"We live in a society where uninitiated men grow up"
In this conversation, Hayley and Nick Warner explore the profound themes of transformation, relationships, and the importance of rites of passage in personal growth. They discuss the challenges of authenticity, the journey back to self, and the cost of inauthenticity in life and relationships. Nick shares insights on the significance of responsibility in relationships, the role of fatherhood as a rite of passage, and the necessity of returning to the heart in a society driven by the mind. The dialogue emphasises the importance of community, mentorship, and the healing power of facing one's pain and fears.
Nic Warner is a father, a mentor, a rites of passage facilitator, and an expert in personal growth, he has helped countless individuals unlock their potential, navigate change, and create lives of purpose and fulfillment across the globe. He focuses on work for both the masculine and feminine, a tantric approach, with a particular passion for helping men break through their masks and step into their truest essence.
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We talked about
Follow Nic Warner- https://www.nicwarner.com/
"What would it mean for us to start asking questions via embodied feelings rather than spreadsheets & rational outcomes…turn off our head and turn on our belly."
“You don’t build communities you build relationships - communities build themselves”
Adrian Black is fresh off the plane from 5 weeks of living in an intentional community - a program designed to create a transformative culture. He shares his experience of transferring from being a series of individuals operating in cohesion of each other to operating as a whole via emotional release ceremonies with tears, grief, joy, laughter & dancing.
He normalises 'cortisol crying' - metabolising to release deep emotions & reminds us that we have just two needs: belonging & authenticity. He has learnt to avoid ‘happiness’ & ‘perfectionism’- which are colonial constructs that set us up to fail and he is now focussed on actively bringing people together to celebrate with people, give gratitude & take the energy of the world to focus on something beautiful and worthwhile.
His final advice is to check in regularly on three things - how are your thoughts, your feelings & your body.
References
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Loved this ep, try this one - Charlie Showers
We chatted about:
“Those who have descended from the colonisers, we carry privilege but we also suffer the need to apologise”
Landscapes can etch into your very being & create a remembering. Making us feel whole & reminding us that we are just a thread in the complex web of the natural world. While somewhat insignificant your thread has a role to play as a relative to the threads it lies next too. The way we all interact with each other - both human and other than human, will be our making or our undoing.
Hilary Giovale, author of “becoming a good relative” is based in the ponderosa pine forests of Arizona, opposite a reservation & lives next to the sacred mountain of kinship which she now considers to be her most important teacher. This feels like an important conversation to have had - as two white women without indigenous heritage - it feels uncomfortable to have, and we will forever be learning, but Hilary (a 9th generation settler in the United States) begins the process of unpacking what it means to be in right relationship with the people & place that we each call home - pushing past the burden of white fragility to build pathways of robust healing & reconnection to our landscapes - to reconciliation with first peoples.
She shares what it means to create ancestral alters & how to connect with these elders who’s stories she tells us, are still unfolding.
She reminds us that while the work we have to do is exceptionally confronting, grief won’t kill us & that the time to heal in the bosom of natural landscapes is now.
"Elders are always identified by the community, never by the individual - they are usually unwilling but always shows up for the community, is wise, is generous, is funny, is humble, Our communities can guide us to where the elders are."
Loved this? Try another: Indira Naidoo
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We talked about
Being fed a whitewashed mythology that was a narrative constructed to serve the cultivation of industrialisation.
Realising she had been segregated from the truth of her countries culture
Intergenerational task of building right relations - backwards with her parents & forwards with her children
Creating ancestral alters
Eldership
Healing rituals/programs - ritualised apology & forgiveness
The history of settler colonialism has created trauma, damage, theft of knowledge, land & culture.
“Grief won’t kill you”
The relief of grief through letting tears flow
Common threads of wisdom which runs through indigenous cultures regardless of the continent
Going to the land in a reciprocal & respectful way & asking permission to be guided
Asking “how if at all can I help” informs how to be in right relationship
“How we raise our children is facilitating a denaturing of our human-ness. The opportunity is to be centred within & rebuild our culture”
Dan Kittridge is the bare footed gent who coined the term Nutrient density off the back of his dao-ist strategy to create a life that afforded him the time & space to be at home with his young family, living simply with just 10k per year on the land.
Over the next 20 years he became clear that his role was simply to serve & that it's not his job to know what he's doing or attempt to implement a plan rather to be sensitive to what's shown to him & respond in a way that was lead by love enabling him to get out of his head, get out of the ‘shoulds’ & get into the heart, asking instead, what flows.
The result has been the creation of the bionutrient institute, a global speaking profile & a life long commitment to renaturing which he says sits at the centre of solving the poly-crises we face.
“Having the right to land to provide adequate housing & food for every family should be a foundational right. The land cannot be sold but you have access to it sufficient for a simple life.”
"As long as we engage with a colonised mind of separation/fear/division, we will not be able to engage with an indigenous mind of love/flow & unity"
“As long as the structure of our lives require us to work jobs for money that are separating us from nature, we are paddling upstream. It becomes difficult to tune into the flow of nature.”
