"Living as modern humans we are disconnected, out of place and don't belong in the same way as other species"

"If you're feeling called to do something larger than you - you should follow that"

Summary

Todays guest Elspeth Hay experienced a rewriting of all she had known when when one day she was grappling with the frustration that the area she calls home didn't have the ability to create more small scale, localised food systems because they were landlocked by the ocean and surrounded by established Oak forests. Until one day her belief and her story was challenged when she learned that we can eat acorns. From there  stories she’d believed her whole life began to unravel.  Not just about acorns but about the way humans have pattered ourselves to our current day reality.

This process led her to write a book titled feed us with trees. The journey of the book creation took her on an ancestral tour from New England USA to the UK, introduced her to indigenous wisdom keepers, gave her the courage to challenge the system we know to be true and hold empathy for the courageous wisdom knowledge holders that have kept nature based skills and interaction alive.

Elspeth is a is a wonderful story teller and with this skill alone I'm sure she is one of those humans who we need as the bridge to wherever it is we are headed.

"Our story is totally made up & doesn't follow any natural laws so we can look to other influences to rewrite it'

Loved this? Try these
Pod ep: Osprey Oriel Lake - the story is in our bones 

Pod ep: Hillary Giovale -becoming a good relative

Pod Partners Rock: Australian Medicinal Herbs code: future5

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 We talked about:

• Her birdwatching childhood that laid the groundwork for her landscape connection
• How chronic pain was a catalyst for change
• Why changing our story can reframe our patterning and behaviour
• Finding connection in the "common lands"
• Challenging the 'no farms no food story'
• Sidestepping the productivity story
• Why our colonisation story began with the desire to control labour
• Colonial expansion & the beginning of capitalism
• Letting go of the idea that we have ALL the answers
• Right story/wrong story
• Why this needs to be the work of an entire culture
• Basket weaving as her gateway to creating a new story
• The magic of song to rebuild a culture
• finding ways to connect you to place

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“We’ve lived fantastic lives because we’ve taken for granted the ecological damage we’ve done. Now we owe a debt"

Well respected ecologist Simon Mustoe has written a new book How to Survive the Next 100 Years: Lessons from Nature. In its pages there's a definite sense of encouragement because ultimately Simon believes we are already seeing indicators of monumentally important shifts in our relationship with earth. 

In todays conversation we tackle the dichotomy between wisdom & knowledge, deciding that “It doesn't necessarily mean how much you know - if you don't have the wisdom to interpret it & you can’t do anything worthwhile with it.

We discover the economic value of a whale when we really unpack what it does for the world & we conclude that the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is one of the most important conservation books of all time.

“Ecosystem complexity makes it abundantly clear that we will NEVER understand everything completely.”

Loved this, try another: Digby Hall or Satyajit Das

Pod Partners Rock: Australian Medicinal Herbs

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Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
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Buy the Book - Futuresteading - live like tomorrow matters, Huddle - creating a tomorrow of togetherness

We talked about:

• The wider impact of saving wildlife in our own backyards 
• Government  enabling communities to act as custodians & not corporations 
• How animals make ecosystems work & the impact on our daily lives 
• “We’re not in control of anything & we lack a comprehensive understanding of what it is we now need to do.”
• How 700 koalas were killed by a unilateral decision made behind closed doors.
• Valuing the human response to damaged nature.
• 11 x increase in the amount of funding available in the last decade for nature based solutions
• The localised opportunities for people to contribute to the livelihood that they belong to
• Bringing the voices of many for co-designed outcomes that leave legacy’s
• Environmental accounting; a transitionary solution to us becoming more connected to the ecosystem
• “The decline in our loss of species has had a greater economic impact than all the other climate issues combined”.
• Community led planning can unlock potential from nature based solutions.
• Being in relationship with ourselves, with our landscapes would take us back to the thing we know how to do well and become PART OF the functioning environment

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Have you ever had that moment where you question - but there MUST be another way?

Well in this conversation, Hayley and Matt Defina explore the journey of finding purpose and reprogramming our outdated ways or patterns to reach a more meaningful way of living.

