Dive into the complete episode list for The Ground Shots Podcast. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
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29 Jun 2019
Freddie Mango Roots on Korean Natural Farming in Hawai'i, growing up in the deep south, culturing culture and a Kaua'i Food Forest plant walk
01:49:43
Episode #20 of the Ground Shots Podcast.
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast was recorded at the Kaua'i Food Forest on a volunteer day one Saturday in May 2019. Freddie Mango Roots is one person in the core volunteer collective that tends the food forest on the island. He utilizes Korean Natural Farming techniques at the food forest as well as at his own gardens at home. We spend some time together going into Freddie's personal story, and venture into philosophy about our culture and the choices we make to work with the earth. We end the conversation with a recorded plant walk through the Kaua'i Food Forest.
In this conversation we also talk about:
Freddie's stories of living in the wilderness for many years on the island of Kaua'i including a story about a helicopter crash
more on plants and the food forest in addition to the sharing Paul Massey and Rob Cruz did on episode #17
being a product of your upbringing and a certain environment
growing up in the deep south
fermenting in the garden and kitchen
how microbes are our ancestors
Korean / Hawai'ian natural farming ferments
the importance of cultural and ecological diversity and symbiosis
the lessons of the garden for life – accepting constant change and shifting
Make sure to check out the photo diary of the Kaua'i Food Forest on the project blog page to see what some of the plants look like that Freddie mentions on the audio plant walk.
Ep. 17: The Kaua'i Food Forest and subtropical agroforestry with Paul Massey and Rob Cruz
01:42:02
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Paul Massey and Rob Cruz of the Kaua’i Food Forest.
The Kaua’i Food Forest is a community-based subtropical food ecosystem located on Kaua`i’s north shore in the ahupua`a (watershed) of Kalihiwai, a project born from the collaboration of three nonprofit organizations: Regenerations Botanical Garden, Mālama Kaua`i, and the Sanctuary of LUBOF. Regenerations is responsible for leading the ongoing design, planting, and maintenance of the forest.
According to the Kaua’i Food Forest website: (which I suggest you peruse for plant lists, more photos and backstory of the project!):
[The Kaua’i Food Forest] is creating a constantly evolving, radiantly healthy forest ecosystem with nutritious delicious fruit and other food items as a major output. The forest is intended to serve as an educational demonstration site, where community members from Kaua`i and beyond can learn and innovate subtropical agroforestry techniques and management through practical hands-on experience. In addition, the forest is a renewable source of biological diversity for reproduction, distribution, and conservation.
Paul Massey is one of the founding stewards of the Kaua’i Food Forest, the director of Regenerations Botanical Garden, a organization whose mission is to support the conservation of threatened plant diversity for the benefit of all life by designing, building, and implementing inclusive and sustainable community-based stewardship activities. Paul hosts a radio show called ‘In the Garden, On the Farm’ on KKCR Kauaʻi Community Radio.
Rob Cruz is one of the founding stewards of the Kaua’i Food Forest, dedicates his life to creating and refining human scale food ecosystems and sharing with those willing to learn.
We recorded this conversation at the community house by the food forest one evening as dusk settled in on the island.
47 : Sharon Kallis in Vancouver, BC on creatives as unique problemsolvers for ecological issues, using invasive plants in community building through craft
01:49:19
Episode #47 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with artist and creative land-tender Sharon Kallis, who lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Sharon is a community engaged environmental artist.
I met Sharon last year at the Saskatoon Circle ancestral skills gathering in eastern Washington. Before the gathering, one of my good friends had been telling me about Sharon and her partner David and how I should meet them. While at this gathering, they happened to set up their camp right next to the camp I made with my friends.
I have to tell you, Sharon and David are A LOT OF FUN. They make cool things, have a good time, and are incredible people to carry on deep and candid conversations with. After talking for a bit and learning more about their work, I asked Sharon if she’d be interested in sharing some of what she does on the podcast. Sharon and I talked about doing some kind of in-person interview last summer, with the potential of me attempting to cross the border into Canada to visit her gardens and projects in-person, but it never happened. At least, not for now. Also, the idea of dealing with carrying my mobile home across the border with tinctures, bark and animal pelts, had me hesitant.
Sharon gave me a copy of her book ‘Common Threads’ last summer to read through, and I loved it. I read about her projects with ‘invasive’ plants for fiber, rope and basket-making, her restoration projects in the city using those said plants, and other community oriented projects. These projects that literally weave art, ecology, place-making and craft skills together really inspired my already deep interest in gleaning what was right in front of me to make work that connects to place. I kept it in my mind to still feature her somehow on the podcast. After getting back from the Colorado Trail Plant-a-go walk this summer, she was one of the first people on my mind to contact. I wanted to hear what she was up to now, and also how the current situation in the world was affecting her mindset and practice.
Our conversation here is just that. A check-in, an exploration of Sharon’s work, some art + ecology philosophy talk, some untangling of what decolonizing craft could look like in one way and in one place, and more.
About Sharon Kallis: (From the Earthand Gleaner’s Society website)
Sharon is a community engaged environmental artist (in her words).
‘With a “one mile diet” approach to sourcing art materials, Sharon works to discover the inherent material potential in a local landscape. Involving community in connecting traditional hand techniques with invasive species, tended plantings and garden waste, she creates site-specific installations that become ecological interventions. Graduating from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 1996 she began working materials from the land in 1999 and has exhibited and engaged communities with her practice in Ireland, Spain, Mexico and throughout the United States. At home in Vancouver Canada, Sharon works with Vancouver Park Board, Stanley Park Ecology Society. She is one of the primary stewards of the Means of Production Garden since 2009 which is a community garden that grows art materials. She is also one of the primary stewards of Trillium North Park. Sharon has received numerous Canada Council and British Columbia Arts Council grants for both studio-based and community-focused projects. Her work has been acknowledged as the 2010 recipient of the Brandford/ Elliott International Award for Excellence in Fibre Arts, Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Studio Design: emerging artist, and the Vancouver Mayors Award Recipient for Studio Design in 2017.
Sharon’s creative work and how she arrived at what she is doing today in Vancouver, BC, Canada
how creative folks can be important connection-makers and ecological problem-solvers and how allowing room for them is important
the importance of respecting indigenous peoples’ relationships to their cultural weaving and fiber practices
working on community garden projects in urban Vancouver focused on regional culturally significant fiber plants
how ‘invasive’ plants can be useful for learning to weave and for problem-solving because they are abundant free materials that you can mess up on while experimenting
different ‘invasive’ plants Sharon has worked with doing community craft projects in Vancouver, BC
the importance of Nettles, Fireweed and Flax as fiber plants and pollinator preferred species
how weeds are often seen as plants that simply don’t serve the human agenda
navigating connection to place and the land as a settler
trying to stay buoyant during pandemic, fires and revolution
Wild Tending Series/ Forest Farming in the Ozarks with Wren Haffner and Ini Giesbrecht of Mountain Jewel Center for Earth Connection
01:27:36
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Wren Haffner and Ini Giesbrecht of Mountain Jewel Center for Earth Connection, an 18 acre homestead in the Ozarks.
I’ve been following Mountain Jewel for a few years now on Instagram, since before Wren and Ini started tending the land they steward.
I’ve been consistently inspired by Wren and Ini’s work on the land, as they have prolifically shared the evolution of their land project on Instagram and through blogging over the years. Wren and Ini have shared the plants they work with and the trials and tribulations of homesteading and building infrastructure that feels in harmony with the land.
I’ve been wanting to talk with them for awhile on the nature of their work, what their goals are, some of their discoveries and more.
In this conversation with Wren and Ini, we talk about:
Wren and Ini’s traveling life before landing in the Ozarks and their reasons for landing there
some geology of the Ozarks and how it influences the ecology
Mountain Jewel’s land-based infrastructure
natural building in a humid place, and how it might actually be a BETTER option in some instances!
the perennial native and non-native food crops Wren and Ini have been working with, some include: Chinese Mountain Yam, Gumi, Indigo Bush, Comfrey, Skirret, Sunroot, Figs, Apples, Mulberry, Persimmon, Elderberries, Paw Paws, Chestnut and Ozark Chinkapin, Yaupon Holly, Aronia Berry and more.
deeper talk about Paw Paws and their flavor, medicine, selected species, propagation
Wren’s new land race seed project focused on Squash, and more talk on land race seeds in general
Mountain Jewel Center for Earth Connection’s website where you can buy bare root seedlings of some of the plants we mention in the conversation, read their blog and more: https://ozarkmountainjewel.com/
Wild tending series / Michael Ridge of Walking with Western Wildflowers on living nomadically year-round wild-tending on horseback
00:43:50
Episode #41 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a story documenting my visit with Michael Ridge of Walking with Western Wildflowers August 2019 in Kamiah, Idaho, Nimiipuu country.
In this episode with Michael we talk about:
the importance of ecological participation as a way to belong to place
Michael's way of wild-tending nomadically on horseback across the west
planting the seeds of wild food and medicine plants to diversify genetics
some of the plants Michael tends like Sego Lilies, Biscuitroots, different stone-fruits, Camas, Yampah and more.
The Native Seed Pod podcast https://www.nativeseedpod.org/ features some conversations about wild tending hosted by native folks interviewing native folks.
A few links to learning about colonization in Nimipuu territory :
Brien Beidler and Mary Sullivan on the importance of the crafts of bookbinding and papermaking
01:30:53
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with craftsfolk Brien Beidler and Mary Sullivan at the off-grid rural Idaho homestead of Jim Croft and Melody Eckroft during their summer 2019 ‘Old Ways of Making Books’ class.
Brien, Mary and I sat down at the end of a three week workshop period where we all had different roles as both teachers and students during Jim and Melody’s yearly or bi-yearly ‘Old Ways of Making Books’ class. Brien and Mary are highly skilled bookbinders who came to assist Jim Croft and also continue to learn and be mentored by him.
I’ve mentioned the old ways class on the podcast several times and posted about it on the blog over the years. Alyssa Sacora and I talk about the Old Ways class on the podcast, here. I posted a photo diary three years ago of my time at Jim and Melody’s homestead, here. I posted a recent photo diary documenting the hide tanning portion of the class from this summer, here.
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From the beginning, Brien Beidler has been inspired by historic bindings, and is consistently delighted by their ability to harmonize fine craftsmanship, quirky but elegant aesthetics, and evidence of the hands that made them. Though traditionally structured and bound with integrity, Brien's bindings seek ways to create new compositions and juxtapositions of these historic precedents.
Naturally, a healthy love of the tools of the trade followed suit, and with the generosity and encouragement of toolmaking legends Jim Croft and Shanna Leino, Brien also creates a limited assortment of specialized hand tools for bookbinding and its related trades.
Over the last nine years Brien has taken and taught a variety of bookbinding and toolmaking workshops, and is an active member of the Guild of Book Workers. In the fall of 2016, he and his wife upped their roots in Charleston, South Carolina and set up shop in Bloomington, Indiana, where Brien works from his home studio with Wren, his curmudgeonly Brittany.
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Mary Sullivan grew up in Nashville, Tennessee and was one of those children who always seemed to be making something. After completing her BA in Fine Art from Maryville College in 2006 she worked as a designer and printer at the legendary Hatch Show Print, one of the country's oldest continually operating letterpress poster shops in Nashville, TN. After several years absorbing the history, materials, and tools of the trade she left Nashville temporarily to pursue an MFA in book arts at the renowned University of Iowa Center for the Book in Iowa City, Iowa.
Over the next 3 years she studied bookbinding, paper-making, printmaking, calligraphy, and book repair and was taught by some of the most respected practitioners in my field. Upon completing her MFA in Book Arts in 2014, she moved back to her hometown in Nashville and founded Crowing Hens Bindery, where she designs, makes, and sells everything from blank books to letterpress printed stationery, decorative papers, art prints, and tools; all made by hand, one at a time.
In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:
how Brien and Mary met the bookbinder and papermaker Jim Croft and how he affected their relationships to bookbinding, printmaking, papermaking, and craft in general.
how learning about bookbinding and craft processes at Jim and Melody's homestead in northern Idaho is unique because of their land-based lifestyle
how Jim Croft's books are modeled after medieval era books, but are unique to him and the landscape of northern Idaho
the scavenge nature of Jim Croft's craft process
Brien talks about his focus on bookbinding, toolmaking etc. and his preference for making his books and tools accessible
Mary speaks on her work of bookbinding, printing, and art making; as well as her graduate school research on paper-making production
how industrialization affects the slow craft of bookbinding especially when using materials from the land and doing the process by hand and with the focus of quality books in mind
the effects industrialization has on the consumer's expectations of perfectionism, something that didn't always exist in bookbinding and paper-making historically
some bookbinding history
the responsibility of carrying on the trade of bookbinding and not losing the knowledge of how to make different styles of books
how capitalism affects our understanding and treatment of books
some talk on the value of art vs. craft in our culture
Links:
Jim and Melody’s website, where you can contact them about future classes out in Idaho (calling or writing letters is best): https://cargocollective.com/oldway
81: Ethan Bonnin on Ecological Degradation at the Borderlands
02:55:36
Ethan graduated from Humboldt State University with a degree in Wildlife Biology and Conservation. Currently, he works in the advocacy world for habitat protection and restoration on public lands that face various resource extraction industries. He homesteads on a piece of desertified land In southern Arizona and is attempting to reverse desertification processes to help build food/habitat. Beyond his focus in biology, over the last 12 years he has been involved with local organic agriculture systems in the places he has lived. Ethan has worked at many different organic produce farms/apiaries and is currently working more with sustainable livestock use on different landscape levels. He is also interested in foraging, food processing/preservation, processing/use of animal fibers for clothing, wildlife tracking/trailing, erosion reversal/desertified landscape restoration, music, wildlife tracking. Ecology and ecological advocacy has been his passion and focus through his adult life and many of these hobbies have helped him to connect with his local ecological systems. He believes that healthy human communities and landscapes are integrally tied and there is no environmental protection/advocacy without supporting the communities that live in those places. Ethan works with mutual aid networks in his area and has been involved in several direct action campaigns surrounding the border wall and local ecological issues. He has a wonderful dog companion, Tuck, who keeps him company at his desert homestead and on many adventures. Working to re-wild and decolonize the world around us starts within and Ethan hopes to continue this journey with the wonderful community of folks he’s met along the way.
Want to share something? Call the podcast and leave a message (while you’re there, if your ok with us airing it on the podcast, give us verbal permission):
Lisa Schonberg on using acoustic ecology to study ants in the Amazon and endemic bees in Hawai'i, making science accessible through musical composition
00:51:47
Episode #25 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Lisa Schonberg.
We sat down at her home in Portland, Oregon, in-between her various research projects in the tropics. Lisa is a composer, percussionist, field recordist, teacher, and writer with a background in entomology and ecology. Lisa has traveled extensively to carry out fieldwork and perform environment-informed music. She earned her Masters in Environmental Studies at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA with a focus on ant biodiversity in the Neotropics. She documents soundscapes, insects, and habitat through music composition, writing, and multimedia collaboration. She strives to draw attention to endangered species, habitat loss, and other environmental issues through a merging of artistic and scientific practices, often in collaboration with ecologists.
Lisa's ATTA fieldwork (Amplifying the Tropical Ants), a project in collaboration with Brazilian entomologists investigating ant bioacoustics in the Amazon, the ecological and cultural relevance of “sons escondidos” (hidden sounds) and how they can impact our perception of non-human species and our decision-making processes
the importance of acoustic ecology and combining music composition and ecological field research
how Lisa performs her place-based compositions with her ensembles Secret Drum Band and UAU.
The Hylaeus project and Lisa's study of endangered bees that are endemic to Hawai'i
Developments in citizen science in Hawai'i for the Hylaeus bees
How research on the bees in Hawai'i can help to raise awareness about behavioral changes people can make to protect the bees' habitat
The current administration's push to weaken the Endangered Species Act and how this is extremely problematic
How cross-discipline collaborative research can make questions and findings more accessible
Making art from scientific data to make it more fun for folks to learn about
The pattern ecology project and the exploration of making art about science and through the scientific process
As an additional component to this interview with Lisa, we're including a Ground Shots mixtape episode with a selection of music from the various projects Lisa mentions. Download that episode and enjoy listening to Lisa's compositions that utilize her field recordings in the Amazon, Hawai'i and beyond. (next episode)
Ted Packard on bodies as a multiplicity, coyote-trickster troubadour-ing, music as ecological channeling, kids and nature connection, & creating communities of mutuality
Ted studied History and Anthropology at Christopher Newport University, got a Master’s in Teaching, went on the road with the Momentary Prophets band, and then went to study with Alderleaf Wilderness College and Wilderness Awareness School. He taught various program for youth around the greater Seattle area for many years before relocating to Durango, Colorado to dry out, as he says. After some years of a break, Ted just started up a new nature connection program for youth in the Durango community. Ted does lots of things, including various handcrafts, refurbishing guitars and other instruments, music-making, writing, wood-burning and more. As college peers, we spent a lot of time together researching things like mushroom cults, the esoteric origins of Judeo-Christian religion, the anthropology of psychedelics, zen koans, and more. We both have lived in different places since and woven in and out of each others’ lives so we spent some time really checking in about how we think about things now vs. when we were radical activist driven neo-pagan coyote-trickster troubadour mind-melters.
