Advertise on podcast: Reskillience

I tell a story about my inability to change before chatting with a guy who's obsessed with changing everything! Dr Shane Simonsen of Recombination Nation is a biochemist, research scientist and experimental farmer who is shaking up agriculture-as-usual by breeding plants that require ZERO INPUTS. No fertiliser, no pest protection, no weeding, no watering! We talk about how to run your own kinky plant breeding experiments at home, as well as: Why humans still have 50 million years left on the planet Shane's POV on GMO Low tech gene transfer you can do today! Are we addicted to working harder not smarter? Moving towards irrigation-free gardening Yet another neurodivergent superpower Being a plant snob Cities versus country towns during collapse Survival foods for the future How & why to take on projects that will outlive you CROSSING BRUSH TURKEYS & ASTRALORPS? Impermaculture Blessings on the internet SOLID real estate advice  Where to buy crazy seeds  🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS Shane on Substack ~ Recombination Nation Shane's podcast ~ Recombination Nation Shane's book ~ Taming the apocalypse Folklore Pictures' film with Shane ~ Seeds for the Future Australian Grain Seed Bank Central Vic seed grower we love ~ Greg Mueller of Useful Seeds 🧡🧡🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon 🧡🧡🧡 Sound credit ~ cheers Nicholas Allan!

Planting guides and sow-what-when calendars are great and all, but what happens when the seasons don't play nice? When spring arrives earlier, frost hits later, or heatwaves burn your crops to a crisp? There's no controlling the weather, but with tools like phenology, you can make better predictions and grow more food! Duncan Cocking (of Leaf, Root & Fruit) is an amazing gardener and educator from Kyneton in Southern Australia. He helps people tune into more-than-human patterns and cycles to build their own hyper-local and climate resilient gardening calendars, and has a wealth of wisdom about living more joyfully too. In this convo: Why spring is two weeks earlier this year Duncan's early years immersed in nature and connected to country Why he's not that interested in working hard Mid-30s career change Pattern recognition in the veggie patch How to use phenology Nature based indicators to tell you went to plant The two most critical aspects of gardening!!! Connection through failures Why to RELAXXXXX about how to garden Wood ducks tell you when you plant tomatoes Crazy record keeping How the hell to collate so much data Habits of the highly observant How do nature’s patterns work, NO LIKE, HOW? Being conversant with the land Duncan is an ostrich Disconnecting from the World Wide Web How to preserve your mental health with a hyper-focus on local Getting kids into the garden Give your kids scary tools Garden gimmicks How to grow avos in cold climates Spring gardening to-dos RIGHT NOW 🧙‍♀  LINKY POOS Duncan’s home on the web Leaf, Root & Fruit on Substack Leaf, Root & Fruit on Instagram Andrew Turbill, the bird guy 🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon 🧡 ☕ Buy Me A Coffee (or an avo or a loaf of bread) ☕ Gratitude to the field recordist Romuald Mikusek, XC935811. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/935811.

NOTE: I’ve done breathwork every day since this interview and – you gaias! – it’s really helping me human.  Meet today’s guest Ella Maryska, who is responsible for getting me into this breathwork thing that I am the last person on the planet to know about. Ella is 21 years old, wise as the hills, a certified breathwork instructor, and brings a fresh and youthful perspective to the pod which has been sorely absent to date (sorry sorry sorry). In this sweet convo, you’ll hear about the geeky physiology of breathwork; how it rebalances our nervous system, changes circulation to our brain, oxygenates tissues and connects us to plants, as well as Ella’s own experience as a young person living through the polycrisis, navigating novel life paths as the old routes fall away. I learned so much from Ella. Let me know if you’re on the breathwork bandwagon, a brilliant tool for staying steady in the tumult. 🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS Ella’s home on the web Ella/Coming Home Breathwork on IG Tuesday evening group class Guided breathwork sesh on YouTube [book] Atlas of the Heart ~ Brené Brown Catie’s natto Reskillience live recording at Words in Winter The Australasian Permaculture Convergence 🧡🧡🧡 Join the Reskillience community on Patreon 🧡🧡🧡 Catie on Substack

