Sense-Making in a Changing World

Tune in for an exploration of sense-making with author, educator, and local government councillor, Leah Rampy.If you're looking for insight into what it means to live in a changing world, the importance of remembering your kinship with the Earth and how to apply this to your daily practices, listen in to this episode.As well representing her local county as a councillor and writing books, Leah lives in a cohousing community, leads a local food initiative called Save Our Soils and runs the monthly gathering Church of the Wild. She also offers retreats and spiritual coaching - guiding experiences to reconnection with the Earth. You can find her recently released guide to living deeply with the planet, 'Earth and Soul: Reconnecting Amid Climate Chaos' at this link. This book is a result of a decades long journey examining the gaps in our climate change conversations and uncovers what lies beneath our unwillingness to change our interactions with the natural world.I hope you find nourishment in this episode and enjoy our conversation!I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the showThis podcast is a project of the Permaculture Education Institute. We work with people on six continents, teaching permaculture design and skills - from how to be a community leader to creating a regenerative permaculture livelihood. Visit our website to find out more. You can start any time, in any capacity! We teach permaculture and host permaculture teacher courses. We also share conversations through monthly masterclasses, Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film clubs in a supportive global community. This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. Subscribe, share and comment if you enjoy and keep this podcast myceliating!

In this episode, I welcome Ben Moody to explore a systemic way of reversing plastic pollution - a young regenerative entrepreneur with a big vision to clean the seas.Through his innovative business, Seven Clean Seas, Ben has managed to remove over 2 million kilograms of plastic from the ocean by working with a number of countries in Asia, engaging with communities to create positive local employment.He and his partners buy plastic credits from companies - a way to create a systemic solution for plastic pollution. This plastic neutral idea pushes for plastic reduction, but allows places like medical industries who use necessary plastics to offset their impact by sponsoring Ben's work of removing plastic already in the environment.As Ben sees it, this is a systemic problem. We have to stop the flow of plastic as well as cleaning it up at the same time. And if we can positively engage the communities that are involved in this process, then impact start ups like Ben's can really make a difference.Check out Seven Clean Seas' Instagram and Facebook!I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the showThis podcast is a project of the Permaculture Education Institute. We work with people on six continents, teaching permaculture design and skills - from how to be a community leader to creating a regenerative permaculture livelihood. Visit our website to find out more. You can start any time, in any capacity! We teach permaculture and host permaculture teacher courses. We also share conversations through monthly masterclasses, Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film clubs in a supportive global community. This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. Subscribe, share and comment if you enjoy and keep this podcast myceliating!

Are you a teacher, parent or student wondering how permaculture can be related to school? Listen in to this episode, where I welcome Rebecca Leek - an educator weaving permaculture into school systems across England.Permaculture is commonly associated with gardening, but Rebecca shows how it can help our approach to education too.From producing no waste to valuing the marginal, the principles embedded in permaculture can really help shape our schools into places of genuine connection and emergence.What if we looked at our education system as a garden? How can we create composting systems in our social worlds? Tune in to explore.You can read Rebecca's article in the Guardian here.To explore more, listen to Episode 12: Education with Satish Kumar.I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the showThis podcast is a project of the Permaculture Education Institute. We work with people on six continents, teaching permaculture design and skills - from how to be a community leader to creating a regenerative permaculture livelihood. Visit our website to find out more. You can start any time, in any capacity! We teach permaculture and host permaculture teacher courses. We also share conversations through monthly masterclasses, Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film clubs in a supportive global community. This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. Subscribe, share and comment if you enjoy and keep this podcast myceliating!

