Spring is peeking through here in Southern Australia, and today we’re heading into the garden — but not just for veggies. We’re going a little wild for the birds, bees, and butterflies. Our guest, Jaclyn Crupi, lifelong gardener and many times author, grew up with her nonna and nonno’s hands-in-the-dirt wisdom. These days, she’s transformed her patch beyond just a productive veggie garden into a thriving sanctuary that welcomes not just humans, but insects, birds, fungi — the whole backyard ecosystem. Whether you’ve got a big block, a small suburban yard, or even just a balcony, Jaclyn’s here to share how messy gardening and even a ‘lizard lounge’ can turn any space into a refuge for wildlife.

We chat about why those with their hands in the dirt are  leaving a legacy, telling  stories though our gardening & why we need messy gardens now more than ever.

Links to find Jaclyn

https://www.jaclyncrupi.com/

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Natasha Morgan shares her oak and Monkey Puzzle life

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We chatted about:

• Gardeners leaving legacies for future generations
• Embracing messy spaces
• Letting go of curation
• Transitioning our mindset
• Gardens as analogies for life
• The importance of biodiversity

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It’s about time Jade Miles takes the mic so we can pick her brain and her heart about ‘huddling’ for the future of all! We chat about what is our ecological work to do, our soul work to do as we come together in all kinds of communities.

We decolonise our minds by moving into our hearts: away from extraction and spectacle, toward opulence of the ordinary- soil under nails, soup shared warm, shared conversations around a fire, singing songs as ritual. We name the practices that bind us: huddle, muddle, cuddle- messy, tender, and profoundly effective.

Jade’s new book, Huddle, is a field guide for this future: small circles doing big things. Gather often. Trade skills. Move through initiation. Tell truer stories. Let the elders speak. Listen deeply. Make a ritual. Define your enoughness. In a time that worships scale, choose closeness. In a culture that fears the muddle, trust in the huddles!.

Because the way we will change the planet is not by shouting across the void but by huddling in, shoulder-to-shoulder, until courage becomes contagious and care becomes the norm.

Links You'll Love
If Women Rose Rooted - Sharon Blackie -- Duckworth

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We talked about

• Huddling is about coming together in community.
• Human interactions can be complex due to trauma and ego.
• Rituals help fill the gaps in our lives.
• Understanding our phases of life can guide our growth.
• Eldership and wisdom sharing.
• Ancestral connections can deepen our sense of belonging.
• Enoughness is crucial in a consumer-driven world.
• We must be mindful of our impact on future generations.
• Being heart-led creates a different world.

Loved this? Try these:

Jane Hilliard - "Enough-ness" do you have it?

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Ever wondered what lines a deer’s stomach? Or how to turn bark into tincture—or tea into a gateway to your primal self?

Meet Will and Eva: barefoot, leather-clad rewilders who traded ‘normal’ for firelight, foraging, and full-blown nature immersion. I first met them in a smoky tent at the Off Grid Living Festival—tea in hand, bird calls in the air, and stories thick as eucalyptus sap.

Since then, they've taught rewilding workshops at Black Barn Farm and reminded us all just how useless strategic planning feels when someone’s casually tanning a hide next to you.

Will’s a youth worker, Eva braved Alone Australia, and together they run Wild Beings—a living, breathing invitation to reconnect with the wildness written in our bones.

This one’s part campfire, part gut punch, part call to remember. Let's get barefoot!

Links You'll Love
Wild beings - Rewilding with Will and Eva

Sand talk - Tyson Yunkaporta

Emergence Magazine Podcast - is the river alive

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We talked about

Rewilding to live in balance with the ecosystem and for us as humans.

Going bush to slow right down to ensure the pace stays ‘human’

Grounding through crafts, string bags, leather making, hunting, fire lighting

The potency of being fire side to create transformation and to self regulate

Becoming a “Hunter” that practices reverence and honouring of a life by using ALL the pieces

Remembering ancient skills like tanning, hunting, bone broth making, 

Seeking knowledge keepers in all the forms and all the places

Will’s love of plants and hunting, Eva’s love of tanning and movement as a catalyst to rewild

Why learning these skills is a never ending journey of learning

Carving independence within their life of togetherness

Why seeing people learn gives eva hope

Sustaining ourselves on this continent with wild meat would provide an opportunity for native species to thrive

Finding a Sit spot

Finding people at the edges

Self directed rights of passage

Loved this? Try these:

Lisa wells - making a life at the end of the world

Billa - the woman at the Wild School

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 When did having twin basins and three toilets become the norm?  As an architect who bucks the idea of bigger-is-better Jane Hilliard uses the principle of “Enoughness” as a design principle for the built environment. Its better for both the natural environment and the people around us. It allows us to be rich in ways that matter instead of buying into the idea that grandeur will make us happy.
For her 'enough' looks like going out into her  backyard supermarket garden  picking something and cooking it. Its also having outdoor space & quiet, unstructured time to think. Guided by the principle of “enoughness,” she manages her work load to keep her energy output within her own capacity while meeting her modest need for resources to sustain her family and business. 

