Mind, Body, and Soil

On today's special episode, host Kate Kavanaugh shares a talk she gave in Fredericksburg, Texas for the What Good Shall I Do Conference. It is an exploration of the myriad of ways that we are deeply interconnected - pulling threads from soil science, ecology, botany, cellular biology, mysticism and spirituality, and philosophy. At the end, is a message of hope and healing.

Kate introduces the episode with an exploration of what it means to be a 'participator' rather than just an 'observer' and recounts some tales from her time in Texas with the armadillos, ants, and the moon.

There is also a discussion at the beginning about how the podcast will grow from here and how you can support that growth. Regular programming resumes next week!

Support the Podcast

Substack: https://katekavanaugh.substack.com/

Patreon: patreon.com/user?u=52045069

Leave a one-time Tip: paypal.me/katekavanaughmbs

Thank you so much!

Andreas Weber has studied marine biology and cultural systems alongside his work with theoretical biologist Francisco Varela. Andreas has worked over the years on the concept of enlivenment and looking at the “biosphere as a meaning-creating and poetic reality”. This episode is about dissolving the boundaries of a mechanistic worldview and finding a new depth of meaning, reciprocity, and service. Becoming edible is the touchstone for the talk as Andreas walks us through ideas of reciprocal transformation of matter, what it might mean to surrender to impermanence and that transformation, and how death links us to the whole of life and aliveness. It is also about how we define language and mentorship in response to everything we take in from the interconnected web of life. Andreas guides us through how Western culture and civilization has strayed from so many of these concepts and the trauma that represents on concentric levels. Our chat is wrapped up by exploring the invisible dimension. This is a wide-ranging and beautiful deep dive into our felt experience of matter, of aliveness, of death, and beyond and is absolutely not to be missed. 

Find Andreas:

Website: https://biologyofwonder.org/

Ecology of Love Course

Books:

The Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling, and the Metamorphoses of Science

Matter and Desire: an Erotic Ecology 

Timestamps:

00:05:59: Old Salt Festival Shoutout

00:10:58: Interview Begins with a line from Rilke and some ruminations on poetry

00:21:08: Becoming Edible 

00:28:48: The hard to define line between self and other 

00:37:13: Reciprocal Transformation

00:43:05: Healing rifts of isolation 

00:48:49: Surrendering to impermanence and transformation

00:58:31: Death links us to the whole

01:16:38: Non-meditation and finding mentors 

01:36:51: Gift, culture, and trauma 

01:46:02: The invisible dimension 

Books + Resources Mentioned: 

Tulku Urgyen

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Joanna Macy

Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke

Philosophy of Baruch de Spinoza 

Works by Nagarjuna

Old Salt Festival 

Current Discounts for MBS listeners:

• 15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV15
• 20% off Home of Wool using code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% off
• 15% off Bon Charge blue light blocking gear using code: MINDBODYSOIL15

Join the Ground Work Collective:

Find a Farm: nearhome.groundworkcollective.com

Find Kate: @kate_kavanaugh

More: groundworkcollective.com

Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: groundworkcollective.com/disclaimer

Cate Havstad-Casad is redefining what it means to be a holistic entrepreneur. Using her lens of holism and looking at how to scale businesses while still keeping in mind natural limits of growth, she has built Havstad Hat Co and Range Revolutions and Casad Family Farms in conjunction with her husband, Chris. She is as passionate about soil as she is about her community and as passionate about her community as she is about changing the world. In this episode we talk about her incredible closed loop farm, the revolution she is building in the fashion world with Range Revolution, and her new venture building a co-op in Central Oregon. We also explore water in the West and tease out both bureaucratic and climatic drought and how to build more resilient systems in brittle environments. In this reverse interview, we delve into Cate’s heritage and what makes her tick in the latter half of the show - exploring how we inherit intergenerational strengths and how we can consider passing those along to our kids. 