In this episode with Ted, we talk about:
Ted’s nature connection mentorship work with youth in Washington and Colorado
Ted’s upbringing in northwestern Virginia
Our experience in college of community: artists, philosophers, musicians, activists, and neo-pagans and our reflections on that time now
seasonal ritual as a somatic map
ways that Ted’s anger at an eco-cidal culture has transformed over the years to a yearning for finding points of connection vs. telling someone they are wrong or how to live
what is a community of mutuality in a broken society that emphasizes hyper-individualism?
activism can look many ways and can even be in small moments of advocacy
awareness of the isolation of capitalism is often crippling
the reality that financial security is generally not available to our generation (millennials)
Ted’s musical projects which include Momentary Prophets from his early 20’s, that had a coyote-troubadour element with community driven instigation, as well as his own solo projects
paying attention to ‘nature’ bringing you closer to crazy synchronicities that become signposts to keep going
weaving a web of interrelated ideas and ecologies as a way of being
trauma, neutrinos, quantum physics intersecting eastern philosophy, bodies as multiplicity, the mycelium nature of everything, music as ecological channeling
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Music: by Ted Packard and Momentary Prophets
This episode hosted by: Kelly Moody
Produced by: Kelly Moody and Ted Packard
19 Dec 2022
writer, botanist, Susan Tweit on being a walking ecosystem, writing the deserts of the West
02:01:17
Susan Tweit is a plant biologist with a calling to restore nature and our connection with the community of the land especially close to home. Plants are her people, as she says, fascinated by the myriad ways they weave the world’s living communities, forming the green tapestry that covers this planet. Susan began her career as a field ecologist studying sagebrush, grizzly bears and wildfires. She reveled in the work and the time outside in the west’s expansive landscapes, but eventually realized she loved the stories in the data more than collecting those data. So, she learned how to tell those stories, not an easy trick for a scientist schooled in dispassionate and impersonal prose.
Susan and I met at the Paonia Books opening event in Paonia, Colorado in late fall 2022. During the event, we ended up getting into a conversation about plants by the hard cider sample table, and decided to try at some point to do an interview for the podcast. I was curious about Susan’s work as a writer and botanist, ecology scientist and was excited to dig deeper. We managed to meet up a few weeks later and recorded a conversation in Paonia Books’ back room where they hold writing workshops.
She has written a handful of books on a variety of themes. Some of her titles include ‘Barren, Wild and Worthless, Living in the Chihuahuan Desert,’ ‘The Rocky Mountain Garden Guide,’ and ‘Bless the Birds: Living with Love in a Time of Dying.’
Interstitial music: Old Maid's Draw by Riddy Arman
Hosted by: Kelly Moody
Produced by: Kelly Moody
01 Dec 2020
Wild Tending Series / Ali Meders-Knight on integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge into landscape management
00:50:21
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with Ali Meders-Knight, out of Chico, California.
Ali Meders-Knight is a Mechoopda tribal member, mother of five, and traditional basketweaver based in Chico, CA. She is a Mechoopda Tribal liaison working to form partnerships for federal forest stewardship contracting and tribal forestry programs authorized in the 2018 Farm Bill. She has been a Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) practitioner for over 20 years, collaborating on environmental education and land restoration projects with Chico State University and the City of Chico. In 2009 she helped plan and establish Verbena Fields, a unique 17-acre interactive food forest and interpretive park in North Chico to help educate the community about the rich ecological heritage of the Mechoopda people.
In this episode with Ali, we talk about:
what is TEK?
Ali explains the advanced nature of Traditional Ecological Knowledge which is evolving ecosystem knowledge and land tending techniques acquired by indigenous peoples over hundreds or thousands of years through direct contact with the land
issues around forest management in California and the U.S. on the whole, and how money has influenced decisions made about management strategies instead of what makes the most sense for the land and the local community
why forest management should be localized and indigenous led
the intentions and goals of the TEKChico project: creating a trained workforce that can complete long term contracts with the USDA to manage forests locally
how disaster capitalism influences land management and doesn’t actually take care of people and the land
the need for fire on the landscape in California
modern cultural misunderstandings of fire and how trauma and racism play into these misunderstandings
how the 2018 US Farm Bill increased federal support and opportunity for Native farmers and ranchers, and how this bill links federal land management needs more directly to sovereign indigenous nations
Ep. 16: Lindsey Leach on trauma informed council for children, systematic racism in Richmond, VA, revisioning history
01:19:59
Episode 16 of the Ground Shots Podcast.
This episode is a conversation with Lindsey Leach, who lives in Richmond, Virginia. I recorded our conversation this past October, while I was doing a printmaking residency in Petersburg, Virginia at Cornmeal Press, the studios of Aimee Joyaux, our guest from Episode 14. When this interview was recorded, Lindsey was working as the Development Manger at ChildSavers, an organization dedicated to the mental wellbeing of children in the greater RVA area.
In addition to talking about the work of the organization ChildSavers, we chat about:
the importance of trauma informed council for children
the history of the deliberate concentrating of poverty in black communities in Richmond, VA
how a history of systematic racism is reflected in the present day reality of the city
ways that schools are still segregated
how trauma affects the body
the link between trauma and systematic racism
the need to remove the confederate statues on Monument Ave in Richmond, VA
reevaluating southern identities that revolve around a selectively curated storytelling of the past
the importance of representing and telling all stories of the past and present for a more accurate representation of the lived human experience in the RVA area
having civil conversations with people who you don’t agree with
how Richmond is making changes to acknowledge the history of all people who lived and live in the city (links to some of these things are found below)
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To go along with this episode, Lindsey, who is an avid reader, put together an epic book list that relates to the topics we touch on in this conversation, found on the Ground Shots Project Patreon membership page.
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As of February of this year, Lindsey accepted a position at United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) as Senior Development Officer. Now she heads up fundraising for UNOS, the nonprofit that manages the nation's only organ transplant system. She continues to support ChildSavers and is involved in her community through board service for ReEstablish Richmond which is a local nonprofit that helps refugees establish roots, build community, and become self-sufficient. In addition to her nonprofit work, Lindsey is an artist. You can view her portfolio linked below and learn about her psychic landscapes depicting the inner world of emotions.
The additional music for this episode is by Ted Packard. Ted is a nature connection educator, artist and musician who runs a Patreon for his creative projects which also expand beyond music, the link to his page can be found in the show notes below.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) is putting on this upcoming show in Richmond called "Cosmologies from the Tree of Life: Art from the African American South." https://www.vmfa.museum/exhibitions/cosmologies/
we speak more on re-thinking ‘a war’ on certain plants and how plants respond to the circumstances at hand
we reflect on how putting lines on the land like ‘wilderness boundaries’ can affect ecology
we talk about questioning concepts of ‘pristine wilderness’
09 Apr 2021
Gabe Crawford interviews Angela Moles P.h.D. on the rapid evolutionary responses of plants due to climate change, challenging scientific dogma
01:28:15
Episode #57 of the podcast is a conversation between Gabe Crawford and Dr. Angela Moles.
Gabe Crawford, a former podcast guest, hosts this episode of the Ground Shots Podcast.
Gabe has been conducting research on the history of anthropogenic landscapes, ecology, botany, and ethnobotany, and discovering bias and racism in those fields that have carried into our understanding of human relationship with the land today. This research also inevitably brings one to diving into the science and culture of invasion biology, a fairly new field of study. If you’re a regular listener of the podcast, you know that we have spoken a few times on anthropogenic landscapes and visit the often controversial topic of invasive plants.
We spoke about this with Nikki Hill on Episode #33 of the podcast, and on more recently on Episode #53 of the podcast. After diving into this controversial topic and realizing that it is complex and requires looking at a lot of different perspectives, Gabe decided to reach out to Dr. Angela Moles, whose articles he discovered in his research. Angela Moles in an Australian scientist doing research on plant morphology and rapid plant evolution and many of her findings are challenging previously held as true assumptions in the scientific community about the ways certain plants function under certain conditions.
Professor Angela Moles is the director of the Evolution & Ecology Research Centre at UNSW Sydney in Australia. Her research aims to improve understanding of plant responses to climate change, and to quantify the ways introduced species change when they are introduced to new ranges. Angela is also a mother, and a surf lifesaver.
In this episode of the podcast, Gabe and Angela talk about:
Angela’s research with the Global Herbivory Project and in evolutionary biology and ecology
how plants and animals can evolve and change faster than we previously though, and Angela’s quantifiable research on this
the change in cultural attitudes towards introduced species in the last hundred years
some history on the Acclimatization Society, which encouraged the introduction of non-native plants from Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries to lands being colonized, as a way to bring familiarity to settlers and with the assumption that this practice enriched foreign ecologies
dogma present in the scientific community
how ecosystems are dynamic and don’t just stay in one place
how difficult it is for scientists to make paradigm shifts
some Australian anthropogenic landscape ecology, fire, colonization
whether it is the invading plants that are the issue or the change in disturbance regimes of landscapes
including native folks in ecology and urban ecology work
the gridlock between the need for assisted migration or ‘natural’ self-led plant migrations due to climate change, and the fear of invasive plants harming ecosystems
Links:
Gabe Crawford, guest host, on Instagram: @plumsforbums
I highly recommend perusing Google Scholar and reading other academic articles written by Angela Moles, of which there are many, to get more perspective on her groundbreaking research.
Amy Armantrout of Scavenge Magic out of Eugene, OR on infusing planetary grief into garments with Black Walnut, scavenging to shift land relationships
01:11:37
Episode #18 of the Ground Shots Podcast.
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Amy Armantrout of Scavenge Magic. Amy and her project are located outside of Eugene, Oregon.
This episode was recorded late last summer on the land where Amy lives outside of town. We sat in her outdoor kitchen, a space where she dyes used garments from thrift stores primarily with Black Walnut. Amy and I have been friends since 2013, when we lived together while attending herbal medicine school outside of Asheville, North Carolina. Since living on that farm together, we have both spent periods on the road or in states of semi-nomadism.
In this conversation, we talk about
Amy's experience with a transient way of life- it's pros and cons and complexities.
We also talk about her philosophy and process with natural dyeing.
We touch on how to grapple with planetary grief and the different ways we can step into the realities of the resource extraction processes we all benefit from.
We discuss scavenging in our modern times, and the ways in which Amy navigates scavenge culture as it relates to the intersections of living in a state of colonialism and a culture of capitalism where excessive waste is the norm.
We touch on the importance of being aware of cultural sensitivity when scavenging, and how we should consider it necessary to defend and give back to places we also scavenge from and more.
Amy is vending her naturally dyed Scavenge Magic wares at the Whiteaker Farmer's Market in Eugene, Oregon this summer! Go check out her booth if you are in the area!
Dan Nanamkin on the importance of indigenous led skill-share with sovereignty camps
01:00:03
Episode #39 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Dan Nanamkin.
Dan Nanamkin is from the Chief Joseph Band Of Wallowa, Nez Perce, and Colville Confederated Tribes of Washington State has been an advocate/teacher for indigenous culture, community unity, youth empowerment, racial equality, and peace for several decades. Prior to Standing Rock, Dan took one of the leads in helping to restore ancient canoe culture of the northwest plateau tribes, the River Warriors. This inspired him further to connect with the Water, something that led him to Standing Rock. He endured months of peaceful front line action at Standing Rock from September 2016 until March 2017. Dan has since traveled across the nation speaking with his two dogs and band, the One Tribe Movement. Dan advocates for people to be better informed, to get more involved, to resist racism and violence, and to support the movement to protect Mother Earth. He is a public presenter, musician and author who remains active in bringing forth awareness of Native culture. His mission is to connect modern day people with the traditions that are still absolutely relevant and critical to life today. Dan hopes to bring back traditional knowledge of the earth/plants/medicines and survival in a way to encourage healing, wellness and respect for balance with Mother Earth and all living things.
In this conversation with Dan, we talk about:
Dan's Sovereignty Camp skill-share project which focuses on educating native youth about traditional skills
how Sovereignty Camp started and Dan's motivations for the project
what skills are taught at the camps
why creating an educational alternative for native youth away from mainstream schooling that includes a focus on cultural education is important
the importance of indigenous led skills-shares
why land skills are important for indigenous sovereignty
Dan's visions for the future of the camps and his land project
how folks can support Dan's sovereignty camp project
Episode #84 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with Jeff Wagner out of Paonia, Colorado, director of Groundwork, a regional nonprofit educating about food systems in a changing world and more.
Groundwork is a place-based education program working to deepen our society’s relationships with land, food, and water and to cultivate generative and regenerative ways of living and relating. Our mission is to inspire the cultural shifts needed for a sustainable future.
Rising to meet the challenges posed by climate change, ecological decline, and environmental injustice requires more than new technologies and policies. At Groundwork, we believe it also requires profound shifts in the ways we relate to one another and to the world around us. Groundwork offers educational programs and publications that seek to shift the foundations of the ways we understand ourselves and our place in the world, in order to work towards more just and sustainable shared futures.
A culture, like our planet, is a living ecosystem, constantly shifting and changing based on the values, attitudes, and practices cultivated within a particular community. Groundwork creates spaces to critically reflect upon, challenge, experiment with, and create anew those building blocks of culture. Our offerings create opportunities for the emergence of new kinds of relationships and ways of being within the human and more-than-human world.
We believe that reimagined relationships and practices—in essence, emergent cultures—are the foundations of systemic change.
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with the potter and artist John Mahkewa, Hopi-Tewa elder currently living in Yuma, Arizona.
John and I met a few years ago at the Buckeye Gathering, an ancestral skills gathering that usually occurs in the Spring in Concow, California. Since this gathering where I met John and took his pottery class, the Buckeye Gathering has been on sabbatical, due to the Paradise fire and the Covid-19 pandemic.
I decided to take John’s class at this gathering because I wanted to focus on one craft for the week, and I had been introduced to land-based pottery from my friend Erin Fahey, who is pictured in this podcast episode’s main photo. She spoke highly of John, having met him the year before at the gathering and offered to process his clay for him a year in advance because of a recent stroke he had had. Taking his class was a fruitful experience of immense patience and fulfillment.
At first, the gathering was rainy, and there were a lot of folks who showed up for John’s class, it was hard to get individual attention while working with the clay we the been given. The weather affects everything with pottery. Rainy weather makes it act differently - makes it dry slower and more likely to crack, at the same time, drying a hand pinched pot in the direct sun will also make it crack. John told stories and reminded us that our mindset affects our pots. They were children we had to nurture. Each day the class got smaller as folks got distracted by shorter and more instantly fulfilling classes. As those who stayed dedicated to the process stuck it out, we got more individual attention and feedback from John about how we were working the clay. We made ultra small pots, partly because of the weather, partly because of John’s advice to start small as it is less likely to crack and dries faster. Our goal was to pit fire the pots by the end of the week, and the variable weather made it uncertain if it would be successful.
By the end of the week there were less than 10 of us dedicated students showing up to John’s class, not that it wasn’t a good class, but because often at these skill-share gatherings folks feel FOMO for not trying to dip their fingers in everything and distraction is a reality. During these last few days, John told a lot of stories about his life growing up with his grandmother as a mentor, being hospitalized for polio, being put in a school and being away from his family, his dreams of his grandmother and various saint figures, his time in the military, his death experience(which he talks about a little on the podcast), his work as an adult re-finding his craft and seeing the goodness in humanity.
I did some recordings of John at the gathering that are not a part of this episode, but maybe at some point the combination of his teachings and the in-person interview will come out on the podcast. Ever since this meeting several years ago, John and I have been in conversation about continuing our recordings of his stories. I was attached to meeting again in person, but due to Covid-19, I have let go of that for the moment. Our elders are here for us to cherish, and they can go in an instant. Not to say that John is ill or anything, he is very vibrant. Covid-19 has reminded me that older folks are more vulnerable, and their stories go with them when they go. I appreciate John’s perspective from our time being Facebook friends since this meeting at Buckeye, and have kept it in my mind to continue to capture his stories. This interview is a Facebook call we did in June that touches on some of the stories John shared a few years ago when I met him. I hope in the future we continue to record stories of his for the podcast as he has a lot to share.
In this episode with John Mahkewa, we talk about:
John’s experiences as a young child hanging out with his grandmother Grace Chapella, who was an acclaimed potter, and some things he learned from her, how she used clay to tell stories
John speaks to his death experience in a Jewish hospital after a heart attack over 20 years ago, and how this experience changed his perspective on the world, and reinvoked his interest in clay
John speaks to clay as a teacher, and how he processes the clay by hand with no electric machines and tools
the DNA connection between clay and humans
John reaching out into new art-forms, and branching beyond traditional techniques in recent years
Some wisdom from John about his perspective on the Covid-19 pandemic, recent protests and riots
Wild Tending Series / Gabe and Kelly on ecological history, anthropogenic landscapes and the negative side of conservation
01:42:32
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation between Kelly Moody and Gabe Crawford.
We haven’t done an episode together since we were on the Colorado Trail this past summer. So, we wanted to talk about the research we have been doing since we got off of the trail, and while hermiting a bit in our bell tent camp along a riparian corridor, outside of Durango, Colorado. We’ve been thinking a lot about what land tending means, and definitions of ‘wildness,’ and ‘wilderness’ since hiking the trail, and wanted to spend some time looking into the literature out there on conservation, ecology and agriculture. We’ve only touched the surface with our research, but wanted to talk about it on air with ya’ll here, and connect some distant tendrils of what we’re finding through conversation. Above all, our goal has been to try to understand why anthropogenic (human tended and co-created) landscapes are ignored in scientific literature, hence why ‘wild-tending’ seems far-fetched to some folks. And, we want to understand the deeper origins of the invasion biology field of conversation and how it may be connected to ethnocentrism, racism, unexamined colonialist assumptions in the fields of history and science, and more.
Since this episode was recorded and edited, we have migrated to where my family is in southern Virginia for the rest of the winter and are trying to adjust to a different culture, climate and navigating the pandemic without public land.