Links You'll Love

Designful - Janes design agency

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Australian Medicinal Herbs 

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Show notes

Bringing her love of arts and social justice together
Sidestepping  stress and money in the architecture design world.
Ensuring sustainability isn't just an add-on rather than core to design
Why the endless pursuit of “more” and better is relentless and pointless
Asking  “what is enough?” starts with your values and how you want to feel. 

“I ask myself: What is enough work to sustain me, my creativity, my staff and the financial resources we need to sustain my practice.”

What "enough" looks like for her high-school age children.

“I enjoy causing a bit of a stir…not in a way that’s shaming anyone…but by pushing back on the system, not individuals.”
Working a 9 day fortnight
Small rituals like, morning coffee, starting the day outside, growing food, being present with her children. 
Normalising messy, lived in homes which change with the seasons and as its occupants get older.
Why central heating has loosened family ties 
Living in a smaller space with less resources helps us develop negotiation skills and foster connections.
 Simplify  life by starting with one thing. 
 How much are you packing into your week, or your year? 

“The more work I take on, the less time and energy I have for all the other projects we have already, and I’ll enjoy them a little less too.”

"We have everything we need to go forward into the future. It's not about gaining new knowledge or new skills or new technology or new tools. It's about stripping things back and getting rid of a lot of stuff."
We need to be grateful for how much the earth gives us and not to take too much.
Our culture is dominated by growth and seeking opportunity. The desire for more can be part of our status and identity.
People are trying to meet their needs with things instead of meaning.
A mentality that “I’ve worked hard and I deserve it” is a strong focus for Jane's clients.
Just because  "you've worked hard and deserve it"  doesn’t mean you should aim for the biggest and shiniest.
"We stay in tents and shacks when we go away, why can’t we bring this spirit into our own house? How about an outdoor kitchen…why not?"

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Helena Norberg-Hodge is a writer, filmmaker, international speaker and leader of the global localisation movement. 

She’s been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than 40 years, and is one of the world’s most treasured environmentalists and visionaries.

Today Helena pulls up an apple crate at the Futuresteading campfire to share stories from Ladakh, lament the madness of globalization and light the way back (and forward) to oneness.

We discuss the true wealth of traditional societies, the dangers of scale and tech solutions, pressure to conform to a consumer monoculture, and the real economy of Mother Gaia. 
Oh, she’s brilliant folks. We’re so excited to welcome you into this conversation. 

LINKS YOU'LL LOVE

• World Localization Day
• Local Futures
• Noam Chomsky
• Small is Beautiful ~ E F Schumacher
• Naomi Klein
• Russel Brand
• Brian Eno

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We Talked About

• How she ended up on a remote plateau in Tibetan India.
• Discovering the healthiest, happiest, most peaceful people she had ever met.
• Existing under surveillance in times of political tension.
• The true wealth of traditional societies.
• Why people everywhere are being pressured to conform to a consumer monoculture.
• A  need for a deeper dialogue between the west and the global south.
• The path of separation; being herded into urban centres and separated from the land. 
• Instead of being dependent on the land, we became dependent on enormous institutions to meet our needs.
• Manufactured scarcity.
• The luxury of using more energy per person per capita… is it actually a luxury?
• Policy change is needed to make decentralisation possible
• Pollies on auto-pilot re. urbanisation. Governments are separating us from the sources of our food, creating unsustainable, toxic, energy-hungry situations in the name of growth.
• Why most people are getting poorer despite our obsession with growth. 
• Towards smaller towns and smaller cities. 
• When you shorten the distance between farm and table, you have market pressure towards diversity.
• What happens when people are replaced by energy and technology.
• Stay away from the propaganda that’s saying we need technological fixes.
• In Ladakh, everyone grows up with a multi-dimensional knowledge of how to grow, build, make clothes, dance, create. 
• How modernity negatively affects young people versus radiantly confident youth in Ladakh.
• Australia flies food to China to be processed before being flown back again.
• The things we aren’t hearing about in the climate movement.
• Are people in power totally evil? 
• Localisation is a clear path towards systemic healing.
• S

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Summary
Akin to a cuppa while flicking through photo albums, this conversation is rich with stories of her lived experiences  across every continent &  through many decades. This wisdom holder has offered her life in service  by knowledge sharing. A much respected permaculture educator, her foundation is science based, heart felt & relational in every way. Her practical generosity has contributed to refugee camps in war torn countries and her commitment to empowering communities without becoming a guru  is refreshing. 

