Howdy. I'm Kate Kavanaugh, and you're listening to the Mind, body and Soil Podcast where we're laying the groundwork for our land, ourselves, and for generations to come By looking at the way every threat of life is connected to one another, communities above ground, near the communities, below the soil, which mirror the vast community of the cosmos. As the saying goes, as above so below, join me as we take a curious journey into agriculture, biology, history, spirituality, health, and so much more. I can't wait to unearth all of these incredible topics alongside you. Hello everyone and welcome to the Mind, body and Soil Podcast where we are exploring the threads of what it means to be humans woven into this earth. I am your host, Kate Kavanaugh, and it is such a pleasure to be here with you each and every. Here on the podcast, it is my pleasure to host such a wide range of guests as we explore things that are sometimes related to regenerative agriculture, to spirituality, to our experiences as humans here on earth as it relates to death oftentimes, and my guest today, Feel a little bit out of left field for you. So I wanna provide just a little bit of context at the front of this. Back in December, I had the pleasure of going out to Fredericksburg, Texas and doing a butchery demo with the folks at Force of Nature meets on Rome Ranch. And it was a really incredible opportunity for me to share a little bit about physiology and ecology and nutrition, all rolled into the sort of connecting to ourselves through Earth Package that I liked to roll things into. And one of the guests there at the time was Adrian Grier and we connected there and enjoyed a little bit of back and forth after that. And so I decided to have him on the podcast to talk a little bit about his journey. Now, as you might know, if you have listened to this podcast before, I love to leave. Where other people have really covered a guest and go off the beaten path. And so I've included in the show notes a couple of episodes where Adrian really talks about his background because you might be thinking, what does this have to do with agriculture or with earth? But the Adrian's trajectory is deeply related to that. And his, his journey is something that he has been really gracious in sharing on several different podcasts and exploring some really vulnerable topics on how he sort of left his celebrity lifestyle to move to a ranch in Texas with his wife Jordan. And so I encourage you to check those out if you want a little bit of background since Adrian and I really dive right into the deep end. One of the things I feel like I'm continually noticing as I interview guests on the podcast is that our connection and relationship to nature changes us. It changes the trajectory of our lives. It changes the way we view the world, and that is incredibly powerful and I think that it is reflective of our return to our return to being in place in the ecosystem, and we really cover in this podcast just how powerful that change can be. This is a really special podcast because this marks the one year anniversary of the Mind, body and Soil Podcast. This is episode of 52 and we launched on March 29th, 2022, and so this is the one year anniversary, and I just want to reflect what a wild ride this year has in. For those of you that have been listening for a while, you'll know that this podcast has been in my heart for many, many years, and it is, it has been. The biggest blossoming and opening and unfurling for me to put this out into the world, and it has challenged me in so many different ways. It has challenged my very anxious nature and the anxiety I feel. Every time I turn on this microphone. It has challenged. Me to grow and to grow past a lot of the perfectionism that I think held me back in those years where I was dreaming of doing this without hitting record. It has also gifted me with some of the most beautiful friendships and human connections that I had not anticipated. I have struggled my whole life with connecting with people, and in this last year, I have found more friends, made more connections, and had the opportunity to. Go in the deep end with people, which has really been, I think part of what has held me back in my life is that I'm just not very good at small talk. And so it has been incredible to share this journey with you, and that is what I really want to highlight in this, that this has been a shared journey of reciprocity as I have embarked on these conversations with guests and gotten the incredible response and feedback and dreams. From you listeners for this podcast. It's my relationship with you that really drives my curiosity each week for us to open up these doors and, you know, pure under these rocks and peek behind the curtain together. Thank you so much for listening from the bottom of my heart. It, it has, it has changed every fiber of my being and I am so grateful to bring you this podcast each and every week. With that being said, I would love to invite you if this podcast has made an impact on your life to leave a reading and review. As some of you will know in exchange for your reviews, if you wanna send me a little screenshot of your review on Apple Podcasts, I would love to send you a handwritten thank you card so that we can connect here in the tangible plane. And with that, I'm gonna read a really beautiful review that I received this week that really just warmed my heart. So Sammy Miller, thank you. It's titled, truly Decadent Conversations. I am finally sitting down to write this review, and perhaps the first thing I should mention is that I'm actually not a routine podcast listener. I've always been much more drawn to audiobooks and following long stories that take me elsewhere, but this podcast has converted me and I really look forward to the rich and decadent conversations, Kate Chairs each week. What you, me to this podcast with Kate's voice is, I've heard it through Instagram and the fact that the curiosity and interest she shares online have a much more in-depth capacity in this form. I've always been interested in agriculture and food nutrition and have worked on and off in these industries, so naturally this was bound to be a fit for me. However, I've been so pleasantly surprised and delighted at the additional topics explored here. Just when you think, oh, this episode will be about fat, or salt or joy, you realize the journey is taking you to unexpected, vital and interesting corners you'd never thought to explore. I find myself thinking about the conversation often afterwards and interested to continue exploring on my own. In short, I can't recommend this podcast enough. Every episode taps into so much more than what can be relayed through a title, so listen to them all. I'm so glad I have, and thank you, Kate, for sharing your thoughts, questions, and passions with us. Sammy, I can't tell you what this review did to my soul. It was. Like a light for me, and I love that you enjoy these rich and decadent conversations. I know that one of my concerns when I started this podcast was how long form I wanted it to be, that I really enjoy diving deep with guests, and sometimes it takes couple of hours, maybe more for those conversations to unfurl, and so I'm so glad that that is resonating with so many of you. I think that so much nuance and so much joy and so much depth can be unpacked when we allow something, the time and space that it deserves. I am always grateful to be here with each and every one of you. There are some affiliate links in the show notes it, which is one way to support this podcast. If you enjoy it and you would like to pick up some wool pillows or a wool comforter or some red light therapy devices or some really amazing grass-fed, gee, I have affiliate codes for those and they help support the podcast. You can also find me on my, where I am writing a little bit each and every week, and a subscription also supports this podcast. Those are the ways that you can support, and I just want to tell you all thank you from the bottom of my heart for participating in the Mind, body, and Soil Collective. I am so excited to bring you this interview with Adrian Grier. I hope you enjoy it. So I didn't realize when we booked this, that we were recording on the spring equinox, and as I was creating this interview, it felt really, felt really fortuitous or auspicious that that was the case as I kind of dove into these themes of death, transformation, sensation and rebirth and regeneration, and Mm. Realized that this morning. Yes. Oh, this is perfect timing.

