I tell a story about my inability to change before chatting with a guy who's obsessed with changing everything! Dr Shane Simonsen of Recombination Nation [https://recombinationnation.substack.com/] is a biochemist, research scientist and experimental farmer who is shaking up agriculture-as-usual by breeding plants that require ZERO INPUTS. No fertiliser, no pest protection, no weeding, no watering! We talk about how to run your own kinky plant breeding experiments at home, as well as:

Why humans still have 50 million years left on the planet

Shane's POV on GMO

Low tech gene transfer you can do today!

Are we addicted to working harder not smarter?

Moving towards irrigation-free gardening

Yet another neurodivergent superpower

Being a plant snob

Cities versus country towns during collapse

Survival foods for the future

How & why to take on projects that will outlive you

CROSSING BRUSH TURKEYS & ASTRALORPS?

Impermaculture

Blessings on the internet

SOLID real estate advice 

Where to buy crazy seeds 

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS

Shane on Substack ~ Recombination Nation [https://recombinationnation.substack.com/]

Shane's podcast ~ Recombination Nation [https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/recombination-nation/id1777033551]

Shane's book ~ Taming the apocalypse [https://www.amazon.com.au/Taming-Apocalypse-Shane-Simonsen-ebook/dp/B0D2XCLJ85]

Folklore Pictures' film with Shane ~ Seeds for the Future [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apdB2H-y8c4&t=52s]

Australian Grain Seed Bank

Central Vic seed grower we love ~ Greg Mueller of Useful Seeds [https://www.usefulseeds.com/]

🧡🧡🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience] 🧡🧡🧡

Sound credit ~ cheers Nicholas Allan! [https://xeno-canto.org/265181] 

Kinking Collapse, Urgent Gratitude & Future Seeds with Shane Simonsen

Planting guides and sow-what-when calendars are great and all, but what happens when the seasons don't play nice? When spring arrives earlier, frost hits later, or heatwaves burn your crops to a crisp? There's no controlling the weather, but with tools like phenology, you can make better predictions and grow more food!

Duncan Cocking (of Leaf, Root & Fruit [https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/about/]) is an amazing gardener and educator from Kyneton in Southern Australia. He helps people tune into more-than-human patterns and cycles to build their own hyper-local and climate resilient gardening calendars, and has a wealth of wisdom about living more joyfully too.

In this convo:

Why spring is two weeks earlier this year

Duncan's early years immersed in nature and connected to country

Why he's not that interested in working hard

Mid-30s career change

Pattern recognition in the veggie patch

How to use phenology

Nature based indicators to tell you went to plant

The two most critical aspects of gardening!!!

Connection through failures

Why to RELAXXXXX about how to garden

Wood ducks tell you when you plant tomatoes

Crazy record keeping

How the hell to collate so much data

Habits of the highly observant

How do nature’s patterns work, NO LIKE, HOW?

Being conversant with the land

Duncan is an ostrich

Disconnecting from the World Wide Web

How to preserve your mental health with a hyper-focus on local

Getting kids into the garden

Give your kids scary tools

Garden gimmicks

How to grow avos in cold climates

Spring gardening to-dos RIGHT NOW

🧙‍♀  LINKY POOS

Duncan’s home on the web [https://www.leafrootfruit.com.au/]

Leaf, Root & Fruit on Substack [https://leafrootfruit.substack.com/]

Leaf, Root & Fruit on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/leafrootfruit/]

Andrew Turbill, the bird guy [https://andrewthebirdguy.com/]

🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/cw/Reskillience] 🧡

☕ Buy Me A Coffee [https://buymeacoffee.com/reskillience] (or an avo or a loaf of bread) ☕

Gratitude to the field recordist Romuald Mikusek, XC935811. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/935811.

The climate-resilient nature-entangled way to garden with Duncan Cocking

NOTE: I’ve done breathwork every day since this interview and – you gaias! – it’s really helping me human. 

Meet today’s guest Ella Maryska, who is responsible for getting me into this breathwork thing that I am the last person on the planet to know about.

Ella is 21 years old, wise as the hills, a certified breathwork instructor, and brings a fresh and youthful perspective to the pod which has been sorely absent to date (sorry sorry sorry).

In this sweet convo, you’ll hear about the geeky physiology of breathwork; how it rebalances our nervous system, changes circulation to our brain, oxygenates tissues and connects us to plants, as well as Ella’s own experience as a young person living through the polycrisis, navigating novel life paths as the old routes fall away.

I learned so much from Ella. Let me know if you’re on the breathwork bandwagon, a brilliant tool for staying steady in the tumult.