Tune in to this episode with Dr Ruth Backstrom - author, facilitator and public professor - to explore why we need to rethink our democratic political systems, what a new democracy could look like and how we can make it happen.When we talk about politics, we often associated it with the 'us and them' - the distant, polarised landscape we see in the news, and in our discussions with those around us. Instead, Ruth's idea of a new democracy rests on citizen assemblies - a place to make a difference and learn through conversation - a participatory form of governance!Ruth focuses on the importance of teaching emotional intelligence to find empathy not only with other people, but with the planet too. To learn about a holistic form of approaching politics and the stories we share around it, listen to this episode! Dr Backstrom has recently released a book 'Igniting a Bold New Democracy: Empowering Citizens Through Game-changing Reforms' - a great guide into how we can create positive change in our political decision-making processes! Check out her work at www.ruthbackstrom.com to explore more.I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the showThis podcast is a project of the Permaculture Education Institute. We work with people on six continents, teaching permaculture design and skills - from how to be a community leader to creating a regenerative permaculture livelihood. Visit our website to find out more. You can start any time, in any capacity! We teach permaculture and host permaculture teacher courses. We also share conversations through monthly masterclasses, Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film clubs in a supportive global community. This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. Subscribe, share and comment if you enjoy and keep this podcast myceliating!

In this episode, I welcome Eric Ressler - a digital designer helping social impact organisations myceliate their stories into the world through Design by Cosmic. If you've ever wondered about what goes into the behind-the-scenes of a social action group or wanted to start your own, this is a must-listen!As an organisation designer, Eric goes into the nitty-gritty of what the most important steps for catalysing real world change are - from how to activate people through online platforms to the significance of taking a moonshot once in a while.Design by Cosmic supports organisations focused on making real world change hone down their impact story, their branding and their messages. If you're interested, check out their manifesto for social impact leaders!I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the showThis podcast is a project of the Permaculture Education Institute. We work with people on six continents, teaching permaculture design and skills - from how to be a community leader to creating a regenerative permaculture livelihood. Visit our website to find out more. You can start any time, in any capacity! We teach permaculture and host permaculture teacher courses. We also share conversations through monthly masterclasses, Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film clubs in a supportive global community. This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. Subscribe, share and comment if you enjoy and keep this podcast myceliating!

Tune in to this episode for a conversation about regenerative business with the fabulous Emily and Josh Prieto - founders of Seeds of Tao, regenerative business educators, world explorers, and homeschooling parents.It was fantastic to chat about their journey into permaculture, moving to Panama, their attraction to regenerative design and how they are applying it to business. We talk about how you can make a permaculture livingAt the heart of their vision is the integration of permaculture design thinking and regenerative ideas into a balanced business life - that leaves space for living well and homeschooling their four children. From valuing the marginal in the challenges they face to the importance of obtaining a yield, it was inspiring to hear Emily and Josh's approach!Seeds of Tao is a community of entrepreneurs, supporting and educating each other to create regenerative enterprises - through bioregional support hubs, mentoring, educational resources, a course and a podcast (which I have been on). Check out their amazing work!I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the showThis podcast is a project of the Permaculture Education Institute. We work with people on six continents, teaching permaculture design and skills - from how to be a community leader to creating a regenerative permaculture livelihood. Visit our website to find out more. You can start any time, in any capacity! We teach permaculture and host permaculture teacher courses. We also share conversations through monthly masterclasses, Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film clubs in a supportive global community. This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. Subscribe, share and comment if you enjoy and keep this podcast myceliating!

Join me this episode for an exploration into homeschooling with permaculture author-educator-activist Lucy Legan.I've interviewed Lucy before on this podcast after the release of her book 'Planet Schooling', a fantastic conversation about re-conceiving what education is for, how she teaches permaculture, has created living learning centres and school gardens plus her process of writing! Now I interview her after the release of her free eBook 'How to Start Homeschooling Your Children' - a fantastic resource to approach the (sometimes daunting) journey of homeschooling. In this conversation, we dive into everything around homeschooling - all of our stories as both professionals in permaculture & ecoliteracy education and as mothers homeschooling their children (and in Lucy's case, grandchildren). If you've ever considered homeschooling your kids or in the process, this is a must listen!I had a wonderful time catching up with Lucy - as we said, if we lived close to each other, you'd constantly find us in each others' gardens! If you're interested in helping us send a box of Lucy's book 'Planet Schooling' over to the Permayouth hubs in refugee settlements in East Africa, we would appreciate any donations! Send it through the Ethos Foundation (100% goes directly to the project) and leave us a message to let us know it's for this initiative.One of Lucy's great resources mentioned in the podcast is the card deck and guidebook 'Seed to Plate' - an inspiration and guide to learn how to save seeds. To learn more about Lucy's work and find more resources, check out her website - https://planetschooling.com/I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the showThis podcast is a project of the Permaculture Education Institute. We work with people on six continents, teaching permaculture design and skills - from how to be a community leader to creating a regenerative permaculture livelihood. Visit our website to find out more. You can start any time, in any capacity! We teach permaculture and host permaculture teacher courses. We also share conversations through monthly masterclasses, Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film clubs in a supportive global community. This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. Subscribe, share and comment if you enjoy and keep this podcast myceliating!