Yes. Beautiful. Uh, I, yeah, I did not realize that either, but now that you said it, I, I, I, I felt it Yeah. It was in

the air. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit of a shift. Sort of a, it's the new year in, in more land-based traditions that this is the, this is the beginning of the year.

Yeah. I am not that sophisticated as of yet here on the land. I, I did try to plant, uh, within the moon cycles, Yeah. But that, that proved just to be a little bit, uh, too advanced for me. Yeah. We don't, it

was too advanced for me too

We can't do that. Yeah. I tried though. I did try. I I can, yeah. I contemplated it and I was like, oh, but that, that lands on a Tuesday. I can't do Tuesday

It's not convenient for me. Yeah, I understand that. We don't, we don't plant on bloomer cycles. I have a quote for us to start off with, and it's actually something that's been really resonant for me in my life, and I wonder if it resonates with you. If it doesn't, just throw it away, start somewhere else. But it's from Confucius and it's, we have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one and. It's a great quote. Yeah. Yeah. This was a really big quote for me. I had a moment where I realized that I only had one, and that the trajectory I was going down wasn't where I wanted to be. And as I listened to all these interviews with you, I was really struck at that moment for any of us where we decide to, to make a u-turn, where we see that, that realization that we only get this one precious life.

Yeah. Um, I don't wanna start out the podcast by pushing back on, uh, on Confucius, but I, I, you know, I don't know if I, uh, necessarily agree, I think there's probably a third life that we come into because I, I realized that, that I actually am infinite, that I'm an infinite being and that I have forever. To be creative, so I don't have to rush. I don't have to, I don't have to do it all at once. The, the thing that motivated me for the, my, I guess my twenties and my thirties was I need to eat everything, taste everything, do everything, have everything, consume as much as possible and accumulate because this is my one time and I need to do it all now, because when I die, that's it. So there was this nihilism baked into my personality and my, my perspective, my worldview. So there's a desperation and, and a, a fear of death. Mm-hmm. sort of baked into everything I was doing. And then when I realized that I like I can live again and that I will live again, I wanted to start making the world. Better for that me that gets to be born into the world in the future. So, and, and whether that's me in the ex exact form or if it's me embodied in my children, or it's just that collective conscience that gets to continuously come back and be reborn. Uh, I realize that there's a conversation to be had between the me that exists today in this physical form and that future self and, and Confucius is that, you know, look, it had a nice ring to it. I'm gonna actually have to workshop my one liner

