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The Holy Fool, Hallowed Weeds & How To Just Start Writing Already with Helen Lehndorf
841 Plays5 days ago
I share a GRIPPING TALE about a droplet of water before sitting down with Helen Lehndorf, who is a radical forager, author, anarchist, poet and plenty more wonderful things besides. I loved her memoir A Forager's Life so much! Helen and I dive straight into the weeds about permaculture life strategies, unlocking creativity, writing for nature and how to rebel against The Machine by playing the Holy Fool. Medicine for muddled, blocked or chronically shy creatives.
IN THIS CONVO
Swimming upstream of the over culture
Undoing cultural entrainment
Social permaculture
Permaculture design web
Establishing a daily writing habit
The world isn’t saying PLEASE ARTIST MAKE MORE ART but you should anyway
Anarchism
The YES, AND rule
The Holy Fool archetype
AI? *shrugs*
Enspiriting your art
ECOPOETICS
Getting past sharing insecurity
Writing for nature
Why little lives are worth sharing
Invisible care work
Journalling versus publishing
Blackberry medicine
What is it to relate with plants?
PUNK GRANDDAD DANDY
Synesthesia
The future has an ancient heart
🧙♀️ LINKY POOS 🧙♀️
A Forager’s Life ~ Helen Lehndorf
The Bruise Palette ~ Helen Lehndorf
Social permaculture ~ Looby Macnamara
Kirsty Porter
Wild ~ Cheryl Strayed
E.M Forster ~ Howard’s End
Annie Dillard
Sound credit: Morepork / Ruru (Owl) - Auckland, New Zealand by tdes -- https://freesound.org/s/319539/ -- License: Attribution 3.0
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Riskillians' Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
race scal end Hey, this is Katie and you're tuned into Riskillians, a podcast about the hard, soft and surprising skills that will help us stay afloat if our modern systems don't.
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm gratefully recording in Jara country, central Victoria, where the ground is alive with fungi. Fungi? Fungi? Dial in and tell me! All these mushrooms, brown, red, purple, slimy, dainty and tentacled. Chickweed and c cleavers are springing up at the base of trees with free medicine. And the first frosts are settling on our veggie patch, encrusting our brassicas with diamonds.
00:00:47
Speaker
Apologies this week's episode is a tad late. I got caught up carving a wooden spoon from a branch of our nectarine tree and figured that you of all people would understand.
Finding Wonder in Small Moments
00:00:57
Speaker
So this week I have a little story about an even littler story that I've probably mentioned on the podcast before, but I think it deserves a place in the intro.
00:01:07
Speaker
So during an online course that I was part of maybe five years ago now, we'd always start our sessions with a story of the day, which was each of us just sharing a tiny snippet of something beautiful from our world.
00:01:22
Speaker
And a story that one woman told has stuck with me. I remember it so clearly all these years later. It was about her watching a droplet of water hanging from the gutter of her home, growing fatter and fatter, bending the light, filling with an upside-down universe that danced and trembled on the precipice of imminent peril.
00:01:45
Speaker
She described the scene in vivid detail, lingering over the shape, the colour, the jiggling, the cool air, and the smell of rain.
00:01:56
Speaker
I was completely mesmerised. My attention zoomed all the way in like a camera lens, magnifying this minuscule event. Droplet hangs from gutter.
00:02:06
Speaker
Woman watches. The end. The very telling of such a microscopic tale exploded my assumptions about what is and isn't worth sharing, or listening to for that matter.
00:02:19
Speaker
To this day, it reminds me that everything is fair game for the resourceful storyteller, that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, and that she who can behold the beauty in things that other people find kind of boring has a pretty big advantage in life.
Introducing Helen Lendorf and Her Memoir
00:02:35
Speaker
It demonstrates the power of words to paint all that we take for granted with gold and turn it into treasure. And of course, it honours water, the liquid of life that falls from the sky while we hardly bat an eyelash. Good on this woman for helping us to see.
00:02:50
Speaker
I reckon small stories like this are even more potent in the face of the biggering and bettering that is buggering things up. So it lit me up to speak with today's guest, Helen Lendorf, who is right on my page about storytelling and many other things besides.
00:03:09
Speaker
Helen is an author, a lifelong forager, nature writer, poet, permaculture practitioner, proponent of food sovereignty, anarchism, and all of the things that get us reskillient folk out of bed in the morning.
00:03:23
Speaker
I recently gobbled up Helen's memoir, A Forager's Life, which was one of those books you willingly lose yourself to, growing so fond of the people within the pages that you feel a pang of grief when it ends. So it is my pleasure to welcome Helen to the airwaves to share her wisdom on so many topics, including eco-poetics, creativity, writing in the time of AI, the holy fool, the hallowed plants, and getting out of your way to let the river of inspiration flow.
00:03:54
Speaker
Major kudos to those committed listeners who leave Riskilliance reviews on platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. It gives me such joy to read your kind words. Thank you for taking the time to share.
00:04:07
Speaker
And here's a little forest owl called a moorpork or a ruru playing Helen Lendorf onto the podcast stage.
00:04:20
Speaker
I am so happy to be starting my Wednesday in this way with Helen Lendorf. I am just really grateful that you've carved out time to spend with us this morning. I'm wondering, first of all, how are you going, where you are and what's happening in your world?
00:04:39
Speaker
I'm so excited for this, Katie, because I am a Raskillian super fan. And I've listened to every episode and some multiple times because um they warranted re-listening to. um so I'm very honoured to be invited. i live in the Manawatū in New Zealand, um in a so a small city called Palmerston North, or in Māori Te Papioia or Pamutana.
00:05:06
Speaker
And um so that's on the North Island towards the bottom of the North Island. And um it's a lovely sunny autumn day here
Helen's Life Philosophy and Roles
00:05:14
Speaker
as well. One of the the things I'm itching to speak with you about today is writing and creativity, and especially as we come into winter where Hopefully some of us are going to be reclaiming a little bit of spaciousness and time. So I'd like to put that on the table and on the agenda for this conversation. But before we go too far down that track, getting more of a sense of your day-to-day life, I wonder if your you know if your life was a delicious dish, what would some of the main ingredients be?
00:05:44
Speaker
Oh, yes. um It would be, it would have many ingredients and it would be spicy. Yeah. but um And um some of the ingredients would be foraged and a lot of them homegrown and a lot of them um exchanged with friends.
00:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, my life is, it's it's interesting because i I try to have a simple life because I find the idea of radical simplicity very attractive, voluntary simplicity, and yet my life feels very full, full of people and ideas and projects and gardens and creativity so yeah there's that funny balance when you're aiming for a more simple life like you're swimming upstream of the overculture simplicity is quite tricky you know
00:06:38
Speaker
um So my life is full, but full of delicious things. more Less poetically and more practically, um I'm a writer and an editor and a teacher and a passionate permaculture practitioner. And my days are spent, I have a son who has autism, he's 21 now, um so he's left the school system. So my days are spent um hanging out with him and finding ways for his life to be positive and nourishing. in my garden and then a lot of probably like you hunched over a laptop like Gollum tapping away not that Gollum had a laptop that metaphor didn't really work get what i mean
00:07:21
Speaker
And I'm very passionate about um community engagement. I'm very passionate about food justice and food exist about their accessibility. So um a lot of stuff I have done is around those kind of arenas. Also, of course, regenerative practices and and creating that food.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah, a fittingly creative response that I would expect from someone such as yourself, a spicy and brimming life. Do you see that there the trickiness comes from living between worlds, as so many of us do, who are pursuing ah philosophically radical simplicity and then practically trying to actually, you know, keep food on the table?
00:08:04
Speaker
Do you see the the tension arises from those two worlds kind of failing to mesh or do you think that this simple life is deceptive in terms of it is complex and it is abundant and it is ever needing tending?
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, both all of what you said there resonates with me. um i think a lot of it is undoing um entrainment, like, you know, we're very The culture we most of us have grown up in um in the West ah is a culture of and this notion of perpetual growth and adding in more, more, more, more more of everything. um So attempting to um turn around and go the other way to less, less, less, it it is it's a conscious connection. and um sometimes it does feel effortful. And also just, I don't know, the demands of the world are many, aren't they? If you are a family person, a friend to many, your work responsibilities, and a huge one for me is my care load with having a disabled boy, young man. So if you want to attend to all of the demands of the world, with your whole heart and energy, life can fill up very quickly. so I recognise in myself that I'm consistently having to reassess and go, whoa, you know, the the bowl is is starting to spill over.
00:09:34
Speaker
I mean, it's it's a beautiful thing to continually contemplate.
Permaculture Design and Life Planning
00:09:38
Speaker
Yes, if I can shout out a social permaculture thinker, um by the name of Luby McNamara. She's a UK um permaculture a philosopher and design system person. And she has got this fantastic um thing called the permaculture design web.
00:09:58
Speaker
And um I apply her design web to my life a lot. And I find it really helpful because it's non-linear, it's spirallic. um and you integrate feedback along the way to to make adjustments to how you're doing things so if I can just sneak permaculture into the conversation really early I can really recommend Luby McNamara's design web um which you can find freely on the internet you don't have to buy her books although you should buy her books if you want to support a writer and that helps me
00:10:31
Speaker
I just, you know, because I have a journaling practice, so I usually make a copy of Luby's design web and put it the front or the back of my journal and then just constantly refer to it and that helps me adjust things along the way.
00:10:45
Speaker
Voluntary simplicity is, the word it's got the word simplicity into it, but it's but it's um perpe perplexingly complicated, which is ironic, isn't it? keeps us on our toes well yeah thank you for reminding me of luby's work because it seems to you know there's just so many incredible thinkers and authors out there that sometimes they they fall out of my awareness but i wonder if without you know trying to wear luby's hat and speak from her kind of knowledge and authority if you can
00:11:20
Speaker
Tell us a bit more about the design web and how you're using it in daily life. What does it entail? So it begins with a vision. So you have a vision of something you want to manifest in your life, achieve in your life or project or a way of being or a whatever. doesn't matter what it is, but you start with a vision and then you go around the the um circle through all the different phases. and then it ends with a pause so it doesn't end in a linear way with completion or perfection it ends with pause so in that way it's very like the natural world you know like seasonal cyclical so you're not headed towards some notion of completion or perfection are headed to a pause so you finish on a pause and then in the next phase vision again which is the first phase So um hopefully that gives you a sense of why it's um super how helpful if you have a holistic worldview or an ecologically informed worldview.
Eco-Poetics and Integrating Life Details
00:12:21
Speaker
oh yeah. Yeah. Any of those elegant and ecologically minded tools are
00:12:28
Speaker
wonderful to be reminded of and to have in our toolkit, especially, i mean, it feels this is the magic of conversation. I find that something that's surfacing in my life just somehow magically waves into a conversation that I'm having with another open-hearted human. And before this call, I was really trying to feel into these themes or a theme that's arising for me that I really want to speak with Helen about. And it is something around,
00:12:57
Speaker
the the details of your life and the kind of management for want of a better word of that those small and vital details that make the whole because the the saying you know life is what happens when you're busy making plans just keeps floating through my my consciousness because I'm I think I'm a little bit addicted to the grandeur of the plan like the bigger picture and can be really blind or maybe oblivious or inattentive to the little things which actually constitute the doing and the living and yeah Helen you've already woven in some of those themes um so I'm really keen to chat with you about your writing practice too because I understand that's a daily thing and you've actually written a book about how others can implement a daily creative collaging or writing practice so I wonder if we can go there and and talk about um that kind of structure that you have for yourself what does that look like what are you writing about and how do you stay committed to something that's every single day yeah I um I just feel like I'm somebody that wants to
00:14:04
Speaker
um suck the marrow out of life and um and i'm i'm ah I think I'm like quite annoying to go for a walk with because i'm I'm the person that's always pointing going look look and I guess I've always been like that since I was a kid i guess my writing that's what my writing is you know it's my excitement about just being here and how incredible and complex and heartbreaking and strange and bewildering and confusing. and
00:14:35
Speaker
everything the world is and so through my writing I am just um trying to ah share that point of view i suppose that that way I see things it's basically just me pointing going look look and hoping that I can bring people along with me um yeah and and like I what really makes me happy in life is connecting with other people So I try to always write in a way that invites connection, either connection with me and my thoughts or connection with the natural world. um I have flirted with the academic um world and
00:15:17
Speaker
um i I know I am able to perform in that realm but to me it it's I'm more interested in connecting with people than sort of um doing intellectual gymnastics I suppose and and for people that aren't really connected to nature I just hope I ask for the like I ask nature for support in trying to be something of a lens or a bridge two to help people see nature in a new way or a fresh way or a different way than maybe they already do. So I'm interested in, and I'm ah'm really interested in preaching to the choir, like people that, like yourself, that we probably have a lot in common. I'm really interested in that because conversations and exchanges with people who share values is very enriching and it reignites your passion. and and And if you're tired, somebody else's excitement can refresh you. And equally, i hope with my writing to invite people who don't share my worldview in.
