Big things. Little things.

Anna Matilda - The Urban Nanna - Everyday Permaculture

• Sophie Spencer • Season 4 • Episode 2

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Today I speak with the wonderful Anna Matilda, founder of The Urban Nanna and author of Everyday Permaculture about:

- her upbringing, art, science, culture and worldview;

- Anna's experience of neurodiversity and introduction to permaculture; 

- how the modern schooling system intersects with the permaculture movement; 

- prepping and permaculture - how to be prepared in a collapsing society without hoarding all the resources. 

Links: 

Website - https://theurbannanna.com/ 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theurbannanna/?hl=en

Book - https://theurbannanna.com/book/



SPEAKER_02

Giving with no expectation of return. I can't always feel safe, but that's where giving a smile is that first step. You can you can give away kindness and just even connection with another human. You can give that for free.

SPEAKER_00

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. This podcast was produced on the land of the Githabel people in the Bungelung Nation and pays respects to elders past, present, and emerging. Welcome back to the podcast. My name's Sophie, and I'm your host. Today I'm so happy to be sharing my conversation with Anna Matilda. You may know her as the urban nana, nana Anna, nana nana, so many names, such a wonderful lady. She wrote this beautiful book called Everyday Permaculture: Sustainable Living for Every Space. And that book for me just made permaculture so accessible as a regular mum, trying to apply the permaculture ethics and principles to my life and live sustainably. It just made it really crystal clear of how to do that in practice. So I loved her book. So Anna is a former primary teacher with a horticultural background. So her organization, The Urban Nana, specializes in teaching people traditional skills and crafts and demonstrates how to live sustainably in the modern world. So I'm so happy to share this conversation. We touch on a number of topics. So her upbringing, we discuss the mainstream schooling system and how that intersects with the permaculture movement. And then also prepping, which is high on everybody's radar with current world events. So I hope you enjoy this conversation. I would love so much if you could leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Written reviews are even more helpful in spreading the word about this series. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll talk to you on the other side. I will tell you if you're flatlining. Okay. All good. Welcome to the podcast, Anna.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00

What's your preferred um what do your friends call you? Nana Anna?

SPEAKER_02

It's funny, I get a lot of different versions, and um it's funny, a lot of people that when I first meet them, um if we're doing an event together or something, they're like, oh hey, this is Nana. Is it okay if I call you Nana? I just feel like you're Nana. I'm like, that's totally fine. If that's that makes you comfortable, that's great with me. So Anna, Nana Anna, Nana Nana, any of the uh any of the above. Fine.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I was um looking through the book to prepare for the interview, and my kids are now, you know, seven and nearly six and then two. And Sylvie, my oldest daughter, she was she was like looking through the book and she was so interested. And then she's like, What's her name? It's like Nana, the urban nana. And then she was like asking all these questions, and you're so inviting, even just through your book. Like she was just wanting to learn all about the things that you were talking about in your book. And I wish that we lived closer because I think it would be so fun for the kids to be able to learn like with you.

SPEAKER_02

That's so sweet. Thank you. Well, that's great, because that's exactly the feeling I was going for with the book that you know it's it's got to be accessible and welcoming and friendly and comforting because when you're trying to get people to make behavioral change, especially if it's big things asking them to potentially make big changes about their thinking, it has to be a soft, you know, um, I guess it's got to be a composty type of environment. It's got to be full of full and rich and round and warm and allow space for people to grow in their own way and find their own sort of shape of things. So yeah, to hear that people are looking at um everyday permaculture and feeling that it's attainable and achievable, um, that's really good because yeah, I want to do the guide beside thing, you know, not the top-down kind of teaching approach. So that's cool.

SPEAKER_00

I think I found it really accessible and yeah, practical because I guess sometimes when I've got quite a few books, like permaculture books, and I think some are really like theory heavy, and you can sort of read and get a bit lost, like it's really great in terms of the the content. There's a lot of content, but it can be hard to then pick out how's this in practice? Like, what does this look like in a house?

SPEAKER_02

That's all very good and well, but what am I gonna do today? Like in this next half hour block, how am I gonna yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00

Like I've gotta pack my kids' lunches, like, how's that gonna apply to my kids' lunches, you know? So um, yeah, so I found it really useful, and there's a lot of recipes in there that I'd like to try.

SPEAKER_02

And yeah, the quick jam cake has never failed to please the crowd.

SPEAKER_00

So that looked awesome. So, I mean, I've known you just through social media for for quite a few years, actually. And um I really I feel quite like I already know you, even though I don't technically know you in person, so much so that I was so not nervous about this interview, I didn't even set an alarm, and then we all woke up really late and were late for school. That's great. But um, when we have talked previously, um, you had some really great tips for me about like enriching my children's life through some of the stories that I expose them to. And you recommended Elsa Beskow, is that how you say it? Besco. Besco. And um they're these absolutely beautiful children's books, like full of nature and and seasonality and amazing characters, and it is so beautiful for the children to read, and and it made me wonder a little bit about some of the influences that you had as a child, because obviously, as a grown-up, you're very connected to nature and passionate about the environment. And I was wondering how did that look like when you were growing up? How did your parents kind of foster in you this love of the natural world?

SPEAKER_02

It's really interesting because the Elsa Besco books that I was sort of was telling you about. My mum's got her ones from when she was a child growing up in Sweden, and they're in Swedish. So I've actually never read them, I've just like I've I've looked at the words, but I've she's kind of told me the rough story of them, and I've just kind of got the picture from the illustrations, and it turns out that that's how Swedes do a lot of things. They're like, yeah, the the natural feeling you have about this thing is the true thing about this thing. So um I I love the fact that that kind of idea has been woven into all of my creative thinking. So my mum's an artist and um and she's a magnificent gardener, and she's always had gardens and you know, veggie gardens and stuff when I was very small. And then when we moved to Australia from Denmark where I was born, uh she really got into the cottage garden kind of thing. And as an artist, when you watch an artist gardening, they're not just growing the things for their inherent, you know, either nutrition or you know, pollinator attracting benefits, it's for the appearance of it, it's to kind of create this landscape almost as if you were painting it. And to be able to, I think, see that far ahead in the future, knowing that, oh, I've bought this tiny little green thing in a in a dodgy pot, and I know it's gonna create this beautiful splash of of more fuchsia pink, not magenta, like it's and to then put that in a garden in a spot where that's visually going to make a beautiful image. I've always found that really fascinating and a little bit like magic or witchcraft. Um, think as well, the the fact that the plants aren't always gonna play to what your rules are, like and totally that in itself is also really cool because it's like you're you're setting up a situation that's as welcoming for them as possible, but you're also acknowledging that they will do their own thing and they will get to what they need to get to um in their own time and in their own way. So I love that as an analogy for you know society and for families and parenting and all this sort of stuff is that you can create uh a living system that is as optimally or as optimized as possible. Um but every plant in that living system is going to do what nature tells it is the right thing to do. And that's not always going to be within your control, but it doesn't mean that we love those plants any less. So I I love that as an idea. Um, you know, especially being neurodiverse and um being having anxiety and having different challenges that meant I didn't fit into your standard, like if we go with if we go with the analogy, I didn't fit into the standard topiarid garden. Um, you know, like I was more like the little dodgy hedge down the the back of the property that, you know, was really scratchy and you know didn't quite fit, but then had the most magnificent wild plums or you know, um fruits in in the autumn time. I had so I had a lot of garden influence and a lot of artistic influence from my mum. Um, and then my dad's a scientist, so he's like a biochemist.