“In a time of fracturing seasons, when everything’s going awry, there are still cycles that we can set our hearts by.”  It's Kirsten Bradley of Milkwood! She's writing a new book about the moon, penning love letters to parsley and currawongs on Substack, and here to share all about her daily rhythms in lutruwita, Tasmania. Oh, what a lovely conversation! Within 🌙  AI or not to AI Morning routines! Morning stargazing! Tea choices Moving to lutruwita/Tassie Fish farm woes and responses How to make decisions about where to move When the body says no Slow activism “You can rest. The problems will be there when you get up again. And the solutions.” Perimenopause rearrangements Coming back to creativity after burnout Wrapping knowledge in story Learning injuries Writing as a welcome Cultural astronomies Should we follow our interests? What does activism look like for Kirsten now? The Common Book of the Moon 🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS  Kirsten on Substack Kirsten + Milkwood 🧡🧡🧡 Join the Reskillience community on Patreon 🧡🧡🧡

BYO wheelbarrow to load up on Solomon’s wisdom, cos today we’re chatting with the grandaddy of beyond-organic gardening himself, Steve Solomon! If you don’t know Steve, he’s a bit of cult hero in food growing circles thanks to his deep research into soil remineralisation and why it is absolutely critical for human health. In this convo: How pre-industrial communities ate 4 x more nutrient-dense food Why MINERALS are the key to healthy soil and healthy humans Better nutrition… lower libido? Why compost is really bloody complicated …and how compost can ruin your soil if you’re not careful How to calculate how much organic matter your soil actually needs The ugly truth about commercial compost COF ~ Complete Organic Fertiliser Why Steve doesn’t recommend soil testing for everyone EVIL GOVERNMENT EDICTS Steve’s pact to intentionally follow his interests 100% “THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE IS TO DO WHATEVER IT IS I’M INTERESTED IN” LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️ Steve’s homepage The Soil & Health Library [book] The Intelligent Gardener ~ Steve Solomon [just released!] Growing Nutrient-Dense Vegetables: A Cool Climate Guide~ Steve Solomon Google: Steve Solomon gardening books Nutrition and Physical Degeneration ~ Weston A. Price Soil fertility and Animal Health ~ William Albrecht 🧡🧡🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon 🧡🧡🧡 Words in Winter ~ Live podcast with Mara Ripani & Natasha Morgan Return to the Village ~ Australasian Permaculture Convergence.

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 🧙‍♀️ Helen’s home on the web 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

We built this city on rock n roll! And cheap oil. And it’s currently running out… so what happens now? This week I chat with Nathan Surendran to get a foothold on the fossil fuel crisis (which is the Everything Crisis) and how we can keep our balance, together. Nathan is a systems thinker, recovering engineer, energy and security analyst, policy advisor, author of the Energy and Resilience substack and chair of the Wise Response society. He is also seriously kind, and provides so much practical, empowering advice in this convo, including: Moving far far away from civilisation The unsustainability of cities Neurodivergence leading to deep research The Energy Elephant in the room: WHAT AREN’T WE SEEING Why oil (diesel) is the lifeblood of industrial society Drawing down ancient sunlight 1 million times faster than it’s being recharged Every calorie of food takes 10 calories of fossil fuels, oof The Iran War Why we can’t just switch to renewables Right relationship with renewables What are baseline standards of living? Household appliance heroes for the energy descent What is Energy Blindness? Emotionally processing peak oil One barrel of oil = 5 years of human labour (!) Are we being gaslit about the situation in the strait? The industrial system schools us to comply, not think Why the rich aren’t as protected as they might think Less affluent people are ahead of the game What is mutual aid? Un-pathologising co-dependence Maori concepts of community care Why we need danger from a mental health perspective 🧙‍♀️LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️ Nathan on Substack ~ Energy and Resilience Nathan’s home on the web [doc] When The Trucks Stop ~ mutual aid guidelines Wise Response on Substack Jason Bradford ~ The Future Is Rural Steve Keene Ian McGilchrist Charlie Hoyle Nate Hagens Steve Keen Howard T Odum 📸 Photo credit: Jason Hosking 🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon 🧡

