My Warm Table ... with Sonia
My Warm Table ... with Sonia
Breathing Life Back into Our Lands with Anthony James
Ever wondered why mainstream agriculture seems so destructive? Picture a grandfather and his grandson pondering the question of why growing crops often involves killing. This profound moment sets the stage for a transformative conversation with Anthony James, the host of the Regeneration podcast, and a fifth-generation Western Australian. Together, we explore how regenerative agriculture is breathing life back into our lands, bringing forth a resurgence in biodiversity and natural water sources. Anthony shares compelling stories of farmers who have radically altered their methods, resulting in healthier ecosystems and communities.
Warm thanks to:
Sponsor: Females Over Forty-five Fitness in Victoria Park
Sound Engineering: Damon Sutton
Music: William A Spence
... and all our generous and inspiring guests around the warm table this season!
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My Warm Table, translated into Italian is Tavola Calda. These were the words my Papa used to describe a table of good friends, good food and good conversation. I always aim to create a tavola calda in my life and I hope this podcast encourages you to do so too!
And his grandson one day, when they were just driving around the district said Grandpa, why do we have to kill stuff to grow stuff?
Speaker 1:And that was a profound moment for him and many others who since heard it, because it was like why do we? The idea is that you've got to make a clean field right and spray every kill it all, which of course means you're killing what we're learning more about the microbiome and the mycorrhizal network underneath their soil and or in the soil and all this sort of stuff. So essentially it's getting away from that and saying let's create life across the board and then make our agriculture fit that, and then what many people are finding is that that's making their agriculture better. They're being uplifted by species returning en masse, trees planting themselves, rivers running again and clear so you can drink out of them, let alone the stock, and that's big.
Speaker 3:Thanks for joining me, sonia Nolan, around the warm table, or the tavola calda as my Italian papa used to call a welcoming table of acceptance, positivity and curiosity. My Warm Table podcast aims to create that and more, as we amplify stories of Western Australians, making our communities better. My Warm Table, season 3, is proud to be sponsored by Females Over 45 Fitness, with a studio in Victoria Park and also online all over Australia. So now please take a seat and join us for Season 3 as we explore stories of hope.
Speaker 3:Anthony James is my guest around the warm table today. He describes himself as a fifth-generation Western Australian man living on ancient lands amongst the oldest continuous cultures on earth. In fact, his work celebrates and strives to learn from Indigenous practices and deep understanding of the land. He is the creator and host of the Regeneration podcast, a weekly podcast which shares the stories of farmers across Australia challenging traditional farming techniques in favour of regenerative agriculture. Anthony is a Prime Ministerial Award winner for service to the international community.
Speaker 3:He is a sought-after MC, facilitator and educator, a widely published writer, honorary research fellow at the University of Western Australia and a Warm Data Lab host certified by the International Bateson Institute, and we'll find out about what that actually means a bit later on. I know I'm going to learn a lot from Anthony today, just as I did several months ago when we first crossed paths and I immediately fell into deep conversation with him. I knew that I wanted to know more about what Anthony does and to amplify the amazing work he's doing, to educate and inspire us to rethink the systems surrounding us which are driving our overconsumption of land, resources and life. Welcome to the warm table, anthony.
Speaker 1:Oh, right back at you, Sonia. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:It's absolutely a pleasure and, like I said, you know, when we first met a few months ago, from my point of view, we just had this very deep instant conversation and connection about all things that are just real in the world and I just thought what an authentic human. So I had to have you around the warm table.
Speaker 1:No, I couldn't be happy to be around the warm table. In fact, I think what you're doing with this and your theme for this season couldn't be more timely. So it's kudos to you. And yeah, I felt the same way on meeting. So, yeah, again, couldn't be happier to be with you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Pleasure pleasure. So I want to start with a quote from one of your mentors, gregory Bateson, from the International Bateson Institute, which we're going to talk about a little bit more. But he said the major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think. I found that really profound as I was reading that, and I really am curious to understand what you think of that quote and what that inspires for you.
Speaker 1:It's a beauty, isn't it? And there's so many ways we could spin off from that. It certainly talks about our ways of knowing and the limitations of the reduction of scientific method, but also the brilliance of it. Right, but that it's only ever partial. But I want to come at this from another perspective, and it relates to hope, sort of your theme for this season.
Speaker 1:That, if you asked me what I feel like, is the essence of hope. In fact, the essence of life. It is that life's impulse, its evolutionary impulse, is inherently regenerative. So the way nature works is for life and life enhancing, and always looking to do that, to survive in the first instance, and then to regenerate and prosper. This is universal, this is the way it works, and in that sense, if we are not regenerative as a culture or even in our own lives, that falls into that dichotomy that Gregory is trying to articulate. We've got stuck or habituated in ways of thinking and acting that don't play by the flow of nature's inherently regenerative impulse. But that says, if the rules of the game are oriented towards life and regeneration, then all we have to do, you know, all we have to do All we have to do.
Speaker 1:You know all we have to do, All we have to do, yes, In fact there's a beautiful quote from Lundig is learn how to fit in, yeah, and it takes the pressure off then, because it's not like we have to fix anything, we've just got to get with the program. Go with the flow, go with the flow.
Speaker 3:Literally right Almost literally yeah, yeah, go with the flow, go with the flow.
Speaker 1:Literally right, always literally yeah yeah, and it is true to say that when I've seen it around the country, as you say, and spoken with people around the world that you do see how much the wind is at our backs in that way that when we take the idea of control out of it and get bigger picture, it is extraordinary. You could all often and some people have put the word magic on it Indigenous and non-Indigenous because of what. You're surprised by that. What nature produces is far beyond what you planned and often could even have imagined, and doesn't that say something? I mean, it's almost like our wildest dreams of what could be in the positive sense are probably undersold, in all probability, if we are learning how to fit in and play by the rules.
Speaker 3:That's such a hopeful message, isn't it? That's huge.
Speaker 1:It's huge. It's huge because it takes the pressure off. It means you don't have to fix anything, you don't have to become anything different, you're inherently of this nature. And then you start to see the dichotomy Gregory's referring to right, because certainly in the church I was brought up in, you're inherently a sinner. I'm talking about Catholicism and I'm not dissing it, though right, really, for anyone who finds meaning in that, that's great. Indeed, a lot of the teachings in the church and churches are all about this in essence. And then the institutionalising runs aground in some ways, and sometimes and that's where the control comes in right.
