Good Life Revival: Permaculture, Rewilding, Homesteading (Sam Sycamore)

Why do we practice permaculture? Because we feel a moral imperative to improve the world around us, and we recognize that change begins with the individual. In this live presentation from the Louisville Permaculture Guild, I explain how I came to permaculture as a terrified ecology student, and I offer my definition of “permaculture” from the perspective of ecological awareness. From there I share my views on the three core ethics of permaculture, and propose a fourth ethic that I believe is implied in the literature – and that we’d all do well to acknowledge. Finally, I discuss the importance of defining intentions for ourselves as individuals, and suggest a 4-step process of self-assessment for better aligning actions and values. This was my first time attending a meeting of the LPG and I’m really looking forward to more! Many thanks to Ray Ely for inviting me to come speak to the group, and to everyone who came and listened and had sweet things to say at the end. :) This was my also my very first speaking gig ever, and I hope it’s not the last! I really enjoyed the project from start to finish and I’m grateful to be able to share this work with my podcast listeners!

What does it mean to be illegible and irrelevant to the dominant culture of destruction and exploitation?

It means reclaiming a greater sense of autonomy, a self-directed lifestyle, freedom from the rat race and the pursuit of financial capital. It means rejecting the distractions and false narratives that are manufactured to divide and conquer the non-elite classes of the world. It means rebuilding our divided communities and taking direct interpersonal action to achieve harmony through the common goals and values that we all share. We can design intentional systems and lifestyles for ourselves which generate yields that the system doesn’t understand. We can generate non-monetary forms of capital that can’t be taxed by a system that only knows how to rationalize financial value. If they can’t measure it, they can’t tax it. I think that making ourselves illegible is a very practical, pragmatic way of responding to the bizarre and dysfunctional zoo of civilization. If we don’t wish to participate in our own annihilation, then we need to put our money where our mouths are — which is to say, we need to generate and exchange value in ways that don’t involve money. That’s liberation permaculture: the fertile intersection of ecology, anthropology, rewilding and anarchist theory. (Please don’t let the A-word scare you off!) Sustainable land design and resilient communal networks will never be organized from above. It’s up to us to make the spaces we occupy into the world we wish to see — and we can start today. Enjoy the show? Do me a huge favor and spread the word by sharing via social media — I’d really love to connect with more likeminded people like you who are interested in having these kinds of conversations. And please get in touch with me if you have any feedback, or if there’s anything I can do to help you out in your journey.

As a culture, we've lost our fundamental connection to the natural world. This has led to a surge in dysfunctional behavior, like attention issues, depression, anxiety, and obesity, and in general I believe that this disconnect explains a lot of the suffering that we observe in the modern era. We all feel the detrimental effects of nature deficit disorder, but most of us just aren't aware that this is the source of our troubles, because we've been so deeply conditioned to accept the status quo of the human-dominated, human-constructed environment. With that in mind, I put together this episode of the podcast to arm you, dear listener, with the basic vocabulary to describe the symptoms, causes, and treatment of nature deficit disorder. The solution, I think, lies in cultivating ecological literacy at the individual level, which can only come about through immersion in the natural world -- daily observation and interaction. This topic offers a great entry point into a critique of how civilization relates to nature, and how our environment influences our behavior and our underlying worldview. It is our responsibility as self-aware individuals to assess our personal relationship with nature, and take decisive action where necessary to improve our overall health and wellbeing. I hope that this episode encourages you to keep pushing forward on the path that leads back to the natural world.

What is a culture, and how do cultures relate to their environments?

How does our culture relate to wild, unwanted, and invasive species? And what does that say about how we view the world at large?

Today on the show I explore the concept of intentional simplicity, and offer some guidance for putting this life philosophy into practice. Visit permaculturelifestyle.com for more on lifestyle design, health and wellness, producing your own food, and learning the skills and traditions of living in tune with the rhythms of the natural world.

Our increasingly globalized culture is in dire need of a basic moral compass that we can all agree upon. Permaculture offers one such solution.

This podcast aims to apply the principles and ethics of permaculture to our everyday lives; to align our core values and our daily habits towards a more sustainable, ecologically conscious way of thinking and interacting.

In this introductory episode of the Good Life Revival podcast (fka Permaculture Lifestyle), I introduce myself and explain my reasons for starting this podcast. Then I offer a sketch of what a "permaculture lifestyle" might actually look like.

We can change our world, and we can start right away.

In this special audioblog edition of the podcast, I share my thoughts on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as it relates to our dysfunctional modern culture -- and how we can respond as individuals in a meaningful, productive way.

What is an "audioblog"? Well, you could say it's kind of like an audiobook, except that instead of a book, I'm reading my blog post Leaving the Modern World Behind to you. Get it?

This was the very first post I wrote for the blog when I launched it on July 1, 2016. Seems like I only embarked on this journey just the other day, and yet so much has changed over these months!

What are the stories, traditions, rituals, beliefs, and rites of passage passed down to you by your family and your culture?

One reason the idea of homesteading is so appealing to us is because we all instinctively know that we way we organize our work lives—and thus, our lifestyle as a whole—just doesn’t make sense.

Why on earth would any of us want to give up the majority of the hours of the majority of the days of our lives to do something we don’t want to do, isolated from the people we care about? Who would agree to that?

And yet that’s exactly what we do, because it’s what we’re told we have to do.

Well, homesteading offers an alternative.

In this installment of the podcast, I outline what I see as the 4 pillars of modern homesteading: working with the land, taking care of your own needs, and minimizing interactions with government and market forces – all while remaining where you live.

Listen through the player at the top of the page, or subscribe to the show on iTunes.

Dig the podcast? Please take a moment to leave an honest review/rating on iTunes – it will seriously make a big difference in helping me to reach more people, believe it or not.

Does the permaculture movement have a political agenda?

In this episode of the Permaculture Lifestyle podcast, I explore a wide range of opinions and perspectives on the question of whether practicing permaculture is an inherently political act.

Is it a leftist extension of the environmental movement? Is it perhaps libertarian, anarchist, or anarcho-capitalist in nature? Is capitalism a valid tool in the toolkit of the social permaculture designer?

One of the most appealing things about permaculture, for me, is that it appeals to a wide range of people from all across the political spectrum. But I do see ideologies butting heads from time to time within this space, and so I think it's really important that we confront these differences of opinion head-on and with an open mind.

"You have to learn how to take care of yourself. No one is going to do it for you. You can wallow in despair with the knowledge that help is not on the way, or you can accept reality as it is and learn how to provide for yourself."

This is the motivational speech I wish I could've heard when I was an adolescent or a young(er) adult. I can only hope that some impressionable youth will stumble upon it.

In an era when all the double cheeseburgers you could ever hope to eat are available to you at a moment’s notice, why bother going to all the trouble of learning how to identify and gather wild foods?

The main appeal of foraging, for me, lies in cultivating a more intimate relationship with wild nature in all its beauty, mystery, and abundance. It’s one thing to spend some free time hiking and camping in the woods, but something else entirely to come home with a bag full of wild food from that place – to be nourished physically, mentally, and spiritually by the natural world.

Wild edible plants are almost always hardier, more vigorous, more flavorful, and more nutritious than their cultivated counterparts. Best of all, they require no work on our part, aside from harvesting and eating!

People haven’t always domesticated plants and animals, but wild nature has always supplied us with food. Only in the last century or so have modern people really abandoned the old ways of foraging for wild plants, and it’s up to us as individuals to correct this misstep and learn for ourselves.

We have the ability to take back this fundamental understanding of how to work with the natural world. It’s not hard, but it does require patience, diligence, and careful observation.

Today on the podcast, we’ll cover:

Why I decided to change the name from ‘Permaculture Lifestyle’ to ‘Good Life Revival’

What to expect from this show going forward

Why foraging is such an important part of my daily life

Why eating with the seasons is not just a trendy fad, but a moral imperative

The seasonality of wild foods, and how to work with them

My seven ground rules for foraging safely, responsibly, and confidently

Greg Zimmerer is one of those people who forces you to rethink that pile of excuses you’ve accumulated to explain why you’ve been putting off that thing that you’d really like to work towards — whatever it may be.

He farms 1/8th of an acre in his parents’ backyard to sell to local chefs and patrons of a new, up-and-coming farmers market in an underserved neighborhood in Louisville KY.

This is his first season as an urban farmer, and he’s bringing in a respectable amount of money each week through his small scale market garden, growing a variety of crops with a shoestring budget on borrowed land.

In the this episode of the Good Life Revival Podcast, Greg explains how he manages to pull it all off while simultaneously juggling an academic career in geosciences, an entrepreneurial career as a permaculture designer, a side gig delivering pizzas, aaaand as if all of that wasn’t enough, he’s also a single dad with a very sweet son, who’s maybe still a bit too young to understand the value of a hard day’s work.

“What if our financial system looked more like an ecosystem?”

This was one of the big-picture questions that eventually led Ethan Roland and Gregory Landua to propose that money isn’t the only form of capital driving the human economy.

By viewing the financial system through the lens of permaculture, Roland and Landua eventually settled upon eight forms of capital that they observed flowing between individuals and communities, each with their own unique currencies:

Social, financial, living, material, intellectual, experiential, cultural, and spiritual.

Roland and Landua’s foundational framework was built for the domain of business, but it’s easy to see how these concepts can be applied more generally for making conscious lifestyle choices – and that’s what I’m all about! :)

In this episode, we’ll cover:

The eight forms of capital – what they are, how they connect, and how to generate and exchange them in your daily life

What a visit from the family and a food forest installation can tell us about wealth and the pursuit of happiness

Why some forms of capital are more valuable than others, but also why balance is key

Plus, Brooke Sycamore shares a story based on the Chiricahua Apache tale of the coyote and the money tree, with musical accompaniment by yours truly.

This is my old pal Micah Wiles, a young farmer from the small town of Somerset, Kentucky with a passion for ecology that's matched only by the beauty of his work at Cedar Creek Farm.

Micah has spent the better part of the last decade developing a food forest and silvopasture on the family farm where he resides with his parents, who run a homestead winery as their main enterprise.

In the photo above, he's showing us some of the older trees in the first phase of his food forest design, which includes pecans, persimmons, pawpaws, apples, peaches, mulberries, and so much more.

