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Sensual Herbalism with Taj Scicluna
959 Plays11 months ago
I’m not a doctor – though I wish I was because who wouldn’t want to take their petrified child to see Dr Payne? However, I did study herbal medicine and practice as a naturopath, which could be why so many folks still get in touch with me about plant medicine.
So! To all those green appreciators out there – wannabe witches, budding shamans, dandelion disciples, mullein maestros, burdock rockers, sage mages… this episode with Taj Scicluna is for you.
You might know Taj as The Perma Pixie, but she’s currently in a rebranding chrysalis and will be emerging soon as something new and beautiful. She’s a Botanical Educator, Grassroots & Bioregional Herbalist, Writer, Forager, Awe-seeker and Animist – and I’ll add: a clear, calm voice in the wilderness.
There’s so much to love in this long, awakening convo. May it scratch the botanical itch while soothing the herbal soul.
Taj Scicluna’s home on the web
Taj’s courses, workshops, retreats and offerings (so many starting in Feb!)
Feb ~ The Herbal Apprentice
Mar ~ Ritual Herbalism (waitlist!)
Weed witch ~ Susun Weed
Local herb nerd ~ Willow Herb Nerd
Foraging aficionado ~ The Urban Nanna
An excellent field guide ~ The Weed Forager’s Handbook
Nature’s Apprentice ~ Claire Dunn
Imaginary tee-shirts:
Capitalism: I didn’t consent to this
Interrogate Capitalism!
Obliterate Capitalism!
Be the weeds!
You don’t have to fight for rebellion.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Resilience' Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Race aliens!
00:00:07
Speaker
Hey there, I'm Katie Payne and you're tuned into Resilience, a podcast about skills, the resilience they bring, and living closer to the ground so we don't have quite so far to fall if our fragile modern systems fail us. I'm recording on Jara country, the unceded lands of the Jaja Warong that were turned upside down and inside out during the gold rush in the 1850s.
00:00:33
Speaker
when millions, maybe even billions of tons of topsoil were washed away. And I'm always amazed that this land continues to care for us.
Katie's Background in Herbal Medicine
00:00:44
Speaker
I'm not a doctor, though I wish I was because who wouldn't want to take their petrified child to see Dr. Payne? However, I did study herbal medicine and practice as a naturopath, which could be why so many people still get in touch with me about plant medicine.
00:01:01
Speaker
I also reckon we're remembering our co-evolutionary path, humans and plants, using each other as trellises since forever, plants supporting us, us supporting plants.
Introducing Taj Shikluna and Her Work
00:01:14
Speaker
So, if you are one of those green appreciators, a wannabe witch, a budding shaman, a dandelion disciple, a mullen maestro, a burdock rocker, a sage mage, I could go on, but I won't, this episode with Taj Shikluna is for you.
00:01:31
Speaker
You might know Taj as the permapixie, but she's currently in a rebranding chrysalis and will be emerging soon as something new and beautiful. I've admired Taj and her work for a long, long time, and perhaps you have too, especially if you're in or around Naam where Taj leads all manner of magical, weedy, frondy workshops. She's a botanical educator, grassroots and bioregional herbalist, writer, forager, ore seeker and animist.
00:02:01
Speaker
I will also add that she is a clear, calm voice in the wilderness.
Podcasting with Imperfection and Vulnerability
00:02:06
Speaker
I was beaming harder than Roadside St. John's Wort throughout this conversation and also sharing kind of vulnerable parts of myself, which I was highly tempted to edit out, but I thought, fuck it, they can stay in because a big reason I do this podcast is to practice imperfectionism, which is the opposite of perfectionism. And on the imperfectionism front, please bear with the audio in this episode.
00:02:31
Speaker
You might find our voices a little hushed. And while I wish I could chalk it up purely to Taj's serenity, it's also because I stuffed up the recording levels and can't really max it out anymore without hurting your ears. So I hope that your speakers enjoy the chance to flex their upper limits. Turn us up and listen right through to the end because Taj is on the cusp of starting a bunch of wonderful workshops and courses that she'll give you more details about towards the end of the conversation.
00:03:01
Speaker
So find a comfortable posse and enjoy this damn fine, shamelessly geeky, green and dreamy conversation with Taj Shikluna. Welcome Taj.
The Joy of Localizing Recordings
00:03:15
Speaker
Welcome to Risquilience. It is so lovely to be able to have this conversation in person. Yeah, it's been a real joy to
00:03:24
Speaker
localize this recording and start in a very tight zone of people in this community who are extraordinary. Yeah, especially in such a kind of global world where we're trying to advocate for localism rather than globalism. Obviously that's part of our life now, but it is really nice to have face-to-face interactions whenever we can because that's what community is supposed to be based off. Yeah, yeah.
00:03:52
Speaker
I was rereading my questions before you came trying to absorb them into my genetic code and I was realising that I spent a lot of time in Adelaide and I don't know if you've been to SA or spent time there but they say dance and plants and lamp, oh no they just say lamp.
00:04:11
Speaker
I was like, fuck, am I going to say plant or am I going to say plant? So I'm going to go with plant. You're going to go with plant tonight. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, you can swap and change between the two. I don't, I don't have any need for consistency. Is that disconcerting? Not at all.
00:04:27
Speaker
I won't even recognize. My co-teacher and colleague says that I'm one of the most inconsistent people that she knows. She edits all of my things because she's a Virgo and she's very meticulous and I love it because we create such a good team together and she doesn't judge me for being completely inconsistent. We just laugh about it so I don't mind.
00:04:51
Speaker
Well it actually reminded me of when you first arrived you dubbed yourself the debris machine. The debris machine. So you have quite a few monikers by the sounds of things. Can you explain the debris machine reference? That I constantly leave a trail of debris wherever I go and so it'll end up in the bed, it's in my pocket, it's in my car, it's in my bra, I just have twigs and seeds and leaves and things that just follow me.
00:05:17
Speaker
Yeah, and much to the perils of some partners, some former partners as well. She's like, how does this get in the bed? Yeah. That's literally a thorn in my side. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got to be okay with the debris if you're going to be around me because it just follows me everywhere. I don't know how. Is that because you're foraging as part of your daily routine and whenever the feeling or fancy strikes?
Taj's Approach to Foraging and Plant Connection
00:05:42
Speaker
Yes, yeah, it'll be that, it'll be me foraging, it's also me getting excited by things and going, ooh, I wonder what that seed is, or I wonder, oh, there's this plant that grows here, great, I'm gonna, that one smells nice, and I'll just start putting them, you know, in my bra, in my bag, or in my pockets, or anything like that, and I just forget about them, and then find them a while later.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, or someone else does watch their dismay. Perfectly pressed and dried. There we go. Human pressing machine. And I often ask myself when I'm approaching a plant to pick something, I catch myself thinking, oh, what's the best way to go about this? Do I use scissors? Do I use my hand? Do I ask permission? Do you have an approach?
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah, it sometimes depends on the plant. I often try and keep my secateurs in my bag or my basket and I have a basket instead of a bag really because then I can fill it with debris.
00:06:50
Speaker
And I do have a bit of an approach. One thing that is quite consistent with me is because I see quite a few clients now or people or building my own dispensary or things like this, whenever I'm harvesting the plant, one of the things that I say
00:07:09
Speaker
in my head kind of personally but to the plant is can I take some of you so it's you I become because I feel that's the exchange that's taking place. By ingesting this plant we actually
00:07:25
Speaker
it becomes part of us. You know, we're taking in those constituents and that chemistry and that life force and all of those different compounds that make that plant up and then starts to build our bodies. So I love that. That's one of the things that I say. And also I try and talk to the plants, especially if I'm picking them for a particular purpose for a client or for clients in general. I tell the plant what they're going to
00:07:51
Speaker
what they're going to become. I say are you gonna turn into medicine for this and I really want you to help this person with this particular thing or you know this you're gonna be great antiviral and I really want you to help people heal with their shingles or you know what's going on and so I feel that's a reciprocity that I can offer that plant of like if I'm going to take some of you this is why I'm going to do it and so I hope you're okay.