Loved this? Try these:
Manda Scott - Becoming accidental gods
Damon Gameau - A call to arms for storytellers
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Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Books - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters & Huddle Creating a tomorrow of togetherness
We talked about:
“We are not the body we are carrying around we are effectively individual consciousness that has physical attributes. Accepting this changes the way we interact with each other.”
What is a soul - is it ecological? Or is it transcendent love?
Getting ourselves into right relationship requires a serious restructure of our way of being
Beginning to decolonise starts during early childhood
The money vs time equation
The rule of law is a paradox of control that can be equally exasperating & supportive
Understanding that there is a greater order & you don't have to control everything - you just have to be receptive to what is shown to you.
Using nature to model ourselves- symbiosis. Be your own brilliant unique system & then add mycelium to connect others brilliance
The role that feelings have in the way we make decisions
We dont need to KNOW anything - we are already wired with the knowledge we need
If we just work with nature - we will remember who we are and what we are supposed to do.
"I could live a lifetime here and still be learning - it’s a relationship - the greatest relationship of my life"
Alice Irene Whitaker lives in a small cabin in the woods, is a mother of three, an author of the book “Homing" and host of the 'Reseed podcast, which is about rebuilding our relationship with nature.
Surrounded by creek, meadow, and forest, Alice Irene began a new lifelong journey of repairing her fractured relationship with both herself and the natural world. Dismantling a history of anorexia, obsessiveness, and workaholism, she decided to stop taking and start caretaking.
She shares how taking the leap to a life in a small cabin in the woods where seasons are apparent, repetition is a daily mantra and a shedding of her previous identity onto the forest floor has given her an opportunity to live a lifetime in her new landscape and still be learning from the outside world every day - she sees her surrounds as a relationship-the greatest relationship of her life.
Loved this? Try another one:
Ep 122 Nat Wilmott - Living her dream
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We talked about:
Shifting from an extractive life to a regenerative one
Falling in love with a landscape & experiencing the feeling of every cell in her body opening up.
Seeking treescapes
Acknowledging her body is built for creativity, rest & beauty not just output.
Listening to our own stories above the noise of the modern world
Rewriting our stories in the presence of the natural world rather than the presence of accolades, work & job promotions
Being a baby on her journey towards humanity
Justifying working like a machine because you are doing “burnout for good”
The paradox of finding rest despite being needed for the cause
When you take your growth mindset into the “for purpose” space - needing to unpack this.
Creating care and caretakers in our world.
Why care is not soft” and easy to dismiss but is as important as the wheels of industry
Motherhood transformation - the drama of opening up & cracking open to the idea of what is kept and what is left behind
Being oriented on suffering of others or peace for us all. Children have helped her enjoy the act of love & making it personal and care
Quote - “we are all mothers here” it’s not just about giving birth but is needed for all of us and mother earth
What does it mean to go beyond the mothering of our own small household and relate this to
The power of repetition and observing the things which change and the things that stay the same.
Building relationships with both humans and non-human
Becoming child like when you sit & observe moss
Building networks of people who are interested in your niche areas of interest.
Natural world muse.
Being inspired by the tiny hummingbird
"We need to cultivate a culture of listening in society." But what does it truly mean to listen?
In this episode, we delve into the profound impact that sound can have on our lives as we speak with renowned sound recordist Andrew Skeoch. With his expertise in capturing the essence of nature through sound, Andrew shares his journey of deep listening, the importance of empathetic listening, and how it connects us to the natural world and one another.
Andrew, the author of Deep Listening, records breathtaking natural habitats from across the globe which have gained worldwide attention, with albums that attract tens of thousands of weekly streams on Spotify. His work has also featured in major films like Rabbit Proof Fence, The Jungle Book (2016), and the upcoming Force of Nature starring Eric Bana.
Our conversation delves into the evolution of a heart-centered society that values cooperation over unhealthy competition. Andrew highlights the importance of understanding nature as an ongoing process and discusses how human sensitivity plays a crucial role in shaping our societal values.
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Andrew's Website: https://listeningearth.com/andrewskeoch/
We talked about:
Claire is a multi generational Scottish beef farmer who says 'Ag has potency and potential to be a catalyst on the front line of climate catastrophe'.
As a Nuffield scholar 'exploring the scrutiny being placed on agriculture and how perceptions are changing', she embarked on a world research tour. While travelling, she fell in love with an Australian lad & now finds herself living in rural NSW. So after establishing a strong journalism career steeped in trust & long held relationships on home turf, she now finds herself on this wide brown land in the heat of summer without her networks & a need to rebuild a new life with people who she tells us are more laid back, more inclined to use humour dripping in sarcasm to navigate hard things & are exceptionally resilient.
“Leave judgements at the door & come without bias in order to communicate which is both talking but equally listening, we’ve all got to be prepared to change our mindsets”
“First gen farmers are more daring to have hard conversations & to really listen - they can be brave."