Find Cate:

Instagram: @rangerevolution, @casadfamilyfarms, @havstadhatco 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@casadfamilyfarms

Timestamps:

00:07:10: Cate + Kate Begin: Defining a Revolution

00:11:37: Economics of Peace 

00:16:33: Closed loop systems and Casad Family Farms

00:37:13: Drought 

01:03:36: Range Revolution and regenerative leather 

01:27:29: Economies of scale 

01:39:51: Our heritage is a part of what drives us 

01:49:54: Our parents, becoming parents

Resources

Schumacher Center: An Economics of Peace

Megan French of Boundless Farmstead

Books:

Wendell Berry on Building an Economics of Peace

For the Love of Soil by Nicole Masters

Listening:

Long Promised Road by the Beach Boys

Current Discounts for MBS listeners:

• 15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV15
• 20% off Home of Wool using code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% off
• 15% off Bon Charge blue light blocking gear using code: MINDBODYSOIL15

Join the Ground Work Collective:

Find a Farm: nearhome.groundworkcollective.com

Find Kate: @kate_kavanaugh

More: groundworkcollective.com

Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: groundworkcollective.com/disclaimer

Mind, Body, Soil

As the digital world looms, this discussion is an exploration of built and natural worlds and how they impact us as a species. Daniel Vitalis, host of WildFed on the Outdoor Channel and formerly host of the podcasts Rewild Yourself and Wild Fed, joins Kate in a conversation that finds humanity at different points in time and with different viewpoints of time itself. It’s an exploration of the environments that shaped our species, from our hunter-gatherer roots, to agriculture, and into our dreams of launching ourselves into space. At this precipice that we find ourselves on, it’s more important than ever to consider how modern thinking has been shaped by our environments - the natural world, the built world, the socio-political world, and beyond. Nested in the conversation is an exploration of death’s role in connecting us to reality and to our food. Towards the end, there is a question around what skills we want future generations to know that we must keep alive today, as it’s not just multiple species that are on the brink of extinction. 

We also talk about:

• Living in captivity and the degeneration of humans
• How our thoughts and viewpoints might impact something like how we run or swim
• Cyclical time 

Find Daniel:

Instagram: @wild.fed @danielvitalis @surthrival 

Website: WildFed, Surthrival 

Podcasts: WildFed, Rewild Yourself 

Timestamps:

00:00:00: Kate introduces Daniel in her intro

00:09:16: Built vs Natural world 

00:22:48: A Space Race

00:32:50: Are we zoo animals?

00:43:22: Feeding hunter-gatherers

00:50:49: Cataclysmic events change humans

01:00:31: How we think influences how we do anything

01:07:50: Getting back to cycles: men, women, time, days of the week

01:24:20: Death is part of the cycle

01:39:52: Saving skills for the next generation

Other Great Interviews with Daniel: 

on the Align Podcast

On Luke Storey

(A Few) Favorite Episodes of Wild Fed:

Doug Bock Clark

Philippe Grenade-Willis

Dan Flores

Books Mentioned:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Fourth Turning by Neil Howe + William Strauss

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card 

Current Discounts for MBS listeners:

• 15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV15
• 20% off Home of Wool using code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% off
• 15% off Bon Charge blue light blocking gear using code: MINDBODYSOIL15

Join the Ground Work Collective:

Find a Farm: nearhome.groundworkcollective.com

Find Kate: @kate_kavanaugh

More: groundworkcollective.com

Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: groundworkcollective.com/disclaimer

Katie Forrest, together with her husband Taylor Collins, is the founder of Epic Bar and one of the minds behind Force of Nature Meats and Roam Ranch in Fredericksburg, Texas. Katie herself is a force of nature as a business owner, mother, wife, rancher, and human. Together, we explore the perennial nature of hope and how we can think about modeling businesses after lessons we learn in nature. Spread throughout are messages from the land and from our children about learning to slow down and to listen and an exploration of hope. Towards the end, we cover the importance of ground meat to the food system and the important role of aggregators in the regenerative business ecosystem. This is a beautiful and very inspiring conversation!