Speaker 3:The minute we institutionalise something or we allise, you put eyes at the end of something. You know you're really trying to control it or trying to build a framework that becomes pretty rigid or can do. Or can do.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have to If you don't have the systems to, but this applies across the board, right yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah, this is for even us as individuals, you could use those very same words and apply it to and this has certainly been my practice for a couple of decades, since I was fortunate enough to meet the bloke who introduced me to that bloke and Gregory, and my good fortune in life to have been visited with this sort of a gift of a different perspective. But yeah, having been brought up in that church, you were certainly inherently a sinner. You talked about don't being rigid. I was kicked out of home at 15 for being blasphemous. Oh, truly.
Speaker 1:Dad and I got along. In the end we came around. So I feel like I can say that all the more now that he has passed, but that doesn't slight him. I don't think he's got his own. In context, that made sense of that which I've been able to discover since and understand more about.
Speaker 3:And isn't that a gift? As we age and we get older and we perhaps are at an age of our parents, were at a time when they said something or made a choice that we didn't understand. Our younger selves didn't understand it, but I'm certainly finding myself very much in the shoes of my family, my parents now, just sort of thinking oh, I actually understand them so much more deeply than I did as a young person 100% and, if anything, it makes me feel compassion for what made sense of dad's actions in that case, for example.
Speaker 3:Definitely very hard.
Speaker 1:I mean boarding school, from the age of four, you know, during the war, and with a brutal modality in that setting which again we've learned too much about since. But all that, and in a sense then you know, I think in my own life, if only for some guidance in those times. I think for me, sure, but wow, if only for some guidance for him. But then can more of us break those circuits and be there for each other in these ways now?
Speaker 3:Which is compassionate and empathic.
Speaker 1:It's the warm table.
Speaker 3:It is the warm table. It is the warm table. It is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, that's great. I can just feel it in my bones, anthony, we're going to go down all sorts of fabulous rabbit warrens with our conversation today, which is just so perfect, so perfect. But I need to just sort of unpick. What is a warm data lab host certified by the International Bateson Institute? I don't even know if I've said that correctly. So what is a warm data lab host certified by the International Bateson Institute? I don't even know if I've said that correctly. So what is?
Speaker 1:that what are?
Speaker 3:you Thanks for bringing it up.
Speaker 1:So it was obviously created after Gregory, who became known in many circles as the father of general systems theory. And what gets talked about increasingly thankfully because it wasn't 20 years ago, but now it is systems theory, right, and what gets talked about increasingly thankfully because it wasn't 20 years ago, but now it is systems thinking. I hesitate, though, because, while it's talked about more, like most things, hey, until we really fill it with the substance and really grasp that we're using the language, but it's not being filled with the depth from where it came. Right. So we're still on that journey. I'm still on that journey. So that is to say that a lot of the talk about systems thinking these days would not touch what Gregory yeah, what Gregory was meaning. So my hope is that we will, as a culture certainly, and me and others individually, keep on that task of learning how to think in the sorts of ways that are being articulated by Gregory in that quote.
Speaker 3:It's really hard that whole concept of systems thinking. This is a conversation I've had with a lot of my colleagues and friends right Sort of the idea of being a systems thinker. You know, colleagues, and friends right.
Speaker 3:Sort of the idea of being a systems thinker, you know, because often we come from a very defined mode of operating and therefore we make all of our assessments and decisions through that paradigm. But to actually be a systems thinker you've really got to. I mean I've heard people talk about you've got to get on the. You've really got to. I mean I've heard people talk about you've got to get on the balcony and you've got to look over everything. But I think you need to get higher than the balcony. In fact, you've really got to just see how every single factor operates within that dynamic.
Speaker 3:And it's really hard to have that brain that actually allows you to see that. And when, sometimes, organisations operate in silos, you hear that a lot and people are not talking, collaborating or, as we were saying earlier, as we were making our cup of tea. People aren't curious enough, they're not asking the questions or even wanting to open up discussions, which then allow them to maybe understand another tiny factor of the system a little bit better.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what came out of your particular experience with some organizations, right, and that is where we end up thinking differently to how nature works.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But if you keep open to the way nature works, which you know, this comes back to the way you described systems thinking as being to get across everything. I think it's more. Don't worry about getting across everything because you can't. You're in it, so sure, get on the balcony, but then the theatre's around the balcony. Sure, you want to get on the roof balcony, but then the theatre's around the balcony. Sure, you want to get on the roof. Well then, the city's around the roof. So where does it end? And this comes back to. You said warm data. So Gregory's daughter, nora Bateson, who's just released an amazing book, by the way hopefully she'll be on my podcast again soon. She was the most popular episode for years when she was on the first time. It's called Combining, and so she created this thing Warm Data as a sort of a distinction from Big Data. Okay, yes.
Speaker 1:This was putting warm blood, the warm table, back in data, back in information exchange.
Speaker 3:Is it more?
Speaker 1:qualitative. It's even more than that. Yeah, it's an interweaving. So she would go so far as to say you know, we can talk in systems terms like nature's so interconnected. She would say no, it's not. It's more than that, because interconnection still implies parts you can pull apart and put back, you can engineer.
Speaker 3:Right, you can be like a Meccano set.
Speaker 1:Exactly Right. So you're back to the mechanistic, reductionist worldview? Yes, even though you think you're being holistic.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is a hint of how it can persist when you come out of this culture?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's cool because, again, we're not dis-mechanistic thinking. It created amazing things. So what if we harness the best of that but be able to transcend it, see it in context, marry it with the way nature works and then you know, see what we can do. So Nora's got this exercise in Warm Data Labs where you would explore a given theme from a range of different perspectives.
Speaker 1:Given theme from a range of different perspectives. So you might look at food, and then there'll be a group that's approaching it through a family lens, there'll be a group that's approaching it through an agriculture lens, there'll be a group from an economics lens, a legal lens, I mean, you could go on, but you pick some and there are a bunch of these hosts, like me not that I'm doing it, but others are in Perth and this is how the workshop runs. So you really get to come to see all sorts of different perspectives. Ingredients, if you will, for the metaphor Nora prefers to use to describe nature, and that is as a soup. Uh-huh, because try to take the pepper out, yeah, and you can't you can't.
Speaker 1:You can't. So as soon as you do it's dead, mm-hmm. And not to say, don't do that, so science might do that, we might do that in our own lives. One problem for now, thanks. Or you know, I've got a podcast to get out, like whatever. That's okay to have the micro, but realise you're in the micro and if things start to go wrong or feel bad or you come up against dead ends, then go okay, this isn't reality. Let me get on the balcony and maybe in the roof and maybe I'll go further. Let me pan out or shift contexts even, and see what it looks like from there and put a different picture together.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's so fascinating.