Matt shares the importance of emotional expression in mental health and his personal experiences that led him to create Another Way, a company focused on intentional living. They discuss the societal pressures surrounding purpose, the impact of environment, and the need for self-care amidst life's demands. The conversation emphasises that purpose is not a destination but a continuous process of growth and connection with oneself and the community. 

In this conversation, Matthew Defina and Hayley explore the intricate relationship between love, fear, and personal growth. They discuss the importance of confronting inner fears, the balance between being and doing, and the necessity of community in fostering individual growth.

Find Matt Defina:

https://www.anotherway.au/

https://www.instagram.com/mattdefina_/
https://themancave.life/

More Like This:

Nic Warner ep

Pod Partners Rock: Australian Medicinal Herbs 5% discount code - future5

Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon

Buy the Book - Futuresteading - live like tomorrow matters, Huddle - creating a tomorrow of togetherness

We talked about:

• Purpose is an evolving journey rather than a fixed endpoint.
• Emotional expression is crucial for mental well-being and finding purpose.
• Self-care is essential, even for those with demanding responsibilities.
• Belief systems can create barriers to accessing one's true purpose.
• Creating space for self-reflection can lead to significant personal growth.
• The journey to purpose often involves overcoming fear and resistance.
• Community and support play vital roles in the pursuit of purpose.
• Intentional living aligns with one's authentic self and nurtures mental health.
• Recognising that actions often stem from love, not fear.
• Confronting inner fears is essential for personal growth.
• Nervous system regulation is foundational for emotional health.
• Finding balance between being and doing is crucial.
• Giving oneself permission to desire is a significant challenge.
• Community plays a vital role in personal healing and growth.
• The journey towards purpose often involves confronting limiting beliefs.
• Heart-led living requires courage and authenticity.
• Creating space for stillness allows for deeper self-awareness.
• The journey of self-discovery is ongoing and transformative.

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Do you fancy the idea of growing your own medicinal herbs for tinctures & tea Todays guest Elle from Australian Medicinal Herbs took the plunge following a career sidestep when she was diagnosed with PTSD & replaced a 17 year career in the police force with a seed to packet business that slowly but surely healed her trauma, engaged her girls & now helps people all over Australia. Today she shares her unfolding story  & offers practical guidance & wizened encouragement to get growing in order to take agency of your own health through the potency of healing herbs.

“Life is change - all the small steps you take lead you to another door or another window”

"Herbal medicine is slow medicine & our bodies have adapted to this for generations. Our bodies have certain responses to plants that they don’t to other medicines but we need to be connected & not detached"

More Like This:

Jane Stevens Futuresteading ep

Carolyn Parker Futuresteading ep

Pod Partners Rock: Australian Medicinal Herbs 5% discount code - future5

Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon

Buy the Book - Futuresteading - live like tomorrow matters, Huddle - creating a tomorrow of togetherness

We talked about:

• From domestic violence policing to medicinal herb tinctures
• PTSD diagnosis after 17 years.
• Refocusing on her small children & her own health
• How permaculture opened her up to a new way of being
• Discovering the truth about our long supply chain food system
• Herbs paved her path to healing post PTSD
• Seeing herbal remedies as MEDICINE
• Mullein is her secret love 
• Tulsi - a regulator which will find balance
• Trusting that your body knows what to do with itself to build vitality
• “I don’t recognise the person I used to be  - if you take steps towards this, you will eventually get there, be brave enough to persist”
• Normalising ‘grounding practice’
• Pushing back on handing over our health autonomy to doctors
• Have we normalised anxiety? What are the natural solutions
• Managing the rocks in our trauma backpack so it doesn't thwart us
• Methodically building a life that is home based, nourishing & flows in a seasonal rhythm
• Connecting to land & place & looking at things as a whole system
• Empowering her daughters to live the life they are called to.
• Keeping the Futuresteading podcast alive - GRATITUDE!

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Rarely in life do you meet someone who moves through the world in complete service of others, filling their cup through small but regular actions that offer the world gifts of time, seeds, toilet paper, knowledge. Todays guest is just this person, intrinsically generous…even going so far as to say she stores her excess yields in other humans which in turn proliferates the generosity bug & reap returning acts of kindness as gifted lemon slice & moving boxes.

