It’s colder than a penguin’s big toe here in Djaara Country, so we’re cosying up by the fire for a yarn with Gareth Devenish. I call Gareth the Snoop Dogg of permaculture, he calls himself a sovereign man walking in Country, subject to natural lore, seeking a connection with the cosmos. Call off your obligations for the next hour because Gareth’s crackling mix of irreverence and truth telling is something really special.

🔥 How to yarn

🔥 Why land ownership is a furphy

🔥 Native vs. exotic trees and colonial malaise

🔥 What is our responsibility to Country?

🔥 Nomadic agriculture

🔥 Quantum physics, free will and a post-truth era

🔥 Useful jobs in the time of AI

🔥 Why peacemaking with first nations people should be our #1 priority

🔥 Pay the rent!

🔥 Finding god in the compost heap

🔥 Does consciousness even exist?

🔥 Tips for planting and growing healthy trees

🔥 The best way to learn new skills

🔥 The scars which make us beautiful

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS

Gareth’s tree nursery ~ The Farm Tree Nursery [https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Farm-Tree-Nursery/61560006326952/] (ships around Aus!)

Gareth’s email ~ garethdevenish@gmail.com

🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience] (plz don’t use the app it takes a fee, go desktop) 🧡

Finding God in the Compost Pile with Gareth Devenish

I tell a story about making bugger all money but feeling filthy rich, before being joined by the incredible Linda Cockburn (pronounced “Co’burn” cos it’s Scottish) who explains why Capitalism is a death cult, and ways to crowd it out with reciprocity. Ample brain fodder and fiery inspiration here, folks! 

We cover:

🪶 Being unmade by successive tragedies.

🪶 Quitting employment to work in the home economy.

🪶 Going six months without spending a dollar.

🪶 How to grow your own toilet paper!

🪶 Will politicians ever “solve” climate change?

🪶 Why you can’t question capitalism

🪶 How the growth imperative works

🪶 Changing the narrative through language

🪶 The debt treadmill for “developing” nations

🪶 The closest thing we’ve had to utopia in human history!

🪶 Old and new indigeneity through storytelling

🪶 Hitting bodily limits

🪶 How to get owwwfff the hamster wheel

🪶 Riches without an income

🪶 The Eudaimonia Index & Reciprocity

🪶 Black Soldier Fly Revolution!

🪶 How to share even when you’re a scoundrel only child like me

🪶 Why it feels great to give your best stuff away

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS

Linda’s books

The Quiet Revolution [https://www.togetherpress.com.au/product/the-quiet-revolution/] (basically why & how to decouple from the death cult of capitalism & start giving back to all life)

Eat My Shadow [https://www.togetherpress.com.au/product/eat-my-shadow-pb/] (hopeful and instructive collapse fiction!)

Living the Good Life [https://publishing.hardiegrant.com/en-au/books/living-the-good-life-by-linda-cockburn/9781740663120]

Linda’s articles in Organic Gardener magazine [https://www.organicgardener.com.au/author/linda-cockburn/]

A kickass essay by Linda ~ My Planet Saving Superpowers [https://greenagenda.org.au/2024/06/my-planet-saving-superpowers/]

Linda on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/_the_quiet_revolution_/]

The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann [https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-last-hours-of-ancient-sunlight-9781742747323]

Seed Freaks [https://seedfreaks.com.au/] ~ open pollinated seeds Tasmania

David Holmgren’s RetroSuburbia: The Downshifter’s Guide to a Resilient Future [https://retrosuburbia.com/]

Sound credit: Bruny Island Ambience by guyburns [https://freesound.org/s/321466/] License: Attribution 4.0

🧡🧡🧡 support Reskillience on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience] (plz don’t use the app it takes a fee, go desktop) 🧡🧡🧡

Quit Your Job & Work in Reciprocity with Linda Cockburn

Hello! I have been away in the bush for three days and three nights with just a tarp, sleeping bag and water to my name. No tent, no pillow, no torch, NO BREAKFAST. Off the back of this deeply moving ritual (which I'll tell you about soon), I wanted to release this equally as moving and foresty interview with Tessa Campisi.

