto our walls. Our windows all face north. We we managed to get a whole bunch of gorgeous double glazed windows secondhand from um the Perth Museum expansion. They over-ordered glass and then had to get rid of it somehow. So that was really lucky. That's so good.

unknown 49:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

And so we get that nice winter sunshine in to warm up the house for free from the sun. And in summer, uh the sun's overhead, so it just hits the roof. It doesn't actually stream into the house because of the sun angle, but we'll also have pagolas planted with deciduous vines all around. We'll have uh grow all of our own veggies. We've already planted the fruit trees, we don't even have a uh the house foundations done yet. You've got to get things in the right order, yeah. And just future-proofing things like water tanks, we will invest in solar panels and all that sort of thing, too, because we get a lot of blackouts in this part of the world. Um, and knowing that if you know, if if your friend has a solar system that that can keep running on, say, a 40-degree day when the rest of the town's power has been turned off because there's a fire hazard and they don't want they don't want to spark any fires with the power lines, then you can say, everyone come round to my place and you'll be safe from the heat. Um you can you can run uh radios when there's a fire. I've been in a situation where it was very hot, there was a fire, all the power was out, there was no phone reception, but we needed to talk to each other. Radios were rich. How do you charge them in the place that has solar? So that's one thing that we'll be saving money for and working towards. It's just one example of many. The water tanks are another one. Um, fixing up the that there's a lot of springs on this property. Cool. So fixing up a way that we can catch that water in dams and and have that as a backup source for if we're in a fire situation. Just always thinking how can we make this design more resilient, not just for ourselves, of course, but for our intentional community and then for the the wider community as well.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

And did you do the design yourself, or did did you like seek to consult with anybody else on the design?

SPEAKER_01 51:01

It was interesting, you know. I I thought, oh, I've never designed a house before, but I'll give it a shot. And through teaching permaculture design courses, I realized that I'd had so much practice in showing people how other houses were designed, and I've you know lived in quite a few houses that have been designed very well, and I've learned from people who live in those houses or who have designed those houses how to then teach about sustainable housing design and that sort of thing. So the design of the house was actually so easy. That's awesome. That's I mean, we haven't built it yet. Maybe ask me in five years if it's good to live in, but I've got an inkling that it will be. The website, uh is it my home or your home? Yourhome.gov.au has such a brilliant website. I can't believe it was created by the government. It's actually so good. Whoever wrote it is a genius. Um they talk about passive solar design. So that's what I was saying before. Having windows to the to the north or in the northern hemisphere, you'll have you'd have them to the south. So windows facing the winter sun and some sort of thermal mass that acts like a battery, it actually catches that direct sunlight and slowly heats up, and then when the sun's gone down and it's freezing cold at night, that thermal mass, which is normally um a concrete slab floor, releases all of that gorgeous heat energy into the house and really evens out those highs and lows of temperature. Uh, there's also stuff like using sustainable materials. So we're using straw bow, other people, you know, might have a huge woodlot that um or a forest that has sick and drying dying trees, and they need to thin out the trees to lessen the fire risk. So maybe it's maybe it's sustainable timbers. Um, obviously, that's got to be done in the right way. Uh, you can also do other techniques based around straw that aren't necessarily straw barrel, or you can use the clay for on site and do something with cob. There's all these different amazing ways that you can use what's appropriate to your climate and appropriate to the place where you live. Having a light-coloured roof in Australia is really important. And they've just legislated in Western Sydney that no more property developments can have black roofs with no eaves because it means in summer, if if you have a light-colored roof, your house inside in a heat wave event will be more than 10 degrees Celsius cooler than if you had had a black roof. It makes a huge difference. And we're talking heat waves that get up to the point where they endanger people's lives. It's really important to think future-proof your house. Paint that roof if you've got a black one. If you don't have eaves, think about putting a pagola or something or shade cloth off the side of your house, growing vines up the side of it, anything that can protect against that hot summer sun, particularly coming from the west, the afternoon sun. Um, and yeah, plants, they're a really great way, and they're really good for rentals as well. So if you can grow up something, something that's really quick, like hops, cherry tomatoes, uh, thornless blackberries, another one. These are beans and peas, these are plants that in a matter of a few weeks can climb up an entire wall and provide that shade that you need in summer. And then when they're as as the air gets cooler and the season starts changing, they'll die off and let the nice warm winter sun in which you want to capture. So it's not all about designing a house from scratch. Um, David Homerin's book, Retro Suburbia, does a really good job of uh talking about how if you live in the cities and suburbs, you can still live a really sustainable life. And that that was the first book I ever illustrated, and it taught me a lot of stuff about easy tips and tricks that we can use to make our houses more comfortable and obviously cut down on our power bills and the emissions associated with those as well.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

