Reskillience

BONUS EP three days early whaaaaat
I’m bringing you this inspiring chat with Kate Nottingham (founder of the Off Grid Living Festival and director of the 2027 Permaculture Convergence/Return to the Village Festival) ahead of schedule because it contains time sensitive information! Last minute early bird tix to Return to the Village are available till midnight on October 31… so hop to it.
In this episode I share a story about a spring love festival held in our local community, before quizzing Kate Nottingham on how the heck she makes such big shit happen, and why the #1 thing we need right now is TOGETHERNESS.
Opting out when your career is taking you in a sickly direction
Headstrong and confident in being different
Relentless optimism as a superpower!
Ecovillage immersion at Findhorn
How to facilitate instant human connection
We need to work harder on creating open hearted spaces where people can be themselves
What makes a village work… or not
De-emphasising failure
Warehouse experiments in the city
Creating the School of Self Sufficiency
Do you need to be an expert to run a workshop?
We need generalists/bumble bees!
Heading up the Off Grid Living Festival
Frugality and financial hacks to fund your passion
Crowd-funding a property
Running events under the radar
It doesn’t really matter what you teach, just get people together!
Top tips for successfully gathering people without awkwardness
The commercial tension in running Off Grid Living
Returning to the Village
50 years of permaculture!
Kate’s POV on the near future and what we desperately need
🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS
[early bird tix till Oct 31] Return to the Village ~ April 2027
Return to the Village on Insta
The Off Grid Living Festival
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Thanks to field recordist Romuald Mikusek for the birdsong

I tell a story about a freak storm that flattened our summer crops before sharing a super inspiring convo with Chris Gilmour, an emergency and disaster preparedness expert who believes that deep nature connection is key to surviving and thriving through uncertain times.
🦌 In this episode:
Addressing that shaky feeling underneath modern life of not being able to survive in the wild
The birch bark canoe incident!
When emergency apps don’t work
Tuning into our own body radar
How to weigh risk versus reward in high stakes situations
Is the infrastructure that “keeps us safe” actually working?
Can we rely on the authorities?
The chronic low level stress of knowing something is up in the world
Even emergency services peeps can’t read nature!
The birds are your early warning system
Learning to trust nature’s patterns
Landscape design for resilience
A pep talk for people who feel “old and behind” in nature knowledge
Humans are designed to do MORE than what we think we’re capable of, yeehaw!
The spiritual dimension of reclaiming endangered skills
Is comfort always a good thing?
How tracking wildlife teaches us to apply critical thinking and not fall into polarising narratives
Solid ways to build individual and household preparedness
Tending your nervous system so you can stay calm in a crisis
Taking an All Hazards Approach
🧙‍♀️ LINKY POOS
Chris’s home on the web ~ Chris Outdoors
Chris on Substack
Chris on YouTube
Chris’s other biz, Wild Muskoka
Return to the Village Permaculture Convergence ~ Early bird tix available till Oct 31
Thanks for the field recording of a beautiful rufous whistler, Matt Thomas!
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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
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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
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☕ 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
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Catie on Substack