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

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It isn't magic that food grows in our backyard?! And Joel Orchard is just the gent to encourage the farmer in all of us.

Joel is the founder of Young Farmers Connect and the Australian/New Zealand CSA Network; a fair food advocate, educator and a passionate agricultural networker. He's super calm, absurdly inspiring and imparts hard truths about our world with intense kindness.

Wrap your ears around this episode and be reminded that through farming,  we can be social and environmental activists, impacting cultural change. And simply getting to know where your food comes from is a profound way to make a difference.

SHOW NOTES

• Recorded on Bunjalung country in the Northern Rivers
• Despite being surrounded by progressive thinkers, there are still boundaries to small scale regenerative food production
• Why language builds boxes that can limit opportunity
• The difficulty in making small scale farming work: Cost, land access, paths to market
• What the new face of farming looks like
• Changing the narrative about the reality of a successful small scale farming business
• Why it’s not necessary to be a full time farmer
• The young professionals who are moving into agriculture
• Diversification of on farm/off farm existence 
• Identifying the structural concerns that make eating consciously difficult
• Why farming is the most meaningful way to “walk-the-talk”
• Creating a circular economy, no waste, mushroom business 
• Why it’s important we all continue to share and learn together
• Cultivating networks where we feel “safe” to learn. Peer-support learning.
• What does ‘CSA’ mean? And creative paths to market.
• Shortening supply chains for our food is critical in creating a genuine shift away from nationalised, commodified growing practices
• Ensuring fortified perpetuity for the small scale farming sector
• The strength in collectivisation
• Why beauty matters
• Finding ways to slow down and observe the small things
• The importance of telling the complete and imperfect realities of farming to remove the cultural elitism -- not just bucolic, romantic images
• How do we make sure everyone can access local food?
• The true cost of food -- mother nature is already paying the bills for us
• Supporting each other to ensure those who are pushing envelopes can continue
• Creating spaces and places for safe support, development and solidarity
• Shifting the scarcity mindset to a sharing/collaborative mindset
• Working with kids -- the next gen farmers
• Demystifying farming  -- it isn't magic that food grows in your backyard
• Bringing life back to a place that limits over stimulation 
• Revelling in repetitive tasks that use your body
• What is a locavore? Why should be all eat local
• Shake the hand of the person who grows your food

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• Call of the Reed Warbler - Charles Massey
• Farming Democracy - Food Sovereignty Alliance
• Foodies Guide to Capitalism - Eric Holt-Giménez
• Young Farmers Connect Network
• Prom Coast Food Collective
• Open Food Network
• RECO Hubs (Qld)

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For all the fad diets, juice fasts and dogma out there,  few health advocates keep it as real as Anthia Koullouros.

Anthia is one of Sydney's original nose-to-tail, soil-to-plate, no-BS Naturopaths who was questioning supplements and sipping bone broth before it was cool. She's an author, speaker, educator and Apothecarius (listen in to see what that brilliant term entails) who weaves science, spirituality, feminism and self care like an absolute master -- yet never takes herself too seriously.

This chat with Anthia was particularly timely, catching her right on the cusp of big business and life changes which she was gracious enough to share with us.

You'll leave this convo feeling like you've received a big, warm bear hug from a wise woman who just gets it.

SHOW NOTES

• Her instinctive herbalism spurred by Cypriot ancestors
• Her apothecary origins where women could be healers
• Her attraction to the humble weed and the essence of healing wholly
• Breaking into naturopathy when it was a ‘fringe alternative’
• Why we should be applying our food seasonality sensibility to herbs and opting for the real deal rather than pharmaceuticals
• Her concerns that holistic medicine is becoming more like western medicine in how it is used and expected to perform
• The growth in holistic health since covid
• The role ritual plays in recentering and reconnecting with yourself and community
• Why she shuts the door at work between 4 and 4.30
• Taking care of herself as the ‘bow and arrow’ foundation of self
• Creating a symbiotic relationship with the natural world
• The value of reconnecting with the nervous system before making decisions
• The spontaneous desire to autocorrect 
• The difference between head and heart decisions
• Tools to get out of ourselves so we can get into ourselves
• Why the natural world has a place in everyone's healing path
• Craving simplicity and reducing over-complication
• Normalising ritual - especially for women 
• Having the discipline to NOT get on your screen to fill in the gaps
• Actively doing things differently in business
• Why she is here to be of service - to bring clarity, to unscramble the confusion, at human scale
• Why success is in the sublimely simple; connecting, longevity, belonging, the beauty of truth
• Avoiding groundhog day
• Moving into new chapters without feeling overwhelmed
• Cooking weed pie

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

How to Get Well -- Paavo Airola
Anthia on Instagram
Apotheca by Anthia
Anthia online

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Diego Bonetto, aka. The Weedy One, grew up on a dairy farm in northern Italy where it was still common practice to collect the wild bounty of the land. 