Today we get to the bottom of what it looks like to blend permaculture principles into your life as a lifelong renter & we talk in earnest about the challenges of this prospect too & why its only getting harder to break the housing realities of so many in Australia, UK & the US.

We dive into why its so important to advocate for yourself when you are - in her words ‘neuro spicy’ & of course no conversation with the urban Nanna would be complete without a thorough rundown on all things foraging!!!

This chat coincides with the launch of Annas newly released book “Everyday Permaculture” which might well become one of those books that you find on the shelf in every household - it definitely SHOULD Be!

“Being so deeply steeped in capitalism makes it hard to ask people to become a permie not a consumer”

“I never expect any member of community to be doing better than others - everyone brings something to the table & we need to value that diversity to see all of us thrive” 

Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - live like tomorrow matters, Huddle - creating a tomorrow of togetherness

Loved this, try another:

Anna the Urban Nanna previously

Pod Partners Rock: Australian Medicinal Herbs  discount code: future5 

We talked about-

• Growing up undiagnosed neuro spicy - “You’re not broken you’re just wired differently”
• Being a wisdom keeper
• Building confidence for self advocacy despite imposter syndrome
• Being accessible, taking small bites
• Seeing community as ‘A healthy forest’, messy, live, flourishing, decaying, breathing
• Finding ways to connect rather than divide
• There’s no room for consumerism in the foragers mindset
• Foraging teaches you to ask how much is enough
• Catching & storing energy in other people - breeding goodwill & gratitude 
• The destabilising vagaries of life as a renter- fighting against injustice to have a roof over your head 
• Housing crisis realities 
• Creating belonging when you don't have a stable location to call home.
• Breaking up with stuff & setting it free by gifting it to others who will use it.
• Building neighbourly relations
• Being an active part in the betterment of someone else's life
• Living with a spirit of generosity
• Creating a community corner of offerings for free
• Not existing in a monetary society
• COMMUNITY

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"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. 

Pod Partners Rock: Australian Medicinal Herbs Discount code 'Future5' 

Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters, Huddle, Creating a tomorrow of togetherness

We talked about

• Rites of passage are crucial for personal growth.
• Authenticity is often challenged by societal expectations.
• The journey back to self requires courage and trust.
• Inauthenticity can lead to a life unfulfilled.
• Responsibility in relationships is key to healing.
• Fatherhood is a significant rite of passage for men.
• Community support is essential for transformation.
• Pain can be a teacher if we allow it to be.
• Fear can guide us towards our true path.
• Living in alignment with one's heart leads to fulfillment.

Follow Nic Warner- https://www.nicwarner.com/

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"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 

• Ceres
• Francis Weller - the Wild Edge of Sorrow
• Dr Gabor Mate
• Joanna Macey
• Glarisegg EDE

Pod Partners Rock: Australian Medicinal Herbs

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

Loved this ep, try this one - Charlie Showers  

We chatted about:

• Live as nature not with nature 
• Having agency & care in how we make our decisions
• Ecovillage Design Education course 
• Awakening deep memory
• Relearning how to functionally live together in community
• Unpacking the word community
• Focus on Community first, Family second & individual third
• The role that grief plays in our world & what it truly means to be alive 
• When a physical space can hold SO many things & ask nothing in return
• Loneliness at an all time high 
• Accessing the interconnectedness of everything 
• Being authentic, not performative
• Hearts holding the heartbreak of the world around us
• What is your fear telling you - be curious
• “I don't always need the light, I just need to remember that it will return”
• Avoiding polarisation - replace this with “Experience all that is is to be human” 
• The role of ritual in community 
• Frustrated by the reductionist view of the most complex system of all time
• Why decision making isn't as simple as a list of pro’s & cons
• Making the community self aware of how to manage conflict
• Non linear decision making
• How do I show up in the relationships in my life. holding care, compassion & curiosity

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“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

Pod Partners Rock:Australian Medicinal Herbs Discount code 'Future5' 

Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters, Huddle, Creating a tomorrow of togetherness

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

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“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 

Pod Partners Rock:Australian Medicinal Herbs  - discount code Future5

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.

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"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

Pod Partners Rock: Australian Medicinal Herbs

 
Support the Show
Casual Support - Buy Me A Coffee
Regular Support - Patreon
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters

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

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