SPEAKER_00

And that's such a contrast, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and he's traveled the world working with foreign aid programs, particularly around um food security, as far as it connects to, you know, like food supply. How do you optimize growth? Again, it's growth of food that then sustains a society and sustains community and sustains life. And so I think going into life with these two really different viewpoints, I kind of yeah, I kind of made it made up this little idea that everything is connected to nature, which is connected to science. And so it has some rules, but everything is also individual and unique and is going to turn out a little bit differently. You know, science experiments go wrong all the time, and it's not actually going wrong, they're just going a different way and teaching you something else. So, you know, we did lots of stuff that was instilling understanding of art and science. And, you know, it was when we would go on holidays, we would go on little walks down to the beach, and mum would be noticing things going, oh, look at that, isn't that a beautiful blue? And see how the sky touches the blue, and then it's oh, and that funny little patch of grey over there, doesn't that make it look very oh mysterious? And you know, so there was lots of this kind of uh magical stuff built into it. And then dad would be like, oh yes, well, you know that the seaweed, these ones here over here, is used in the Philippines to make a thickening ad carragen and you know, all these sorts of things. And so um, and mum, you know, she grew up near next to a forest in Sweden, so she grew up very much foraging, and that that is the nature in that's like the standard in Sweden. Everyone knows how to forage certain things. So we just had this overall really broad and deep connection to nature from all the different angles, and you know, like what it looked like. And so I've been learning lately a little bit about my autistic brain being um one of my highlights of how I think is that I'm really good at pattern recognition. And that's not just um, you know, the patterns of the numbers and this, that, and the other, or on a on a wallpaper or something. It's like the patterns of the seasons, the patterns of where I've found this plant growing that I have discovered is safely edible. I've noticed the pattern of this landscape. So I could find another place in another country if I know that thing grows there. I reckon I could find it because I know what to look for in the nature that's around it, you know, how long the grass is, whether the ground is spongy under my feet, whether the the smell of the air has that autumn crispness to it, and it it means that it's the right time to go and look for this, you know, fruit or fungi or something like that. So, you know, we had a lot of that, and then also built into that is the Scandinavian, you know, Sweden's a socialist country and it always has been. There's this really deep um belief that there's the thing that's right to do by all of humankind, and that's what you do. So in Sweden, you know, there's this very much um you you're never selfish, you don't take stuff just for you if it means that someone else loses. And that was foundational in my upbringing. Um and I think that, yeah, that's definitely has shaped the way I think about community and society and yeah, governing structures and things like that, because I'm just like, well, yeah, this is what maybe this government is telling us that we have to do at the moment. But I know that as far as animals and humans and living organisms go, we kind of have to just share rather than you know making one person earn too much or have too much, because otherwise we'll all die, and then you know, that's then nothing. So it's like this this real kind of seesawing between natural things and really deeply pragmatic, um, scientific back to biological imperative. It's the purpose of every living thing to survive, thrive, and reproduce. And when I get really overwhelmed by um emotional situations that I don't understand, I'll sometimes bring it back to that biological imperative where I'm saying, okay, this person's being really nasty to me. Um why are they being nasty? I don't understand what's going on in their life, but I reckon, because with my pattern recognition, I know that people are often nasty when they are feeling afraid of something.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And they're afraid of something. And if I bring that back to, like I'm never gonna know what everyone's afraid of in their life, but if I bring it back to biological imperative, it's like, okay, what is something that could get in that living creature's way of reproducing? And it's not enough money, not enough food, not having a good working situation. And then all of those things can play into why this person has been unkind to me. And I might not be able to change their behavior, but I can change my empathy and my understanding around it. And if that means I can get through that situation, then I'm cool with that, you know, like it's a bit of a waffly way of describing it, but it just sort of I feel like I look at the world and I look at the societies of animals and plants and fungi and everything that's on here, and I'm like, there is a balance that that would naturally exist if humans just stopped getting in the way with their stupid words. And um, you know, I sort of feel like, well, that's what I try to want to get back to. And that just when I found out about permaculture, I was just like, oh, okay, so that's that I see.

SPEAKER_00

Because I was going to ask, like that was my second question was um about your sort of how you became, you know, so interested and involved in the permaculture movement. And but as you describe your childhood, do you do you sort of so that that's part of the question is like tell me your story about permaculture and how you got into it. But it sounds to me like how you were raised was very aligned with permaculture. Did that kind of all click into place when you found about them found out about permaculture like and the theory later?

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. And um when I was teaching, there was a one of the people who worked at the school actually did a sort of introduction to permaculture course and they brought some of the stuff back to the school, but they didn't call it that. They were just sort of like, oh, we could try this. And I'm like, Yeah, well, this is what I want to do with the kids and this, that, and the other. And and then like after I left teaching, and I actually did Justin Calvary's um complete urban farmer course at Ceres in Victoria.

unknown

Cool.