00:08:20
Speaker
It is so intimate isn't it and Susan Weed I've heard her say that when you love something you put it in your body and that's what we're doing with our food and the the plants and what do you think they want? I feel like being in exchange like everything in the world is in relationship and yearns to be and we we yearn to be like we all think that the the one thing that
00:08:49
Speaker
all humans have in common is wanting connection and belonging.
00:08:55
Speaker
So I don't think that it would be very different for plants either and by interacting with them. But also, I often try and think about how I can tend to a plant, if I can, with what it might need.
Humanity's Potential to Benefit Nature
00:09:13
Speaker
Does it need fertilizer? Does it need water? Does it need a prune? I can't stand this idea that some people have that the world would be better off without humans.
00:09:25
Speaker
I think that it's irresponsible to be honest and we tap out.
00:09:35
Speaker
if we think that way. I think that we can be very beneficial, and we have been, and it's about making that choice of wanting to benefit something else. And so I feel like we can make that choice with plants, of just asking those questions. Even like, to me, just asking the question is good enough. Like, I wonder, I wonder what you need. Doesn't, don't most people want that question asked of them? So I wanna ask the plants that too. I wonder what you need right now.
00:10:04
Speaker
Yeah, so beautiful. I would like to make sure this conversation kind of founded in your personal story and who you are and where you've come from. And I was reflecting that a lot of the herbal practitioners and health practitioners I know have arrived at their practice due to their own health challenges. And that was what spurred them on the path. Is that the case for you?
00:10:33
Speaker
Not my own necessarily, but others, I think.
Taj's Journey and Purpose Through Plant Medicine
00:10:40
Speaker
It's really interesting. So when I was, I grew up in the middle of suburbia, you know, kind of, I call it like white walled suburbia.
00:10:49
Speaker
Um, couldn't get more suburban, really. And I would always go out to the backyard as a young girl and play dress-ups. One of my favorite things to dress up as was a medicine woman. I don't necessarily know why. I know why now. But, you know, I remember finding my mum's mortar and pestle and just being enthralled by it and just, oh my god, yes, I'm gonna wear my, you know, um, wear my long flowy skirts and I'm gonna go outside with the mortar and pestle.
00:11:19
Speaker
I do think that there was something innate, there was something there in me. Natural Places spoke to me and the outdoors spoke to me and just had that running through me. But then also I think that I watched my mum struggle quite a bit with her health in life and
00:11:40
Speaker
I'm always particular about what I talk about with my family because they haven't necessarily given their consent for me to talk about their life perils, but I don't know if... I guess she came from certain struggles that made it hard for her to be a really healthy person in the world and then, yeah, I think that I was surrounded by that a little bit and I wanted to help. There's a real big thing for me with healing. I think a lot of people that are
00:12:11
Speaker
attracted to healing.
00:12:13
Speaker
really wanting to help something and so for me I really wanted to be able to help people. I'm very lucky that I actually haven't had a huge, like a huge health journey that has spurred this along but it's definitely made me want to help others that have struggled or perhaps not had the fortitude or privilege that I've had.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah it does fascinate me speaking with people who've had that sense of purpose and as you said something working through you from a young age it fascinates me because I don't feel like that or if I do I haven't attuned to that or for some reason I've kind of turned down the dial on that awareness and
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, have you had moments of experimentation with completely different life paths or crippling self-doubt in your purpose and drive? Have you flapped around at any point? I wouldn't. Self-doubt, yes. Flapping around, no. I don't think that I'm...
00:13:30
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that I've been a very vague person with what I've wanted to do with my life when I kind of found it. And I've always wanted to know what it is as well. So I remember even when I traveled to England when I was 19 and wanted to go and kind of
00:13:49
Speaker
I wanted to find who I was. I don't know why I went to England necessarily, but a friend and I were going and while everyone else, you know, I was still part of it, but while we're all kind of, you know, getting very inebriated and living that part of our lives, there was this burning desire in me. You know, I'd often be out at night looking around at people going, this can't be it.
00:14:15
Speaker
This isn't all there is. This isn't it. I want to find what it is. So I go to the forest a lot when I was in England and ask the questions as well. What is it? And then it was interestingly enough in England I got introduced to permaculture when I was 19. And I went, whoa, you mean people still live like this? I thought it was like an old way. I thought it was gone.
00:14:39
Speaker
And I thought I was living in this weird, suburban, modern era that I just really didn't agree with. And I was like, why am I here? I'm born for a different time. And then I realized that people were still living in this way, still homesteading.
00:14:54
Speaker
I just went, that's it, that's what I wanna do. And so I followed that and I've always had a real deep affinity to healing plants and medicinal plants and so I always knew that that was a really big part of the journey. So I haven't had too much experimentation with life paths. I feel like I've been incredibly lucky and worked very hard.
00:15:19
Speaker
but incredibly lucky to know that and go for it. That's not where my life's struggles lie. I have struggles in other areas of my life but that hasn't been one and it's really interesting because I've
00:15:30
Speaker
We've known lots of people that do struggle with like, oh, what is my purpose? But it's also because in our society, purpose is defined by work. And so I want to also say to people that are listening that you don't have to let that define you. I'm lucky enough to have found something that fits that mold in the world, but that's not the only way to define yourself either. Yeah.
00:16:00
Speaker
And I do get moments, a lot of moments of self-doubt. So for those people that might see me smiling and doing all my thing, yeah, I can laugh through my self-doubt. And I think that that's one of the keys is because I try, I don't always succeed, but I try to take what I do seriously, not myself.
00:16:23
Speaker
I'm not in it to take myself too seriously about this. I'm a bumbling fool sometimes and I like to be able to try and laugh at that while still taking the larger things in life seriously, if I can.
00:16:44
Speaker
are so many tangents that are presenting themselves and beckoning in my mind but I'd really love to dig into this this yearning that you experienced for connection with the more than human world with wild spaces with plants and glean your perspective on what that yearning is because so many people people
00:17:08
Speaker
used to know me a lot more as someone in the health space, in the herbal medicine space, and still I receive messages, hey Katie, what herbalism course can I do? Or what can I forage right now? Or what books would you recommend? I just have this calling, this intense, inexplicable desire to make medicine and to work with plants.
The Profound Impact of Plants on Human Soul
00:17:29
Speaker
So I'm curious because you are so alive in that space, Taj, what you think it is about
00:17:35
Speaker
plants that speak so profoundly to the human soul. Mmm. Medicinal plants particularly? Well. In terms of herbalism in case you get those questions or plants in general. Ah yeah that's such a good question. Maybe I'll ask a question in response which is do you think that there's medicine in all plants whether you can ingest them or not? Very much so. Yeah and this is one of the big things that I try and teach and facilitate and put out there into the world is that
00:18:05
Speaker
I was even thinking about it yesterday when I was looking at my flower garden or mine and my partner's flower garden that we've planted. And it's so alive at the moment. It's just so alive. And every time I get home, I just am so happy. Every time I'm sitting outside, I'm so happy to look at it and the bees are so happy and the butterflies and like that is a medicine. Just from the plant being alive and growing and just you being around it, they make you feel better.
00:18:35
Speaker
to ingest that to feel good. I think it's quite an allopathic thing to actually think of medicine in terms of purely ingesting something for it to have a physiological effect because there's so many things that affect our physiology. You think about horticulture therapy or forest bathing or anything like that now where the science has proved that it's good for our nervous system. Well, like, of course it is.