In the latest episode of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I speak with Micah about the history of the farm, his relationship with the land and his local community, and how he and his family sustain themselves in a way that's in tune with the rhythms of nature, while working to elevate the local community and educate others on this path.

There is no time to waste. If you believe you will do it someday and you’re not working towards it today, then that thing you really want more than anything else will never arrive.

To die having never lived is one of the greatest tragedies that can befall a conscious human being, and yet it is one of the most well-trodden paths taken in this era.

I’m here to assure you that you can escape the fear of death by experiencing the exhilarating rush of a life lived to its fullest. When you walk away from the dominant culture of medicated, programmed monotony, you will finally be free to experience the full spectrum of what this life has to offer.

There is no time to waste, so don’t hesitate for one more moment to create the life that you envision for yourself. It won’t arrive tomorrow, but each day that you’re given on this earth is another opportunity to dispel negative energy through positive activity. It doesn’t matter how you get there, but only that you try. Make it now.

We modern humans have forgotten something profound about the way we live. Each of us understands instinctively that something is missing, but most of us have no way of discovering it through direct experience. Yet this forgotten knowledge is the foundation upon which our entire civilization is built.

Daniel Quinn called it “The Great Forgetting.” What did we forget? In order to make sense of that question, we will have to reconsider everything we thought we knew about the dawn of agriculture and the birth of our civilization – not to mention the millions of years of “pre-history” that came before that!

In this episode of the Good Life Revival podcast, we’ll cover:

-What is The Great Forgetting, and how has it shaped our modern culture?

-What is Totalitarian Agriculture and how does it differ from other ways of life?

-How did this one form of culture come to dominate the global landscape?

-What were humans doing before agriculture, and what is life like for contemporary peoples who don’t participate in our culture?

What is life like for the world’s few remaining cultures that haven’t been wholly erased by civilization?

For the latest installment of the Good Life Revival podcast, I invited my friend Ben Belty to come on and tell us all about the trip he took earlier this year with the Maine Primitive Skills School to get to know the indigenous Saami people of northern Sweden.

This is a culture that has been chronically traumatized for many generations now by the looming forces of civilization, but they still retain their ancestral knowledge of living in harmony with their frigid and unforgiving landscape.

Ben shares some of the insight that he gleaned from this trip, and explains why it’s so important to learn from peoples like the Saami. We also discuss what it means to live on the fringes of civilization, and how we go about ‘rewilding’ ourselves, in realistic terms.

Ben also traveled up to northern Michigan recently to harvest wild rice, and we talk about why wild grains are such an excellent staple food, and how wild foods are a key component of a lifestyle that’s closer to the land.

Our culture teaches us from a very early age that there are two kinds of places in the world: “people places” and “wild places.”

The people places are the cities and towns where we live and operate. The wild places are the parks and forest preserves outside of town where we occasionally visit for recreation.

In our cities we observe herds of people, trash in the streets, smoke and fumes emanating from exhaust pipes, smells of human and industrial waste, and geometric grids constructed of concrete, metal and glass that confuse and disorient us.

It makes sense that we would want to keep all of that separate from the “wilderness,” right? To preserve those wild places in their “natural” state; to “take only pictures, and leave only footprints.”

Unfortunately, this concept is built around two major conceptual flaws: that outdoor recreational spaces are “natural, pristine wilderness,” and that there is no connection between these “wild places” and the “people places” that surround them.

There is no place on Earth that does not feel the impact of modern human exploitation. We have already “left our traces” everywhere.

How, then, can we participate in our ecosystems in such a way that they are improved, rather than degraded, by our presence? How do we reestablish our fundamental connection with nature and live in a way that’s not just less-bad, but actually regenerative?

It is possible, and in this episode of the Good Life Revival podcast, I’ll share with you my top five suggestions for making a positive impact on any landscape you come to work with.

I hope that my thoughts on this subject will help spark your imagination about the ways that you can begin to create the world that we all want to live in, but most importantly, I hope you will come away from this episode with at least few ideas that you can put into action right away.

Meet Alexander Meander and Stacey Costner, self-proclaimed feral homesteaders and stewards of Ardea, their 60-acre homestead sanctuary in rural Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

For today’s episode of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I traveled to Ardea to speak with Alexander and learn about how he and Stacey have designed a lifestyle and a livelihood for themselves through the intimate relationship that they’ve cultivated with their land.

Alexander and I had a great discussion about what it means to be “feral”, and how we go about developing a less domesticated way of life for ourselves through the food that we eat and the landscapes that we work with.

Alexander shares a great deal of information about the foods—both wild and cultivated—that make up the core of their rich feral homestead diet, and along the way we explore some of the facts, beliefs, and opinions that inform Alex’s worldview.

If you’re interested in how you might apply the core ethos of rewilding to a permaculture-based homestead design, then you’d do well to learn from the example set by Alexander and Stacey at Ardea.

What makes humans unique among living creatures? How do we restore the human animal experience in its wholeness?

For episode 24 of The Good Life Revival Podcast, I visited with earth skills teacher Luke McLaughlin in rural Weaverville, North Carolina, at the new base of operations for his Holistic Survival School.

Luke radiates the kind of calm, patient confidence and wisdom that can only be gained through years of pushing his ability to survive in extreme conditions with nothing but the shirt on his back - and sometimes even less than that!

Once upon a time he applied those survival skills on television for the Discovery Channel's Naked & Afraid. These days he teaches the ancestral skills that make us human animals unique through intimate, detailed classes and workshops, and he does this from a place of love and openness, clearly having tapped into a wellspring of compassion after dedicating his life to Mother Earth many years ago.

Luke has some really insightful things to say about the transformative healing powers of what we variously refer to as earth skills, primitive skills, wilderness skills - whatever you want to call them! - and what it means to truly trust in nature for your most basic survival needs.

In this episode of the Good Life Revival Podcast (#25), I explore the complicated and often frustrating question of whether humans should eat meat. Is it good for our health? Is it bad for the environment? Are some forms of agriculture more sustainable than others, and to what degree?

This leads to deeper discussion about our connection with the natural cycle of life and death, engaging in reciprocal relationships with wild and domesticated animals, and what it means to revere the animals -- and plants! -- that we must kill, so that we may go on living.

In this episode, we'll cover:

My personal history as a stubborn childhood vegetarian-turned-chicken slaughterer

Why meat is not "murder", but more like compassion and reverence

Why questions of the "ideal human diet" don't make much sense

Why we shouldn't give up on raising livestock just because of the horrors of factory farming

How we can take ownership of our role as apex predators on the landscape

How consuming animals can bring us closer to the universal life force that animates us all

Related Links & Further Resources:

How to Participate In Your Ecosystem: Restoration Through Use - The Good Life Revival Podcast #22

The Great Forgetting: Totalitarian Agriculture & The Lies We've Inherited About Our Ancestors - The Good Life Revival Podcast #20

Nature Deficit Disorder and Ecological Literacy - The Good Life Revival Podcast #6

5 Things I Learned Processing Chickens for Meat - The Good Life Revival blog

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Michael Beck and Joana Amorim have spent the last several years traveling the world to acquire natural building skills. Now they're tackling their most ambitious build yet.

Alongside their good friend Loren Heacock, they're in the process of constructing a traditional Appalachian log cabin on the 62 acres of land they jointly own in rural central Kentucky.

For this installment of The Good Life Revival Podcast (#26), I ventured down to the Clear Creek Valley in late October 2017 to join a team of volunteers and well-wishers in helping the trio carry a massive stack of lumber up a winding hill to the build site of the cabin so they could get started constructing the roof.

Halfway through the day, Michael and Joana and I split from the group and made our way up the steep, wooded hillside behind the cabin to the natural spring that will soon feed fresh, clean water directly into their home - you'll hear it flowing steadily through our entire conversation.

We discussed their experiences as natural builders, how they ended up in rural Kentucky, how they're constructing their own home here, and how you can gain hands-on experience and start learning these time-honored building skills that are quickly being lost.

When it comes to homesteading and small farm entrepreneurship, Darren and Espri Bender-Beauregard have had their fair share of successes and failures over the last fourteen years running Brambleberry Farm.

In this episode of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I sit down with Darren and Espri at the kitchen table in their magnificently handcrafted straw-bale home to talk about their history as homesteaders, market gardeners, and natural builders.

We discuss how they became homesteaders in rural Paoli, Indiana, how they got their start as scrappy young farmers and organically evolved into purveyors of edible perennial plants over time, and all of the various ways that they've tried to eke out an honest living for themselves by working with the land.

Along the way they share a wealth of knowledge about natural building, and breeze through countless tidbits of wisdom they've picked up about making a lifestyle and a livelihood out of homesteading -- Espri calls it "homesteading with benefits."

This is a dense one, and it also offers a very realistic portrait, I think, of what young newbies might reasonably expect from pursuing this way of life.

Homesteading offers a great deal of opportunities in terms of deriving an income, but the success or failure of any given enterprise is based on so many different factors that you can never really predict what's gonna stick. Let Darren and Espri's story be a lesson to you to diversify your skills and your knowledge!

Urban farming and small-scale market gardening have become very trendy topics in recent years. But how viable are these projects really, from a business perspective?

For this episode of The Good Life Revival Podcast (#28), I invited back my friend Greg Zimmerer (check out my first interview with Greg in episode #16) to tell us about how things went for him in his first year as a market gardener.

Greg is the farmer behind Talking Trees Gardens, a diverse, intensive 1/8th-acre market garden in the heart of suburban Louisville, Kentucky. He embarked on this adventure in farming earlier this year while finishing his degree in geosciences, delivering pizzas part-time to make ends meet, and oh yeah, let's not forget his five-year-old son!

Greg is one of the most ambitious people I know, and it might sound like he’s spread himself way too thin here and maybe you’re wondering if the whole thing just blew up in his face at some point, but I’m here to tell you that the dude did indeed pull it all off. He’s now done with school, and after running the numbers it turns out that his farming operation did indeed bring in more money than it took to get it up and running -- if you ask me, that’s a resounding success in year one!

