Soul Soil: Where Agriculture and Spirit Intersect with Brooke Kornegay

Akiva Silver has been studying and working with nature for the past 20 years. His endeavors have ranged from primitive wilderness survival to planting and maintaining diverse fruit and nut orchards, and to running his nursery business at Twisted Tree Farm. Akiva raises tens of thousands of trees every year, propagating from seeds and cuttings. He is an avid forager and observer of wildlife. Akiva has written three books, Trees of Power, The Conversation, and The Ocean of Dreams.

In this episode…

• An approach to creating change through inspiration and alternative solutions rather than opposition…Bringing opposition to those in service only to self can interrupt their agenda, but building new and better systems lays the groundwork for change from a place of love. What we put our focus on often grows, and that includes world problems as well as alternative solutions.
• One alternative solution Akiva has been working on is cooking oil…using the oft-maligned bitternut hickory as a source of cooking oil, instead of relying on an annual monocrop like canola whose production creates a biological desert on the land.
• The story about Akiva’s experience with wilderness and survival skills, how the guilt of taking from the earth, the plant and animal bodies to fuel his own body, was transformed into gratitude, paired with a realization that we are part of nature and the carbon cycle, we have the same value and right to be here…”you are taking life to have life. Something is killed for you to have energy. When I kill a deer and eat it, I have that energy in my body. What I do with that energy matters more to me when I remember this.” You can take that energy and wallow in self pity and self doubt, or you can take that life in order to create beauty and kindness and propagate life. A certain responsibility enters the picture.
• The joy of doing work that is directed by the seasons, the patterns of nature, instead of by a human schedule.
• “Having an attitude of curiosity would lead to a totally different world”
• The best way to be mentally healthy and happy is to know that you have a purpose, know that you’re helping others…finding how you can be of service is the best thing you can do for yourself and the world.

• Twisted Tree Farm website and nursery online store

• Akiva Silver - Twisted Tree Farm YouTube channel

• Trees of Power, The Conversation, and The Ocean of Dreams by Akiva Silver

• Sam Thayer's Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America; The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants; and Nature's Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants by Samuel Thayer

• Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden by Lee Reich

• Books by Robert Moss

Some people do things the way things have always been done. Others develop that curiosity muscle and are able to take in new information, weigh it against experience and, yes, intuition, and ultimately create new systems that work. The first thing Jared teaches a new farmer is “know thyself.”

Jared and Selena have been married 26 years and are the parents of nine children and one grandchild. They are 3rd generation ranchers, managing the operation Jared’s grandfather and father built in Secret Pass and Clover Valley, Nevada. Jared is a life-long learner and has been applying and teaching principles of holistic management, soil regeneration, and biodynamics. Jared has mentored many young people seeking to get a start in agriculture. The Sorensens raise and market grass fed beef, teach onsite and virtual classes, and offer internships on the ranch.

In this episode…

• partnering with his father and grandfather at age 16 making the shift to holistic, regenerative practices
• grazing management: mob grazing, the principle of thirds bringing the microscope to the farm: measuring the effectiveness of new practices by tracking the presence of a balanced microbial population
• healing the water cycle biologically—beavers as permaculture designers!; keyline systems
• the importance of knowing your why, knowing yourself…don’t set yourself up for failure by adopting a system that’s not yours, without taking the time to get to know yourself and what YOU were created to do here on this earth, your unique why…and then having the courage to embody that truth
• introducing a biodynamic approach to the ranch, being the human connection between heaven and earth to be better stewards of the earth, we need to increase our awareness, get past our “know it all” egoic tendency, moving past judgement and getting curious, knowing there’s something we can learn from everyone and every situation. A big dose of humility will serve us well
• it IS possible to break into agriculture without inheriting a farm Nature is more resilient than we give it credit for. There’s so much grace and forgiveness in trying to do the right thing, in getting past our arrogance and our ego. Progress can be made! Your self worth is infinite, it is separate from your net worth.