After moving to Australia in the 90s, Diego found that his practical foraging knowledge and weedy know-how was actually pretty rare. He lamented our modern approach to "weeds" --  a battle waged with poisons rather than a loving relationship that respects the valuable, nutrition and wisdom of the plants all around us.

So he became a weed advocate and educator, harking back to the dandelions, nettles, mulberries and edible mushrooms of his childhood and sharing their stories with those longing to return to their roots.

Diego's enthusiasm will inspire and move you, as it has done for the thousands of people who have attended his public and private workshops, events and weed walks. This conversation about belonging, sustainability, agency and food is just a glimpse of Diego's immense knowledge, and we encourage you to connect with him online or better still, in person!

SHOW NOTES

• Collecting wild plants, fungi, grains and berries as a child to supply seasonal produce to his family larder.
• Empowering people to recall childhood memories ; mulberries as lipstick, daisy chains to overcome fear and find confidence.
• Foraging does more than just give us free food; it’s our chance to experience gratitude, connect to ecology, anchor us all to the now. It cuts away our entitlement to resources and encourages us to engage in the gifts of the natural world.
• How to create steps to build foraging confidence, even in urban spaces.
• Basic rules of foraging.
• Foraging is not survival, it's establishing relationships of care-taking.
• Ocean foraging.
• The vast majority of foraging is handfuls for tasting rather than buckets of food.
• Are plants a living, conscious, feeling things? 
• Why we should be up in arms about factory farming which is enslavement into a system of yield rather than being a wild species which fetches its own minerals and grows of its own accord.
• We are part of a system where we eat and can be eaten.
• Foraging foundation of being still, staying put and becoming part of a specific cycle so you can build knowledge.
• Stepping from observer to stakeholder to caretaker.
• Why “weeds” is an arbitrary term.
• The importance of acknowledging the services that plants play.
• Backyard medicine is the result of coevolution.
• Calling on the knowledge of our wisdom holders to maintain self care.
• Why mulberries and blackberries are wonderful foraging teacher species and part of our ecological symbiotic contract to eat the species.
• Putting humans back in the cycle of life.

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• Diego Bonetto on Instagram @theweedyone
• Diego Bonetto online

Photo credit -- Aimee Crouch

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Rebecca Scott of STREAT is a socially-responsible and refreshingly quirky role model for our times. A self proclaimed 'hustler’ since childhood, Bec sees the value in everyone and everything. What's more, she knows how to bolt it all together to build an egalitarian vision that contributes to the social betterment of our world.

With 11 social enterprises under the STREAT banner, Bec's quest to provide a sense of belonging and hope to our youth -- catalysed by the simple question “whose problem is that really?” -- will inspire and challenge you in equal measure. 

Language warning: one or two f-bombs dropped.

SHOW NOTES

• STREAT has fed over 3 million people since opening in 2010
• Why her school teachers aren't surprised that she's become a ‘social entrepreneur’
• Harnessing collaborative energy, social capital, political capital
• A working class kid with a talent for “hustling” - not bossy but capable
• An intrinsic sense of egalitarianism - everyone in a community can add value
• Using creativity to solve problems and affect change
• The joy of co-founding a social enterprise with her 10 year old son
• What is a social enterprise?
• Using the margins to stimulate the creative process - in line with other random collaborators
• Taking years to connect dots of systems thinking using creativity and visual prompts
• Her aversion to creating projects on her own - co creation makes sparks fly and reality happen
• For every one idea that happens, 100 don’t come to fruition. That’s ok.
• The queen of side projects 
• Following the path of the energy flow
• Moving on if a project comes up against inertia
• Managing her phenomenal restlessness
• Inhabiting 2050 in her mind
• Why she looks like a “messy innovator”
• Connecting all her projects without being linear
• Spotting patterns through the noise
• Valuing latent potential 
• Needing pace and slowness simultaneously
• Being the equal master of the small and fast, the quiet and loud
• Don’t give up your day job and still make a difference
• Have you assessed your environmental footprint?
• Why we must stop externalising slavery
• Why corporate companies are just an extension of our individual buying habits
• The power of arming yourself with knowledge and building a likeminded tribe 
• Seeking humans who inspire through gentle humility
• Belonging and social inclusion is the secret sauce for homeless youth
• Whose problem are the homeless?
• The beauty of a new bud
• Everything worthwhile starts with a simple conversation

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• STREAT
• Chicken Soup for the Soul

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Charlie Mgee -- permaculture troubadour and Formidable Vegetable frontman -- composes swingin' tunes on a ukulele that address climate change, food security and regenerative sustainable living.