Speaker 1:It is hey.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so have you done? Or you said you're not hosting at the moment any of these sort of warm data experiences, but have you done some in the past?
Speaker 1:I did some when we were training and then I've run you know sort of mini discussions in groups with this in mind, but for me, then, in a way it was a shame that my path has just led elsewhere.
Speaker 3:But I guess you're using some of the tools and the context that you learn.
Speaker 2:Exactly. That's the thing.
Speaker 3:That's the beauty of things you don't have to be a purist practitioner in something. But that's what I find exciting about a non-linear career is that you take so many ideas and tools and then you end up with this pretty amazing suite of experiences and knowledge that you can then layer into something else 100% If we're going to talk about connecting with each other in new ways.
Speaker 1:And you, you know you were talking about those organisations not being curious enough because they were after solutions to particular things. And you were saying, well, I'm not going to bring the solutions to the tail, but I know a process or two that could help us arrive at some. And that was like, oh, we're after solutions, see you later type thing.
Speaker 1:But what if the reason we haven't got solutions as an organisation is because the processes we're running are leading the same sorts of ways of thinking that are coming at Cropper yeah, with substance and genuinely find our ways out of some of these predicaments, then this is what it means, I think, and in that sense you're absolutely right. Whatever I learned there and with you today and everywhere else, can play a part in that picture. Constant learning, in a way. That's how I feel about the podcast. I think you do too about yours. It's essentially learning and sharing.
Speaker 1:That's almost as straightforward as it is, and in that sense it's not just about farming in my case either. Right, it became a cornerstone of it because, for a number of reasons really, because we set out around the country. That's where it started setting out around the country to get to know Australia for the first time. Really, I'd travelled it, but I hadn't travelled it through its people, much less the people who were managing our national estate, and that's the majority of the Australian estate is actually in agriculture. So I've been visiting these places to get to know about that and I've come to know them, and some of them are now my best friends, which is hard to believe. It's amazing how the gifts.
Speaker 1:You know it just keeps giving you shift context and yeah, life's regenerative impulse it keeps giving and of course our lives have changed a bit since, but it doesn't end there.
Speaker 1:So you know, for example, this week I've got a woman on who's in Canberra working on what we talked about when we met, deliberative processes. So she's a professor in deliberative democracy out of Uni of Canberra, unia Canberra, and she's one of the key people involved in researching and communicating about citizens' assemblies and all these sorts of things, the things that increasingly governments local, national and now even global are instituting to get us through our impasses. Because by their nature, a bit like a jury, they draw people together in that sort of random fashion but representative fashion of society, and then you're charged with a slow, deliberative process. And Mexico, where this was true and the guest was Jeff Goebel I had on the podcast at the end of last year and after only three days, in that instance it came out with peace and transformation and resolution that they've gone on with. So and that's to say, you know it doesn't always do that, but it mostly does, and what the how is that?
Speaker 3:Well, this is the power of coming in with an open mind and an open heart, isn't it? And actually really wanting to understand the other person's point of view.
Speaker 1:And a process.
Speaker 1:And a process, yes, with deft facilitation, so it still doesn't fall off trees. But this is some of the stuff that is being done is working. We could do more. So on the podcast, I speak to people like that too right, because ultimately it's how do we thread economic transformation, cultural transformation, political transformation in that too right, because ultimately it's how do we thread economic transformation, cultural transformation, political transformation in that sense. But also, we might say, through the independence movement which we talked about too obviously. And, yes, agricultural transformation, because if we don't have functioning country, we've got nothing, and if we don't have connection with First Nations in that respect, we've got nothing. But then within that, the majority of the national state and global for that matter is in agriculture. So that's obviously pretty fundamental and important as a baseline. But then how do the rest of our systems connect with that and make a whole that works as nature works?
Speaker 3:to come back to our anchor point, yeah, there's so many questions in that aren't there. There are there's so many questions in that aren't there. There are there's so many questions in that.
Speaker 1:But if your theme is hope, yes, I mean far out, yeah, and this is relevant, right, because I was thinking about this coming in, I probably at the I don't know when it was, maybe maybe even when we met, I was thinking I guess I'd got in a habit of thinking I don't want to be Pollyanna-ish about this stuff. You know Poor, yeah, keep in touch with the dark side, and I was. You know you don't have to go far. The default is degenerative.
Speaker 3:It's very easy to become cynical right when you can look around and you can see examples. It's very easy to sort of spiral into that space.
Speaker 1:And related places of like overwhelm or anxiety or yeah, which is just other forms of isolation too. Right, it's not connecting. But yeah, I was checking myself on this front and then I found myself at a point early this year not just with the stories I was covering, but others I'm like, no, actually, no, it is absolutely hands down on fire right now. Perhaps not the right metaphor, not the right metaphor, not the right metaphor.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I'll go on with the mycelial network metaphor. That's always a good one to fall back on. There's so much to say about the mycelial network. When we're talking about speed, scale of change or quite all that sort of thing, this tends to be a very apt metaphor. So the way fungal networks work essentially, and the more we learn about that, the more this metaphor holds. And the more we learn about that, the more this metaphor holds. So that network is absolutely pumping and spreading, but of course it's on the ground, so it's not obvious. The mainstream media is not picking it up, but they still don't even understand. When they do, something does happen, like the independents coming to parliament. Media still, by and large, does not understand what's happening. They cannot see more of it coming down the line, even though it's just happened again in Tasmania.
Speaker 3:It's a whole other conversation.
Speaker 1:A whole other conversation.
Speaker 3:That I will probably spiral into cynicism on right.
Speaker 1:Well, let's okay. Good, this is our case, right? This is our case study. You could go there, Yep, but let's take that example. It's happening anyway. So what is driving that? What is connecting these things up? It's some other channel, it's another domain in systems talk, you know. That's why it was general systems theory. You can shift domain and it will make sense across the board. And that's where you know you can find ways through particular issues when you can pan back, get general, find principles of nature, quote unquote that are applying as a whole, and jump on that wagon. And so, yeah, I actually checked myself this year in the other ways. Actually, you're looking too hard for the dark. It's like I started to try and find holes in it, and you know it's important to be balanced. We don't hide from the shadow in the podcast either, but it is coming up everywhere and it's way beyond in keeping with our topic people's control. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's way beyond organising it, planning it and even in many cases, like I said before, imagining it, it is coming up everywhere. So I'm in this position now where I just sort of keep humble with it, play your role. But I'm in no doubt and it doesn't say which way it's going to pan out, but I'm in no doubt, there is major transformation afoot, potentially of a very positive nature. But what I will say is it's time for the cavalry to arrive. This needs all of us now, or at least bloody well most, to just even try. Well, get curious, try something new, and I'm talking about myself, I'm talking about everyone. Try something else now. Let's just take a very concrete example of what started the independence movement. So what predated Cathy McGowan running in Indi and winning, and then winning again, and Helen Haynes winning, and then seven other women winning. What predated that? Do you know? What instigated the whole shebang? Seven?
