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Jord & Catie interview each other in the back of a van
448 Plays2 days ago
It's the season three finale with me and my man Jordan Osmond!
We’re cranking the content couple cringe in this convo which covers our individual intentions for 2025, and chatting them through like a pair of old codgers.
Jordan is one half of Happen Films, sharing stories for a more beautiful world, and precisely one year ago we recorded a Reskillience interview which was later to become our first date.
Back with new eps in three weeks or less 💥
Big love to all the legends supporting the show on Patreon <3
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Theme
00:00:03
Speaker
race scallia Hey, this is Katie and you're tuned into Rescilience, a podcast about the hard, soft and surprising skills that will help us stay afloat if our modern systems don't. I am gratefully recording this voice memo into my iPhone whilst strolling by a beautiful verdant river in a little town called Yakandanda in Victoria's High Country.
Challenges in Remote Recording
00:00:33
Speaker
I wanted to give a very brief introduction to today's episode and quite informal really because you can probably hear the crunch of gravel beneath my feet and the swooshing of leaves as I am recording this off the cuff whilst waiting for a cup of tea to steep in the van.
New Year Intentions with Jordan
00:00:49
Speaker
Jordan and I came away in the van for a New Year's camping adventure and To my secret delight, we discovered that there wasn't any reception in the places where we've been camping. So I do apologize for the tardiness of this episode. Thanks for your patience and thanks for sticking around. This was a delightful conversation to record. It is with my dearest, Jord, partner in permaculture and other planet-loving crimes, and who happens to be one half of the magnificent Happen films whose work I am sure you know
00:01:24
Speaker
at this point. So Jordan and I recorded this conversation in the van that he is about 80% of the way through converting while parked up by the beach which was very blissful and we are sharing with each other some of our intentions for the year ahead.
00:01:43
Speaker
So it's a bit of fun. It's quite silly. There are some serious
Acknowledging Supporters
00:01:46
Speaker
bits. So I hope you enjoy this lighthearted finale to season three. And I wanted to let you know that it might be two or three weeks by the time I get home and get some new year's interviews happening. This time away has given me an even huger degree of appreciation for the folks who support the podcast on Patreon. People chipping in whatever they can each month to fund the many hours of work and joyful work that go into Resculience. Thanks to those Goodly people on Patreon I have been able to take a little break and still have some money coming in which is no small thing for a creative human being.
Playful Recording Setup
00:02:27
Speaker
So my deepest gratitude to everyone on Patreon and I hope that you enjoy this episode with myself and Jordan Osmond. Happiest of New Year's to everyone out there and I'm looking forward to another round
00:02:42
Speaker
of gently inspiring conversations in 2025. Testing Katie's mic. Testing Jordan's mic. Katie's mic.
00:02:54
Speaker
My mic! Mine! Mine's better! Now what? Jordan Osmond, tell us where we are sitting. Are we recording? Yes, I just thought I'd start recording and see what happened. We can get all of our- Get all the nerves out. We're nervous even though we talk to each other all day every day. We don't talk seriously about serious things. No, we'll publish it. I don't want you to see me like that. Publish it to the world. We are sitting in our camp
Van as Home and Studio
00:03:21
Speaker
event.
00:03:21
Speaker
That's nice, ours. Yes, it was mine and it's now our mutual mobile home. I'm riding on your coattails. It is 80% finished. We're sitting on the bed in the, well it's the couch at the moment because it's a bed and a couch. Yeah, it's a comfy setup. We're parked in a driveway at the beach.
00:03:41
Speaker
The maiden voyage of the van is just parked in someone's driveway yeah in a holiday village by the coast. Have a few people walking past that this woman's going to look in and say, what are they up to? They're not only in a little cottage on wheels, but they're also recording an interview. The mobile studio. It's multifunctional,
Promoting the Podcast
00:03:58
Speaker
this space. We should have a little sign on the door saying recording in progress and also follow the Resculience podcast on Instagram. You'll get some painting for the side of the van.
00:04:07
Speaker
It could be a massive Having Films billboard. Yeah, it could. It's pretty big. What's your van channel called?
Reflecting on Past Interviews
00:04:12
Speaker
It's just my name, Jordan Osmond. Well, Jordan. We discovered that it's a year today since we did our reskillience interview. But we've been planning this for a little while, and we didn't realise it was going to be on the 4th of January, which is when we recorded last year.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty crazy. It's been a whole year.
Empathy in Conversations
00:04:32
Speaker
That interview a year ago was kind of, it was like a first date, but without us having that expectation. But also like higher stakes than ever. Oh yeah, I was a little more nervous than now.
00:04:47
Speaker
But why are we doing this? Well, I thought that it would be, from my point of view, a good exercise in empathy and compassion to sit in my guests. choose and see and understand what they had to go through, especially when I asked them to create a list of 10 things, which I realise now is actually quite challenging and time consuming.
Personal and Shared Intentions
00:05:05
Speaker
And then I also thought it would be a great full circle moment if it was us delivering the things that we want to take into the new year to each other as a bit of a preview and premiere of hopefully the things that we can be enacting together in tandem.
00:05:21
Speaker
That was kind of my idea. Yeah. And we don't know what each other has written down. Was it 10 things? I've only got five things. I've got seven. Okay. This is 13 things between us. Divide and conquer. Your guests had to do 10. We can we can do seven and five.
00:05:39
Speaker
It's actually so good to consolidate. It's economical in every sense. We've got
Embracing Individuality
00:05:43
Speaker
two spares. I can always jettison them if the interview becomes a two-hour marathon. But you could, we're just staring into each other's eyes. Did you say you had seven things? I think I have seven. Oh wait, that's 12. Oh my god, I just, I said we had 13 things. You could better edit that out. I was sitting here thinking, wait.
00:06:01
Speaker
I always edit myself really heavily, but never the guest. They're always perfect. You can keep that. Okay, 12 things. What are they? It's really hot in here too. We have little fans to help the the flow of air, but we've turned them off for the sake of the audio. But actually now my computer's fan is kicking in because it's overheating. Yeah, it's probably no louder than that. I'm going to turn this on. All right. There's normally something in the background of your interviews anyway. It'll just be normal. It's going to be some ambient sound. That should be okay, right?
00:06:31
Speaker
Is that okay? It wouldn't pass. Let us know if that's not okay. Text in on the resilience hotline. All right, Jordan, who's going to deliver their first thing? Well, you've got two more than me, so maybe you can start and end.
Creative Risks and Collaboration
00:06:45
Speaker
Okay. And mine's actually quite relevant because we can play a game of I Spy because it has been inspired by the interior of this van. yeah My first intention for 2025 is to be the wormy chestnut.