Uh, I really liked that pushback though, and I really liked the idea of this conversation that we're having with our future selves through this act of. Transformation. And I think one of the things that comes up for me a lot on the farm is this idea of transformation of energy and matter continuously into one another, right? That the, the soil and these rocks that are just, you know, stardust compressed by deep time are pulling up minerals. That's going into plants, that's going into animals that I'm eating, that I'm taking care of. And then eventually I'm going back into that same cycle. And I think within that there is that infiniteness that we are made up of particles, that were a part of the singularity of the big bang. And so there is no, there is no beginning and no end to us necessarily. And I think that that realization, and I don't, I haven't reached the space where fear of death still isn't present for me. But I think when we reach that, that space of understanding the infinite, it changes the way that we want to be in the world.

Yeah. Uh, you know, I, I guess my quote would be because life is infinite. It's never too late to make a change, you know, and I, I feel like sometimes, um, we sort of double down on all the tricks and identities that we've established at one time, and we're afraid to change because it feels hard or it feels like it's gonna take time or, you know, I, I feel like it's, it's always it to connect into that creativity and that spontaneity and that potential. You have to be willing to let go of all the things, all the mistakes that you've made are all the things that you've tried for a, a newer, better way. And if, if you have that time pressure and that anxiety, you may not give yourself permission. I mean, I, I see a lot of people my age. Who are like, oh, you know, I, I, it is like what a midlife crisis is, right? Like, uh, I like it wasted my life to me. I've just been born and I have now I, I plan to live at least another 50, 60 years, so I can now enter into a whole new iteration of my life. But now from a more intentional, A more conscious place, like I'm actually making decisions for the first time in my life that are my own. Yeah. I'm not, you know, listening to mommy, you know, when I'm a baby, I, you know, you do what your mom tells you or your, you know, your whole world is, or is your home and your parents, and then maybe you branch out to listen to your teachers to do your homework. Or maybe you're listening to your friends in high school to, you know, be cool. You wanna like be accepted and then you enter the workforce and now you're listening to your boss. And then maybe you finally find yourself in your twenties and you're really rocking and rolling, but you're just trying to be cool with the world and find your place in the world. But what happens when you finally release yourself from all the, the, the servitude of others, but you serve that higher purpose within you. And then that's where I feel like I am now. Like I'm, everything I'm doing is really aligned with. what my true purpose, what my dharma, what my reason for being is. And that's for the first time in my life really.

Do you think that there was a process of going through a death of self of sorts, like your own death process to reach that space where you felt connected to your purpose, to your higher

self? Yeah, because that old self identity was getting in the way of newness. I had to let go of that, that ego identity, that the, the, the ego death had to happen in order for, to leave room for new possibility. And that was hard to, to, to let go and to fully not just let go, but fully let that part of me die. Yeah. You know, it's like one of those horror movies where the, the the monster. Keeps coming back, you know, one last time where it's just, is it quite dead? No. Like one class, one last shutter. It would not die. It was so well situated and just established in, in me, um, that it kept rearing its ugly head. And I was like, I don't know if this thing is really quite dead yet. It took some practice to learn the new me. Yeah.

I, I love that, that it took practice. I think that's an important, like we have to practice. It's not something that happens in an instant, maybe it happens on a slower timeframe, and we have time for that to unfurl, for that, to unfold, for that to die, for that to be reborn. I have this, you know, listening to some of your interviews. You have this moment where you've, you've moved into this little trailer in Austin on a little piece of property and you're, I think you were chopping. Wood and hauling water. And

as the old proverb goes, I, I, I don't think it's Confucius, but it's an old Chinese, uh, proverb, I guess chop wood carry water, meaning, I think, I think what it is, is, um, the whole quote is something like, you know, when, when times are tough, chop wood, carry water, when times are good, chop wood carry water, you know, the idea is do be detached from how the world is and just continue to keep your head down and

do the work. Yeah, I love that. Um, as I'm a big fan of hard work and I think that that work where you're in that space that it's connecting you to, to nature is a really interesting space and I think one of my questions was like when you were in that space and you were connecting back to nature, stripping away all of the noise. what in that space does nature teach us about connection to ourselves and maybe to another, or teach us about love? Because I know that this dovetails into this beautiful love story that you have with your wife.