00:16:27
Speaker
yeah The most important thing to me with my writing is connecting people to the natural world that's way more important to me than um than you know trying to show them that i'm clever or anything like that because i'm not as yeah oh beautiful helen and i very much relate to that yeah really delicious invitation personally to be a conduit or a a ah bridge maker or a point and lookerer and the really natural inclination to share share the excitement and wonderment and evoke a feeling evoke some kind of emotional response in a responder to those words one thing that i that trips me up one of many, is botheredness. Like i I can go for a bike ride or a walk and be completely beset by ideas and insights. It's like I'm in a paintball range being splattered by this technicolor possibility of all of the things that I can write down when I get home. And actually the pain and the overwhelm of that
00:17:36
Speaker
oftentimes keeps me in this paralysis. like I don't know where to start. I don't know what to share. And also, can I even muster that the dopamine or whatever neurochemical it is that will help me actually sit and pour that out then onto a page? Like how do you, if at all you can relate to those sentiments, like how do you be bothered and just and show up for the work that the world is obviously asking you to do?
Creativity and Overcoming Perfectionism
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:02
Speaker
um Yeah, I mean, and most writers, most creative people, usually a bit obsessive, usually a little bit pig-headed and stubborn. You know, we have to cultivate a lot of tenacity and determination because really and the world isn't usually going, please, artist, make more art. You know, usually you have to really, really want to do it. um So those sort of stubborn qualities are really useful. I have a beautiful friend and here in Palmerston North, Kirsty Porter, who has done the artwork on my forthcoming poetry book, um The Bruce Palette. and something that Kirsty said to me a few years back and which blew my mind you know how you can just be talking to a friend and they say the wisest thing and you're like oh my gosh my friend is a you know but um yeah I was just talking about how because I like to dabble in visual art I'm mostly a writer but i dabble in visual art Kirsty's a phenomenal visual artist and she said
00:19:06
Speaker
Oh, um you know, I was talking about how I get all neurotic about things. And she said, oh, well, I'm not a perfectionist, so i get lots done. And that blew my mind. I'm not a perfectionist, so I get lots done. And that might seem like a really simple statement, but, I mean, spend some time with it, you know.
00:19:27
Speaker
It's like, whoa. How did that translate for you? Well, it just takes all the state it takes the stakes away. It takes the pressure away. It's like it but it brings you back to a state of play and experimentation, you know. So that was really helpful for me. And then also, um like, i don't really like to um pin myself to any particular political party or anything, I sort of think of myself like fairly anarchist in approach. But as something that really informs my um creativity is sort of an anarchist spirit. And the the reason I'm attracted to anarchism is because it's the most mischievous of all the political orientations. Anarchism is playful and mischievous and eccentric. And the anarchist friends I have, are they you know do odd fun things because it's odd and fun and it um disrupts people's sense of how the world should be. So um when and I'm supposed to be talking about my writing, I am talking about my writing, I promise. um
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah, so in an anarchic spirit, um getting back to an orientation of play, lowering the stakes and collaboration is really great because, um you I don't know if you ever did theatre sports at high school or whatever, but you know that rule of theatre sports, yes and, that when you're playing theatre sports you don't refuse an offer.
00:21:09
Speaker
there's something mad in the theater sports and you never refuse it you go yes and and so i think having a yes and approach to life um to creative life is amazing because nothing is then out of the pot and nothing is wrong and you don't let um moments where you don't agree or you are in opposition kind of slow things down you just go okay well that was something and what's next so there's that kind of yes and theater sports approach to creativity and then finally i'm really interested in and increasingly more interested as time goes on in the in the notion of the holy fool um this sort of archetype of the holy fool and i think um
00:21:57
Speaker
If you look around at our most exciting artists and thinkers right now, and you know with the prevalence of AI, it's a really challenging time to be ah creative, with AI looming up behind us trying to eat our jobs and souls and roles. um But the whole holy fool is the person that acts intentionally, eccentrically, or in a sort of a mad way to challenge social norms and reveal deeper truths. And so just taking on that archetype of the holy fool or, you know, in other cultures, they might have an animal that represents that same kind of, um
00:22:38
Speaker
archetype like the coyote and Native American culture and um like lots of cultures have a different version of it but I think all of those things are really important for a creative life it's really important you don't take it seriously that you take it with a sense of if I'm not going to do it the traditional way or the expected way um how am i going to be doing it and that's where the creativity lies in that little question whether you're doing a writing thing a community project or visual art or a podcast or whatever.
00:23:12
Speaker
Oh, spine tingly, dingly summary of things that I've never articulated and am so grateful for. Yes, and and the holy fool and bringing in the AI thing because i this really strongly connects to what you were saying about being um that advocate, spokesperson, megaphone for the more than human world. And I feel like this opportunity is huge in being not only the holy fool, the madcap unexpected um come in from left field field messenger for the more than human world because AI, when I read the absolutely gutless and soulless stuff that is coming out at the moment um from these large language models, I'm just completely like there's just nothing to grab hold of. I can't get a foothold on any of it because it's
00:24:03
Speaker
devoid of the place and the context of a person from which those words are springing. And I feel like as as a human who's also extremely oriented towards the living world, that's where I'm gleaning inspiration and I can literally bring the glint in that goat's eye just before they kick me I can bring that into a story to represent something or to explore something or to simply have a laugh and it's like would AI know like they're not tethered to anything real in the way that we are and that yeah more and more this passion arising in me of creating like an ecology in my writing of place, revegetating it with all of the things that are around me that can never ever be copied or um simulated. Like that is, it's grounding my writing and my expression in what's around me. And I i wonder if that's how you're feeling too, Helen.
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think I went through really a really low patch about it when it was a bit newer, And I thought, oh, it's coming for us all. It's all over. It's so are horrible. um But yeah, now like you, i um well, firstly, I'm a Gen Xer, but I'm seeing in my younger friends and my my boys who are you know, 21 25,
00:25:22
Speaker
in their peers um that and if you spend too much time on instagram you'll see that supposedly this is the year of the analog for young folks like young folks are using this word analog all over the place they are craving non-computer generated life and tactile life and kind of you know they're probably a bit nostalgic looking back at um early internet or pre-internet life ways of being creative um from then or before then.
00:25:56
Speaker
um So that gives me a lot of heart. And and then also, like like you just said, after I got through feeling really gloomy about it it, was like, yes, AI can scrape everything that every artist or writer or or poet or musician has ever done and spit out something similar.