Also, I love that book. I've got two copies of that book because I'm always I'm always lending it to somebody and then thinking, like, oh, where is that book? Um so we've talked about house design, which I'm super passionate about. I just walking into a well-designed house on say a hot day and just feeling the relief of that natural coolness is just magical, you know. I just am super passionate about um people designing their houses better. But uh, in terms of other skills, so I was wanting to ask you what kind of skills do you think are going to be the most useful to individuals going into the future as we know it?

SPEAKER_01 55:46

Ah, this is a really good one. So there are skills that you would imagine would be useful, things like growing food, um, things like building. You know, if you can imagine a uh your the street that you live in is isolated from everybody else, what are you gonna need in 10 years' time? We'll need to maintain buildings, we'll need people who are handy, who can make stuff out of nothing, we'll definitely need food. But we'll also need things like communicators. If we're all arguing, it's not gonna be a very nice place to live. So we want people who know how to mediate, who know how to run group processes, who know about nonviolent communication or sociocracy. We also need educators. If only one person can grow food and they're not very good at teaching people how to do it, then that vital information won't be able to spread. So if you're really good at explaining things in a way that people can understand, that's an excellent skill to cultivate. We're also going to need life and fun into the future. Uh, creative people are really good at this sort of thing. We need musicians, we need poets, we need um people who can dance, who can teach circus skills to our kids, who can bring a bit of life and fun to the world. And the other thing that creatives do well is they help us to imagine the futures that we're moving towards. And we can't really walk towards something if we don't have an idea of what that something is. So hearing that in song, seeing that in an image, reading that in words, it's part of what Charles Eisenstein was doing in the book you mentioned. Creating these visions that we can then all collectively move towards is a really important skill. And hey, if if that artist knows how to grow food as well, like I do, then even better. Become an artist, you know, learn how to turn a compost and wield a hammer, and you'll be even more useful to people. Um, there I guess that at the end of the day, the diversity is what we really need. That instead of a society encourages us to just kind of be like a huge head, just all brain, you know, hanging out in universities and offices our whole lives with a tiny little body dangling down the bottom. Instead of that, we can become more balanced humans where we have some head skills, but also heart and hands as well. So on our weekends, we're going out and learning about building soil or learning about building fences or you know, learning about building houses, whatever it is that takes you fancy, and also learning about how to live in community, how to communicate really well with our partners, our families and those around us, how to give unconditionally, how to you know, work in the non-monetary economy, sharing and exchanging and all of those other hard things, then we'll be much more balanced. And that's really a lot of the problems in the world come from a lack of that balance.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

Ah, that's a good answer. Um, so I guess, yeah, too. I was just thinking, like as you were describing it, to like the cool thing about what you're saying is that what we need people to do is not to learn X, Y, Z skills, it's to identify what are your unique skills as a person? What are you put here to what lights you up? Like what what what gives you meaning and purpose and and like identifying that and really harnessing that as you know, being the skill that you can bring to add like brightness to your community and fitting that piece of the puzzle in with the rest of the pieces of the puzzle that make up your community because we all are, you know, we're a group of species, you know, humans aren't um we haven't gotten to the place that we are living in isolation in little units, you know, in high rises. We've got to the place that we are by collaborating. So um it's yeah, finding your unique skills, but um collaborating to to share that with the community. That's kind of how I interpret your message. Does that sound right to you?