Hmm hmm. Yeah. I, I grew up, I guess, in the post-modern era, you know, where we're very self-conscious, very self-aware, media commercialization of, of images, and we've become consumers to the point where we're consuming ourselves almost like ABOs, you know, it's like the Snake Eden, its tale where we're projecting images and creating content, and then we're selling each other ourselves, and then seeing ourselves reflected like narcissus and being. Consumed in that hall of mirrors and indulged in. And as humans, we need re we need attention, right? I mean, that's, if a baby gets no attention or if it's not held, it will die. So there's something about our makeup, the way we are as, um, beans that needs to be acknowledged, needs the awareness of the other, and on, on some level that's healthy. It's a healthy ego, right? And it's a healthy awareness of self. But right now, and like our culture, we're so hyper aware of everything and we see ourselves reflected so many times because everybody's trying to sell us something or, or get our attention, or we're trying to get other people's attention that it becomes, I think, uh, on some level, unhealthy and dysfunctional. The thing about nature, It doesn't have an agenda to sell you anything. It's not looking for you for your approval. It's not trying to get you to do anything. There's no, it, it's like even a sign, it has a, it's, it's addressing you, right? Like a, a sign that says stop or go, or th that away. You know, the, it's telling you something and has a face aside that is looking at you and telling you something. And even that very subtle piece of media of, of, that's content, right? That's even that, even though it's a sign, it's supposed to be informational, it's still gives you the impression that it's telling you something. So on sub some subtle subconscious level, you feel addressed. But when you go out in nature, There's no tree that's asking anything of you, that's not addressing you in particular. There's nature is, is just this balance of forces, and you are, you are placed within it without that self-conscious, without that attention. And it's a humbling experience in which you are now part of everything. You, you know, it's, you're now on equal footing with the universe. And that can be overwhelming because it's, yeah, it's an infinite It's infinite, right? Look up in the sky and you're just like, whoa. You know, it's, it goes on and on and on. So it feels a little bit isolated and scary and dis dis. It's, it's sometimes dis disjointed, disconcert. And so part of letting go of my ego identity and coming down to earth was very much getting comfortable with that. The abyss, the infinite, you know, uh, unfolding of time and space that wasn't about me. That where, where I wasn't the center, it wasn't an egocentric experience, it was more egocentric in which I was now placed in my proper place, which was not in my own narcissism and self-awareness, but was in now connection with something much bigger.

I have this, I didn't know if I was gonna pull this quote, but I've been reading this book, um, by Andreas Weber called Matter and Desire and Erotic Ecology, and it's very much about Why am I not reading that I don't know. You need to be reading this book. Um, it's very much about our place in that ecocentric, that we are just one thread in this giant weaving of the universe. And I think that that experience with nature, and I mean just, just from what I know of what I've experienced, I'll just read this to you and, and we'll see what shakes out. So this is his third law of. The third love desire, however, holds the opposite. It emphasizes that we must be close to other living beings in order to grasp certain depths of our own nature, certain ways of our transforming power, and our deeply imaginative and creative character. The third love desire states only in the mirror of other life. Can we understand our own lives. Only in the eyes of the other can we become ourselves. We need the real presence of the most unknown. The owls mute regard, the silent nudes gaze. Only it can unlock the depths in ourselves that otherwise would be sealed forever. We need the experience of an inside unfolding in front of us, displaying itself as a fragile body. We need other organisms because they are what we are, but with this cunning twist, they are that hidden part of us, which we cannot see because we exist through this part and we see with it. Viewed in this light. Other beings are the blind spot of our self-understanding. It's invisible center, which is the source of all vision.

You definitely have to send that to me. That that deserves probably a reread That was a, that was beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. What does that, what does that say to you? What does that mean to you?

I think that there's this experience that we've had, right? We're so disconnected. And you know, one of the things I heard you say at one point is that one of your goals with, with life and one of your philosophies is increasing sensation and connection. And this really resonated with me because I think that we are feeling bodies and at this point of Decart and Newton, when we sort of embrace this sort of linear way of thinking, when we get out of the cycles of the earth, when we come home to that and we come home to our cyclical nature, to our place within nature, that single thread that is one thread, uh, one infinite thread folded over many times, I think that we get to see these parts of ourselves that we have disconnected from. in what it means to carry water or to chop wood, or to put soil in your hands or to plant a tree.