00:26:13
Speaker
but it can't innovate. And that's what artists do. Artists innovate, right? So AI cannot innovate and AI does not have a soul. And because we are, I mean, this talk of souls, some so more science oriented people will be rolling their eyes at the moment, but um you cannot deny that when we take art in, in whatever form it comes in,
00:26:42
Speaker
if ah if you if it's art that you connect with, that you enjoy, that inspires you, it needs that inspiritedness from another person too to um create that feeling, that special source, that and that magic. So I'm feeling a bit better about it now. It's like, so i have a lot of friends who do very strange art, which, you know, is delightful. I love make weird music, do weird paintings, write strange, difficult poetry. And, um,
00:27:12
Speaker
I just don't think AI can do that. I've read AI-generated poetry. It's terrible. It's absolutely awful. um So I've come through feeling gloomy and into a better space about it. I don't think AI is very good at being weird. Yeah, weird is the way. That's the only way that I know. And I'm enjoying your use of the word inspirited.
Writing Process and Discovery
00:27:35
Speaker
That feels beautiful and apt. And i just wanted to make one more note on the AIV kind of writers or creative life is that
00:27:46
Speaker
I also noticed that focusing on the outcome or the product is rather short-sighted or a very materialistic way of looking at what, you know, what AI can or or can't do. Also, I'm interested in then how the process continues to be purpose you know It's my process. It's something that I'm writing is my way of discovering what I didn't know that I knew or that or the world knew that wanted to share with me. or you know that The process in itself is excruciating, as every writer knows, but that is...
00:28:22
Speaker
why I'm there first and foremost. And then there is something that comes from that, which is a beautiful vehicle for connection. But why would I outsource ah that process? That is how I think. That's how I make meaning. That's how I wrestle. That's how, that's, that's how. And yeah, I mean, I wouldn't actually see the point in something else kind of stepping in to relieve me of that or me reading something that hasn't come from that, that struggle and that hard one insight from somebody else. And so, Again, like I'm not you know speaking in totality about artificial intelligence and what it can or can't do and how it's serving people, but just as a writer, like these are the conclusions that I'm coming to. It's just like, I don't know shrugs. Like i don't I don't need it for any reason. And um I know that it's different when a livelihood is around what you produce, but mine isn't really. So that process is always going to be mine. Yeah, well, I mean, what you're sort of, I think you're sort of talking is that a beautiful part of the writing process is discovery. You discover things about yourself, you discover what you're capable of in words, and you discover where all the things been thinking about are heading. And you can't have that sense of discovery if you just get AI to do it. And also, if you're a writer um There is craft involved in writing and you build your craft muscles by the doing of it. If you if you love words and you love to wrestle with words and tangle with words,
00:30:01
Speaker
if you've got AI to do it, you you then lose the joy of the craft and um seeing how far you can play with things and push things, it becomes, you know, it takes all that away. It takes the craft away and the discovery away. So, it yeah, just I don't think anyone who is a capital W writer, like a passionate writer, would gain anything from getting AI to work.
00:30:27
Speaker
to do the poetry or the novel or whatever instead. i want to ask you a bit of a definitional question and then take take this where you will, but what is eco-poetics?
00:30:40
Speaker
What is eco-poetics? Wow. know. Yeah, please. I actually am a little bit in the dark and I'd love to hear from you what what this cool sounding thing is. Yeah, that that came out of left field, Katie. Eco-poetics is um the writing of place and um environmentalism, bioregionalism, nature connection, um issues of um the human place in the natural world i mean um i believe humans are nature but but examining that sort of um perceived divide yeah all of those sort of things tangled up in words and experimentation and is that
00:31:30
Speaker
on theme in this discussion? Is that kind of what you're getting at with your own style of writing? um If you had to describe it, is is it eco-poetic in nature?
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah, I would say so. um And you know how earlier I talked about how I try to be like, look at this, look at this, um look at this with my writing. but That, yeah, that is the nature of ecopoetics that I think I engage with ah engage in.
00:32:00
Speaker
It's um deep, deep looking, a deep ah connection to place and trying to get people to see that they can write nature writing wherever they live. You know, there's a lot of beautiful nature books where man conquers mountain or woman conquers incredibly long um Hiking Trail, if you think of Wild Cheryl Strait, wonderful book I love. um So my book, A Forager's Life, is woman deeply connects with writing, living in a suburb and not going very far.
00:32:45
Speaker
It's not an epic journey in any way except in the interior of my mind and my psyche. What I mean is I think it's really important that um nature writing, eco-politics, has an accessibility to it. You can walk out, look you know take off your shoes, stand on your lawn and bare feet, look down at the lawn and there's a world there. There's a huge world there under your feet on the lawn for you that you could write about, that you could discover, that you could go deep with.
00:33:18
Speaker
um Yeah, you don't have to go off to the Amazon or whatever. Oh, gosh, I adore that. They're not only helping us understand eco-poetics, but that call to claim an eco-poetic viewpoint, maybe even more impactfully in a context that others might not see as wild or deserving of the title nature, um how to bring that spirit into a suburb, into the concrete jungle and I think Claire Dunn, who we've had on this podcast before, is a champion of this enchanting the the spaces that we find ourselves in that on first glance may not be so alive, may not be so brimming with with life and magic. I just enjoy your invitation there, Helen, to to know that eco-poetics doesn't depend on you going out out there and seeking something further and further afield. It can actually be part of
00:34:22
Speaker
um the place that you you find yourself, the the little tiny patch of weeds beneath your feet. Yeah, and in fact like quite often when people say, i would love to get into foraging, but you know, I'm too busy, I can't get out to the bush, i can't, blah, blah, blah. Quite often I go, I'll just come here and I take them to the edge of a field. It could be like a school a school sports field and and literally say, look, just look here, look down and under your feet and they'll say, well what is it? It's grass. What are you talking about? And I'll be like, it's not just grass. There's
00:34:52
Speaker
daisy is plantain there's dandelion there's a piece of puha there's uh you know there's ground there's speedwell there's cat's ear and i'm pointing out all these little things and they're literally just i mean they're very you know squashed because been mown recently but they're all there and they're like what you can see all that and we're just standing on you know the rugby field um so yeah i think urban foraging is so great in that way of connecting people to nature because they think they have to go out somewhere or do something epic and it's like no it's all around you you just gotta know what look for yeah yes and i really want to dig into foraging with you but first of all before we depart from the kind of whimsical discussion around writing and creativity I read Forager's Life recently and was absolutely, i feel moved talking about the
Memoir Writing and Sharing Personal Stories
00:35:45
Speaker
book. It just inspires this real, like, ah this eye-watery sense of appreciation and the gift that you've given in sharing your story so wholly and generously. Like, it's a memoir and, as you said, it's, you know, it's the it's it's your life. It's the ordinariness and the wonder of that ordinariness and something about it just, just,
00:36:07
Speaker
totally captured my heart and I don't think it's just me I know that it's a very a very popular book and I wanted to ask you about sharing your story because what I hear from people quite frequently is is a fear or a trepidation around sharing personal slices of life and not even because they're private or there's that sense of oh it's it's mine to protect but more so why does this even matter this isn't relevant this is just my stuff like I just I'm so disheartened when I hear people put off from sharing about little details of their life because they think that it doesn't matter or there's no relevance to anyone
00:36:48
Speaker
Do you mind speaking to that a little bit, having written a memoir, having had the confidence to say, hey, this is this is my life and story and I'm going to publish it. Like what does it take to do that and how can you help other people along if they're feeling that kind of, i don't know, like cold feet or, um oh, it's pointless, why would I do that? Yeah, yeah, feeling like your life is too small or whatever. um Yeah, ah look, i I had massive um fear, trepidation,
00:37:18
Speaker
insecurity, yeah, all those things about this about that project, about that book. um The way I overcame all of that was um something I sort of um spoke briefly about earlier where I just had to get myself out of the way and think about the bigger purpose for me. And the bigger purpose was trying to be a voice for nature.