Speaker 3:other women winning and what predated that. Do you know what instigated the whole shebang? What I do know about Cathy McGowan is that she sat around and had a lot of warm table conversations around people's kitchens.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yep, there's a lot of that. And then what triggered that was one phone call, one Saturday night, from a bunch of what they called the Indi expats young kids, her nephew, I think it was with friends saying we still believe in our home but we can't be there because there's no opportunities or whatever. What if something was to change politically? And she said, yeah, what if I'll help you?
Speaker 3:Such a powerful question what if? Isn't it? It is. You know, people can diss that question and say, well, that's not reality and you just need to work with what you've got. But I just think that the what if? Question is a really powerful one.
Speaker 1:We talk about the processes. With a process, it's amazing what can happen. Yeah, jeff Goebel's process that led to that situation in New Mexico that's, you can hear about it in his episode, of course. What if? Is a central part of that, Because they get to a point where everybody's saying, oh yeah, the good stuff, that'd be good, but it's impossible. And so the framing he brought next was okay, yeah, given it's impossible. If it wasn't, what would you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah and that opened the whole.
Speaker 1:Imagine, get curious and what would you do? Yeah, and I guess if I just follow that thread through a step further, I maybe come back first to say remember, it was just a phone call first. Right, so you know we can get thinking big and systemic and data, but it was just one phone call that said what if, and, and the rest is history in 10 short years, let alone what might come in 10 more, and I think it is, if more of us jump in. But anyway, we could come further out, if you like, to where you were describing systems thinking at the outset, and the other thing I wanted to say about that is that's actually where systems thinking can get lost, because you get so abstract, you're so detached from community and land country that you're just in intellectual fantasy land and because you're trying to make sense of it.
Speaker 3:because you're trying to make sense of something that just is Exactly 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that can be really helpful, but my old mentor used to talk about being a bit of a dance you try and be always connecting back to ground and place, but not staying there either. Right, so connecting them both, because if you were just in the micro, then yeah on, yeah on, you go Groundhog Day. But if you're in the macro and the micro, which again is, ancient cultures all over the world made practice of this sky, country, land, country, et cetera, and it was all connected through performance and story. You start to see the threads then, with even the value of doing podcasts like this.
Speaker 3:I think and telling stories and connecting. Yeah, so true.
Speaker 1:But to not stay in the abstract, not stay in the ground but not stay in the abstract to marry them up or dance between them or however you like to think about it. But I think that's really important and you know, the independence movement again came from that people getting involved in ways they'd never been involved. People standing to be MPs They'd never dreamed of doing it yes, and people actually doing very mundane things like putting signs up in the streets and whatever. Same thing with the farmers. They're just deciding to do it. And my guest out this week is a young farmer, a millennial, who'd left, like most of them do, and ended up back by accident and then by accident quote, quote, unquote ended up staying. He wrote a book about it, called my Father and Other Animals, which won the Prime Minister's Literary Award last year. It's extraordinary, some of the stuff that's going on, but again connecting back to ground.
Speaker 3:So tell me about the I mean, the Regeneration podcast is all about speaking with, as you've said, you know people on the land and that they're doing things that are different, and so they're. You know, as I said earlier, they're sort of challenging traditional farming, and when I say traditional farming, I'm thinking of the last couple of hundred years, when we get industrial farming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I was reading of the last couple of hundred years when we get to industrial farming.
Speaker 3:So I was reading something along the lines of that. One of the worst things we ever did was plough our field.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which, of course, was 10,000 years ago.
Speaker 3:It was the origins of agriculture, which was a long time ago, right, or?
Speaker 1:origins of Western agriculture. I should say that's right, exactly, yeah, where there's so many caveats aren't there.
Speaker 3:We need to be really clear. But the regenerative farmers what are they doing? That is challenging the industrialised farming techniques? I mean, there's probably a thousand things they're doing but in essence, what is it that they're doing?
Speaker 1:It's where we started. It's getting in touch with life's regenerative impulse. They are essentially another way to put it would be. Paul Hawken in his book Regeneration said it's putting life at the centre of every act and decision, which again sounds sort of mundane. But if you really think about doing that, it's like what if we did that with our economy? And this is some of the transformation going on there too, right? So that's essentially what they're doing there too, right? So that's essentially what they're doing. So another way to say it might be the grandson of the guy who's become known as a bit of the godfather of regenerative agriculture, charles massey oh yes, I was watching his ted talk the other day fascinating he's.
Speaker 1:On australian story too, by the way.
Speaker 3:I did see that too.
Speaker 1:I did see that too, yeah fascinating bloke wrote call of the reed warbler, which has become legendary just in the last five years, telling the biggest story about this stuff. And his grandson one day, when they were just driving around the district, said Grandpa, why do we have to kill stuff to grow stuff? And that was a profound moment for him and many others who since heard it, because it was like why do we? The idea is that you've got to make a clean field right and spray every kill it all, which of course means you're killing what we're learning more about, the microbiome and the mycorrhizal network underneath the soil or in the soil and all this sort of stuff. So essentially, it's getting away from that and saying let's create life across the board and then make our agriculture fit that.
Speaker 1:And then what many people are finding is that that's making their agriculture better because they're no longer having to stump up the enormous and rising costs of inputs, they're not living in a misery of chemical poisoning and so forth, which is rampant, by the way. My God, the things we take as normal these days that's one of them they're being uplifted by species returning en masse, trees planting themselves. Yeah, rivers running again. Rivers running again and clear so you can drink out of them, let alone the stock, and that's big right, because our biggest river system again the things we normalize, it's, it's dying on the vine and and there's there's a thing called a motor neuron disease. Alley, really I heard you.
Speaker 3:I heard that podcast about that. That was really quite frightening, wasn't it I?
Speaker 1:feel like screaming this from the rooftops, not that I want to scare people necessarily but just recap on that for people who haven't listened to that.