Ever wish you could sit down with permie elders to hear their take on the current chaos; what to do, where to live, and whether it’s really that bad in the grand scheme of things? Well just call me Genie cos this convo with permaculture educators and radical homemakers Ian Lillington and Marita Zeh will deliver. Ian and Marita live in a solar passive straw-bale home on the edge of Castlemaine, Victoria, surrounded by fruit and nut trees and veggie gardens, where students come to see – and feel – what it is to be wrapped in abundance. And this is where I found them, on a sunny autumn morning, in the cosy warmth of their kitchen, dealing with masses of peaches, pistachios and zucchini. And we all sat down and chopped and chatted, eventually remembering to turn on the mics. In this convo: Pursuing a hybrid model of permaculture Rat poison sandwich Renting till your 40s What is good debt? Where is even affordable anymore? How to deal with gluts Giving to community Small garden farming Being strategically connected to the grid Diverse household energy systems Scales of usage An elder’s perspective on current affairs Sharing permaculture as a political act Permaculture priorities Gratitude vs. fear Impermaculture 🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️ Send Ian an email ~ [email protected] Or keep it old school with a text ~ 0478 297 057 The Castlemaine Permaculture Hub PDC (for locals) Castlemaine Permaculture FB group (national) Permaculture Australia FB group

I tell a story about my grandpa’s deathbed song request before having a heart-to-heart with Emily Coats, a deep nature connection facilitator, ancestral skills practitioner, threshold-crossing guide and dreamworker. In this convo: Shakespearean activism What the world needs right now (hint: not more intellect) Ways to wholeness Does activism have to feel hard and gnarly? Being precise in the ripples we cast What happens at Tracker School Ancient skills… for survival? Why to prioritise spiritual preparedness How we live and how we die Losing her dad; the gifts and lessons Intentions vs. realities of living in a handmade black wattle shelter offline, offgrid and alone for 7.5 months How to use spirit tracking to find lost stuff 🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️ [starts soon in Naarm] Earth Time: The Lost Art of Being Human Emily’s home on the web Emily on Instagram Nature's Apprentice Nature Based Leadership Training Bill Plotkin & Animas Valley Institute Jon Young The Animal Communicator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpG1nkM5jc Jon Young Australia workshop 🧡🧡🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon 🧡🧡🧡

In 2018 Professor Jem Bendell published an academic paper that went viral; pretty weird for a piece of scholarly writing. The topic? Societal collapse caused by runaway climate change. The timeline? Soon. Deep Adaptation presented a frank, delusion-free framework for facing the end of the world as we know it, sparked a movement, and copped a lot of flack. I wanted to chat with Jem not so much about the grim facts but about how, “as that collapse guy”*, he is filling his life with meaning at the eleventh hour. And it turns out, that includes becoming a farmer, writing folk songs and considering having kids. *Jem happily identifies as a doomster 🎙️ In this convo Experiencing climate change first hand as a farmer in Bali How to act on knowledge about collapse and climate? Making the leap towards your values (with the help of a global pandemic) Why the wellness community is full of shit Farming fails Picking up music at 48 and writing comedy rock Faulty beliefs we have about our creative gifts Living fully at the eleventh hour Letting go of status and security Why it’s all ok when everything’s not ok Kirtan and ecospirituality practices Jem’s evolving views about how collapse will unfold Bringing kids into this world, yay or nay? The Deep Adaptation framework Becoming NURTURANT How to help others through the grief Jem’s simple pleasures Oracle cards for cynics 🧙‍♀️LINKY POOS Jem’s home on the web [paper] Deep Adaptation ~ Jem Bendell [book] Breaking Together ~ Jem Bendell The Metacrisis Initiative Jem’s collapse-aware oracle cards Jem’s music Songbird credit: Australia Outback Birds by EduFigueres License: Attribution 4.0 🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon 🧡

I tell a story about Jar Power before sitting down with Robin Greenfield, an incredible fella best known for his radical experiments in simple living, food reclamation, waste minimisation and wild foraging. He has been called “the Robin Hood of our times”, “the Forrest Gump of ecology”, and “the best kind of crazy”. To me, Robin is a torch bearer for truth, leading the way towards justice – with a whole lotta joy and integrity. This year he is eating 100% foraged foods – unreal! – so we chat about that, as well as: Why Robin is so gassy How it feels to break free from the global industrial food system Why Robin is not into human optimisation Practicing non-attachment and impermanence Freedom in community What gives Robin the power to do crazy stuff? Non-delusionalism How to identify your purpose and niche The most limiting factor in figuring out who you really are Pursuing radical honesty Robin’s simple finances Skills + relationships = freedom Transition ethics Compassionate communication What IS foraging, really? All the foraging nuances you never thought about! How our language is built around disconnection What would happen if everyone foraged? Joy as resistance 🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS Robin’s website Robin’s books Robin on Instagram [book] Mark Boyle ~ The Moneyless Man 🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon 🧡