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS

Ella’s home on the web [https://cominghomebreathwork.com.au/#services]

Ella/Coming Home Breathwork on IG [https://www.instagram.com/cominghome_breathwork/]

Tuesday evening group class [https://cominghomebreathwork.com.au/#services]

Guided breathwork sesh on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-K1QWcr1VE]

[book] Atlas of the Heart ~ Brené Brown [https://brenebrown.com/book/atlas-of-the-heart/]

Catie’s natto [https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dcc_NetzJPJ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsi=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==]

Reskillience live recording at Words in Winter [https://events.humanitix.com/reskillience-the-art-of-release]

The Australasian Permaculture Convergence [https://www.returntothevillage.com.au/]

🧡🧡🧡 Join the Reskillience community on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience] 🧡🧡🧡

Catie on Substack [https://catiepayne.substack.com/]

Breathwork for grief, connection & coming to your senses with Ella Maryska

“In a time of fracturing seasons, when everything’s going awry, there are still cycles that we can set our hearts by.” 

It's Kirsten Bradley of Milkwood [https://www.milkwood.net/]! She's writing a new book about the moon, penning love letters to parsley and currawongs on Substack, and here to share all about her daily rhythms in lutruwita, Tasmania. Oh, what a lovely conversation!

Within 🌙 

AI or not to AI

Morning routines! Morning stargazing!

Tea choices

Moving to lutruwita/Tassie

Fish farm woes and responses

How to make decisions about where to move

When the body says no

Slow activism

“You can rest. The problems will be there when you get up again. And the solutions.”

Perimenopause rearrangements

Coming back to creativity after burnout

Wrapping knowledge in story

Learning injuries

Writing as a welcome

Cultural astronomies

Should we follow our interests?

What does activism look like for Kirsten now?

The Common Book of the Moon

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS 

Kirsten on Substack [https://kirstenbradley.substack.com/]

Kirsten + Milkwood [https://www.milkwood.net/]

🧡🧡🧡 Join the Reskillience community on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience] 🧡🧡🧡

On Slowing Down & Looking Up with Kirsten Bradley 

BYO wheelbarrow to load up on Solomon’s wisdom, cos today we’re chatting with the grandaddy of beyond-organic gardening himself, Steve Solomon! If you don’t know Steve, he’s a bit of cult hero in food growing circles thanks to his deep research into soil remineralisation and why it is absolutely critical for human health.

In this convo:

How pre-industrial communities ate 4 x more nutrient-dense food

Why MINERALS are the key to healthy soil and healthy humans

Better nutrition… lower libido?

Why compost is really bloody complicated

…and how compost can ruin your soil if you’re not careful

How to calculate how much organic matter your soil actually needs

The ugly truth about commercial compost

COF ~ Complete Organic Fertiliser

Why Steve doesn’t recommend soil testing for everyone

EVIL GOVERNMENT EDICTS

Steve’s pact to intentionally follow his interests 100%

“THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE IS TO DO WHATEVER IT IS I’M INTERESTED IN”

LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️

Steve’s homepage [https://soilandhealth.org/steve-solomons-home-page/]

The Soil & Health Library [https://soilandhealth.org/]

[book] The Intelligent Gardener ~ Steve Solomon [https://www.booktopia.com.au/intelligent-gardener-steve-solomon/book/9780865717183.html?source=pla&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21844631717&gbraid=0AAAAA-Ia9hMN-Mlh_VmhdsJhMZdtoq9Sv&gclid=Cj0KCQjw4JbTBhCoARIsALWUaBvLjAO3tRz1vAIbgZm6NohbcCFg-lDADEH3gOaDY9QduEWMz_6zmykaAnNwEALw_wcB]

[just released!] Growing Nutrient-Dense Vegetables: A Cool Climate Guide~ Steve Solomon [https://au.permacultureprinciples.com/product/growing-nutrient-dense-vegetables/]

Google: Steve Solomon gardening books

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration ~ Weston A. Price

Soil fertility and Animal Health ~ William Albrecht

🧡🧡🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience]🧡🧡🧡

Words in Winter ~ Live podcast with Mara Ripani & Natasha Morgan [https://events.humanitix.com/reskillience-the-art-of-release]

Return to the Village ~ Australasian Permaculture Convergence. [https://www.returntothevillage.com.au/]

Use less compost, make less money & follow your passion 100% with Steve Solomon

I share a GRIPPING TALE about a droplet of water before sitting down with Helen Lehndorf [https://helenlehndorf.com/], who is a radical forager, author, anarchist, poet and plenty more wonderful things besides. I loved her memoir A Forager's Life so much! Helen and I dive straight into the weeds about permaculture life strategies, unlocking creativity, writing for nature and how to rebel against The Machine by playing the Holy Fool. Medicine for muddled, blocked or chronically shy creatives.