00:37:46
Speaker
And so that gave me the courage to because um yeah every day when I sat to write um I did a kind of an invocation to nature where I was like, okay, this is really scary and I'm right at my edge here and I feel like no one's going to care about my little life.
00:38:06
Speaker
So nature, I'm doing this for you, for us. And I just really need you to um give me everything I'm going to need to get out of my own way, to try to show people um you know how i see you through my eyes, to bring them with me. So I had to kind of just shove myself out of the way, shove my ego out of the way, my insecurities. And it was the bigger purpose that gave me the heart and the courage to push forward. um But it wasn't easy um because I have got, and you know, I have got a pretty small life. I haven't done anything epic apart from, you know, I've i've dedicated a lot of my life to my writing and that's epic and in a way. But in terms of adventuring and being... um
00:38:58
Speaker
going places or whatever i've had a fairly domestic fairly small life so um and also um the writer e.m forster um wrote is this epigraph at the front of um howard's end only connect and that was his um is what that's what he wrote for only connect those just those two words and so firstly there was like trying to just be a conduit for for nature and secondly um again what I was speaking about earlier is like shoving myself of the way and being like this is me holding out a hand to um other folks, other people and hoping to make connections, hoping to make more connections in the world and um hoping to like that I put out my open hand and it's a bit of a shaky hand, it's it's not sure but so just trusting that people will grab my hand you know.
00:39:56
Speaker
our personal stories are so easily cast as irrelevant, even though that's where where I find the connections are, the personal is the realm of connection. But like, can you say a bit more about choosing to write from that, that really, really personal perspective?
00:40:11
Speaker
m Yeah, well, I mean, in permaculture, we say value the margins, don't we? And um yeah, I see my life as a bit of a marginal life and so if we're valuing the margins also another one is if we if we're valuing diversity that's another permaculture principle then that means that little lives are worth um sharing and talking about you know my life isn't little to me it's huge ah there's a feminist perspective as well like mostly um you know women's work women's care work women's work in the home
00:40:50
Speaker
is often overlooked as is not important or not um rich full of ideas and building culture and um not important and so I've it's important to me to to give voice to that but I want to be visible I want to be visible yeah because um as a now that my son who who has autism is 21 and he's out of the school system and he's just you know he and I just hanging out heaps aka I am doing a lot of care work it's really easy to start to feel invisible as someone who mainly does not mainly does but does a lot of care work um so it was really important to me to include a bit of my story about having an autistic child and how that was quite socially isolating all that sort of thing that all might seem like a million miles away from foraging. To me it's sort of similar because it's it feeds into those ideas of valuing the margins, valuing diversity. um Do you see how they're sort of intertwined?
00:42:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because because in terms of disability we don't we don't value diversity. It's really difficult to be a disabled adult. It's very marginalising so So that was important to me to give voice to that. And there's a ah nature writer who I adore, American writer called Annie Dillard. And Annie Dillard says, um how you live your days is how you live your life.
00:42:27
Speaker
that is a really important maxim to me because we don't live in terms of a life, we live moment to moment. And, um you know, if you're living with heart and spirit and energy and philosophy and ideas and thoughts and creativity, then those moments to moments are alive and vital and full and interesting. So, yeah, it's not so much about what you do outwardly, it's about the richness of an inner life, I think, and a lens on the world.
00:42:58
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for for going so much deeper with that question. and I can't help myself have one more writing question for you. um So obviously for all of us, but especially in a position where you're you're doing a lot of care work and you're making choices around how you're going to spend the time that you have and that's limited, how do you decide whether to sit down and write in your journal as a private kind of expunging of whatever thoughts and demons that you have on that particular day versus writing something online to share and it probably takes a little bit of a different kind of hat at least it's a different end result like do you have to make those choices in your life Helen am I going journal or am I going to blog?
00:43:43
Speaker
Yeah, um so journaling is, ah for me, it's like a way of unwinding or mental processing everything that's going on.
00:43:54
Speaker
So um either well capturing it, sometimes capturing it, or um using the journal to unwind, if I'm feeling overwhelmed, unwind my thoughts. or also capture things that I'm finding inspiring before they float off and I never see them again.
00:44:11
Speaker
And I find that because I write poetry as well, my poetry often begins in my handwritten journal and then my longer form stuff, I can go straight to the laptop, but but it's the the poetry usually begins. I have to hand write the poetry stuff or the poetry stuff will just begin as a ah journal scrawl and then I'll see something in there that I want to take further or turn into um a poem.
00:44:38
Speaker
If I'm writing a big project like ah like the like A Forager's Life or Right to the Centre, I'm pretty disciplined at sitting down and cracking the laptop and just getting on with that. And then there's all kinds of much more ad hoc playful, experimental stuff that goes on in my journal.
00:44:55
Speaker
So there's sort of two different mindsets for me, I think. One's quite focused, project-oriented, and the other one's more a space of play and experimentation. um yeah And it's really important that and in my journal, the journal it's like, this this is for me. It may end up um with an audience, but it's got to start with me, that that if everybody else in the world disappeared right now, I would still be doing this.
00:45:20
Speaker
One more bonus question on writing. For people who might be looking to establish a winter writing practice, what would you recommend? Use a timer.
00:45:31
Speaker
Use a timer um so that you can't stop and become neurotic. um So I like to set a timer for 20 minutes.
00:45:42
Speaker
make myself just sit down and begin. And then usually i end up for going way beyond the 20 minutes, but, but just having 20 minutes where you you, know, you've got put your phone away, you've put any disc distract distractions away, you've shut the door and you you you just commit to writing like free writing, keep the hand moving or keep typing for 20 minutes. um That's an excellent way.