Christie Green spends days at a time in the mountains, in the snow, tracking elk, solo. Her hunting journey began at 40 as a practical way to feed herself and her family, and became a fierce and fluid exploration of womanhood, motherhood, stewardship, intuition, listening and kinship. Christie wrote a memoir about her experiences called Moonlight Elk that I rapturously devoured, licking my fingertips with every turn of the page, it is that delicious.  🦌 Terrain covered: Life in Sante Fe, New Mexico Hunting as a deep and embodied exploration of just about everything. Listening to other than human perspectives as a landscape architect Designing for soil, water, animal, pollination; landscapes in service of wild nature Learning to hunt at 40 Weaving values into business How to catch dreams Why would you want to hunt alone? Being an “other-centred” person Following desire and intuition The extreme paradox of loving and killing Defying categories and boxes Are there better and worse ways to hunt? Could and should everyone hunt? Communal local food relationships Walking in fear as a woman, as prey Dreams as soul expression Writing sex scenes that feature yourself The choiceless choice of creativity 🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS Christie’s home on the web Christie on Instagram Get your mitts on Moonlight Elk (note: you can buy it anywhere, or ask your library for copies) Moonlight Elk audiobook Selected essays by Christie Green 🧡 Join the Reskillience community on Patreon 🧡 Outro birdsong credit: Afro408 - License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0

You’ve heard of swales… but what about swales in the brain to slow and deepen our human experience? Join me and Cecilia Macaulay for one of those special convos that gets to the heart of life’s gnarliest struggles; our biggest messes, our greatest failures, our everyday chaos… and uses permaculture design to harness their power. This episode will particularly chime with “forgetful, distractible” types, clutter accumulators, chaos agents, overwhelm junkies, and anyone with a hunch that a few elegant household systems could MASSIVELY increase their effectiveness in the world. WE COVER Insane wisdom from Bill Mollison Meeting Masanobu Fukuoka The FIVE RULES OF HARMONIOUS PERMIE SHAREHOUSES Japanese rules of Non-Complaint and Taking Full Responsibility Growing an enduring permaculture spirit How to become a world expert in a tiny little thing Creating a failure protocol Upward spirals Permaculture for heartbreak Being an effective human later in life More than medication for neurodiversity The connection between untidy houses and trauma Making your kitchen sink a shrine to beauty and goodness Setting a household culture using mirror neurons The eco-footprint of university STOP AWFULISING! Permaculture zones in the home Why to share what’s spare STOP COLONISING CREATIVE VOID! Expanding the edges of our gifts and talents Beautiful messcapes Knolling What “can’t be bothered” really codes for How to use imagination to improve your memory 🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS 🧙‍♀️ Cecilia’s home on the web Cecilia’s nine month home harmonising project The Edible Balcony Garden ~ Indira Naidoo Sand Talk ~ Tyson Yunkaporta Screen Zen App WWOOF, HelpX & Workaway Polyvagal theory 🧡Join the Reskillience community on Patreon 🧡 Thanks to kangaroovindaloo for the singing bowls: License: Attribution 4.0

Big personal shares at the top of the ep (preview: podcasting terrifies me) before an utterly delightful conversation with Scots folk singer Josie Vallely aka. Quinie. Quinie's album Forefowk, Mind Me was named The Guardian's best folk release of 2025, but don't worry if you're not into bagpipes because we mostly chat about: Not making your art your career Tips for slow art/seasonal living in a rushing world The mind bending differences between relating with Country in Australia versus Scotland Minority languages and evocation of place The right to roam Confused white settler syndrome When you’re a cultural mongrel Impure ancestry Place as a surrogate elder Tradition in motion Where do songs live? Journeying on horseback Horses as bodyguards Why we all just want to be got 🧙‍♀️LINKY POOS Quinie’s home on the web Quinie on Instagram [album] Forefowk, Mind Me ~ Quinie Quinie’s seasonal almanac ~ Things that happen every year in a cycle [film] Forefowk, Mind Me  Guardian review of Quinie’s album Cover art photo credit: Anthony Rintoul 🧡🧡🧡 Join the Reskillience community on Patreon 🧡🧡🧡

A garden drama unfolds during a heatwave, and I share my summer solstice/New Year wishes for you. Thanks for tuning into another year of Reskillience! We'll be back later in January full of fresh questions and custard.  Shout out to my love Jordan Osmond for helping produce this episode. Sound credit: BlackbirdFiltered.wav by acclivity  🧡 Support Reskillience on Patreon 🧡