Tessa is a writer, poet, audio visual artist, activist and radio host who speaks with the timbre of an old growth tree and tells stories that will rustle your leaves. 

In this chat:

🌳 What it's like to live through a catastrophic flood

🌳 How anarchic networks can rise to meet a crisis, fast

🌳 What happens when forest conservationists are at loggerheads with traditional owners?

🌳 Strawman vs. steelman arguments

🌳 A new approach to deep listening to those you disagree with 

🌳 What traditional activism gets wrong and how to be a more effective change agent 

🌳 How and why to love the scraps of our beautiful, broken world

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS 

Tessa's home on the web [https://www.tessacampisi.com/home]

Tessa's (online) exhibition ~ Framings of Wombat Forest [https://www.framingwombatforest.com.au/]

Article of interest ~ Reflections on forest gardening by Cam Walker [https://www.melbournefoe.org.au/galk_galk_dhelkunya] https://www.melbournefoe.org.au/galk_galk_dhelkunya

Paper of interest ~ History of Environmentalist-Indigenous alliances and conflicts [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299345081_Unstable_relations_A_critical_appraisal_of_indigeneity_and_environmentalism_in_contemporary_Australia]

Essay of interest ~ The Trouble with Wilderness by William Cronon [https://www.williamcronon.net/writing/Trouble_with_Wilderness_Main.html]

*** Become a Reskillience supporter on Patreon!*** [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience?redirect=true]





Loving What's Left with Tessa Campisi

Me ranting about Couple Power and the Urban Nanna being brilliant. May all the single, neurospicy permies find ample inspiration in today’s interview with Anna Matilda! Teacher of traditional skills, crafts and non-judgey sustainability. Anna is a breath of fresh air in the stale bedchamber of the status quo, sharing openly about how she does permaculture solo, in the city, in a rental property, with limited energy and Captain Anxiety occasionally taking the wheel.

Mistakes as teachers

Out ya come, Captain Anxiety

Feeling out of step with the whole world

The stress and physical fallout of masking

Personal energy that can be budgeted

The Fuck It Wave

FYI: You don’t need a compost toilet or a goat

Guide Beside learning (Nanna education)

Is permaculture uniquely attractive to people on the spectrum?

For the single women renters!

Spoon Theory

Building community with a capital C

Giving and receiving

Banking energy and goodwill in people, in community

Community as forest

Skills as security

Mudhuts Theory

Revelling in knowing nothing

Can we change?

Swedish wisdom ~ lagom & mysig

Japanese wisdom ~ kintsugi & shishiko embroidery

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS

Anna’s new book is out now! Everyday Permaculture ~ Anna Matilda [https://theurbannanna.com/book/]

The Urban Nanna’s on the interwebs [https://theurbannanna.com/]

The Urban Nanna on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/theurbannanna/]

⭐ Reskillience on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience?redirect=true] ⭐

Permaculture on the Spectrum with Anna Matilda

Today we're exploding the sanctity of heirloom seeds and exploring the world of adaptive gardening! Gregg Mueller is here to tell us how (and why) to breed wacky new varieties of veggies like red snow peas, rainbow carrots and miniature melons in the name of climate-proof food. We also talk about seed monopolies and sovereignty, open source seeds, permaculture pitfalls aaaaaand sad and depressed garlic with no sex drive.