"For progress we need to think outside ag - and not just speak to ourselves."
"When will people other than farmers step into the food system & support the much needed potential for farming to be the potent ecological change making piece it is . Farmers cannot be all the things, they are best to be the land stewards but others need to take up the roles of advocating, supply chain development, consumer education, policy change & story telling"
Links You'll Love
Claire Taylor Linked in
Loved this? Try these:
Gab Chan - building political clout for ag
Helen Rebanks - in honor of the farmers wife
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Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
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We talked about:
The politics of agriculture - overshadowed by a growing disconnect between politicians in the cities & farmers in the country
Echo chambers are one of the biggest challenges in Ag. Its so important to look up & out to glean perspective on what's happening
We need more patience and understanding in ag because there are deep cultural beliefs & values that will need to shift before practice change can occur
Why its time for farmers to build trust for those who are telling their stories & playing other roles in the food system so we can broaden the scope for support
Ripping the bandaid off & beginning a new life in another country.
Settling her body into a new landscape]
Learning how to say yes to invitations
Learning to be vulnerable with new families and friends
Asking a new friend on a date - you’ll have different friendships at differnt times
The things we do for love - taken in by the boss’s girlfriend
"Creativity is a life force - the universe is inherently creative - once we realise it's not ours - it takes the ego out of it & encourages all of us to utilise it as a gift for the greater good"
Fleur Chambers is a best selling author, mama, philanthropist & of course a master meditator. Actually she is the creator of the free meditation app: The Happy Habit.
Her post partum experience was the catalyst for seeking another way of being in the world & now she positions meditation as something much larger than just supporting the individuals need as a circuit breaker & asks us to get curious about leaning into an emergent way of being & exploring our intentions without a sense of control and striving. We unpack the deep wisdoms of the inner voice - the voice of nature, of the earth, of our body.
We chat about the potency of parenting as an endless source of learning -importantly the value of dropping the expectation on everyone and replacing it with the essence of presence, learning to trust our own inner voice, opening the door on our potential & realising that growth is not about adding on but about peeling back & letting go.
She shares her theory that Creativity is an energy that doesn’t belong to us and is simply a gift to the world at that moment in time
In this conversation she encourages us to unlearn & relearn towards a new story...
"Its time for a new story - where self esteem & confidence is no longer a patriarchal, corporate, growth dominated paradigm…instead the ease comes from learning to listen, acknowledging traumas, shared humanity, cherish, protect & preserve"'
Links You'll Love
All things Fleur Chambers: books, courses
Nate Hagens and Bill Plotkin podcast
Loved this ep, try another:
Ep 83 - Naturally Well with Jo
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"The deepest trauma is disconnection from country."
What does it truly mean to heal? How can we reclaim our ancestral wisdom and break free from patterns of diseased thinking?
In this episode, we sit down with Valerie Ringland, a powerful voice in the world of Indigenous healing and restorative justice. Born on traditional Shawnee land in the U.S. and now living on Yuin Country in far southern NSW, Valerie brings a unique blend of Indigenous knowledge, and Western healing practices to her work. She’s the author of the transformative book "Healing Through Indigenous Wisdom," which offers 52 weeks of profound exercises designed to help us reconnect with ourselves, our land, and our lineage.
Valerie challenges us to reimagine cultural expression, confront our wounds head on, and see trauma not as a life sentence but as a spiritual calling. She invites us to explore shame, grief, and belonging as essential parts of our journey toward wholeness.
In this episode you will learn:
- The role of rituals, ceremonies, and ancestral connection in emotional well-being
- How Indigenous wisdom offers powerful tools for self-discovery and community healing
- And why "never enoughness" is a modern disease—and how to break free from it
Get ready for a thought-provoking conversation that will challenge your perspectives, touch the deepest parts of your heart, and inspire you to reconnect with your true essence.
Connect with Valerie:
🌍 Website: Earth Ethos
📘 Facebook: Valerie Ringland
▶️ YouTube: Earth Ethos
Join Valerie at Her Upcoming Events (March 2025):
📍 Retreat Series | Far South Coast, NSW (Yuin Country)
March 28 @ 5PM | Tilba, NSW
📍 Author Talks – International Women's Day (Melbourne, VIC):
🗓️ March 8 @ 11AM | Qi Crystals, Caulfield
🗓️ March 8 @ 3:30PM | Theosophical Society, Melbourne
📍 Author Talks – Far South Coast, NSW:
📖 March 13 @ 3-4PM | Tura Marrang Library, Tura Beach
📖 March 24 @ 10:30AM | Bermagui Library, Bermagui
💫 If today's episode resonates with you, explore Valerie's retreats and author talks through her website Earth Ethos.
Megan has made it her life work to bring the voice of the feminine into our stories, workplaces, communities & ultimately our culture. Ensuring they are heard & have agency to do what we do so well - be women with feminine traits which are celebrated & valued. You'll be delighted to hear its not about minimising the power of men but allowing women to meet them in a place that they have long relished and together they can create a world no longer dominated by the patriachy.
