Join Mara Ripani, a force of nature passionate about greening cities, permaculture, and baking bread. Discover sustainable homesteading, foraging, fermenting, and seasonal attunement. Explore her solar passive farmhouse in Central Victoria and learn about floral syrup recipes, sustainable living spaces, and embracing self-sufficiency in food production.
Wintering signifies rest, reflection, and self-improvement amidst life's cycles.
Creating a sustainable, community-centric space fosters abundance and warmth.
Foraging and culinary creativity deepen connection to the land and seasons.
Deep dives
Wintering as a Skill
Wintering, like demonstrated by the dandelion, burdock, and oak trees, involves drawing energy down into roots, prioritizing rest over performance, and accepting sadness. It is an active acknowledgement of facing challenging aspects of oneself, recognizing life's cyclical nature, and viewing winter as an opportunity for self-improvement and resilience.
Creating a Nurturing Space
Mara Rapuni shares her journey of creating a welcoming and nurturing environment centered around growing food, permaculture, preserving food, and fostering community. By focusing on sustainability, sharing knowledge, and fostering meaningful relationships, Mara cultivates a space of abundance, warmth, and safety for visitors from around the world.
Foraging and Enchanting Culinary Creations
Mara explores the art of foraging and creating unique condiments like pine cone syrups and floral infusions. By leveraging seasonal indicators, conversations with neighbors, and personal rituals, Mara infuses culinary creativity with a deep connection to the land, allowing for a rich exploration of natural flavors and enchanting additions to her culinary repertoire.
Challenge of Slow Living in a Packed Lifestyle
The podcast delves into the challenge of embracing slow living in a lifestyle filled with busyness and constant activity. Despite desires for a slower pace, the speaker highlights the difficulty in achieving true slowness due to the demands of modern life, even amidst homesteading endeavors. The discussion raises questions about prioritization, time management, and the unrealistic expectations surrounding the concept of slow living and productivity.
Impact of Trauma on Learning and Neurodiversity in Education
Another key point explores the profound impact of trauma on learning abilities and the importance of considering neurodiversity in education. The conversation touches upon how traumatic experiences hinder individuals' learning capacity, especially in environments marked by domestic violence or other forms of trauma. It prompts a reflection on educational systems and the need to cater to varying learning styles and neurodiverse individuals to foster inclusive and effective learning environments.
I just polished off my last jar of blackberry jam and it’s only April, which is why I need today’s guest to assist me in the finer arts of sustainable homesteading.
It’s Mara Ripani of Village Dreaming and Orto cooking school, a force of and for nature with a passion for greening cities, growing food, permaculture, preserving food, baking bread and sowing seeds.
Mara is about as earthed as its possible to be while still having a social media presence, propagating skills of from-scratch cooking, foraging, fermenting, soap making and seasonal attunement from her breathtaking solar passive farmhouse here in Central Victoria.
In this conversation, you’ll hear Mara’s alarm go off a couple of times telling her she needs to tend the bread, and you might too hear us chewing on dried plums, sipping on fragrant bay leaf tea that Mara poured for me on arrival.
This chat feels really apt as we move towards the colder months, one last hurrah of abundance and colour and harvest before we drop all our leaves, exposed and ensconced for winter.
