Episodes
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Jade Miles is a very special mate of mine. I turned up on her doorstep as a WWOOFer in 2018 and we got on like asparagus and eggs, which is what we had for dinner that night if I recall correctly.
You probs know Jade as the host of the Futuresteading podcast, keeper of Black Barn Farm and writer of the most personal and compelling instagram captions in all the land.
I love that Jade is consciously bridging the personal/professional schism, exploring ways to bring her whole, complex self to her roles as CEO, farmer, speaker, writer, facilitator, mother, friend and bush rat.
In this conversation, Jade gets more personal than ever — which is saying something because we love a juicy yarn. From her approach to podcasting, the creation of household rituals, how seasonal imperatives shape her schedule and why she is the way she is, this is one intimate Reskillience experience.
Jade has a new book on the cook called Huddle, coming next year, and if you don’t already have the Futuresteading handbook in your hot little hands I can highly recommend it.
Black Barn Farm on Insta
Black Barn Farm’s home on the web
The Futuresteading Podcast
The Futuresteading book!
Beau Miles ~ Get Over Yourself
Anthony James ~ The RegenNarration
Tyson Yunkaporta on Futuresteading
Casper ter Kuile
Cecilia MacaulayClaire Dunn ~ Rewilding the Urban Soul
Richard Powers ~ The Overstory
Indira Naidoo ~ The Space Between the Stars
HUDDLE is out Autumn 2025
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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.
Mara’s home on the web ~ Village Dreaming
Mara’s upcoming workshops
Floral syrup recipes (including Mugolio ~ pine cone syrup)
Take a tour of Village Dreaming
Tanya Loos ~ Daylesford Nature Diary
Wintering ~ Katherine May
Mara’s Futuresteading interview
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Missing episodes?
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Are you keen to join the dots between parenting and activism? Want to grow a beautiful parallel paradigm in and through and with the yoof?
I’m not a parent, but I am someone who believes that our “impact” starts at home; that the work of our times begins with ourselves and the beings in our orbit.
So I reached out to one of the greatest women I know who also happens to be a parenthood black belt. Her name is Devon Harris and she’s here to school us in Aware Parenting, which is a thrillingly disruptive alternative to parenting-as-usual.
Devon is a parenting coach, consultant and mother who helps just as many kiddos as she does adult people, because the Aware Parenting approach is relevant to everybody – especially, as I discovered, to our petulant civilisation that’s stuck somewhere been the terrible twos and teenage angst.
We talk about compassion and non-punitive discipline, power reversal games and listening partners, community childcare and schools as feedlots.
I loved this conversation and feel great about bringing it to Reskillience – and grateful to Devon for being such a wise and hilarious guest. Syd, Devon’s kid, was also hanging out as we recorded so you’ll have the pleasure of hearing from him too. So, without further ado, here’s Devon Harris to show us just how radically rewarding raising children can be.
Devon’s home on the web
Contact the marvellous Devon
Tyson Yunkaporta
The Continuum Concept ~ Jean Leidloff
Hand in Hand parenting
Daylesford Dharma School
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Leaves and loam, feather and bone, it’s Patrick Jones from Artist as Family!
Patrick is Meg Magpie Ulman’s partner in permaculture neopeasantry, father of Blackwood and Zephyr, creature of Tree Elbow, songsmith, wordsmith, goatherd, grower, speaker, radical homemaker and reverential rubbish collector, most often seen on two wheels towing a load of scrap wood as one might bear a royal being, carried in a scared procession.
In this conversation Patrick shares a really special story about how he came to be Blue Wren as well as tales of anger, renewal, goddesses and content creation. It’s a gentle and beautiful thing which I’m really excited to share with you.
Artist as Family’s home on the web
Artist as Family’s blog (READ IT)
Artist as Family on YouTube (YOUTUBE SUX)
Happen Films ~ Creatures of Place
Martín Prechtel ~ Long life, honey in the heart
Castlemaine Rites of Passage
Natural Beekeeping with Adrian Iodice
Vandana Shiva
Paul Cudenec on Substack
W.D. James on Substack
G.K Chesterton
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It's all very well to forage weeds and track wombats, weave baskets from willow and walk barefoot cross country... but how do you stay wild in the city? With kids? With a face-sucking phone in your pocket?