Navigating a hard fought journey of finding her purpose & then having the courage to lean into it, Megan, now in her early 50s is committed to a life that enables women to rise. Author, single mum, business owner & now completing her PHD in women's spirituality - she is taking her leadership role to new heights.
In this conversation she talks about the seasons of life & places the idea that 'what is for you will never pass you'. She shares why change comes from the ground up in democratic environments, she offers tools for male allyship and insights into how & why women are rising. For such a powerhouse, it's reassuring to hear that her 'Enough' is what it is - and having peace in that.
Links you’ll love
Loved this ep? Try this one:
Ep 84 - Naturally well with Jo - being an intuitive generalist and being real about what is possible
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Buy the Books - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters, Huddle - Creating a tomorrow of togetherness
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Its not every day you talk with a flaming locked, beard faced wizard. This one sees through the illusions of modernity & revels in an oscillating state of making progress through decay while genuinely attuning to the living systems in order to see our dire reality.
He attempts to embody our meta crises & seeks insights outside of mere numbers by going into the woods to 'just be'...and perhaps along the way he will experience a physiological quickening that offers hope.
He sees an undercurrent of people returning to ambiguity - warm provocations with room for textured, life filling conversation & he is building a relationship with dusk where in the liminal, he opens himself up to other intelligences & wisdoms, animacy & more than the human world.
He laments our loss of seasonal attunement & encourages us all to re-member (become a member of the earth) to reignite our presence & acuity to notice the small, more than the rational.
This wizard is indeed a wise orator & his words dance through the conversation like twinkling lights, sprinkling provocation that you may need to hear more than once.
Links You'll Love
Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Books - Futuresteading & Huddle
Pod Partners Rock: Australian Medicinal Herbs
Loved it? Try this:
We talked about:
Meet Hayley - the whizz who usually sits in the editing suite of the Futuresteading pod is in the hot seat today...and a few other days actually...todays episode is the chance to get to know the voice behind a mini series within this season of the futuresteading pod we are calling Stories from the heart. Hayley has been the producer on the pod for the last 6 seasons and now we are introducing her to this side of mic. You'll love her!
From remote Alaskan cottages to inner city haunts, Hayley Jessup has been learning to live from the heart. Her journey has been visceral, gut led and has tapped a curiosity from deep inside her that she unpacks in todays conversation. It’s not just about earth shattering love, it’s about sliding into a comfortable place that stays true to you, your reason to be here and being sure of the work that is yours to do. Because you can and its right.
Loved this? Try these:
Ep 104 Tanya Massy - Can love create unison of head, hands and heart
Ep 69 Lisa Wells - Making a life at the end of the world
Ep 51 Brooke McAlary on the farce of multitasking and the power of slow
Support the Show
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Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
We talked about:
Living life in transition
her experience as a naturally curious question asker
Making decisions by intuition
Learning to be heart led
Giving yourself space to be who you need to be.
Her experience living in a remote Alaskan cottage
Her plans for the mini series "from the heart" in this seasons pod.
Tyson Yunkaporta is an Apalech man who is an academic, researcher arts critic & father. He is also the author of Sand Talk, an extraordinary reading experience. Like many of Australia’s First Peoples, he has a complex identity and history but it's this that gives him authority to write and speak in a way which connects the wisdom of the past to the needs of the future.
The way he thinks demands a longer term perspective. He is both philosophical and practical, compassionate yet realistic. He is filled with an other-worldly understanding of humanity. In this conversation he urges us to consider the non linear complexity of the world.
He challenges our expectations, points out cultural shortcomings and invites us to recognise indigenous concepts and their history. Importantly he shows how these patterns have the potential to be incorporated into our non indigenous thinking which builds hope and possibility to benefit us all.
“I don’t have answers but I know that stories connect us to country. Country knows the answers. Notice it and be a custodian".
Episode Summary
Minimising abstractions between lore and land
The illusion of the environment which is hidden by siloed systems
Let’s look like dickheads for a minute while we work out the path forward
Looking for seasonal signs and responding to them
Lore carries recipes for how to live our lives with story and pattern
Coming back into rhythm with the natural world
Running out of time - the time to reconnect with country is now
The dominating authoritarianism in the western world demands people are disconnected from the landscape
Mutual aid activism - not about throwing bombs but making sure everyone is fed.
Self determination being thwarted by authoritarianism
Stop looking at things and look at structures, systems and patterns instead
Quietly getting on with it - syndicate your neighbourhood with the next neighbourhood
The bullshit of nation building is key in the decimation of connection to country.