00:46:04
Speaker
um Another way of beginning is to go to a poetry website at like a high quality poetry website um find a poem that you write even if you're a prose writer or um a fiction writer if you want to generate work find a poem that really moves you and really punches you in the guts and just give yourself that as a like a little snack to um to wake up your synapses and get you excited about creativity also I write to music ah often and that can really inform the mood
00:46:41
Speaker
in the sense of what comes out. Or if none of that works, something that can be fun to do if you feel like going out first is pop to your local op shop or dump shop. Look around for something that you find emotionally resonant or curious or funny or interesting or ah irritating and buy it and bring it home. Just something little, you know, doesn't cost too much and bounce off that as something to write from.
00:47:09
Speaker
Oh, such delicious prompts. Thank you, Helen. So let's greenify this conversation, get some leaves into this combo by taking it to foraging and populating it with plantain and infusing it with thistles and all of those things.
Connecting with Nature Through Foraging
00:47:29
Speaker
What is your earliest memory of connecting with a plant?
00:47:34
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's in my book. It's the first chapter and it's blackberry. Blackberry, a lovely wild brambles. Well, they're not always lovely, are they? They're they're a gnarly, gnarly, tenacious plant. But yeah, um my first memory is from when I was four. and um I was in a valley my dad took me on his motorbike he was on a motorbike trip and he left me at the bottom of the valley for what he said would be a short time but for tiny little me felt like forever and um I found a blackberry bush and had some blackberries and got very terrified of a magpie as well in the same encounter
00:48:16
Speaker
I really, really loved the way you started your book with that story and knowing that there are lots of different ways of appreciating blackberry. So what are some of the the characteristics of this very prickly and ah loathed bush?
00:48:33
Speaker
Mm. obviously the berries are delicious and full of vitamins um and you can drink ah tea from the leaves um if you're a bit constipated that can help with your tummy um upsets um and any spiky plant like a bramble or a nettle is a plant of um it teaches us about boundaries, about some being being assertive in the world and how to how to keep people just far enough away when you need to.
00:49:09
Speaker
and then blackberry in New Zealand, blackberry is often people's first or sometimes only encounter with foraging because we have a lot of blackberry growing around the margins and the coasts and things. And it's quite a thing here to grab a an empty ice cream container and go blackberrying with a group of friends or your family or whatever, blackberry and apple pie is a real late summer staple here in New Zealand. So I love that not democratic thing that um it's it's often people's first experienceing experience of foraging. and Like you say, like for our ancestors, if you're a Pākehā white person, um it's a big plant in our
00:49:55
Speaker
um you're in europe it's it's given people vitamin c over many years yeah i i think i've tried once to make tea substitute from the leaves which are high in tannins but they went moldy have you ever cured the leaves like a tea i haven't I haven't dried them.
00:50:16
Speaker
I've had it fresh when I've been tramping and had a bit of upset tummy, but I haven't dried them. But I do, I make, I'm a tea, I'm passionate about tea and I make so much tea. um It's kind of ridiculous. um my My parents bought me these beautiful jars from like an an auction, antique auction, and they're huge vintage pharmacy jars. You know how in the old days pharmacies would have all their medicines and things in jars on shelves?
00:50:45
Speaker
um And I've got two shelves of those in my kitchen and they're just full of um foraged and homegrown tea blends. It's sort of like a compulsion. i can't stop. So I'm consistently giving away herbal tea to friends, to community groups and that sort of thing, because I just can't stop. I cannot stop making it. It's just um a passion, yeah.
00:51:10
Speaker
It must look really beautiful displayed in those jars. Oh, it so does. Yeah, I love my love my little kitchen. herbal brews and things drying everywhere and tickling and fermenting and bubbling and, yeah, just a very hardworking kitchen, little kitchen.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah, I do consider it the living art of the homestead. Not only the art of homesteading, but the art that we create every time we fill a jar with something beautiful and sit it on the counter and it changes and it catches the sun and it whatever grows some kind of funky mould like it becomes this installation that is a very functional and edible form of decoration.
00:51:52
Speaker
Oh, yes, I agree. yeah yeah um Yes, I'm sure you're like me and you can't in an op shop or a dump shop or on the side of the road of people giving us stuff away. It's very difficult to walk past a large glass jar. It's like, do I really need another large glass jar? And then suddenly it's in your backpack before you know it.
00:52:12
Speaker
It's very handy in the jar economy, which is the primary economy in these parts of the world where everything's given and received in jars and they're always flowing through the households. It's great jar around.
00:52:25
Speaker
Yeah, we have something that here in my community where talk about, because, you know, people like to hold clothes swaps where you bring your your clothes you don't want anymore and you you swap them. We we joke about the ah the ongoing slow clothes swap because, you know, when you're in a close knitted community, people are forever exchanging clothes and you'll see a friend in a frock one week and then where you see different friend in the same frock.
00:52:50
Speaker
Because they've swapped, they've gifted on their frock between times when you saw them. but Yeah, I feel like hand-me-up or down or across clothes just always fit so much better. It's like they've been massaged by the bodies of your beloved friends and then they come to you and they're just, I don't know, they've got so much more character than something fresh out of the factory.
00:53:12
Speaker
I so agree. yeah It's like their essence since is is woven into the textile. Yeah. Yeah, my essence is like a healthy, thick coating of whatever is being excreted from my armpit. But anyway, they don't need to load up.
00:53:25
Speaker
so um yeah um Anyway, let's get back to the interview. i want to ask you what relating with plants means because I feel like relationship is this beautiful word that is being woven into many a conversation amongst the Permi or nature-minded people, but like, what does it actually mean to you at least to have a relationship with a plant? Because that indicates a two-way thing, a collaborative thing. How does a relationship with a plant start and what does it look like?
00:53:57
Speaker
Oh, that's such a good question. Yeah, well, I sense plants as beings like um rather than commodities. Is that the right word?
00:54:11
Speaker
um so for example i adore dandelion as a plant and as a being and i've got a dedicated a small part of my backyard to dandy to two i've got a wee dandy patch um when i'm out there with my at you know standing in the dandy patch i feel it feels like um What do the dandies feel like? It feels like kind of um hanging out with a bunch of punk granddads, I guess.
00:54:47
Speaker
okay
00:54:50
Speaker
You know how there's like, yeah, like people that were OG punks in the 70s and now they're probably pushing 60, but they never gave up their punky energy. Like, for example, I don't know if you know the band Crass, but the got the main singer from...
00:55:07
Speaker
crass penny rimbo he's now like in his 70s and he's still so punk and amazing and inspiring and dandelions are like an energy of punk granddad like dandelions are so profound to me that i find it hard to articulate um how much they mean to me um they're just endlessly tenacious. They appear in most countries of the world.