In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:
the oppressive colonizing force of the Christian church institution in Europe and how this influenced the suppression of land based spirituality
some etymology of ‘heretic,’ ‘heathen,’ ‘villan,’ and ‘pagan’
how the disregard for historic anthropogenic landscapes is connected to the obsession with ‘pristine’ ecology and ‘wilderness’ notions
how Eurocentric ideas about agriculture influenced what colonists saw as ‘uncivilized’ or ‘cultivated’ on turtle island and how these ethnocentric biases ignored anthropogenic landscapes
the white supremacy inherent in the western scientific interpretation of human cultivation, land management and indigenous influence on ecology
biases in the historical accounts of indigenous cultures and the landscapes of Turtle Island, South America, etc. by European explorers yet many of these accounts are used to determine ecological baselines in conservation goals
some of the origins of emotive, moral and value based language in invasive biology and conservation fields
the roots of why conservationism is wary to include indigenous peoples in its preservation of ‘pristine wilderness’ and how the creation of baselines that doesn’t include indigenous land management practices, even though the ecological baselines that might be their goals were anthropogenic landscapes
the history of national parks extirpating natives off of their land in order to ‘preserve’ an idea of ‘wilderness’ and how they continue to ignore how the humans there were a part of creating and managing the landscapes
the affluence associated with conservation culture and the western ideas of the museumification of ‘pristine land’
the misinformation in the academic literature of invasion biology created through confirmation biases and disproven theories continuing to be referenced as facts
Links:
A slew of resources related to what we chatted about on the podcast can be found below. Subscribe to our email newsletter, found at the bottom of this link section, for updates on when we will be offering some classes related to these topics.
“Environmental determinism”: This is a wikipedia article on the history of environmental determinism in the contest of western colonialism and how this philosophy was used to justify abuses to human rights.
Ep. 13: Aganaq Kostenborder on weaving with Willow, reconsidering weaving with culturally sensitive plants, getting to know plants over time
00:55:45
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Aganaq Kostenborder, a mixed indigenous weaver, craftsperson, seamstress, and artist currently living in Oregon. We talk about her relationship to Willow, rethinking weaving with culturally sensitive plants, watching plants and learning from them all throughout the year, how baskets can hold moments in time and place, how baskets can gravitate towards the people they are meant for. Aganaq and I have been friends for years, and met up this summer and recorded this conversation August 2018 in the back of my camper on the land she lived on at the time.
Links:
Aganaq on instagram: @aganaq buy a basket from her or send her money via Paypal so she can continue to do her work.
“T.T. Turtlingtonis a gardener, artist and teacher. He lived for seven years at Earthaven EcoVillage in Black Mountain, North Carolina studying permaculture, community design and sustainable technologies. In 2003 he graduated from the Goethean Studies program at the Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California. Following that he lived in Asheville, North Carolina developing urban agriculture and community gardens with The Bountiful Cities Project. A fascination of spiritual pilgrimages led him to walk the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain as well as a 300-mile trek from Mendocino to Lake Tahoe as an homage to Frank Cook, John Olmsted and the plant communities of Northern California. His interest in philosophy, math and architecture inspires him to create art that reflects the harmonic nature of creation. He teaches nationally, and occasionally internationally, classes and courses on sacred geometry, mead-making, gardening with the moon’s cycles, and botanical illustration.”
We talk about:
Turtle’s experience walking across California From Lake Tahoe in the High Sierras to Jug Handle State Park in Mendocino, CA.
The history of the Green Path: TransCalifornia Trail and who else has walked it and why.
The influence of the late Frank Cook, enthnobotanist and friend of Turtle’s on his choices to walk, ferment, see plants in a different way and more.
The need for a place for the ‘hobo', ‘pilgrim’ or ‘traveler in-between’ in our society.
Comparing the Camino de Santiago in Spain (of which we have both walked, and Turtle twice) to other acts of pilgrimage.
Support the podcast on Patreon so we can keep doing this. Access Patreon-only content related to the podcast and our other projects: http://www.patreon.com/ofsedgeandsalt
#65: Wild Tending Series / Janet Kent and Dave Meesters of the Terra Sylva School of Botanical Medicine on disempowering the engines of disruption through intentional land-tending
02:53:09
Episode #65 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with Dave Meesters and Janet Kent of the Terra Sylva School of Botanical Medicine out of Madison County, North Carolina.
After trying to get together for a conversation all summer, we finally met up in the early fall at Dave and Janet’s herbalism school classroom at the Marshall High Studios, in Marshall, North Carolina. It was a frigid fall day and when I arrived, they had tea going and snacks out on a table in their beautifully lit and decorated studio space. It was obviously curated and inhabited by herbalists.
Dave and Janet run the Terra Sylva School of Botanical Medicine with Jen Stovall, and have a clinical herbalism practice in the rural area where they live and the nearby city of Asheville, NC.
Dave Meesters grew up in Miami, Florida and attended college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He moved to Asheville, North Carolina in the winter of 1998. In 2003, his formal herbal training began with an apprenticeship with CoreyPine Shane at the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine, and since then his experience has included organizing and staffing a free clinic in New Orleans in the months after hurricane Katrina, and starting and practicing at a free clinic in Asheville’s homeless day shelter. Dave has plans to be involved with another herbal free or low-cost clinic in the future, but until then he sees clients privately and provides care to the mountain folks in his rural Appalachian neighborhood, most of whom would rather see an herbalist than a doctor.
From 2013 to 2016, Dave was, with Janet, the director and primary instructor at the Terra Sylva School’s summer apprenticeship program, which was held on the communal mountain land where he resides before the school moved to Marshall. He and Janet are the founders of Medicine County Herbs, an herb apothecary, medicinal plant nursery, and blog.
Dave sees herbalism as a way to provide a more appropriate, accessible, pleasurable, and effective form of health care than the dominant model, and as a means to bond and integrate ourselves with plants, the garden, and the wilds. His herbalism is wedded to a life-long resistance to the forces of domination and alienation, especially domination of and alienation from Nature. His practice and his teaching reflect a deep evolving holism attained by listening to, honoring, embracing, and collaborating with the whole of Nature, and by his study of the threads connecting holistic physiology, energetics, ecology, gardening, systems theory, magic, alchemy and permaculture.
Janet Kent is a clinical and community herbalist, educator, gardener and writer. The child of two naturalists, Janet grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains, learning the amazing diversity of regional wild flowers at an early age. She began studying the medicinal uses of plants when she moved to a rich Appalachian cove high in the mountains of Madison county, North Carolina fifteen years ago. She did not set out to become an herbalist, but as she learned over the years in her forest home, if we are open, we do not change the land we inhabit as much as it changes us. The transformative healing power of the plants around her turned an interest into a calling.
The vast power to heal through reconnection is the medicine she most seeks to share. Whenever possible, she encourages her students and clients to grow their own herbs, to make their own medicine, and most of all, to experience the more-than-human world first hand. Here is where deep, foundational healing is most profound.
Janet views herbal medicine as a means of reconnecting to the long tradition of plant medicine in rural Appalachia. This tradition has become more relevant with the ailing state of the dominant health care system and the rising cost of herbal medicine. Janet considers herbalism the best option for addressing injustice in health care. Herbalists, being outside the biomedical system, can avoid its inequalities. Affordable care, medicine and education are central to this paradigm.
In addition to being co-founder and a core faculty member at the Terra Sylva School of Botanical Medicine, Janet also runs a medicinal and native plant nursery, apothecary and blog, Medicine County Herbs with Dave.
Terra Sylva combines the experience of herbalists who’ve done their work in very different regions: rural Appalachia and the city of New Orleans. Dave Meesters and Janet Kent founded and run Medicine County Herbs in the mountains of North Carolina and publish the Radical Vitalism blog, while Jen Stovall is one of the herbalists behind the Crescent City’s Maypop Community Herb Shop. Despite the geographical separation, this team have been partners in herbalism for over a decade, going back to the first herb classes Jen & Dave taught together in New Orleans in 2004. The Terra Sylva School fulfills a dream we’ve nurtured for a long time, to meld our diverse strengths and perspectives to create a comprehensive, dynamic program well-suited to equip and inspire the next generation of herbalists to practice in the 21st century. Our teaching reflects both Janet & Dave’s land-based herbalism practiced in a rural setting and Jen’s experience caring for folks in the big city.
In this conversation with Dave and Janet, we talk about:
some of the culture of the holler Dave and Janet live in deep in southern Appalachia
pros and cons of living remotely in Appalachia
how herbalism tied them to the land they live on and kept them there when other folks involved in the land project didn’t stay
teaching herbalism online vs. in person
the magic of tuning into one small piece of land year after year
Dave and Janet’s wild-tending and land-tending work over 20 years in Madison county
the problem with human misanthropy in punk culture or the ‘humans suck’ mentality
the importance of human tending on land and Appalachia specifically
the effects of capitalism on wild harvest of medicinal plants and the complex nuances of this, and effects Michael Moore’s books and teachings had on wild plant populations like Yerba Mansa
we geek out on Pedicularis as an example of a plant that is tricky to wildcraft because of its inability to be cultivated
some of Dave and Janet’s views on ‘invasive plants’ and land-tending and the responsibility of human engagement
why it is important to ask where the garden begins and ends?
how land-tending and restoration can’t be about going back to a past that is impossible to recreate due to loss of topsoil and keystone species (think Chestnuts in the east) but about working with a compass of creating diversity and resilience in a rapidly changing world, tending to baselines of the past and ever-shifting baselines of present
What can disempowering the engines of disruption with other disruption look like?
some thoughts on changes in ‘western’ herbalism from a focus on the individual to a focus on the collective and cultural mending
using ‘biomedicine’ vs. ‘allopathic’ to describe mainstream western medicine and some history around the use of these words
Dave and Janet’s podcast ‘The Book on Fire,’ what it focuses on and why they facilitate it
we do a mini overview of the book ‘The Caliban and the Witch,’ a book they review and deconstruct on their podcast (book linked in Link list below)
Together with the insects, animals, plants and elements Elizabeth Yaari is transforming a dry patch of semi arid desert into a thriving regenerative seven layered food forest. “Anything is possible”, she says “even when you have 6 1/2 inches of rain a year.”
To spend time with Elizabeth is to enter a realm where depth matters and play reigns. Her descriptions of life at Night Owl food Forest will take you on a journey you were glad you took.
As an enthusiastic member of the Design School for Regenerating Earth, Elizabeth learns to create earthworks and microclimates which benefit not only neighbors on the same watershed but also all life in the surrounding bioregion.
In this episode of the podcast, we talked about:
why Elizabeth started the Night Owl Food Forest
her relationship to art, eco-grief and planting
the permaculture course Elizabeth took with Pat Frazier and Wind Clearwater, and how it influenced her work on the land
Elizabeth tells a funny story of trying to sex a cow with permaculture teacher Pat Frazier and how it taught her to observe
working on the land over many years gives you way more knowledge of a place and its nuances than reading books
the nature of the Night Owl Food Forest - geologically and ecologically, and Elizabeth’s goals of restoration and regeneration
what Elizabeth learned about people from getting their compost for the food forest to build the soil
how Elizabeth works with the local community to build the food forest
thinking long term, beyond private land borders, and dedicated to small spaces
water and permaculture at the Night Owl Food Forest, which has little water rights and gets only a small amount of water each year
observations Elizabeth has made at the Night Owl Food Forest- as observation is the first step of tending land
Elizabeth’s observation of how wild flax literally moves throughout the day in response to the sun’s location in the sky
Sagebrush, Saltbush and Greasewood, halophytes that can tolerate salt and ‘poor soil’ in a permaculture setting
Some of what Elizabeth has planted at the Night Owl Food Forest
where Elizabeth planted Biscuitroot seeds on her land and why
slow, sink and spread, and how that is necessary at a spot like the Night Owl Food Forest
permaculture in desert environments
how Elizabeth made her hugelkultur beds with Cottonwoods cut down by beavers
using beaver deceivers to work with the beavers in the neighboring drainage
how the Praire Dog tunnels become conduits for water, and provide spaces where water can hide further up hill, and could be considered a ‘riparian zone’ by some
an audio tour of the night owl food forest in the snow with Elizabeth
Ep. 8: Mario Tarasco, N.D., on navigating accessibility of care in Naturopathic medicine, harm reduction approaches working with addiction, the opiate crisis and more.
01:11:51
Episode eight of the Ground Shots Podcast.
A conversation with Naturopathic doctor and herbalist Mario Tarasco on working with low-income & at-risk populations as a Naturopathic doctor, taking the harm reduction and non-shaming approach to working with addiction, the current opiate crisis in the U.S., herbal apprenticeships and more.
We talk about:
How Oregon's laws make it easier than in other states for Naturopathic doctors to provide care for low-income and at-risk populations like trans youth, migrant workers, and more.
Navigating how Naturopathic Medicine can be inaccessible and different techniques for working with people where they are culturally, financially, physically, etc.
Mario's experiences working at the Rainbow gathering's first aid station while apprenticing for herbalists Corey-Pine Shane of the Blue Ridge School of Herbal Medicine and Sevensong of the Northeast School of Herbal Medicine and how these experiences in the field influenced the trajectory of his work.
Taking the harm-reduction approach to providing care for folks with addiction and the importance of non-shaming and meeting people where they are and where they want to be with their health.
Anna-Marija Helt on poisonous plants of the southern Rockies, bridging tradition and science in herbalism
01:01:21
Episode #50 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with the clinical herbalist Anna-Marija Helt Ph.D., who lives in Durango, Colorado.
Marija has been studying herbs, mushrooms and essential oils intensely since 2008, training at the Ohlone Center of Herbal Studies with Pam Fisher, at Green Medicine Herb School with Kathi Keville and with a number of other herbalists. Prior to becoming an herbalist, she spent nearly 15 years as a research scientist, with a focus on cancer and infectious disease. She received her doctoral degree in microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine while studying cancer-promoting mechanisms of human papillomavirus, the primary cause of cervical cancer. Her postdoctoral research on dengue virus was conducted in the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley. She was an infectious diseases trainee at the UW Center for AIDS & STD and an infectious diseases fellow through UC San Francisco Division of Infectious Diseases. Her focus as an herbal practitioner is a low-tech, simple and holistic approach to health that incorporates both traditional herbal knowledge and the latest scientific research.
In this episode with Marija, we talk about:
bridging tradition and science in herbalism, and some history of how this divide happened
wild-tending Osha- Ligusticum porteri (Apiaceae) in the Rockies and substitutes to use instead of Osha medicinally
Osha’s regional abundance but big scale scarcity, and how keeping plant populations in a bigger picture is a perspective to consider
Osha’s deadly lookalikes - Poison and Water Hemlock Conium maculatum and Cicuta spp. (both Apiaceae)
several poisonous plants found in the southern Rockies, the greater Rockies and beyond:
Death Camas - Toxicoscordion venenosum (Melanthiaceae) or alapíšaš in the Pacific Northwest,
Some photographs of the plants we discuss in this episode, many taken this summer on the Plant-a-go walk I did with Gabe Crawford on the Colorado Trail can be found on the blog post for this episode:
Wild Tending Series / Dara Saville on riparian regeneration in the Southwest with the Yerba Mansa Project
00:54:38
This episode of the podcast features a conversation with Dara Saville out of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Dara is an Herbalist and Geographer with a passion for native plants, public lands, and community engagement. She is the founder and primary instructor of the Albuquerque Herbalism bioregional herbal studies program and a columnist for Plant Healer Quarterly, teaching and writing on medicinal plants, changing ecosystems, and environmental issues. She has a bachelor’s degree from New York University, a master’s degree specializing in southwest landscape geography from the University of New Mexico, and is a graduate of Tieraona Low Dog’s Foundations of Herbal Medicine Program. Additionally Dara has many years of fieldwork and resource management experience with the National Park Service and well as a long history of community volunteer service with the City of Albuquerque Open Space and the Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Program (BEMP). She is also a board member of the Native Plant Society Albuquerque Chapter, a mother, homeschool educator, gardener, and lover of wild places.
I took one of Dara's classes that focused on ecology and climate change in the southwest at an herbalism conference a few years ago in Colorado, and I remembered the teachings in her class that day. I've been featuring conversations on the podcast that visit different ways 'wild-tending' can be interpreted and I thought it would be interesting to feature a little bit about the Yerba Mansa Project and Dara's work with the Albuquerque community restoring the local riparian corridor otherwise locally referred to as the bosque.
In this conversation with Dara, we talk about:
the origins of The Yerba Mansa Project and its connection to Dara's Albuquerque Herbalism project
how the Yerba Mansa Project is helping to repair the local riparian ecology (the bosque) in Albuquerque, New Mexico
why herbalists should also be land stewards
the bosque (riparian area in the city) as a place that brings folks together
why riparian areas, especially in the southwestern US, are at risk
how the Yerba Mansa Project aims to connect local folks to the importance of the local ecology in order to create more folks who will advocate for those spaces
some of the plants they work with or tend on the bosque as a part of The Yerba Mansa Project
why Yerba Mansa is an important plant ecologically and culturally
harvesting Yerba Mansa carefully
how wildcrafting can also mean creating stories of place, it doesn't always mean we harvest
A candid evening of conversation in Santa, Idaho with Alyssa Sacora of the Patchwork Underground on The Ground Shots Project, travel, trauma, love, old ways of making things, connecting to the land through our work
01:15:37
Episode #22 of the Ground Shots Podcast
This episode of the podcast features a conversation with Alyssa Sacora of the Patchwork Underground, who lives near Asheville, North Carolina. Alyssa came out to northern Idaho to take Jim Croft's 'Old Ways of Making Books' class held every year or every other year on the homestead of Jim Croft and Melody Eckroft, where I have been teaching the leather, parchment and brain-tan buckskin portion of the class. Alyssa makes books and paper, weaves baskets, and homesteads on her small property. We met back in 2013 when we both attended the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine's in-person summer immersion program which at the time was held out of Leicester, NC. It was sweet to catch up with Alyssa, an old friend. We decided to do something different for this episode, where we chat informally and candidly about life, my project, our motivations for things and generally processing our shared experiences being at the class together in northern Idaho. This episode gets extra vulnerable for me, and you hear a lot more about my process and experience doing my work on the road. We have some guest mosquitoes buzz by the mic!