00:19:00
Speaker
have evolved with these plants since the beginning of our world. I think that they have medicine in terms of beauty, in terms of functionality, in terms of shade, having a picnic under a tree, being able to watch the birds, being able to have a
00:19:23
Speaker
a connection with your local ecology through the plant life, that's a huge part of the medicine. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, exactly. And I, I coined these medicinal terms like that's tagasasty medicine and that's tagasasty that's so easy to climb and I can climb up
00:19:44
Speaker
the tag tree and have a new perspective or have the feel of its bark or the interaction with the new Holland honeyeater at the end of the branch and I think that's what I'm also hearing in your response of these subtle medicines or these medicines that lie outside they're kind of dominant.
00:20:02
Speaker
paradigm at this time. Like mulberry medicine is really hot right now because it's like I want that mulberry and I want it now but it's not gonna come off because it's not quite ripe so it's gonna spurt all over my fingers and my clothes and really I needed to just tune in to what was really ready and would just have popped off without any kind of force and what I needed to just let cook a little bit longer. Yeah we've got a mulberry tree on the property that I'm on at the moment and it's a
00:20:29
Speaker
It's about 100 years old, 120 years old. It's huge. It's a huge rambling thing. We are always climbing it, and the kids are always climbing it, so it's not only the medicine of the antioxidant-rich berries that are there, but it's the climbing medicine that's so good for your body that a lot of people don't do anymore, and it's really affecting our mobility, the fact that we don't climb trees anymore.
00:20:55
Speaker
That's a huge part of it for me. When I'm talking to clients, one of the main ailments that people will have are directly correlated with their lack of movement and mobility. And what better way to get it than to climb a tree for some berries like we were actually designed to do. Yeah.
00:21:19
Speaker
I realise I've been going to bed with wormwood this week because I've just been through a breakup and it's like I wanted something just to reach out and touch and just going to bed with my hand over the wormwood and it's so aromatic and it's so soft against my skin and I think that the concepts that I've been talking about for so many years
00:21:46
Speaker
are only just taking root in my life and I love feeling that long time process, that long term process of the theory of, yeah, relating with plants and speaking with them and then you get to this place of, oh, I'm sleeping with wormwood.
00:22:04
Speaker
Wonderful. We're in a relationship. Wonderful work. People don't realize the importance of having plants to rely on sometimes. For me,
00:22:18
Speaker
for me sometimes they've been more reliable than people you know and so it's a it's a really amazing relationship it's this consistency every year i know that they're going to pop up your weather permitting but usually they will and that means that i can have that relationship i can harvest at that time of the year it's the seasons and the plans that come with them are one of the most reliable things that i've had in my life and i think that i've really
00:22:47
Speaker
craved that consistency and that reliability so of course we would form full relationships with them you know but for some people it might just seem weird that you're sleeping with wormwood but for me it's actually wonderful and I think that it's a beautiful medicine to actually
00:23:09
Speaker
It's a beautiful medicine to have in your life after such a deep and rich time, like going through a breakup or something like that. You've really managed to think about how
00:23:23
Speaker
Sleeping at night, that's one of the hardest things when most people break up with someone. It's really, really hard to wake up in the night and, oh my god, they're not there. Or whether someone dies or something like that. It's a huge grieving process. So they don't have something that's aromatic that you can touch, that you can actually smell, just like a lover's smell, you know, and that you can rely on. You're like, it's okay, I'm gonna be fine.
00:23:47
Speaker
plants are there I'm gonna be fine. So what are some of your favorite relationships, botanically speaking? Nettle has been one of my ongoing love affairs for many many years. As soon as I have a long infusion of Nettle and it touches my lips I instantly, instantly feel better, I instantly feel more alive and nourished and present.
00:24:17
Speaker
And I just go, ah, it's like, ah, thank you old friend. You're here. I'm a big fan of nutritive herbs, so I have it if I'm feeling really depleted, and I try and make it quite a regular part of my diet and living. And another one is oat straw. And oat straw has just been a huge companion for
00:24:40
Speaker
my nervous system and learning the strength in softness and stillness rather than I need to constantly find. It is so sweet and I feel you can taste that mineral, the minerality and the softening and then your nerves kind of unfurling with joy.
00:25:06
Speaker
Yeah, I have to put it in my water. I'll make an extract with it. I'll put it in my water or I'll simmer oat straw in milk at night, wait for it to go golden, and then I'll have that as a little bit of a wind down as well. And it does feel like that. I can just feel myself being slowly unraveled and replenished.
00:25:26
Speaker
And are you able to explain the difference between a herbal tea and a herbal infusion?
Herbal Tea vs. Infusions: Medicinal Benefits
00:25:31
Speaker
Yeah so quite often a tea will be called an infusion but medicinally speaking if you want a tea to be medicinal then quite often it actually needs to be a larger amount of the herb so and I usually will do it for quite a number of hours
00:25:50
Speaker
It depends on the herb because, for example, with chamomile, if you have a chamomile infusion and you infuse it for 10 to 20 minutes, you'll get the aromatics out of it. If you infuse it for a longer period of time, you'll actually get the bitters. And they both do different things. So the aromatics are mainly for the nervous system.
00:26:10
Speaker
and for heart variability and heart regulation. And then the bitters will be more for your digestive system. So it depends on what you're trying to get from the plant as well. So for a tea, I'll usually actually use a whole handful of nettle
00:26:27
Speaker
and then in 750 ml or a litre of water and infuse that overnight. And that's what I do. I thought about giving grams but they're actually different for different herbs depending on their weights. So yeah, I usually just go with a big handful of herbs.
00:26:45
Speaker
and do that overnight and the color changes and you can see usually that it's much richer and so from this point of view side tangent I'll just let the listeners know to always use your senses when you're making medicines because you know rely on your sense of smell is it really aromatic are the pigments changing is it a rich color and the those kind of things your senses will let you know
00:27:13
Speaker
when it is potent and when it is ready so I like to encourage that in people a little bit. And that's such a good starting point too for learning about the actions of things and recognizing that okay something has that kind of smell like an essential oil that might be working in a certain way or
00:27:35
Speaker
trying to think like, yeah, the bitter compounds and how that affects digestion, but tuning in first to what we're tasting and sensing as a gateway rather than just a bunch of technical terminology that can filter right through the colander of your mind.
00:27:50
Speaker
It's usually the place that I like to start a lot of the time with people is in my herb courses that I do and our herb courses, me and my colleague Willow Herb Nerd. We'll start with a lot of what I refer to as sensual herbalism.
00:28:07
Speaker
because it's using a senses or sensory herbalism and you know there's quite a few things that you can discern with your senses and then going from there because this is how we learnt to be herbalists by sensing things by looking at things and by you know documenting things but we didn't always have access to the technologies we have today our technology was our senses
00:28:29
Speaker
and now they're so kind of numbed in some ways because we live very over stimulating lifestyles and a lot of the time we're not really
00:28:46
Speaker
in the natural world using our senses, climbing things, touching things, tasting things, smelling things, feeling things. And so that's usually where I like to start because then it also, it's lovely to see people awaken and go, oh, you mean that I can do this? I don't need a book. I don't need a website. I don't need another person. It's like, yeah, yeah, you can do this. Yeah, just start sensing.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like the more that I learn about, I'm really obsessed with weed medicine for so many reasons because I identify as a weedy person. I think that the band-aids kind of over the skin of our earth at this point in time, they're so generous and the way that we malign them.