SPEAKER_02

And when we learnt about the permaculture principles, I'm just like, oh, but that's what I've been, but that's it. That's the thing. That's what I've been doing. That's what I want. Oh my god, this all makes so much sense. And so, particularly as someone who, you know, at that point in time, I didn't know I was autistic, even though autism was my area of further study as a teacher. And like I went on study tours for it, because back then girls don't have autism. Um, but you know, I didn't know that about myself, and so I had grown up feeling out of step with pretty much everyone and everything in my life, as far as human interaction goes, societal interaction and all that stuff. It's like everyone was operating based on a play script or a guidebook that I didn't get a copy of, or it was given to me in a different language or something like that that I couldn't read. Um, and so I'd always just had this baseline feeling of being out of place, out of step. Um, I had a deep feeling of what I felt should be right in the world, but it wasn't, I wasn't seeing it anywhere. So I was like, oh, that must just be another way that I'm weird or whatever. And then seeing the permaculture principles and seeing how they were broad and adaptive and can be used to explain everything and can be used to shape and form connected, balanced systems in everything. I was just like, oh my God, I'm not the only one. This is actually, this is it. This is how it works. Oh my god, this is brilliant because A, it gives me a rule book or a guidebook, I should say, to help me kind of feel like I'm achieving more of what I want to do. But B, it puts me in a recognizable, accepted, acknowledged framework. To sort of, it's almost like a passport going to say, see, see, I'm not that weird. It's actually a real thing. I didn't make it up, it's not just me.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, there was a lot of aha moments um when I was doing it. And you know, the that complete urban pharma course is one that goes over 14 weeks, and so you spend a whole day every week for 14 weeks. Um, and it's really financially accessible too, compared to a lot of other permaculture teaching. So highly recommend if anyone um wants to do that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00

I've had quite a few people recommend how do you pronounce series?

SPEAKER_02

Ceres.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so it's I've had a few people recommend that words.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's an anagram, like it's an environmental and recycling and you know sustainability park, basically, yeah, um, in Brunswick, and it's got a massive market farm garden, and there's community gardens in there, they have restaurants, they have spaces for communal gatherings, like where they have the Kingfisher Parade and gathering every year and solstice stuff and all that kind of thing, and they do community teaching groups and connection groups, and I think there's even a childcare in there. So it's like it's kind of everything. Um, and I went there as a student when I was in primary school, and I remember going into the little, um, there was like this little village where they had some different indigenous buildings in it. So there, I think there was an African mud hut, and there was some Indigenous Australian, you know, lean twos and things like that. And so we were going in there experiencing different things, and they made us chai, chai latte with full spices in a pot on the stove. And I was like, this is amazing. Um, I love this, went home and completely mucked it up. And I was like, well, maybe I'm not meant to have that drink. Um, but yeah, then coming back there to do this course later in life, I was like, oh, there's so much here that just really makes me feel like I've come home. And it was, you know, it's not home to the home that I had growing up. It was this feeling of belonging and home and and rightness, if that makes sense. Um, yeah, it just felt like the balance was there.

SPEAKER_00

I definitely have had that similar experience just with like just when I went down um and I interviewed a few people down in Dalesford and visited that was two years ago. And just yeah, being in that community, like I've never really experienced just that feeling, yeah, of being just un I just understood. I just really and I felt like they really saw me, like it was so I never had felt that before because I live in a very um, you know, I live in Marinoa, which I think is the most conservative district in the entire country. And so it can be really hard to be an activist up here because I feel very um like just a kind of like they think I'm crazy or what I'm saying is made up or like how I'm doing this is really weird. Like obviously there's more and more people sort of coming into it and becoming interested, but you can feel a bit lost. But it's interesting to hear you um also talk about your experience with autism and feeling like just you didn't quite understand or you never quite fit because I'm not diagnosed with anything, but in my family, we're there's a lot of the diagnosis happening right now with autism and ADHD. And looking back, I just think there's there's that in my family too, and I can really resonate with your experiences.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And look, you know, the other thing about this is, and this is what we learned um, you know, when I was doing all my sort of extra study in this field, was that it actually, you know, the bit of paper that tells you what you are or are not, as far as neurodiversity goes, is for the large part, it's mostly useful if you are impaired by your challenges to a point where you need external help or external supports that cost money. Because without that bit of paper, you can't access the NDIS and You know, it needs to be legitimized. It has to be like made into a clinical thing. Like it's, you know, oh, do I have enough of this difference to make make me the thing? But we always were taught as teachers that it doesn't actually matter what a bit of paper says. If you have a student who has behaviors that present in a similar way to how autism might present in the classroom, the strategies that you use with autistic kids are likely to benefit that student as well. So just use them. You know, like just it doesn't matter if you're autistic, if you're dyslexic, if you're, you know, dysgraphic, if you have ADHD, if you have any of these sorts of OCD behaviors. If you have strategies that work in your classroom and make all of your students feel more relaxed, calm, and able to access learning, that's what you should do. Doesn't matter what bits of paper any of them have. And that is things. Yeah, that is something that is taught, because I did my teaching degree quite late, like I'd gone and done a whole lot of other things. So I was late 20s when I did my teaching degree. And that at that point in time, um, so what are we talking, like 2020, thereabouts, the teaching we were taught was to be as inclusive and to acknowledge that there are so many different learning styles, but behaviour management is always going to be your biggest ally in the classroom. And the way you can manage behaviour well in a classroom is to create spaces that are conducive to learning for every student. And that's the kind of stuff where you have the strategies. So I would always look at books for people with you know dyslexic teaching books and um autism strategies and things like that, and I would just use them and see if they worked with my students, regardless of what any bits of paper said.

SPEAKER_00

Um that's really interesting because I think that it also takes like a big skill set to be able to do that. And like just having my sort of experience now of children who are, you know, in their early years and having you know, seeing how different sort of teachers operate, you know, it's it's a lot. Like, and I know myself, like I've learned so much just through having children that if I had tried to teach children before having children, I you know, like it's such a huge field of experience to go across.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and it's um look, I find it this is what the reason I left teaching was because A, I got completely burnt out. You can't exist on two hours sleep a night and waking up feeling like you're a fraud because you you know you're out of out of step with the world, um, and because you're not keeping up with the administ trivia, as we used to call it, like all of the paperwork. Um, but my main reason for leaving was that I couldn't actually reconcile what I wanted to do, which was connect with kids and help them have aha moments, because that's like the most delicious thing in the world. Um and what teaching actually was, which was managing interpersonal relationships with challenging parents.

SPEAKER_01

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02

Um trying to fit seven full curriculums into one school day that, you know, in my whole four years of actually being a teacher, I never once had a single week that wasn't disrupted. I never once got to deliver my entire week of lesson plans because it was, you know, oh, we're doing swimming this week. Or oh, we've got, you know, oh look, the the army tank from Pacapunal have come and parked out the front. Let's all go look at them. Sure, great, rich learning. But now I don't have that maths thing, and now I can't do the admin is trivia.