Find Katie // Instagram: @forceofnaturemeats, @roamranch

What Good Shall I Do Conference: WGSIDKATE75 (limited supplies)

For Katie’s Backstory // Where Hope Grows Podcast: Ranch Stories: The Genesis

Timestamps:

00:00:00: Intro + the Importance of Aggregators

00:06:34: What Good Shall I Do Conference

00:11:38: A Gift (?) of Geese

00:16:13: Jumping into business

00:26:04: Building an ecosystem of businesses

00:40:09: Modeling businesses after nature: symbiosis and limits

00:44:59: Slowing down to build connection

00:55:35: Roam Ranch

01:17:15: Seeing through the eyes of your children

01:22:31: Hope: leaving our children shade

01:32:22: Ground meat is great 

01:43:49: Role of the aggregator 

Books Mentioned:

Slow Down and Be Here Now by Laura Brand

Biology of Wonder by Andreas Weber

Current Discounts for MBS listeners:

• 15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV15
• 20% off Home of Wool using code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% off
• 15% off Bon Charge blue light blocking gear using code: MINDBODYSOIL15

Join the Ground Work Collective:

Find a Farm: nearhome.groundworkcollective.com

Find Kate: @kate_kavanaugh

More: groundworkcollective.com

Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: groundworkcollective.com/disclaimer

So many of us have had the experience of nature, of farming, bringing us back to ourselves. Adrian Grenier’s story isn’t much different - several years ago he found himself disconnected and in a state of constantly numbing. Coming back to the idea of ‘chop wood, carry water’ he came home to a place after changing just about everything. Adrian and I talk about the nature of disconnection and the connection we can find in nature. We start with the idea that everything has to die - even versions of ourselves - in order to nourish our future, where we might even find ourselves in the infinite. One of Adrian’s philosophies is to constantly be increasing sensation and connection - so we dive into just what that might mean on a practical level. Adrian is an apprentice of the land and exploring what it means to live at Earth Speed. 

Find Adrian:

Instagram: @adriangrenier, @earthspeed

Earth Speed on YouTube

Other Great Interviews with Adrian: 

Adrian Grenier on the Meat Mafia

Timestamps:

00:00:00: Introducing Adrian and how we met 

00:10:30: Spring sets some themes of death, rebirth, renewal, transformation

00:12:37: Finding future self in the infinite 

00:18:30: Death of versions of ourselves 

00:20:30: Chop wood, carry water - connecting to nature 

00:26:35: Increasing sensation and connection 

00:35:00: Connecting to intuition 

00:41:00: Being an apprentice to the land

00:46:05: Living at the cadence of earth speed 

00:55:40: Feeling at home in earth + our current isolation

01:07:32: Starting with small solutions

Books Mentioned:

Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology

Current Discounts for MBS listeners:

• 15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV15
• 20% off Home of Wool using code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% off
• 15% off Bon Charge blue light blocking gear using code: MINDBODYSOIL15

Mind, Body, and Soil

Find Kate: @kate_kavanaugh

Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: groundworkcollective.com/disclaimer

Heidi Boucher is a home funeral guide and writer and director of the documentary ‘In the Parlor’ where she follows the intimate journey of three families as they navigate caring for their dead at home. Heidi’s work with death is tender and truly beautiful. In this episode we unpack how funerals moved from the parlors of our homes to funeral parlors in just 150 years including the rise of the funeral industrial complex. We explore the very human emotion of conflating our fear of grief, loss, and ‘abandonment’ with the fear of death and the dead. This is as much an exploration of how to have a funeral in your home and navigating the legalities and practicalities of it as it is a conversation around grief. We talk about forming relationships with our dead loved ones, whether they’ve died recently or in the distant past and forming a relationship with grief, who we walk hand in hand with in this life. This is an unfurling conversation and while it may seem heavy at first blush - I left it with an incredible sense of lightness. 