00:29:30
Speaker
just breaks my heart. But the more I learn, the more I think, goddamn, one herb can do pretty much everything. You know what I mean? Like I look at plantain and I go deeper and deeper and deeper into its studied constituents and all its traditional uses. And I just think this is actually applicable in so many scenarios. So I wonder what your feeling is around exotic, hyper-specific herbs and herbs that are very indicated for X condition versus
00:30:00
Speaker
the accessible things we have on our doorstep and how dynamic and multi-talented they can be. Yeah. Well, I often say, especially if I'm doing foraging courses, that dandelion is a superfood. It just can't be marketed to you. I reckon you could have a pretty good shot at marketing dandelion to the people. Oh, God. Yeah, well, you could. You could, but like, you know, because people really want things that are convenient.
00:30:25
Speaker
so you could definitely package it that way but you know it grows everywhere and where we're always sold things that are rare or exotic usually they're having really deep social and political outcomes in other places and quite often they aren't usually good for the local people or economies so I'm not necessarily a huge fan
00:30:54
Speaker
There are certain things that I won't use in my practice unless I can grow it or you know myself or I know where it comes from like rhodiola is one that I won't use because it's over harvested and I try not to use the things that are over harvested. I do use things, there are a few, there's a few exceptions that I have you know I do love kava. I think kava is absolutely wonderful so I do love that but quite often I will always try and go with
00:31:21
Speaker
the local source, if I think that it's relevant, and the source that I can get people to connect to themselves.
Empowering Local Herbal Use Over Exotic Plants
00:31:29
Speaker
So if it's growing in their backyards, I would rather teach a client or a participant in a course how to go and make medicine for themselves that's empowering and they feel like they've got autonomy over their health.
00:31:46
Speaker
that's super empowering and I think that weeds allow us to have reclaim that power. They're like the, they're an icon for the peasant I think and there's something that is you know really rich in that for me of just the kind of underdog or that won't be
00:32:08
Speaker
they won't be smited. You know, and I love that. So yeah, I will always try and use things that I can grow or I can forage or try and teach people to do the same because quite often I think that there will be something growing around that does a very similar thing.
00:32:28
Speaker
rather than getting something rare and exotic that has all of the embodied energy and is probably having really deep and negative impacts on the people from that place.
00:32:43
Speaker
I'm thinking of a time when I was in Tasmania when I was out on a walk with a friend and I excitedly saw what I decreed was Queen Anne's legs, beautiful umbiliferous
00:32:58
Speaker
delicate lacy flowers in a big stand by the side of the road and I cut some off and skipped down the road with my beautiful bouquet and a local, Lacy's Cotton Socks, drove past and wound down the window and was like, darlin', you got a handful of hemlock. And I was like, oh god! And in that moment I realised a little bit of knowledge
00:33:19
Speaker
can be a dangerous thing. But I also feel that tension of people being so intimidated by wild foods and wild medicines and interacting as you're speaking about with our senses and trusting that we can navigate the world in that way. So when do people have enough knowledge to start foraging and making their own medicine without
00:33:43
Speaker
having the fate of, is it Socrates, who died of hemlock poisoning?
Familiarity and Confidence in Plant Recognition
00:33:49
Speaker
When I teach a foraging course, one of the first things that, we talk about education rather than fear. So many people are so scared of foraging, and if you put that in your mouth, you're gonna die. And there's so many more things that are edible than things that aren't.
00:34:11
Speaker
You know, we wouldn't be alive now. We wouldn't be alive today if our ancestors didn't forage. So that's proof enough for me that it's quite okay to do. However, I usually start with the poisonous things first or trying to even look up. Like the internet is an amazing tool and you can even Google things and try and find the poisonous plants that are in your area or bioregion. And you start with those first and you start to just get familiar with pictures of them.
00:34:41
Speaker
and you don't eat anything that you aren't sure of. And then start with, I usually just say start with one or two plants that are edible that you can try and start safely identifying. And go out and try and start identifying them. And there's amazing forums online as well where you can actually post your photos and lots of people will get back to you. And even if you just looked up Foraging Forum, Foraging Forum Victoria or whatever it might be,
00:35:11
Speaker
You can find a lot of people that are very willing to help you if you need to identify something. I think that everyone actually has it in them to be able to do this though.
00:35:24
Speaker
I don't want people to feel so fearful that they won't ever put anything in their mouth, but it comes with a degree of, you know, common sense, which I think that we're relearning as a culture, and a degree of education. So just keep your mind kind of open and curious, and don't, if you're really that afraid of it, then get confirmation from someone else, but you don't need to be too afraid of it.
00:35:52
Speaker
And there is such a profound recognition when you know a plant, when you know you know it, you know it. You look at it and you're like, yep, that's, it's unmistakable. It's like a friend's face. Exactly. And I can, you know, now I can see like the differences, you know, I'm sure you can as well, you know, you'd be driving along and like St. John's Wort Yellow is a different to Dandelion Yellow, even is different to Southes or Yellow. They're all like differences and you can
00:36:21
Speaker
I can see it pick these things up very, very quickly. And that comes from just looking at things. It's literally people about, how did you start this? I literally started looking at the ground, asking questions, being curious, picking things up, looking at them, you know, intently. Oh, that one has that kind of leaf and this one has that one. Oh, that's cool. You know, and getting different books on it and then just looking at them and just remaining curious about it. Yeah.
00:36:49
Speaker
And I've had someone say to me like, oh, I started doing this and it seems to take so long. And they were only doing it for a few months. And I was like, yeah, it's a whole language. And it takes years. You have to really want to do it. But as long as you love it and you're interested in it and you remain curious, I think that that
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah that says a lot and that'll just keep you going. Yeah I really want to come back to curiosity because that's a big thing I want to discuss with you but first of all I want to keep plumbing the foraging depths and just on what you were saying I think we both have the urban Nana as a mutual acquaintance and a friend and I know she spends a year sometimes taking spore prints of a mushroom that she's working with and
00:37:39
Speaker
will saute it or dry it or do all manner of things before she ever eats it and that's not you know the lengths you have to go to in terms of working with the plant it's just that that timeline of familiarity and that's a relationship she's cultivating as well and it always impressed upon me the depths that you can go to too with one single entity and uh
00:38:03
Speaker
Yeah, so just on the mushroom foraging front, people really who are honing that amazing ancestral skill spend a lot of time there. Yeah. Yeah, mushrooms for me are a whole other kettle of fish. I think that, you know, they're to be very respected and they can cause quite a bit of damage if you don't necessarily know what we're doing. And so even like me, I've been doing foraging for a long time, but
00:38:32
Speaker
I'm not a mycologist and it's not my forte so I like definitely get confirmation from people that I know if I want to eat any mushrooms or anything like that. I feel like fungi is less forgiving in some ways. They want you dead. They want to eat your body.
00:38:49
Speaker
Yeah, oh my god. Yeah, wow. They're like coming in there. They've been really working at this. Yeah, wow. So yeah, I do think that they need to be respected quite a lot. But I also like the idea, you know, with the urban Nana doing this for a year, I will sometimes suggest that to people with plants, and not necessarily a year, but just in terms of overloading yourself with information.
00:39:14
Speaker
This is one of the reasons what drives my courses and how I teach is people get interested in herbalism and they'll get a book and I'll have just a page and a lot of the time a pretty naff page on one herb and then it'll just have that 280 times, 200 different herbs. How are you supposed to flick through a book like that?
00:39:38
Speaker
And remember what each property is of each plant or each identification feature. You get lost. It gets oversaturated. So I will often tell people, start with one plant and have a plant ally a month.
00:39:54
Speaker
or something and this is what we're going to be doing in the new year-long program that I'm releasing is just starting with a plan to month to really delve deep into and then you don't get, you don't get so oversaturated and you get to know it like a friend like you were saying and they're like hello old friend there's a friend there
00:40:13
Speaker
you wouldn't forget a friend after you'd got to know them for a month. But you can't really expect to go to a party, you know, meet 200 people, and then remember the name of everyone. I kind of want to go to that party though. As once. The plant party. I would totally want to go to that as well. But I did derail a little bit the foraging question, which I want to ask around
00:40:40
Speaker
ethics and sustainability because foraging is so in the side guys the foodie kind of realm in recent years I know that my foraging friends are lamenting the loss of some of their favorite patches of mushrooms or
00:40:55
Speaker
elder trees or you know there's the pendulum swinging back in that other direction of over harvesting so as a forager and a herbal educator what is your code around wild harvesting?
