This week's podcast episode is a real treat. We've got the fantastic Jenna Beatrice with us, an herbalist permie with a great message to share. There were so many profound things mentioned in the episode, here we'll be taking a closer look at a few of the ideas brought up. But before we get started, if you'd like to get in touch with or learn more about Jenna, here are some resources for you!

Her website... WildDandelion.co 

And she's very active on her LinkedIn Profile.

Revisiting the Three Ethics

One of the brilliant ways this conversation starts out is Jenna leading the discussion over to revisit the three ethics. We have Earth Care, one of the more common areas we find permies, rehabilitating the land and healing the soil. Next comes People Care, which is deeper than is seems. Not only does People Care include caring for those around us, but it also includes caring for ourselves, which would make sense considering the fact that we need to take care of ourselves in order to...

And we're back again for the next World Report, this time focusing on Fair Share/Future Care. This comes at an interesting time in the world - we are still in the thralls of COVID-19, though politicians are planning to slowly open things back up. We're all looking to each other and to the future to try to figure out what our new "normal" will look like. But at the same time, the global environmental issues we were facing before the pandemic aren't going away anytime soon either. 

Last week we watched a documentary called The Need to Grow. It provided an in-depth look at the state of the world, and followed the stories of a few passionate movers and shakers trying to really help change the way we do things. One of the scariest statistics we encountered in the documentary was that the earth only has 60 years of top soil left if we keep food production going the way that it is. 

Sixty years.

Our oldest son will be 68, our daughters 66 and 64, and our little guy 62. This...

As we start winding up for next week's World Report revolving around Fair Share/Future Care, it seemed only fitting to share clips from another conversation we had with last week's guest, Kevin Cormack. We had some amazing conversations with Kevin, both of us are really passionate about being lifelong learners. What we really wanted to do here was to examine the education avenues available and ask good questions about those avenues.

While this story definitely wasn't a normal episode, we hope that it opened up the conversation so that we can get more eyes really looking at the situation with education so that we can find a more regenerative solution.

In your opinion, what is the most valuable education out there to learn?

What are the drawbacks to that?

Is there another route you can take to not deal with those drawbacks?

We've spent years in the learning space, in the beginning we relied a lot on books and YouTube videos. Then we went up to Montana believing...

Welcome back! This week on the Seeds of Tao Podcast we have the world-traveler, Kevin Cormack, here to share his fantastic story of his adventures in finding himself and becoming who he was meant to be. This is a journey all of us face in our lives, some more than others, and a big takeaway from this podcast was really to go after your passions wholeheartedly. 

Making the Decision

In Kevin’s interview, he brings up some really common struggles that he was faced with when he was younger, including finding out who he was and what he wanted out of life. We hear this all too often. Teenagers will spend their adolescent years trying to “find” themselves, most of the time trying to be what other people expect out of them. But even then, it’s extremely common for adults in their 20’s and 30’s to finish college and get a job, only to find out that’s not what they really want to be doing. Sometimes we even hear of the older adult who just...

Hello again everyone, we’re glad to see you here again for another episode of the Seeds of Tao Podcast, we’re on Episode 032 and today we have a very special guest, Marie-Pierre Bilodeau. A big theme that came up in MP's interview is that food is this amazing, universal connecting agent. Everyone is involved with food in some capacity, whether they are a connoisseur, chef, cook of the family, or mere eater of food. Food connects us to our earth, to our families, to our communities, and to our world. Here in this blog post we’re going to dive into those connections, but first some amazing resources from Marie-Pierre...

https://www.communityseednetwork.org - This is a North American
initiative and people can find seed libraries and individuals in their
communities in Canada and the US. 

https://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/wendell-berry-pleasures-eating -
This is a copy of the wonderful essay by Wendell Berry farmer, activist, writer who also...

Here we are at Episode 031 of the Seeds of Tao Podcast. Josh is back for the World Report, focusing on People Care this month. What a fantastic time to air this episode with the global pandemic going on. People Care should be the topmost priority right now. To start the blog post I’d love to quote the fantastic David Holmgren, he says that Care for People, “means accepting personally responsibility for our situation as far as possible, rather than regarding external forces or influences as controlling our lives. The permaculture approach is to focus on the positive influences and opportunities that exist even in the most desperate situation.”

Care of the People

Caring for the people does not mean jumping off our couch and going off to save humanity. Effective people care starts with the self. The healthcare professionals right now around the world are not racing into hospitals to save every patient with COVID-19 without thought of their own safety. They know,...

This week on the Seeds of Tao podcast we have Natalie Hormann from New Zealand with us. In the episode, Natalie shares her amazing story from growing up in Germany, to living through Chernobyl fallout, moving to New Zealand, and transferring careers from law to community education to personal development coaching. One big idea we really latched on to when listening to the episode was the value of mentors in our lives. No matter where you are, no matter what line of work you are in, everyone needs a mentor.

If you'd like to get in touch with Natalie, you can check out her website at www.futurelivingcoach.com or on Facebook, on her page or in her free Facebook Group.

Our Lives Were Changed by a Mentor

A couple of years ago, Josh and I were introduced to personal development through mentorship by recommendation of a friend. We went to an event that was going to help us focus on our marriage. I personally wasn’t so sure about it. Yes, Josh and I weren't very...

This week on the Seeds of Tao podcast for Episode 029 we are talking with Jim Gale, designer at FUUD Forest Abundance in Florida. He is an amazing source of enthusiasm and a true permaculture visionary. We love visionaries here at Seeds of Tao, they are our people. 

Get involved with Jim https://www.foodforestabundance.com/ or on his Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/FoodForestAbundance/.

Here in the blog post we’ll be discussing the elements of maintaining enthusiasm for your vision, like Jim outlines, and then wrapping it around staying true to your vision, even if you live in the suburbs.

If you have been hanging out with us for a while now, you’ll remember back in Episode 011 where we talked about how important dreams and visions are. We are avid believers in dreaming big, creating the big visions you’re truly passionate about and then going after them.

Envision What You Want

One of the first steps in working towards a vision is...

Raising our Voices for Intentional Communities and Ecovillages

We are so excited to share this episode with you today. Morag Gamble and Michael Ney are such amazing sources of knowledge and experience, it was a pleasure to have them on the podcast. If you’d like to learn more …

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Morag Gamble (https://moraggamble.com) is a global permaculture and ecovillage ambassador who has lived for over 2 decades in Crystal Waters Permaculture Village, a UN award-winning ecovillage in Australia. Since the early nineties she’s educated permaculture teachers and leaders on 6 continents, founded the Permaculture Education Institute (https://permacultureeducationinstitute.org/) and mentors women, youth and local farmers through her permaculture charity, Ethos Foundation (http://ethosfoundation.org.au/), and the new Permayouth (https://permayouth.org/)...

Gardening, Micro-Farming, and the Australian Fires

This week on the podcast we have our first Aussie guest, Marty Ware. In the interview he brings up the importance of and strategies for gardening and micro-farming, as well as the state of the Australian fires recovery. For this week’s post, we wanted to dive deeper into micro-farming and how that fits into a sustainable or permaculture-aligned lifestyle.

What is Micro-Farming?

A micro-farm is any agricultural infrastructure that is on 5 acres or less. So yes, your 1 acre food forest would technically be considered a micro-farm. But these micro-farms come in many shapes and sizes. Micro-farms typically focus on fewer kinds of crops to produce those select few in bulk and then sell, things like garlic, tomatoes, herbs, micro greens, or lettuce. 

For many people venturing into micro-farming, they do so for economic reasons in order to sell the produce for a profit to local restaurants, specialty markets...