Beyond the hard numbers, we talk about his experiences working with chefs and a new farmer’s market in town, he explains how he uses GIS and Excel to map out and track all of the most useful data on his farm, and we consider some of the ways he might adjust his operations next season to bring in more revenue.

From there we discuss what the picture looks like over on the side of conventional agriculture, and how crucially important it is for all of us to start reimagining the way we provide food for our communities – even if it will never be an especially lucrative endeavor for the vast majority of us out there.

We humans are innately spiritual creatures: we are all driven to seek purpose beyond pure survival, and connection beyond the individual body.

We want to be a part of something greater than our individual selves—to feel that we are working with others, whether human or more-than-human, towards a common goal that supersedes individual needs.

I believe that the civilized cultural paradigm that currently dictates our collective worldview does not serve us, and thus it is in our best interest to plot a new course going forward with a set of cultural tools that are actually useful and relevant to our daily lives.

Over the course of many countless millennia, our species externalized many of its instincts in the form of stories—mythology—because this allowed for more fluidity in our behaviors and thus the ability to more quickly adapt to changing conditions.

Instincts change over the course of evolutionary time, millions of years; stories, on the other hand, can change just a little bit, often imperceptibly so, every single time they’re told – and the ways in which they’re told are invariably a reflection of the time, the place, and the people involved. Thus, culture is an extension of ecology.

Recognizing that the dominant culture of No-Environment is detrimental to our continued survival, how can we create new cultural tools without engaging in cultural appropriation?

How might we reclaim a land-based mythology for ourselves and our kin that allows us to thrive individually, and flourish collectively?

How do we participate in the spiritual landscape of our ecosystems, and cultivate an intimate, co-creative relationship with the Earth?

Explore these questions and more in the latest episode of The Good Life Revival Podcast, no. 29: ‘How to Develop Your Own Myths, Rituals, and Culture.’

Agriculture was once a highly sacred art - a loving communion between human and more-than-human, weaving us into the spiritual fabric of our landscapes and our ancestors who still reside there.

For episode #30 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I had the honor and pleasure of speaking with farmer-poet-philosopher Steven Elliot Martyn, author of Sacred Gardening: Seeds for the Reemergence of Co-Creative Agriculture and The Story of the Madawaska Forest Garden.

Steven has developed a deep spiritual understanding of our place in the natural world through direct communication with the spirits of the land. His vast wisdom shines through immediately in his voice and in his writing, and it’s clearly the result of decades of practicing what he preaches, which he has dubbed wildculturing.

Steven and I spoke about letting go of the human-centered worldview, and learning indigenous arts like sacred land use without engaging in cultural theft, and how those of us born into the cult of Reason can begin to develop our intuitive senses and trust the messages we receive from nature and all of its constituents.

Agriculture is one of the primary drivers of of overpopulation, deforestation, erosion, pollution of soil, water, and air, habitat loss, biodiversity loss, and global climate disruption. We know this.

How did we get here? And has it always been this way? 

Is agriculture to blame for the problems of modern civilization? Is modern civilization to blame for the ecological suicide course of modern agriculture? 

Is it possible, as many would have you believe, for us to use more agriculture to repair the health of our bodies and our ecosystems?

To get to the bottom of these questions, we’ll have to take a deep hard look at the origins of agriculture, and how it relates to our modern food system and the relationship we’ve inherited with nature.

In the latest episode of the Good Life Revival Podcast — no. 31 — we will unpack some of the inherent flaws of agriculture, and connect the dots through to our modern-day paradigm of chemical and genetic warfare being waged across hundreds of millions of acres of land around the world.

We’ll also talk about the potential alternatives to our massive, globalized, monopolized, mono-cropped agriculture, and how we might be able to move forward at the individual and community level to rise above the status quo.

(I’ve got some pretty exciting personal news to share on the “moving forward” front, by the way!)

The picture is bleak today, my friends, and you should not expect me to sugar-coat it. With that said, if we have any hope of averting global ecological catastrophe, we need to understand why our brittle multinational systems are now on the brink of collapse.

I hope that this podcast helps you to better understand the sheer magnitude of the problem at hand, and hopefully encourages you to think and work harder to derive solutions — whatever form they might take.

Do you believe that we are currently observing the early signs of the collapse of civilization, and that our society could actually quite easily fall apart within our lifetimes, due to any of myriad looming existential threats?

If you knew that civilization was going to collapse one year from now, how would that affect your daily life?

What if that collapse was set to arrive one month from now? Or a week from now?

How would that change your agenda, and what would you prioritize?

If the proverbial shit really did hit the fan, ...what then? What skills, knowledge, and experiences could you call upon in a long-term or potentially permanent survival scenario?

Are you “prepared”? And what does preparedness truly consist of anyway? Does it look like a bunker full of rations, or a more like a healthy mind and body full of earth skills?

For this installment of the Good Life Revival Podcast (no. 32), I spoke with the one and only Aaron Fletcher of Oregon, a self-proclaimed herder-gatherer who leads a lifestyle of intentional homelessness with a modest flock of sheep.

Over a decade ago, Aaron observed all of the ways that our modern civilization subjugates and exploits us while poisoning the planet, and recognized that this house of cards was built to collapse, and so he resolved to check out – to the fullest extent possible.

You might call him a doomsday prepper or a survivalist, but Aaron is someone who understands that true preparedness consists of requiring very little, and being able to acquire it for yourself directly through your interactions with nature.

Aaron Fletcher is truly one-of-a-kind in our era, and I think there’s a wealth of wisdom to be gleaned from his experiences. You may not be convinced to trade all of your worldly possessions for a flock of sheep by the end, but I hope this conversation will spark your imagination about unique possibilities for your own life.

Why is it so tough for us modern humans to take good care of ourselves?

We created all of this technology to make life easier on our muscles, bones, and joints—so why do these core components of our bodies now seem to make us suffer more than ever before?

For episode 33 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with biomechanist and movement ecologist Katy Bowman, who likely needs no introduction among my audience but here goes anyway.

Katy is a prolific writer, speaker and podcaster on the topics of natural movement and human physiology from a cross-cultural perspective; she’s a serious research scientist with the rare skill of being able to translate often esoteric scientific jargon into clear, engaging, actionable English.

Through her work in the field of biomechanics, she has become well acquainted with the ways that our bodies have been warped and reshaped by this strange sedentary zoo we call civilization.

She wants to help you and me feel better from day to day, and reclaim as much of our innate human animal potential as possible by educating us on the ins and outs of “nutritious movement.”

Katy and I had a fascinating and insightful conversation, exploring why a healthy relationship with our bodies is about so much more than diet and exercise alone. She also offered some really useful advice for farmers and gardeners like me to help avoid a “monocrop of movement” while playing in the dirt.

Katy’s book ‘Move Your DNA’ is my pick for February in our ongoing book club series – stick around to the end of the episode for a discount code to save 20% when ordering through her website. And keep an eye out in the coming days for my extended audio commentary on the book, exclusively for Patreon supporters!

(Speaking of which: Patreon supporters got to hear this interview days ago, now that I’m offering early access as a new perk. Where were you? Just sayin’.)

Author Daniel Quinn has passed away at age 82. Join us in revisiting some of the key themes of his life’s work.

For those of us seeking an alternative way of life outside the confines of civilization, Daniel Quinn has had an immense impact on our collective worldview through this bold and unique books. 

Beginning with Ishmael, in which we are introduced to the kinds of insights about civilization that only a captive gorilla could elucidate, Quinn took a fearless approach to questioning the very roots of our modern society, and dissecting the absurd narratives that we tell ourselves regarding our participation in the calamitous mess of civilization.

Most importantly, though—I think—is his message that the world doesn’t *need* to be saved because we as a species are simply not capable of destroying it in the first place. Furthermore, humanity itself is not the cancer on the Earth’s surface that many would have you believe it is. It’s just this *one* culture that has come to dominate the global landscape, as well as the inner landscapes of our minds, that threatens life (as we know it) on this planet.

Because of course, civilization is not merely a place—it’s a way of organizing your lifestyle and orienting your goals as a community. And it’s not a very good one, either.

But what comes “beyond” civilization? Quinn couldn’t tell us precisely, and neither can I. But now that he has passed, it’s up to us to work it out. I hope you’ll join me in doing just that.

In Memoriam D.Q.

Is it possible to feed our families and our communities from the products of the forest, without harming nature in the process?

For episode #35 of The Good Life Revival Podcast, I had the pleasure of chatting with author Samuel Thayer, renowned as one of North America's leading authorities on wild foods and foraging.

Samuel is the author of the Forager's Harvest series of books, which he recently completed with the third installment, Incredible Wild Edibles, in late 2017.

We spoke, among other things, about his work as an author and teacher, the kinds of values we need to instill in our peers and the generations to come about wild foods, and the potential for wild spaces and non-domesticated species to serve as viable, sustainable alternatives to the tremendously damaging conventional farming paradigm that dominates the landscape and threatens to collapse our global food systems in the not-so-distant future.

Incredible Wild Edibles bears the subtitle “36 plants that can change your life,” and I can personally vouch that this is no exaggeration! Gathering wild foods is so much more than a hobby; it’s a way of life, and anyone who aspires to live with the rhythms of nature will quickly become obsessed after their first taste.

How does it feel to be an inhabitant of your body? What are the stories you tell yourself about the state of your health?

For this installment of The Good Life Revival Podcast (#36) I spoke with Jonathan Mead, a nature-based movement coach and founder of The Uncaged Human. Jonathan teaches folks like you and me about how to reclaim our human animal nature through functional, nutritious movement.

You might think of what Jonathan does as rewilding fitness, in the sense that his work is aimed at ameliorating the ills of domestication that we face as captive creatures in this zoo we call civilization, and he draws upon what we know about the functional health of non-civilized humans in order to forge the path forward.

And there's a lot more than just "outer" work to be done: freeing a human from her civilized cage requires some fundamental inner work, too. After all, an unhealthy mind can be as much of a source of chronic pain and tension as an imbalanced body.

Jonathan and I had an excellent conversation about what he does and why does it, how his approach to fitness differs from the more conventional narratives you’re probably familiar with, and along the way he shares a ton of really practical information about getting your mind right and creating a cage-free environment for yourself that encourages a diversity and abundance of quality movement.