From 'energy-descent electroswing' to 'post-apocalypso', his unforgettable music provides permaculture earworms that entertain and educate. Maybe you're humming one right now?

In this energetic convo, we quiz Charlie about the role of art and creativity in changemaking; how music has a knack for bridging gaps and delivering powerful messages through melody. Charlie talks about his childhood in the bush, his wandering spirit, what it's like living in a tiny house at Melliodora with Brenna Quinlan, and his vision for a more beautiful world.

*** Now you can support the show by shouting us a cuppa! Click here to check it out. ***

SHOW NOTES

• Hight energy artistic life in a tiny house with Brenna Quinlan
• Stories from permie childhood 
• Why chickens are a gateway drug into alternative living
• Finding ways of synthesising complex concepts and making them accessible 
• All pervasive gratitude 
• A pledge to stop flying & touring Australia in biodiesel converted van
• Coping with covid by understanding joy and grief are two sides of the same coin
• Acknowledging the hard stuff to build the good stuff
• Individual vision post covid lockdown 
• Daily life at Melliodora
• Pushing against the treadmill to move towards intentional simplicity
• Being OK to be a bit different 
• Managing multiple communities in your life
• The accidental creation of an annual festival
• Yearning for a deeper connection to place
• Avoiding tribalism 
• Staying open minded to ensure a rounded world view
• Seeing all of life as equal to oneself
• Listening more and talking less
• The risk of being interpreted as a dogmatic idealist who will show us all the way
• Think global, act local
• How music and the arts is the ultimate universal language 
• Why he doesn’t copyright his music
• The power of regenerative creativity - how we imagine the world
• Go hug a tree! 

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• Formidable Vegetable on Instagram
• Formidable Vegetable online
• Melliodora
• David Holmgren's Retrosuburbia
• Brenna Quinlan on Instagram
• Charles Eisenstein - The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible
• The Patterning Instinct - Jeremy Lent
• Support this podcast by shouting us a cuppa

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Kirsten Larsen + Serenity Hill are proof that two minds are better than one.

As the founders of Open Food Network, a game-changing open source technology at the centre of building valued and fair food chains, they think globally, act locally and are actively encouraging a culture where whole-self is present in the workplace. 

Hear how these two values-aligned women brought their shared vision for fairer local food systems to life -- and why the rest of the world is excited.

*keep it rolling right till the end for Futuresteading listener shout outs*

SHOW NOTES

• Social justice from an early age
• The impact of ‘coming out’ 
• The freedom of the natural world
• The value of independent thinking as a central value
• Having the tools and empowerment to challenge the system
• The power of knowing you were loved as a child
• A desire for purpose is in every one of us
• From a broken state of deep ecology to a place of believing in the power of conscious capability
• Identifying technology as the missing piece for connecting eaters with growers
• Learning how to unlock problems by listening to the needs and filling a gap
• Structuring things to disable centralisation of power 
• The critical role of aggregators/food hubs in a local food system that are locally relevant and transparent 
• The power of collaboration for efficiency, capital ownership, accessibility, logistics
• The myriad of ways that all tiers of the food chain can embark on change
• The value of “open source” as a language which is not constrained in its ability to adapt and leapfrog
• Offering opportunity for knowledge commons 
• The privilege of having the psychological knowledge that you have ‘back up’
• Transvestment - recognising that you are drawing money from the old economy and placing it into the ideological vision of a new future
• Getting to a point where work that conflicts with ideology is no longer needed
• Building space for others to step into positions of influence where they may not have previously had a voice 
• Having a baby to ‘turn off’ from ideological responsibilities
• Consciously creating a culture where people bring their whole selves to the work place
• Creation of a ‘heart channel’ in the workplace for frank, open, personal story telling
• Being honest with kids about the truth of the world
• Evoking joy and aliveness in the next generation
• Nature based education as a central cog in our communities

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• Open Food Network
• CERES
• Food Connect Brisbane
• Joanna Macy 
• Deep Green Resistance - Derrick Jensen, Aric McBay, Lierre Keith
• Treading Lightly - Karl Erik Sveiby, Tex Skuthorpe

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With front line activism on his resume and a concerted effort to diverge from his familial farming and retail heritage, Chris Ennis embarked on a path of his own only to find himself at the front of the socially progressive 10 acre urban farming, retail and educational enterprise CERES Fair Food and now CERES Fair Wood in Melbourne's North. As you guessed it, an urban farm and retailer. Seems you can't escape what's in your blood... but you can reframe it to suit our times and cultural needs which is exactly what Chris has done as a social entrepreneur.