Speaker 1:So this is akin to other areas in the world, like Cancer Alley, sadly named at the bottom of the Mississippi in the States, because all the runoff comes in, the chemical runoff from the field, which, by the way, is most of the chemical that's applied comes off and into the water, and that's what's been causing havoc with the Barrier Reef here in Australia too. So all these patterns from industrial ag in the Darling, in the Barker River, it's got so concentrated now that we're starting to see the instance of motor neuron disease spike to currently seven times the national average. And there's a couple of doctors and professors who are looking at the causes. Most people, bless them, seem to be scrambling to how do we treat it, you know, which is important too, but we've got to be getting at the causes of these things if we can, and particularly when we're causing the causes and so could uncause them. Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so these are some of the diabolical levels of consequences we will continue to see until more of us can back in the systems that are there, that have been pioneered for decades, that of course pre-existed in many respects on this continent, pre-colonial times too, to bring all these together and back them in in every way we possibly can. You know the food we buy, the water policies that our MPs set. In every way we possibly can, the stories we tell. It's so important right now because, while I feel incredibly hopeful, um, it's so important right now because, while I feel incredibly hopeful, I also can see the possibility of things going backwards. No-transcript Will they persist if we don't have more come in next time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can see it going the other way, because it's a pretty lonely voice, sometimes Exactly, it's still marginal, even though it's coming up everywhere.
Speaker 3:It needs tending and it needs backing everywhere it needs tending and it needs backing. So yeah, because it's really saying a lot about what we've come to know as comfortable and it's really difficult to try and ask people to move into a space of discomfort and personal potentially personal cost as well.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent and you know, it's all well and good to be able to and important, I think, to share stories of where those costs end up being so outweighed by gains you know which is time and time and again and we probably all of us probably know it in one way or another from our own lives when we do the hard yards to get somewhere new, the gain's far outweighed.
Speaker 1:It's like oh, why did I take so long? Quite often, you know. So I like to think we're in that sort of a similar position now. But it's also why we need these skilled processes and support and then just to come together. And for gutsy people like mutual friend Kate Cheney, who won in Curtin, to do that.
Speaker 3:We both had her on our podcast, because it's an incredible story.
Speaker 1:She's incredible From a standing start. This person wins a seat that you wouldn't dream. You know, 70 years conservatively held that Curtin would do that, but it's because people got stuck in who never had before. So I think that it's almost the analogy for the whole shebang right now, I think, is to come together for each other in these ways and knowing that, for all the difficulty in change, the rewards are just. You know, yeah, you'd never have imagined.
Speaker 3:So let's talk about you, anthony, because you are a font of knowledge and clearly you know, have led these conversations and amplified these conversations around Australia now and, in fact, internationally. You've played your part internationally as well and we'll talk about that in a little while. But you've studied and taught sustainability. You've written thought-provoking articles on how we can reconsider and reduce our overconsumption, but where did you first learn about regenerative agriculture and where was your first sort of spark of interest in sustainability?
Speaker 1:Well, they're two different questions. Because I didn't. Did I even know a farmer? Oh yeah, I did, because my old mate and mentor, the first bloke, who introduced me to systems thinking in the year 2000.
Speaker 3:Which you know doesn't seem that long ago. Sorry, I'm that old now right To us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:It really doesn't seem that old.
Speaker 1:It's when we say 25 years, when you say the last millennial. Yeah, well, that's right.
Speaker 3:That's when I start to feel old.
Speaker 1:And I remember that. Well too there's a mate of mine, a regenerative farmer, again only met since I got into this stuff five years ago, jeff Powell down south. He said he's now got a bunch of young people working in his micro abattoir by the way Micro abattoir.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's like a little abattoir on site Does it extremely humanely.
Speaker 1:They don't have to get trucked anywhere.
Speaker 3:And it goes straight to people like us at the other end. And when you see the, and I was just watching a documentary on Netflix or something that was talking about, we Are what we Eat, and it was a I don't know if you saw it, Anthony. It was a comparison of identical twins, and one was put on a plant-based diet and one was put on a omnivore diet.
Speaker 3:And it was set in America and it was a real expose as well of the meat industry in America. And how awful I don't even have the words to describe it. So thinking about what I've seen on that show, and then the thought of a micro abattoir they're poles apart.
Speaker 1:They're poles apart. I'm so glad you said that this is true of the methane issue too. Right, when you've got regenerative systems that are tending life in a beautiful, inherently life-enhancing way, there's death. I mean, death is life, but you don't have to turn life into death in feedlots, and that is where most of the methane in agriculture comes from. Still, most of the methane, by the way, comes from fossil fuels period. So even to demonise agriculture is still a minor part of the methane story, which is so often missed still.
Speaker 1:But in agriculture it is that industrialised, inhumane form of doing things. That's the issue. So, really, if there's a dichotomy to be had, it's between the industrial methods period and the regenerative methods, whether it be meat or otherwise. In fact, I say the meat is plant-based. What are they eating? I mean, life is plant-based, that's where it all starts, and indeed grasslands are probably the key to the earth's systems and oceans, really. But that sort of should go without saying being most of the planet. But in that sense I'm not being funny or flippant, I really mean it and it's been part of my learning. I was vegetarian for a long time.
Speaker 3:I remember you saying that on one of your podcasts that you were a vegetarian for a long time and then changed.
Speaker 1:Well then, my early instance of this was shifting to so-called pest meat. I thought, well, maybe if we eat the pest meat, you know I'd had health difficulties. I Maybe, if we eat the pests mate, you know I'd had health difficulties. I was finding problems with being veg for so long and it got really bad for a bit. So I was experimenting with different things and different amounts of things and different food groups and landed on meat in part where I hadn't before. So that was my shift. And where was I going to get it? I thought I'll get it from pests and there was some wild harvest going on of animals that are destroying the place rabbits and boars and whatever and roost to a degree being in excess because of so much of the denuded lands we've set up for them, we rolled out the red carpet in excess.
Speaker 1:But, then, to get to your question, it was Charlie's book Call of the Rebobbler comes out. I have it put in my hand because it's all system thinking and metaphor right. It's all how we think, it's the lens we bring to the world. It's the Gregory Bateson line Married to Ag. I'm like holy cow, Okay.
Speaker 1:So I got straight on the phone. Someone wrote it especially for you. I know it was like that. I got straight on the phone and I said the next big event for me and this is part of where the podcast came from Tira, because I'd been running events for 10 years, largely out of Melbourne. They'd been getting bigger and bigger and better and better. Like I flippantly say, in 2009, there were 50 people and a couple of hecklers, and in 2018, with Charlie and the couple from Woolene Station up in the Murchison, it was 300 people in the standing room only and no hecklers. The quality of dialogue was outstanding, because I got it happening really interactively. That ended up, though, being the last event of that nature I held, because that's when we thought we've got to get out there and then went around the country and then people started listening. What do you know? So then I kept going and supporting the podcast, and then people started listening, Wadi and I.