Challenges in Mushroom Foraging
00:41:10
Speaker
Yeah, this is really interesting. I think it's also a little bit different for mushrooms. Mushrooms have been decimated in some areas that I know around me as well and it's been really, really sad and it's been really sad to see the treatment of those places after people have been there. So yeah, it breaks my heart a little bit as, you know, foraging becomes more popular. So my code of ethics really is
00:41:41
Speaker
First of all, looking at a patch and not taking more than you need, for assessing whether you should take any at all, you know, and is there enough there? Can you leave, you know, two thirds of it? I usually will try and just take a third.
00:41:59
Speaker
depending on how big the patch is that is and only taking enough for me like do I even need more than this why why am I doing that how many people am I going to supply with this for me
00:42:15
Speaker
I see a lot of people or a lot of clients so it does feel nice that I get to share that. It's not just for my own consumption and I feel good a lot of the time about foraging and wild crafting because I educate with it so I feel like that creates a little bit of a ripple that hopefully will come back to those patches.
00:42:40
Speaker
But yeah, I try not to take more than a third of the patch and it also depends on whether
00:42:48
Speaker
whether it's, like this is a loaded term, but whether it's an invasive species. There are some things that I don't feel nearly as bad about foraging than others. St. John's Wort or Dandelion, like they're going to replenish, they're gonna come back, there's going to be a lot of them. And for sometimes they, sometimes they can pose a little bit of a threat to
00:43:15
Speaker
more endemic areas, for example. Urban, I don't really mind about that because there's not really many endemic plants there that really need to grow, so it's not as much of a consideration. But I also try and think about what else is using it. And this is another thing that we're very bad at in our culture. It's very human-centric, and to be honest, permaculture has been very human-centric, I think, for a very long time.
00:43:43
Speaker
What yield am I going to get? And yeah, we do have to think about ourselves and how we're going to sustain ourselves in the world. I understand that, but also what else is using it? Is it a nectary for something? Is it a habitat for something? So I really like to encourage people to make that a part of their code of ethics, of trying to research what actually
00:44:05
Speaker
feeds off the plant, what uses the plant that you're harvesting. And to even just give that a little bit of consideration, I think is very important. Yeah. That does bring up the more than human that brings the more than human into this conversation, which I'm really glad about because I know you have some thoughts on humanity's schism. I just wanted to say that word, the schism between humanity and
00:44:35
Speaker
the more than human and that separation that has occurred somewhere along the line, which has arguably kind of led to the civilization and the structures that we see today, which are so wholly separate and blind to nature. In your estimation, when and why has that occurred and what are you doing to repair that rift?
Repairing Human-Nature Connection Through Education
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think that there is a schism there, definitely. And look, I'm going to be honest, this is one of my kind of self-doubt moments because I'm terrible at history. I've always been terrible at history. I had a very bad history teacher. It's easy to blame him. So I guess that what I'm going to say now, I would like to
00:45:29
Speaker
Say that it's it's a bit of an opinion piece. I've done like some reading in regards to this However, you know, I don't have a lot of research to back up my feelings on this but um, I think not Catholicism
00:45:47
Speaker
But the church, like I want people to know that are listening, that I have no qualms with any religious practice that anyone practices to feel closer to the divine. That's wonderful, that's awesome. But it was more the construct, the construct of the church leading to the schism between peasant societies and creating more hierarchies. A lot of offenses actually started being established around those times as well.
00:46:17
Speaker
instead of having a commons and so yeah I see like and interestingly enough also I've thought about this in terms of permaculture because permaculture talks about agriculture and the birth of agriculture has a lot to answer for too so with the birth of agriculture came hierarchical systems and I think with hierarchical systems then came this idea that
00:46:46
Speaker
hands-on work was peasants work and then there was other work that was more noble which still is a thing today you know trades people and people that are gardeners or a lot of people that work with their hands are treated differently than people that are CEOs or managed companies or things like that so we still have these like you know throwbacks today and so I think that
00:47:16
Speaker
that's maybe where some of this schism occurred because not everyone was having a relationship to plants anymore. And having a relationship to plants was actually considered a lesser or lower thing to be doing with your time in your life than maybe some more of the noble things. And what I'm doing to like try and repair that is interesting. I think that to me
00:47:47
Speaker
It's education. I just think that education is one of the gentlest ways
00:48:00
Speaker
not to persuade people but to open them up to a different kind of reality or to keep the questions going and then hopefully act differently. So I like to educate. I want to share what I've found with people. If they don't choose to do what I do then that's okay.
00:48:22
Speaker
at least I'm opening up that platform and hopefully they'll keep asking questions and opening up different platforms with other people and I think that education is one of the ways that I really want to
00:48:38
Speaker
change the world even in a small way. You know, I don't think that I'm going to change the world, but together with having discussions and being able to have discussions together that are educational for both parties rather than it be a conflict,
00:48:57
Speaker
I think that's a huge thing, being open to being educated by someone else rather than thinking that you are an authority on something or that to have conflict or to disagree means that you're arguing.
00:49:15
Speaker
I think that if we had better platforms for discussion and being open-minded to each other's ideas, we might get a little bit further. Yeah, well said.
00:49:35
Speaker
take this little path in the gully that I'm looking down and ask about the application of what you just said to your everyday life. Because I'm thinking that there's the modern life that maybe we can tar with that brush of that's a domestic, kind of comfortable, walking on concrete existence.
00:49:57
Speaker
Gross generalization, but if that's the domesticated world and the nature removed world What is your world like are you?
Balancing Idealism and Realism in Sustainable Living
00:50:08
Speaker
undomesticating yourself Yeah, it's really interesting Sometimes I don't know if I've become like a little bit more jaded and I hope that that's not the case maybe maybe a touch more realism rather than idealism and
00:50:24
Speaker
I've been in therapy for idealism for quite some time. You can go to therapy for idealism. Just to touch more reality. So it's an interesting question because I feel when I first got started I really wanted to make my life a certain way. And a lot of it actually came from rejecting. Rejecting the way that had been presented to me.
00:50:52
Speaker
One thing that's always really gotten to me is I didn't ask for this. I didn't consent to this. I almost want a t-shirt that says capitalism. I didn't consent to this because I've really felt that for a lot of my life that I'm living in a world that has certain constructs that I don't agree with and then trying to navigate around that. So I think a lot of my
00:51:19
Speaker
Yeah, my early journey was rejection of certain, some of those more domesticated, concrete kind of ways. But then there was also a time where I just had to get really, really stick about it and go like, I'm here. And also realized that one day I realized that I'm gonna die before I see the world the way I want it to be. And that was a big thing. I'm working towards this thing that I really believe in, but I'm actually not gonna see it.
00:51:49
Speaker
Um, and there was a humbling feeling that came with that of going, oh, and also, oh, it's not a, it's not about me. It's just going to keep going. So I think it made me, uh, able to be gentle around myself.
00:52:06
Speaker
with the way that I actually wanted to live my lifestyle. So now I feel a little bit more balanced. I practice fuck it moments daily. Am I allowed to say that on your podcast? Absolutely, my podcast is marked with an A for explicit. And I'm really sad because the last five episodes, nobody's dropped the F for literally the C bomb. All right, well you just wait. Strap yourselves in everybody. But yeah, I practice fuck it moments regularly because I got a lot of eco anxiety when I started permaculture.