We also talk about:

• Navigating death with children and teens
• Scaling home funerals
• & so much more

Find Heidi: 

Film: In the Parlor (intheparlordoc.com)

Get in touch with Heidi: [email protected]

Timestamps:

00:03:20: the Funeral Industry by the Numbers

00:08:29: Introducing Heidi and setting intentions

00:11:44: How death and funeral care has shifted in 150 years

00:21:27: How our views of death have shifted 

00:26:57: Fear of death vs fear of grief 

00:37:30: Modeling death as parents//for children

00:46:03: How media has shifted death 

00:52:39: The ‘how tos’ of home funeral care 

01:04:52: Nurturing our relationships with the dead 

01:15:14: The first 72 hours after death - making room for grief

01:30:18: Funeral care is scalable - you can pick and choose what you want to do

01:39:20: Bringing death home 

A List of Books Mentioned:

Find the full list HERE

More Resources:

Home Funeral Alliance 

Current Discounts for MBS listeners:

• 15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV15
• 20% off Home of Wool using code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% off
• 15% off Bon Charge blue light blocking gear using code: MINDBODYSOIL15

Join the Ground Work Collective:

Find a Farm: nearhome.groundworkcollective.com

Find Kate: @kate_kavanaugh

More: groundworkcollective.com

Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: groundworkcollective.com/disclaimer

Scott Carney’s book ‘the Wedge’ changed my life a little bit, and it has led me down a rabbit hole into his work over the years. From the Enlightenment Trap, to What Doesn’t Kill Us, and into some of his interviews around consciousness. In this episode, we dive deep into death and how our biological programming to fear it can be both a hindrance and a reason to challenge ourselves. We talk about how the wellness industry wants to sell you living forever, and that might not be such a new idea. Ultimately, this is a conversation around our actions and the way we can place what Scott calls “the wedge” between stimulus and response at an individual level, and maybe even at a societal level. It’s also about getting out of our own perspective and imagining what it might be like to be a cat, or the motivations of a cell as much as it’s about learning to change our perspectives. 

Find Scott:

Instagram: @scottcarney

YouTube

I thoroughly recommend Scott’s Audiobooks!

The Vortex

The Wedge

The Enlightement Trap

What Doesn’t Kill Us

Other Great Interviews with Scott: 

Scott Carney on Third Eye Drops

Timestamps:

00:14:22: I finally stop talking and start the episode 

00:17:14: How fear of death shapes our biology

00:25:26: the wellness industry wants to sell you living forever

00:28:32: Ripple effects of our actions 

00:39:48: Self and other - being shaped by our environments and microbiome

00:48:15: ‘Umwelt’ and empathy 

00:51:26: Outsourcing our natural relationships to technology 

00:54:24: From a cell’s perspective

01:02:00: ‘the Wedge’ at a societal level 

01:17:42: Changing our minds

01:24:31: Being a generalist

Books Mentioned:

The Sandman (Book 1) by Neil Gaiman

Story of the Human Body by Daniel E Lieberman

Range by David Epstein

Current Discounts for MBS listeners:

• 15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV15
• 20% off Home of Wool using code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% off
• 15% off Bon Charge blue light blocking gear using code: MINDBODYSOIL15

Join the Ground Work Collective:

Find a Farm: nearhome.groundworkcollective.com

Find Kate: @kate_kavanaugh

More: groundworkcollective.com

Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: groundworkcollective.com/disclaimer

Quick Note: A technical glitch in new recording software meant that my audio was recorded not on my microphone. My deepest apologies for the decline in audio quality! It’s still great, just a little tinny, won't happen again!

Caroline is a rancher, cow girl, an entrepreneur, and a newly minted podcast host of Chews Wisely. In this marathon episode, we cover a lot of ground, but central to the conversation is an exploration of the stories we’re telling ourselves as individuals, as farmers and ranchers, and as a society and what it would mean to change them. Caroline shares about the stories she heard growing up and how she chose to tell herself a new story - a story that would lead her through a career in music, to masonry, to ranching in Montana. We meander through what it means to build a regenerative business, looking at your return on investment on time, and building the scaffolding for a new business led with femininity. We explore what it means to cultivate aggressive joy and how we can use choice as a lever in that process. We also talk about the way food is marketed, greenwashing, and how waste management might actually be the climate solution we’re looking for (jk, there are no panaceas, but it might help!). 