00:07:00
Speaker
So I'm looking at the benchtop switch Jod has installed in this van and they're so beautiful. It is is a wood that has been afflicted and infected by a parasitic organism which has eaten these tracks and left holes and grooves and beautiful tiger-like straps through and on the wood and of course we we exalt wood like this you know with its character and we polish it up and it adds so much texture and richness to the interior of this van and I was thinking how many of us want to be more like the pine that is you know straight and blonde and homogenous and that could be an unconscious desire to fit in or be smooth and unobtrusive and kind of fit fit the mould essentially but this wormy chestnut to me is a teacher in that
00:07:59
Speaker
I really want to check my unconscious habit around looking at other people and looking outwards to see how I should be or how how to conform, but really there is so much
The Importance of New Experiences
00:08:13
Speaker
idiosyncratic and odd beauty in every single one of us and I actually want to make a practice of enhancing and bringing that out and making it lustrous and and celebrating that in my own small way. and Because I know the things that I find the most intriguing in life are the the mismatched parts or the misalignments or the the things that suggest something deeper beyond just like a kind of predictable process. So I feel the wormy chestnut is speaking to me on that level. And for my points, my intentions, I've also made some like alternative taglines because you can't take the copywriter out of the girl. and So some of the alternative taglines for this one is like, fly your freak flag.
00:08:55
Speaker
grow your own way, embrace your bowels, knots and scars, polish them till they shine and inspire others. And I found this really beautiful quote, actually, I can't tell you who it is. It was just like from a Guardian article that I was reading the other day. But the author said, doing your thing kindles a fire that keeps the rest of us warm. Yeah, I just I'm quite enamored of this idea of how far can we lean into our own quirks and peculiarities to not only help other people relax into their idiosyncrasies, but cheap keep all of us warm with that diversity and that interestingness.
Embodied Living and Nature Connection
00:09:32
Speaker
Beautiful. I really like that one. It's so true. I know so many of my favourite people are kind of the weirdos, I suppose, or so interesting. and
00:09:43
Speaker
but there's this survival thing in our brains to kind of fit in with everybody else but to then kind of push against that that's where you I think you have a more more interesting life yeah oh yeah I'm just thinking how lucky are we that we can express ourselves in so many different ways and feel safe to do so and it's my internal constructs and maybe old reptilian and very legitimate reasons that keep me from fully living into that freak who I know I am on the inside but of course that is dangerous and has been punishable by death and still is in so many places so thank you for also just giving me the gratitude that like this idea of trying to have a better time in my own body and in my own life and express myself more fully is like is a huge privilege.
00:10:32
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah, definitely. Yep. I love it. I want to do that too. I'm going to steal that point. um I'll add it as number six on my list. Well, there's two benchtops and two bits of whammy chestnuts. So there are it is so beautiful. I'll try and post a picture somewhere for people to see. They took a lot of sanding. Yeah. And that was the thing as well. It's like I could have just bought the off the shelf benchtop, which I was very tempted to do because it was so much easier. I could have put them in in a day but it actually
Skills and Ethical Hunting
00:11:03
Speaker
took like a week to do these because there was so much work and filling all the cracks and but I knew it would be such a feature of the van and just add so much character and yeah I just love staring at them so it was kind of worth the effort. Yeah well bringing the threads of other conversations into this conversation we've referenced quite a few times between us like when Blake Bowles a few episodes ago talked about that relationship between efficiency
00:11:30
Speaker
and boringness and conversely, like when you reduce the efficiency, then you increase the interestiness of something. And you're definitely finding that in the van conversion, right? Yeah. Yeah. I love that nugget of wisdom from Blake. Yeah. I've been thinking about that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Even just a simple thing like riding our bikes to, you know, get our groceries. And then we're like, Oh, we saw four fish in the creek that we crossed. And this is so much, if we were in the car, we wouldn't have seen any of that. We wouldn't have,
00:12:00
Speaker
had all those kind of interactions. So my first one is I would like to be more creatively brave this year. It's been pretty a kind of a reflective time for me because it's coming up 10 years on Happen Films. And so I've kind of been making films for 10 years and it feels like a milestone to to sit back and reflect on on that time and you know what
Maintaining Friendships
00:12:23
Speaker
the future has in store going forward. And I've been feeling like I want to maybe we take a bit more risk in in filmmaking.
00:12:33
Speaker
mostly mostly in filmmaking but even just doing creative things for fun like taking photos or and anything but I think it it's kind of easy to, if you find some level of success in what you're doing and people resonate with it, it's quite easy to keep doing that thing that works.
00:12:53
Speaker
and there's a risk in changing that up because it's like oh people like this thing and how i how I do it and then to change that you might lose people or you might make it different to what this audience has kind of expected of you but I think we have to evolve in that way or I do at least like kind of doing the the same thing again and again I get pretty bored quite quickly so and I think over the over the years making different films I've always tried to improve each time and do something a little bit different but yeah I've just been sitting with this feeling of like I want to grow because I want to be challenged. I remember seeing this clip from David Bowie on Instagram talking about creativity and he
Syncing with Nature
00:13:34
Speaker
was saying just to kind of paraphrase it basically the sweet spot of creativity is when
00:13:40
Speaker
like you're in the pool and your feet adjust off the ground, off the bottom of the pool. So you're, you're kind of uncomfortable, but you're still, you're not drowning, but you're not just firmly on the ground. You're still in the depths of being challenged in a good way. So I suppose I want to bring that this year is continue to challenge myself and see what comes out, what comes out of that process and be okay with maybe taking some more risk. Is the risk you mentioned falling into that formula based on the feedback that you're receiving from the outside world and there's very real incentives to do that especially when it becomes your livelihood. But what's the... is there like an egoic risk or what are the the internal things you have to surmount to get to that point where your your feet are just kind of like skidding along the bottom and you can feel that breathless sense of like doing something a little bit dangerous.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah yeah it's definitely scary because you can fail of course and I think that is a bit of a barrier is if I do something different you know this thing I've been doing has been relatively successful and if I did something differently because I felt drawn to and it it failed I think it would be hard in a way because it would be like it's hard for it to not feel like a reflection of myself maybe every
Shared Musical Aspirations
00:15:02
Speaker
person who's creative or an artist feels the same you put yourself into your work so you it's hard to have a bit of that separation. So I think there it definitely feels kind of risky to do that because yeah, what if it sucks? But I think I kind of have to be okay with that as a possibility, otherwise you never do it out of that fear. Is there anything sitting behind this
Focus on Writing and Leadership
00:15:23
Speaker
intention, which is quite general, that you can specify and say, or maybe a project like this, or maybe a first step could be that?