SPEAKER_01 59:57

Yeah, it does. And you know, some of the most useful people in the intentional community that I live in are the volunteers that come here and stay for a couple weeks because we live in a tourist town and you know they can they can stay here in a tent for free for however long they like, and they they they mind the kids. Yeah, it's the best thing. And I don't have children, but a lot of my neighbours do, and it means it frees them up to I don't know, go on a date, have read a book for an afternoon, fix a shed, do all the things that they needed to. There's really something for everyone. And all morning we've been banging our heads together trying to get better at spreadsheets so that we can apply for grants. And you know, that's a skill I didn't have, but I'm learning to have it, and it's quite an obscure one. But hey, it turns out that that's useful too. So you never know what thing you do will be will be a blessing for other people around you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:50

Oh, I tell you what, somebody who can do up a good spreadsheet is invaluable. I hate it, but goodness me, they're necessary skills um to have. All right, so we've done, we've talked about art, we've talked about my being so sad, we've had a bit of a downer-in-the-grief thing, but then we've come back to that through hope and community and finding your purpose. So now, because I am um at heart a very girly fangirly girl sometimes when it comes to people like you and Hannah Maloney, um, I wanted to ask you a fangirly question. And that is so like I can't imagine. I mean you're gonna use the term spa day, but you know, this is a Brennan Brennan Quinlan specific question. So, what would an ultimate spa day look like for Brennan Quinlan? And it can be anything, but basically what I mean is like if you had a day to just do those things that nourish you the most that you just love doing, that you know, in when you get a moment of solidity, like what would a day like that look for you, look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

Oh, I dream about this day all the time, and I think I work for myself, I can make it happen, and I it just you know, it'll happen one day. Um I would have breakfast with my lovely partner, Charlie McGee from the band Formidable Vegetable, and I would encourage him to play me a song because he always forgets to play music and he's so good at it, and so he'd play me a song for Brecky, and then he'd feel like he'd achieved something that day. And really, it would be to go to my local family run cafe, um, order a chimery latte, draw for a couple of hours, maybe go to the beach in the afternoon, and then lie down and read a book. Drawing and reading books are like the ultimate excellent thing for me. And I mean, part of that is because you know, I get my meads net for we do busy bees here at the community, and we we we we have a lot of kind of outlets for meaningful stuff, but actually being quiet and still and reading the next book in the first knowledge series is really what I've been wanting to do for so long. So um I think you've inspired me to actually put that into practice, might book it in next week.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:19

There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed the final guest interview for the season. I love that conversation. Uh took very minimal editing. She um she really just uh um illuminated some beautiful concepts for discussion, and I'm so thankful that she came on to share that with us. So I started off this series with a a short episode which was um just me explaining, you know, my plans. So I'm gonna do a bookend episode for um the finale grand finale and I'm going to have a friend, Beck, who you might know from Instagram, but I think Big Liv Simply handle who's gonna be interviewing me. So lovely. If you want to hear a little bit about her own story, uh great episode that she did on the Fortnite podcast. But if you have some questions that you want her to ask me, come through to her. Or um, I'll probably put up a little question box on my Instagram. If you have any just general questions that have cropped up about who the hell the type of person is that, you know, makes this podcast and why she's doing what she's doing, or you know, any questions at all, um go for it. This is your opportunity. And um, yeah, I just want to thank you again for tuning in through the season. It's been beautiful, a really massive growing experience for me, and I hope it has been for you too. And I would love to hear any feedback that you would like to give. So I'll catch you next week with Beck, and then we'll see you in season two. Stay safe. Thanks, guys. Bye.