00:52:35
Speaker
And I would just literally just have a meltdown at anything that I picked up and everything that I wanted to buy or anything like this. And it was just such a minefield to me. And so now there's just moments where I go, I know that that's not the best decision for X, Y, and Z, but fuck it. I'm gonna do it. And it's actually been really empowering sometimes. So I guess that,
00:53:01
Speaker
I'm trying to be more balanced. There are some values that I have that I don't want to compromise on necessarily that I feel strongly about. And then there are other things that I think can be fluid because I think puritism in any form can be dangerous. And if I stop sometimes and I think about where I'm actually at, it's really easy to think about where you want to be, but to think about where I'm at and where I've come from.
00:53:33
Speaker
It's been a lot. It's been a lot of steps and it's very different now.
00:53:38
Speaker
And so I have to also just stop and go, yeah, I'm happy with that. But I have those moments. I looked at my roof that still needs a water tank. And I was like, oh my God, I'm failing at this. It's really easy to go, I should be doing that or I should be doing this. But we've got to remember also that most of the time it's individuals saying that I should be doing more.
00:54:05
Speaker
when a whole community used to do this. Together. A whole village used to do this stuff together. So now to just put all the onus on an individual person is just so... It's so... It isn't heartening. It's so disempowering for an individual, I think. And it's a lot of pressure.
00:54:26
Speaker
So I think I'm just a little bit more gentle on myself now when I go, I'll get there with the water tank, that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Such a good reminder. And I love that idea of community, you know, community sufficiency, which people are talking about now, which is great, but how do you bring the village back into those seemingly
00:54:49
Speaker
insurmountable personal challenges. What is your approach to that? A question I ask myself every day, really, because I do feel like that's an answer to some of this conundrum, is having a village, relying on people again. I think we need to teach ourselves, remind ourselves that it's okay to ask for help. I think that's one of the main ones.
00:55:16
Speaker
There's a lot of pride in the individual in our society. I don't need anyone else. I can do it myself. But the thing is, you do need other people. It's just been hidden from us. So we put the kettle on. Someone made that. Something made that. People have mined the metals. People have been in the factory. There are hands behind that thing. We just don't see them.
00:55:40
Speaker
So it's really easy to be like, I got my money, I can pay for myself. But you're not actually, you are relying on a lot of people, they're just very spread out and you don't see them. So it's good to remind ourselves to rely on the people that are around us if we can. So I don't really have the answers, I'm still asking the questions, but I think that one thing that I can suggest is that it's okay to ask for help and
00:56:07
Speaker
we actually should, we should be asking each other for help more. And doing things together if we can.
00:56:16
Speaker
Well, I was just thinking that not only are you a debris machine, but you're also a segue machine because you just effortlessly segued us into a question around questions. And another mutual friend I believe we share is Claire Dunn. And spending time with her has been absolutely expansive and revelatory in every way. And something that I hear in her voice, in her words is,
00:56:44
Speaker
is about the importance of holding questions and having questions and living into questions and them being far more instructive than facts. So I'd love to know if you work with questions in your life, if you have perennial questions that keep cropping up year on year, decade on decade, and what don't you know the answer to?
00:57:10
Speaker
Yeah, you just reminded me why me and Claire are friends because we both share that belief, I guess. Questions for me are what drive me in the
The Power of Questions and Embracing Mystery
00:57:24
Speaker
world. I think that questions are more important than answers. I think that that's one of the ways that
00:57:33
Speaker
Permaculture actually works when you're talking about observe and interact. But you're observing. You're asking questions about what you're seeing in the world. You know, it's usually an observation, then an analysis. The analysis comes later. And for me, I think that that constant curiosity is why we're human.
00:57:55
Speaker
It's one of the things that has birthed so much technology and science and music and art and all of this that makes us what we are has come from us questioning things and wanting to know the answers.
00:58:13
Speaker
So for me, I always will say to people that, to, you know, guys, I just keep asking questions. Why is that leaf like that and not that one? Why is that growing there but not there? You know, I wonder why that soil is exposed here and not over here. Why does this bird come in this time and not that one? You know, it's just, it's endless. I think that what I am okay with is that it is endless.
00:58:43
Speaker
I'm not going to know the answer to everything. And I think that that's a really good trait being an educator.
00:58:48
Speaker
is I'm okay with not knowing the answer to everything. How can I? And how can I even really claim that anything is true? Also, I don't have the answer to the mystery of life. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know why you're here or what is really going on. And I actually think that that's beautiful.
00:59:14
Speaker
That's one of the things that is humbling about living. Hearing you speak in person is such a joy and I derive a similar level from watching your videos and your reels and your offerings on social
Educators' Responsibility on Social Media
00:59:33
Speaker
media. Of course they pale in comparison but
00:59:37
Speaker
the vibe is I'm so refreshed by your words and your messages and your sentiments and as we touched on before we started recording I absolutely loved what you shared recently about being an educator and also feeling that responsibility and taking that
00:59:57
Speaker
taking that upon yourself and I felt this kind of like shifting in my body around all the entrainment that I've had on social media in the last few years where it is like
01:00:09
Speaker
junk food for the ego. And if I really ask, why am I doing this? I'm like gorging on the attention and the, you know, that, that kind of ego affirmation. Like, I hope I'm exaggerating here, but just hearing you speak to that, that responsibility that you feel in the world as an educator and your orientation to service fully defied the influencer climate that we're inhabiting, living in.
01:00:37
Speaker
And I'd just love to hear you speak more about that and to maybe help some of us, finger pointing back towards myself, who forget why we make stuff and why we share stuff and what influence means. And if we want to be influencers at all, please elaborate.
01:00:58
Speaker
Also, I'm no saint. I have a dopamine deficiency, so I've got to get it from somewhere. We've got to remember, I think, that there are troves of people that are employed to psychologically manipulate us. It's also that thing about the individual of, oh, it's my fault because I'm binging on
01:01:25
Speaker
social media or something like no it's not actually like we've been this has been really calculated as well so I want people to remember that a little bit that it's not not our fault but it is kind of refreshing to you say that you thought that that really just um completely uh obliterated the um influencer idea because yeah being
01:01:52
Speaker
and educated to me. I've been thinking about it a lot this past year. I'm rebranding. I'm, you know, changing. Something in me is changing and I decided that, ah, something's changing in me and I really need to put myself out there in a different way. I'd like to. And so this last year I've been thinking a lot about who I am and what I offer and what's important to me to offer.
01:02:23
Speaker
The education thing is just so huge because I don't think that people realise the responsibility that they have in an environment like that. The worst thing I can think of to do, obviously there's really horrific things in the world that we're not going to talk about, but putting someone off learning is such a disservice to
01:02:49
Speaker
our being. It's such a disservice to taking a topic that is mesmerizing and infinite and just so exciting and then making it dry is such a disservice to that thing. And it's also a disservice to people. People have had really hard times around learning experiences
01:03:12
Speaker
not feeling like they're good enough, not feeling like they should ask a question, feeling stupid, not feeling like they're good at learning, like these horrible things. And it stifles our curiosity. And that's what I don't want to do. That's what we've been talking about. That curiosity is a thing that I think will innovate our culture.
01:03:38
Speaker
And that's what I want to strive to do with the educational side of things. So for me to kind of keep that in mind, I think that with my social media, I'll often just share like, hey, this is what I'm doing and look at that and like a pretty flower and blah. But there's just those moments that I have where
01:03:59
Speaker
I go, what am I doing here? I don't like to calculate what am I doing that's going to get likes. What am I going to do that's going to kind of sell or anything like that? Don't get me wrong. Sometimes I think about, you know, I've got to sell this course. I'm going to put it out there. But it comes back to that question thing. I ask why.