SPEAKER_00

You can't tick your box to say you've done this thing.

SPEAKER_02

Stopped from teaching, yeah, because of all of the admin that needed to go with it. And I get it, like as a because I studied science at uni as well. So I get that point that you have to have routine and you have to have, you know, condensation of stuff in it, and you've got to essentially provide a system that can be assessed. And that to me is just not what teaching's actually about.

SPEAKER_00

This totally fits in, like to that question, you know, the last question that I have for you, which is just sometimes like I can feel um unsure of myself because especially whatever my algorithm is on social media, it's all unschooling, all homeschooling people spouting how horrific the schooling system is and how it's just gonna cause trauma to my children, etc. And like I don't deny that that's possible, but I also feel that there's gotta be a happy medium. Like, we have to be like to make positive change in the world, we have to be able to make the system meet with the change, right? Instead of just being like, no, we're just gonna go full left here and that can go on the bin. How like is can can schooling and permaculture and the progressive ways of being align and work or not? And what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02

Look, I think you know, well, I've really uh really kind of absorbed permaculture and it's kind of everything for me now, like it's just my baseline thinking. So through the permaculture lens, I'm now able to look at mainstream schooling, even within, you know, more alternative schools. Mainstream schooling as a concept in Australia exists to prepare human beings to be part of the capitalist system.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's it. And that's you know, it's not altruistic, it's not about actually equipping kids for real rich life ahead of them. It's equipping them with the details that will help them do a mid-level job and do that for most of their life so that they can fund the top 1% of, you know, richie bitchies. It's like it is not about holistic learning for those individuals who are within the system. So it's like, well, you can't change the whole format of schooling. You can't change the the basic tenets of schooling if we still have people who are wanting those workers to fill those spots at the top 1% can get their money. So it's like until we break capitalism, it's just not gonna happen. It's you know, it's until we get to that beautiful post-apocalyptic world, which is my, you know, my favorite genre of teen young adult fiction. You know, it's um we just started watching the Hunger Games last night. I've not seen it before. I'm like, okay, well, oh God, it's too real. It's too real now. Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I think about it all the time when I see like the um, you know, the awards ceremonies. Yeah, oh god, it's just the Hunger Games.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so yeah, we're only got halfway through the movie, so you know, I kind of know what happens because it's been around for so long, but um I sort of feel like that until we actually shift the baseline thinking around our social structure in Australia, we're not gonna change the capitalist and therefore consumerist. Like it's necessary to have consumerism in capitalism because you have to keep the people wanting to buy the things because that will keep them working and providing the riches for the uptops. Um until we break those, the schooling's never gonna follow because money's never gonna be put into systems that don't create workers. So, well, a little bit might be for essentially greenwashing. Um, you know, oh yes, well, we've we've provided for yeah, it's interactive for school play for three months of every school year and whatever. It's like cool, but you're just doing that to shut us up, really. It's not about um giving those kids a real rich growth in that alternative sphere because ultimately we just want people to get back to that thing of you're gonna go out into the system and you're gonna create money for mostly other people and just enough for you to survive, but not enough for you to survive well. So you'll have to keep in the system. So, and when I look at it like that, I'm like, holy crap, that's really makes me feel very despondent. And um, yeah, it's sort of like, you know, well, what do you do? We while we have adults and parents still in that system, they don't have the time, energy, supports, or funds to actually do the unschooling that would benefit the whole of society. So, how do we get there? We can't rely on teachers who have this feeling in them and who want to kind of break the system from within because they they burn out. They burn out the fastest, they burn bright, and then they burn out the fastest. Like I left teaching after I'd spent as many years teaching as I had training to become a teacher. Yeah, didn't even, you know, didn't even make it out. Um didn't even break even. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So the the system, the schooling system obviously does serve capitalism and the system is very broken. And however, the parents are still somewhat trapped in the machine and not always able to to sort of go whole hog into unschooling. And I also like one of my things too is that like I I'm unsure if everyone's sort of totally suited to that. You know, like if we had this community network where we have this beautiful person who's perfect to unschool like little groups of children, and then we could kind of like we're just living in this fragmented kind of society. I mean, I was yeah, so what does that leave us with? Like, do we how can we can we engage with the schooling system and use it in some ways as a tool to serve us and then when we have more capacity, extract our children? Because that was kind of my thinking. Like, all I particularly care about for my kids, and I've told them, you do not have to, we don't have to, we don't do any of the homework. Um you don't have to do homework, you don't have to be the best, you just need to get the basics so that you can learn how to cook food, like understand the numbers, understand how to read the stories and learn the information. And then when you're bigger, if you want to come out of the system, you can. If you're enjoying it, you can continue. That's where I'm at with it. What do you think?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and look, I love that kind of approach. I love any kind of thinking that centers the learner rather than centering the school, I think is beneficial for every human who's in that kind of relationship. Um, I get what you're saying. It's like, yes, that is all very kind of you get quite dejected thinking about it. So where's the hope? You know, and I think for me the hope appears when people start to get angry about the systems that already exist. So I'm just gonna go on a little side tangent because I feel like it's it explains it more. I recently gave a talk on fast fashion and had breakup with fast fashion. And it's one of the hardest presentations I've ever written because there are just so many facts and figures around it that are just not good. And you I knew that the audience was going to at one point just go, oh my god, there's no way. I didn't realise I was part of the problem, but I am a hundred percent part of the problem, and I hate that feeling, but I also can see it's gonna be really hard for me to not become the problem. Like, how am I gonna change? And my thinking around it is that we need to find that sweet spot of understanding and knowledge about what is broken in systems and and what are we kind of complicit in without our knowledge? What have we been forced to take part in? Um, and we just need to know enough to about that for us to go, hang on, hold on. I never signed up for that. I don't, I wouldn't choose to do that. I don't want to do that. What do you mean they're washing up clothes on the beach of Ghana and and creating mountains of of fast fashion from Kmart, Timu, and Shein that can be seen from space in Chile? Like, you know, what do you mean? Oh my god. So maybe it does actually matter that I don't buy things from Kmart because they have between 52 and 60 micro seasons per year. Each season of clothing comes out, you know, with all of the colours and all of the sizes and all of that. Like you have we have to feed people enough knowledge that they can be um incensed that it's it's happening around us without our, you know, agreeing to it. And then we have to shape or provide them with small, slow solutions to how that they can they can break up with things like that. So fast fashion, it's like, holy crap, we we've ended up in a relationship with fast fashion that we didn't want to have. How do I stop that? I can't just go out and get rid of all that clothes, throw all those fast fashion clothes away, and then buy all linen and wool. It's like there's so many barriers there, and it's like there is no land of a way. So if I put it away, I'm just making it someone else's problem. And okay, shoot, this is gonna take a long time. But if I don't start now, it's gonna take even longer. So I'm gonna make a decision this week that um I just notice where every piece of clothing that I put on this week has come from. Like that in itself is the first step.