IN THIS CONVO

Swimming upstream of the over culture

Undoing cultural entrainment

Social permaculture

Permaculture design web

Establishing a daily writing habit

The world isn’t saying PLEASE ARTIST MAKE MORE ART but you should anyway

Anarchism

The YES, AND rule

The Holy Fool archetype

AI? *shrugs*

Enspiriting your art

ECOPOETICS

Getting past sharing insecurity

Writing for nature

Why little lives are worth sharing

Invisible care work

Journalling versus publishing

Blackberry medicine

What is it to relate with plants?

PUNK GRANDDAD DANDY

Synesthesia

The future has an ancient heart

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️

Helen’s home on the web [https://helenlehndorf.com/]

A Forager’s Life ~ Helen Lehndorf [https://harpercollins.com.au/products/9781775492511_a-foragers-life-a-spellbinding-debut-memoir-about-plants-motherhood-and-belonging]

The Bruise Palette ~ Helen Lehndorf [https://firestarter.nz/the-bruise-palette/]

Social permaculture ~ Looby Macnamara [https://loobymacnamara.com/home/]

Kirsty Porter

Wild ~ Cheryl Strayed

E.M Forster ~ Howard’s End

Annie Dillard

Sound credit: Morepork / Ruru (Owl) - Auckland, New Zealand by tdes -- https://freesound.org/s/319539/ -- License: Attribution 3.0

The Holy Fool, Hallowed Weeds & How To Just Start Writing Already with Helen Lehndorf

We built this city on rock n roll! And cheap oil. And it’s currently running out… so what happens now? This week I chat with Nathan Surendran [https://energyandresilience.substack.com/]to get a foothold on the fossil fuel crisis (which is the Everything Crisis) and how we can keep our balance, together. Nathan is a systems thinker, recovering engineer, energy and security analyst, policy advisor, author of the Energy and Resilience substack and chair of the Wise Response society. He is also seriously kind, and provides so much practical, empowering advice in this convo, including:

Moving far far away from civilisation

The unsustainability of cities

Neurodivergence leading to deep research

The Energy Elephant in the room: WHAT AREN’T WE SEEING

Why oil (diesel) is the lifeblood of industrial society

Drawing down ancient sunlight 1 million times faster than it’s being recharged

Every calorie of food takes 10 calories of fossil fuels, oof

The Iran War

Why we can’t just switch to renewables

Right relationship with renewables

What are baseline standards of living?

Household appliance heroes for the energy descent

What is Energy Blindness?

Emotionally processing peak oil

One barrel of oil = 5 years of human labour (!)

Are we being gaslit about the situation in the strait?

The industrial system schools us to comply, not think

Why the rich aren’t as protected as they might think

Less affluent people are ahead of the game

What is mutual aid?

Un-pathologising co-dependence

Maori concepts of community care

Why we need danger from a mental health perspective

🧙‍♀️LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️

Nathan on Substack ~ Energy and Resilience [https://energyandresilience.substack.com/]

Nathan’s home on the web [https://www.schema.nz/]

[doc] When The Trucks Stop ~ mutual aid guidelines [https://wiseresponse.substack.com/p/what-can-i-do-in-response-to-the]

Wise Response on Substack [https://wiseresponse.substack.com/]

Jason Bradford ~ The Future Is Rural

Steve Keene

Ian McGilchrist

Charlie Hoyle

Nate Hagens

Steve Keen

Howard T Odum

📸 Photo credit: Jason Hosking [https://www.jasonhosking.com/]

🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience] 🧡

Emotionally Processing Peak Oil & Em-Powering Community Action! with Nathan Surendran

Ever wish you could sit down with permie elders to hear their take on the current chaos; what to do, where to live, and whether it’s really that bad in the grand scheme of things? Well just call me Genie cos this convo with permaculture educators and radical homemakers Ian Lillington and Marita Zeh will deliver.

Ian and Marita live in a solar passive straw-bale home on the edge of Castlemaine, Victoria, surrounded by fruit and nut trees and veggie gardens, where students come to see – and feel – what it is to be wrapped in abundance. And this is where I found them, on a sunny autumn morning, in the cosy warmth of their kitchen, dealing with masses of peaches, pistachios and zucchini. And we all sat down and chopped and chatted, eventually remembering to turn on the mics.

In this convo:

Pursuing a hybrid model of permaculture

Rat poison sandwich

Renting till your 40s

What is good debt?

Where is even affordable anymore?