01:04:26
Speaker
Why am I doing that? And then I try and give people the answer. Yeah, I was remembering what came to life in our pre-recording conversation around business and the tension that you can feel in that space as someone who does interrogate capitalism and doesn't feel inherently intrinsically motivated to amass coins
01:04:51
Speaker
or you can't even eat them. How do you go with that in running a business?
Anti-Capitalist Values in Business and Planting
01:04:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good question. I also want to say that interrogate capitalism is a great shirt. I really like that. I think it's a bit too gentle though. Just interrogate. Just interrogate. Torture. Maybe we can think about what we're going to do about this. Yeah, obliterate. Yeah. But to me, look, this has been a minefield for me. It really has, personally, with my values, with my upbringing as well. And, you know,
01:05:25
Speaker
Really being taught that being greedy was the worst thing you could possibly do. I think that being greedy isn't very good, but also it's...
01:05:35
Speaker
had ramifications where it's been really hard for me sometimes to value what I do for money and feeling like I have to give it away or that if I'm making money for myself and not in more of a community way with everything that I've learned about community and traditional culture and things like that then I've started to feel kind of dirty or am I going against my beliefs?
01:06:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's been quite difficult for me to have a business in a capitalist system when I quite identify with being anti-capitalist.
01:06:19
Speaker
I think that one of the ways that I do try to embody my values is the education thing again. I feel as though education is a seed. Plans are the most anti-capitalist thing that I can possibly think of.
01:06:38
Speaker
You can take a cutting of any one of them, not any one, but they sprout up. Every plant will produce more seeds than the plant itself. It just keeps going. It keeps giving. It keeps proliferating. I think that I'd like to do that with education. That's one of the ways.
01:06:58
Speaker
I think I've been on a big journey of also trying to learn how to value myself in the space and learn that that's actually okay and learn that some of the security that I want in this capital world is okay as well. Yeah. Giving myself a little bit more freedom to do things that I love or to play or to... This is quite a side tangent but
01:07:28
Speaker
even something like I used to guilt myself about using a lot of technology because I wanted to live a simpler life and I didn't want to take the opportunities away from other people in the world that might not have access to those things. And then there's also things like we're living in the time where
01:07:50
Speaker
synthesizers are made. You know there's certain things that we have access to that is actually amazing and I
01:08:01
Speaker
I want to be grateful for those things as well. Yeah. So I've been trying to learn how to also be grateful whilst not taking too much. It's very hard. Yeah. Well, it's, yeah, there aren't any easy answers and no one I've asked the question around, you know, what are your, what's your financial situation? How do you find security? What do you do to earn a cross? Like nobody has a simple answer, but
01:08:28
Speaker
I am inherently curious about that because I feel like it's the missing or it's not the missing, it's the foundational piece of, you know, this podcast is about skills that are going to bring resilience and not only resilience, but joy and meaning and fulfillment into the future, whether that future involves like the collapse of civilization or whether it's just, oh, hey, we're remembering what it is to be like a sensate creature in this world. But this whole piece around,
01:08:55
Speaker
Where do we live? How do we feed ourselves? What are those inputs and what is that foundational kind of shelter piece that comes before we have the extra energy and the wherewithal to learn the skills and to be in communion with the more than human world? It's like, yeah, I want to know what people are up to. How are we getting around this
01:09:20
Speaker
cost of living crisis, housing crisis, you know, where are we weeding in the gaps? And I don't mean pulling the weeds, I mean being the weeds. Like how are we working the gaps in this time? And yeah, still like honoring those beautiful gifts and like the intense, like the adulation you can feel around this microphone and chair even, whilst also
01:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, knowing that, like, we still wanna come home to our creaturely selves. Yeah, it's interesting you saying the, you know, how are you kind of weeding or being the weeds, especially at the time of this kind of crisis and moving into more economic crisis, even though where we are in the world, we're quite buffered from it right now.
Building Sustainable Homes and Living Presently
01:10:09
Speaker
But one of the ways that
01:10:12
Speaker
me and my partner are choosing to do that is to build our own little houses. It's using a lot of time and it does use skill as well. Luckily he's a wizard.
01:10:26
Speaker
it's using a lot of time so we'll actually go and we'll demolish, we go to demolish buildings and we will demolish them and take the timber and it takes a long time and it takes a lot of work but we've stacked a lot of timber that's going to become our little houses and it really speaks to me because right now it's so ludicrous
01:10:51
Speaker
that there's so many of these houses that are old that are being demolished and a lot of that old timber, old hardwood is going in the skip or going to the tip at the same time as all these housing developments that are being built with steel and the timber industry is now changing because we don't have enough timber to even support carpenters anymore. That is crazy to me.
01:11:19
Speaker
So to try and bridge a little bit of that and mean that I'm spending more of my time and less money to obtain these trees that were once living and monumental, like to throw that in the bin is, that's a travesty. That is just not okay with me. So to try and just take a little part of that and then be able to make a little home with it,
01:11:49
Speaker
That's one of the ways that I'm trying to get around a little of the crisis situation that we're finding ourselves in financially and environmentally. Yeah, scavenging. Scavenging. Redirecting.
01:12:06
Speaker
Yeah. Well, at this point, I'm almost obliged to ask a question about collapse because that was the premise of this podcast. It was based on an article that I read that very much inspired me and it was around hard and soft skills that could be useful in developing resilience and adapting to whatever the future holds. What are your thoughts on the future Taj? Do you make decisions based on kind of a fear of what's coming?
01:12:33
Speaker
down the pipeline or are you putting your blinkers on and just living your life?
01:12:43
Speaker
I don't really operate from fear in that way very much. I think I am actually putting my blinkers on to be honest. I think that I, although I'm trying to make decisions that I think will be good for the future and learn skills, you know, I'm really big into learning and I'm really big into learning skills. So whether that's, you know,
01:13:11
Speaker
beekeeping or brewing or preserving or whatever. You know I feel like I'm okay at all of these. I'm a master of none of those. I love homesteading but I don't think I'm a master in any of it. But I like to learn little bits and pieces and I think of course that's going to come in handy for the future. But when I think in terms of collapse
01:13:35
Speaker
It's the social element that worries me the most. It's not necessarily my skill set and whether that could get me through. It's about how are people going to react and interact together in a collapsed situation, in a crisis. Because people can go mental in a crisis. And I personally don't think that I can prepare for that. So I think there's part of me that does have my blinkers on in a way and
01:14:05
Speaker
I think that partly it has been because I get so crushed. I get so crushed by what is happening in the world. And I don't think that with globalization, we're not designed to take in that amount of information. We're not designed to take in that amount of grief.
01:14:28
Speaker
Sometimes I feel guilty for that because I feel like am I just putting my head in the sand? But also I just don't think that my human body is designed to take on the perils of the world. And so the more that I listen and the more that I research, the more despondent I become and then the more careless. And I don't want to do that necessarily.
01:14:57
Speaker
I try to take bite sized things in and I try and feel it and I try and care and I just try and continue with what I find meaningful because otherwise I'll drown in depression really. So I don't know if that'll be helpful for anyone else but that's just my approach and sometimes I do want to be a little bit more
01:15:28
Speaker
Up to date with things that are happening all around the world, but it's it's too much for my Sensitive little soul. Yeah, and there's a Part of shame that I feel when I say that and I admit that to people in the world right now But I think that I have to be honest
01:15:51
Speaker
Yeah I really share that position and the position being head in sand, bum to sky sometimes a lot of the time but it sounds like the wisdom that's kind of encasing that is sound and solid because you understand so deeply how that alters your behavior and what
01:16:15
Speaker
how it hamstrings you really like if you were to gorge on the bad news it doesn't really further the good that you're doing in the world the ripples that you're casting so
01:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, it actually does the opposite sometimes and so I just have to be mindful about what I consume information-wise and thinking about collapse and sometimes I wonder, wow, am I not taking this seriously enough? You know, with everything that I've heard and everything that I know and all the people and networks that I have and being interested in permaculture and reskilling and all these different things, am I not taking it seriously enough?