00:15:32
Speaker
hmm I think I want to make some films that are like the format is a bit different or like the way they're told is different to how I would naturally do it which is hard because we all have styles and there's like a way that we kind of naturally do things and there's a balance there between just sticking to that and doing something different but I think maybe just like in how how the stories are told I think is what I'm feeling like I'm still grappling with this I'm still playing with it like I don't know what it looks like but I've got this kind of desire within me and um I've been thinking a lot about it but i haven't come to any like
00:16:15
Speaker
conclusions yet but it' it feels like yeah I just want to continue working on that and I don't know what it's going to look like. Well it's very exciting to have met you in a time where maybe like there's been there's going to be a shift or a transition or you're going from one phase to another and I can feel and we all know that feeling of something becoming uncomfortable or intolerable to the point that it kind of catapults you into ah that new phase of life. Let's see on number two. Number two. Okay this one is called Huddle and I want to give a shout out to Jade's forthcoming book so that's going to be coming out this year and it's called Huddle. But Huddle and Huddling and gathering and doing shit together in a group
00:17:03
Speaker
has been on my radar for quite a while. I mean I'm an only child so I think I have the tendency to want to forge off in my own direction and almost like completely control the situation and be a lone wolf. So doing things collaboratively doesn't necessarily come naturally to me but I've felt the power of doing things together and the kind of exponential potential that you unleash in that space so my second intention is huddle um and the other taglines I have are like you know teamwork makes the dream work and the alchemy of groups so I have all of these ideas and all of these dreams that I want to get off the ground but what I've realized is that you know the times where I have the the deepest and most focused experience is when I'm
00:17:55
Speaker
couched and held like in a group. I started ah a training in the yeah UK a couple of years ago that I didn't follow through with because it was at an absurd time of the night because it was based in the UK but it's called Huddle Craft. So this huddle word is like flying around in our collective consciousness <unk> right now I think and they're teaching and mentoring around like peer to peer group learning is so extraordinary it's like you get a group of people no more than 12 together around a problem or an idea or um a creative project and you just see how that alchemy kind of transforms something that might have felt really hard to an individual but is suddenly like
00:18:32
Speaker
unleashed just with all of those energies coming together in a group so you know for myself I i have a lot of frustration around like I want to I want to really focus and learn things but I get so distracted by all of the dinging in the screens that I think it's really hard to focus and deeply learn in the way that maybe we used to um so I want to have groups where I support myself with my friends to do these things that I just can't stop thinking about and then I've tried so many times to enact on my own But now I know it's at the point where I just need that accountability and buttressing. So I've got like four groups that I want to set up, which probably sounds ambitious, but just hear me out and I'll listen to this in ah a year's time and laugh if I haven't been able to achieve this. But this is, I'm just going to share this in case like someone else feels like it's a good framework or it could fit with their life or they can resonate with this idea of ah constantly talking about the things that you never actually do.
00:19:25
Speaker
So these four groups are gonna be around things that I deeply value and I know people in my community do. So I'm thinking like a few hours each week will be set aside to one of these groups and it rotates so that essentially you do one of these things a month. The first group is called BLA and that is Boring Logistical Adult Horrors because all of my friends, we constantly talk about the fact that we need to do our tax returns or our admin and all of these things that are essential to being and modern human but takes so much time and wherewithal so blah is boring logistical adult horrors so if we gather each month and do that I'm gonna be really stoked and I might bake a cake. So that's one huddle that I want to form. The next huddle is deep time and that's where there's three or four hours set aside for us to just focus on studying something and again like we've all worked in libraries we know what it's like to sit in a cafe and you're held in like a field of concentration and that feels really good so when I want to get together with my girlfriends and do
00:20:19
Speaker
deep time where we just research things that are interesting to us. The third one is dirt time and that's taken from John Young who talks about you need to be out on the land and practicing deep nature connection and have your face in the dirt essentially time and time again. So I want to have a dirt time group when we go out, rain, hail or shine to practice nature connection and practice things like fire by friction and basket weaving and all of the kind of resilient skills, I suppose the hard resilient skills.
00:20:46
Speaker
And then the fourth one will just be an anchoring group where we can get together once a month to just check in. And I feel like that can be really loosely held because when you get together with people and just see where they're at in their creativity, in their life, in their partnerships and themselves, that is such a beautiful anchoring, as the name suggests. And we can carry on with those people and feel that continuity and that sense of someone looking out for us and where we're at in our journey. And so I just, number two, huddle.
00:21:15
Speaker
is going to be tapping into the power of groups to get the things done that I dearly want to get done. And I'm going to be really bloody annoyed if I don't end up doing them when I'm old and decrepit. So I think making a group out of it is the way to go. Nice. Is there something that you particularly want to learn or a project that you want to like get off the ground in that context?
00:21:36
Speaker
like in any of the groups. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, I suppose like, just as an example, I'm constantly beating myself up in a way around like, I'm so interested in birds or being like an amateur naturalist. And there's a lot of book time or research time or rabbit holes that you can tumble down in the pursuit of like, gleaning that information that's going to make you a better bird watcher, a better naturalist, like the book study component of that, which obviously there's a huge embodied practice too, but I just want to hit the books around that but I know if I get together with a group of friends and I set an intention at the start of three or four hours and that's going to make all the difference because so rarely as an adult I think we carve out that time to proactively engage with something. I know that I'm often just reacting, responding, putting stuff out there without actually putting really high quality goodness back in.
00:22:28
Speaker
to my vessel so yeah i just i just want to learn stuff i have like a voracious appetite for learning but i'm also a bit of a shit learner because the discomfort of those initial learning phases is like yeah I avoid that. I just need other people to get me through. Yeah, yep. This is reminds me of a quote from a filmmaker that I follow, Mark Bowen. It reminds me of that, but he's talking more about like working in ah a team. But his thing is, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And I think that's really... You have a fucking quote? I got a fucking quote. I didn't even write that down. You just pulled that out of some dark crevice.
00:23:10
Speaker
That was out. Very out. Thank you. Yeah, I love that. There'll be more, maybe. I love that. Yeah, I've been thinking about that. Yeah. Yeah. That quote, so it was on my mind. Nice one. Well, I hope you're happy to have like packs of my feral girlfriends around at intervals during the week. I heard there'd be cake. Started fires. You mentioned cake. There will be cake. We need a carrot cake on a stick. Yeah. yes What's your number two?
00:23:37
Speaker
My number two, in no particular order, I can't remember what number two exactly was, but let's go with, oh yeah, in my general reflecting, I've been thinking about, because I turned 30 this year, I'm getting old, and I was thinking about how, kind of generally as you get older, the less first experiences you have. Yeah, because 10 years ago when I started filmmaking, that was also when like I moved out of my parents' house and I went to live with a bunch of people and it was like,
00:24:07
Speaker
a crazy year of change. and like had so many new experiences and it was it was just like a massive year and so thinking about how I want to continue to have those new things you can't obviously have it's always going to go down over your life because you can only do so many things but I think it's nice to be bringing those into life just to keep learning and keep exploring and challenging understandings even if it's something simple like I don't know I've never
00:24:39
Speaker
been scuba diving you know it could just be something like that where it's it's kind of easy just to kind of keep doing what you do enjoy and you're you're into a rhythm and you just go about your life doing that I think maybe as you get older you have to be more intentional about seeking out those things and in particular like doing those things together so having yeah yeah are forming those memories together, doing something new. I just think that's really powerful as well. So I don't know what that would be, but we can... More firsts. Yeah, yeah. Some more firsts together, having adventures or or even simple things, learning something new. Do you feel like the last little while has been more of a consolidation rather than that fresh first energy?
00:25:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think the last few years have been very, I've moved around a bit and lots of lots has changed in my life and the last year has almost been kind of recalibrating and building back up life again. So I think now that I feel like I've got a foundation again in a way, it's a good platform to be like, okay, what do we but do we want to try? What do we want to do next? Yeah. Well, we can always have something different for breakfast each day.