Speaker 3:So then, I kept going and supporting the podcast.
Speaker 1:And then people started sending money, which they did to Waleen too right, they were almost done and dusted. The episode with them tells a story of they were bankrupt, the banks were calling and they were literally about to foreclose. And then Australian story aired and checks started pouring in the mail and they sort of jokingly say the banks weren't going to call again. They didn't call again. They didn't need to call again.
Speaker 1:The banks, they didn't need to, but also they weren't game hey, because there would have been an uproar. And I got similar, you know luck, in a sense that people started sending money and then I finally got my head together and set up a subscription platform and it's becoming a bit of a thing that I can do more of, but but yeah, just to that.
Speaker 1:That was the unexpected, I guess. A bit of a trajectory, but still an unexpected twist in the tail, which, again, it's just indicative, isn't it of, of, uh, not getting too hooked on who you think you are, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's a really good message, isn't it? It's a really good message. It has been for me. I tell you yeah. But sustainability was something that you were sort of really, you sort of framed your career around for a long time. Yes, yeah, yes.
Speaker 1:Not that I've ever used the word career, because I think maybe that's part of the non-linearity of our lives that you were alluding to before and that you're feeling now looking to get back into livelihood, into work of that nature, is that?
Speaker 1:I think, in fact, there's a line in one of my favourite films, into the Wild, where he says I'm not destitute. I think career is a 20th century invention, speaking of the last century 20th century invention, I just don't want one. I'm getting back in touch, you know, with the real world and so, yeah, I think I mean there's that saying, isn't there? The 40 years and a wristwatch at the end is sort of a bygone thing. So, yeah, I've never used the word, and I guess it was partly because I mean I did business systems on scholarship in uni but lost as all heck. I mean this was my hopeless time. So I know what dark looks like where you're even oblivious to options. There's just nothing, even though I'm getting paid to study, but I wasn't enjoying it and I didn't know who I was. So that was tough. But I guess it's why, when I got lucky and circumstances shifted, I was shifted, my context shifted. So, dad, who I hadn't spoken with for years, compass Airlines comes on board for the oldies.
Speaker 3:I lost $500 in them.
Speaker 1:Well before they went bust.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that was it. Bought the ticket going to Melbourne. Well, that's it, I went bust going to Melbourne. Well, that's it, I went bust, lost my $500.
Speaker 1:$250 tickets to Melbourne were unheard of. But we were in Melbourne and that's partly why I was feeling stranded. Dad took us there and I finished my schooling there and then was doing this degree there. And then Compass comes on. And even though we haven't spoken for years since being blasphemous.
Speaker 1:Compass comes on and even though we haven't spoken for years since being blasphemous, he buys us all a ticket back home, at least the way I thought it was still home back here in Perth, and that shifting context, which I couldn't do so ironic that he was the one who did it for me that turned the lights on for me, something about being back on country, maybe with family who didn't know, by the way, that I was a basket case, so I sort of put a bit of a mask on but it got me going, type of thing. But it still says something about we could do more of for each other if, feeling in a rut, shift the context, maybe even dramatically at times, and see what happens. It certainly was my lucky bolt. And then I guess what I had was a whole bunch of insight as to what isn't working.
Speaker 3:And that's a really powerful understanding, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I look back and say that oh yeah. At the time, it's just freaking hard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, totally, totally. You know, understand that. But when you know what you don't want, or when you know what doesn't work, it just helps to eliminate a whole bunch of stuff so that you can then refocus on the good stuff and you open up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so that's what happened after Perth was the opening. So I actually still came back to Melbourne, finished that degree. It was paying me so I could buy drums and stuff and I got stuck in a rock band Do you know what?
Speaker 3:That's another thing. I did find that out about you as I was Google stalking you, Anthony.
Speaker 1:I don't think there's anything online about that era.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there is. There's something in there that I saw that and I just thought I knew you were cool. But then, seeing that you were a drummer in a touring rock and roll band, True, but if you saw pictures, no, there were no pictures on mine. Yeah, well, that's right you might change your mind.
Speaker 1:It was that cool. Thankfully, not many see the light of day, but it's out there, it's out there.
Speaker 3:Anthony. So just so that there's more out there, tell us a little bit more about your drumming.
Speaker 1:Oh well, drumming, I mean music was my birth in that sense and I guess because, in keeping with a lot of the themes, it's where I was able to go big Before I understood anything. Right, I wasn't thinking this way, but really you could look back and make some sense. You could create a narrative in it. It's bigger than the narrative, but you could create a narrative that says, yeah, I birthed at that time as me. I connected with people with some chemistry. There was some magic about we did stuff that was stupid.
Speaker 3:But necessary.
Speaker 1:But necessary and awesome.
Speaker 1:And that, you know, it still shapes me today because I look back and I think that the best times in my life where most magic, if you like, was happening was you know, by itself, beyond me, almost you know that I just had to participate in it was, you know, by itself, beyond me, almost you know that I just had to participate in it. Was then in the band. Later, when I went and lived in Guatemala for a few, when the band ended and I just felt a call. So again, it wasn't organised, but I just felt to go there and something would happen. And it did and it did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's talk about that. All right, we can come back to that.
Speaker 1:But that was home for a few years and then there was a bit of a hiatus because I actually came back and got stuck into studies about international development and sustainability. I thought I want to test what I've experienced in the last decade with the body of knowledge, which was really good but also really hard, and I felt a bit lost again for a while because it wasn't, it didn't marry up with a lot of what I mean, some of it did. I don't want to diss it. Who am I to say you know the body of knowledge on international development?
Speaker 3:What do they know?
Speaker 1:But there were some aspects yeah, yeah, that it felt excellent but limiting in some aspects. That it felt excellent but limiting in some ways, except for some units, and, bless, my host institution enabled me to cherry pick, so I got credits for units all around the country and really zeroed in on people I wanted to learn from and that was awesome. But as I was thinking back at the time of life where I wanted to shift and I was starting these events and so forth and I thought what are my benchmarks of experiences and how did I go about them? And these were the benchmarks the band and Guatemala and I thought, okay, let's tap what comes next in a similar fashion, and that's essentially you know what guides me today still, and I guess what's produced some of the magic over the last unbelievably, I can say, 10 years, yeah, that's so awesome, isn't it?
Speaker 3:and it feels like when you've been a traveler rather than the tour guide.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's sort of come together in a more holistic sense for you.