Hmm. Yeah, no, that's, that resonates. Hmm. Yeah. I'm just sort of sitting with that. I, I don't know how much we as individuals can feel Hmm. How much we can, how, how ex, how much expansiveness we can actually hold within our physical limitations. There's something we're talking about death or, I mean, I think death is probably a theme of this podcast, right? Or in your life at least oftentimes. Yeah. Often. Often, yeah. Often comes back to death. Yeah. All of us. Right. So there's as, as much as we might fear death, there's something that feels inviting. And comforting about non-existence, ah, the, the, the sweet relief of not having to feel and do anything and you're just, just peace, nothingness, of course, per chance to dream, right. We don't know if it was so comforting. Maybe that'd be one thing, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's, you know, worse than, than, than we can imagine. But I do feel like there's something about not wanting to have to feel that I crave. And that's why we escaped in drugs, alcohol, or any other number of things to numb and to make us stop feeling. And I did that for most of my life. There was some traumas that I had as a kid that at a certain point I decided that I didn't wanna feel, I didn't want anything to do. Is that, so I devised. ways in order to design a life that would keep me from having to feel those things. And I constructed a whole, I mean, throughout my day I was finding little ways to escape or to numb or to not think. And, and sure I didn't feel the things that were painful, but also I wasn't, I, I was not completely present. I wasn't here. So I think part of our opportunity and our burden is to be present, to be here now, and to feel what it's like to be alive. And that means to expand into more feeling as scary as and uncomfortable as that might be. And I guess in theory, If we can increase feeling and sensation to the outer reaches of our bodily experience, our human experience, uh, we might be able to see and perceive the world and interpret the world more accurately, cuz you have more data points, more information. And maybe some of that information isn't intellectual, maybe it's not even through the five senses, but it can be intuitive as well. Like what are, what are the sensations that come up that aren't even being stimulated by anything in the physical world? Are, are there other subterranean levels of awareness that can be unearthed and unlocked? And as I pursue my spiritual expansion and awakening, I say, yeah, there is for too long I was. Corralled into, and I was limited by my five senses, particularly the, the five senses below the waist. was one big, the one big sense that, you know, tends to, you know, be distracting. I was, I was all in my head intellectual so smug with all my fancy thinking and such, and rhetoric just limited. Yeah. Like a, in a box really of I was head and cock. I mean, that's really, that's what it is. Right. But I had no heart. I didn't, I wasn't feeling in my heart cuz it was too painful. I had no gut, I, I, I wasn't able to sense what was, you know, the world around me except in how I interpreted and projected my own thinking onto it or something was carnal and, and felt. Pleasurable desire and was just motivating me that wasn't even in charge of that. So my journey as of late has been, okay, if I am an an, an, an antenna if I am an antenna and I am receiving information from the universe, from the world, how can I polish that up? How can I tune my frequency to pick up the, the important stuff in the world? Not just the noise, but you can create, you know, find the signal within the noise. So yeah, increase sensation so that I can fine tune my instrument, which is. you know, we're, we're, we're sticking up for a reason. Right. We're like an antenna.

How have you gone about increasing sensation? Because I love this and I also love, you touched on something I heard you say in another podcast, that feeling is truth, the most real thing you can experience, and you were talking about it in reference to allowing yourself a greater intuition or finding that in, in connection in sensation. And so how are you

fine-tuning this? Yeah. For a long time I was, if, if I, you know, you, the, the whole, you have to see it to believe it mentality. Well, if I don't see it, this, you know, I can't vouch for it. Or if, if it hasn't gone through scientific rigor and scrutiny and it hasn't been proved out through experimentation, or if some authority hasn't told me that it's the case, then I can't believe it. I had no religion, I had no faith. I had no, um, sense of the intangible. It had to be here. Now I had to know it to believe it. And that's, that's a trap, right? Because there's so much that is true, that is beyond language, beyond words. And I think we as a culture are stuck in this, in this heady headiness, we've forgetting how to feel and connect into the truth, which is beyond the flesh. So I have been really just before, like I had to really take, make the effort to take the time to get outta my head and into my heart and, and drop into my. you know, a deeper awareness. But these days I feel like I'm, now that I'm a lot more developed in my familiarity with those parts of me, I don't have to work as hard. I, my intuition is online now. And, and you know, there, there was, and I don't know if this is just a corny mean, maybe it is. I think, I think I saw this in what the bleep do, do we know, you