Links You'll Love

The Earth Restorers Guide - Rosemary Morrow
Earth Users Guide - Rosemary Morrow 

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We Talked about

Adaptation principles - Observe carefully, backup functions, seeing solutions, being prepared to make change & noticing
Is water more destructive than drought?
Creating a culture where people are comfortable to listen to their intuition
The critical value of eco literacy - taught in childhood but forgotten in adulthood
Building confidence in ourselves to enact change
Operating as a community rather than individuals who are side by side
Looking for change outside of ‘lobby groups’
The power of the collective rather than  individual leaders
Intuition is when you know something from a prior sensory input but haven't made it conscious yet - this relies on eco literacy and enables us to come up with solutions
Her Vietnamese experience - connecting traditional knowledge with permaculture principles using the pyramid approach of community teaching 
Removing guru’ism by teaching locally and inbuilding principles that ensure the original teacher is no longer needed because the knowledge is in the community 
Her scientific background has ensured she is less inclined towards whims, rather its focussed on critical thought
Making people eco literate by starting with a focus on the fundamentals
Why permaculture is not western middle class -  it is adaptable to traditional knowledge?
The role of traditional ritual and custom in building community - the Songs of Community
Singing to recognise climate, topography, people, direction, acknowledging the power and might of the natural over humans - keeps us small and in a sense of wonder 
Reading plants as secular or sacred
Ritual is acknowledge of our small scope, observation and awe
Seeing permaculture as a jigsaw where we can take the pieces we need for the places we are in
Permaculture is not an armchair discipline - it’s a discipline of service through knowledge sharing 
We are all as poor as the poorest person 
The power of permaculture in giving individuals agency and the ability to bring change

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We know that Western culture lives excessively, endlessly seeking the newest and shiniest new thing.  Its shocking that 40% of our food goes to waste, one third of our building materials are never even used. But this way of life will be short lived and thankfully being wasteful is now  on the nose and cool cats like Joost are making waves by making junk UBER COOL. What can we do to create a new way forward in what he describes as the most exciting time in human history?

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We Talked About

Keeping family as number one 
Keeping it real with family to ensure they are present
His journey through waste which began using other peoples junk
Spending his spare time in junkyards collecting and using other peoples waste
Even the poster boy doesn't get everything right - examples of things that haven't worked
For every project that gets up there are 3 or 4 which didn't - that’s having a go! And through the Process we discover a new way forward
Attracting like minded people to build a community and deliver amazing projects
Showcasing the innovation and vast knowledge that exists in this country
Creating binless hospitality businesses
Curating the message for living waste free so that people understand it.
Considering materials based on their ability to be recycled
Living in the most exciting time in human history
Getting creative to find solutions that allow us to continue our existing lives with minimal compromise
There's something mentally wrong with us when we endlessly chase the next, new, shiny, big thing. 
Being properly nourished and connected to the outdoors satiated our desires and replace our desire for STUFF.
Using plants to support our sleep
Reverting to primitive practices to reconnect to ourselves
Starting our day with simple, natural world practices
If we’ve got 3 hours to be on social media, surely we’ve got time to make our everyday actions more intentional.
We feel great after gardening not just because its sensorially beautiful but because you are breathing in microbiomes
Observation is a lost trait we need to rebuild
His fascination with the perfect sized branch for birds
All his buildings are covered in 8 mil rio mesh because it's perfect for the birds
If you really want to understand why he makes the decisions he does then check out his instagram pages

Links You'll Love

The Greenhouse film - 

Future Food System Instagram

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This homeschooling mum of three spends her days foraging, growing, swapping & upskilling all in the name of continuing to live her version of normal in an abnormal world where we've lost touch with our food, medicine & the natural world.
After taking her time with her families transition to this way of life, her newfound confidence & conviction ensures she won't be told what to do by big business or have her opinions changed by corporations. Although not all plain sailing-she shares valuable insights into the bumpy but ultimately rewarding path she's been on.
"Living in a cushioned culture is limiting in our ability to share skills & share knowledge"