Is it a privilege to be aware of our domesticated captivity within the walls of civilization? Is it a necessity to act on that privilege?

This is a line of questioning that I followed with Peter Michael Bauer, author of Rewild or Die: Revolution and Renaissance at the End of Civilization.

Of course, to even make sense of questions like these requires some fundamental shifts of perspective: as Peter points out, you need to be able to view them through a specific sort of lens -- the lens of rewilding -- without which you're left to wade through a whole mess of cognitive dissonance and half-truths you likely inherited from the dominant culture.

Suffice it to say that the forces of oppression and exploitation have a vested interest in framing our conversations in such a way as to divide and conquer us whenever possible. And we're all guilty of perpetuating this cultural climate, to a greater or lesser extent.

"Forgiveness doesn't go viral. Shame goes viral."

How, then, do we begin to push back against The Powers That Be in a meaningful, productive way?

Recognizing the privilege of being born into the wealthiest and most destructive culture the world has ever known, how do we harness said privilege to subvert and undermine the will of our oppressors?

We recorded this conversation in late February, just after the passing of the author Daniel Quinn (who I discussed in episode 34). As you’ll hear, Quinn’s work fundamentally altered the trajectory of Peter’s life, and he has some fascinating things to share regarding his encounters with Quinn, and how Quinn felt when he learned that his books inspired this movement of people who wish to dismantle civilization. (Here's a hint: it's probably not the reaction you're anticipating.)

Oh, and stick around to the end of the episode where I share a very personal spiritual experience I had recently at the fertile intersection of domestication, resistance, grief, and love.

How long would you be willing to live in a tent, in order to pursue the lifestyle of your dreams?

For the latest installment of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I had the pleasure of chatting with Kim Davis, who's just begun to make a name for herself online as the Realist Nemophilist.

nemophilist - noun, singular.

(rare) One who is fond of forests or forest scenery; a haunter of the woods. (Wiktionary)

Kim and her mountain man Dan met when he was a pilot and she was a flight attendant, not long before Dan was diagnosed with a rare early-onset of macular degeneration -- in other words, he was fated to go blind in a matter of years.

This led to a sea-change in their lives, as they began to question what really matters to them and how they might design a lifestyle that they "don't have to take a vacation from."

"You don’t realize how much you’re plugged into that lifestyle — we didn’t, until we tried to leave it... I’m surprised by what I don’t really miss."

After relocating from Denver, CO to rural northern Maine last year, Kim and Dan purchased a few humble acres out in the wilderness and set up shop in a canvas tent, where they've roughed it through the harsh Maine winter in anticipation of building a tiny home for themselves once the landscape thaws.

In our conversation, Kim shares their incredible story of how they came to find themselves living in a tent in the woods, what their daily life is like in and around the tent, and what their plans are for their future out on the land.

We also spoke at length on the topic of race, and Kim was gracious enough to share her perspective as a black woman returning to nature and moving through rural America in a state that's not exactly known as a haven for people of color.

"My race speaks for me in the way your lifestyle may speak for you."

I am so grateful to Kim for spilling her guts here and being so candid and, well, real! Listening to our conversation is like catching up with an old friend who you haven't heard from in years.

How do we navigate the spiritual landscape of our unique bioregions while honoring both our own ancestry and the history of the land and its people?

This is a line of questioning that seems to unite all of the passions of Becky Beyer, a teacher and practitioner of foraging, folk magic, and witchcraft outside of Asheville, North Carolina.

Becky is equally knowledgeable about the spiritual practices of her European ancestors and of her predecessors in that backwoods melting-pot we know as Appalachia.

She teaches about folk traditions and ethnobotany through her blog, Blood and Spicebush, and through the classes and workshops she offers in person. She's also a foraging instructor for No Taste Like Home.

We had a great conversation about the intersections of paganism, animism and witchcraft; the indescribable magic of the Appalachian region; how ethnobotany is living, breathing body of knowledge that we can contribute to as foragers; and how we settlers can honor both our European ancestry and the original peoples of our continent and bioregions, without falling into the traps of nationalism, colonialism or appropriation.

Why do we choose to swim against the current of modern civilization in this era of rapid change?

That’s a question that each of us, individually, will have to answer for ourselves. And that answer is liable to change, perhaps dramatically, as we venture further down the path back to nature and uncover hard-won knowledge about our place in the universe.

Ben Falk, a permaculture-oriented land designer and site planner who runs the Vermont-based company Whole Systems Design, says his position has shifted over time.

“I’ve moved away from the idea of trying to ‘survive.’ The big goal isn’t me surviving… I’m doing it to have a better life, and improve a place. I’m not trying to survive forever.”

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Ben on the topic of homesteading, and he was generous enough to share a mountain of practical info and advice for folks all across the spectrum of experience living close to the land.

“We’re cultivating an ecosystem that’s great for all living things here, and we just try to live on the byproducts of that ecosystem… we’re living on the interest.”

Ben’s 2013 book The Resilient Farm and Homestead played a pivotal role at the start of my own personal homesteading journey, shedding light on a seemingly bottomless well of things I didn’t know that I didn’t know… you know?

Ben is very down-to-earth and insightful when it comes to practical self-reliance, and also really a treat to converse with. I think there’s a lot to take away from this one, no matter where you find yourself on the path back to the land!

What do we find when we take a hard look at our collective suffering in the modern civilized world?

Is existence itself a state of suffering, as the Buddhists would have you believe – or is it possible that there is a fundamental disconnect between how we live and what our animal bodies and minds require?

“We are each still born a nomadic hunter-gatherer. If we were born into a hunter-gatherer culture we would turn out just the same as anyone else there. There’s nothing innately changed about us — it’s entirely social.”

My guest on this episode of The Good Life Revival Podcast is Kevin Tucker, the anarcho-primitivist thinker and writer responsible for the Black & Green Network, which connects green anarchists around the world in order to build momentum for the rejection and dismantling of civilization.

“Green anarchism is explicitly against civilization… Either the Earth is alive and worth fighting for, or it isn’t.”

Kevin is the author of Gathered Remains: Essays on Wildness, Domestication, Community, and Resistance, published through his own Black & Green Press in early 2018.

(I’ve chosen Gathered Remains as my pick for the month of June in our ongoing book club series – you can learn more about that here.)

Over the course of our two-hour conversation, we dig deep into the topic of green anarchism, its relationship to rewilding and the hunter-gatherer lifeway, what it means to be “domesticated”, and the impending cultural collapse that many of us believe is already under way.

I must admit that this is a sharp break from my usual M.O of presenting you with uplifting, motivational stories to inspire you to take action. As much as I prefer to spend most of my time in that head space, where I personally am able to be most productive, it is incredibly important that we keep in mind why we all desire to see a cultural shift towards a way of life that’s better aligned with the needs of the Earth – because our civilization could not possibly be any more dysfunctional and maladaptive, and it is not long for this world.

“These are the death throes [of civilization] and they are ugly — these are very ugly times and they’re going to continue to get worse.”

Make no mistake, this ship is sinking, and if we have any hope of constructing a lifeboat in time, it will require us to confront this stuff head-on. I hope you can muster up the courage to join me in doing the hard work of taking a hard look at the myriad existential crises at hand.

Do you communicate with the plants on your local landscape? Because they are always trying their hardest to reach you, whether or not you’re able to hear them.

My guest for this installment of the Good Life Revival Podcast — no. 43 — is Daphne Valentine, a professional forager, farmer and pickle-maker from Murphreesboro, Tennessee. When it comes to communicating with plants, Daphne speaks with authority, drawing from a deep reservoir of lifelong experiences.

“Plants have a frequency. If you’re in tune with it, if you’re listening, you’ll hear it. […] Medicine plants give off a pretty strong frequency, and we hear that as foragers.”

Aside from her pursuits as a forager, she and her husband grow medicinal hemp on their farm through Tennessee’s Hemp Research Pilot Program, which she says is a very profound experience.

“Having grown hemp from seed to big bushy plants that are speaking, very loudly, I understand the connection. I understand the language that it is speaking.”

Each of Daphne’s primary interests are united, I think, by a core passion for the physical and emotional healing power of medicine plants, and of food as medicine itself. I hope this conversation encourages you to venture out on to the land to cultivate intimate relationships with all of the plant allies that you find there.

What can so-called “invasive species” teach us about the health and vitality of our ecosystems?

Is it possible that these oft-maligned invaders are actually serving functional roles on the land? And if we determine that they need to be managed, how exactly should we go about it?

When you read Beyond the War on Invasive Species by Tao Orion, today’s guest on episode 44 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, you’ll discover that the conventional “restoration” narrative is pretty cut-and-dry: invasive species are a Problem that require complete and total eradication, primarily through the use of chemical herbicides such as glyphosate, 2,4-D and imazapyr.

How effective is this management plan? Not very. What sorts of consequences does it have for the health of the land, and all those who inhabit it? We do not know, but like many other myopic decisions that we humans are making in this era, it's safe to assume that the full effects may not even fully manifest for decades, or centuries, or millennia to come.

By contrast, Tao, along with a growing number of skeptical ecologists and naturalists (myself included), would argue that the proliferation of non-native species is merely one symptom of a problem that runs much deeper than plant populations in flux, down to the core of our civilization and how we organize our lives.

“We need to be willing to take responsibility for the ecological changes that our lifestyle brings.”

When we allow ourselves to ask “why?” all the way down to the root of the problem, we are forced to confront the uncomfortable truth that our very way of life in the modern era is the reason for undesirable species thriving where robust and resilient native communities once flourished.

“I honestly think people feel guilty about the ways that land is being managed. There’s a deep sense of unease about the way our society has come into being — about our colonialist history.”

Tune in to hear Tao and I discuss the complex nature of invasive species and the field of restoration ecology; what invasive species can tell us when we read the landscapes around us; and how we can promote ecological literacy in a culture that only seems capable of investing in short-term treatments to minor symptoms of systemic problems.

I have chosen Beyond the War on Invasive Species as my pick for the book club in the month of July. Order a copy directly from Tao and she will even sign it before sending it off. Support good people doing good work!

Today’s episode also features several new pieces of music by yours truly. Stick around to the end where I share a new song of mine — 8 years in the making! — called “No Inside, No Out.”