Activism is an industry
Positive and negative feedback loops to understand how symbioses interlock with others
Story, ceremony and ritual for real thinking and real meaning making
Until art became capital it was something that every human did every day to understand their place in the world
How do we find a way of storytelling without reducing it to words
"Image, dance, song - can all portray story but they have no depth of meaning if they don't have place"
The lore is in the land
"Leave those who are pecking over the carcass of the earth to their dying beliefs and the rest of us can get on with rebuilding relationships, stories, knowledge and place. Quietly and with people"
Why we need to stop self flagellating acknowledgments of country and start building relationships
References
Viktor Stefanson - fire country management
Sand Talk - Tyson Yunkaporta
The other others - podcast.
Thanks to our podcast partners:
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Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
Shout out to the rockstars who smooth the sound Open Door Studios
Following the shocking & heartbreaking death of her younger sister Indira leant into grief with the help of the natural world. She formed a deep friendship with a tree, learnt the power of self trust & became conscious of death in a way that led her to see puddles as portals into another world.
Despite the genesis, this conversation is joyful & powerful.
Show Notes
References
The Space Between the Stars - Indira Naidoo
Podcast partners ROCK!
Hidden Sea - Wine that saves the sea
Nutrisoil
Wwoof Australia
Buy the Book
Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
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If climate reports and dystopian vibes are getting you down, this conversation with Meg Berryman might just lift you (gently) from the tiles.
Meg is the host of the Regenerative Life podcast, where she holds activating and catalysing conversations about social change, sustainable business, holistic wellbeing, personal development and regeneration, creating ripples of change from the inside out.
She’s not only a brilliant interviewer, meeting mighty minds like Tyson Yunkaporta and Claire Dunn for the kinds of intellectual-yet-accessible chats that leave listeners awestruck, but a formidable thinker herself.
We’re stoked to welcome Meg for a wide-ranging convo that covers nervous system care, sitting in the magic dark, tending survival energy and watering the seeds of discontent. We discuss the perils of trying to make a positive impact out there if it’s having a negative impact on you and your people. And how to go about satisfying that deep primal yearning to reconnect with self, earth and other beings.
Right now, in this time of grief, confusion + frustration, Meg Berryman is pure medicine. Listen in.
SHOW NOTES
LINKS YOU'LL LOVE
Catie chats with Dr. Sapphire McMullan-Fisher, an ecologist with a special interest in biodiversity conservation, particularly macrofungi and mosses.
Sapphire is a renowned scientific researcher, speaker, teacher and author with a knack for communicating fungi’s vital ecological roles — and why we should all pay a lot more attention to these remarkable, all-connecting entities.
She's is also a pretty radical member of the community here in Naarm/Melbourne, who last year let Catie + George transform her suburban backyard into a market garden through the Growing Farmers program.
Wise, lively and friend of the fungi, enjoy this cracking convo with Sapphire McMullan-Fisher.
SHOW NOTES
LINKS YOU'LL LOVE
Do you know where your grain comes from... the farmers name... how they grow it? Woodstock flour are doing their level best to change the last frontier via the power of building relationships and connecting. Join Jade and Courtenay as they get gritty on grains and hear why we need to value its diversity and regionality just like we do wine or cheese.
Links You'll Love!
Woodstock flour website
Food Connect in Brisbane
Open Food Network
Kirsten and Serenity Futuresteading Interview
Tivoli Road Bakery
Holistic Management
Riverina Organics Growers Group
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Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
Show Notes
Recorded just days after the Federal election, Gabrielle Chan doesn't mince words - even when bone tired. A celebrated journalist with the Guardian, outspoken advocate for rural Australia and encourager of individual agency. "Our system has been made up by people and it can be rewritten by people". Lets not wait for Government to bring change but get active and organised now during times of abundance.
Links You'll Love
Acres and Acres in Corryong
Wendell Berry
The Guardian
Show us you love us!
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
Show Notes
Connecting the grass roots regen ag movements with top down politics
The need for change in our food, water, land management policies
“We export a lot of sausage sandwiches - beef and wheat”
Why it’s time to change the narrative around Australia's ag sector
Why ‘level playing fields’ are a farce
The fragility of financial deregulations, long global supply chains increasing disease, increased drought - how do we as a sovereign nation reassure ourselves of continued prosperity
The potential for rural policy to create the framework that allows smaller scale and regen practices to thrive
The power of the colonial squatacracy
How do we bring policy reform to ag so it has relevance for smaller scale 7 regen practices to thrive
The potential of utilising the “voices for” movement as a model for local food to grow
Why we need to re-engage with politics
The thing that only Govt does is set the ground rules for how we conduct our business.
People need to be involved in politics to influence its direction
The need for strategic water policy to better support us on the driest continent on earth
Talking about water, food and skills while we are in times of abundance
Where does the role of govt need to stop and allow room for community to pick up
The ongoing debate about why we do not yet have drought policy or food policy
Refine what you want to change - get organised and get active in the arena from bottom up
The big secret - we are ALL MAKING IT UP
Her slow, gradual, accidental path to being a communicator.