In this conversation with Alyssa, we talk about:
some of my own personal stories around trauma, travel
what is love?
Alyssa reflecting on her experience at the 'Old Ways of Making Books' class
exploring what it means to make things for your life
linear vs. non-linear ways of teaching and learning
the nature of acceptance and letting go, leaning into vulnerability and discomfort
how we can plant seeds of inspiration for one another
Jim Croft's 'Old Ways of Making Books' class in Santa, Idaho where I taught hide tanning and visited during the month of July 2019. This is where I mention I edited and recorded the intro/outro for this and the next few episodes of the podcast: https://cargocollective.com/oldway
Ep. 15: The road, death and common ground: Sam Sycamore of the Good Life Revival Podcast
02:05:03
This special extra episode of the podcast features a conversation with Sam Sycamore of the Good Life Revival Podcast. He hails originally from Kentucky, but has also traveled at different times across the U.S., farmed in Indiana, and now currently lives off-grid in Santa Cruz, California where he runs his podcast, is tending permaculture gardens, makes music and teaches an online foraging course.
Sam reached out to me to see if I’d like to do a collaborative recording to share on both of our podcasts about our projects and lives- which have a lot in common! Of course, I was down! I was already traveling through the area where he lives to visit a friend, and we ended up meeting in a parking lot by the ocean in Santa Cruz to record this conversation in the back of my camper.
In this conversation, you get to know each of us a little more than perhaps we’ve revealed on our individual podcasts alone through interviewing or featuring others. We weave our talk with honest questions of the other as they arise and through this natural cadence (occasionally interrupted by the threat of beach parking police) we visit topics of our shared interest. We discuss the pros and cons of so called ‘#vanlife,’ a movement I am very much a part of but don’t really tap into online for a few reasons. We both share our stories of questioning whether we should stay in our less than desirable home towns where our skills are needed but the culture is difficult, or whether to venture out into wider circles. We ventured towards the topics of death and the need for elders near the end of our conversation, and how keeping death in mind is necessary but not always easy— and when we keep death in mind we can make present choices today to live our fullest life, in service to the land and one another.
Produced by: Sam Sycamore (this episode) and Opia Creative
13 Jun 2020
Samuel Bautista Lazo on coming back to the Corn during pandemic, destructive corporate intrusion on indigenous communities in Mexico
01:21:02
Episode #40 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Samuel Bautista Lazo, who was a guest on Episode #1 of the podcast which aired several summers ago.
Samuel is Benizaa (Zapotec) and lives Xiguie'a (Teotitlán del Valle), located in the Central Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Samuel, his family and community come from a long line of weavers and farmers who have been tending the same land for thousands of years. This region is considered one of the cradles of civilization. Samuel has a Ph.d. in Sustainable Manufacturing from the University of Liverpool.
I met Samuel at the Buckeye Gathering ancestral skills gathering a few years ago. On the first episode of the podcast, during an in-person interview, Samuel and I discuss weaving and natural dyes, some complexities around private land ownership in the community where he is from when the traditional way was communal tending of the land, why making things by hand is a way to combat the pressures of capitalism and more.
This time around, Samuel and I speak via Zoom due to COVID-19. We go deeper into some of the issues of continued settler colonialism and corporate intrusion on indigenous peoples and the biodiverse wild lands in Mexico, as well as focus on dynamics local to the state of Oaxaca and the native peoples who live there.
Since we recorded this conversation in early May, the world has erupted in revolution in support of Black Lives and in protest of police violence globally. Lest us also not forget the indigenous peoples of the lands we live, walk, protest and love on and the effects our capitalist lifestyles have on these communities as further reiterated by Samuel in this interview.
In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:
Samuel speaks to what life has been like during the pandemic in Teotitlán del Valle
Samuel's perspective on how the pandemic has caused the world to slow down and the land has an opportunity to cleanse and breathe
We talk about the destructive corporate energy projects trying to push forth in the state of Oaxaca and the country of Mexico, and the ways in which these projects are abusive towards the indigenous peoples of Mexico and environmentally devastating
Samuel speaks from his perspective as an indigenous person who studied industrial manufacturing (he has a Ph.d. !) about the bigger picture of needing to change our consumption and production patterns as a society, especially the U.S. which consumes more than most countries in the world
The recent murder of a biology student in Oaxaca (one of many that have occurred), due to his interest in the biodiversity of the region and his love of nature (links to articles about this in the Links section below)
Despite a current progressive president, the framework of Mexico's economy is still rooted in destructive resource extraction and development
The potentially devastating effects of Isthmus Rail Corridor Project and Mayan Train Project that are planned for the region
environmental racism
how capitalism can affect indigenous populations
Samuel speaks to how rain feeds land and spirit, and connection to self sufficiency
coming back to the Corn and the Milpa food systems
Milpa farming in relationship to wild-tending, feeding the wild animals, and definitions of agriculture, the recovery of native lands during the Mexican revolution
How colonization and western ideas of how land should be taken care of affects indigenous people's ability in Mexico to keep the land they have tended for thousands of years, because it requires them to constantly work it, even though traditionally the land was allowed to rest for long periods
how linear systems informed by capitalism that emphasize extraction, production and discarding don't leave room for cyclical land-based world views
Ep. 3: Laurie Quesinberry on traditional Appalachian root digging in Laurel Fork, VA, issues around wildcrafting woodland medicinals and more.
00:58:03
Episode Three of the Ground Shots Podcast.
Interview with Laurie Quesinberry, 'granny root digger' and founder of Bear Alchemy out of Laurel Fork, Virginia, a small community in southern Appalachia.
We talk about:
the complexity of traditional Appalachian root digging
the complicated nature of wildcrafting, especially in the southern Appalachia
alternatives to digging highly sought after Appalachian root medicine like Black Cohosh and Ginseng-- using leaf medicine and Laurie's experiments and observations
the Black Cohosh catacombs and the waste created in the disconnect sometimes between the harvester, the economics of herb buying and the strength of medicine needed for it to work
changes in Laurie's community and heritage
the problematic nature of getting herbal 'wide eyes' as a new herb student
Laurie receiving the United Plant Savers' 2018 Medicinal Plant Conservation Award
Support the podcast on Patreon to keep the audio project going.
Access Patreon-only content related to the podcast and our other projects. We will be doing a giveaway of Laurie's medicine through the Ground Shots Project Patreon page for supporters of the project. Follow us or support us there to see when we start the giveaway period.
Episode #83 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with Callie Russell, an interview recorded in the field on a goat walk in New Mexico this past March.
You may know Callie from the Alone show, though I have never watched it. We have known each other for many years and this past Spring we camped together for a few weeks by a river, with friends and her goats. We took time to record a conversation together for the podcast. The episode starts with us at camp with Rain, an old friend, and our banter getting ready to leave for a walk. If you want to skip that part you can fast forward 10 minutes or so past the field recording beginning. It’s funny though- to get a glimpse into life at camp. Most of the convo is of us walking with the goats and talking while on a walk. We eventually sit down to finish the interview. On our way back, one of the goats pushes me off a cliff and abruptly stops the recording, and you hear the incident in the episode. Thankfully I catch a root and Callie grabs me and all is ok. What we do for podcast recordings..
Gabe Crawford was raised on a small homestead outside of Durango, Colorado and started learning about plants from an early age. He got launched on his plant journey by studying with Katrina Blair at the Turtle Lake Refuge in Durango. He moved to Sandpoint, Idaho where he worked with Twin Eagles Wilderness School and Kaniksu Land Trust mentoring kids. Through this, he started naturalist training which opened him up to the world of wild tending, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the ancient and intricate relationships between humans and ecology. Gabe spent time with Finisia Medrano learning about the ancient wild gardens of the west that were and still are tended by indigenous peoples and was taught how to tend these first foods and plant back for future abundance. He collects the seeds of native foods plants, fruit trees, berries and other exotics to plant feral orchards and wild gardens.
Nikki Hill can be found chasing wildflowers throughout the western US. She is not sure when her adoration of plants began, but they share a kindred spirit. Nikki earned a bachelors degree in environmental science and botany which led her to the field of habitat restoration nearly 16 years ago. Disillusioned by methodology that focused on eradication, she struck off on her own. She spent six years growing food and medicine, first as an urban farmer and then as a nomadic rural farmer, and co-founded Daggawalla, a seed and herb company. Since 2014, she has been exploring her feral roots as a wildtender, planting gardens outside agricultural boundaries. Her hope is to foster habitat resilience by sowing a living seed bank for the future, in a spirit of collaboration with the non-human world. Her website can be found at www.walkingroots.net.
In this episode with Nikki and Gabe, we talk about:
unpacking the common use and colonialist origins of war-making language when talking about 'invasive' and 'native' plants
the political influences at play in the current narrative around invasive plants
the relationship between migration and climate change
the economic commodity associated with the 'war' on 'invasives' or 'illegal aliens'
how even 'native' plants are called 'invasive' based on cultural and economic agendas informed by capitalism
how the desire to protect sage grouse and sagebrush habitat is being turned against other native plants like pinon juniper forests
how native juniper trees are treated as invasive and 'encroaching' because it is thriving during climate change and expanding it's range
succession changing when the conditions change – a place for invasives
scapegoating invasives instead of facing the massive fragmentation and devestation we've caused the environment in the past few hundred years
the influence of bias on ecological and restoration research
how and why people and other animals, birds move plant species including invasive species around
considering deep time when thinking about what is 'native' or 'natural' or what the land is supposed to look like moving forward in time
how awesome Russian Olive is!
using 'invasive' plants as medicine
how 'invasive' plants often mend and remediate damaged soil, water, air
some ways to integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge into invasive species interaction
‘The Troubles of ‘Invasive’ Plants’ by Nikki Hill & Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, free zine download, or buy a hard copy in the store on Kollibri’s website
Learn more about the story behind Joe Hedges’ piece ‘Nijidema,’ which is one out of five pieces in a work influenced by Joe’s time in a small village in China: https://joehedges.bandcamp.com/album/nijidema
Ep. 5: Ryan Pierce on the work of Signal Fire, an organization that unites art, activism and the outdoors
01:06:24
Episode Five of the Ground Shots Podcast.
A conversation with artist Ryan Pierce out of Portland, Oregon on the work of the organization Signal Fire, which aims to connect artists and activists to wild spaces through unique programming.
We talk about:
How Signal Fire started, it's mission and evolution as a unique non-profit that blends wilderness retreats, artist residencies and environmental activism together.
How Signal Fire navigates inclusivity and relevancy for many different communities in their programming from Ryan's perspective.
The different programs Signal Fire offers.
How Signal Fire weaves a wide range of stories and perspectives about the land and our relationship to it in their programming, and how this ignites and inspires artists and activists to re-think what the face of environmentalism looks like.
Non-hierarchal models of running organizations/non-profits.
Téo Montoya part two: the role of indigenous futurism in world building
01:51:50
Episode #55 is a conversation with Téo Montoya of the Indigenous Futures Podcast.
Téo was our guest on episode #48 of the podcast. Episode #48 was a series of recordings from his joining Gabe Crawford and I on the Colorado Trail last summer for a couple days during our Plant-a-go walk.
After that episode went out, Téo and I chatted about doing another episode together where we get deeper into some of the topics we touched on while talking candidly on the trail.
Téo Montoya is a Lipan Apache(Ndé) Writer, Indigenous futurist, Electronic Music Producer, Human Design Analyst, Traditional Ecological Knowledge Student, and Educator. After completing his BA in Food and Medical Anthropology, with a focus on Indigenous diets and health disparities in Native American communities, Teo spent 5 years exploring the worlds of plant medicine, Ancestral Health Coaching, Djing and Producing music, Information Technology, working with a Native-Led Non-profits, and completing his Human Design Training. As a writer and creator he has begun the long process of writing a speculative fiction series and media project imagining future worlds and societies built upon indigenous values, ideals, and cultures. Teo believes imaging the future, specifically a future grounded in indigenous knowledge and technology, will provide us with the solutions to meet the largest challenges to the Earth and our Humanity. Today, Teo lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, writing, producing music, and supporting people on their personal and spiritual health journeys.
Call the podcast and connect with us by leaving a message (while you’re there, if your ok with us potentially airing it on the podcast, give us verbal permission):
#64: Mary Morgaine Plantwalker of Herb Mountain Farm on care-taking a botanical sanctuary in Appalachia
01:22:54
Episode #64 is a conversation with Mary Morgaine Plantwalker of Herb Mountain Farm in Weaverville, NC.
This episode was recorded in person in the gardens of Herb Mountain Farm August 2021.
Mary Morgaine Plantwalker is one of the main caretakers of Herb Mountain Farm alongside her partner, Hart Squire.
Located in the oldest mountains on earth, Herb Mountain Farm was established in 1970, originally as an organic vegetable and flower farm, by Hart Squire and his family, in Weaverville, North Carolina.
Herb Mountain Farm was a piece of land that had been overgrazed, logged and farmed unsustainably for over a century and needed a lot of conscious stewarding to build up the soil that had been washed away to the Mississippi Delta. Hart, with the help of many hands over the decades, brought in organic matter and plant diversity.
For decades, Hart sold vegetable and flowers from the farm to local markets, restaurants and grocers, then built an earth-bermed warehouse on the property for the organic farmers in the area, called Hart Distributing, which eventually grew into a distribution center for organic ale and wine – long before Asheville was beer city! Hart spent several years in California, opening one of the first farm to table restaurants called ‘The Seasons’ in the 1970’s.
In 2005, Mary Morgaine (aka Mary Plantwalker) came to work on Herb Mountain Farm’s garlic production crew and first met Hart. She worked there for a few years before starting her own business, Earth Dancers, where she taught an array of “Plants as Allies” classes and workshops. In 2010, Buchi Kombucha took over the warehouse and began what grew into a very successful fermented health drink business. Buchi remained on the farm until they outgrew the space in 2016.
In 2011, Hart and Mary Morgaine reconnected and fell in love. They married in 2012, and their union birthed the vision to transition the farm into a Learning Center and Botanical Sanctuary. In 2013, their daughter, Nadia, was born and has been absorbing the gardening and plant knowledge of her parents since day one and gives Hart and Mary Morgaine the inspiration to keep sailing on for the future generations.
Calyx Liddick of Northern Appalachia School on the historical connection between ecological conservation and eugenics
02:54:55
Episode #76 is a conversation with Calyx Liddick of Northern Appalachia School in southern Pennsylvania.
(trigger warning, this episode may contain content that could be triggering to some as we address the history of scientific racism and the eugenics movement)
Calyx Liddick is a bioregional herbalist, ethnobotanist, holistic nutritionist, wildcrafter, writer of poetry and prose, wildlife tracker, and mother of two. She was born and raised in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania.
She is an outspoken advocate for accessible education, social and ecological justice, and ethical practice in plant work. As an educator in bioregional herbalism, Calyx is passionate about bridging the gap of perception between the personal body and the ecological body, and illuminating the wisdom of place and the potential of the direct reciprocation of health and wellbeing present in ecological stewardship. She is committed to integrating plantwork as a life way, helping others develop a rooted relationship with the land and its more-than-human community, and healing the damage from extractive and hierarchical relationships between people and plants. In her practice, she integrates the long, rich history of traditional herbalism with modern, scientifically sound research.
Hannah Schiller of Foliage Botanics on bioregional herbalism, place-based medicine making, the importance of letter writing
01:09:52
Episode #34 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Hannah Schiller of Foliage Botanics. Hannah and her herbalism project are based out of the Hudson valley of New York.
Hannah and I met back in 2012 when we both interned at the United Plant Savers' Goldenseal Sanctuary in Rutland, Ohio. Since then, we lived a summer together in North Carolina and have involved ourselves in the same communities on the east coast. We have written letters to one another over the years as I have been on the road and Hannah semi-nomadic for awhile, finally landing in New York.
Hannah Smith Schiller is an herbalist, botanist, and all-around plant enthusiast who runs Foliage Botanics, a small herbal business in the Hudson valley of New York. Her work is a confluence of all the passions and pieces in her background—agriculture, art, clinical herbalism, land stewardship, social justice. She offers herbal products, health consultations, a seasonal apothecary-land share, and teaches classes. Each month Hannah leads a by donation plant walk at varying locations around the valley where she lives focused on botany, plant identification, and ecological appreciation. At the heart of her work is this element of education, hoping to empower others to take back their health and their food and engage more deeply with the plant world, and to provide a variety of opportunities for people to bring plant medicine and wild foods into their lives. She is a cheerleader for bioregionalism, making our communities more localized and self-reliant, breaking down capitalist approaches to ancient knowledge, and shifting our cultural mentality from endless growth to minimalist, place-based, seasonal living.
In this conversation with Hannah, we talk about:
Hannah's letter writing project – The Bones We Keep, and the importance of letter writing
Hannah's quarterly seasonal bioregional herbal packages : A Wild and Common Place
the importance of bioregional herbalism
how bioregional herbalism gives us a perspective on the limits of a place
Hannah's journey studying plants and herbal medicine
some interesting ecological information about Black Birch
Hannah Smith on hut caretaking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, writing as an act of noticing, giving care to a dying earth
01:37:36
Episode #19 of the Ground Shots Podcast.
In this episode of the Ground Shots Podcast, I chat with Hannah Smith, a writer, naturalist, hiking and climbing guide who lives seasonally working outdoor jobs or doing artist residencies in different parts of the country. I interviewed Hannah while we camped together in Big Sur, California early April 2019. Hannah and I studied papermaking and printmaking together at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina a few years ago.