Want to hear all of the original music from the podcast, in full? That’s just one of the perks for pledging your support for the Good Life Revival at any level on Patreon, the crowdfunding platform that makes it possible for me to do this work.

You can also gain early access to interviews like this one with Tao, which was published on Patreon a full week ahead of its release on the main feed.

To learn more and pledge your support today, visit patreon.com/goodliferevival.

Have you ever intentionally killed a living, breathing animal?

Was it to feed yourself, your family, friends, community? How did it make you feel?

For Jeff and Ella Kennedy of Ouiska Run Farm in Milltown, Indiana -- my guests on episode 45 of the Good Life Revival Podcast -- raising animals for meat led them to conclude that they would be better off pursuing a plant-based lifestyle.

What they were both surprised to discover was just how much their meat-free diet seemed to improve all aspects of their lives.

“I find myself having more clarity daily. Who knows where I would be right now had I not made that first choice when I was thirty to take a different life path? […] The freak flag’s out and I’m letting it fly.”

The topic of whether or not to eat meat has become increasingly polarized in the social media era, so much so that it seems nearly impossible for a vegan and a meat-eater to have a reasoned, respectful, friendly? discussion.

Well, we've got proof right here that it is possible, my friends. By exploring our relationships with the food that we produce and consume, Jeff and Ella and I were able to find a great deal of common ground between us. After all, despite our differing choices on diet (I am an omnivore), we essentially share the same desires and dreams for our local landscape and our place within it.

Tune in to hear about Jeff and Ella's unlikely conversion to veganism, their efforts to rewild 8 acres in rural southern Indiana, thoughts on what to do with livestock animals after deciding not to eat them, their views on beekeeping as vegans, and much more.

It's time to come clean: I have been self-medicating with psychedelic drugs for over a decade — essentially my entire adult life.

It started in college, first just "recreationally" and because I had a strong interest in altered states of consciousness. After a handful of deeply spiritual experiences that I was wholly unprepared for, I started to take psychedelics more seriously as "soul medicine."

Over the years, I developed an intentional ritual practice for myself that incorporated LSD, yoga, meditation, and nature immersion. A few times a year, I would spend a weekend out in the woods under the influence of psychedelics, carefully deconstructing and reconstructing my mind while cultivating loving energetic exchanges with the other-than-human spirits residing on the land.

This practice has been integral to my development as a fully formed adult human animal, enabling me to achieve emotional self-improvement and spiritual healing at a level that I never thought possible before I experienced it. Psychedelics have informed all aspects of my art (as a musician and writer), my spirituality, and my lifestyle.

I have never exactly tried to hide my appreciation for psychedelics, but in this episode I am speaking openly and candidly for the first time about my personal experiences with some of these powerful medicinal substances -- primarily LSD, psilocybin and cannabis, but also Salvia divinorum and DMT -- across 14 years and at least 50 sessions.

I try my best to describe the state of mind that psychedelics facilitate, and the therapeutic benefits that I stumbled upon through years of trial and error before "psychedelic therapy" was a topic that anybody was taking seriously.

I believe our culture is ready for a psychedelic renaissance, in which we finally learn to acknowledge and respect the gifts that psychedelic drugs offer us -- both in the healing of mental illness and in the overall improvement of emotional and spiritual wellbeing.

Now more than ever, I believe it is of the utmost importance for people like me, who've seen immense benefits through the (admittedly irresponsible) use of psychedelics to step up and share our accounts, so that we might normalize these drugs the same way that cannabis is currently being normalized.

Prohibition will come to an end, but it's going to take a serious upswing in popular opinion and public momentum before that day arrives. I offer my personal experiences here as yet another resounding voice of praise in the growing chorus of psychedelic advocates from all walks of life. I invite the rest of you to sing out with us!

If you’re someone with big dreams but limited means, this conversation is for you.

For episode 47 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with John Holzwart of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, better known to most simply as Little John.

If you know Little John, it’s probably as a result of his years of touring the country on the fair circuit, leading demonstrations and workshops on the art of broom-making.

John is a skilled artisan with a sharp eye for honing raw materials into something that’s equally functional, elegant, and aesthetically pleasing. Now he’s looking to transfer those talents into the arena of urban permaculture through his recently organized non-profit Arboreus, whose mission is to reclaim vacant lots around Sheboygan and convert them into community gardens and food forests.

He already has his first lot well under way, and he’s not afraid to dream big about what comes next. I believe he’s on the right track, and I hope his story inspires you to make some serious moves on that passion project of yours that maybe you’ve been holding yourself back from pursuing.

Whether success or failure, I can guarantee that you’ll learn and grow more than you could ever imagine along the way!

To find out more about all the cool stuff that Little John does, visit . To peruse his collection of brooms currently available for sale, visit . And if you’re just here for the Cornelian cherries, head to .

To add your name to the waiting list for my winter 2018/2019 wild food mentorship program, click here. Space is limited and these spots will fill up quickly when the program goes live!

If you want to try out the wonderful hemp CBD products from Blue Ridge Hemp Co., follow this link and be sure to use the code GOODLIFE at checkout for 10% off.

As always, if you get some value out of the work that I put into this podcast, and you’re able to translate that value into some financial capital - as little as $1/month - I hope you will consider becoming a supporter over on Patreon! Your contributions allow me to devote quite a lot of my time and energy to this work. I would love to do even more, with your help.

Finally:

I’m taking the Good Life Revival Podcast on the road in November 2018!

My dog Jojo and I will be cruising our rusty old pickup truck from Indiana to Oregon via Colorado, then down the California coast, across the Southwest and back home over the course of about three weeks. Here’s our rough itinerary, accounting for a couple people I will definitely meet up with along the way:

If you are somewhere along this route, and you’d be interested in opening up your home/farm/woodland shelter to me and the dog, and possibly sharing your story and good conversation for the podcast, let me know! Send me an email through this link and we’ll go from there. I hope to meet as many of you as possible while we’re ramblin’!

Attention: calling all citizen scientists, farmers, homesteaders, and back-to-the-land types —

Mother Mycelium wants YOU to join the ranks of the few, the proud, and the brave who’ve taken up the cause of radical mycology!

For this week’s installment of the Good Life Revival Podcast (no. 48), I had the pleasure of speaking with thee rad mycologist himself, Peter McCoy.

Peter is the author of the indispensable 2016 tome ‘Radical Mycology,’ which details essentially everything that we collectively know about fungi in the 21st century.

Most recently, Peter launched Mycologos, the “world's first online and in-person school dedicated to the art and science of working with fungi.”

Mycology — the study of fungi — is a very young science, and there is vast potential for creative individuals to make groundbreaking new discoveries and chart courses through completely uncharted fungal territory.

Peter’s bio says he speaks for the fungi, and if the thrust of his message is any indication, the fungi are delighted that we’ve finally taken an interest in them as more than just “funny-looking plants” (fun fact: fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants).

They — and he — would love for you to join us in (re)affirming the sanctity of the mycelial network that unites all beings at the crossroads of life and death. Fungi are incredibly powerful allies who we have only just begun to learn how to work with, and you can be a part of the revolution!

The future is fungi!

What motivates ambitious young entrepreneurs to pursue farming as a career, knowing full well that they could end up struggling financially — forever?

That’s a question that each of us has to answer for ourselves, ultimately. But if you’ve caught a chronic case of the farming bug, you probably don’t have to think too hard about it.

“It’s a really big deal to me that I get to interact with the landscape alongside my family, and that we get to do the work together.”

For episode 49 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I had the pleasure of sitting down with my friend Luke Groce of Groce Family Farm in southern Indiana to pick his brain about what he does and why he does it.

Luke and his wife Katherine — along with their four young children — live and work and learn and play on 25 acres of gorgeous rolling pasture in the heart of Amish country, where they raise all manner of livestock animals to provide the highest quality meat possible to the Kentuckiana region.

Following the birth of their fourth child early in 2018, Luke offered to hire me to take over one of their two farmer’s market booths in Louisville, KY, so that Katherine could stay home with the baby, and so that I would have a venue to sell my farmed and foraged produce in my first season as a market gardener.

As you’ll hear us discuss, this arrangement turned out to be the primary reason why I was able to make ends meet from month to month this year. And though it was not without significant financial burden for the Groces, Luke clearly values being able to offer a helping hand to wannabe farmers like me who are following in his footsteps.

I hope that his gracious generosity will serve as an example to others for whom family and community are more important than the almighty dollar. It’s easy enough to pay lip service to those values, but how to you actually follow through and live them, in the context of a hyper-capitalist culture that doesn’t generally allow to you stay at home with your family?

You should definitely not get into farming if you’re hoping to make the big bucks, or even the medium-sized bucks. But as you dive deeper, you’ll find no shortage of very good non-financial reasons why you might pursue a career in farming.

It won’t always be fun, and it will rarely be easy, but for those of us who’ve caught the bug, we couldn’t imagine doing anything else with our time.

With cannabis now legal for recreational use in ten states (plus Canada!), and medicinally available in over half of the country, we have reached pivotal moment for the mainstream acceptance of cannabis in North American culture.

And yet, the industry is still on pretty shaky ground, given that both THC and CBD — the primary medicinal and psychoactive constituents of the cannabis plant — are still classified under federal law as being among the most dangerous drugs a person can get their hands on.

For episode 50 of the Good Life Revival podcast, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Micayla Harland of the Hash It Out podcast at her home outside Eugene, Oregon, to discuss the current state of the cannabis industry in the Northwest.

“Legalized does not mean normalized.”

Micayla has been deeply embedded in the industry for many years, first in Canada and now in Oregon, and her expertise really shines when you ask her to break down the more esoteric and intimidating technical terms related to cannabis.

We had a really informative and fascinating conversation ranging from cannabinoids and terpene profiles, to different medicinal and recreational uses and dosages, to what it’s like working in the industry and how one might get involved as a farmer, herbalist, budtender — or wherever your talents may lie!

Micayla’s passion for cannabis is quite infectious, as you’ll hear, and if you dig her perspective I would highly recommend checking out her podcast Hash It Out, where she goes much deeper into all of the topics we reviewed today.