How to deal with gluts

Giving to community

Small garden farming

Being strategically connected to the grid

Diverse household energy systems

Scales of usage

An elder’s perspective on current affairs

Sharing permaculture as a political act

Permaculture priorities

Gratitude vs. fear

Impermaculture

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️

Send Ian an email ~ Ian.lillington@protonmail.com

Or keep it old school with a text ~ 0478 297 057

The Castlemaine Permaculture Hub PDC [https://holmgren.com.au/permaculture-events/permaculture-design-course-pdc-2025/]

(for locals) Castlemaine Permaculture FB group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/445686212227432]

(national) Permaculture Australia FB group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/874575125557524]

How to practice hybrid permaculture (and worry less about the news) with Ian Lillington & Marita Zeh

I tell a story about my grandpa’s deathbed song request before having a heart-to-heart with Emily Coats, a deep nature connection facilitator, ancestral skills practitioner, threshold-crossing guide and dreamworker.

In this convo:

Shakespearean activism

What the world needs right now (hint: not more intellect)

Ways to wholeness

Does activism have to feel hard and gnarly?

Being precise in the ripples we cast

What happens at Tracker School

Ancient skills… for survival?

Why to prioritise spiritual preparedness

How we live and how we die

Losing her dad; the gifts and lessons

Intentions vs. realities of living in a handmade black wattle shelter offline, offgrid and alone for 7.5 months

How to use spirit tracking to find lost stuff

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️

[starts soon in Naarm] Earth Time: The Lost Art of Being Human [https://www.naturesapprentice.com.au/events/earth-time-human-winter]

Emily’s home on the web [https://emilycoats.net/]

Emily on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/_emily_coats_/]

Nature's Apprentice [https://www.naturesapprentice.com.au/]

Nature Based Leadership Training [https://www.naturesapprentice.com.au/events/nblt-2026/]

Bill Plotkin & Animas Valley Institute [http://www.animas.org/]

Jon Young [https://www.jonyoung.org/]

The Animal Communicator [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpG1nkM5jc] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpG1nkM5jc

Jon Young Australia workshop [https://www.artofmentoring.com.au/mindofthementor/]

🧡🧡🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience] 🧡🧡🧡

Prioritise Spiritual Prepping with Emily Coats

In 2018 Professor Jem Bendell [https://jembendell.com/] published an academic paper that went viral; pretty weird for a piece of scholarly writing. The topic? Societal collapse caused by runaway climate change. The timeline? Soon. Deep Adaptation presented a frank, delusion-free framework for facing the end of the world as we know it, sparked a movement, and copped a lot of flack.

I wanted to chat with Jem not so much about the grim facts but about how, “as that collapse guy”*, he is filling his life with meaning at the eleventh hour. And it turns out, that includes becoming a farmer, writing folk songs and considering having kids.

*Jem happily identifies as a doomster [https://jembendell.com/2024/08/10/we-still-care-doomster-characteristics/]

🎙️ In this convo

Experiencing climate change first hand as a farmer in Bali

How to act on knowledge about collapse and climate?

Making the leap towards your values (with the help of a global pandemic)

Why the wellness community is full of shit

Farming fails

Picking up music at 48 and writing comedy rock

Faulty beliefs we have about our creative gifts

Living fully at the eleventh hour

Letting go of status and security

Why it’s all ok when everything’s not ok

Kirtan and ecospirituality practices

Jem’s evolving views about how collapse will unfold

Bringing kids into this world, yay or nay?

The Deep Adaptation framework

Becoming NURTURANT

How to help others through the grief

Jem’s simple pleasures

Oracle cards for cynics

🧙‍♀️LINKY POOS

Jem’s home on the web [https://jembendell.com/]

[paper] Deep Adaptation [https://jembendell.com/2019/05/15/deep-adaptation-versions/] ~ Jem Bendell

[book] Breaking Together [https://jembendell.com/2023/04/08/breaking-together-a-freedom-loving-response-to-collapse/'] ~ Jem Bendell

The Metacrisis Initiative [https://jembendell.com/metacrisis-initiative/]

Jem’s collapse-aware oracle cards [https://jembendell.com/resilient-life-oracle-cards-for-challenging-times/]

Jem’s music [https://jembendell.com/tag/music/]

Songbird credit: Australia Outback Birds by EduFigueres [https://freesound.org/s/562111/] License: Attribution 4.0

🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience] 🧡

Can you be collapse aware and still want kids? w/ Jem Bendell

Catie Payne writes, draws, podcasts and pleads with goats on a permaculture property in Dja Dja Wurrung Country, Central Victoria.

Catie Payne (@catiepayne) · Zencastr

Catie Payne (@catiepayne)

Reskillience is a podcast about the hard, soft and surprising skills that'll help us stay afloat if our modern systems don't. Hosted by Catie Payne, released weekly.