00:55:34
Speaker
They are and pretty unstoppable. They're highly medicinal and nutritive. They're beautiful. They're cosmic. like They contain the stars and the moon and the sun all in one plant.
00:55:49
Speaker
um And they're just so ah woven into you know music and poetry and folklore and tradition I'm getting really emotional oh my gosh Katie I'm getting really emotional talking about dandelion dandelion is really important to me it's like this you know how some people might feel this deeply about a religious figure like a saint or Jesus that's the feeling I have for dandelion like it's a it's sort an entity ah being that gives me heart and courage and
00:56:28
Speaker
and holds real wisdom and has really given me a lot of strength and yeah so it's really important to me as as a being not not as a commodity is a ah what really um upsets me with um when people talk about plants is when the first thing they say when they discover a new plant and I know it's very human and it's just part of learning and curiosity but when they say what is it good for or what can it do for me because and the reason ah it upsets me is because you wouldn't well hopefully you wouldn't walk up to a stranger a person you've just met at a dinner a party or something and go who are you what are you good for what can you give me
00:57:16
Speaker
You know what I mean? Yeah. So I think when you're a little bit more sensitive around plants and plant relating, you approach a plant more with like excitement and curiosity, like you might with a person you think you could be friends with. And it's more like, wow, who are you? You look really interesting. And I just can tell you've got a lot going on and I want to know everything. Yeah.
00:57:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, this is really timely because I've been reading a book which has led me into this new, I don't want to call it like a frontier of herbal medicine. I feel like it's ah it's the old knowing around herbs as part of an animate world. As you're describing, it's called insight herbalism. And rather than taking the herb for a thing, which is modern herbalism can be seen differently in some respects as kind of equivalent pharmaceutical, you know, that pill, this condition, that herb, you know, it's got a similar kind of ring to it, but this insight herbalism,
00:58:14
Speaker
really treats the relationship the direct experience with a with ah a person and a plant as the therapy as the medicine as the unfolding that draws you deeper deeper deeper into what may be the root of your dis dis-ease or disharmony and it's quite challenging in terms of you know one it's not focusing on even consuming the herb to have an effect, it's very much based in a deep listening and understanding our own sensing, how we sense what what we're projecting, what is true. You know it's asking these really big questions about um the nature of the world and how we perceive
Insight Herbalism and Plant Communication
00:58:56
Speaker
things. And I wonder...
00:58:58
Speaker
Like I'm curious as someone who's just kind of tiptoeing up to this idea of relating with a plant by simply being with it and befriending it rather than snipping some off and making a tea or trying to medicate myself. Like what does it mean to you to even hear those things from dandy or like perceive the punkness of dandy? Like how does that occur to you?
00:59:19
Speaker
You know, like is it images? Is it some bodily sensation? Like what is listening and what is the the knowing of the the plant's essence in that way? Oh yeah, um i I have a bit of synesthesia, which I don't know if you know what that is, but it's like where your senses can get a bit, your senses get jangled up, and so your senses and your concept your mind, the concepts in your mind, so um like people with synesthesia, every letter of the alphabet will have a gender or a colour, or every um number will have a gender or a colour, or colours have
00:59:59
Speaker
a taste, you know, it's just like, it's hard to describe, but your senses get are all jiggity-jaggity. Interesting. um so I have that, and so i think but and my maybe my synesthesia is part of that plant experiencing, but also I...
01:00:19
Speaker
can feel when a plant wants me to pay a bit more attention to it and learn things from it. I've been through a different few different rounds of that with different plants. and Dandy feels like it's going to be a lifelong one. And then I went through um a big one with mullein, the herb mullein, a couple of years back. And at the moment I'm going through a deep relationship with them with plantain. just discovering so much and learning so much. But yeah, it is a you're you're right in that it is a sensory kind of feeling.
01:00:56
Speaker
I don't know, it's like something comes into my mind, something occurs to me in my mind from that plant um or about that plant and it feels like it's come...
01:01:07
Speaker
this probably sounds so fanciful and so crazy, but it feels like it's come from the plant. Like it doesn't feel like it's been generated from, from Helen to Helen. It feels like it's from plantain to Helen.
01:01:21
Speaker
ah Does that make any sense? Absolutely. Yeah. I had that a little bit the other day and it's again, fascinating for me to kind of witness what happens when, you know, I'm skipping down the path to the Oak Grove where I live and I wanted to see the Oaks, but on the way,
01:01:37
Speaker
in my mind, the hemlock, like there's all this hemlock down there. And it was like, Hey, like hemlock just in my mind. And I actually, this is part of the the learning about, you know, directly relating with plants is that what we've done with modern mind and rational mind is dismissed those things as like, Oh, that's just a weird thing that popped into my head, but it's not anything really. Like i'm just going to keep going on my merry way on my mission. But now trying to really honour that occurrence as you describe it and it feels really, yeah, like right to call it that as something that could be hemlock trying to get my attention. It's like, of course I i overlooked the hemlock because I don't want to sit with the the most poisonous plant in Australia and um and hear what it has to say.
01:02:27
Speaker
um Yeah, it's really important to... To honor those things that come into your mind like that and um yeah to be just be gentle with them and be curious about them and try not to let our our human neurosis kind of squash them before they've even had a chance to ignite something.
01:02:48
Speaker
yeah yeah and so with your current befriendment of plantain i mean it is just such an incredible an overlooked wonder because it's so ubiquitous and therefore we we treat it as anything less than kind of remarkable but i am interested in, Helen, what that friendship looks like. Are you kind of carving out time to go and visit Plantain or it's just kind of part of a walk that you might be taking on a certain route or like what are the details of that that relationship?
01:03:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think what's going me and Plantain is that um I feel really strongly with that relationship the way things are headed at the moment we are going to we as meaning humans are going to need to draw on um old practices and old ways of being um yeah like there's a saying the future has an ancient heart and I feel really strongly that way
01:03:58
Speaker
um and you know i was down by the river and i was looking at a plantain you know like usually we see plantain in lawns that's but and it's been mowed over so it's pretty flat to the ground or flattish and the margins down by the river where the the city where i live has a big river and through the middle and that's where i do a lot of foraging i just saw this um This plantain plant had grown really, really tall and it was just so beautiful and elegant and its little flower head with the the little um petals all around it. i just I don't know, I just had some sort of
01:04:34
Speaker
oh something sparked in my brain about the delicacy and the beautiful beauty of the flower which if you only ever see it in your lawn you don't ever get to see that flower that's really incredible looking thing so I decided to plant some plantain in my garden at home yeah when I saw that plantain at the river I feel like plantain said to me let me just let me grow let me grow like stop mowing me kind of thing um so i planted a plantain patch at home and i'm just really enjoying the full expression of plantain when it's allowed to grow without being mowed or chopped it is an elegant handsome structural architectural beauty um and then a friend gave me a purple plantain
01:05:24
Speaker
a broad rate I know, yes! A purple broadleaf plantain. It is the most beautiful plant. So I make a talk ah like a crumbly topper out of ground up seeds for on top of my porridge um from dock seeds, flax seeds and plantain seeds that I forage or get out of the garden.