00:26:00
Speaker
I'm pretty happy with the French toast that you make. I don't know if I want to change that. I'm gonna branch out. I really like that one and you do have to be conscious and intentional about it I think because it does get easier and easier to get into your ruts which have their own beauty and ease too and there's that there's a reason why I guess we have those different phases of life but there is something so particularly special about experiencing something for the first time. I know like seeing a bird for the first time is kind of branded into one's memory as this really key experience and doing those things together sounds bloody awesome. Yeah like as simple as seeing a new bird or going to a new place and it doesn't have to be you know going all over, travelling over the world or something major can just be
00:26:53
Speaker
I just think there's something like time goes it feels like it goes so fast especially if you're doing a similar thing every day and to make time go slower in a way or maybe to help myself feel more present like having life dotted with those new experiences or things that you don't do too often just make it feel more rich totally it's even just taking a different route on a walk yeah yeah just getting off kind of autopilot yeah again just like the simple thing of riding our bike to get groceries so it was like that stuck in my mind but i don't remember the 15 times we drove in and did the same thing so true i'm still thinking of that 40 centimeter carp that we saw in the creek ah the unrequited i dreamt about it that night the one that got away we never saw it again it might have been in our dreams i've just been hallucinating
00:27:50
Speaker
Alright, I just have to refresh my memory on what I've written down here. So this one is called Just Do It Begrudgingly. So I'm quite a begrudging person. Like, this this is a good riff off your last point. I love doing new things and having adventures and having a diverse and interesting life, but at the same time I have this dual, these competing forces inside me for whatever reason where I resist. I resist doing things, like sometimes the simplest things. There's a big stop sign between me and the simplest task, and I don't know what it is, but you know, there's that obviously cult-like
00:28:34
Speaker
slogan around just just doing it which I know has helped so many people but you can't always just gung-ho yourself through a situation but I want to do new things and I want to do lots of different things but just doing it is not going to cut it I need to add the word begrudgingly which gives me permission to do certain things with the frown or with the sense that like oh this might be hard or this might be inconvenient or I don't like this because I'm said in my ways and I'm a creature of comfort but if I'm allowed to do it begrudgingly then maybe I'll try." So it was kind of inspired by this quote that I read from a guy named James Hollis. He's a union therapist of note and he talks about rather than making decisions based on is this going to make me happy and we see this all the time and I know in myself I'm often I'm just like constantly orienting to what's going to make me happy and obviously like give me that kind of hit of pleasure immediately
00:29:27
Speaker
And we direct we can direct our whole lives with this idea of what's going to make me happy. But he says, why not ask what's going to enlarge me? And I'm not someone who wants to go bigger or go home, but like that idea of enlargement is grow or evolve or expand. And he says, don't ask what's going to make you happy because humans are quite terrible judges of what in the long term is going to make you happy and feel satisfied. Ask, will this enlarge me, will it diminish me? And it kind of, I know I can feel when I ask myself that question around certain tasks like, or certain adventures or certain directions that I want to take in life. If I ask, is this going to, is this going to grow me? I tap into something deep and quite intuitive and like a yes on a gut level that knows, okay, this might not actually be the easiest thing in the world, but there's something that you need to do here. There's something that is really going to give you a cracker story.
00:30:24
Speaker
um So I guess it ties into my just do it begrudgingly because I need that that kind of comic permission to do things like dragging my feet and kicking and screaming because I'm like a little princess sometimes and just want to take the easy road but I love the way it ties in with this this provocation from James Hollis where it's like what's actually going to give you that deep and gnarly kind of satisfaction in life that that's how i want to feel so yeah kind of going for stories rather than security or like a you know
00:31:02
Speaker
or a sense of ease or a squishy armchair. And interestingly, he also says, um, irreversible decisions tend to be the most satisfying. And maybe that's some kind of bias in our brain, which like sees things that we've made really definitively as necessarily like better because you just have to, you just have to come to terms with them and deal with them. But I don't know, there's something, there's something in this for me around like, let's stop asking what's going to make me happy and let's start really looking at the bigger picture and like how I want my life to be and that's not a matter of that's not a hedonistic thing and I want to feel pleasure and I want to revel in in all of the the luxuries of life which can be you know walking on two legs and taking a breath of ocean air but I also don't think it's just about pleasure and happiness so I want to start doing more things that feel really challenging
00:31:55
Speaker
And I might be frowning, but I'll be happy at the end of the day. You'll be smiling on the inside. Yeah, I like that. it It makes me think of what we're talking about the other day of when we moved into where we'd been living in the last six months this old cottage in the bush yeah um and how for a little while there were we were experimenting with turning the gas off and so we wouldn't have hot water but we did have the wood burner going through winter and so we'd boil this massive pot on the on the wood burner to drag it into the freezing cold bathroom and like have a wash and for some reason that's like one of the
00:32:34
Speaker
most vivid memories of that time. And even though it was quite unpleasant, there was some something is satisfying about it. It lasted, you know, we did it for a few weeks and then turn the gas back on because we're soft. That's the side you guys see on Instagram. But it was a fun experiment and it just speaks to that idea that not everything that's worthwhile is comfortable. And there's that satisfaction with doing things that are hard.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, well you made us, you didn't make us, you're a very consent-based individual but you suggested that we go fishing at the crack of dawn one morning and this was in deep winter and it was legitimately minus five degrees and I still remember walking down to the river with you and you were ahead of me and you had the thermos of coffee in your backpack and all I could look at was the thermos of coffee because I have never been in that much pain inflicted by an invisible presence of just cold and frost, like my feet and my hands, I hadn't, I don't think I was wearing gloves it was excruciating and my face was purple and we got down to the riverbank and we we had to make a little fire it was like make a fire or perish and you were fishing and we ended up warming up and drinking our coffee and having a really memorable morning and I know that the night before when you set your alarm and you have these like grand aspirations to get up and get out and then the next day you just hit snooze and
00:33:57
Speaker
you know, fall back into slumber. Like I know that's a real thing but I also need to remind myself constantly of those times that we make the choice to really push ourselves even just for like some stupid experiment or some quest to catch a feral redfin in the river. Like it is so worth it. Yeah that was really funny and probably there was no fish out because it was so cold. They were all they're cryogenically frozen. Yeah they're sitting there with their jumpers on keeping warm. I remember looking back at you and I was like, you're okay. Well that was the thing, I was walking along going, I'm so angry, I'm so like, I'm a victim of this situation. Somebody help me, somebody rescue me. But you just have to push through. I like it. Okay, my third one.
00:34:46
Speaker
is I would like to in general and this year I want to work more towards it but it's probably like a multi-year thing is I'd like to live more in my body I feel like I live a lot of my life in my head and I can tend to overthink things or spend a lot of time just thinking about big picture stuff that's going on in the world or yeah dreaming up projects or thinking things through and um I feel like I could be better at being more present and just being in touch with you my squishy body.