Claire Dunn is a good person to ask about these things, being a key figure in Australia's rewilding movement and uncommonly balanced advocate for undomestication.
If you don’t know Claire, she’s a writer, speaker, barefoot explorer, rewilding facilitator and founder of Nature’s Apprentice -- and, as hands down one of my favourite people, it was a joy to wander with Claire around the conversational compass from her personal mythology, wild motherhood to what's up with introverts? to making peace with the concrete jungle.
Claire’s Books:
My Year Without Matches
Rewilding the Urban Soul
Claire’s home on the web:
Nature’s Apprentice
NBLT ~ Nature Based Leadership Training
Joanna Macy ~ The Work That Reconnects
Jon Young
Paul Hawken ~ Blessed Unrest
The Tourist Test ~ Kamana Wilderness Awareness School
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Dr. Yin Paradies is a loving tearer downerer of teetering assumptions, a recalibrator of compasses, an Aboriginal-Asian-Anglo Australian conducting deep research on racism, anti-racism, Indigenous knowledges and decolonisation.
Despite inhabiting a comfortable burrow in academia as the Chair of Race Relations at Deakin University, he’s also an anarchist, an animist, a trickster, a disruptor and a sage voice on so many topics that Reskillience is interested in. This is one of those convos that creeps up on you, that builds in energy and quietly blows shit apart.
We discuss the aliveness of everything, the possibility in passivity, the nature of prayer, the perils of intentional communities and how Yin and his kin at Anam Cara are doing things differently. We talk about karma yoga, eldering, sociocracy and little bits of carrot floating in the soup of consciousness. I loved my time with Yin, and welcome you intto this quietly radical conversation.
The Everything Seed ~ Carole Matignacco
In the Time of White Raven: Activism and Animism talk ~ March 3rd 2024
Carol Sandford – Indirect Work
NBLT – Nature Based Leadership Training
Anam Cara website
Findhorn Foundation
Merlin Sheldrake
David Abram
Karma Yoga
Sophie Strand
Spell of the Sensuous ~ David Abram
The Wild Edge of Sorrow ~ Francis Weller
Trickster Makes This World ~ Lewis Hyde
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Have you considered the backstory of your leather shoes? Are you curious about the process that transforms raw hides into luxurious handbags? Do you wonder how tanning relates to personal and collective resilience? Ever thought about nature connection through the lens of Attachment Theory? If so, my guest today is sure to massage your mind.
It’s Josh McLean, a social worker and Bush Adventure Therapy Facilitator who also happens to be an expert in the lost art of hide tanning.
You might know him as the guy from The Bush Tannery, but he’s increasingly bringing his wicked set of ancestral skills to bear on modern mental health practice.
I first met Josh at a rabbit tanning workshop he was leading in the middle of the city, and I was really honoured that he was made the time to reconnect and join me on the podcast to share his fascinating perspective on life, death, the past, the future, changemaking, bridge building and the pale blue dot we call home. So, please enjoy this ye olde skills edition of Reskillience with Josh McLean.
The Bush Tannery
Josh’s tanning workshops at CERES
Outdoor Health Australia
Get in touch with Josh ~ [email protected]
Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot
Attachment Theory
Book ~ Attached by Dr. Amir Levine & Rachel S.F. Heller M.A
Screen Based Living
Attention Restoration Theory
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David Holmgren is the co-originator of Permaculture, self-aware contrarian and contemplator of everything.
I’m lucky enough to be part of his extended household, so rather than shooting the breeze about the state of the world while sowing parsnips I figured I better bloody well get him on the podcast.
We dig into David’s own internal landscape as well as the contours of his life at Melliodora, and I was especially eager to quiz him about land sharing and housing alternatives; prime listening for those in the debt-avoidant club.