SPEAKER_00

In terms of like, we're gonna notice this week where every piece of our curriculum comes from.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Um, and so yeah, to bring that back to teaching, how can we change the systems? We need to help parents understand what is happening in schools and how much of it is tied to arbitrary numbers on a page from assessment and then show them some other schooling systems that are doing better and what they're doing, and like get parents to say, that's what I want. Because when enough people get angry enough about something, they're like, I don't want to do this curriculum stuff anymore, they will start to make noise in spaces where it can actually make some change. Because if you get all of the parents of a school saying, we don't want to do this particular type of testing, we want, or we want to bring in something like inquiry-based learning from the Kath Murdoch model, which is actually really rich. Or we want to bring in self-directed learning, which is very aligned with permaculture principles as well, and it centers the learner as a learner, not as a person who's doing tests and filling out numbers. If we get enough parents in a school saying that, the schools will then actually listen to that and possibly make changes. And once you get enough schools in a district doing things, they become known for that rich learning. And you have people moving there, and suddenly other schools are like, well, we want out, we don't want to lose our students. Maybe we should start doing this as well. Or we'll start doing, you know, and it's that knock-on effect, but it all comes back to they have to know what they don't want so that they can make a noise about what they do want.

SPEAKER_00

Something that's really cool is that, like, being a former student of the school, like this is a quite progressive school. It came up from Melbourne in the 80s, a whole bunch of yogis moved up here and started a school. And you know, obviously it's become more mainstream of over time because of regulations and whatever, like, but it's still, you know, more progressive, I guess, than other options. But something that is cool that's happened is I guess I've just sort of whinged enough around the fringes of school time to the teachers that um, you know, my daughter's teachers, both of them, have sort of had discussions with the principal and have invited me to have some conversations about how we could reimagine how these younger years look at school and how that curriculum is delivered. So that that's kind of what you're talking about, you know? And I but I'm just taking an in-between approach where we're going, I'm just trying to use use the uh mainstream schooling as a tool to for the bits that are beneficial to support what I can't manage right now, because like you said, spoons, like I just don't have infinite spoons at this current point in time. I wouldn't be podcasting if they weren't at school. Yes. So um, so like it's yeah, it's it's tricky, but also just being flexible to respond to my children's needs. If it's not working for them, we won't stay there, will change. So being adaptable is how I'm trying to approach it.

SPEAKER_02

And I think as parents, you can you can sort of definitely do that. And I think, as you say, it's really it is important that people know how to read. It is important how people, you know, and that students learn to do maths and all those things. I would also argue that critical literacy, being able to actually understand all the impacts on what you're reading is going to become an even more important skill going forward, um, you know, in a land of AI and and all the other sort of political stuff we've got going on. But I yeah, it's definitely worth having some systems in place. But it's almost like if we could just get back to the really basic stuff and then find out what each student actually wants to learn and what they want to do, and then find ways to teach them that. So, yeah, unschooling is is great. There is huge privilege, you know, tied up into that. You and I have spoken about that before, that there is privilege in being able to step away from the social structures that exist and you know, those boundaries and barriers. Um, but again, just the thinking about it and knowing what you don't want means that you can then go and have a conversation with your daughter's student uh teachers and other parents can do the same. And and that really slow small stuff where you get more people on your team in a way. Yeah, yeah. Um, I think that is the way forward, you know, when it comes to having small and slow solutions, is to actually build relationships and build community around your kids that have lots of other people who are interested in their best growth, if that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

No, I think I think there's a lot of like food for thought from this. I have another question I'm like so keen to hear your thoughts on. So I I don't want to waste time not getting to that. Sure. But just I just a very funny anecdote that I just wanted to tell you though, was the the good thing, I think, too, is just being conscious of of what is what the issues with the system are is that like I really talk to the kids a lot about it. And to the point that one day my sister, she right my sister, my daughter, she really doesn't like the system that they teach um English with. It's called you fly. She's like, it's boring, it's repetitive, I don't like it. And one day she just refused to participate in the lesson at school. And her teacher's so nice. So she's like, Okay, that's all right, you can just draw in the back, that's fine. And then she's like, you know, maybe just try and do like write this sentence. And Sylvia's like, well, I'm gonna write my own sentence. And she writes, I I hate you fly, and then she's doing and then it's like it's so it's so funny. Like my daughter organized an appointment so she could see the well-being officer at school so that she could talk to the well-being officer about how she doesn't like the delivery of the English. It's so funny. Like, so that is brilliant. They're quite engaged in the political fight, even though they don't quite know what's going on. We need um, so you cannot, you know, no one is unaffected by like the current political tensions, like with the US, Iran, Israel, like, you know, it's just all over social media, it's all over YouTube. And recently it's insight incited a lot of um fear in people about supply supply chain security and um food prices, food scarcity. So a lot of people that I've been talking to, especially when the tensions really began, um, just started. And I mean myself too, I put in a an extra bulk order, you know, because I was like, oh my god, like what if I can't get rice? Like, what if I can't get my organic flour? Obviously, like God, Sophie. But um, you know, in your book, you talk about prepping as actually being a barrier to creating community. And I was wondering, like, can you explain why is it that prepping is a barrier to building community? And how can it hinder us rather than help us in the the process of collapse that's unfolding? And if we're not going to go and fill our cupboards with 25 kilo bags of rice, which I have done.

SPEAKER_02

Um I mean, that's that's a good thing about it, I guess. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

No. Money saving was fairly big on my radar in terms of just buying before the prices went up. But yeah, I do recognise that that's really an unsustainable model. Like, I can't survive off that bag of rice in my cupboard. Like, what happens? You know, so what do you think it's best for us to do and how is it best for us to be going forward as these kind of things just become more common and food scarcity becomes more of a pressing issue? Like, how should we exist? What's the best way to be prepared without prepping?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so for for those who don't know, prepping is sort of a model of living that um means you're being prepared for the collapse of society as it currently exists. And there are so many different ways of doing it with a whole American TV show, which was kind of hilarious, all about prepping.