Since our time together at Penland, Hannah has continued to write, make artwork, and also work in wilderness settings while incorporating her creative practice in those places. In this conversation, we touch on a few big experiences she has had in the past few years working. Hannah also reads some of her poignant and thoughtful poetry commenting on a dying earth, our disconnection from the land and history and the relationship between our human body and the earth body.
In this conversation, we talk about:
Hannah's meditation practice in relationship to the land
how 'watching' is the heart of it
writing as an act of noticing and medium for connecting to the land
giving care to a dying earth
working as a climbing/hiking guide in Switzerland with the International Girl Scouts
Hannah's job working on a storytelling project in Alaska
Hannah's thoughts on making the outdoors and land accessible to all physical abilities
working as a hut caretaker and naturalist in the White Mountains of New Hampshire for the AMC (Appalachian Mountain Club)
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Lisa Ganora on molecular level connection, the magic of herbal constituents
02:35:42
Sign up for my spring mini study group starting February 10 (sign ups open for a limited time!) here: Terratalk sessions
Episode 72 of the Ground Shots Podcast is with Lisa Ganora, herbalist and plant chemist, out of Paonia, Colorado.
Lisa and I got together at her Elderberry’s Farm spot, on the edges of Paonia, Colorado’s town limits. On a cloudy day with intermittent rain and snow, we sat in her herb lab, drinking hot tea, to do an interview.
Lisa Ganora began studying traditional Western herbalism in the ‘80s. Later, she lived and wildcrafted in the Appalachians where she studied with folk healers and created herbal products to sell as she traveled the festival circuit with her herb booth. After practicing as a community herbalist for a decade, Lisa returned to college and graduated from UNCA summa cum laude with multiple awards in biology and chemistry. After graduation, she focused on studying pharmacognosy and phytochemistry.
In addition to directing the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism from 2012-2020 and managing Elderberry’s (a Rocky Mountain herbal education center in Paonia, Colorado), Lisa has also served as Adjunct Professor of Pharmacognosy at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, and has lectured and taught classes at numerous schools and conferences. She is the author of Herbal Constituents, 2nd Ed., a popular textbook on practical phytochemistry for natural health practitioners, which is used by herbal schools and universities worldwide.
Charity Cimarron of Mother Marrow out of Asheville, NC on intentional creativity in connection to the land
01:35:04
Episode #42 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Charity Cimarron, the main singer and songwriter behind the music project Mother Marrow.
Charity and I met in 2013 in Asheville, North Carolina and have been friends ever since. I’m honored to feature her music at the theme song and outro for the Ground Shots Podcast.
In this episode, we launch a new version of the Ground Shots Podcast theme song, featuring an updated version of Mother Marrow’s song ‘Sweat and Splinters.’
In this conversation with Charity we talk about:
doing our work in the world while also having enough space of solitude for creative flow and inspiration
charity's relationship with being connected to music and the land 'being born in this world of music'
Charity’s time traveling with the band Psalters around the country and in Europe/Turkey,
her time homesteading in rural Missouri
learning to weave
finding community in the Earthskills community
Charity plays two new songs not on her recent album: 'Regalia' and 'Home to Self.’ She talks a little bit about the inspiration behind them, and how they came to her over time
how creativity is often a play between different elements with specific parameters, and figuring out how to make them fit together
how craft and music creativity feel like different processes to Charity
Charity's journey with autoimmune struggles and what the illness' have taught her
some of Charity's current and upcoming musical and creative projects
how artists and musicians don't often get an equal exchange for the energy they shar
Ep. 1: Samuel Bautista Lazo on weaving in Oaxaca, colonialism and the importance of making things from the land
01:00:07
Our first episode of the Ground Shots Podcast!
Interview with Samuel Bautista Lazo, a Zapotec Weaver from the Oaxaca region of Mexico.
the power of weaving
the good/bad effects of tourism and globalization on Samuel's village and community
the concept of being responsible for land as a village vs. private land ownership
a little bit on the history of colonialism in Oaxaca
how weaving has helped preserve the land in Samuel's region of Oaxaca
how cochineal as a natural dye affected world politics
how appropriation occurs with weaving designs from Oaxaca from Samuel's perspective, and how it harms the livelihood of the indigenous people of the region
the importance of making things from the land
Links:
Samuel's Instagram: @sam_dixza
Dixza Rugs and Organic Farm Instagram: @dixzarugsorganicfarm
Support the podcast on Patreon so we can keep doing this. Access Patreon-only content related to the podcast and our other projects: http://www.patreon.com/ofsedgeandsalt
Jillian Ashley aka. Jill Trashley on the origins of the NOHM collective, nomadic business, community & plant tending across ecologies
02:07:24
Episode #61 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Jill Trashley out of Asheville, North Carolina.
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Earlier in the Spring, Jill and I met up in Asheville to distill some Lemon Balm together. First, we went to her friends’ house, down the road from hers, where we had permission to harvest Lemon Balm from their very abundant gardens right in the city.
The Lemon Balm was in it’s prime.
Jill comes to their house often to help in the gardens and harvest extra herbs to distill or to make medicine.
Stepping into their yard, I thought for a moment that I was suddenly in Berkeley, California, where gardens and quirky folk abound, tucked into an urban weaving of lush flowering plants and treehouses, Redwoods and backyard nooks.
But no, this was Asheville, and the treehouse was in a big healthy Eastern Hemlock tree, the carefully placed rock walls abound, the exposed dirt southern red, the hand built greenhouse off the back of the house full of desert plants one wouldn’t expect deep in Appalachia.
We gathered Lemon Balm by cutting bunches and dug up some young plants to transplant elsewhere. Lemon Balm tends to spread easily in some environments and Jill’s friends wanted us to take some away. I later transported some of these plants back to the land where I’m living for the summer and tucked them into an empty bed and wished them well.
We took our harvest back to Jill’s house, where we had some mid-day Mertails drinks. (Mertails are elixirs that can be used as mixers instead of alcohol, or with alcohol if you desire, Jill talks more about this company she co-owns on the podcast) I felt so good after having one of these, as my drink was very hydrating on what was a hot day.
We started then setting up the copper still Jill owns and got it heating up to prepare for distilling the Lemon Balm into hydrosol. In the time while we were waiting for the still to heat up, we sat down to chat about some of Jill’s projects over the years, including working with trash disposal at festivals, starting a mobile elixir bar, living on the road with intention and more.
Laura Pendell on the work of the late Dale Pendell: ethnobotanist, poet and writer who conducted unique and important research on 'power plants'
01:46:19
Episode #30 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Laura Pendell, writer, artist and partner of the late ethnobotanist Dale Pendell.
Laura and I got together after several meet-ups last year to record this conversation in their shared library and studio in Penn Valley, California this past summer. We intended to record a conversation that celebrates Dale’s work, perspective and unique way in the world.
Dale Pendell was most known for his books in the Pharmako trilogy (Pharmako/Dynamis, Pharmako/Poeia, Pharmako/Gnosis) a project that explored the use, history, pharmacology, sociology, personal experience, chemistry, and alchemy of most plants or substances considered 'psychoactive.' He also wrote novels and poetry. Dale had a unique writing style that mixed his own experience, research, poetry and old folklore.
I'm grateful Laura took the time to record a conversation with me about Dale's work and way in the world. I think that fans of Dale's work will gain some unique insight from out conversation here.
In this conversation with Laura, we talk about:
Dale's nature of exploration and the way he navigated his interests
the Pharmako trilogy and their demonstration of Dale's experimental nature with plants
Dale's ability to combine different facets of things together in his work
Dale's unfinished and unpublished works including a book on his prison experiences in Mexico and the U.S., and a collected writings book that is in the works
Dale and Laura's camp project called 'Oracular Madness' during the early years of Burning Man and Dale's book 'Inspired Madness' as a reflection on the camp
Dale's book 'The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse' and how it is a unique view of a possible future scenario and it's telling stories of our modern times
Dale's talks on 'Horizon Anarchism' at Burning Man
Dale's artist book 'The Gold Dust Wilderness' one of the first works he published and silkscreened and based on his experience living off grid on a mining claim in Trinity county, Ca in the 1970's. This book was the genesis of his unique writing style of information, imagination and poetry (it's so cool to see this book in person!)
Dale's herbal root beer, elixir, and absinthe projects
Laura's connection to poetry and absinthe
Dale and Laura's connection to Zen Buddhism
Laura reads some of Dale's poetry including 'The Ballad of the Hungry Ghosts,' 'Medicine,' and 'Stonecrop'
the herbarium collection that Dale compiled over decades in Nevada county, Ca and beyond (over 1000 specimens)
Dale's relationship with the psychedelic and drug database Erowid
Links:
Dale Pendell’s blog: http://dalependell.com/
Pharmako trilogy by Dale Pendell: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00CKD4JLQ/ref=dp_st_1556438052
Dale’s lecture on ‘Horizon Anarchism’ at the 2006 Burning Man: https://soundcloud.com/lozo-382782666/055-dale-pendell-horizon-anarchism
Erowid resource library (There’s also a physical location where the Erowid library is located, near Auburn, CA) https://erowid.org/
Apache Stronghold Oak Flat: http://apache-stronghold.com/index.html
Signal Fire: http://www.signalfirearts.org
Support the podcast on Patreon to contribute to our grassroots self-funding of this project.
Support the Ground Shots Project with a one time donation: paypal.me/petitfawn
Samantha Zipporah is a midwife, author & educator in service to healing & liberation. Sam’s path rises from an ancient lineage of midwives, witches, & wise women with expertise spanning the continuum of birth, sex, & death. She is devoted to breaking the spells of oppression in reproductive & sexual health by connecting people with the innate pleasure, power, & wisdom of the body. Her praxis weaves scientific & soulful inquiry that integrate modern medicine & data with ancestral practices & epistemologies. Sam's most recent publications & offerings center the radical reclamation of contraception & abortion. Her online membership, The Fruit of Knowledge Learning Community, features access to her heart & mind via books, courses, Q&As, curated resources & more.
Adam and I recorded this conversation in a Camas meadow adjacent to his land after I taught wild-tending and critical ethnobotany plant plant walks for a week at the Sharpening Stone Earthskills Gathering, which Adam helps run.
In this episode with Adam, we talk about:
How Adam got the land that he lives on and runs the Sharpening Stone Earthskills Gathering
Some of the methods and madness of logging in Oregon which happens all around Adam’s private inholding near Umpqua National Forest, the herbicide spraying and GMP tree planting replacing forest diversity
the downfalls of profit-centered thinking vs. ecological centered thinking
some info about the Sharpening Stone Earthskills Gathering which takes place on the land we do the interview on
Re-wilding as a hot topic and trend right now
dancing with modern technology while trying to reconnect to land
(photo of Sylvia taken by Ricardo Nagaoka, used with permission from photographer. )
Episode #76 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with Sylvia Poareo from Connecting Within, out of Ashland, Oregon.
Sylvia Poareo is a gentle Curandera/Consejera (healer/spiritual counselor) whose work is rooted in guiding and supporting each individual in their own liberation within collective healing. Informed by the Chicano experience and growing up as an orphan in SoCal, her life was an initiation into deep trust in and reliance on Spirit/Creator.
Connecting deeply into the heart, to the cosmos and nature as a pathway to healing, she recognizes the profound wisdom, resilience and fortitude we carry in our bones. She supports ancestral remembrance and remembering parts of ourselves, our innate humanity and cultures of origin as a path to truth, healing and wholeness.
(read full bio and show notes through the link above)
Guest Music: Tránsito, El Feo, and Medley: Pastures Of Plenty/This Land Is Your Land/Land byLila Downs
Hosted by: Kelly Moody
Produced by: Kelly Moody
22 Oct 2020
Kelly & Gabe with Téo Montoya on the Colorado Trail: indigenous futurism, finding sacredness in all places
01:25:23
Episode #48 of the Ground Shots Podcast is the last recording Gabe and I conducted on our 2020 Colorado Trail Plant-a-go walk. This episode documents a few conversations Gabe and I had with our friend Téo Montoya who came to hike with us for a brief stint on the west side of the Collegiate Loop section of the trail.
Téo Montoya is a Lipan Apache(Ndé) Writer, Indigenous futurist, Electronic Music Producer, Human Design Analyst, Traditional Ecological Knowledge Student, and Educator. After completing his BA in Food and Medical Anthropology, with a focus on Indigenous diets and health disparities in Native American communities, Teo spent 5 years exploring the worlds of plant medicine, Ancestral Health Coaching, Djing and Producing music, Information Technology, working with a Native-Led Non-profits, and completing his Human Design Training. As a writer and creator he has begun the long process of writing a speculative fiction series and media project imagining future worlds and societies built upon indigenous values, ideals, and cultures. Teo believes imaging the future, specifically a future grounded in indigenous knowledge and technology, will provide us with the solutions to meet the largest challenges to the Earth and our Humanity. Today, Teo lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, writing, producing music, and supporting people on their personal and spiritual health journeys.
Teo and I met at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in the Spring of 2019 during a multi-week permaculture training.
This episode of the podcast isn’t a formal interview or formal conversation with Teo, though I would like to do that with Teo in the future.
This episode features snippets of the conversation between Teo, Gabe and I during dinner and then again for breakfast.
In this episode, we touch on:
Teo’s thoughts on ‘transcommunality’ and moving forward into the future by learning from indigenous wisdom but also not romanticizing it
a place for modern technology in new visions of the future
re-thinking the ‘anti-sacredness’ of the urban and complex technologies
some more Russian Olive rants (again I know) and talk more about how our culture uses invasive plants as scapegoats for our mistakes
the need for indigenous wisdom in the Green New Deal talks
Teo’s perspective on white folks or settlers wild harvesting food and medicine and the complexity of this practice
problems that arise with the ‘white-hands off’ perspective on land tending
indigenous peoples are innovative: in the past, present and will be in the future
questioning how we define ‘wild’ and ‘wildcraft’ and within the colonialist concept of private land ownership
Teo tells us a little bit about an indigenous futurism media project he’s working on and got funding for with a grant in California
I know some of the topics we dip into here will be controversial, and I personally am open to multiple sometimes contradictory perspectives at once. It is necessary in a time of such political and social polarization. Some topics require consistent critical conversation and hearing from multiple perspectives, looking at deep time and into the future, and all of the socio-economic-cultural factors at play. I think we need to be able to have different beliefs and try to understand where the other is coming from, even if you know they are totally wrong (or believe they are).
Teo offers a unique perspective as an indigenous person that doesn’t mean all other indigenous people agree. As humans, culturally, we are just as diverse as the plant life that shift and morph from one mountain, forest or meadow to another.
Kelly solo on borders, rising to the occasion, weaving ecologies and land immersion
00:48:13
Episode #73 is a solo episode with Kelly Moody, Ground Shots Podcast regular host.
I get into a slew of things on this episode, reflecting on camping near the Mexican border and the implication of borders, water, fire and ecological disturbance, summer field immersion programs I’m doing in Western Colorado this season and more.
A shorter episode with just me and some sweet banjo tune by Mandalin Sattler as background music.
Ep. #9: Christiana Hedlund on her art and craft practice, the feeling of color, place informed design
01:06:32
Episode nine of the Ground Shots Podcast.
A conversation with artist and designer Christiana Hedlund on her art and craft practice, the feeling of color, place informed design, her Signal Fire experience, and more.
We talk about:
Christiana’s study of painting and craft in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, France and Mexico.
Colors and how they affect people differently and often reflect something about the land around us or perhaps our current social and political climate.
Christiana’s experiences as a two time alumni of Signal Fire’s Wide Open Studios summer immersion trips in the wilds of the West.
The importance of craft and making things we use in our everyday life.
Making and curating spaces that feel good to be in and the importance of the intersection of art and shelter.
Doug Elliott is a naturalist, herbalist, storyteller, basket maker, back-country guide, philosopher, and harmonica wizard. For many years made his living as a traveling herbalist, gathering and selling herbs, teas, and remedies.
He has spent a great deal of time with traditional country folk and regional indigenous peoples, learning their stories, folklore and traditional ways of relating to the natural world. In recent years he has performed and presented programs at festivals, museums, botanical gardens, nature centers and schools from Canada to the Caribbean. He has been a featured storyteller at the National Storytelling Festival. He has lectured and performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and conducted workshops for the Smithsonian Institution. He has led ranger training sessions for the National Park Service and guided people on wilderness experiences from down-east Maine to the Florida Everglades. He was named harmonica champion at Fiddler’s Grove Festival in Union Grove, N.C. He is the author of five books, many articles in regional and national magazines, has recorded a number of award winning albums of stories and songs, and is occasionally seen on PBS-TV, and the History and National Geographic Channels.
Links:
Doug Elliott’s Bandcamp page, where you can listen to and download all of his full length albums and story recordings: https://dougelliott.bandcamp.com/
Article on Bessie Jones, whom Doug mentions in a story on the podcast, national treasure and African American singer (also see video alongside others, displayed on blog post page for this episode)
Ep. 11: Woniya Thibeault on connecting to the wild through ancestral skills, farming, hide tanning and cultural sensitivity, Woniya's book projects and more.
01:09:33
Episode 11 of the Ground Shots Podcast.
A conversation recorded by the south fork of the Trinity River in Hyampom, California with ancestral skills instructor Woniya Thibeault.
We talk about:
connecting to the wild through ancestral skills,
the pros and cons of farming,
wild tending,
having cultural sensitivity around ancestral skills and an awareness of colonization,
Kollibri terre Sonnenblume on the Failures of Farming and the Necessity of Wildtending
01:44:58
Episode #35 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, recorded in rural southern New Mexico last month in his outdoor kitchen, surrounded by friendly feral cats.
I visited with Kollibri last month, where he is currently living, gardening and writing. He gave me a few of his books to read through, and after I read much of them, we got together to record this conversation. His books and zines are well written, thought out and researched and touch on topics like colonialism, history, plants, agriculture, ethnobotany, politics and more.