00:35:26
Speaker
It's ripped. Squishy, come on. Squishy. Just feeling like, yeah, feeling less like a head floating through the world and more like a creature. Yeah, I suppose it's pretty simple ways of doing that. It's just like making the commitment to do it and I think even simple things like taking my shoes off more and i doing that a little bit. It's just so, so connecting and and things like I know that meditation would be really beneficial for me and I've done a little bit in the past but I really struggled to maintain that that practice so I think I need to find some structure that really helps me do that and even just going swimming you know we've been swimming in the river sometimes or we're here at the beach just feeling the waves I think just doing more things like that that kind of awaken kind of the animal
00:36:23
Speaker
body and get me get me out of my head is is something that I would like to do more of this year. Just thinking of why we don't live in our body sometimes and realizing that it can be a painful place to reside, a frustrating aspect of your human experience when your body isn't necessarily cooperating or fit as a fiddle in the way that you want it to be and so the head it is a retreat. Yeah, definitely relate to that. I think it is more, it's like a habit, I think. It's just like a way of thinking and that's how I've wired myself over my life. But maybe because yeah, I've had these like low level health issues going on for like a decade.
00:37:14
Speaker
little over a decade that maybe yeah that kind of make it hard to feel present because then I notice that I'm feeling fatigued or or foggy and so it's easier to Yeah, because sometimes like meditation brings that up, like that fogginess, because i'm more I'm trying to be more aware of my being of my body, and it's like, oh yeah, I feel this foggy sensation that that I'm struggling with, or I feel fatigued. yeah so that is it So it probably ties into just general like health, continuing to improve my health, which I think I ah do a little bit each year, so I'd like to carry that on.
00:37:51
Speaker
nice i really like that one yeah i was walking yesterday and i had some gravel in my shoe and i just kept walking and i wanted to understand what the problem is with having gravel in my shoe. like what is What is the feeling of discomfort? what is it like What's the quality of it? Was it pain? it Actually, after a while, I stopped noticing it, but I was interested in why we label i guess a sensation as um less than ideal. like What's the problem with this gravel in my shoe?
00:38:28
Speaker
but just Because you're leaving it there. Is it still there? Yeah, and now I have a ah giant gash. Now you've got boots full of rocks. It's just part of my spiritual spiritual practice.
00:38:43
Speaker
Right, that was really an unhelpful comment. And looking at my computer battery is so funny, releasing Caroline's episode last week and being like, let me never ride on my computer's battery without power again. Still got half um of it. look good We're good. yeah Well, it magically saves, remember? So you'll find it in the the depths of the garage man files or something. I hate that about so many things. Like, I try and do the right thing, but there's always a workaround, or there's always something that's a safety net that's gonna... I feel like this is probably analogous to our entire way of living in the civilisation that we have. It always seems to be like, we'll get saved by by something, or yeah, the files were backed up.
00:39:22
Speaker
My next one is called Whole Albums or Whole Album Existence and I was thinking about how memorable it was when I was younger primarily to listen to a whole album start to finish and even the the process of choosing an album to listen to like it was CDs mainly but the album artwork and the way you put it in to the CD player and the way you'd lay on the carpet and just soak up that creation that someone had made specifically to be listened to in that sequence and I have some deep memories around like listening to
00:40:05
Speaker
the whole crowded house would face album in my parents orange combi and that was when i was really young i reckon and it was one of the first CDs that my dad ever bought me and i cherished the CD but i never really skipped through it it was a you put it on and you sat there for 45 minutes or you had it on for the duration of the album and i kind of knew that album as its own entity and like a beautiful piece of art that was gifted to me by those four amazing musicians and so I was thinking about this idea of a whole album life and maybe it's a whole book life or it's a whole article life or it's a whole jumper life or it's it's like giving your attention
00:40:46
Speaker
to one thing, especially when it's being created for you by by a talented or a familiar individual and giving yourself over to the entirety of that that experience and how much richer I feel when I soak in a hole a whole album from start to finish as opposed to chuck on a curated playlist where I can't even tell you the band's name or the the track or where it came from or what the context of that is. and like I remember one day like having a sick day from school in early high school and reading a whole book and I still remember everything about that day because it was kind of tethered to this
00:41:27
Speaker
this commitment that I showed to this book and I just feel like I'm so much more liable to skip over the surface of all of these beautiful creations, like a stone just kind of skipping over the top and never really dropping into the beauty of something as it has been intended, like as that as that artist, as that author intended and I would really like to leave a more whole album existence this year and yeah I think that applies to anything
00:41:59
Speaker
that you can commit to in its entirety and sometimes that is just like an essay on sub stack but reading it not letting yourself skip and skim and scroll in that frenetic way when you read the first thing and think you know where it's going to go and so you just skip right to the comment section i'd love to subscribe to people on sub stack and maybe just a few and really read really hear what they're saying like listen deeply and try and yeah i'm not going to stop using spotify but try and listen to a whole album and and connect to that album as something that is going to be a soundtrack to a certain period of my life and I feel like as someone who writes things and creates this podcast and put stuff out there what a disservice to creators and how miffed would I feel if I knew that people of course they are just scrolling through these long
00:42:54
Speaker
captions that I write on Instagram or an email that I've written but I would love to think that someone took the time to really understand what I was getting at or really give me the time of day because I spent a long time crafting that so I want to be more conscious of how I'm consuming content this year. Yeah absolutely and it's just so much more rewarding as well and it is like it's like it is a subtle form of rebellion against the quickening pace of online life and the algorithms and the constant feeding of new and and quick, yeah, quick bites of of things. Yeah, it makes me think of looking at like on the back end of YouTube, I can see when people drop off watching a film, like I can see 35% of people finished this 20 minute film.
00:43:42
Speaker
And I can see a curve over time of like when people start to click away. And it's I really don't like it and I try not to look at that because then it makes me think of, oh, I need to make films that are shorter and kind of compromise how I want to make them because oh people aren't going to stick around for that long. But then people who do leave comments that you can tell they've watched right to the end, they're so meaningful.
00:44:06
Speaker
rather than people who've like kind of skipped around or you know every bit of the film is in there for a reason so it's nice that people can watch the whole thing like every song is in that order for a reason I mean sometimes I skip over those like shitty interludes and stuff or just like delete them entirely it's like three minute interludes get on with it you're just not not cultured enough to really get it I know I know I'll get there can you teach me?
00:44:35
Speaker
Not me, don't look at me. um Yeah, that's cool, George, like that idea of not only the way we consume as being a form of rebellion if we slow that pace right down, but also as creators being a little more defiant of those forces that mean to to shape us and and and shorten us, because obviously things are geared more and more to the short, snappy, and sensational, and as creators. I mean, I think about that with the podcast. it's like I don't want to I don't want to rearrange this conversation so that it's more palatable or um keeping people at the right moments kind of in trance like I want to present it as it is and as something to really experience in its fullness but I know that
00:45:25
Speaker
that's not going to get me maybe the listens or the downloads. If you're still listening to this episode of the podcast, send Katie a message on Instagram to let her know you're a true fan. We're my true fans. Yeah. Can we just like determinedly produce long and boring content?
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny because it feels like that is happening in a way. It almost swings the other way. I'm mostly in touch with what's happening on YouTube. That feels more like my space and I've been on there for so long. Feels more like my space. Yeah, for instance. How old are you? I'm 30. Like, the thing was, oh, you make shorter videos to get people's attention and get them to stick around longer so they the retention is better than the algorithm promotes it more but now it's changed and it's like oh it's better if you get keep them on there for longer and so longer form content does particularly well especially if it's like serial content like episodes or something and I think maybe us as audience members who consume this stuff are kind of getting sick of the quick 10-second TikToks that's still massively popular of course but I think there's a sub group of people who want that longer form stuff and
00:46:45
Speaker
If we're okay to produce that for maybe a smaller audience who are more engaged, then that's probably more of a rewarding experience for everyone. But it's not easy because it doesn't always get the most views or the most engagement or attention. Yeah. So we all have to go to therapy to make sure we can love ourselves anyway. Yeah.