know? Yeah. You see that? Oh man, I haven't thought about that movie in a

while. But yeah, I don't know why it just came to my mind. But they were talking about how some indigenous peoples had never seen ships. Like the way when, so when the, when settlers came, when the, the colonizers came, they were coming from the ocean on ships, these big ships, and they'd never s the indigenous people hadn't seen ships like that. So they didn't have a reference point. So when they witnessed them with their eyes, they c they didn't actually see them. They couldn't see them Until you have, until you're able to reference it. Some, just think about all the things that you are right in front of you that you, that you can't even Yes. Make sense of you. You, you're not witnessing, you're not seeing, you're not, because it doesn't, you, it doesn't have any context in your, yeah. In your life. So all the things that were around me that I was not aware of because that part of me was offline and now the whole world has opened up where I can sense things, I can feel things I, I can relate to my wife in a, on a deeper level. I can understand her in ways that she, for so long was. Screaming to get me to understand and I just couldn't get it. I didn't get it. It's, it's the difference between rolling around like an ameba, like a toddler and standing up and clumsily walking through life as a, as a, you know, baby. And then finally standing and being able to, to move, move about the cabin. There's a difference. I, I, I meet people and I, and whereas before I'd say, oh, what a nice guy. And now I say, oh, there's something off about this guy. And I'm feeling the conversation That is psychic. Yeah. You know, people come into a room and they bring their energy, their traumas, whatever, and they're just like smearing it all over the place and be, whereas before I, I just wanted their approval cause I just wanted to be liked, so I didn't really even take note. But now I'm like, Ooh, yeah, that guy's probably not gonna be right for me in my life. He's probably gonna be a wrong turn. I'm able to be more discerning, make better judgements. I can be more honest with myself. I can see the world more accurately because I have more data points, more information. Yeah, that's, that's in increase in sensation. It's increasing awareness.

I love that. I think it's so important and a life that we often numb from. You had a great quote, and I don't remember where I heard it, but you said that the betterment of society starts with the transformation of the individual. And I think in many ways we've been talking about that so far, but I think that one of the things I find interesting is when we have these transformative experiences and then we seek out this connection to nature and we see the transformative power of nature through regeneration and maybe tap into this space of regenerative agriculture, and we find ourselves in this cycle of transformation that as stewards of the land or, uh, I've heard you call it an apprentice of the land, which I really love, that all of a sudden we're opening ourselves up to cha up and open for change as we're. Working with regenerating land. And so I wanna, I wanna get to Kintsugi Ranch, which I haven't heard you talk about as much on podcasts and about slowing down to the cadence of earth with earth speed.

Yeah. You wanna just talk about it generally?

I wanna talk about, I mean, first I think, I'd love to know what that moment was that you realized that you wanted to be in nature and working with it. Mm-hmm. To be an apprentice of the land. Why don't we start there? Yeah.

Yeah. So I guess I haven't talked about consi as much because I'm trying to find that the right balance between being in the public eye and continuing to lean in and step into the public and keeping things a little bit more sacred and private. Before I was just, you know, I was out there and I just sort of, I was famous and I just sort of embraced that and just went all the way full, full hog. And now I'm really wanting to have sacred privacy and have and protect my family from the pitfalls of attention and, and fame. So I created earth speed as a way to communicate to the outside world. Whereas Kintsugi, which is our ranch and our home, it's, it's a little bit more private. Although they, they definitely, I mean, it's, it's hard to, to make a distinction cuz they're, they're ov, they overlap a absolutely, if not one and the same. But Kintsugi Ranch is, is our home in Kintsugi. is a perfect title. Title, A perfect name for um, filmmaker and me. It is a perfect name for the the ranch cuz Kintsugi is the Japanese practice of mending broken pottery with gold. And that is a, a recognition that that which is broken can be made whole again and more beautiful by recognizing and honoring and revered the cracks. Yeah. And bonding it bo bonding it back with gold highlights the cracks. So it actually is a story of anti-fragility and, and resilience and I think it's a beautiful story. Not only. A piece of pottery, to live again, a new life, but also for us as humans, to look at the parts of us that are broken and instead of spiraling into shame or regret or feeling inadequate, really looking at that as being part of what makes us uniquely beautiful and, and can make us stronger. It, there are very few things in the world that are anti-fragile and in humans' nature, we are anti-fragile because the more you throw at us, the stronger we get. Our, our muscles grow. When they tear, they tear repair, and they get bigger and stronger. So Kintsugi is the story of, of that, and of, of us as individuals, spiritually also a story of the land, how we can bring practices of regeneration and healing the planet. From the brokenness that it has endured at the hands of human beings. In many ways, we're repairing this land, making it whole again, healing some of the negative monocropping practices in the, the chemical fertilizers and pesticides that were here at one point, healing and Kintsugi in the soil. And then also my, my wife and I are a story of rebirth in that we, we were together for many years. We broke up, we spent two years apart, and then we, we got a, we, we got back together and, and so we are a story of Kintsugi as well. So that's a, it's just a, it's a sort of a perfect, perfect metaphor. Perfect word. Represents us.