Kollibri terre Sonnenblume is a writer, photographer, tree hugger, animal lover, and dissident. Past experiences include urban bike farmer, Indymedia activist, and music critic. Kollibri holds a BA in “Writing Fiction & Non-fiction” from the St. Olaf Paracollege in Northfield, Minnesota.
In this conversation with Kollibri, we talk about:
the pros and con's of permaculture
wild-tending as not just using knowledge from the past but adapting to a changing world
some connections between patriarchy, organized religion and slavery
the blurry line between gatherer-hunter life-ways and small scale agriculture
horticulture vs. agriculture
some history of agriculture, the negative impacts of agriculture on health and culture
Kollibri's various books and zines on farming, wild-tending, ‘invasive’ plants, and place-based travel
questioning victorian ideas of gatherer-hunter culture and the transition to agriculture
the importance of an interdisciplinary approach and looking at things from many angles, avoiding 'silo'ing when possible
the importance of practicing small scale agriculture with the fragmented ecology and culture we have right now
the racist origins of wilderness, national parks and public lands, and the continued racism in these institutions or ideas
what to expect from Kollibri's new podcast 'Voices For Nature and Peace'
Links:
Kollibri’s website: Macska Moksha Press, where you can buy his books, read his latest articles
Jason Hone on biblical ethnobotany and ecology of the holy lands
02:03:15
Episode # 82 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with Jason Hone on medicinal herbs of biblical times and the historical ecological transformation of the holy lands.
Jason Hone practices as a holistic provider for patients of all walks of life. He has worked in various disciplines of healthcare since 1996. His experience includes emergency and sports medicine, wilderness medicine, home health and hospice, and specialized pediatric care for children with medical frailties. Prior to becoming a nurse practitioner, Jason earned his Bachelor’s of Science in nursing (BSN) at Ameritech College of Healthcare in Draper, Utah and his Masters of Nursing (MSN) in Family Nurse Practitioning through Frontier Nursing University in Kentucky. In both programs he was selected by his peers to represent them in a leadership position. He loved these opportunities to interact with other nurses, students, and faculty. With considerable experience in holistic, alternative, and complementary medicine, Jason has training in many modalities, including but not limited to nutritional assessments, ozone joint injections, cupping, massage therapy, holistic wound management, herb care and ethnonobotanical lore.
Jason was raised in Idaho and Israel and has lived in Utah for the past 11 years. When he is not working, he loves spending time with his wife, Kristina, and their seven kids. He enjoys traveling and exploring, and loves practicing and teaching primitive skills. He and his wife are the founders of the CASK Gene Foundation, working to promote knowledge of this rare, genetic disorder faced by their youngest daughter.
Jason maintains national certification and professional membership through the American Association of Nurse Practitioners; he is a member of the American Holistic Nurses Association, Sigma Theta Tao International, and the Utah Nurse Practitioners’ Association.
Kelly speaks about her upbringing and the Ground Shots Podcast origins
01:10:26
This episode of the podcast features the host, Kelly, solo, speaking about her upbringing in the south and her journey towards starting the Ground Shots Project and Podcast.
Find the FULL transcript for this episode on our Patreon page, here.
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast is a first! It’s me, Kelly, the podcast host, speaking solo about my upbringing in the South and how it plus other experiences I’ve had into adulthood, influenced the creation of the Ground Shots Project as an ecological art project, and the Ground Shots Podcast, a ecological storytelling project featuring guests from all over.
I start off the episode speaking a bit about where I grew up, and some of my basic experiences in the enviroment where I was raised. I grew up in southern Virginia, and I even linked my hometown in the shownotes if you want to get a glimpse.
I go into how my life evolved into adulthood, studying Philosophy formerly, working on organic farms, studying with herbalism teachers, and my general influences. I talk about how I originally started traveling, though there is so much more to the story than what I tell here.
I speak about how my time farming, walking the Camino de Santiago, spending time with my grandmother as a child, and meeting people on the road, influenced the creation of my project.
I answer some questions posed by folks who submitted them on Instagram about my project and relationship with plants, travel, connecting to place.
A note: we now have a phone line where you can call the podcast and leave messages. PLEASE leave us one! If you do, you give us permission to potentially broadcast your messages on air. If you can, please give us verbal permission when you leave a message. I’m excited about this!
I produced this episode entirely on my own this time, with a new program I’m trying out. It’s not perfect, but I’m playing around and seeing how it goes. So, if it sounds different in any way, this is why! Also, I got a new microphone, so my voice is clearer than in the past recording from my computer.
If you have a comment, question or inquiry based on what you hear in this episode, feel free to shoot me an email, comment on the blog post for this episode or call our podcast phone number and leave a message.
Call the podcast and leave us a message (you give us permission to potentially air it on the podcast, please be sure to also give us verbal permission):
Interstitial Music: “Rainbow Waltz” by Cody Fielder
Hosted by: Kelly Moody
Produced by: Kelly Moody
11 Feb 2025
Episode #86: Wild Tending Series/ Samuel Bautista Lazo & Damián Jiménez Martínez on Tseé Xigie radio - ecology, wild tending, land politics (Español/English)
01:45:35
In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:
the biodiversity of agaves, some of the issues with cultivation under pressure of capitalism, and private land ownership
complexity of the commons in Oaxaca under pressure of modernity
agave use for textiles, wild and rare species, and benefit of planting in polycultures
we speak to ideas about wild tending in Oaxaca and the issues that come up when trying to reintegrate old ways of tending land in modern times
the fact that oaks are not wild tending here or eaten but used to be long ago, what could people here learn from indigenous peoples to the north and vice versa— who tend oaks or piñon pine for food
this episode was catered to the local village audience of Teotitlan de Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico, on the local radio, so listen with this in mind.
It is a language in Spanish and English, if you are a Spanish speaker, you will get a richer experience from this episode
Music by: Mandalin Sattler on flute, music from town
Hosted and Produced by: Kelly Moody
10 Oct 2019
Katie Russell on building political and cultural bridges with the Buffalo Bridge Project outside of Yellowstone National Park
01:08:20
Episode #27 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Katie Russell, the founder of the Buffalo Bridge Project on the ongoing work of the Buffalo Bridge Crew. We sat down to chat in my camper behind the laundromat in Twisp, Washington while we ate cherries and saskatoon berries.
Katie Russell lives in the Methow valley in Washington state, on the east side of the Cascades, which is in the rain shadow of those towering mountains. It’s an area with expansive rolling hills and mountains with dry and desert like conditions but also features a diversity of eco-zones with various conifers, quaking aspens, Ceanothus and more. Katie currently runs the Saskatoon Circle Gathering, an ancestral skill gathering that is held in the valley every year. Katie has a homestead in the valley, teaches ancestral skills and has such a cute family! (Thanks to Em for babysitting her child Ranger during our laundromat-camper hosted chat.) I’ve known Katie informally over the years and went to the Saskatoon Circle Gathering back in 2016, this summer being the first time I’ve been back in awhile. I’ve also been following the Buffalo Bridge Project for some time. Katie often will do presentations at ancestral skills gatherings about what the work entails, so I’ve learned a bit about it. Katie agreed to do an interview about Buffalo Bridge LAST year when I asked her (Spring of 2018) and we finally were able to sit down and do it this summer.
To give you a little bit of a background to the project, I’m going to quote whoever wrote the description of their indigogo campaign (perhaps Harmony?) to raise money for the expenses involved, because they wrote it so poignantly:
During the winter of 2013, Katie stumbled upon the native buffalo hunt outside Yellowstone National Park. After meeting a few of the hunters and diggin' around in some gut piles, she knew she HAD to return to explore the possibilities. In winter of 2014, Katie gathered a small crew and returned to Yellowstone to make use of the left-behind pieces of the hunt - hides, skulls, bones, fur, organs, and more. The crew set up camp right outside the hunting grounds, ready at any time to help, to share knowledge, and to offer skills in anyway the families needed. In the process, BBP began making connections with the buffalo, the native hunters, the Buffalo Field Campaign, park officials, tourists and townsfolk alike.
Focused on using every part of the animal, The Buffalo Bridge Project is building a bridge between cultures, factions, and political lines in the common recognition of the innate worth of the buffalo, and our own shared humanity. The project has continued every year since the initial camp outside of Yellowstone National Park.
Less than 200 years ago, 60 million buffalo roamed the country. Their grazing patterns maintained the integrity of our native grasslands. They recycled nutrients back into the soil with every step, planting seeds, fertilizing and watering as the herds migrated over the prairies. Their wallows created much needed prairie lakes and ponds with precious freshwater ecosystems. They provided food and shelter for innumerable species, from frogs and lizards to antelope and beetles. The buffalo were one of the most important keystone species in the ecology of the plains, often referred to as "large scale ecological engineers."
Many of the nation's First People depended on the buffalo for most of their survival needs. Because they provided so much, the herds of bison became integral to almost every part of human life; they offered food, shelter, clothing, children's toys, silverware, blankets, clothing, rope, bags, water carriers, bowstrings, glue, tools, fire fuel, and more.
The herds once numbered in the millions, and provided a comfortably abundant life for many of the buffalo hunting people. By the early 1900's, however, European colonization had almost completely eradicated the species. Within a few generations, as few as 23 wild Bison remained. These solitary animals had survived by finding refuge deep in Yellowstone National Park's boundaries.
The decimation of the wild buffalo was crippling to the cultural biosphere of the First Nations. The very fabric of the native's way of life had been destroyed, and as a result, much of the culture of the buffalo people was lost, relegated to the memories and stories of the people who still remembered the way it once was.
Today, through many years of political conflict and ecological turmoil, the bison population in Yellowstone has grown to around 4,900. These are the last truly wild bison in the country. Yet every year, there is a state-funded culling of the bison, in which Yellowstone officials ship portions of the buffalo herd out to slaughter.
Very recently, several Native tribes have started exercising their treaty rights to hunt the wild bison, just as their ancestors have for hundreds, if not thousands of years. After almost 200 years of being severed from the very animal that was once the very heart of everyday life, many families are finally able to reclaim their traditions and reconnect with their cultural heritage once again.
Buffalo Bridge is dedicated to honoring Buffalo Culture by remembering the traditions of the Buffalo People who have been living with and hunting buffalo since time immemorial. The Buffalo Bridge Project wishes to celebrate the sophistication, ingenuity, and resilience of these people by attempting to reconnect with these Old Ways of living and being. BBP also recognizes that these traditions are not our own, and think that its important to re-imagine our own ways of connecting with the land we now call our home. BBP feels that all of humanity has a shared past; one in which we all hunted animals and transformed animal skins into clothing, used stone knives, gathered plants, and made friction fire, and through enacting these very ancient patterns, we are able to remember our shared humanity.
In this podcast episode with Katie, we talk about:
what the Buffalo Bridge project is and how it started
the different perspectives on how the buffalo should currently be treated
a little on the history of the intertwined genocide of the buffalo and indigenous peoples who lived with the buffalo
some information on when the state of Montana sued the federal government for the buffalo crossing out of federal land
the area where Yellowstone National Park is as the 'cradle' of where buffalo spring from the earth, and where the last wild herd of buffalo still live
the treaty that gave rights to indigenous people to hunt buffalo on their own ancestral lands and how that treaty was revived with the intentional revival of buffalo populations in the 90's
how the folks at Buffalo Bridge navigate the cultural and political bridges in buffalo country
how the folks at Buffalo Bridge play a role as scavengers in the buffalo hunt
the 'ship and slaughter' baiting practice happening during the buffalo hunt to keep the buffalo numbers at a certain population and how it is a politically charged issue
Alicia Toldi on promoting accessible artist residencies with the Piney Wood Atlas project, spoon carving and post-permaculture training reflections
01:21:12
Episode #21 of the Ground Shots Podcast
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Alicia Toldi, who currently lived in Oakland, California. Alicia co-runs Piney Wood Atlas.
According to their website:
"Piney Wood Atlas is a collaborative project between citizen artists Alicia Toldi and Carolina Porras and was formed out of a desire to help spread the word about the magical world of artist residencies.
Through a series of regional road trips, we travel across the country unearthing small, emerging and unconventional artist residencies. Visiting is essential in absorbing the atmosphere, embedding into the space as if we were residents ourselves. We share meals, conversations and experiences with facilitators and artists. So far, we have visited around 45 residencies across 15 states and plan to visit the whole country in the next two years, representing alternative residencies through annually printed regional guidebooks, online content, and workshops.
Alternative residencies offer individual character, personalized experiences and room to experiment. Featuring these kinds of spaces allows us to connect creative thinkers with places where they can become visionaries, unlocking fresh ideas that only come from being in a new environment, and thus engaging in a symbiotic relationship between the artist, the residency locale and the outside world.
Piney Wood Atlas’ intention is to bridge the gap between residency databases and word-of-mouth, ensuring that attending a residency is an attainable, productive, and fun adventure for all."
We did this interview in Alicia's art studio in Oakland, California this past Spring after we both completed a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Occidental, California. I first met Alicia when I stumbled upon Piney Wood Atlas online. We have communicated online about the project over the past couple years and both decided to sign up for the Spring PDC at OAEC without realizing the other had also. It was a sweet surprise to finally meet Alicia. She hosted me a bunch this Spring as I came through the Bay area for interviews and meet-ups with folks. I appreciated being welcomed by Alicia and her partner and able to fit my big truck camper home in her tiny driveway by the freeway in the heart of Oakland.
In this conversation with Alicia, we talk about:
a little bit of the story of how Alicia co-found Piney Wood Atlas
the nature of artist residencies and how they can be designed in many ways, including their ability to be accessible to everyone
some of Alicia's favorite residencies featured in the PWA zines. So far the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest zines are out, and the Midwest themed zine will be out soon
adventures in road-tripping for the PWA project
Alicia's personal story of living in different places as an artist on the east and west coasts, and coming back home to the Bay area
a few of our post-permaculture training reflections
Alicia's relationship with spoon carving and making things
Jim Croft's 'Old Ways of Making Books' class in Santa, Idaho where I taught hide tanning and visited during the month of July 2019. This is where I mention I edited and recorded the intro/outro for this and the next few episodes of the podcast: https://cargocollective.com/oldway
Dan Nanamkin part two: Gabe Crawford catches up with Dan on how his indigenous community stepped up to Covid, updates on the Young Warrior Society
01:30:12
In this episode of the podcast, Gabe Crawford, a former podcast guest, catches up with Dan Nanamkin, who was featured previously onEpisode #39 of the Podcast.
Dan Nanamkin is from the Chief Joseph Band Of Wallowa, Nez Perce, and Colville Confederated Tribes of Washington State has been an advocate/teacher for indigenous culture, community unity, youth empowerment, racial equality, and peace for several decades. Prior to Standing Rock, Dan took one of the leads in helping to restore ancient canoe culture of the northwest plateau tribes, the River Warriors. This inspired him further to connect with the Water, something that led him to Standing Rock. He endured months of peaceful front line action at Standing Rock from September 2016 until March 2017. Dan has since traveled across the nation speaking with his two dogs and band, the One Tribe Movement. Dan advocates for people to be better informed, to get more involved, to resist racism and violence, and to support the movement to protect Mother Earth. He is a public presenter, musician and author who remains active in bringing forth awareness of Native culture. His mission is to connect modern day people with the traditions that are still absolutely relevant and critical to life today. Dan hopes to bring back traditional knowledge of the earth/plants/medicines and survival in a way to encourage healing, wellness and respect for balance with Mother Earth and all living things.
In this conversation with Dan and Gabe, they talk about:
update on Sovereignty Camps and the name change to Young Warrior Society
organic food access on the reservation
how Dan’s community stepped up during Covid to support one another
some #landback talk from Dan’s perspective
the difficulty of being able to tend and harvest native first foods with how land is now split up in modern times due to colonization, racism, access issues
Is there such a thing as an "Invasive Species"? A conversation with Matt Chew Ph.d. hosted by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, Nikki Hill and Gabe Crawford
02:59:01
Episode #59 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with Professor Matt Chew, and is hosted by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, Nikki Hill and Gabe Crawford.
Dubbed a ‘gadfly of invasion biology’ by Scientific American, Matt Chew is known for critiquing ecology’s overreliance on societal metaphors and conservationists’ misapplication of notions like ‘nativeness’. Dr. Chew has a B.S. Environmental Interpretation and an M.S. Range Science (Ecology) from Colorado State University, and a Ph.D. in Biology from Arizona State University. As statewide Natural Resources Planner for Arizona State Parks, he coordinated their Natural Areas Program, researched wildlife issues, and served on interagency committees, one of which also included his future wife, plant ecologist Julie Stromberg. Julie was recently featured as a guest on Kollibri terre Sonnenblume's podcast, Voices for Nature and Peace. With Julie's encouragement, he abandoned government work to earn a biology Ph.D. based entirely on historical research.
Currently employed at Arizona State University, Dr. Chew conducts a field course in ‘novel ecosystems,’ lectures in ‘history of biology’ and ‘biology and society’, and works with postgraduate students. He was awarded an Oxford research fellowship in 2014. His articles in "Nature," "Science" and other publications have been cited in over 200 different journals.
Former podcast guests, Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, Gabe Crawford, and Nikki Hill host this episode.
Nikki Hill has a degree in environmental science and has worked in restoration and agriculture. Currently she invests her energy in wildtending efforts. Nikki and Kollibri co-authored a zine together called, "The Troubles of 'Invasive' Plants," which you can download for free on Kollibri's blog, linked in the show notes.
Kollibri terre Sonnenblume is a writer, photographer, podcaster, tree hugger, animal lover, and cultural dissident. Past experiences include urban bike farmer, Indymedia activist, and music critic. Kollibri holds a BA in “Writing Fiction & Non-fiction” from the St. Olaf Paracollege in Northfield, Minnesota. Kollibri hosts and curates the Voices for Nature and Peace Podcast. You can read his writings focused on ecology and politics at Maska Moskska press, linked in the bio.
