Artist as Family on neopeasantry, rites of passage & grief

Take a walk in nature or find the nearest hammock to enjoy this deeply complex and moving conversation with Meg and Patrick Ulman of Artist as Family.

This family of four live a largely non-monetary existence on a quarter-acre permaculture plot on Djaara peoples' country/Daylesford. They describe themselves as neopeasants, defined by the gardens and forests they tend, the resources they glean and grow, the community they're part of and the technologies they both use and refuse.

They practice permapoesis, which simply means permanent making or regenerative living -– an antidote to disposable culture -- and show us what's possible when creativity, reverence and reciprocity is placed at the heart of human existence.

SHOW NOTES

• A frugal background and time on a kibbutz
• Early skills in propagation and a deep desire to grow things
• An attraction to counter culture and eternal questioning of injustices
• Finding peace by the Mittagong creek
• Working as a couple to overcome grief over the dominant culture
• Growing a new story out of the old story -- about community, not just one idea
• The holistic awakening of permaculture
• Moving from clock time to ecological time 
• Daily connection to the natural world; chanting, observing, meditating
• Creating an art practice that is not separate from everyday life
• Avoiding monotonous and tedious work through neopeasantry
• Why Covid has helped us register our collective exhaustion
• Giving up cars and moving at an ecological pace
• Being cash poor yet time rich in frugal abundance
• Time offline allows a songful, interconnected, wildness that is about observation and interaction
• The importance of rites of passage -- how do we bring them back?
• Recognising the value of the child-to-adult process and parent/child separation
• Grief circles -- “for crying out loud”.  Sharing, howling, laughing, storytelling and bearing witness to each other.
• Giving back to the forest via humanure, menstrual blood, tears
• How fire has held our stories since the beginning of time
• Daily gratitude ritual of naming the inputs needed for each meal
• Growing layers and building gifts to share with our community by accepting ourselves
• Getting the dance right between consciousness and overwhelm
• Why being aware of ideology is important
• Why activism and politics need complexity
• A brief history of patriarchal dominance, removing feminine power in the popular culture

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

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