Speaker 1:Very astute comment, because I'm still not the tour guide. I mean maybe I am to some, but that's not going to be for me to say or think If I'm of that kind of value to someone else, awesome, as others have been to me, cool. But it's not for me to think it. I'm still the traveller.
Speaker 3:Because you're still learning, you're still putting all those pieces together.
Speaker 1:Still learning, yeah, yeah, Still, you know, learning in ways that you're wow. That old saying is the more you know.
Speaker 3:The less you are. I remember that moment, waking up one morning and just realising having this epiphany of how little I knew about anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and hopefully it comes with how bloody wonderful that is. Yes.
Speaker 3:There was a moment of fear and anxiety. I have to say it's just like oh my goodness, what does this mean now? Because I'm going to not know anything, because I know that I don't know it to the extent of what it's supposed to be known. It's like that. I came across this word in the last few, probably last year, called sonder.
Speaker 1:Oh, you told me.
Speaker 3:Is that what we were talking about?
Speaker 1:You told me this and I've sent it to everybody I could think of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wasn't it amazing. So the word sonder has got lots of different meanings, but one of the psychological meanings, or in psychology the word Sonder, means to have this moment of realization that every single person that you encounter, or don't even not even encounter, has got their own rich, complex life going on inside them and we sort of know that, but we don't know that, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:And that moment of realization, when you actually get that, it's a pretty powerful. For me it was a pretty powerful moment. And, similarly, when you wake up and you realize that there is so much you don't know, and everything you do know, you only actually have one. Perhaps you've only got one dimension of it. Because you talked about dimensions, right, which is a really good way to describe it you perhaps know one dimension pretty well, but you don't know all the other dimensions which make it full and full of life and meaning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so true, isn't it? Nora Bateson talks about that Complexity needs to be met with complexity, whether that's in the person or in the broader nature, because it's the same thing, right. And that's where you start to feel the union that Gregory's talking about, that there's no distinction. We are nature, and the body I mean, let alone the mind, I mean how complex is it?
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean, in a sense it comes back to the relinquishment of control is what it's not right? So if you can, in those moments that are a bit scarier with it, relinquish the control, and then that's just a practice too, because you never get okay. Now I do it, now I can do it, now I've mastered it. Maybe you do, maybe some do, maybe that is enlightenment, but most of us won't get there. But you can practice it and the practice is beautiful Because, again, I don't want to sound Pollyanna-ish with these things, or even with my own journey, like you know.
Speaker 1:I look at it and think how lucky was I to come out of darkness. That could have been the end and have it not. Have it be so far from there that people who would meet today would not imagine that to have happened. But it just I don't know. It's a little. It's again analogous, isn't it, to what we're seeing on the land, with people I mean dust bowls turned back to wild spaces that are producing farmed food Pretty incredible, and that's just in a short window of decades, let alone then when they marry out with First Nations stuff, as is increasingly happening. We just had a bakery launch in the heart of Sydney that's entirely First Nations owned, is that?
Speaker 2:right, I mean I could go on.
Speaker 1:I could tell you another 10 things on that line. There's other things that are falling away, that pioneered. So you know again, it's not absolute, but the stuff coming on still blows your mind, and it's the younger generation. So you're like all right, let's back that in now let's get behind it in ways perhaps we couldn't, for some of the original pioneers of return in that instance.
Speaker 3:But I reckon that there's an element of patience within all of this, because you're saying the wonderful and you're saying it's so easy, it's flowing in just a few short decades, like you know.
Speaker 1:a few short decades is 20, 30 years right or longer? Yes.
Speaker 3:And that's a long time for some people.
Speaker 1:Good point. It's short when we consider again the big game.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Extremely short and even when we look into the literature about human transformation, extremely short. So that's amazing. Cool, let's put that in the corner, yep. Um, then we can talk about what some Indigenous folk will say. We've been waiting 200 years for you, guys to hear us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just come to the bloody table, yeah. Yeah, come to the table, yeah, because, hey, we know a thing or two and we might be able to do some cool stuff together, which is unbelievable that I'm hearing that so much too. By the way, it still blows me away that the invitation and the patience, yes, and yeah, I'll probably stop there. There's certainly still stuff to work through, isn't there? But certainly the invitation and the patience is there and I find in large part the understanding that it's such a new context. We are all going to have to find new ways from here, but there's a lot of value in not just what people know in their minds or even in old stories, but what the land still knows and, in that sense, what even our internal barometers, what our bodies know. There's that famous book, the Body Keeps the Score. It's become a bit famous now.
Speaker 3:I've heard of it, but I don't know enough about it.
Speaker 1:Well, worth looking up, essentially about trauma and how it matters. It's like epigen, famous now. I've heard of it but I don't know enough about it.
Speaker 3:Well worth looking up Essentially about trauma and how it matters. Is it like epigenetics?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly epigenetics yeah, a new science of epigenetics last 10 or 15 years, which just you know. There are stories that even appeared on the podcast I host, where people's dreams of trauma won't be what they've experienced. They'll map onto past families.
Speaker 3:It blows my mind the whole theory of, not theory but the practice whatever it is, of Indigenous Whatever it is, because I don't even know what it is.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 3:I can't. Imagine that.
Speaker 1:So we had one Indigenous guest, heidi Mippy Perhaps some listeners will know her who visited one of the global pioneers in regenerative agriculture in the wheat belt here, the Haggerty family. She visited them. I was there. She'd never been there.
Speaker 1:She arrives in the dark, she gets put up in a room in the homestead and this was all on the podcast if people want to hear the longer story. But basically she comes out the next morning and says I felt the serpent visit me, landed on me and called me out Is there a Namahole, like a waterhole around? And I said yeah, yeah, it's just out the back of your room. They go out there and clear as day from an aerial view. Right, this rock formation is a serpent coiled up in rest position. And yeah, would be Namahols if there was water. And you're like what the hell is going on.
Speaker 1:But again for Heidi, she's saying, yeah, you probably think I'm weird, but really she knows that this isn't. I mean, it's spectacular in the sense that nature's spectacular and we are spectacular as part of that. But it's not extraordinary. It's or at least it can be ordinary if this is what we tend. So you know the fact that you're blown away by what you're blown away by, I mean, and then it goes to this level, by what you're blown away by, and then it goes to this level that that is life's inherent regenerative capacity impulse. And so what's on offer is that our lives can be constantly in awe.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll take that, I'll take that too. I'll take that too for sure. For sure, or and wonder have always been my favourite gifts right.
Speaker 1:Well, curiosity or a wonder?