Resources

• Ruby Mountain Nourishing Foods (Sorensen Ranch)
• Sustainable Settings (Biodynamic Ranch in Colorado)
• The Profitable Regeneration Virtual Summit
• Searching for Home, Finding Grace free ebook from Jared Sorensen
• Searching for Home, Finding Grace hard copy

Amy Dempster helps others understand the healing power of the earth. What began as openly sharing her spiritual journey on her popular blog Following Hawks, has become a resource for others wanting to learn how to communicate with nature and share their own unique healing gifts with the earth. Together with the Spirits of the Land in the mountains of northwest Montana, she tends seven portals on the land where she lives, along with any grid keeping work she is assigned. She also leads the Earth Tenders Academy, an immersive online journey to help others reestablish their connection with their ancient ancestors, learn to communicate with the seen and unseen forces in their environment, and respectfully offer their healing energy to places in need.

In this episode…

• The experience of waking up to one’s spiritual gifts, what it’s like to exchange energy and information with the unseen world
• Ways people can attune themselves to have a deeper relationship and experience with Nature
• What is sound healing, how singing bowls and toning affect reality
• Plant medicine, Amanita renaissance, the energetics of sitting in ceremony with a plant ally

Resources

• www.followinghawks.com
• The Amanita Experience

Asia Suler is a writer, teacher, earth intuitive and ecological philosopher who lives in the folds of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She is the founder of One Willow Apothecaries, an Appalachian-grown company that offers handcrafted herbal medicines and educational experiences in herbalism, animism, ancestral healing and earth-centered personal growth. Asia has guided over 20,000 students in 70+ countries through her immersive online programs. With her writings and teachings, Asia helps people embrace their own unique medicine through a joyful engagement with the natural world. Asia’s first book Mirrors in the Earth: Reflections on Self-Healing from the Living World is available now.

In this episode… The experience of waking up to Nature and exchanging information and energy with the unseen world Ways people can attune themselves in order to have a deeper experience with the natural world Gardening as a practice of setting boundaries When we come home to our own inner world, the world as we know it changes How the Earth helps us heal from trauma How valuing our smallness, and the details of everyday life, helps us heal our lives and the Earth Healing self judgement

Resources www.asiasuler.com Mirrors in the Earth: Reflections on Self-Healing from the Living World by Asia Suler

“Our sense of ‘the individual’, which really began with the rise of capitalism and the forceful severing of people from land and community, led to the concept that there are categories of being that do and do not have consciousness, that are and are not alive, that do and do not have their own right to existence…and when we actually drop into our senses and allow ourselves to experience the living world, we discover that so many of the things that were not supposed to be intelligent, or sentient, are speaking to us and with us. And that changes everything.”

Seán Pádraig O’Donoghue is an herbalist, writer, and teacher, and an initiated Priest in two traditions. He lives in the mountains of western Maine. Seán’s approach to healing weaves together the insights of traditional western herbalism, animism, and contemporary science. He regards physical, spiritual, and emotional healing as deeply intertwined. He is the author of The Forest Reminds Us Who We Are.

In this episode…

• Early influences and experiences working with plant and animal consciousnesses
• How becoming more fully embodied opens awareness and the capacity to connect with nature
• The aromatic scents of plants are recognized as kinship signals within our bodies; when we can direct our attention to a specific plant, tension is released within our bodies so that we can connect more openly
• The near-constant barrage and sensory overload of modern living and its effect on our ability to deeply listen to subtle information in our natural surroundings
• Some simple practices that can help us open our awareness and refine our senses
• What’s most permanent about us is our threefold nature…the “Talking” or “Human” self that interacts with abstractions and language (our persona and ego), our “Animal” self that experiences sensation and emotions, responding to rhythm and ritual and love, and our “God” self or “Infinite” self that knows our divinity and infinity
• Examining our own programming and conditioning and reclaiming our body’s innate wisdom, through the senses, to convey information about the world around us
• Indigenous vs. colonizers, and the worldview of “we” vs. “I”
• “To die healed is to die while being in right relation with all things in your inner world and your outer worlds. That can happen only in the context where we recognize and experience the world as alive. We cannot come into this full expression of who we are without letting our consciousness to fully enter and fill our bodies.”
• “6,000 years of patriarchal civilization has created rigid patterns within humans where we are armoring ourselves against our own eros, our own nature, our own desire for life, as well as armoring ourselves against the feelings and experiences of those around us. When we are in that place of being cut off from ourselves and each other, we can more easily become the instruments of ideologies that try to tell us what’s right and wrong, and who does and doesn’t have a right to exist.”