SHOW NOTES

• What is a social entrepreneur? Caring about all the parts of business that aren't about money
• Enterprise stacking = an ecosystem of diverse enterprises that fit together
• Make up the rules of business! You can decide what the workplace looks like and how that fits with your life
• Different ways of being a farmer even in the city
• Having faith in kids to take their seeded habits and make them bounce in later life
• From fair food to fair wood and possibly fair anything
• Stacking diversity in life to ensure multi-purpose uses
• Not subscribing to traditional channels of business or being pigeon holed
• Why he refers to ‘founders’ as weeds
• Planning for business succession with the right types of people
• The long game versus short-term-ism
• The importance of seeing the pathway as having value 
• The value of generational knowledge in business
• Yearning for indigenous wisdom
• Being comfortable to ask uncomfortable questions
• Embedding ritual as the social fabric of life
• Practical positive activism is nourishing and fulfilling
• Aim for deeper change, it’s more potent than flashy shallow initiatives
• If in doubt - go out!

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• Prom Coast Food Collective
• Baw Baw Food Hub
• Beechworth Food Co op
• Retrosuburbia - David Holmgren
• The Social Dilemma 
• Ubie - NSW based social enterprise
• Green Connect South Sydney
• CERES Fair Wood
• CERES Fair Food
• Dark Emu - Bruce Pascoe

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Warning: this episode with Rob Greenfield might make you want to do something crazy - like sell all your material possessions, set off on an adventure with only a backpack and faith in human kindness, or build a tiny home from reclaimed materials with your mates.

Rob is an activist and humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable, just and equal world. 

He embarks on extreme projects to bring attention to important global issues and inspire positive change. His work has been covered by media worldwide including National Geographic and he’s been named “The Robin Hood of modern times” by France 2 TV.  

Rob’s life is an embodiment of Gandhi’s philosophy, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” He believes that our actions really do matter and that as individuals and communities we have the power to improve the world around us. Rob donates 100% of his media earnings to grassroots nonprofits and has committed to living simply and responsibly for life.

This conversation strikes the balance between inspiration and groundedness, and will leave you feeling both comforted and courageous. 

SHOW NOTES

• From shining his car on Sundays at age 25 with dollar signs in his eyes to dumpster diving over 2,000 times and being a beacon for radical change around the world.
• The decision to transform his life so he stopped destroying the earth
• Making one positive change every single week for two years
• Intersectional environmentalism - deeply intertwined problems and their solutions
• Building feedback loops towards empowerment and a sustainable foundation
• Learning skills to stand strong against the sweeping tide of consumption
• Finding alternatives for the things you think you need
• Holistic decision making
• Travelling the world for the same price as the annual cost of a car
• Building freedom by avoiding the minimum monthly repayment trap
• Living a life that's not so 'protected’ or ‘insured’
• The truth: a quality existence takes time, travel, eating, learning, conversing.
• Spreading excess when you have it so life is more equitable - from those who have enough to those who have too little.
• Demonetising life relies on more human kindness
• The illusion that money makes us independent
• Teaching our kids critical thinking and about relationships to thrive in a post carbon economy
• Skill sharing 
• The power of needing each other
• The problems with convenience
• The psychology of change
• The value of minimising judgement and enhancing compassion and understanding
• Starting with the things which excite you the most

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• Rob's website
• Rob's Instagram

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If there's a human who represents the quintessential qualities of living like tomorrow matters, it just might be Hannah Maloney. 

A former front line picketer, Hannah transitioned to a more sustainable approach to advocacy for climate action and First Nations justice when she founded Good Life Permaculture and is now based in Tassie on Muwinina country where days of voluntary simplicity provide time for her community which she collaborates with to teach, design and live with love. 

Hannah is a radical homemaker who is currently writing a book, blogging her knowledge for all to learn from and has recently forayed into the world of television presenting on Gardening Australia.

SHOW NOTES

• Hannah's transition from frontline activism to a more sustainable pace to avoid burnout
• Why a simple life can be a hard life but when infused with joy, a wonderful life
• Following your Shen energy
• Choosing to sit on the edge of comfort and forcing yourself to cope with discomfort where often the greatest outcome is achieved
• Showing up despite adversity, for the sake of the individual AND self assurance
• Discovering the wonders of planting, food flowers and fibre
• Going to bed in a state of love every day
• Practical ideas for swapping resources with our neighbours like your vacuum
• Seeking ways to be more useful
• Avoiding dogma for self and others
• Loving people unconditionally where they’re at
• Why she wakes at 4am each day
• Preserving her natural energy
• Radical Hope - it's not what you might suspect
• The power of imagination

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• Good Life Permaculture
• [musician] Briggs
• [musician] Thelma Plumm
• [musician] Mama Kin
• “From What Is To What If” - Rob Hopkins

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