SPEAKER_00

I I kind of love those jokes in a sick way.

SPEAKER_02

Well, because at the end of each episode, they're sort of like, this is not gonna happen because of this, this, this, and this. Like, oh, okay. I thought it was interesting stuff, like lots of cool skills that people are sharing and and you know, uh ways of thinking that I find are are good to know that there are people out there thinking. Um, but yeah, so the idea is that you're prepared for the downfall, and a lot of that circles around food preparedness because and that makes so much sense because. Everyone needs to eat. And we we saw it during COVID, during lockdowns. Um, there are certain things that people are very worried about not being able to have that they currently have. Food, and for some reason, a way to wipe your bum were the two things that people really freaked out about. And I'm like, well, it's actually all connected to food anyway, isn't it? Like, you know, it's we get we're like, we don't want to not have the security around food that we currently have. And it was really apparent that this was a brand new consideration for a whole lot of people because the things that people were panic buying and bulk buying and creating, you know, an artificial scarcity or manufactured scarcity around things, they were things like you couldn't buy salt in one of my supermarkets because I think people had the idea was that people who got the idea, oh, you can preserve food with salt, so we should stock up on that. I don't know how to do it, but I'll just get it in case. And I'm like, people were buying 25 kilo bags of salt and to to ferment a whole cabbage, you need two teaspoons of salt. It's like it's not actually gonna do anyway, it's okay, never mind. Again, it won't go off. Um, so I think the thing around food food scarcity is always gonna come first because when people who have been who have had food security are um, you know, when they're faced with the idea of you're not gonna have food security in the future, they're like, oh my god, I don't I don't know how bad that could be. I don't want to be that. So I'm going to um, you know, try and lay up as much food as I can. Like with anything, there is enough of everything on the planet to go around. There is enough food, there is enough clothing, there is enough fuel, there is enough everything. It is literally just a distribution problem. And when we start messing with the balance of supply, when we start trying to hoard more for one person, that immediately means there's not enough for another person. And then that builds up that scarcity mindset as you've talked about before, where you know, oh, I better, there's not much left, I better get some so I don't miss out. So I think the barriers that happen with prepping, um, in my thinking, is that it it does encourage people to take more than they need. And because a lot of the people who are accessing prepping for the first time, they don't understand how much they're actually going to need. Um, like people who have been prepping for a long time, or homesteading is another word for it, people who have been doing that for a long time, they know our family goes through 48 cans of diced tomatoes and 12 cans of whole tomatoes a year. Like they've worked it out because they've tried it enough times. And they therefore don't make as many tomato cans as they can because they know that this time next year they're gonna have more tomatoes to process, and so they've actually still got some left from last year, and la la la, and you've got too much. But when people are first accessing this, people who have been used to going to the supermarket once a day and buying everything they need that day, they're like, Oh, I I better just stock up on everything, and then there's not enough to go around. There it for prepping to be really useful for all humans, um, it has to come with knowledge and understanding of your actual needs, not your fears, but your needs. And because that's not happening, what I'm seeing a lot of, and I was invited to join different prepping groups and stuff, and I was like, thank you, but no, thank you, I'm all good. Um, is that we are seeing far more fear in those groups than we are um emotions and actions that will grow security. So, to me, a robust, strong, diverse community or strong community is diverse. And it's not just single people sitting inside a fortress with weapons and bunkers full of canned food. I'm like, also, do you want to eat canned food for every meal? Like, really? Like, come on. Um, but you know, if we've got a whole lot of people sitting inside these little fortresses, are they just gonna be sitting there in glee eating baked beans for every meal? Are they? Oh, I got all the baked beans, I'm so clever. How is that living? Like, if we're in a social structure that's sort of collapsing around us, don't we want to have connection so we don't, you know, have failing mental health? And don't we want to have support? Because what happens if you get sick and you can't protect that fortress? Someone else can steal your stuff, or like the thinking that I have around what a good community is, um, it sort of oscillates between it's a village and it's a forest, but they both say the same thing in my head, which is we need to have different members of communities doing different things. So we need, you know, like in a forest, we need a top canopy, we need climbing plants, we need an understory because they all create a rich living system that you know has dieback, has new growth, all these sorts of things. And when it comes to a community, you need the people who can um preserve food, but you also need the people who can grow food. You also need the people who can um protect you know yourself from from bar um sorry.

SPEAKER_00

Predators.

SPEAKER_02

This yeah, you all you also need the the people who can protect you from predators. So I think that prepping for me is a barrier because it encourages people to isolate themselves. And when you isolate yourself, you then have to become responsible for every facet of your life and everything that goes into that life, and a lot of that is food. So prepping can create these systems that are very small and isolated, where people are not actually getting what they need, which is mental stimulation and um interaction with human beings. Yeah, they're just getting food, and that's then making it so that there are people out there who aren't getting food, and then like it's just not a good balance. Um we've had things in Australia where we're you know, sovereign citizens. That's sort of if you've heard of them, then you've heard of prepping because a lot of those kind of tie together.

SPEAKER_00

I think I think we have some in our street. I think there's like some they have a flag. They've got a flag, don't they?

SPEAKER_02

They probably do.