Gabe Crawford was raised on a small homestead outside of Durango, Colorado and started learning about plants from an early age. He got launched on his plant journey by studying with Katrina Blair at the Turtle Lake Refuge in Durango. He moved to Sandpoint, Idaho where he worked with Twin Eagles Wilderness School and Kaniksu Land Trust mentoring kids. Through this, he started naturalist training which opened him up to the world of wild tending, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the ancient and intricate relationships between humans and ecology. Gabe spent time with Finisia Medrano learning about the ancient wild gardens of the west that were and still are tended by indigenous peoples and was taught how to tend these first foods and plant back for future abundance. He collects the seeds of native foods plants, fruit trees, berries and other exotics to plant feral orchards and wild gardens.
In this conversation, Kollibri, Nikki and Gabe take a deep dive into the history of "invasion biology" and reveal its scientific shortcomings and its cultural biases.
This is a crossover episode with Kollibri's podcast, Voices for Nature and Peace, so we are airing it on both podcasts at the same time. I highly recommend checking out Kollibri's guests and the breadth of what he has been covering lately visiting the intersections of social action, politics, the environment, animals rights, land justice and more. Also check out Kollibri’s weekly column read out loud on his platform Radio Free Sunroot. You can also find Voices for Nature and Peace on most mainstream podcast streaming platforms.
Links:
Kollibri’s website where you can find his writings, zines and more: Macska Moksha Press
This episode hosted by: Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, Nikki Hill and Gabe Crawford
Produced by: Kollibri terre Sonnenblume and Kelly Moody
11 Aug 2020
Ramona Moonflower on protecting the Redwoods in the 90's, using forest therapy to re-connect to place
00:39:56
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Ramona Moonflower Rubin, an activist and forest therapist living in the Bay area of California.
Ramona Moonflower Rubin walks a path woven of science, spirituality and activism connecting human and ecological health. Ramona studied Cultural Ecology at the University of Santa Cruz and has a Master's in Public Health from the University of Michigan. She founded Healing Forest Guide to facilitate a deep conversation about how we experience and relate to the natural world. Ramona lives in Berkeley California on Chochenyo Ohlone ancestral land at the ancient settlement of Huchiun. She teaches from her diverse fields of study: ecology, permaculture, California native plants, sustainable agriculture, nutrition, public health, integrative medicine, cannabis science, ethnobotany and forest therapy. Based in her Judaic heritage and influenced by Buddhist, shamanic and earth-based traditions, Ramona’s approach to spirituality is open and grounded in welcoming the sensory experience of the present. Her ceremonial practice is based on the conviction that other beings embody an intelligence, and that it is our sacred heritage and right to interact with and experience this intelligence.
I sat down and had a brief conversation with Ramona after we both participated in the march to Oak Flat this past February with the Apache Stronghold primarily organized by the local San Carlos Apache folks. The march to Oak Flat is a prayer-focused walk with the intention of bringing awareness to an unlawful copper mine trying to make it's way on sacred Apache land.
In this episode with Ramona we talk about:
Ramona's environmental activism work being involved in protecting old growth Redwoods in the 90's in northern California
the different motivations behind the Redwood campaign Ramona was involved with in the 90's
different ways of approaching direct action
the connection between Salmon and the Redwoods
how the potential for grief increases the more we feel connected to the land around us in a society that does not feel that same connection
Ep. 12: Turtle T. Turtlington on mead making, changing culture through fermentation, working with edgy plants, alchemy, alcohol and the poison path.
02:53:37
Episode 12 of The Ground Shots Podcast.
This longer *bonus* episode of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Turtle T. Turtlington on all things mead making while we drink several bottles of homemade mead Turtle brewed. Turtle was previously a guest on episode four of the podcast, where he chronicles his walk across the width of California.
We talk about:
instructions on how to make mead
details on primary and secondary fermentation in mead making
mead circles and their importance
the alchemy and mercurial process of mead making
changing and creating culture through fermentation
herbs to use and not to use for mead making
the magic of making meads on special dates and occasions
mead making culture in western North Carolina
a quick view into mead and beer fermentation history
the influence of 'the church' on beer and ingredients
the connection between fermentation to earth-based spirituality
making mead with Scotch Broom and other edgy plants
the relationship between being human and fermenting food and drink
philosophy around alcohol consumption and the poison path
how Frank Cook may have influenced the creation of this podcast
It is important to do your own research before working with plants and fermenting them and to be aware of what herbs may be contraindicated during pregnancy.
Books on mead making mentioned in the podcast:
Stephen Buhner's 'Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers'
Sandor Katz's 'Wild Fermentation' and 'The Art of Fermentation'
Additional music: Miranda Heidler of Wild Bergamot Handcrafts covering: You've Been a Friend to Me by the Carter Family and Like a Songbird That Has Fallen by the Reeltime Travelers
Wild Tending series / Nikki Hill and Gabe Crawford on the basics of wild-tending
01:40:30
Episode #31 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with Nikki Hill and Gabe Crawford, recorded on a sunny day in Paonia, Colorado on the wild edges of Small Potatoes Farm this past November.
Gabe Crawford was raised on a small homestead outside of Durango, Colorado and started learning about plants from an early age. He got launched on his plant journey by studying with Katrina Blair at the Turtle Lake Refuge in Durango. He moved to Sandpoint, Idaho where he worked with Twin Eagles Wilderness School and Kaniksu Land Trust mentoring kids. Through this, he started naturalist training which opened him up to the world of wild tending, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the ancient and intricate relationships between humans and ecology. Gabe spent time with Finisia Medrano learning about the ancient wild gardens of the west that were and still are tended by indigenous peoples and was taught how to tend these first foods and plant back for future abundance. He collects the seeds of native foods plants, fruit trees, berries and other exotics to plant feral orchards and wild gardens.
Nikki Hill can be found chasing wildflowers throughout the western US. She is not sure when her adoration of plants began, but they share a kindred spirit. Nikki earned a bachelors degree in environmental science and botany which led her to the field of habitat restoration nearly 16 years ago. Disillusioned by methodology that focused on eradication, she struck off on her own. She spent six years growing food and medicine, first as an urban farmer and then as a nomadic rural farmer, and co-founded Daggawalla, a seed and herb company. Since 2014, she has been exploring her feral roots as a wildtender, planting gardens outside agricultural boundaries. Her hope is to foster habitat resilience by sowing a living seed bank for the future, in a spirit of collaboration with the non-human world. Her website can be found at www.walkingroots.net.
In this conversation with Nikki and Gabe, we talk about:
exploring the concepts of 'wild' and 'wild-tending'
what it means to participate in a cultured landscape
seeing the fabric of the landscape as a mosaic of gardens
how wild-tending practices can challenge and/or reinforce certain accepted mainstream narratives around sustainable wild-crafting
re-looking at what 'wild-crafting' even means in the context of prioritizing planting back
the connection between mental health and wild-tending
a brief introduction to some specific wild-tending techniques like seed collection and replanting, root division, burying branches and more.
'poop' talk – the importance of poop in wild-tending and planting back
‘The Troubles of ‘Invasive’ Plants’ by Nikki Hill & Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, free zine download, or buy a hard copy in the store on Kollobri’s website
This episode of the Ground Shots Podcast is with Dr. Cara Judea Alhadeff.
We did this interview in person this past summer in Paonia, Colorado. I have been sharing studio space with her partner Wild, a woodworker. This summer I was working on some carpentry in my trailer in the yard of the shop, and we retreated here for this conversation out of the heat and the hubub of the wood studio.
Cara is a Mother, Artist, Author, Professor, Action-Philosopher, Environmental-Justice Organizer
Episode #73 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with Alex Zubia (XeF) out of Fresno, California.
Alex Zubia, who goes by “Xef” is a Chef by trade. Born and raised in Fresno, CA (yokuts Land). Alex attended The California Culinary Academy in San Francisco (Ramaytush Ohlone land) in 2007. His passion for cooking came with his passion for eating. From 2008-2015 he worked at Community Regional Medical Center’s Emergency Room as a Patient Liaison. During that time he witnessed people from his community dying from diet related issues. That realization led him to opening his food truck, which focused on healthier, farm to fork versions of familiar foods. In 2015, Alex moved to Santa Barbara (Chumash Land) to further his skills as a chef. There, he discovered that so much of the beautiful produce he was cooking with came from Fresno. He wondered why he never saw all this produce available in Fresno. Alex moved back to his hometown in 2021 to fight for food justice as a Food Sovereignty Director at Fresno Barrios Unidos. Alex’s goal is to bring his community back to eating and cooking their indigenous foods which are so plentiful in the Central Valley.
In this conversation with Alex, we talk about:
food apartheid (or ‘food deserts’) in Fresno, California, which is in the Central Valley of California, a place where so much food is grown yet not a lot of local food is available for the folks who live there
food is medicine, culturally and physically
Alex’s journey doing work with food, cooking in Santa Barbara and Fresno
the corporate industrial food complex as it intersects capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy
Alex’s work as a patient liaison at the Community Regional Medical Center’s Emergency Room and how it changed their perspective and what they observed as harmful aspects of the hospital industrial complex
The importance of love, community, and good food for good health
Navigating the nonprofit world when trying to do food justice work
some raving on TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) Chico and Ali Meders-Knight’s model of land tending in California
regenerative agriculture stems from indigenous practices
The four R’s and more on Transition US (Resist, Repair, Reimagine, Regenerate)
Jim Croft with Brien Beidler in Santa, Idaho on making books and paper from the ground up
01:28:12
Episode #38 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Jim Croft, medieval era bookbinder, hand papermaker and wonderful storyteller. This podcast episode was recorded summer 2019 in Santa, Idaho on his homestead during he and his partner Melody’s ‘Old Ways of Making Books’ class they host most summers. This interview was co-facilitated by Brien Beidler, who was featured along Mary Sullivan on Episode #32 of the podcast.
Jim Croft is a Medieval bookbinder and papermaker. He is internationally known for his skills, and he travels annually to various locations in the USA to teach students how to make books with wooden covers and brass clasps. In the summer, he offers a two week intensive workshop teaching students how to spin thread from raw fibers, make paper, create book covers from raw wood, design and make brass clasps, and then how to bind everything together. Jim is always the first one up in the morning, and the last one to retire at night.
Jim has lived in Santa, Idaho on his rural off-grid homestead with his partner Melody Eckroft, who is an accomplished basket-weaver, for over 40 years. They raised three children living close to the land and making their handmade crafts a part of daily life. I’ve had the honor of spending time on their land the last three summers. I first came to their homestead because I was interested in making things from the ‘ground up’ after taking a bookbinding, paper-making, and printmaking Spring intensive at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, where many folks had suggested I give Jim a call. SO, I did. And, everything changed from there.
I’ve been doing natural brain-tanning and bark-tanning animal hides for awhile now, and I'm also interested in other crafts that engage a relationship with plants, ecology and natural materials. My work in brain-tanning and bark-tanning leather caught Jim’s attention and we became friends right away. Since he focuses on period specific bookbinding that utilizes natural or up-cycled materials as much as possible, he wanted to learn more about leather and ‘shammy' (although, he already knows more than he gives himself credit).
I ended up wandering to Jim and Melody’s a year and a half after my Penland experience. I took their two week ‘Old Ways of Making Books’ class while also facilitating the hide tanning portion of the class so that folks could learn about naturally tanning their book materials. I started the podcast the next year, and then this past summer Jim agreed to record a conversation. I asked Brien to help co-facilitate since he and Jim are colleagues and great friends with many shared experiences and a mutual love of hand bookbinding.
About co-facilitator Brien Beidler:
From the beginning, Brien Beidler has been inspired by historic bindings, and is consistently delighted by their ability to harmonize fine craftsmanship, quirky but elegant aesthetics, and evidence of the hands that made them. Though traditionally structured and bound with integrity, Brien's bindings seek ways to create new compositions and juxtapositions of these historic precedents.
Naturally, a healthy love of the tools of the trade followed suit, and with the generosity and encouragement of toolmaking legends Jim Croft and Shanna Leino, Brien also creates a limited assortment of specialized hand tools for bookbinding and its related trades.
Over the last nine years Brien has taken and taught a variety of bookbinding and toolmaking workshops, and is an active member of the Guild of Book Workers. In the fall of 2016, he and his wife upped their roots in Charleston, South Carolina and set up shop in Bloomington, Indiana, where Brien works from his home studio with Wren, his curmudgeonly Brittany.
Since Ground Shots Podcast episode #32 where I interview Brien Beidler and Mary Sullivan on bookbinding and papermaking, Brien started a podcast of his own co-hosted with Amy Umbel called Cut the Craft Podcast featuring interviews with craftsfolk. Check it out!
In this conversation with Jim Croft featuring Brien Beidler, we talk about:
stories of where Jim grew up, when he worked on a boat, discovering bookbinding in Europe
Jim’s classic meandering stories on woodworking, adventures, building, fiber processing, his house fire, meeting Melody Eckroft his partner of over 40 years
living off grid in rural Oregon and northern Idaho
making and building as much by hand as possible
investigating craft and materials through regular experimentation and engagement
some history of bookbinding and fine binding, paper-making
the importance of hemp and flax for paper, clothing and rope fiber
making bone tools
using mostly hand tools to make books
Jim's relationship with scavenging from logging sites, junk yards, or abandoned buildings for materials to make things
book conservation vs. repair
Jim and and Jack Thompson making a water-powered hand stamp paper mill in Santa, Idaho (the only other ones basically exist in Europe)
Links:
Jim and Melody’s website, where you can contact them about future classes out in Idaho (calling or writing letters is best): https://cargocollective.com/oldway
Ep. 10: Adam Stolte and his Goats. Thoughts on modern day pastoralism, domestication, Pacific Northwest plants for goat forage, and more.
01:06:43
Episode Ten of the Ground Shots Podcast.
Episode ten is part field recording, part interview done while walking with Adam Stolte and his goat herd (plus the pig Ragnar) this past September in Hood River, Oregon. On our evening walk through Douglas Fir groves, Scotch Broom died back and Hazelnut, we discuss a number of topics related to goats, pastoralism, public lands, nomadism, connecting to the land through animals, plants that goats love to forage in this specific region, writers and activists that discuss goat herding and more. Listen for a humorous, thoughtful and not so linear conversation on Adam's fresh relationship with goats, a life tuned into the land, even a goat milking session in the mix.
Chama Woydak of Homegrown Families on birth, death, and land connection
01:21:51
Episode #62 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Chama Woydak of Homegrown Families and Dancing Springs Farm, out of Asheville, North Carolina.
Chama and I have a relationship that spans over a decade, which began when I landed on her farm in 2012 to go to herbal medicine school. We ended up farming together for a few years before I hit the road, and I owe a lot of my knowledge about growing food and caring for animals to Chama who has dedicated the last few decades to these practices alongside her work as a doula and childbirth educator. As you’ll hear in this interview, her work as a farmer tending life and death is inextricably linked to her work as a doula re-humanizing care for others’ births in a society that doesn’t prioritize it or see it as vitally important.
In this conversation with Chama, we talk about:
Chama’s journey into childbirth education and birthwork
The role of doulas in childbirth
The difference between a OBGYN, doula and midwife
The problematic nature of the medical industrial complex in relationship to birth
how doulas can re-humanize care in a culture and system that dehumanizes from the bottom up
raising the bar of birth experiences
the intricacies of complex medical trauma and how it trickles into our society
taking a restorative justice approach to birthwork
the connection between farming and birthwork
how tending space in nature can help teach us how to tend and care for our human systems (we are nature)
doula work is inherently justice work
the power of small adjustments and interactions in making big change and how tending land can teach us about this
Acoustic Ecology mixtape with Lisa Schonberg: using sounds from the Brazilian Amazon, Hawai'ian islands
00:40:46
Hey ya’ll, Episode #26 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a mixtape of work composed by the musician and ecologist Lisa Schonberg influenced by soundscapes from the land where she does scientific research. Lisa is featured in conversation in Episode #25 of the podcast. Listen to our conversation about Lisa’s music and research in #25, and then listen to this mixtape to enjoy Lisa’s work. Lisa plays with Secret Drum Band, a collaborative music project called Pattern Ecology, and UAU. More info and artwork can be found on our website: https://www.ofsedgeandsalt.com/ground-shots-podcast/lisaschonberg
Living in the wilderness, fermenting on the road and facing the immediacy of death with Marissa Percoco
01:59:11
Episode #63 is a conversation with Marissa Percoco out of Barnardsville, NC.
Marissa (she/her) is an avid fermentation enthusiast who has spent the last 10 years exploring community and the wilds, as well as living deeply with various fermented cultures and local plants, and learning how it all comes together. Traveling through the wild places of Tennessee, Florida, the Southwest, California, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and most everywhere in between with her four amazingly adventurous children, Marissa has gathered cultures from far and wide. Deeply rooted in the Earthskills movement and committed to co-creating a new culture within which we, our children and all beings thrive, they are now nesting in Barnardsville, NC, and she humbly offers her humorous experiences to you. She is also the Director of the Firefly Gathering.
In this conversation with Marissa, we talk about:
rural Appalachia dynamics and gentrification in a valley outside of a hip city, Asheville, NC
some stories of Marissa’s moving from the bay area of California to the rural south in the early 2000’s and what it was like initially, the culture shock
shifting from years of nomadism to mainly tending one small place in community
some of Marissa’s childhood experiences in California with chemically bonded parents and plant loving grandparents
farming in west climates vs. arid climates
tending tropical plants in a subtropical four season place, and pushing the edge of what is possible during rapid climate change
the perspective gained from travel and having an awareness of the plants in those places
Marissa’s time in the Gila wilderness doing walks and we geek on plants we found there
the pros and cons of isolation living in wilderness areas, co-dependency, addiction and depression wrapped in idealism, and how can we contribute to society living ‘out there?’