• The Forest Reminds Us Who We Are: Connecting to the Living Medicine of Wild Plants

  by Seán Pádraig O’Donoghue

• https://otherworldwell.com/

• Victor H. Anderson: An American Shaman by Cornelia Benavidez

• Invoking Ireland by John Moriarty

• The Gary Snyder Reader: Prose, Poetry, and Translations by Gary Snyder

• The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov

75% of the world’s human population relies on traditional healing practices, most of which is herbal medicine. Herbs and other plants have shaped human culture and traditions since the beginning of time. The Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe’s Pale of Settlement have a well documented history dating back to the Middle Ages, but until now, accounts of their herbal healing practices have been absent from public record. Deatra and Adam have put together a snapshot of not only the herbs used by this culture, but also tell the story of its healers.

Deatra Cohen is an author, herbalist, master gardener and artist. She was a reference librarian for many years and always had an interest in nature, plants and medicinal herbs. When she began to study herbalism formally, she discovered there was no written record of the medicinal plant knowledge of her ancestors, the Ashkenazi Jews from the Pale of Settlement in Eastern Europe. 

Adam Siegel is an author, translator, and bibliographer. He studied linguistics at the University of Minnesota and the University of California, and library and information science at San José State University.  His translations from German, Russian, Serbian, and Croatian papers have been published widely, and he is a past recipient of the NEA Literary Translation Fellowship.

In this episode…

• How enrolling in an herbalism course prompted Deatra to explore the herbal traditions of her ancestors
• The investigative process of digging for clues about traditional Ashkenazi herbalism, a topic with very little previously published information
• Researching the narrative of this culture and how it led to deeper conversations within Deatra’s family regarding World War II, displacement, and immigration
• Use of cupping, protection against evil eye, and magico-religious medicine
• Herbal cultural appropriation: from the perspective of the plants, this concept doesn’t exist!
• The magic of tending and caring for herbs that take care of you

• Ashkenazi Herbalism: Rediscovering the Herbal Traditions of Eastern European Jews by Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel

• Contact Deatra: [email protected]

• ashkenaziherbalism.net

Amy Dempster helps others understand the healing power of the earth. What began as openly sharing her spiritual journey on her popular blog Following Hawks, has become a resource for others wanting to learn how to communicate with nature and share their own unique healing gifts with the earth. Together with the Spirits of the Land in the mountains of northwest Montana, she tends seven portals on the land where she lives, along with any grid keeping work she is assigned. She also leads the Earth Tenders Academy, an immersive online journey to help others reestablish their connection with their ancient ancestors, learn to communicate with the seen and unseen forces in their environment, and respectfully offer their healing energy to places in need.

In this episode…

• Amy’s experience opening up to this work—the moment when she realized Nature was trying to get her attention, and the process of teasing apart communication from Nature from thoughts of the mind
• What it means to be a gridkeeper—what Earth’s grids are and what they do, and how the global ascension process affects them
• Humans are an integral part of the process of anchoring cosmic light into the Earth through our physical bodies, often without our conscious awareness
• “The Great Migration”—why people are being called to relocate all over the globe
• Energy vortexes and portals—what they are, what they do Suggestions for individuals who feel called to work with Earth energies
• The role of agriculture in the human-nature dynamic; factory farming is missing the co-creative relationship between human and plant. The intention of the grower is everything.
• Earth’s living library
• How valuable and precious our bodies are and the role of emotions in accessing our potential

• https://followinghawks.com/

• Earth: Pleiadian Keys to the Living Library by Barbara Marciniak

• Bringers of the Dawn: Teachings from the Pleiadians by Barbara Marciniak

• The Earth Keepers Podcast

• The Following Hawks Earthkeepers Community Facebook group

• The Earth Tenders Academy

David O’Carroll has been educating growers in the United Kingdom in Korean Natural Farming methods for the last 6 years at Ballagh Micro Farm, based in Devon, where beneficial microbes are being used to create healthy soil through powerful natural fertilizers. Having used Korean Natural Farming for a number of years on a smaller scale, such as establishing an agroforestry project and learning centre, he combined Korean Natural Farming and other methods of natural farming to accelerate the change in soil biology to showcase how healthy soil can be created. Working closely with many United Kingdom Hemp farms both locally and nationwide he has developed both organic pest management solutions, and adoption of Korean Natural Farming practices, in addition to further product developments within the hemp industry.