00:47:08
Speaker
All right, Lord Jod. What are we up to? Number four, I better look at my notes. This is quite a simple one, but I've already started doing it in the new year by wishing people Happy New Year. is I'd like to be a bit better at staying in touch with people. This is something I really admire in you, in how good you are at messaging people and um really cultivating your friendships. Pathological texter. You're just addicted.
00:47:39
Speaker
you're just You really value your friends, even people you don't see day to day or even every year. They might live in different countries but you maintain that connection with them and you have a really rewarding relationship. I'm not very good at messaging, I find it find it yeah it takes a lot of energy to do that so I tend to not not text people that often and I'm terrible at replying to emails and things but I really value the friendships that I have made over the years, you know, especially living in New Zealand for eight years. I've got a lot of friends there that I don't know how often I'll see now that I live in Australia. And I don't want those friendships to fade away. I mean, that just happens over time as well. You come and go from people's lives, but those, yeah, just like a handful of people that really mean something, that really
00:48:32
Speaker
I know I really value the connection that we have and would like to maintain that. I feel like it takes work and it doesn't just happen and I want to put the effort in on those those connections and maintaining them even if we're a thousand k's apart or something.
00:48:47
Speaker
Hey Maggie. Hey. Yeah, we can cut this out. Are you sure? Yeah. Come on. Keep it wrong. Meg's on the podcast. Hey, Jordan's sister's just arrived. Hello. She's looking ravishing. Look at this setup in the van as well. What's something you want to bring into 2025? On the spot. Well, we're about to go get gelato. So making it okay to eat gelato every day. Multiple times. Multiple times if you want. You can definitely cut this out. That's going in. Everyone, this is today's sponsor. Do all the ice cream. Do all the ice cream. Shout out. I'll be sure to tag them. They might give us a free tea, don't they? Yeah. I want free gelato. But I was just going to say we're going to get gelato. OK. You guys want anything? I can bring it back. No, we're good. Bye, everybody. Special guest, Megan. How exciting. Health family affair. Maybe we should, when do we get gelato?
00:49:48
Speaker
We should probably go down and get some, it's a hot day. It is a hot day. I think you should do, just on the gelato theme, I think you should do a whole episode on why you think ice cream is a health food. Or the sub stack post. It feels so obvious that I shouldn't need to tell people, lecture people about the health benefits of our holiest of dairy treats. I think you could just have a whole podcast dedicated to alternative health takes.
00:50:17
Speaker
I found a domain that I bought the other day called ice cream is healthy Like it's not the most creative thing in the world, but it says what it is and it was gonna be dedicated to this exact topic this is a total of zero posts It's been a multi-year Fascination. Sometimes you sort of follow those breadcrumbs or little bits of gluten-free cone Into the dark forest of adulthood, but yeah, I should bring that back But on your communicating with friends front, I think a lot of people, so many people struggle with text avoidance and comms avoidance and paralysis and overwhelming. All of the trappings of living in like a hyper-connected era. And I'm wondering what your strategies are gonna be. Are you gonna text people when something reminds you of them and you might have a little pop of, hey, just thinking about you because of this, or on their birthday,
00:51:09
Speaker
What's your game plan? I actually have to have steps to implement this. You need a friendship strategy. Yeah, friendship holistic management plan.
00:51:21
Speaker
I think, um, I don't have huge expectations that it's like, oh, you know, we're going to catch up once a month. It's like, even if we just have a ah video called twice a year, like a year goes fast. I think that's like enough to maintain a friendship with people or yeah, just sending a text. If something reminds you of them and it's just like a nice thing as someone, yeah, I've had that people do that for me. And it's like, ah, you, you thought of me and like even someone, I didn't even know that well.
00:51:52
Speaker
just took the time to send that. It's like, ah, and it maintains that connection. And I think that's the key to it is just simplifying it. I don't want, like if it's gonna be hard work, I'm not gonna do it. And so if it's like, yeah, we have a video chat once this year. It's like, that'll be that'll be fine. I think, yeah, where everybody's busy and everyone has a lot of relationships to maintain. It's especially hard with people who aren't in your immediate physical sphere.
00:52:22
Speaker
John's gonna be a good friend starting tomorrow. Yeah, look out the seven people I might message. Yeah, it's not like I have a massive friend at work anyway. I like you. Just a lot of subscribers.
00:52:37
Speaker
ah Okay, this one's called In Sync With Nature, like the boy band. Oh yeah, has it spelt? n star s y n c cool or otherwise known as integrate everything and i was inspired is this some permaculture thing are you going to bring permaculture into this again aren't you no i've been i've been requested by people to have less permaculture over times and undertones and brainwashing on the podcast. This is purely my own making. It was actually inspired by Meg Olman, Masupumi. But the other day we were messaging, I was languishing in bed, it was New Year's Eve, and actually had terrible period pain, and um it was beautiful to spend a good chunk of the day in bed reading a book, and I happened to be texting Meg on that day, and I said that I was slugging it up on my menstrual cycle, and she was like, oh snap, I also bleed on the dark moon. And I was like,
00:53:36
Speaker
fuck i did not know it was the dark moon and what's that yeah okay so there have been times in my life where i'm more or less connected to the cosmos the phases of the moon the seasons and obviously living at a place like meliodora and obviously like in our in our context that we're living now like we're pretty connected to outside and to those greater natural forces that hold us whether we like it or not or know it or not but just the fact that Meg she referenced that and I had that recognition that I've completely lost touch with the moon cycle and you know obviously how that is integrated and connected to my own hormonal cycle and womanly rhythms and um I felt really sad about that that
00:54:30
Speaker
I hadn't registered the dark moon and acknowledged, acknowledged the dark moon. It's a beautiful point in the month in the lunar calendar. I feel like I want to, okay, this is like ah another confusingly two-pronged intention, but not only be more conscious of what's going on in the world around me, and I i really think it comes down to going the fuck outside like most of this is just just go outside and look up or look at what's fruiting and look at what's flowering or feel the ground beneath your feet or feel the temperature on your skin or or work with the garden because you're fully entangled in a seasonal process when you're preserving food and anticipating something and so being more in touch in general and knowing what goddamn moon phase it is
00:55:17
Speaker
by padding outside with bare feet of an evening and and looking up. So not only that, but I also want to be more, I want to integrate or merge and braid together these this this calendar of events that's happening around us all the time, you know, so-and-so is hatching from the nest, whoever is flowering, like all of these seasonal indicators, this big calendar that we're all nested within, I want to bring that into my work and my relationships and my text messages and the comments that I make on social media and in any way that I can integrate integrate the wild world into my own kind of communion whether that is a professional one on this podcast in a text message to a friend and that could be like you know I'm trying to do this a lot in my copywriting so
00:56:06
Speaker
I'm getting paid as a freelance writer and I have a lot of like freedom creatively in terms of what I create for people and sometimes it's like well I'm gonna start this email with a little story about a bird singing at this time of year and my clients are cool with that because they trust me but in a subtle way we're like seeding that wild awareness in a responder.