Whether tracking wolves across the Pacific Northwest, or shepherding cattle across California’s coastal prairie grasslands, Doniga Markegard aims not just to tend the land but to become one with its inhabitants.

Doniga’s 2017 memoir, Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild details all of the ways this intrepid tracker-turned-rancher has tackled the fundamental question of nature connection, from the tumultuous adolescence which led her to wilderness survival training, to professional wildlife tracking, to holistic land management, and eventually to the idyllic rolling hills where the Markegard Family Farm continues to grow and expand just south of San Francisco.

She’s got a great story and a really unique perspective, and it was such a pleasure for me to be able to visit the Markegard’s ranch and pick Doniga’s brain for the better part of an hour about life out on the coastal prairie.

As you’ll hear, our conversation was recorded in two parts: I arrived in the early evening, and we sat down at Doniga’s kitchen table for the first half. Before sunset we took a break so Doniga could take care of evening chores with the animals, and by the time we were ready to start up again the family had gotten home and taken over the house, so we moved to the barn from there, and you’ll hear chest freezers humming behind us.

In the first half we get a sense of who Doniga is and what she’s all about, and in the second half the conversation shifts focus to the hazy elephant in the room: the wildfire smoke that was blanketing the ranch and the entire region during my visit.

Thankfully, despite the hardships Doniga had some really encouraging and optimistic thoughts to share, and that’s always a relief to hear from someone with boots on the ground doing the hard work of restoring land on a pretty massive scale.

How do you construct a life worth living when your human animal needs are fundamentally at odds with the dominant culture’s agenda?

It’s this sort of questioning that has shaped the sordid path of Dr. Christopher Ryan, host of the Tangentially Speaking podcast and co-author of 2011’s Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships.

More recently, Chris has shifted his focus away from sexuality and towards civilization itself: What if all those hallmarks of modernity that we think we can’t live without are actually stifling our true potential and stunting our growth — not to mention, trashing the planet in the process?

In his forthcoming book Civilized to Death: What Was Lost on the Way to Modernity (set for release in late 2019), the author “explores the ways in which ‘progress’ has perverted the way we live: how we eat, learn, feel, mate, parent, communicate, work, and die.”

For episode 52 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I had the rare pleasure of sitting down with Chris in his humble abode outside Los Angeles to gauge his feelings about the myriad existential crises our global culture faces, how we should react to it all, and whether we ought to be restructuring our lifestyles in light of what we know about the house of cards we call civilization.

I feel really honored to have had the opportunity to pick Chris’s brain like this, and I look forward to seeing his perspective fleshed out further when the book is released next year.

“Sam Sycamore, how do you define the good life?” 

“Well Sam, I’m glad you finally asked me for a change.

“For me, the good life is defined by interdependence. To feel needed by a group of likeminded people, and to rely on them to meet the basic needs that I can’t take care of for myself.

“To feel needed by the land around me, whether garden or forest, or some combination thereof, to manifest beauty and abundance wherever I go, and to draw my physical and spiritual sustenance through a direct co-creative relationship with the land.

“The good life is within reach, and I know, because I’ve felt it, I’ve tasted it, I’ve observed it, I’ve swapped stories with others who confirm my suspicions and validate my hypotheses.

“I don’t worry about what the future may bring, at any scale along any timeline, whether it’s social or political unrest, global climate disruption, the complete and total collapse of civilization as we know it, or any of a million personal disasters that could arrive in my life in the next moment, either as a direct consequence of the choices I’ve made or else as a purely random occurrence in a universe that’s ultimately indifferent to my temporal physical manifestation as a human animal.

“This moment is where the good life resides. As long as you position the good life in the future, it will remain there, forever out of reach.

“So please, if you take nothing else from my story here today, I hope it’s this:

“Make it now.”

* * *

In this, the final installment of the Good Life Revival Podcast for 2018, I reflect on my search to uncover the good life over the last decade, which has led me to exploring everything from postmodern French philosophy, to psychedelics, to Zen Buddhism, to plant ecology, to the skilled trades and seemingly everywhere in between.

Along the way I share some of the insight I’ve gained in ten years of walking this path, and explain how my search for meaning and purpose in life has led me to an intimate, co-creative relationship with the natural world, and how I’ve learned to let go of my desire to be the master of my destiny and instead trust in my intuition to guide me where I need to go.

As always, if you get some value out of the work that I put into this podcast, and you’re able to translate that value into some financial capital - as little as $1/month - I hope you will consider becoming a supporter over on Patreon! Your contributions allow me to devote quite a lot of my time and energy to this work. I would love to do even more, with your help.

How can we reestablish our fundamental connection with nature, in the context of a culture so thoroughly disconnected from the ecosystems that sustain it?

According to Thomas J. Elpel, founder of Green University and the Outdoor Wilderness Living School, it starts by empowering people of all ages to learn to read the external signals and cues we receive from our environment; to discover how to tune in to the frequency of Mother Nature, always buzzing all around us no matter what kind of landscape we find ourselves moving through.

For episode 54 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I had the pleasure of chatting with Tom to learn more about his latest project, the “dynamic ecology card game” called Wildlife Web.

“Wildlife Web simulates the dynamics of a real world ecosystem with astonishing accuracy. With fifty animals to choose from, players can become anything from a mouse to a moose or a bird to a bear, each foraging or hunting for food to mate and reproduce while trying not to become food themselves. The game is fun, competitive, and addictive!”

Beyond this latest project, Tom is also the author of more than half a dozen books on topics ranging from botany and plant ecology, to natural building, to wilderness survival skills and more. He is perhaps best known for his indispensable Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification, a book that I cannot recommend highly enough.

We had a great conversation about the card game and the challenges of teaching ecological literacy; we explore some of Tom’s experiences as a wilderness living instructor; and we also touch upon some other common threads of interest, like frugal living and how and why to try to escape the rat race of modern society.

If you think Wildlife Web sounds as cool as I do, I hope you’ll join me in backing it on Kickstarter so that it will become a reality! EDIT: I just got word that the project has been fully funded! Still, you can and should preorder a copy today!

Personal health is not just an extension of environmental health — they are one and the same.

For episode 55 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I was fortunate enough to speak with Adam Haritan, creator of Learn Your Land. Nowadays he’s best known as a forager, naturalist, and educator, but these pursuits came after a sea change in Adam’s life which began when he woke up to how he’d been neglecting his health as a touring heavy metal drummer.

“My body was kind of slowly falling apart on the inside. Nothing too serious — other people would look at me and think I was fine — but I didn’t feel fine inside.”

As his interest in playing with the band was waning, Adam decided to pursue studies in nutritional science, and although he found the conventional academic approach somewhat lacking, he was lucky enough to connect with mentors who helped him discover the holistic health benefits of foraging for wild foods.

Because gathering wild edible plants and fungi is about so much more than mere nutrition: it is physical and spiritual sustenance for the whole human animal, which cannot be summed up in terms of macronutrient content or calories burned.

Adam and I had a great conversation about his background and his work; the health benefits of nature connection; and the kinds of perspectives we can take on when we learn how to read the landscapes that we inhabit.

Where ocean meets land: that’s where you’ll find Heidi Herrmann of Strong Arm Farm, who spends the better part of each summer meticulously hand-harvesting wild seaweed along the California coastline.

For episode 56 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I traveled to Santa Rosa, CA to meet with Heidi and pick her brain about the ins and outs of seaweed foraging, and find out how this pursuit came to be such an integral element of her annual workflow.

As you’ll hear in our conversation, the California coastline boasts over 600 (!!) native species of seaweed, many of which are edible and some of which are highly sought after by chefs and health-conscious consumers who value the nutrient density and that inimitable local marine terroir. (Can you call it ‘terroir’ if it comes from the sea?)

But beyond her collection of wonderful macroalgae, I really enjoyed getting to know Heidi and learning how she makes ends meet in the remaining nine months out of the year when she isn’t solely focused on seaweed.

Heidi’s story as an educator who practices what she preaches is a great example, I think, of what’s possible when you’re willing to dive headfirst into sharky waters — so to speak :) — and work through the trial and error process of determining what niches you might be able to fill in your local community.

You never know where this might take you!

When all we’ve ever known is unhealthy, imbalanced examples of sexuality, how can we even begin to step into our power as self-actualized, sexually liberated individuals?

For episode 57 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I invited Ev’Yan Whitney of Portland, Oregon, to join me for a conversation about how we might start to heal as a culture from the toxic and repressive social norms we’ve inherited about sex and gender.

Ev’Yan describes herself as a sexuality doula, which is to say that she offers holistic guidance for women as they navigate the difficult transitional process of owning and defining their sexuality, on their own terms. I shouldn’t have to tell you that this is very radical work, and Ev’Yan knows better than most just how dangerous it can be to stand up to the patriarchy and boldly proclaim your truth.

Although Ev’Yan’s work is focused on individuals who identify as female, I asked her to come on the show specifically in the hopes of opening up this conversation about sexual liberation to men.

I think our culture, and especially my generation, is ready to begin unpacking some of the more “toxic” elements of this rather nebulous thing we call “masculinity,” and I firmly believe that men like me really need to learn from women educators like Ev’Yan if we have any hope of defining a healthy, balanced sexuality for ourselves.

Believe me when I say you’re not going to like what you find as you unpack the baggage you inherited from civilization regarding sex, but I hope that Ev’Yan’s example will inspire you to ask these hard questions of yourself anyway, and not shy away from the especially ugly, painful, or embarrassing answers that you might find tucked deep down in the darkest corners of your psyche.

Ev’Yan has documented many of her stories and experiences with women over the years through her excellent podcast, The Sexually Liberated Woman. You can find out more about her and the services she offers through her website, EvYanWhitney.com.

Stream and download episode 57 at the top of the page, or listen through iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Don’t forget to subscribe through your podcast app, and leave a review & rating if you dig it!

All music you hear on the podcast was created by me, Sam Sycamore. “Alameda”, the theme of this episode, was written and recorded specifically for this installment of the show. The tune at the end is called “Hummingbird Drinks Jewelweed Nectar”, and was recorded in September 2018. It will be featured on my forthcoming album Bliss, set for release later this year. Stream and download it for free over on Patreon.