In these episodes…

• Korean Natural Farming is a path for those who are put off by the high cost of outside agricultural inputs; KNF offers a local, renewable, sustainable source of fertility that aims to build soil that mimics a forest ecosystem
• KNF has allowed David to diversify his farm products and give him a revenue stream year-round and increase his resilience and small-farm sustainability
• Do as nature does (her methods are inexpensive and easy); understand the good and the bad are one (values are relative)
• The benefit of collecting indigenous microorganisms within the local vicinity (a 50 mile radius is a good reference point); microbes will teach each other how to adapt to different conditions
• I and others are one (understand crops by understanding your own body); you are what you eat, eats
• Applying KNF principles and techniques for waste management at large gatherings and festivals
• Lactic acid bacteria is the emergency response team that can correct both soil and gastrointestinal imbalance
• How the COVID lockdowns are affecting the way people think about food, farming, and gardening
• Indigenous microorganisms for no-smell compost toilets and hog operations
• Looking for the different phases of plant development in order to supplement the needed nutrients: leaf growth, root and flower, seed and fruit
• Utilizing KNF techniques in the developing world using locally available rice, sugar, fruit, plant matter, animal bones, and dairy or bean milk, and some form of alcohol
• Oriental Herbal Nutrient: a tincture of fermented garlic, ginger, cinnamon, licorice, and angelica
• Natural pest management

David O’Carroll has been educating growers in the United Kingdom in Korean Natural Farming methods for the last 6 years at Ballagh Micro Farm, based in Devon, where beneficial microbes are being used to create healthy soil through powerful natural fertilizers. Having used Korean Natural Farming for a number of years on a smaller scale, such as establishing an agroforestry project and learning centre, he combined Korean Natural Farming and other methods of natural farming to accelerate the change in soil biology to showcase how healthy soil can be created. Working closely with many United Kingdom Hemp farms both locally and nationwide he has developed both organic pest management solutions, and adoption of Korean Natural Farming practices, in addition to further product developments within the hemp industry.

In these episodes…

• Korean Natural Farming is a path for those who are put off by the high cost of outside agricultural inputs; KNF offers a local, renewable, sustainable source of fertility that aims to build soil that mimics a forest ecosystem
• KNF has allowed David to diversify his farm products and give him a revenue stream year-round and increase his resilience and small-farm sustainability
• Do as nature does (her methods are inexpensive and easy); understand the good and the bad are one (values are relative)
• The benefit of collecting indigenous microorganisms within the local vicinity (a 50 mile radius is a good reference point); microbes will teach each other how to adapt to different conditions
• I and others are one (understand crops by understanding your own body); you are what you eat, eats
• Applying KNF principles and techniques for waste management at large gatherings and festivals
• Lactic acid bacteria is the emergency response team that can correct both soil and gastrointestinal imbalance
• How the COVID lockdowns are affecting the way people think about food, farming, and gardening
• Indigenous microorganisms for no-smell compost toilets and hog operations
• Looking for the different phases of plant development in order to supplement the needed nutrients: leaf growth, root and flower, seed and fruit
• Utilizing KNF techniques in the developing world using locally available rice, sugar, fruit, plant matter, animal bones, and dairy or bean milk, and some form of alcohol
• Oriental Herbal Nutrient: a tincture of fermented garlic, ginger, cinnamon, licorice, and angelica
• Natural pest management

• David’s website: https://www.ballaghbotanicals.co.uk/ for access to a free online course in how to make Korean Natural Farming preparations

• The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming by Masanobu Fukuoka

• Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening by Sepp Holzer

• Cho’s Global Natural Farming

• An Introduction to Korean Natural Farming

• Chris Trump

• Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels

• What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses by Daniel Chamovitz

• Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops by Martin Crawford

• Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible by Jorge Cervantes

“In order to rise to the challenge of addressing the global emergency known as climate change, we need to access and build a relationship with our higher soul. This connection fosters a life where we truly take stewardship of the planet and our relationship with other beings, and to the best of our ability, manifest love, kindness, and compassion for self, others, and the world. This leads us all to a better life.”