01:05:47
Speaker
and So I get those seeds and I put them in a spice grinder and then I um sprinkle that over my porridge. So um it's it's full of minerals, omega-3s, prebiotics. It's good for your bowel. It's full of fiber. It's just great stuff. But because I've been way more interested plantain since I've been doing this plantain project and trying to eat some plantain every day, of course, I've gotten more interested in the history of plantain. And it was called whey bread. like in the medieval times, like W-A-Y bread.
01:06:22
Speaker
And that's because, um you know, the seeds are full of nutrition. And for travelers and pilgrims in medieval times, you know, when they would have been foraging a lot of their food, it was, it was bred along the way, like they would harvest the plantain seeds and either eat them whole or grind them up and make a flower. So that's why it was called whey bread, because it was the bread that they could forage along the way to somewhere.
01:06:52
Speaker
So, I mean, I find that fascinating. And I just think that we are going to have to learn a lot more about the seeds and the flowers meaning f-l-o-u-s flowers that we can find around us making making flowers out of you know dock and plantain and flaxseed and things like that and just so all of that comes into this idea that the the future has an ancient heart like these old old plants and these old ways of eating these hyper local ways of eating we'll come back around and we'll be better for it because the food is so full of nutrition.
01:07:31
Speaker
And and it it offers itself so generously, plantain. It's called whey bread because it is a generous plant. Like dandy, it will grow where people are because we need we need it. We need the plantain and we need the dandelions.
01:07:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's quite a tragedy that we mow over all of the free food and medicine and then break our backs trying to cultivate the precious vegetables that may not want to grow there in the first place. I know, it's mad. It's mad.
01:08:00
Speaker
Madness, not the good kind. that Nature is so generous. And, you know, here we are trying to grow tropical things. Well, I don't live in a tropical place. If I tried to grow a tropical plant, I would have to coddle it and coddle it and coddle it. And it would be ridiculous. If I just turned around from that attempt to grow a mango, there's just like this an a array array of voluntary food behind me.
Poetry Reading: 'Garlic Planting Time'
01:08:24
Speaker
Well, Helen, hear rumour has it that you have a poem to share with us. And I'm wondering if it feels like a good time to bring that in.
01:08:55
Speaker
yeah uh shall i just read it yes please i'm really excited to hear it yeah so here we go garlic planting time there has not been much to recommend the future lately But still, you go outside in gumboots, three layers of wool, the rhythms of the garden offering solace.
01:09:18
Speaker
Under dark hills that are not the mountain you were born under, you prepare the beds for the shortest day, preventative medicine. You stoop, claw at the earth, digging over the dirt, raking in sheep manure and comfrey tea.
01:09:36
Speaker
You hope to grow enough for a whole year It will hang in plaques around the garage, drying in the warm summer air, warding off colds and evil spirits.
01:09:48
Speaker
Have you noticed that there is a lull in the cold before it rains? It gets a little warmer. This is what to look for. Small breaks in the weather.
01:10:00
Speaker
Breathes. When a friend brings you plows of new varieties, silver skin, purple stripe, you cradle them like a papery currency, a rustling gift.
01:10:14
Speaker
This is storing and healing. This is planning and tending. With muddy fists, you take possession of the year.
01:10:26
Speaker
and
01:10:30
Speaker
Thank you so much. I love it. I'm really glad we've planted no less than 200 bulbs of garlic in our patch. Yay!
01:10:41
Speaker
Hopefully that will be in the third year. I think that'll be just enough. But knowing that it's currency kind of spurs us on as well and I just love everything that you've woven into that, especially clawing at the earth and the dark mountain and the stripes on the garlic, the different coloured skins. It's just gorgeous.
01:11:00
Speaker
m Oh, thank you. And so you have a new book coming out or is it out already? Yeah, at the end of this month. This is my is my fourth book, but my second volume of poetry and it's called The Bruise Palette. um and it's called the bruise palette because it's sort of about um how when you enmesh yourself deeply in community um you get bruised along the way and and it's just kind of part of the terrain so it's about all the beauties of that and the occasional bruises
01:11:37
Speaker
Yeah, the title is really arresting and it brings to mind some of those absolute caulkers on the thigh where they bloom into every single colour and ah something about that, um the physicality of the title that really struck me. And I'm so happy to hear that this interview might be perfectly and accidentally timed for the release of that book. Is there a place where people can pre-order it?
01:12:01
Speaker
Oh, yes. Yeah. can pre-order it from Firestarter Press in New Zealand. but i' it's It's a small press. I've gone hyper-local with this book because um A Forager's Life came out with HarperCollins, which, you know, it was a massive corporate publisher, which was very ah exhilarating and fun and and crazy. And then because this one is poetry, which is a whole different thing,
01:12:28
Speaker
thing um i decided to go hyper local with this one site so it's a local publisher my dear friend kirstie porter has done the art for the cover um obviously i wrote some poems in the middle um we got a young local filmmaker to make a book trailer i asked um local poets to write the advanced praise um yeah we're doing everything hyper local and um it's been really fun and rewarding a real group project.
01:13:00
Speaker
Oh, I love the sound of that. Yeah, it's even, um there's no end to what we can relocalise and I'm hoping that a few maybe international orders from people listening to this podcast won't break the spirit of the relocalisation.
01:13:14
Speaker
i can't wait to get get my hands on a copy and I just have felt the richness of what you've shared with us today, Helen, and feel really, really grateful for you spending the time with us.
01:13:24
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much, Katie. I feel like you and I could talk long into an evening. here and get i did want to say too, Katie, that I think you're a phenomenal writer and I really look forward to your books once you um sit down over winter and start writing them.
01:13:40
Speaker
Once I sit down is the operative term. but It's going to happen. I know I can feel it. I really, really appreciate that coming from you. It is a real honor to sit with you today. And thanks for listening to the show. That just tickles me pink.
01:13:57
Speaker
Oh yeah, you're welcome. And to everyone who's listening, thank you for listening if you got this far and hello.
01:14:08
Speaker
That was Helen Lindorf and please cast an eye over the show notes for Helen's books and online Linkypoos, as well as other good shit we mentioned. Have our raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens kind of week. And I'll catch you in a couple more.