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS

Gregg’s seed shop ~ Useful Seeds [https://www.usefulseeds.com/]

Gregg on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/useful_seeds/]

Gregg on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/gregg.muller.3/]

The Open Source Seed Initiative [https://osseeds.org/]

The Central Victorian Adaptive Crop Breeding Group on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/groups/3158403817763371/]

Going to Seed ~ International Community of Adaptive Crop Breeding [https://goingtoseed.org/]

📕 READ

Carol Deppe ~ Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties

Joseph Lofthouse ~ Landrace Gardening

[free eBook] Raoul A Robinson ~ Return to Resistance [https://bradyt.ca/garden/Return-to-Resistance.pdf]

Noel Kingsbury ~ Hybrid

CONTACT

Send Gregg an email ~ gregg.muller@gmail.com

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

How To Grow Crazy Resilient Vegetables with Gregg Mueller

It’s Permaculture Week, friends and phascogales! And what better way to celebrate than  a big old heart to heart with permie elder Linda Woodrow. Linda is the author of 470, The Permaculture Home Garden, and the Witches Kitchen blog which is now in its 17th year. She is humble and extraordinary, and I think you’ll dig what she has to say about finding our niches, neighbours, purpose and freedom in the throes of collapse.

🧙‍♀️LINKY POOS

Linda Woodrow’s home on the web [https://www.lindawoodrow.com/50-things-about-me/]

Linda Woodrow’s blog The Witches Kitchen [https://witcheskitchen.com.au/]

470 ~ Linda Woodrow [https://au.permacultureprinciples.com/product/470/]

The Permaculture Home Garden ~ Linda Woodrow [https://au.permacultureprinciples.com/product/the-permaculture-home-garden/]

Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual ~ Bill Mollison [https://tagaripublications.com/product/permaculture-a-designers-manual/]

RetroSuburbia ~ David Holmgren [https://au.permacultureprinciples.com/product/retrosuburbia/]

Permaculture One ~ Bill Mollison & David Holmgren [https://au.permacultureprinciples.com/product/permaculture-one-ebook/]

Donut Economics ~ Kate Raworth [https://doughnuteconomics.org/about-doughnut-economics]

***Show Reskillience some love on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience]***

What if It’s Not Dystopia? With Permaculture Elder Linda Woodrow

A story about a free bottle of French perfume and whether sensitivity makes us more or less resilient. With esteemed and ever-so-lucid naturopath, herbalist & author Anthia Koullouros [https://apothecabyanthia.com/] of Apothēca Organic Teas & Apothecary.

* What’s making us all so sick?

* How to untangle complex & confounding health crises

* Polyvagal theory & nervous system truths

* Practitioner perspectives: holding space for uncertainty

* What a regulated nervous system isn’t

* Resisting business growth & hustle culture

LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️

Anthia’s home on the web [https://apothecabyanthia.com/]

Anthia’s Autumn reset [https://akademeiabyanthia.thinkific.com/courses/the-21-day-autumn-cleanse-health-reset] [Starts March 17!]

Anthia on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/anthia.koullouros.naturopath/]

Anthia on Substack [https://anthiakoullouros.substack.com/]

What is polyvagal theory? [https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org/whatispolyvagaltheory]

🧡🧡🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon 🧡🧡🧡

The Health Episode // Sensitivity As Resilience with Anthia Koullouros

One of today’s guests spent seven years spinning a dress from stinging nettles and the other spent five years documenting the process. The result was the incredibly moving documentary The Nettle Dress [https://www.nettledress.org/] — which I have now seen twice — co-created by Dylan Howitt and Allan Brown. 

It’s a love letter to old skills, hand crafts and everything that cannot be hurried; to fibersheds, foraged threads, gentle stories, and the magic of following your heart.

Dylan Howitt [https://www.dylanhowitt.com/] is a BAFTA nominated filmmaker whose roll call includes BBC, Netflix and Discovery. Allan Brown [https://www.instagram.com/hedgerow.couture/?hl=en] is a textile artist and subject of the film whose steady commitment to disrupting consumer culture is contagious.

It’s hard to sing The Nettle Dress’s praises highly enough without shattering a window, but I truly hope you’re moved to watch it after this conversation, perhaps with a posse of pals and a cauldron of nettle soup.