Marissa’s mead brewing practice on the road over the years, capturing place through brewing plants
how facing the immediacy of death changes perspective
Marc Williams on the Green Path, the urgency of 're-localizing' and accessibility issues around learning land-based skills
01:16:12
Episode #29 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Marc Williams, who is based out of Asheville, North Carolina. I took a trip to the Southeast this past September, where I visited my folks in southern Virginia and friends in Asheville, NC. Marc and I met up for an interview in West Asheville, NC, in the backyard of our mutual friend. I’ve known Marc since 2012 or so, when I moved to Asheville to attend herbalism school.
Marc Williams is an ethnobiologist. He has studied the people, plant, mushroom, microbe connection intensively while learning to employ botanicals and other life forms for food, medicine, and beauty. His training includes a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies concentrating in Sustainable Agriculture with a minor in Business from Warren Wilson College and a Master’s degree in Appalachian Studies concentrating in Sustainable Development with a minor in Geography and Planning from Appalachian State University. He has spent over two decades working at a multitude of restaurants and various farms. He has travelled throughout 30 countries in Central/North/South America and Europe and all 50 of the United States. Marc has visited over 200 botanical gardens and research institutions during this process while taking tens of thousands of pictures of representative plants. He is also Executive Director of Plants and Healers International www.plantsandhealers.org. Marc has taught hundreds of classes to thousands of people about the marvelous world of humans and their interface with other organisms while working with over 70 organizations in the last few years and online at the website here. His greatest hope is that this effort may help improve our current challenging global ecological situation.
In this conversation with Marc, we talk about:
the green path as a way to live life and as a physical gathering that is nonlinear and open to anyone
Frank Cook's influence on the ideas behind the green path way of life
what is the green path? fermenting processes, 're-skilling' for living closely to the land, donation based or free plant walks, the sharing that happens at earthskills gatherings, folk schools, botanical gardens, a camp at the rainbow gathering, and more
different opportunities for education about the natural world and our connection to it
issues around accessibility at earthskills gatherings and with the 'green path'
the urgency of 're-localizing' and learning skills of sustainability
Asheville, North Carolina as an incubator for the 'green path'
the role of permaculture in the 'green path'
the importance of pilgrimage and how a pilgrimage can be interpreted in many ways
pilgrimage as a form of meditation and rite of passage
addressing the reality of how travel has a large environmental footprint, even travel with good intentions!
learning skills as a form of activism
Links:
7Song’s The Northeast School of Botanical Medicine and CALM first aid camp at the rainbow gathering, mentioned in the podcast: http://7song.com/
podcast hub, and of sedge & salt blog where you can find photo diaries, ethnobotanical plant profiles, more on past podcast guests: http://www.ofsedgeandsalt.com
Sarah Galvin of House of Yore on the need for madness and chaos medicine in our culture
01:40:07
Episode #54 of the Ground Shots Podcast is a conversation with Sarah Galvin, who hosts and creates with House of Yore, formerly Forest and Fjord. Sarah hosts exploratory ancestral workshops through House of Yore, as well as sells small batch bioregional herbal medicine.
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In this conversation with Sarah, we talk about:
***
Sarah’s traveling years starting with leaving home as a teenager to live in Europe
Sarah’s experience working on various farms across the country and some pros and cons of WWOOFing (Worldwide Working on Organic Farms)
How she ended up in Alaska and some of her ‘dark nights of the soul’ experiences there living alone on a remote island in an off grid cabin, and what she learned about facing demons and her greatest fears
The need for chaos medicine in our culture, and how making space for that instead of pushing it away is needed
Sarah’s experience growing up with Ayurveda and her training in it, as well as how this framework helps her see the world, especially in regards to honing in on what our individual roles are on earth
How Sarah’s Irish ancestry helps her connect to so-called Alaska and pastoralism
Some history talk of colonialism in Alaska, and how rapid climate change is occurring there
Call the podcast and connect with us by leaving a message (while you’re there, if your ok with us potentially airing it on the podcast, give us verbal permission):
Kelly and Gabe reflect from mile 300 of the Colorado Trail on Texas Creek, west side of the Collegiate Loop
01:37:56
Episode #46 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation between Gabe Crawford and Kelly Moody tuning in around mile 300 of their ‘Plant-a-go’ thru-hike walk on the Colorado Trail this summer.
Kelly solo on teaching riparian ecology, preparing for a season on the land
00:28:40
Hey ya’ll,
This is a quick and dirty solo podcast episode where I update you on some of the things I’m doing this summer including offering in-person ecology immersions in western Colorado on the Grand Mesa.
I give a little overview of some of what we did in my last immersion that was 4 days, focused on riparian ecology.
Talk on travel, loneliness post-pandemic, the grief of ecological destruction, the importance of community around that grief
Some talk on the ‘abodes’ geologic formation in the region
Ep. 14: Aimee Joyaux of Cornmeal Press out of Petersburg, VA on processing our times through radical art making
01:23:43
Episode 14 of the Ground Shots Podcast.
This episode of the podcast features a conversation with radical visual artist and printmaker Aimee Joyaux who runs Cornmeal Press in Petersburg, Virginia. We recorded this conversation when I visited Aimee in October 2018, before doing a multi-week printmaking residency in her studios. I met Aimee while doing an immersive eight-week artist book, printmaking and papermaking workshop at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina a few springs ago.
In this conversation with Aimee, we talk about
how Aimee and her partner Alain came across the building they renovated in Petersburg by hand using materials they found at auctions, demo sites and junk sales
a little history of Petersburg, Virginia as one of the oldest free black settlements in the so-called U.S. and how it fell into extreme economic decline historically. (I talk more about this as well as discuss the history of native settlements here in episodes #5 with Ryan Pierce and #6 with Tilke Elkins)
how Aimee uses her art practice to react to and process racism and privilege in the south
navigating race politics in Virginia
a critique of capitalism
Aimee's various art projects including 'City Lots,' 'The Smile Project,' and 'The Box Project'
how art is under-appreciated in American culture
using your best materials now because life is short and fleeting
Aimee's thoughts on copying vs. inspiration in art
Family loving, community enthusiast Jacquie Hill is a plant person doing planty things on the Western Slope of Colorado. After practicing her blend of story-rich, folk herbal medicine for 10+ years, she took her studies to academia, earning a bachelor’s degree in botanical sciences from Bastyr University in 2019. While there she made the most of the opportunities and gleaned from teachers, mentors, and nature taking, every field class offered and immersing herself in the wonders of western Washington. With a deep love of opposing forces, Jacquie keeps one foot in the scientific as well as the nonlinear. Jacquie has a GMP certificate from Herbal Medics which comes in quite handy as the owner and maker at her small batch herbal product company, Of the Hill Botanicals. In her free time, Jacquie spends her time exposing her children to the magick of the natural world with her husband Allon, contemplating the role of plants as myth keepers, and performing with her puppet troupe, Singing Bone Medicine Show.
A musical ode to the Arrowleaf Balsamroot: a morning with Epona and Rainan Heathen at the Saskatoon Circle Gathering, in the Methow Valley, Washington
00:52:35
Episode #24 the Ground Shots Podcast features a field recording of a morning spent with Epona Heathen and her child Rainan outside their camp at the 2019 Saskatoon Circle Gathering in the Methow Valley, near Twisp, Washington.
Epona sings a few striking and emotive songs for me, and speaks about her intentions behind her music. This episode is especially focused on Epona’s song ‘Our Lady of the Sunflower,’ an ode to the Arrowleaf Balsamroot, Balsamorhiza sagittata (Asteraceae), a common and gloriously beautiful plant of western turtle island that paints the hillsides yellow in Spring.
In this conversation with Epona, we talk about:
octave mandolins and Epona's relationship with the instrument
some occasional comments and conversations from Rainan, Epona's child, in the background
some of the seasonal and life cycle themes that inspire Epona's music
Epona's journey writing music for Rainan and connecting with her ancestors for him
Epona's Irish and West African roots in the mountains of western North Carolina
opening up to the love of the land faces us with the grief of it's loss too
Epona's relationship with the Arrowleaf Balsamroot plant
Sitting with the land when grief arises
Epona sharing some of the wisdom that Finisia Medrano shared with her over the years
an experience Epona had in Hell's Canyon
a few thoughts on tending the wild food gardens 'hoop' in the west
Wild Tending series / Zach Elfers of Nomad Seed on experiential ethnobotany, propagating bioregional wild foods in the eastern woodlands and prairies
02:06:57
Episode #35 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Zach Elfers, an ethnobotanist who lives in eastern Pennsylvania near the Susquehanna River. Zach runs the Nomad Seed Project.
The Nomad Seed Project sets out to research, document, experiment, and propagate wild, native, and perennial plants which have exceptional value to humans and their ecology as food, medicine, shelter, materials, and beauty.
Imagining the world of nomadic gatherer-hunters invokes to mind a patchwork landscape with oases of human habitat along pathways of migration unfolding with the pattern of the seasons, plants, or animals. For thousands of years, humans lived in this manner. Along the way, they gathered useful plants and intentionally spread the seeds as a form of populations management. Ecology has been a co-creation alongside humankind for a long time.
Humans often acted as the legs of important plants, expanding them both in their range and abundance. It was humans who brought the pawpaw (Asimina triloba) out of the subtropics after the last ice age and spread it around the eastern temperate forests, and it was humans also who spread the sunroot or Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) throughout the continent. Nomad Seed Project is interested in ideas of assisted migration, especially in response to climate change, and as a way to protect and conserve species in the face of a rapidly changing world.
The Nomad Seed Project is a re-envisioning of this old paradigm. By gathering and planting the seeds of native, wild, perennial plants that are important to us, we as humans have the power to impact the ecosystems we are a part of in positive and healthy ways, while also meeting our own requirements for food, shelter, medicine, and materials. Neither agriculture, gardening, nor preservationism, but something in between.
It may be a long time however before we can fully sustain our lives again from the wild plants growing in nature’s garden. While prior to colonialism the presence and abundance of plant foods and medicines was much greater, our ecosystems today have been degraded, fractured, or destroyed in the wake of farming, ranching, mining, urban development, suburban sprawl, and the highway system. Now it is more important than ever that we act again as the legs to the plants that we love, helping them gain new ground, ahead of mass extinction and climate change. The Nomad Seed Project describes work that could also be called do-it-yourself ecological restoration, at the hands of citizen scientists acting according to their own conscience. By working with these native plants, with the same stroke we expand our own habitat. There is a lot of work to do, but it all starts with the power of a seed…
In this conversation with Zach, we talk about:
some natural/ethnobotanical history of the Susquehanna River watershed in Pennsylvania where Zach lives
Zach's project 'Nomad Seed' which focuses on his experimental field research with native first food plants
Zach's experience learning plants while traveling and being out on the land and how this helped deepen his understanding of his 'home' ecosystem
specific 'wild foods' / first foods plants Zach tends and his methods for doing so like Spring Beauty, Dwarf Ginseng, Toothwort, American Groundnut, Harbinger of Spring, Eastern Camas, Chestnuts, Hickories, Chinkapins
how fire-stick farming may have been a wild-tending practice in the southeast
the importance of John Hershey's farm in Pennsylvania for preserving native fruit and nut species that were possibly selected at one point by indigenous peoples and Zach's research on how he thinks this happened
the importance of prioritizing the preservation and propagation of bioregional foods
Zach's experiments with and research on controlled 'burn' gardens on the east coast
different ways one can define 'agriculture'
ethnical foraging expanded: learning the plants entire life cycle and encouraging them to become more abundant by working with the plants all year
Nikki Hill with Sigh Moon on Botany as Archaeology, to Stop a Lithium Mine
02:20:15
Episode #69 of the Ground Shots Podcast was recorded in southern Oregon this past August among old Juniper trees tucked just below a special Tableland mesa, with Nikki Hill of Walking Roots, and Sigh Moon assisting in the conversation.
Link to our website where you can donate to the podcast, and find the blog post on the podcast episode with photos and bios of Nikki and Sigh Moon as well as a few photos from where we recorded the episode: www.ofsedgeandsalt.com/podcastblog/lithiummine
We talk about:
What is a tableland or mesa?
Nikki’s intention in doing survey work at Thacker Pass, a place in Nevada slated to become a large lithium mine
Questioning the sustainability of lithium
Seeing wild gardens and patterns on the landscape that reflect historical relationships of indigenous peoples and places
How deserts have been hard for European ancestored folks to conceptualize and how this makes it easy for us to consider it a wasteland to be inverted to perpetuate modern culture
Considering certain lands sacrifice zones comes from the idea that we are separate from land and that we can actually have an effect
the effects of private land ownership on the water table and water flows on land
seeing through a lens of botanical archaeology
how archaeology is often focused on ‘settled’ life evidence not nomadic life evidence
how do we start to re-see why plants are on the landscape in relationship to human historical tending of those plants?
the misinformed idea that hunter-gatherers (gatherer-hunters) were not sophisticated in their tending
what is the point in caring about anthropogenic landscapes?
Nikki’s plant survey process at Thacker Pass in Nevada and some of the plants she found like Yampah, Biscuitroots, Mariposa Lilies and more.
“1491” and “1493” by Charles Mann, alternative histories to North and South America mentioning anthropogenic landscapes including ‘terra preta’ in the Amazon, mentioned on the podcast
Music for this episode: Reverie, Spires and The Undergrowth by Juniper Blue
This episode hosted by: Kelly Moody
Produced by: Kelly Moody
28 Oct 2019
Tamara Wilder on wild foods in northern California, animal processing, wild tending and the importance of ancient technologies
01:39:16
Episode #28 of the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Tamara Wilder, who is based out of Ukiah, California.
Tamara has been teaching various ancestral skills from wild foods preparation, primitive fire-making, hide tanning, cordage and more for several decades.
She co-wrote the book 'Buckskin: The Ancient Art of Braintanning'’ with Steven Edholm. She co-founded the organization Paleotechnics with Steven, who is a past podcast guest. Paleotechnics functions as an educational resource on the art of simple, ancient and universal ancestral technologies.
Tamara tirelessly travels and teaches classes all over the west coast of Turtle Island every year with suitcases full of cordage samples, wild food preparations, fire-making supplies, and primitive tools to teach others how to use them, tons of books and pamphlets to share on permaculture, ancient living skills, craft and more. I’ve assisted her teaching before and she pays such great attention to detail and process. She cares deeply for sharing these skills as much as possible so others can feel empowered to participate more directly with our natural environment. She has a heart of gold and goes out of her way to help others and be in service to the land. She also facilitates conversations about IUD awareness.
We sat down outside of her light clay straw infill cabin near Ukiah, California this past Spring to record this conversation for the podcast.
In this conversation with Tamara, we talk about:
defining 'ancient technologies' and how many are universal and how others are regionally specific
the importance and abundance of wild foods in northern California
bay nuts, madrone berries, manzanita berries, acorns
how eating the wild foods around us connects us deeply to the land
'mast years' with certain wild foods, including this past year's huge bay nut crop
the importance of acorn processing to the cultural identity of many indigenous folks in northern California
how Tamara went from punk rock vegan to teaching about animal processing
the ancestral relationship many folks have around the world historically to consuming animals
legal issues around picking up roadkill, why there are laws making it illegal in some states
how abalone is poached and over-harvested
the historical wild management practices of indigenous folks in northern California like controlled burns, and the importance of these practices to ecological health
how overpopulation affects the ability for humans to live in balance with the land
Tamara's teachers: Jim Riggs, Margaret Mathewson, Melvin Beattie
fiber and cordage as pandemic technologies and Dogbane's importance as a superior fiber plant that grows across turtle island
Steven Edholm of Paleotechnics and Skillcult on bark-tanning leather naturally
02:00:01
Episode #23 the Ground Shots Podcast features a conversation with Steven Edholm who homesteads outside of Ukiah, California.
Steven co-runs an educational land skills project called Paleotechnics with Tamara Wilder and a skills-based YouTube channel called Skillcult which focuses on axes, fruit trees, grafting, hide tanning, primitive fire making, making lime for the garden, among many other topics. Steven has been researching and teaching self-reliance skills for several decades.
Steven Edholm and Tamara Wilder co-wrote a book on brain-tanning buckskin. The book is currently out of print, but they hope to get the popular guide reprinted soon! It's one of my favorite guides to the art of naturally tanning animal skins. If you can get a hold of one, I HIGHLY recommend it.
I housesat for Tamara Wilder for a short stint this past Spring. While on the homestead she shares with Steven, he and I sat down and recorded a conversation about bark tanning leather. It's a topic I'm really interested in and a skill I have taught a little bit over the years. It was a treat to chat with someone I consider an expert in the craft and ask them questions.
In this conversation with Steven, we talk about:
how natural bark tanning methods fell out of mainstream commerce
why naturally tanned bark tanned leather is superior to chemically tanned leather
Steven's history with various forms of hide tanning and reasons for getting into ancestral skills
the basics of how to bark/vegetable tan leather using plants (we get super geeky here!)
examples of possible plants to use in the leather making process
some botanical tannin science
troubleshooting bark tanning issues that come up
ideas for a sustainable closed loop natural tannery network that integrates the garden
why care about bark-tanning animal skins and other similar processes?
philosophy: we were made to interact with the natural environment – what is it to be human?
the importance of reviving old world craft processes
accepting that we are nature too, and being involved with handcrafts gives a sense of deep satisfaction
Here's short film featuring Jessica Kilroy, one of the musicians behind Pterodactyl Plains, and a glimpse into the process behind the album ‘Creek Sessions’ from which ‘Strong Like Sinew’ comes. The album features sounds from open lands and natural soundscapes, while communicating the need for their protection.
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