Her writing approach - just keep writing, push through the creative barriers
The process of sitting down and ordering your thoughts results in a unique
Connecting the systemic dots through political reporting
The history of farming and nature control
The Connectivity of farming to EVERYTHING ELSE
Ag and environment are different political portfolios - WTF
We cannot have an economy without an environment
The need for the economy the environment + the desires of the humans involved in farming to be interacting
The need to account for ecological resources
Questions the fundamental systems
Finding optimism in the work done by others
Having faith in humanity
Connecting people to spark change
Sign out of 2024 with this lively mastermind who suggests we take country into our body ! How?
Build routine around food,
Go barefoot to boost immunity,
Stop seeing food as an inconvenience
Cook & eat with family often
Connect to the seasons of your life & the landscape
Create & share ceremony
Use food as a reconciliation tool
Belonging to a matriarchal community has unlocked knowledge handed down by oral stories, dance & art where kinship is more than human to human. Knowing your spirit belongs here is a gift we can all tap but with belonging comes responsibility - one to mother earth, but also to sisterhood, eldership and to being part of the greater whole.
Links You'll Love
Karkala book by Mindy Woods
Karkala instagram
Loved this? Try these:
Tyson Yunkaporta
Billa from the Wild School
Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
We talked about:
Living by 6 local seasons
"Being part of the greater whole - we are one of the parts of many, it’s not us & them but all of us as one contributing to our country in some way we can maintain balance"
Caring for her totems goanna, echidna & wollomi pine via broader care of her environment
Societal lack of connection & belonging
Imperfect allyship - ok to make mistakes but important to maintain connection
Mob love a yarn - connect, be quiet, shut your mouth, open your listening & be there in respectful observation. Get curious about native food landscapes,
Knowledge is the sacred part, the fundamental core of culture & treated with great reverence despite it not being written down, its taken seriously when its shared on
It’s not transactional, it’s about relationships & allows us all to slow down to a pace that humans should actually move at.
Childhood memories on country with family - eating oysters out of jam jars
Being a proud cook - not a chef
Having friends apply for masterchef on her behalf
Debunking the myth of Australian food being meat pies & sausage rolls
Asking what is Australia's cuisine & exploring culture through food
Eating foods from our landscape, they belong here, are highly nutritious & are abundant
Moving into eldership as wisdom holders - not an age but a readiness
When you’re taking care of country you're taking care of mob & community too
The privilege of taking on responsibility for cultural teachings
When women are in charge it creates a great balance - women's wishes are always community based & they are thinking about country community & culture".
You can’t be what you can’t see - be the one to lead the way
Standing loud & proud in sisterhood - uniting.
"The privilege to eat food that you’ve grown & understand the value of: local, seasonal, country gives you what you need at the right times in abundance - feeding the old people & the young people before feeding the well ones"
What started as a throw away title while supporting her husband James Rebanks on his book tours, Helen Rebanks now proudly refers to herself as the farmers wife - a title that has very much become her identity & set in her a burning desire to write her own book about invisible women who’s stories are not told. As a mother of four & the backbone for their farming ventures in the Lakes District in the UK, Helen declares that the only people who work harder than farmers are farmers wives. I reckon she's right! She is a small in stature, large in capability kind of woman who truly loves her daily reason to get out of bed & nurture her family. hold the many threads of keeping a family going, setting the pace and rhythm. She speaks of honouring our capability to be in service with love, empathy compassion & a regular roast on the dinner table not just on Sundays. Through this lens she is bringing her own kind of approach to combatting corporate greed, multi national farmland ownership & returning us to localised food systems.
Food that’s made with love & care says “I’m nourished & looked after” - imagine being the person in the house that provides this service”
This story is about speaking up for those who hold families together, hold communities together. We need small farm futures with local food systems. Knowing where our food comes from & being able to ask the questions.
Join us at her at her kitchen table.
Links You'll Love
The Farmers Wife Helen Rebanks book
The Sheppard's wife Insta handle
Loved this? Try these:
Ep 54 Mara from Orto farm
Ep 121 Nat Wilmott
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We talked about:
Speaking up for the women who sit behind the regenerative family farmers life.
Thinking holistically about life on the land - It's WHOLE!
The farmers table as a gathering place
Reasons for transitioning into regenerative practices.
Sharing her farming stories to help others transition their on earth practices
"If I’ve ever felt minimised in the work I do its not been by me or my family"
Living small & living local rather than chasing a celebrity culture is what she strives for.
Our deep disconnection to our food.
The power of a meal around the table
Tomatoes on toast or scrambled eggs IS DINNER
The role of motherhood taught her to become a voice for the process of becoming a mother. We can suffer in silence or talk to each other & learn.
Sharing very vulnerable things in the hope it helps others.
Summary
As a super quiet, observing kid, Carolyn often had her head in a book or went adventuring on her own. As an adult this lead to naturally hermitty behaviour before she actively decided to show others that shy characters can do bold & hard things too - especially if they take tea wherever they go. Now, woven into a well connected community she is more or less living her daydream of tea caravans, herbal gardens, her very own herbal medicine book & a throng of good folks around her.