Listen out for our new Reskillience segment: Word Association – which sees me peppering David with all kinds of words and phrases to see what he’ll volley back. Such fun. And David said it’s unlike any interview he’s done before, which I’m taking as a good thing.
Maya Ward
Permaculture principle #8 – Integrate rather than segregate
Bill Mollison
Edges talk given by David in Lisbon
Permaculture principle #11 – Use edges and value the marginal
David Holmgren’s collected essays
Essay ~ Pandemic brooding
Essay ~ Crash on Demand
Essay ~ The Apology
Book ~ The Golden Calm by M.M. Kaye
Melliodora property
EcoBurbia
Ivan Illich
German Permaculture Academy
Call of the Reed Warbler ~ Charles Massey
RetroSuburbia Chapter #25: Changing Habits for Self-Reliance + Resilience
Book ~ RetroSuburbia: The Downshifter’s Guide to a Resilient Future ~ David Holmgren
eBook ~ Trees on the Treeless Plains ~ David Holmgren
Permaculture events + workshops
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Today's yakkity yak is with one of the most radical women in permaculture -- and you know how wild those permies can be. It's Su Dennett! Life partner of David Holmgren and unspoken ruler of the roost at Melliodora. Su is a seventy seven year old inspiration, a permaculture matriarch and precious repository of ye old skillz. I sat down with her in the teahouse, a few moons ago now, and record this conversation. (This was actually the first interview I ever recorded for Reskillience, so don’t be alarmed by the references to winter, the bushfire season ahead and fabricated listener questions.) What is totally timeless is Su’s take on food, the gut, kids and parenting, eating animals, talking to animals, household roles, wealth, community, and small town gossip. Get into it.
Online course ~ Do with Su
Cute zine ~ Do with Su
Come to the Do with Su online launch with Costa!
Holmgren Design online
The Holmgren bookshop
The RetroSuburbia community on Facebook
RetroSuburbia ~ The Downshifter’s Guide to a Resilient Future
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I’m not a doctor – though I wish I was because who wouldn’t want to take their petrified child to see Dr Payne? However, I did study herbal medicine and practice as a naturopath, which could be why so many folks still get in touch with me about plant medicine.
So! To all those green appreciators out there – wannabe witches, budding shamans, dandelion disciples, mullein maestros, burdock rockers, sage mages… this episode with Taj Scicluna is for you.
You might know Taj as The Perma Pixie, but she’s currently in a rebranding chrysalis and will be emerging soon as something new and beautiful. She’s a Botanical Educator, Grassroots & Bioregional Herbalist, Writer, Forager, Awe-seeker and Animist – and I’ll add: a clear, calm voice in the wilderness.
There’s so much to love in this long, awakening convo. May it scratch the botanical itch while soothing the herbal soul.
Taj Scicluna’s home on the web
Taj on Instagram
Taj’s Patreon
Taj’s courses, workshops, retreats and offerings (so many starting in Feb!)
Feb ~ The Herbal Apprentice
Mar ~ Ritual Herbalism (waitlist!)
Weed witch ~ Susun Weed
Local herb nerd ~ Willow Herb Nerd
Foraging aficionado ~ The Urban Nanna
An excellent field guide ~ The Weed Forager’s Handbook
Nature’s Apprentice ~ Claire Dunn
Imaginary tee-shirts:
Capitalism: I didn’t consent to this
Interrogate Capitalism!
Obliterate Capitalism!
Be the weeds!
You don’t have to fight for rebellion.
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Throw a chicken bone in the cogs of the never-say-die machine with this week’s convo about DEATHHHHH.
Not going to coat this one in plum sauce and call it “spare ribs” – today Beck Lowe and I go the whole hog on keeping animals, killing animals, and why to hone that skill if you LOVE animals. Get around it.
Beck Lowe’s home on the web
Book ~ Our Street by Beck Lowe + David Holmgren
Podcast ~ Poetry Unbound
Podcast ~ Big Things. Little Things.
Podcast ~ Ologies
Book ~ RetroSuburbia
For the seekers ~ Do a Permaculture Design Certificate!