Speaker 3:would take you a long way. Yeah, I agree, I agree, but that changes.
Speaker 1:You know we talked about how that changes our culture's view of human nature as being pretty shitty. You know, got to be whipped into shape, got to be kicked off the dole, can't be given a home if you're on the street because you haven't earned it. You know, and you're a sinner to start with in some quarters, like I experienced the same with nature. Right, you have to be whipped into shape. You've got to kill the weeds because you don't belong, you don't deserve to be. Kill the donkeys in bloody. One of the regenerative stations in the Kimberley is using wild donkeys, reherding them and having them perform regenerative functions up there where other animals can't, and he's turning desertified Kimberley back into wetland. It's extraordinary and the donkeys are helping, but because they're designated pests, the government's been on them to kill them. So there's this real process going on at the moment, Speaking of a process that could use more of the processes we're talking about?
Speaker 1:it's another story. But what if the pests in this country so-called even the weeds in this country, which are often native grasses, right the dingo. What if they were allowed to live, accepted as an inherent part of a regenerative whole? But we then just had to figure out, observe well enough, be patient enough, figure out and be part of, and that your reward is wow again. To use a too oft used word, but I'm going to use it abundance.
Speaker 3:I love that word. There we go. Don't you go and diss the word abundance.
Speaker 1:But that's part of the reward. Yeah, so that nature wouldn't be the thing you have to beat up to feed everyone. It's not that. In reality, we can play a different game and it's a more fun game Much more fun game yeah.
Speaker 3:But what about for us playing at home? Right, for us that are playing the game at home, that are not regenerative farmers, that don't have anything to do with agriculture, apart from, obviously, consuming the product? Well, let's say yes, so we all have something to do with agriculture, but you know, we're the ones that eat it, we don't grow it. So how can we play along at home in this regenerative world?
Speaker 1:well, firstly, even if you don't, even where you're not eating food from a place like kachana right that doesn't export its cattle or donkeys because it's more concerned with getting a functioning landscape they're land doctors to them.
Speaker 3:Right land doctors. I love that term.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So even where food's not being exported off land, it still needs to function right and, in a sense, waters the barometer of that.
Speaker 1:So now he's got streams that run into the main rivers that are crystal clear. You can drink out of them, and we do, but the river is full of silt when it rains up there in the monsoonal season. I put a picture of this recently on LinkedIn actually, because it was like here it goes again, you know another season. It clearly does not have to be so. Even where we're eating yes, important Back it into the hilt every way you can, that's if you're a funder or obviously an eater. But then there's the water system and this is where part of the story obviously is sharing the story.
Speaker 1:Part of it is obviously political. So it's how can we've still got a system that's not working? And you know, bless the current government trying to take more steps in that direction, but I still feel it's too held by the way power's been for a while. And bless the independents. I think they're pushing the agenda a little bit. I feel like and again, this is nothing against the people who believe in those parties still, but I feel like we need less of an adversarial system as a whole, more of a parliament that talks to each other and negotiates and figures stuff out and learns, then less defending power bases.
Speaker 3:And not politicising issues Exactly, I think that's where things come and crop up, don't they?
Speaker 1:So I feel like a big part of what happens next on this front and with the regenerative movement, the independence movement sorry same thing arguably is is that the regional, like the independence movement, started in the regions, right, but there wasn't another regional rep elected at the last elections it's interesting, it was all cities. So what's next, arguably, is for it to a whole bunch of people to come in from the regions where they are more directly connected to how the water systems work across the broad mass of our landscape, but not to distance ourselves from that. So, in that sense, to assist and be part of, and maybe even just in other urban seats here in Perth, I mean, let alone anywhere else like keep it going, if only to do what Cathy McGowan originally wanted to do all those kids, which was to just make it a contest, make it contested. So people have to open up and be curious and listen and not be so politicised in a way that most of us are just jack off.
Speaker 1:So I think that's a big part of it, but it's not the only part, because I think wherever we are and this is another you know systems, thinking, ethos, wherever you are, you're connected to everything and whatever you do affects everything. So, a look out, don't take what you do lightly. And B when you feel like affecting some change. It could be as simple as a phone call. Right that sets off a national transformation within a decade, as in the situation with Kathy, kathy's nephew and what happened after that. So in a way, I feel like it's be careful what you wish for, but then wish for it and try something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and watch the magic.
Speaker 1:Watch the magic Be part of it, keep observing. It's almost like as if we were on the land, because you still are.
Speaker 3:Oh, anthony, it's been such a joy to have you around the warm table today. We did, as promised, go down all sorts of rabbit warrens. We've gone really high philosophical ideas, which is you know where we connected on, you know, that sort of level, and we've explored some of the wonderful things that you've achieved and continue to achieve, some of the stories that you continue to amplify. But you know, most importantly, with our theme of hope, what I've really loved about our conversation is this idea of nature having the magic within itself to regenerate, and we as humans also have that very same potential. So thank you for bringing that to the warm table today.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much, sonia, and you know I feel like the culture you've brought to this podcast you know from which you've come knew all that too right. My warm table, this whole thing, is an emblem of grounding, that high essence, if you like. It's a great pleasure and honour to be around your table, so thanks for having me.
Speaker 4:Hi, I'm Kelly Riley, creator and head coach of Females Over 45 Fitness, or FOF as we are fondly called. Our studio is located in Victoria Park and we are also online all across Australia. At FOF, our members range in age from 45 through to 84 years of age at the moment. They're amazing examples of hope. Let's meet one of our members now and be inspired by her story.
Speaker 2:Hi, my name is Patricia, I'm in my 60s and a grandmother of seven. I train at FOF three days a week and also do altitude chamber boxing twice a week. I also adore scrapbooking and being creative with interactive pages. I was in a contract that transported prisoners all around Western Australia for 15 years. I resigned from this to pursue a new venture and business in beauty therapy and masseuse with less stress and also to look after myself. I've changed my fitness and strength to help with my knees and also to keep fit. I'm working out with a fantastic group of ladies from FOF, made many friendships and have friendly competitions between us. I'm looking forward to semi-retirement, keeping fit and healthy, more travel and more fun and exercise with the ladies.
Speaker 3:Thanks for joining us around the warm table. My warm table is produced, hosted and edited by me, sonia Nolan. It's my way of amplifying positivity and curiosity in our community. I invite you to share this conversation with family and friends and follow my Warm Table podcast on Facebook, instagram and LinkedIn. Also, you can subscribe and follow my Warm Table on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and maybe even leave a review, because it helps others to find us more easily.