As always, if you get some value out of the work that I put into this podcast, and you’re able to translate that value into financial capital — as little as $1/month — I hope you will consider becoming a supporter over on Patreon! Your contributions allow me to devote quite a lot of my time and energy to this work. I would love to do even more, with your help.

When your neighbor comes to you in a panic and tells you that her house is burning — how will you respond?

For episode 58 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I ventured up to Oakland, CA to meet with Aaron Johnson, Porsha Beed, and Jennie Pearl, three of the individuals who form the core of a group called Holistic Resistance, which aims to combat racism by fostering deep personal connections.

Their work is at once profound and subversive, both in its goals and in the methods they employ in their efforts to meaningfully reach out to people.

Though they are of African heritage, Aaron and Porsha make it a point to specifically focus much of their efforts with HR on reaching white folks, and helping white people come together to hash out some of the more difficult and painful questions they might have about race in an atmosphere of mutual honesty, vulnerability, and trust — where you don't have to be afraid of saying the wrong thing or making the wrong move in your genuine efforts to better understand your place in the world relative to the lived experiences of people of color.

This is of course extremely exhausting work, involving an enormous amount of emotional labor, but all three of them shine with a level of confidence and satisfaction that makes it clear that there's nothing else they'd rather invest their energy in.

I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to sit down with these three in person for an immensely insightful discussion about:

how and why they do what they do;

the power of intimacy to combat racism;

the need to replace internet conversations with direct action;

and how nature connection plays into the broader struggle for compassion, trust, and understanding across (perceived) divisions of race, class, gender, and all the rest.

This serves as an excellent followup, I think, to the conversation that Ev'Yan Whitney and I had last time around about sexuality and sexual liberation as a means of dismantling oppression.

In this case the question is not about sex, but about intimacy in all its forms: how do we foster deep connections and build trust with individuals whose life experiences might dramatically differ from our own?

And why is not okay to simply "opt out" of the struggle by deciding that "we" (you) have moved "beyond" race, or by concluding that focusing on issues of race only serves to perpetuate racism?

Ultimately, as you'll hear Aaron describe, we will *all* (yes, white people included) continue to suffer as long as white folks don't put in the work on themselves to examine these questions.

I hope this conversation encourages you to do just that, and I hope that the example set by the folks here at Holistic Resistance will empower you not to shy away from whatever painful, shameful, or otherwise difficult answers that arise as you venture down the path of dismantling all of the racism you inherited from the dominant Culture of No-Place — whether you wanted to or not.

And stick around after our conversation where I take some time to examine my own whiteness and how it relates to my heritage as the great-grandchild of Sicilian immigrants in the United States.

Don’t miss Reaching For Blackness, the three-day workshop hosted by Holistic Resistance in Chico, CA, taking place from May 18 - 20, 2019.

If your life came to an end tomorrow — would you feel like you’d made the most of it?

For episode 59 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I met up with Kelly Moody, creator of the Ground Shots Podcast and companion blog, Of Sedge and Salt. Since we're both pretty unconventional podcasters who currently reside in California and like to talk about plants & people, we thought it'd be fun to do a kind of joint interview to get to know each other better.

Though originally from the deep south, for the last several years Kelly has been based on the west coast while rambling 'round the country in the vintage camper-adorned Ford truck that she calls home. Like me, she's fascinated by the ways that humans relate to their environments, and she is equally passionate about sharing big, challenging ideas.

In the end I think our chat serves as a great introduction to both of us, and we covered a lot of fertile ground at the intersections of our common interests. Among other things, we discuss the age-old question of whether to stay where you’re needed or relocate where you fit in; the challenges of working with the land when you lack a permanent residence; the romance versus the reality of #vanlife; and the importance of keeping an eye on Death looming in your rearview mirror as you voyage through life.

I left Kelly's camper that day with so much food for thought echoing through my head, and I hope you'll walk away from this conversation in the same state of mind!

To learn more about my upcoming Foraging North America online course, click here.

If you want to stream my latest album Bliss, you can do that right over here.

Today’s theme song is called “Natural Bridges,” written and recorded by yours truly especially for this episode. Subscribers at any tier on Patreon can download this tune along with all the others in my vast podcast music archive!

You do not exist.

I do not exist.

Ask your I: "What are you?"

And your I will reply, "I am not."

How can we create beauty and discover joy in a world so badly wounded by the machinations of our modern culture?

This is a question that Trebbe Johnson strives to answer, both philosophically and in practice, through her work with the organization she founded ten years ago, called Radical Joy For Hard Times.

I was so moved by Trebbe's book — also called Radical Joy For Hard Times — when I read it last fall that I ended up joining the Board of Directors for Rad Joy, because I felt that the organization's mission lined up quite neatly with my own: to learn how to deal with and heal with damaged and degraded landscapes, and to encourage others to do the same.

In this conversation, Trebbe and I talk about:

how she came to start the organization;

how we, as individuals, and as a culture, might come to terms with the wounded places that surround us;

how and why to practice radical joy;

the role of activism in the face of overwhelming obstacles;

and why, according to Albert Camus, "one must imagine Sisyphus happy" even as he absurdly pushes a boulder up a mountain for eternity.

Don’t forget to subscribe if you dig the show!

To learn more about Radical Joy For Hard Times and the upcoming Global Earth Exchange, click here.

To pick up a copy of Radical Joy For Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth’s Broken Places, follow this link.

To sign up for the Foraging North America online course, click here.

To check out the brand new Good Life Revival t-shirts, head this way.

Today’s theme song is called “Clear Mind Canine”, written and recorded by me especially for this episode. Subscribers who pledge $5 or more on Patreon can download this tune along with all the others in my ever-growing podcast music archive, including my most recent full-length album, Bliss, released in April 2019.

Early on in my journey back to nature, I realized that I was going to have to get creative in order to overcome the unique obstacles in my path.

Knowing that I would never work towards a six-figure salary or a thirty-year mortgage, I had to seek out ways of working with the land that did not involve ownership.

…But what does it even mean to “own” a piece of land, anyway? In what sense do space and time and ecosystems “belong” to you?

Rather than working harder to increase my income over years or decades in the interest of a future life, I opted to downgrade over a period of several years, whittling away my lifestyle and my material needs down to the bare necessities, in order to maximize my personal freedom from day to day — in the present moment.

I consider it an ethical imperative to minimize my participation in the forces of exploitation and oppression which fuel our modern culture.

Understanding that there is no such thing as “opting out” of civilization, I prefer to focus my time and energy on work that is largely *irrelevant* and *illegible* to the dominant culture.

Why pursue this path? Why swim upstream and create problems for oneself that can easily be solved through conventional means?

It’s not for everyone, and what works for me may not necessarily work for you. But I hope my approach to lifestyle design in the context of irrelevance and illegibility might help you to better frame how you view your own goals and desires in life.

The Powers That Be will never offer you an exit, so it’s up to you to seek out novel strategies for engaging on your own terms.

There is no debate: our planet’s rapidly changing climate is now a fact of our everyday lives.

Unpredictable and extreme weather events are becoming more common and more frequent worldwide, and both their unpredictability and their extreme nature is increasing over time.

Flood waters rise higher, tropical storms blow harder, droughts last longer and wildfires burn with more intensity, and all of the above happens more frequently and in seasons when we would not expect any of it to occur.

We know that we are currently witnessing what’s described as the earth’s sixth mass extinction event.

The last time such an event occurred, to the best of our knowledge, was when the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago.

The last time the Earth experienced changes in climate as dramatic as what we are witnessing today coincided with an earlier mass extinction event, some 250 million years ago, which is believed to have essentially wiped the slate clean and killed off up to 97% of the Earth’s species at the time.

Species are disappearing and ecosystems are collapsing as global weather events defy predictable patterns and the rise in average temperature accelerates.

One of the key themes that I continuously explore through this podcast is the idea that human culture is a reflection of its environment.

Thus, it is my belief that we are currently witnessing the collapse of human civilization due to rapid and catastrophic changes to the global ecosystem caused by civilization itself.

Humans are responsible for our rapidly changing climate and our rapidly declining ecosystems.

But not all humans, and not just any humans.

A relatively small group of civilized humans who worship at the altar of the limitless free market did this.

100 corporations are responsible for over 70% of greenhouse gases emitted in my lifetime, since the mid-80s.

More than half of all emissions can be traced back to just 25 corporate entities.

So please, explain to me again why I personally should feel guilty for drinking out of a disposable coffee cup or using a plastic toothbrush or showering with hot water for more than 5 minutes.

Your decision to drive an electric car or eat less meat has no effect on the system as a whole.

Individual consumer choices are essentially irrelevant when stacked against the consumption of energy by corporations and governments.

You did not cause climate change, or the sixth mass extinction event, and you will not solve them through your individual choices as a consumer.

If consumption itself is the problem, then we are never going to solve it by consuming more stuff, even if that stuff is significantly less bad than the more conventional stuff.

Will anthropogenic climate disruption inevitably lead to the extinction of Homo sapiens? Only time will tell.

But for those of us who are tuned in, we can’t ignore the deafening silence from the canaries in the coal mine any longer.

Akiva Silver is the owner of Twisted Tree Farm in New York, where he raises over 20,000 individual trees annually — no small feat as a sole proprietor!

Earlier this year, Akiva published Trees of Power: Ten Essential Arboreal Allies via Chelsea Green, and this is one of those books that, for me, strikes a perfect balance between the practical and the philosophical. You’ll learn not just how but why to foster co-creative relationships with some of the world’s most generous and abundant tree species, whether your desired outcome is fruit, nuts, fuel, timber, or medicine.

Or: what if there was no desired outcome at all? What if the true value of working with trees was to be found simply in the daily unfolding of life in all its beautiful complexity? Understanding that “the good life” is located in the Here and Now, how do we fully embrace the present moment and eschew delaying gratification for years or decades as we wait for our tree crops to bear fruit?

I think Akiva’s story offers us a lovely lesson in the art of contentment: working for today, not tomorrow.

Rob Avis is a petroleum engineer-turned-permaculture designer with many years of boots-on-the-ground experience in developing regenerative living systems. He runs the Canadian design company Verge Permaculture, as well as the consulting firm Adaptive Habitat.