Live Online PDC with Beck + David ~ February
Rocklyn Ashram PDC with Beck + David ~ March
Permaculture property ~ Melliodora
Little known gardening program ~ Gardening Australia
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Oh happy day, it’s Jordan Osmond from Happen Films!
Happen Films is one of the most powerful portals of inspiration in the sustainability space; not just trotting out the same old green living tropes but laying new turf, sharing fringe ideas about how to care for land, be in community, and live the change.
I was stoked to sit down with Jordan now that he’s back in Australia and quiz him about filmmaking, changemaking and finances – and like good little optimists, we only mentioned civilisational collapse once.
Visit Happen Films on the web
Follow Happen Films on YouTube
Support Happen Films on Patreon
Podcast ~ Accidental Gods
Documentary ~ Fahrenheit 9/11
Documentary ~ Food Inc.
Professor dude ~ Samuel Alexander
Podcast ~ Possibility Now! with Ethan Hughes
Namaste Foundation/Biome Trust
Permie Neopeasants ~ Artist as Family
Book ~ Artist as Family’s The Art of Free Travel
Permie place ~ Melliodora
Alain de Botton
David Holmgren
Nicole Foss
Helena Norberg-Hodge
Podcast ~ The Great Simplification
Charles Eisenstein ~ The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible
Happen Films referenced
A Simpler Way
Fools & Dreamers
Ben & bEartha
Living the Change
Living Simply in an Off Grid Tiny House
Creatures of Place
An Invitation for Wildness
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Can rocks be your besties? Are the shadows safer? How does Deer Medicine help women avoid becoming prey?
Get into this conversation with adventurer, wilderness guide and creature of place Suzy Muir – who, alongside her intrepid husband Jon Muir – live a radically simple off grid existence in the Grampians.
I was lucky enough to meet Suzy in her natural habitat, purely by chance, and have considered her a friend and mentor ever since. Her stories and wisdom and wildness may just have the same effect on you; something to hear with your bones as well as your ears, singing to ancient and latent parts of the soul. Enjoy this whole conversation.
Suzy + Jon’s home on the web ~ Grampians Nature Programs
Suzy + Jon’s accommodation ~ A Boat in the Grampians
Suzy + Jon’s books + DVDs
Watch Alone Across Australia
Watch Suzy & The Simple Man
Mary Oliver’s poem ~ Wild Geese
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Can we tempt you sell your car, compost your shit and embrace a life of joyful frugality?
You don't have to answer right away. Listen to this conversation with Meg Ulman of Artist as Family to hear what a radically connected lifeway is all about.
We cover a lot of ground in this episode from growing up Jewish and getting intentional about time, to forest names, bush kids, menopause and grief.
GOOD LINKS
Meg + Artist as Family’s home on the web
Artist as Family’s YouTube
Artist as Family’s humanure compost workshop
The Humanure Handbook ~ Joseph Jenkins
New Menopausal Years The Wise Woman Way ~ Susan S. Weed
Beyond Bitchy ~ Mastering the Art of Boundaries podcast
Dr. Mindy Pelz on YouTube
The Wild Edge of Sorrow ~ Francis Weller
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A convo about the collapse of civilization may not be everyone’s cuppa tea, but a spoonful of Dave Pollard makes the medicine go down! And today Dave is bringing the sweetness to episode one of Reskillience for a Big Hairy Chat about the End Times – that ain’t so scary after all.
We discuss what “collapse” means, skills that can help us cope and adapt, why communitarianism is where it’s at, and how to catch each other when The Shit Hits The Fan.
Dave is a writer and longtime student of culture, systems theory, complexity, history, human nature, non-duality and how the world really works. He describes himself as a dechooled non-spiritual vegan and joyful pessimist – and after this surprisingly uplifting conversation, I’m sure you’ll agree.
CONNECT WITH DAVE
Dave’s home on the web ~ How To Save The World
LINKS TO STUFF
Dave’s recommended reading list ~ The Books That Have Influenced Me Most
Dave’s article ~ How Do We Teach the Critical Skills Needed to Face Collapse?
Molly Housch Gordon's piece ~ How to Survive the End of The World