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS 

***Watch The Nettle Dress [https://www.nettledress.org/watch]***

The Nettle Dress’s home on the web [https://www.nettledress.org/home]

The Nettle Dress on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/nettledressfilm/?hl=en]

Short film & group ~ Nettles for Textiles [http://www.nettlesfortextiles.org.uk/wp/]

Flaxland UK [https://www.flaxland.co.uk/]

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

Slow Textile Revival with the makers of The Nettle Dress 

Today’s subject matter is so slippery and mysterious that even my guest, Dr Maya Ward [https://www.mayaward.com.au/], finds it hard to describe, though she’s swimming in it. It concerns the aliveness of rivers and the rivers inside us; the nature of reality and realms invisible yet objectively real. It’s about catching the whispers and shouts of the world with pen and paper. It’s shamanic, ecstatic and emphatically esoteric. It’s bloody wild – and I suggest bringing your passport because the places this convo will take you are far out. But also, deep within. If you love all things complex, paradoxical and perspective-shifting, I dedicate this episode to you 🙌

After we recorded, Maya sent this thoughtful epilogue:

We are innately of the world, yet we are also this witness consciousness, experiencing separation. Forgetting, then remembering. “Inside human beings is where God learns”, said Rilke. Does separation itself create the possibility of learning? In my exhibition, on the wall, I have a quote from Robert Bringhurst: “Language is not for talking about the world – that's for dilettantes. Language is for talking with the world.” I wish I'd said that.

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

🧵Threads

A new old way to introduce ourselves

Original meanings of yin and yang

The right ratio between humans and more-than-human

The role of the artist and poet

Ecstatic and mystical experiences in nature

Building beauty and vernacular architecture

Where a lack of trust in the system takes you

Initiated vs. uninitiated ways of being

Small, potent work

Third wheeling the love affair between sun and earth

Altered state work

The imaginal realm

Sufi mysticism

The danger of unwitnessed initiation

Automatic/shamanic writing

Reclaiming ‘esoteric’

Acknowledgement of Country spellcasting

🧙‍♀️LINKY POOS

Maya Ward’s home on the web [https://www.mayaward.com.au/]

Maya’s events, workshops & exhibitions [https://www.mayaward.com.au/events/]

Maya’s book: The Comfort of Water [https://www.mayaward.com.au/the-comfort-of-water/]

Nature Based Leadership Training [https://school.ceres.org.au/adult-learning/nature-based-leadership-training/]

CERES [https://ceres.org.au/]

William Wordsworth [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-wordsworth]

Tyson Yunkaporta [https://emergencemagazine.org/conversation/deep-time-diligence/]

Henri Corbin

Carl Jung

Rudolf Steiner

Plato

Wouter Jacobus Hanegraaff

Gregory Bateson

Book: Songspirals ~ Gay’wu Group of Women [https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Gay%27wu-Group-of-Women-Songspirals-9781760633219]

Alfred North Whitehead

Altered States, Imaginal Realms & Co-Becoming with Dr Maya Ward

Real good fun with this one! Join me and Formidable Vegetable [https://formidablevegetable.com.au/]’s kind and charismatic frontman Charlie McGee for a swashbuckling convo about pirate bananas, working the edges, growing up in Arnhem Land, dumpster diving to feed your art, staying in your integrity (while saying yes to flying), the deep discomfort of home ownership and remembering your interconnectedness.

🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS

Formidable Vegetable’s home on the web [https://formidablevegetable.com.au/]

Grow Do It [https://www.growdoit.org/] (Charlie & Brenna's hub of ecological goodness) 

Find secret track Pirate Banana on Formidable Vegetable’s Micro Biome CD, only available in person at gigs!

Vandana Shiva [https://vandanashivamovie.com/]

Bill Mollison & David Holmgren ~ Permaculture One [https://au.permacultureprinciples.com/product/permaculture-one-ebook/]

***Become a legendary supporter of the podcast on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/Reskillience]***

The Pursuit of Discomfort & Pirate Bananas With Charlie McGee

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.