00:56:27
Speaker
and similarly I can choose to talk about like a weather pattern or or a season with a friend in a conversation or a text message or an email as opposed to something else that's something like referencing just human-made stuff so yeah I'm kind of obsessed with this idea that we can sync with these natural rhythms and actually start seeding that in the culture at large like I know as an example Lucy Richards who's been on the podcast she releases her sub stack on the minute of the full moon each month and so sure everyone's heard of a publishing schedule everyone knows that you know regular posting of content is a good thing to do if you're hoping to build an audience but what if you tether it to something that's actually happening
00:57:16
Speaker
in the sky. Like I really feel like that's a way to to start waking up to our place in the web of life and I think as a content creator I wish there was a better word for that. As an artist. An influencer. and No. Good heavens. As someone who puts stuff out there, I think we have the opportunity to call in those more yeah natural facets of the wider world to really like piece it all back together because we're so human-oriented and human-centric. I need to do that in myself.
00:57:53
Speaker
And I want to do it in the words and in the audio that I release. Cool. That makes sense. I like that. Yeah, it does. Yeah. But what's a dark moon? I can't be the only one who doesn't know what a dark moon is. The dark moon is when there's like no moon, as in it's fully in shadow. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of women do actually bleed on the dark moon. And I don't want to be prescriptive about it. And everyone has a different cycle and it changes. And it's all over the place. But one rhythm can be bleeding on the dark moon, which feels apt. It's like,
00:58:22
Speaker
you're you're turning inwards and there's it's like blood and birthly and and like a a fallowing time for a woman and the moon is also in shrouded in darkness and then on the full moon full and bright and egg-like that's when we can release an egg and ovulate so our our womb and our internal waters are very influenced by the moon cycles but How did I not key into the fact that the moon was in shadow? And I also sort was in my shadow side on that day as well. Wow. So what's the Vasculian's publishing schedule going to be tied into Central Victorian natural rhythms?
00:59:09
Speaker
The Risms of Jara Country there is that an episode comes out every time ah gray strike thrustsh laser egg a Good bird language still! I'm learning birds. Maybe it will be. I haven't quite figured that out yet. I mean there are so many cues. Maybe not as punctual. The moon is a very punctual. Yeah.
00:59:32
Speaker
entity so but That would be good. You can have the freedom just release it kind of whenever if it was tied to some like animals behavior Nice. No wish mate. Okay, I've got one more. This is more of a practical thing, but this year I'd like to deepen my knowledge and skill around hunting and fishing that was a big thing that I learned last year that I'd been wanting to do for the quite a few years and so I'm still at the very beginning of that kind of journey but I think yeah it was it's been one of the it's been such a good conversation starter for us around kind of ethics of eating meat and where we get it and how it's done and I've enjoyed that almost as much as doing it just like the thinking around it and
01:00:25
Speaker
I there are still like I do still find it challenging like I find hunting challenging even though it feels like if I'm going to eat meat that it's the right thing for me to do but there's still these questions that sit there for me about how I want to engage with that practice um and there's so much more to learn in that and just move closer to yeah I suppose living more in integrity with how I feel yeah with with my with my values I suppose because yeah I feel that you know we both eat meat and it feels good for our bodies but it doesn't sit great with me to yeah even eat meat from animals I have to go to the abattoir like that doesn't that's like the system that we have even if it's organic if it's like found the best they still have to go through the abattoir and it's not like we can entirely be fed off hunting and fishing but i think there's something towards just moving a bit more in that direction that just i feel drawn to and i'm kind of listening to that and thinking there's a there's a lot here
01:01:32
Speaker
more than just like oh we get the food from this there's a whole like it's a deep nature connection as well it's um i've never engaged with the river more than when we were living there at that cottage and i was fishing down and i just had this whole new appreciation for that landscape and interest in it it wasn't this like theoretical I want the river to be healthy like of course I do but it was actually I wanted to be healthy because I'm eating the fish that come out of this it was like a whole another level of engagement in the landscape and there are probably lots of ways that you can
01:02:06
Speaker
forge that connection and but for me I found sourcing my food that way it's yeah it's a real kind of practice of connection with with nature with the landscape and I want to just move more towards that and yeah go go kind of deeper into that practice yeah yeah it's amazing having a side row seat to your participation and learning in this space because it's obviously so close to my heart and something that I've talked about for many many years but I i really struggle with the dispatching, the killing of an animal, the taking of a life and really seeing you do that in a ah conscientious and reverential way is
01:03:01
Speaker
is so beautiful to behold but also what I'm learning to buy your forays into fishing and like even just like anytime we go out fishing you know most of the time there's not you know bringing something home it's just an exercise in going for a walk and staring into the water and seeing some really cool shit like no fishing venture is ever wasted like last night we saw a beautiful squid and we watched the sunset and the moon rise and saw little unidentified black fishies squiggling around in the water and it was just like it's such it's the whole package and you're tuned in in a new way to what's going on and like the questions you're asking too around you know well where is my where is my sinker gonna go if it comes off the end of my line and
01:03:52
Speaker
Yeah you're right that I think the theoretical like intellectual exercise in contemplating what's good or bad for the environment is nothing compared to that lived participatory experience and that's I think normal for a human person. It's like we know not to shit where we eat because you know in the past we would have been fouling up our own local environment or we would wouldd have seen the ramifications of our actions like in such an immediate and profoundly detrimental way to ourselves if we were like living close to the land and having to to procure our own food from the environs around us but like that separation, yeah that distance that's now between us allows us to move away from that deep motivation which comes from hey I need to eat that so you want the river to be healthy because you can be eating out of it. Yeah I just I love learning all this through you and I wouldn't have had that experience otherwise.
01:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's been great learning together and having these conversations together and having your perspective. Yeah, you you like to challenge ideas and things, so it's it's kind of deepened my thinking around it as well.
01:05:03
Speaker
And yeah, it's this balance between, again, like back to my point about living less in my head. Like I could think all day about the pros and cons of hunting versus being a vegan or and it's important to consider all those things because they do matter.
01:05:19
Speaker
but you can kind of create an argument for any way of eating if you pick the right numbers I think but then it's also just listening to what feels right intuitively and not to prescribe anything to anyone else because we all eat differently and it's such a personal choice but I'm trying to listen more to what what I feel called to and I think yeah doing having this as a practice is something that's like I'm being i'm being called towards so I'll keep listening to that and see where it goes. A prime example of not doing what makes you happy but doing what's going to enlarge and grow you.