SPEAKER_00

Um pretty sure they fly. My I asked my husband about this flag, and he said, Oh, it's like a sovereign thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. It's um, you know, I think anything where you get people who are too radicalized in any way, you get these kind of offshoots that become decentered and unbalanced very, very quickly. So when it comes to building community for me and and becoming more sustainable long term, it involves human sustainability as much as it does environmental sustainability. And so, as a perpetual, you know, perennial renter, I've always tried to make sure that when I get to a new rental space, the one of the first things I do is make some kind of contact with the people in my street. They are all going to be wildly different. And I'm not gonna like everything that they all do, and I'm gonna disagree with them about lots of things, but I might never find that out. But if I do have a connection with someone that I can smile to out the window or share bin space with, or you know, share excess cooked food or whatever, it it makes me suddenly feel more rooted in that space and safer and actually part of a forest rather than just a log what's been put there, you know, like I can't. Yeah, I feel like I've got the capacity to grow there and and survive and thrive and reproduce there. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And and so, like if you were to just paint a bit of a picture of like and not so if we're not going to be prepping and stocking our cupboards, um, does that look like maybe we're all leaning into our strengths and then trying to make connections to share those strengths? And but there's a fair bit of trust required required in that, right? Like we need to be a little bit trusting of the fact that in times of scarcity, there's you know, like there's it's taking you have to really move away from the fear mindset to lean into that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and that can be really challenging, um, especially when you are by necessity stuck in that the capitalist system that we've got. Um I think the COVID lockdowns, particularly in Melbourne, um, actually showed people a really good case study for what happens when you get hoarding and that kind of prepping mindset. And we've mostly come out the other side of it. Now we're faced with the cost of living crisis, but we've mostly come out of the side of that, going, oh, that really wasn't necessary. That's right. We never actually ran out of toilet paper. So maybe I don't need to do that next time. Um but it's it it does take trust, but having experiences that show you that it does work out, that it does calibrate, like it finds its own balance. The more times you have it proven to you that it works, the more trusting you can become. So I have always had a lot of that fear mindset. I've always been very scared around money and and security and stuff like that. But I have never felt richer than when I started giving stuff away. So um it started during lockdowns. I've gone foraging not long before the first lockdown happened, and I had around 20, I think, kilos of apples that I'd foraged. And I was sitting there going, well, I don't, I'm not gonna eat that many. I'm not gonna bake that many. I I'm not even gonna eat that many if I preserve them. And I was gonna share them with other people, but now I'm at a foraging class and now I won't be doing those classes and we don't know what the future holds and whatever. I'm like, every time I walked past them on the dining table, they gave me all these feelings of anxiety of what I wasn't achieving. And I was like, Do you know what? Stuff this, I'm just gonna give them away because I don't want to feel that. And I don't like it. So I just put them outside and I put them up with a sign, and within a couple of days they were all gone. And then I started getting little like thank you notes, and someone put like a little chocolate with a card or a post-it note going, thanks for the apples. And I was like, Oh, I didn't expect that, but that was really lovely. And then that started the community corner where I shared a lot of different produce where I had excess at home, or you know, um, spices was the big one. I buy spices in bulk, and then I'm like, it's gonna go off, and I haven't used it in a year. Why am I keeping it? Just give it away. Um, and I've talked a few times about the late great sci-fi author Terry Pratchett, who wrote the Disc World series, and there's this one group of witches um who don't get paid money, but they always, you know, just have enough. And um one of them was like, Oh, but you know, how if they gave you a pig, what do you how but you gave the pig away? You know, you gave that meat away. What's the deal? And she's like, Yeah, because I was storing, I was storing my wealth in other people. And I was like, What do you mean? She's like, Well, that food fed those people, but it also um grew in them a feeling of thankfulness and um and and care for me because I gave them something when I didn't have to, and that made them feel grateful, and it's not why I did it, but it did. And then they gave stuff back to me when they had excess. And so suddenly we've got people sharing when they've got excess and abundance, and that's how these systems can calibrate is when instead of going, I I need excess so I can survive, we say, What have I got in excess that's actually not useful to me now? Where can I put it? Where can I store that energy and catch it and store it in these other people? Which may then come back to me in a way when I have scarcity and I need that. And it can come back to you in the format of other things, skills. You might give someone some food, they might be someone who can come and mow your lawns when you've broken your leg. Or, you know, someone might teach you how to build things or fix a fence, and they'll offer to do that because they feel like, oh, I'm thankful that that person did a thing for me. I can do something for them. So building that community is all about being brave enough to the first step, is just be brave enough to say hello to someone and give them a smile. That's actually all you need to do to begin. And then try and think towards this idea of sharing abundance and storing it in unconventional places. It doesn't have to be your pantry. If it's stored in your community's pantry, you've just suddenly increased the size of your overall potential pantry by all the members of your community, you know.

SPEAKER_00

So, so what you're really trying to tell me is I should go and share that 25 kilobag of rice with some friends.

SPEAKER_02

Why not? Because then you don't have to store it, you don't have to protect it from mice, you don't have to worry about it getting moldy. And you it's real.

SPEAKER_00

All those fears are so because you have to, yeah, like getting that actually was really quite stressful because then I was like, oh god, the I watched something on YouTube about their like it will naturally have these little bugs in it, and if you don't freeze it, it will be full of you know, weevils, it will be full of moths.

SPEAKER_02

And anyway, it just yeah, I must say that there's this whole body of stress that comes with having a loss of having to defend something against external factors when by the containers, you're not making your life easier, you're actually making it harder, yeah. But there has to be a balance, and there will always be a different balance for different people too.

SPEAKER_00

I also like just what you're talking about in terms of the the generosity, and I have to say that just from my like witnessing that happening and my kind of personal experience is that it really works best when when it comes from when you're sharing without any expectations surrounding the return. Because sometimes I've sort of heard um, you know, I'll give you this, oh, but like there's that I think in this modern day there's this real um inclination to like monetize, like yeah, I'll give you this, oh, but I'm selling them and it I'm selling them for this much, or or um like oh, let's do an energy exchange in terms of let's quantify what energy is, you know. And I think sometimes, you know, it the experience, sorry, all the time really is so much richer when it's just a pure act of generosity with no expectation of return because it I mean it always is return because that's like seems to be some fundamental law of nature, as when you do something wonderful for somebody, it always comes back, and it may not come back from them, but it'll come back from somebody else.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you know, and that yeah, it is that there is it's like an osmotic recalibration, things will balance out. Um, but you have to give them a chance to do that. And it I will I'll be the first best to say that there are huge challenges for a lot of people letting down guard and being vulnerable enough to share because it's not safe to do so. And I'm I'm not saying go and give all your stuff away, but I think for me, one of the first things I'll do when I'm feeling like a bit out of balance and I'm feeling a bit ungrounded is to look around me and go, right, what is there in my space here, in my kitchen, my pantry, my bedroom, my bathroom, whatever? What is in here that I actually don't need and I'm paying rent for? Because the more rent I have to pay for stuff, the more hours I have to work, which leaves me with less time to do the things that I want to do, which means I have to then pay for someone else, which means I have to work for more to get more money to what can I get out of this system so I'm not having to pay as much for it because that allows me to step off that merry-go-round. It's not very merry. But um giving with no expectation of return can't always feel safe. But that's where giving a smile is that first step. You can you can give away kindness and just even connection with another human, you can give that for free. And it's not it's often not going to cost you very much. And those smaller steps will allow you to try and do a little bit more, you know. Oh, I've I've bought too much parsley and I put the bunch out the front in a jar. Please take some, off it goes, you know. And then you you will build up, like I said, that exposure of, oh, it's worked out before that allows you to feel safe to be vulnerable again going forward.