She reveals that growing herbs was her gateway to herbalism & that we can all know their potency by incorporating them into every day life & not just turning to them when we're sick. But to do this we must get to know them. The best way to become intimate is to grow them, dry them, taste them, smell them, feel how they moves through your body.
Join us on a magical herbal love-affair!
Links You'll Love
The Medicine Garden - Carolyn Parker
The Cottage Herbalist
Loved this ep? Try these:
Anthea Koullouros
Perma Pixie
Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
We talked about:
Her seasonal daily rhythm
“It was a daydream of mine not to wake up to an alarm but to wake up with the sunshine”
Being a poly-jobist: business woman, gardener, herbalist
"I’m an evolved that-way sort of person - I straddle between being a list maker & a meanderer".
Being the kid who wasn’t ultra conversational & actively moving through the discomfort of it & learning to have conversations & a little false bravado
I want to show other reserved/shy people that you can o scary things
“I think we are hard wired for comfort but this doesn't allow us to reach our potential”
Taking herself off to a boxing gym to learn how to be assertive & confident
Drawing daydream gardens
Discovering you can be a herbalist later in life
Being a naturopath is so much more than a job - enabling the patient to undertake holistic change is really where the opportunity to change is.
Viewing it more as a lifestyle is part of the solution
Teaching her patients skills rather than selling them potions
Leading patients to veggie gardens, kimchi pots, community & settled adrenals
Wearing fun clothes & sporting dirty fingernails at the same time
Picking outfits like her dinner, according to colour
Award winning tea blends - making tea since big enough to be trusted with a kettle
Starting her tea caravan
Not being nostalgic
The importance of being connected to people
Stop moving the goal posts without appreciating what you've achieved
Summary
If we are going to lay the foundations of a world we are proud to leave as a legacy we need to be comfortable to move into elderhood - for Manda Scott this is about getting comfortable with emergence and asking the living web “what is mine to do”.
We’ve created a world where separation, anxiety & powerlessness have become the underlying defaults instead of a world of security, belonging & agency. We are addicted to dopamine &exist in a world of trauma rather than initiation so how are we to rewrite these patterns?
By listening to the heart-mind - its very shy & quiet but the head mind will whisper if it needs you to really listen.
Links You'll Love
Any Human Power - Manda Scott
Accidental Gods - Manda Scott program & podcast
Right story, Wrong story - Tyson Yunkaporta
Sand talk - Tyson Yunkaporta
Mans search for meaning - Victor Frankel
Francis Weller - The Wild Edge of Sorrow
Loved this? Try these:
Tyson Yunkaporta
Damon Gameau
Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
We talked about:
Learning to live as functioning members of the earth community
Why she writes fiction not non fiction
Receiving shamanic instruction
How to be in connection with the web of life in all its complexity
Being born into a trauma culture rather than an initiation culture
Why seeing truth without self projection is hard.
Her decades of shamanic teaching - still learning to discern the difference between what her ego is saying and what the energy is saying
Returning to a sit spot to receive instructions to write a book
“Skin Listening” - an ability to be felt with all your senses without pre conceived ideas
Sit spots - what can I see, what can I feel, what does my heart say
Why some languages say “I am other” and some say “I am intrinsically part of what is happening.
Initiation culture is capable of holding contained encounters with death
We live in a dopamine culture - addicted to turning oil into adrenaline
Yearning for a serotonin mesh of connection of meaning & purpose
The four stages of Adulthood
Undoing our head mind dominance
Offering yourself in service and waiting for your path.
The chaos of our culture is that we think we can plan ahead
We live in an insane world & ourselves its sane
One of the key measures of adulthood is being prepared to walk against the tide
Hungry? How bout a salad…trust me, after todays convo, you’re going to want to eat salad for breakfast, lunch & dinner. Not just the limp lettuce & store bought dressing kind of salad but one that tickles all your gastronomic senses. Once you've been satiated the convo settle into really chewing on the realities of this high energy lass' day to day existence: her rituals, her challenge to find the gaps to do the quiet things, learning to really be in the moment & finding her path to enoughness.
Alice Zaslavski has chatted with us on the pod before but since then her OTT love for food, food education & food appreciation has exploded into the stratosphere with another 3 cookbooks, her own radio segment on Saturday mornings & now her own cooking show on the ABC, you’ll still find her exuberance filling the pages of papers & magazines nationwide & for today you’ll her convincing you to serve salad for your every meal.
The pace of this human is dizzy-ing so its a strap in & hang tight kind of episode.
Links You'll Love
A bite to eat with Alice - ABC
Salad Days - Alice Zaslavski
Phenomenom - Free Lessons via the lense of food
Loved this? Try these:
Alice on Futuresteading previously
Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
We talked about:
Being a talker on paper
Her latest adventures in gastronomic pleasures
Listening to your body to understand what you need at the time.