We Also Talk About: 

• Building grit + tenacity 
• Trusting ourselves
• Finding steadiness
• Imposter syndrome 

Find Caroline:

Instagram: @bigskycaroline

Meat: Little Creek Montana

Podcast: @chewswisely      

Cowgirl Camp  

Timestamps:

00:06:47: Special announcement for Stella Maria Baer’s Earth Oil Pigment Workshop

00:14:04: Caroline enters the chat and we complain about our husbands

00:18:24: Accountability to your future self

00:30:58: No quick fixes, big or small

00:39:49: Caroline’s backstory

01:01:52: Building a Business and the Trust Muscle

01:26:39: Including our Labor; ROI on Work

01:44:30: Cultivating aggressive joy

01:54:36: A new story for ranching

02:16:24: Embracing the feminine in business and beyond

02:37:14: Our relationship with food

02:44:58: Chews Wisely

In the Intro:

Stella Maria Baer’s Oil Pigment Paints Workshop 

Resources Mentioned:

The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdoch 

Current Discounts for MBS listeners:

• 15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV15
• 20% off Home of Wool using code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% off
• 15% off Bon Charge blue light blocking gear using code: MINDBODYSOIL15

Join the Ground Work Collective:

Find a Farm: nearhome.groundworkcollective.com

Find Kate: @kate_kavanaugh

More: groundworkcollective.com

Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: groundworkcollective.com/disclaimer

Dr. Bill Schindler is an experimental archaeologist, anthropologist, restauranteur, hunter, butcher, father, husband…. And Renaissance man when it comes to early man. Author of ‘Eat Like a Human’, Bill and I dive right into a conversation about the origins of homo sapiens and how technology and morphology shaped our modern form. We talk about hunting and the consumption of meat vs animal and how butchery evolves alongside humans. Bill owns a restaurant, Modern Stoneage Kitchen, and we take a sidebar conversation to explore entrepreneurship, food safety, and more in relation to getting healthy food to people. This naturally dovetails into a conversation about all things fermented and the microbiome of ruminants, fowl, humans, and beyond. We close up with a conversation about the consumption of clays, geophagy, and ultimately the importance of sharing food with the people we love.

Please note if you want more of the foundations of 'Eat Like a Human' and Bill's work - I've linked to a couple of interviews of his that I enjoyed on other podcasts.

We Also Talk About: 

• Geophagy 
• Entrepreneurship
• & so much more 

Other Great Interviews with Bill: 

Bill on Peak Human pt 1

Bill on Peak Human pt 2

Bill on WildFed

Find Bill: 

Eat Like a Human by Dr. Bill Schindler

Bill’s Instagram: @drbillschindler 

Modern Stoneage Kitchen Instagram: @modernstoneagekitchen

Eastern Shore Food Lab Instagram: @esfoodlab

Bill’s Website

Timestamps:

00:05:33: Bill Introduces Himself

00:09:53: Origins of Modern Homo Sapien

00:18:05: Kate has a bone to pick about Thumbs

00:24:32: Other factors potentially driving evolution and culture

00:31:37: How hunting changes the game 

00:34:48: Meat vs animal; butchery now and then 

00:43:05: A brief history of food safety and exploration of modern food entrepreneurship

00:54:12: Fermentation and microbiomes in humans, rumens, crops, and beyond

01:11:11: Geophagy 

01:21:21: the cultural importance of food is… maybe the most important part

01:29:59: Processed food 

Resources Mentioned: 

St. Catherines: An Island in Time by David Hurst Thomas

The Art of Natural Cheesemaking by David Asher

Charcutier, Slumiere, Wurstmeister Francois Vecchio

How to Eat Clay 

Current Discounts for MBS listeners:

• 15% off Farm True ghee and body care products using code: KATEKAV15
• 20% off Home of Wool using code KATEKAVANAUGH for 10% off
• 15% off Bon Charge blue light blocking gear using code: MINDBODYSOIL15

Join the Ground Work Collective:

Find a Farm: nearhome.groundworkcollective.com

Find Kate: @kate_kavanaugh

More: groundworkcollective.com

Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: groundworkcollective.com/disclaimer