SPEAKER_00

To kind of conclude the conversation. I would just be interested to ask you, like, you know, as things are kind of escalating like around the world, and it's very easy to fall into this kind of like sort of bit doomist kind of view. But I'm just interested to ask you, as like a concluding question, what is something that's that's making you feel like really alive right now? Or that's what's something that you're really interested in, or that's giving you a bit of hope? Like, what's something that's just real for you right now that's that's helping you?

SPEAKER_02

Uh human connection, without a doubt. So I've spent the last two and a half years um caring for my parents largely. Um and I have been very disconnected from a lot of my normal networks. I've been living with them for a year and a half, and I've lost a lot of myself. And that sounds awful, but you know, I I've lost a lot of the opportunities to grow myself in the way that I feel comfortable. And so what's really making me feel grounded and alive and and wanting to get more back into this kind of broad permaculture world is I've started seeing the people that are a big part of my community. I've started seeing them more, and I'm just trying to stack my functions and like when I have work over on the other side of town, I'll go and stay with a friend who lives close to that side. So I I might only see them for two hours in the evening, but that two hours is filling my bucket, like you wouldn't believe.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And the more I am connecting with them, the more it's actually awakening my mind as well, because we're starting to have different conversations. And I know this is the case for when I was nannying and for parents with young children as well. It's like when you suddenly they get to go to daycare or they get to go to school and things, and then you suddenly start using your brain as your own whole human being again. Yeah, it's really uh it's enriching and it's in invigorating, and it makes you it it trains your muscles again, it trains your thinking muscles and how you can connect with um yeah, who you used to be. And the more you can feel grounded, the more steady and safe and confident you can feel trying to broaden your community and grow permaculture communities.

SPEAKER_00

Um that's so that's so true. And I'll just make a very quick comment before we wind up. Um, just about that exactly so relevant to what you're saying. Like it must be something in the in the universe because yeah, these last two years, like I've just felt like I totally lost myself, like in just the care requirements of three children, and you know, um just some personality of children, like they just need more, like, and so my son just just really needed me, like so much so that I had really nothing left to give for my creativity bucket. And I to the point that I deleted everything, I deleted like you know, which is such a such a shame. But I just thought I don't think I can ever see myself, I've totally lost myself. Um, had like a creative death. But what was really interesting was that what sparked it was a really tiny moment of connection with a stranger in Aldi. Like I was in Aldi, and this old man with this Scottish cap, who was obviously a massive womanizer, like when he was just kind of like walked up to me and and started asking me about the frosts, whether we've had any frosts. I said, no, you know, and he said, Oh, normally we have one by Anzac Day. And I said, Oh yeah, nothing, you know. And he said something about climate change, and I said, Oh, it's a bit of a worry, and he's like, A bit, and then he sort of walked off. And and I I was like really fascinated because in my town, honestly, nobody's not the norm, is it? Nobody talks about climate change. In fact, you're kind of branded like a bit of an outrageous conspiracy theorist, um something crazy. Um, and and and he walked past me again and he sort of like said something about my dimples. And you know, by the way. And and um and I said, I just you know, it's just so funny um that to hear you say a comment about climate change because I just, you know, I've no one here believes in it. And then we started talking, and you know, this old man was called Robert, and he he was talking about how they bought land nearby here um for sort of similar reasons to escape the city and to get closer to nature and like you know, in the 80s, and and we just had this conversation, and I said, Oh, you know, I used to be like a climate activist, and but now I just don't really do anything, you know, like I'm just I'm kind of just not not really taking any actions apart from like little stuff at home. And yeah, but it was really amazing just having that discussion with somebody who was conscious and kind of like understood me, and and I went home and I said to my mum, I was like, had all this energy after this tiny conversation, you know. He left the conversation saying, I'll probably never see you again, but my name's Robert, but Maybe I'll see you in my dreams. But um lovely, like super lovely man. And it was just great. And and I was talking to Mum and and she just said, you know, you should just really get back into podcasting. And um and it was like that one moment of connection like just tipped the scales and all of a sudden I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna get back into it. And then I just re-uploaded everything and and it all just fell back into place. So I think that human connection is so powerful.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Absolutely. And look, the other thing, just because this is a phrase that that's resonated with a few other people, I'll leave you with this that I've had a lot of shit come my way in the last, you know, last little while, and um for a lot of different reasons. And I could either let it bow me down and weigh me down, or I could choose to see it as my composting era. I am building rich, life-sustaining compost with all of this shit, and I'm just giving it some time and a bit of warmth and a little bit of love here and there, but I'm largely letting it just do its thing. And if I trust the timing of the universe and I trust the timing of my life, um then I can use this compost to grow really rich things because the experiences I've had, the connections I have managed to make during these times, and the way my thoughts have grown in the background uh have all played a huge part in who I'm gonna be going forward. And I feel like that is like I'm about to grow this amazing garden where we it's a big community garden where everyone grows and everyone gets to eat food, and it's just gonna be really rich and sustaining. So yeah, if you're having a bad time, try and see it at the composting era. I might get a t-shirt.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you all so much for tuning into that conversation. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Thank you so much, Anna, for coming on and sharing your wonderful wisdom. So uh that wasn't a cow in the background, it was a whippersnipper. So sorry about that. Um, but I didn't think it was too bad, so I didn't mention it at the beginning. Uh, and in case you're wondering, yes, I did bump into Robert again in the uh Vinnies, and he did give me a pumpkin and broccoli, and he did get my number, but don't worry, I'm pretty sure he's about 90, so we're just friends. So the next episode of the podcast coming out will be me and Beck Shan doing book club for Sarah Wilson's book, I Eat the Stars. And I'm really, really looking forward to doing that. I I'm a person who really loves doing book club, and I love reading books and discussing books. So if you're also of the same mind, please feel free to grab the book from the library. It's in plenty of bookstores, or borrow it from a friend, read, feel free to send me back some feedback if you want to be included in this in the discussion at Sophie at bigthingslithings.com.au or on Instagram at big thingslittlethings. I would love to hear your thoughts on it. And I will be sharing that early in July. So thank you so much for listening. I will catch you in the next episode.

unknown

Bye.