In this episode, I’m delighted to welcome Robyn Francis - my friend and true permaculture legend. Robyn has been a part of the permaculture movement since the very beginning, working closely with Bill Mollison, and is a leading international permaculture educator. She’s initiated many projects around the world such as Djanbung Gardens, the accredited permaculture design training process, Jarlanbah Ecovillage and the Permaculture International magazine. When I was just starting out as a permaculture designer, I attended a number of workshops at her place!Tune in to listen to Robyn’s story through permaculture and her insights on the process, reflections and hopes for the future of permaculture. This conversation is mix of stories of the very beginnings of permaculture and a practical look at how you can get accredited as a permaculture designer and educator. There’s plenty to learn from this one!I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the showThis podcast is a project of the Permaculture Education Institute. We work with people on six continents, teaching permaculture design and skills - from how to be a community leader to creating a regenerative permaculture livelihood. Visit our website to find out more. You can start any time, in any capacity! We teach permaculture and host permaculture teacher courses. We also share conversations through monthly masterclasses, Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film clubs in a supportive global community. This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. Subscribe, share and comment if you enjoy and keep this podcast myceliating!

In this final episode of our special 2023 Urban Agriculture series, join me as I dive into a new way of approaching change-making and sense-making with William Padilla-Brown. William is a certified permaculture designer, a citizen scientist, urban agriculturalist, mycologist, phycologist, a featured in the film Fantastic Fungi and someone I consider a public professor of mycosymbiotics.It was great to meet William as he is someone I've wanted to interview for a while! Mycosymbiotics is what William calls 'biological aides for permaculture systems' and we explore what this means for practical implementation in both our permaculture systems and as a philosophy in this fascinating conversation. If you want to find out more, you can check out William's work at www.mycosymbiotics.com, join his newsletter for updates and check out MycoFest 2024 to catch him live!I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the showThis podcast is a project of the Permaculture Education Institute. We work with people on six continents, teaching permaculture design and skills - from how to be a community leader to creating a regenerative permaculture livelihood. Visit our website to find out more. You can start any time, in any capacity! We teach permaculture and host permaculture teacher courses. We also share conversations through monthly masterclasses, Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film clubs in a supportive global community. This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. Subscribe, share and comment if you enjoy and keep this podcast myceliating!

Join me for the 4th episode in our 2023 Urban Agriculture Month series for a deep-dive into the workings of Denver Urban Gardens with executive director, Linda Appel Lipsius.Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) began as a grassroots movement in the late 70s - when a neighbourhood came together to create a space for local women to grow their own food. Now DUG oversees more than 200 community gardens over 34 acres in Denver, including 60 school based community gardens and 19 food forests - impacting tens of thousands of local people.Linda  is working to amplify the robust role that community gardens and food forests can play as critical infrastructure for thriving cities. Linda and most of her team are certified in permaculture & we discuss how permaculture is transforming the community gardens in Denver.We also delved into how social barriers and the recently declared epidemic of loneliness can be healed with community gardening. I had a wonderful time discussing these topics with Linda, I hope you enjoy listening!Check out DUG's model of city-wide community gardening at www.dug.org and get involved in your local community garden to learn more.I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the showThis podcast is a project of the Permaculture Education Institute. We work with people on six continents, teaching permaculture design and skills - from how to be a community leader to creating a regenerative permaculture livelihood. Visit our website to find out more. You can start any time, in any capacity! We teach permaculture and host permaculture teacher courses. We also share conversations through monthly masterclasses, Our Permaculture Life YouTube, and offer free monthly film clubs in a supportive global community. This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage food forest on beautiful Gubbi Gubbi country. Subscribe, share and comment if you enjoy and keep this podcast myceliating!