For this installment of the show, Rob joins me to talk about Essential Rainwater Harvesting, the book that he co-authored with his wife Michelle, released earlier this year.

If you're curious about getting started with rainwater harvesting, whether for irrigation, washing, drinking, or all of the above, I think this conversation will serve as a great primer!

Among other things, Rob walks me through all of the basic components of a catchment system and how to approach the design process. We also talk about the importance of seeking out high-quality information in a world thoroughly saturated with poorly researched blog posts and YouTube videos and the like. I hope you find it as helpful as I did!

I dream of a quiet man

who explains nothing and defends

nothing, but only knows

where the rarest wildflowers

are blooming, and who goes,

and finds that he is smiling

not by his own will.

"I Dream of a Quiet Man" by Wendell Berry, from Given.

Picture, in your mind’s eye, a map of the United States of America. What do you see?

If you’re like most of us, you’re probably picturing an outline of the contiguous United States, the so-called “lower 48.” You might also be picturing Alaska up there in the top left corner, and Hawai’i somewhere out there in the Pacific.

Now let me ask you:

Why were you taught that this is an accurate representation of the United States?

As the historian Daniel Immerwahr points out in his book How to Hide an Empire, this “logo map” really only accurately depicted the United States for a brief period of a few years around 1850.

What that map hides speaks volumes about the history of the American Empire over the last 150 years.

For episode 67 of The Good Life Revival Podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Daniel Immerwahr about some of the stranger-than-fiction stories that characterize America’s unique brand of imperialism.

As you will hear, the term “empire” is both a description of a country’s shape and of its character — and we can learn a lot by observing how it treats land and people in places where its own laws and ethics don’t always apply.

How do we characterize the American Empire?

Well, how you feel about it probably comes down to how much you know about those stories that it doesn’t tell you.

And if you are not counted among those who have been historically oppressed on the fringes of society, then it’s up to you to seek out these stories for yourself.

I hope that this conversation, and the book How to Hide an Empire, will encourage you to do just that.

Score a free audiobook today when you sign up for Libro.fm using my referral link!

We’ve analyzed the data. We’ve seen the models and the projections. The facts are grim, and the reality on the ground (for some, not all — yet) is even grimmer still:

Global anthropogenic climate disruption is leading to social and political unrest as it causes ecological instability and begins to render regions of the planet inhospitable to humans.

Worse yet, recent history tells us that scientists knew essentially everything we needed to know about the catastrophic severity of climate change by 1988, when corporate interests in the United States successfully waged a campaign to suppress the truth and ensure that no action would be taken.

And still, thirty years later, no action is being taken, despite the fact that within this period — my lifetime — we’ve pumped more carbon into the atmosphere than in all centuries prior.

Are we ready to begin seriously grappling with the notion that…

…Maybe it’s too late?

What happens when we allow ourselves to grieve over a war that’s already been lost?

How does our perspective shift when we begin the difficult work of accepting that what’s done is done, and that there is perhaps no such thing as “saving the world” or “solving the climate crisis” after all?

I mean; you’re not just going to like, give up, are you? Are you going to wait around for someone else to do something about it?

What do you believe in? What is worth fighting for to you?

When we begin to accept that our planetary trajectory has already been set by forces well beyond our control, and allow ourselves to grieve over what’s been lost and what will be lost, then a different sort of action becomes all the more critical.

Far from engendering apathy, I believe that accepting the reality of our ongoing climate catastrophe is a resounding call for visionary creativity, and for radical, unconventional action at the individual and community level.

Because what many people seem to miss is that the steps you could take to improve your life today — better caring for yourself, working to foster community resilience, regenerating land and treading lightly on the Earth — are the very same things that may enable you to weather the unforeseeable storms on the horizon.

When we accept the reality that it’s too late, we begin to see the importance of radical, decentralized action. Not because we believe we’re going to save the world and solve the climate crisis; but because we have good reasons to believe that what’s bad will continue to get worse, and that every single one of us may potentially face a situation, or many situations, in the not-so-distant future when our resilience is challenged, whether randomly or routinely.

Even if that day never arrives, we will still be better off for our efforts to rebuild, reconnect, and do whatever we can to protect what’s not yet lost — if for no other reason than the Earth is worth fighting for, to the very end.

Whether the status quo is prepared to admit it or not, climate change is not some mysterious future event looming on the horizon — it is already happening, here, now.

So: how will you choose to respond?

In this episode of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I revisit last week’s topic of climate change grief, and whether we ought to let go of the hope of salvation in favor of taking direct action to brace ourselves for what we know we can reasonably expect from a severely disrupted global climate.

One crucial part of the process of preparing ourselves, I believe, is to reckon with our emotional reactions to what is unfolding in front of us. To deny the pain that we all feel when we observe the open wounds on the land that we walk upon is to numb ourselves to reality — to continue, in vain, to build a wall between ourselves and the natural world which sustains us.

Acknowledging and confronting the seemingly insurmountable pain of a dying planet should only imbue our work with that much more urgency.

Drawing from the writings of Steven Martyn, Kat Anderson, Trebbe Johnson and Donna Haraway, I make the case here that what we need now more than ever are visionary new myths to guide us towards novel ways and means of co-creation with the land.

We do ourselves no favors by merely hoping for a better world, or praying that our leaders will miraculously change course — recognizing that top-down solutions have failed to materialize, the time has come for us to begin self-organizing in the interests of preserving and regenerating whatever is within our reach.

All the while, we must not be afraid to stare down the very real existential fear that looms in the background. You are justified in your fear, but it is no excuse for inaction. You don’t get to choose what problems you face in life, but you can always decide how to feel about them. I hope you’ll join me in this difficult but necessary work.

Score a free audiobook today when you sign up for Libro.fm using my referral link.

Bibliography:

Anderson, M. Kat. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources

Haraway, Donna J. Staying With the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene

Johnson, Trebbe. Radical Joy For Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth’s Broken Places

Martyn, Steven Elliot. Sacred Gardening: Seeds for the Reemergence of Co-Creative Agriculture

All music was created by Sam Sycamore, and can be downloaded by subscribers at any level over on Patreon. If you’d prefer to offer a one-time financial contribution, you can do so through PayPal. This show is made possible by listeners like you.

The acorn is one of the most common and ubiquitous nuts you’re likely to encounter almost anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere in autumn.

Somehow, tragically, the vast majority of people on Earth today think of acorns as little more than “squirrel food,” despite the fact that they are easily rendered edible for humans after some basic processing.

In fact, if we lived in anything approaching a sane, rational culture, acorns would be a staple in our daily diets around the world, as ordinary as white bread.

Thankfully, there’s no massive cultural paradigm shift required in order to reclaim this delicious and highly nutritious ancestral food in your own life.

All you need is time, patience, and some basic guidance through the process.

That’s where this podcast comes in: for episode 70 of the #GoodLifeRevival Podcast, we’re going to review everything you need to know to begin gathering and eating acorns this season!

Along the way I will answer questions like:

Why would anyone want to eat acorns?

What’s the difference between white oaks and red/black oaks?

What is the best method for gathering, and how can you tell if an acorn is no good?

How do you remove the tannins in order to make acorns edible?

What’s the best way to prepare acorns to eat?

And much more!

Nothing brings me greater joy than teaching others how to make use of the common wild foods found all around us throughout the seasons.

I truly believe that sharing the knowledge of how to eat acorns is one of the most valuable things that I can do with my time, and I hope that this audio tutorial will turn you into an evangelist for the cause, too.

This episode serves as a great example of the kind of tutoring I offer on a one-on-one basis through my Wild Food Mentorship — there’s still time to apply before the October 31 deadline, but spots are filling up quickly! Be sure to submit an application here if you are interested.

Stream and download episode 70 at the top of the page, or listen through iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play! Don’t forget to subscribe!

Score a free audiobook today when you sign up for Libro.fm using my referral link!

All music was created by Sam Sycamore, and can be downloaded by subscribers at any level over on Patreon. If you’d prefer to offer a one-time financial contribution, you can do so through PayPal. This show is made possible by listeners like you.

Luke McLaughlin doesn’t want to teach you wilderness survival skills. He wants to guide you through the process of remembering your ancestral human nature.

Make no mistake — though he’ll tell you that the technology typically amounts to little more than “playing with bones and stones,” these rhythms and motions that our ancestors honed across countless millennia can show us what it really means to be a human animal — an integral participant in the ecological unfolding of a place.

The beauty of this practice lies in its immediacy, and its universal applicability: whether your local jungle is composed primarily of plants or concrete, these primal living skills are accessible to all of us.

For episode 71 of the Good Life Revival Podcast, I caught up with Luke to discuss his recent transition from rural woodland living to the mean city streets of Asheville, North Carolina.

What does it mean to be a primitive skills instructor in the heart of the city? Though Luke’s work these days is primarily focused on the hard skills, he also brings to the table many years of experience in wilderness therapy, so he knows how potent wildcrafting can be as a tool for emotional and spiritual self-improvement.

The main thread running through our conversation is the art of “inner tracking” — the mental and emotional skillset required to navigate through our own conscious experiences in a world that’s fundamentally misaligned with our animal nature.

It’s always a pleasure to hear from Luke, and I really enjoyed our “cross-pollination” here, to borrow from his vocabulary.

Stream and download episode 71 at the top of the page, or listen through iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play! Don’t forget to subscribe!

NEW! To hear my final thoughts on our conversation, check out this bonus podcast episode exclusively for Patreon subscribers:

71.5 - A Self That Touches All Edges

To learn more about Holistic Survival School and Luke’s immersive Deep Remembering program, click here.

Check out my photo tutorial on eating acorns right here.

Score a free audiobook today when you sign up for Libro.fm using my referral link!

All music was created by Sam Sycamore, and can be downloaded by subscribers at any level over on Patreon. If you’d prefer to offer a one-time financial contribution, you can do so through PayPal. This show is made possible by listeners like you.

What are you doing with your life?

What are you trying to accomplish? Where is this all going?

Do you even have a goal?

Do you have a retirement plan? Do you have a savings account? What happens when you get sick? What are you going to do when your truck breaks down on the side of the road?

When are you going to become a productive member of society?

Listen to Microphones in 2020 by The Microphones (Phil Elverum).