01:17:00
Speaker
I've dedicated my whole life to learning skills and I don't really know, you know, I don't want to spend my whole life preparing for a future either. Maybe I'll regret that one day, who knows, but I don't want to spend my whole life preparing for a future that I don't have yet. I want to be here, I want to be in the soil, I want to be with this guy.
01:17:25
Speaker
So I was very excited to see that you actually had some stuff kicking off in February, some courses, some ways people can get montage and sup the delightful nectar of herbal medicine, botanical medicine.
Upcoming Herbal Education Programs
01:17:40
Speaker
Can you tell us what's coming up? Yes, I'm very excited about it.
01:17:44
Speaker
I have a program, it's an eight-week program called The Herbal Apprentice that me and my colleague have designed together, Willow Herb Nerd, and this is available at series in Brunswick, so it's an eight-week course, and it happens multiple times throughout the year. So that will be kicking off in February, and I'm very excited about that. And it's designed to assist people in a very tangible, hands-on way, and
01:18:13
Speaker
The way that I use permaculture now in my life is mainly through education. I think about the systems of education and the way that scheduling and everything flows in with each other and connects. So I try and connect those dots for people. So they're left with a very well-rounded course that actually makes sense and where things land.
01:18:33
Speaker
So there's that, which is exciting. With that course comes the Botanical Education Knowledge Cards. So they're two sets and I'm so excited because we've been working our asses off all last year to revise them, make them all make sense with each other so we can do different exercises and so you can use them in a variety of ways. And these are a learning tool for people to learn herbalism
01:18:59
Speaker
Without books, so in a tangible way, so you can actually do processes of elimination, you can learn case studies, you can put things together and group things and take things apart and yeah, stick them up and remind yourself of things. So that's really cool. So they'll be actually available as a PDF to purchase and a hard copy in February.
01:19:22
Speaker
as well. Lots of things happening in February actually. So the year-long herbalism course called Ritual Herbalism, that will be commencing in May. So that's on pre-release now for my mailing list, but that'll be released soon and people are invited to join the program. It's about seasonal practices that are tied in with botanical education. So it's really about
01:19:53
Speaker
learning about your bioregion. So we have prompts in there for our own kind of bioregions and our own, you know, Sabbaths and things like that. But it's designed for people to also look into the First Nations people of where they're residing and also their own ancestry and their own bioregion.
01:20:14
Speaker
so that it really helps them hopefully to ground into place where they are and we're not just asking people to overlay this information wherever they are even though they can use it as a template. Wow that sounds incredible. Very excited. These are such creative ways of um yes steeping ourselves in this knowledge and wow.
01:20:37
Speaker
I'm excited. You also have a Patreon, right? I do. Yeah, I do. So that's if people want to kind of study with me ongoing and I'm using the herb cards. I'll be using the herb cards as a main platform for that. So people will get herb cards released every month, different ones, and we'll be going into exercises that people can do with them or I'll be talking to them.
01:21:04
Speaker
as well so they just get that a little bit extra so even if they've brought the hard copy of the herb cards then they can actually learn more through this platform and I also I also share recipes and different videos or they get early access to different workshops or discounts or things like that so yeah and I really value my Patreon community so I want to say to those out there that are Patreon thank you so much because
01:21:31
Speaker
talking about times of financial crisis and things like that. It really actually helps me to stay afloat and to keep doing the things that I love so thank you all so so much. Yeah and his Patreon the portal of
01:21:49
Speaker
rebranding reveals because you've been drip feeding some little teasers on the socials and I'm so Desperate to know what is going to become of formerly the permapixie. Is there anything you can tell us about that? Yeah, I look I didn't actually think about doing that, but that's a good idea I should definitely share with my patrons. It's so funny because for me I just think that oh Yeah, this is the thing I'm doing and so many people have been asking me about it like so what's the new thing? You know, you know
01:22:17
Speaker
Just being cheeky with him. I'm like, I'm not gonna tell you. But I guess what I can say around it is last year I was thinking about it a lot. Like, this isn't right anymore, but what is? And I was getting really, like I was getting so hung up about it. I really was because I built this, you know, persona, this brand, this thing for myself that people recognized.
01:22:47
Speaker
And that's scary to let go of as someone that's just...
01:22:51
Speaker
a sole trader and I don't have another job. This is my job. So that was actually, that's scary to do, to leave something like that. So I was like, oh my God, if I do it, it's gotta be like super poetic and it's gotta be this and it's gotta be that. And I would actually lose sleep over it, to be honest. I was like, oh, maybe it could be that. No, no, no, that sounds like this and I don't like that. And I would just go over it in my head. So it finally landed for some, for...
01:23:17
Speaker
to me with something that was actually quite simple but just
01:23:23
Speaker
Oh my God, that is what I do. So I'm pretty excited to, I'll be revealing it very soon with the release of my website. And now that you say it, yes, I'm going to release it earlier for my dear Patreon supporters because they probably actually really want to know. And I can talk to them about that and go into more of the philosophy of why and how I came to that conclusion too.
Fostering Well-Being Against Productivity Culture
01:23:48
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, I'll be waiting in the wings. Okay.
01:23:52
Speaker
Is there anything that I haven't asked you that was so wanting to be said in this conversation? Maybe one thing that I'll say is that one thing I'm getting more comfortable with is that the need for soft, slow and
01:24:18
Speaker
gentle spaces in the world. So I'm really trying to encourage that with my teaching. I'm really trying to encourage that in the world because I think that the productivity mentality is going too far. I'm seeing so many clients and a lot of it is the same, you know, and the stress and the
01:24:45
Speaker
kind of need to be productive and also just the how we have to live to maintain a certain lifestyle. It's too much and I know a lot of people don't think that they have a choice and I understand that because we're part of a system but I want to start encouraging
01:25:07
Speaker
those spaces of rest. So for example if I have a class and I have a schedule but I can see that everyone's waning, I'm not going to push my content
01:25:22
Speaker
if they need a cup of tea or just to have a conversation to someone. I'll try and allow more of that space and that's how I'm trying to cultivate that softness into the world a little bit more. I think that's important. So yeah. Yeah, that's really beautiful and quite rebellious. Yeah, you don't have to fight for rebellion. Another great T-shirt.
01:25:54
Speaker
Oh Taj, thank you so so much for being here today. I fully am feeling the life energy of everything you said. I'm really grateful. And thank you so much for the invite and to have a cup of tea with you in this lovely setting here and watching all the trees. I really appreciate it and really appreciate what you're bringing to the world as well.
01:26:16
Speaker
Thanks Taj! I've linked all the stuff we spoke about as well as Taj's courses in the show notes. Does anyone look at those? I honestly never do, but definitely go there if you want to keep riffing on the resources and also look over the list of imaginary t-shirts we cooked up during the episode.
01:26:33
Speaker
If you'd like to support Resculience, the great news is you already are simply by listening, which in a time when every human and their greyhound has a podcast really means a lot to me. Thank you. If you have a surplus of enthusiasm, you can leave Resculience a review on iTunes, which makes the podcast look all popular and legit and stuff,
01:26:54
Speaker
Or you can pass it on through that original and endlessly resilient network known as Word of Mouth. I actually was at the farmers market yesterday and interrupted some locals having a conversation about the podcast which was utterly affirming and exciting and heartwarming and I'm really glad you're finding resonance with these episodes.
01:27:15
Speaker
Once again I'm not exactly sure who I'm going to be releasing next week but I have a buffet of tasty tasty thinkers and dreamers lined up for you so don't go anywhere unless it's to the garden. Lots of love, thanks for listening and see you next Monday.