Dr. Eben Alexander spent over 25 years as an academic neurosurgeon, including 15 years at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, the Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.  Over those years he personally dealt with hundreds of patients suffering from severe alterations in their level of consciousness. Many of those patients were rendered comatose by trauma, brain tumors, ruptured aneurysms, infections, or stroke. He thought he had a very good idea of how the brain generates consciousness, mind and spirit.

In the predawn hours of November 10, 2008, he was driven into coma by a rare and mysterious bacterial meningo-encephalitis of unknown cause. He spent a week in coma on a ventilator, his prospects for survival diminishing rapidly. On the seventh day, to the surprise of everyone, he started to awaken. Memories of his life had been completely deleted inside of the coma, yet he awoke with memories of a fantastic odyssey deep into another realm – more real than this earthly one! His older son advised him to write down everything he could remember about his journey, before he read anything about near-death experiences, physics or cosmology. Six weeks later, he completed his initial recording of his remarkable journey, totaling over 20,000 words in length. Then he started reading, and was astonished by the commonalities between his journey and so many others reported throughout all cultures, continents and millennia. His journey brought key insights to the mind-body discussion and to our human understanding of the fundamental nature of reality. His experience clearly revealed that we are conscious in spite of our brain – that, in fact, consciousness is at the root of all existence.

His story offers a crucial key to the understanding of reality and human consciousness. It will have a major effect on how we view spirituality, soul and the non-material realm. In analyzing his experience, including the scientific possibilities and grand implications, he envisions a more complete reconciliation of modern science and spirituality as a natural product.

He has been blessed with a complete recovery that is inexplicable from the viewpoint of modern Western medicine.

In this episode…

• The story of Dr. Alexander’s near-death experience and the subsequent journey into the nature of reality, the mind-brain connection, free will, and debunking conventional science’s denial of the existence of consciousness
• Dr. Alexander’s most powerful lesson since coming out of his coma has been the power of going within. Meditation is the first step to putting the little “ego-mind” in time-out, and helps us get in touch with aspects of ourselves that are more connected with other beings, and connected with the universe at large. That’s the best way to manifest the loftiest world of the dreams of our higher soul.
• The Life Review: a common feature of reported Near-Death Experiences where boundaries of self disappear and your life is presented to you from the emotional perspective of those around you (reinforcing the Golden Rule)
• Past-life accounts from children have been validated through historical research
• This material world is where our souls actually make progress, not the in-between spiritual realm
• Reincarnation was very accepted in the early days of Christianity, but the concept was written out by Constantine at the Council of Nicaea
• Several examples of people having NDEs and making miraculous full recoveries from deadly traumas and illnesses Darwinian concepts of evolution through competition (ideas that bled into our social and economic systems) versus evolution via collaboration and cooperation
• Meditation as a technique to get in touch with our higher souls, as well as a scientifically proven tool to lower stress and blood pressure, improve sleep and productivity, enhance the immune system, generate inner peace and assist with interpersonal conflict
• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s vision—echoed by those from the NDE world and the meditating community— of the evolution of all consciousness toward a higher level of oneness and connectedness and love, a utopian world for all of life on Earth—shifting the focus from the “ego-mind” toward the universal higher good
• It’s time to shift our identification away from individual nation-states and toward a global vision focused on the highest good of all beings; it’s time for us to wake up and care for each other and realize that a polarized society isn’t healthy and will sooner or later collapse under its own weight

• http://ebenalexander.com/

• Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander

• The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife by Eben Alexander

• Living in a Mindful Universe: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Heart of Consciousness by Eben Alexander and Karen Newell

• Seeking Heaven: Sound Journeys into the Beyond Audio CD by Eben Alexander and Karen Newell of Sacred Acoustics

• https://galileocommission.org/

• The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael Singer

• https://www.sacredacoustics.com/

• University of Virginia Division of Perceptual Studies

• Inner Sanctum Center (One Mind: United in Hope and Healing)

• Why Jesus Taught Reincarnation by Herbert Bruce Puryear

• Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

• Dying To Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing by Anita Moorjani

• My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor

• The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

• The Science of Near-Death Experiences by John C. Hagan III

• Efficacy of Binaural Beat Meditation Technology for Treating Anxiety Symptoms: A Pilot Study (abstract)