Food as medicine deserves to be understood by all
Her ‘vegetable-forward’ food, centric Georgian heritage
Sharing a common vision but not always sharing the same timing ambitions
Movement has power - just start & collectively the energies come together
Breaking our daily fast with vegetables
Be ready & willing to adapt the recipes to suit yourself
The real life day to day juggle of such a busy busy life
Having a ‘wife’ in her ‘husband’
Learning to say a hard NO
Prioritising her health as the most important part of her job
Being lit up by all that you do so it doesn't feel like working a day of your life
Time to update the vision board
The soma response to birthing a new project
Building an enabling network to get into flow
Enabling others to be their most magic version of themselves
Being an extroverted extrovert - learning how to absorb human energy via a screen
Learning to speak English with Big Ted on Playschool
Wishing for more time with community
Making time for reading
Saying yes to the opportunities that ground you.
This is a pour-a-cuppa kinda convo - Matilda Brown is a rare kind-of open book where nothing is off limits and despite not actually being her friend you get the distinct feeling that you must be.
Flipping a childhood acting career for a regnerative food business wasn’t part of her plan - actually nothing really is, this breath of fresh air claims to be “bumbling around with life, filling in time until she dies.” But her bumble is joyful & hopeful in the best way possible.
She & her husband Scott Gooding are the brains & brawn behind the Good Farm pre prepared meals range & they’ve just released a cook book with the same name - its as delightful as she is - This is her story!
Links You'll Love
The Good Farm Shop
the Good Farm Cookbook
Provinir
Loved this? Try these eps:
Alex from Cornersmith
Laura from Feather & bone
Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
We talked about:
Being an oversharer & wanting to know the details without any shame
Going through the world giving more than taking
Boobs peaking at 14
Fad diets of her teenage years without an understanding of nutrition
From actor to foodie
Life epiphanies via parenthood
Believing that the universe has your back & the lessons you are being served are necessary
Stumbling into a regenerative path
Creating Cow shares until they realised there was a hole in their bucket
The challenge of building a business around the true cost of a whole animal outside of the industrial food system
Creating a regenerative food business nuancing as they went.
Combining a regen story with convenience
Sharing more than just the business news in this nosey world…navigating sharing of personal stories
Avoiding a thick skin so you keep ‘feeling’
I have so much to learn as a spiritual being in a humans body, on a ride in a world that can’t be controlled or predicted.
Magic sits in the bumbling, rats & mice & problem children
Appreciating the things that money can’t buy
The value of being relational - shunning the online solution
The need to squeeze your closest folk
How many ‘no’s’ do you need before you get to the YES
Even when things are hard they can still be heart filling and they can make you FEEL so alive! This is living, side stepping numbness is when you feel your most alive.
Summary
Life is impermanent. Precious but not entitled to length. The past is behind us, the future is unknown & all we have is this moment. Our role is to meet the moment.
Being overwhelmed with the assignment of bringing healing & protection to the earth, todays guest looked to Gaia as the source of guidance towards effortless harmony. Easier said than done but she found that our cultural inclination to constant self referencing & focussing on I, Me, Mine was the limitation.
Looking beyond the veil into another dimension & awakening her relationship to the earth allowed her to thread humility into all her actions & remembering that we are part of & conspiring with gaia in every living moment gave her the space to take a breath before acting.
She meditated
She took the radical act of pausing to gain clarity
She had the courage to step out of the old patterns
She undertook pilgrimages
She built global networks of healing & peace
She honoured those who are maintaining the ceremonies, prayers & connections that keep us all in balance.
She filled Earth Treasure vases and built a global mandala as her offering of 'sacred activism'.
This is her story.
Links You'll Love
Joanna Macey - the work that reconnects
Charles Eisenstein - new and ancient story podcast
Cynthia Jurs Book - Summoned by the Earth
Gaiamandala.net global healing community
Loved this ep? Try these:
E138 Osprey Oriel Lake
E105 Rosemary Morrow
Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
We talked about:
Buddhism tradition of earth treasure vases - holy vessels with purpose
Being prepared within yourself before succumbing to a summoning
Bringing the earth back into balance
Filling small clay pots with prayers, offerings, traditions & intentions as a symbolic measure for healing & balance
Clay pots are kind of like living beings - they come alive in your hands
The clay includes many sacred substances linking them to ancestral lineages Allowing ancient practices to become relevant to the world today & to the people that are participating in the offering process
The capacity for different cultures, communities & lands to accept without assumption
Making offerings to the earth & the unseen-beings-without-a-voice that we know we need to keep in balance
Becoming a vessel but not imposing your own ideas & self importance on what you think is best for the world.
Getting down on her knees and opening her heart and asking for support from the unseen energy.
Our own true nature is so much a part of the nature of Gaia
“ When I learned how to get myself out of the way, form an intention, but allow that intention to unfold on its own without trying so hard to make it happen, things started to unfold in a very different way - in ways I never could have predicted"