01:05:58
Speaker
because it isn't something that is, at face value, nice to do. No. And I find it, yeah, a lot of times really challenging. Like, you know, being out there hunting or fishing is enjoyable because you are, it's a skill, you know, and you're in nature and you get to see all this beauty and it's exciting when the line gets tugged and it's like, oh, there's there's something on here. It's like there is that to it as well. But yeah I don't like killing anything but it's also it's this interesting thing of just because it's uncomfortable does that make it the wrong thing to do there's so many so many questions in that like yeah you know hunting rabbits I haven't learned how to hunt bigger animals yet but just been hunting rabbits and
01:06:46
Speaker
I know people have an attitude that they are they're either a pest and there's so many of them but they're still a living creature and it they're still worthy of respect ah even if they are potentially harmful to a landscape. um They haven't chosen to be there and I think they deserve as much respect as any other animal. so just trading treating them right and yeah sitting in the hardness of it. Yeah there's so many skills involved and we were talking the other day about well I think a ah big barrier between us and eating more foraged foods and eating more feral animals is how they taste and obviously they've got a different quality and texture and flavor to commercial or kind of coddled sauces of food.
01:07:33
Speaker
But at the same time I think a big skill and a big leap in us being able to do this is really emphasising the deliciousness. So how can we learn new skills of preparation? Like a lot of weeds that are so wonderfully nutritious are tough and leathery or you have to pick them at the right time.
01:07:50
Speaker
prepare them in a certain way there's like a three-step process rather than just a flash in the pan so it's like with the rabbits yeah I know as someone who really loves to cook I want to get much much better at doing the rabbits justice and also motivating and incentivizing us to lean more on a kind of feral local food by learning the most delicious preparations because it's not the same as chicken breast. no and yeah And then the organs and how can we incorporate those things in a culinarily elegant way. It's not about suffering through it. like There has to be ways to make that fulfilling and
01:08:34
Speaker
setting ourselves up to want to do it because it is more challenging than buying something from the supermarket. Yeah, oh yeah, that's it. The two, just having the and having the space in our lives where we can spend an hour processing five rabbits, like there's a lot to it that's not always pleasant, you know, it's ah it is a lot of work. But I think bringing that in and making it a regular part of our rhythm would be great. And if anyone out there has any delicious rabbit recipes, feel free to message Katie. That would be great. Yeah. Yeah. So that's my five.
01:09:08
Speaker
okay well i've got two more but one of them is very short and i will keep it short because ironically the computer battery is running out in a way that i said would never happen again so number six is george i would like to sing a song with you whoa or a jam with george i want to make some music and i'd really love to learn a song that we would feel semi-comfortable whipping out around a campfire or at a party because I love and appreciate other people bringing entertainment and music to gatherings and I so dearly want to be that person but it scares the shit out of me but there's also something about being able to do it with your beloved partner
01:09:59
Speaker
and not be fancy and we're not musicians, but I'd love to pick a song and have it as something that we practice and might be able to offer to people. I like it. What do you think? Can I play the guitar and you sing? Or we both sing? Oh, I thought we'd be playing, like, sticks. Oh, right. Yeah, i play this up lady a bit I can play the sticks. It's gonna be pretty rudimentary.
01:10:28
Speaker
Yeah, no, that sounds good. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So that's pretty simple. Yeah. um And then my final one is called Catch and Release or Scribe the Indescribable or Write Like You Mean It. So I want to do more writing and I've been spending a lot of time podcasting this last year.
01:10:49
Speaker
it is just past the anniversary of the podcast actually so it feels really good to say that but unfortunately my old friend writing in words has copped a bit of a beating and hasn't had a lot of time in the sun this year even though I do script the intros to this podcast doesn't feel the same as the kind of writing that I love which is like twisted and convoluted and should never really be spoken out loud so I want to write to come out more time to get back to some writing. But also, as you know, Jordan, something that I'd like to write about is how to how to be someone in community who initiates, who blesses the meal, who sings a song, who gathers people together, who knows how to build build the village
01:11:42
Speaker
I want to try and capture and gather those recipes if you like for for cooking up a really awesome community and write about them, but write about them for people who feel a little bit shy and a little bit like me, not a natural leader in that space, not someone who necessarily wants to be out the front or putting myself out on a limb in order to kind of bring people together or set the scene and I am really inspired by people like Charlie McGee. We were at the solstice party at Meliodora the other night and Charlie, we were just, we had this lavish table of food and potluck that was the offerings of all of these friends from far and wide and so many delicious meals were sitting on this table. It was absolutely
01:12:24
Speaker
it was groaning under the weight of all of these gorgeous meals that people had made and David Hongren kind of gave his little spiel and people were about to just flock like flock to the table descend on the food and Charlie McGee was there with Brenner and he was like wait a second we've got to bless this meal everybody and in his charismatic way had a song a call and response song that was a meal blessing song and it was so much fun and everyone got into it and he had us like rolling around laughing and it also felt like a really important pause and a ritual before we we ate this meal just acknowledge that how grateful we were that this food
01:13:04
Speaker
was there for us and that we'd all cooked for each other with so much love and intention and I admire people so greatly who can step up to the plate literally in that sense and and just invite us all into like maybe another level of togetherness and conscious you know participation in whatever situation we find ourselves in and I aspire to be that person but I know that it's it's a big edge it's a big challenge for me so yeah I want to want to spend more time writing but I'd love to write like catch and release these hacks, these ideas, these like how to's, you know, how can you be someone who who is comfortable to bless a meal? And like, what would that look like? And how many ways can we do it? And what if you are totally allergic to the notion of blessing something in the first place? So yeah, I feel feel kind of daunted and excited at the prospect of starting to release some of those
01:14:03
Speaker
Claire Dunn calls them like technologies of village and people balk at that word like the technology but it is it's it's it's a skill and it's a mechanism of enriching our experience together in a community and yeah I haven't figured out like how or when or I think it'll be part of like the groups that I mentioned part of that time might be dedicated to the the kind of focus and and discipline that I need to to stick to something like this, but I would love it to aggregate into some kind of like yeah series on substack or an online book or a book. I'm just fascinated by
01:14:43
Speaker
The little ritualistic things we can bring to our lives and especially when we don't necessarily feel equipped to do those things if we're very shy or introverted or awkward. If we're the wormy chestnut who has a few ah few little wriggles and blemishes and we need to find ways to get through that and feel comfortable doing it anyway.
01:15:05
Speaker
<unk> It's such a gift, isn't it? I thought that when when Charlie did that blessing, it's like, what a gift to bring to a gathering. Oh, ferocious sound. What a gift to bring to a gathering, to be able to to do that and create that for people. And it's like, not everyone's jam, not everyone's keen on that. But I think if we have more people who are, it's such a such a joyous thing to bring. Yeah. And I love the idea of seeing you write more because you're such an amazing writer.
01:15:35
Speaker
I don't know about that, but... I know about that. Oh, dude. We all know about it, right guys? yeah Everyone knows. Stop working the audience. Is she going to be crowd surfing on a wave of invisible bodies? You ready? Ready? I'm going to jump.
01:15:54
Speaker
Aww, for the cheerleading joy and thanks for sharing your five things with me. Yeah. And sitting in this sweaty, sweaty and beautiful van of your own making to record this episode. Yeah. On your holiday. That was a pleasure. And yeah, just thinking how amazing it's been the last year since we had our last chat of just remembering sitting in the tea house, sitting across from you. Yeah.
01:16:22
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think I've told that story on air, but maybe that's the story for another time. The story of having the lunch and spending so much time together on that day. Yeah, it feels incredible that it's only been a year. Yeah, all right. We can come back next year. Let's do it again next year. Let's go fishing.