Links You'll Love

Living the dream permaculture 

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We Talked About
Eating meat that you’ve met - being responsible for the whole life cycle
Stepping stones to this way of life - starting small, with what you’ve got
Learning from failure as you scale
The fallacy of being self sufficient
Foraging, bartering & selling excess of what you do grow to access the things you don’t grow
Why being dogmatic isn't always the answer to the long game
Homeschooling - learning happens everywhere, everyday
Being led by kids & their natural interest areas
Building a family rhythm around the personal needs of everyone in the family
Rebuilding normal
Why it’s difficult to be a people pleaser but stay true to yourself
Learning to trust your honesty will be supported & not knocked
It’s hard to live your normal in an abnormal world - the way we eat, shop treat people
Education of self  is the first step in shifting towards taking agency
Why food was her on-ramp to understanding how to make her own decisions
Accepting that a shift in our lives will take time - we each need to take it as we are ready
Transitioning via new skills & a new mindset
Letting this way of living be a lifetime of work
Learning one skill and mastering it each year
Using herbs to heal now and in the future
Learning to get used to people not agreeing with how she lives her life
Making mistakes in safe places while you learn
Learning how to manage microclimates
Building an annual seasonal rhythm to ensure balance
450sq m of intensive growing space for a family of five
300 sq metres managed by the kids
Water bath canning, dehydration
Collecting food waste every week by salvaging food from mainstream supermarkets to supplement her families food
Why she is opting for a house cow not a house goat
There’s always next year…..
Learning to forgive your short comings
Connecting without belonging
How not going to a school was a disadvantage
While she feels at home she doesn't feel like she belongs
Defying the odds of ‘surviving this life’ & thriving
Finding ways to connect with people who have different ideals
The value of relying on your neighbours - creating a sense of place by calling on your neighbours
Things only move at the speed of trust & a willingness to push through the awkward.
Start where you are with what you’ve got
Relying on the building blocks of experi

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Described as  'all striving no arriving…' Sarah thrives in the early stages of a movement - feeling her way into the zeitgeist of now & unpacks in ways that resonate with reality.  Ultimately driven by curiosity & shunning growth,  she talks about Wild Activism  as a responsibility of the current age with agency in tact. 

Having less fucks to give about speaking her mind & with a bipolar superpower, she shares how she is unlearning & returning to humanity to navigate out of a spiritual PTSD,  simultaneously saving but living the fuck out of  life’, and why she is off to Paris

Links You'll Love

• This wild and precious life - Sarah Wilson
• Helen Lewis interview with Jordan Peterson
• Helen Lewis - Difficult Women
• First we make the beast beautiful - Sarah Wilson
• Steve Jobs - Commencement Speech

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Show notes  

• Taking her cue from International women of strength
• Owning her intensity
• Has the lucky country become more racist and bigoted?
• Why laid back Aussies don’t want their comfort boat rocked by the reality of the less wealthy.
• Why Aussie’s are aching to not be the anti intellectual country down South
• Feeling into where the pain points are for the humans around her
• The story behind donating 100% of the I Quit Sugar profit
• Her conscious decision to live rather than take her life by stepping into the option of shedding everything and letting go of ALL the things she was attached to.
• Setting a 5 year goal to be content w not being beholden to the endless desire for more.
• Trodding her ego into the ground & the outcome thrusting her into growth 
• Every time she releases her grip & lets the flow of life back in - growth prevails.
• Learning to get engaged & enraged about the climate crisis
•  Turn anxiety into action
• We live in a culture where discomfort & inconvenience thrive yet we feel alive when we are on the edge & pushed out of our comfort zone.
• Lighting the way back to love
• Defining her Dharma
• Fostering indigenous children as a respite carer
• The responsibility of steadying yourself wh

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Fire has long been a revered force,  respected for its ceremonial holding, practical contribution to feeding, sterilising, warming, lighting and yarning around. These days though, few of us interact with fire regularly despite it connecting us to our ancestors and gently reminding us of what it means to be human. 

 Off the back of tragic circumstances when he was just 16, todays guest Cade Mcconnell, intentionally side stepped the drug fuelled, party filled scene that often lures late teens early 20 year men and instead went in search of what it meant to be a man. He found instead, ceremonial fires, yoga, men's circles, his feelings and what it means to operate in an intentional and sacred way.

He’s built his life around this way of being and in todays conversation we scratch below the mere mention of things like vision quests and sacred weddings and really unpack what it is to move through the world like this. 

For Cade - much of this begins with food, where it was grown it, how its prepared, who shares it and he says that by giving himself the git of making food intentional, it has rewritten his story and the rhythm of his life.

As a retreat caterer, who uses claypots for his cooking Cade says this way of preparing food is fundamentally about being in relationship with plants, clay and fire which is also the name of his book.

His mission is to bring a little earth into every kitchen.

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We talked about:

Rites of passage for young men

Claypot cooking

Creating more ceremony in our life

Holding our loved ones to account

Giving ourselves permission to take the time needed to create nourishing, love filled food

Mens circles and how they impact our living patterns

Building sacred communities

The impact of suicide

The value of counselling pre marriage

Why its important to build a strong foundation of trust and love for yourself before you offer this to another in marriage

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