It's a really beautiful metaphor, and I think it's a, it's a really beautiful personal space, and we can leave that in the sacred. I, I deeply understand that. And transition into earth speed and yeah, this idea of living at the cadence of earth, which I love because it's slow, right? It's not, maybe it's not as fast as we're used to going. And the cadence of a river as it carves a canyon over time is not going to be what we think of as time in our, in our human meet suits. But I would love to hear you talk about this a little bit, because I think that this is, this is really beautiful.

Yeah, thank you. It's, um, it's, it can be slow. It, it invites you to be slow, but it, it also, it can be fast too. The earth doesn't rush and yet everything gets done. Hmm. Right. And whereas humans, we always got, like, we had the time pressure, right. That, that the death, the oncoming death. Yeah. So we had to do it all quickly. So yeah, when I got into the cadence of nature, I realized that I didn't have to, uh, move faster than evolution, you know, faster than your capacity to evolve. Sometimes you, you know, a lot of, a lot of times I see people out there, especially in social media, people jump into the fire before they're ready because they feel like they have to, you know, make a change or do something big or drastic in order to be relevant or to, for their lives to have. and, and, and they haven't taken that time to learn to work under a master, to be an apprentice, to fully mature, to go through the rights of passage, PA passages where they can become, come into themselves before they start trying to tell the world how to be

You said once that to mature you have to become an amateur, which I loved. Yeah. and I think that so much of coming into first generation farming and, and life honestly, is

that Yeah. It's first gen. Are you a first generation farmer? Yeah, I am. Oh, respect

Yeah. I mean, it's salty. You're, they,

you're out there. I thought you're a professional. You, you're a professional In my eyes, I dunno.

I'm a professional butcher. Uh oh, okay. But I am not a professional farmer. I am a, I'm a first generation farmer and I am trying to figure it out as I go along. But I think that those, that invitation to, to not rush and to not rush to know and understand everything and to fail and to tottle and kind of flop around and not knowing exactly what to do is, it's a transformative space and it gives you this relationship with the land and this, this feedback cycle that you become a part of.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I feel, um, yeah, I mean, just going back to that learner's mind. right? That beginner's mind, I think that's what it's called, right? The beginner's mind where you, you know, you don't have like that arrogance of certainty where you're just making carbon copies of the thing, you know, as opposed to being creatively inventive and present for what is so that you can be, respond responsive to the world as it unfolds. And that's part, that's part of also the anti-fragile story. You know, if you're not, if you're not able to bend with and move with what is, then you know, you, you run the risk of breaking. So every day, I, I go out on the land and I try and not bring what I knew yesterday to the moment, but just witness and observe permaculture lesson number one, observe and interact. And that I, I don't think that ever ends. That's the first principle, because first you have to be in flow with what is, and you have to observe the world as it is, instead of it being what you want it to be, imposing your will upon the moment. And that's what modern cities are, right? You just, even the development next door that just come and clear, uh, clear out a bunch of old growth forest to, to pour concrete and put a shopping mall or something, you know, as opposed to saying, what is this land here? What is this space asking for? You know, how's the water flowing? You know, what, what trees are important to this ecosystem? What's important to preserve? But that would take, that takes longer, right? That takes patience. And our modern industry doesn't have the patience, doesn't want to work at the cadence of nature, wants to work at the cadence of ego and, you know, timelines and quarters and years and board meetings. And that's understandable. I get that. But is there a way that we can both be humans that are progressing forward? Because I think that's in our nature to, to build and create and create systems that are reliable and that, that uncouple us from nature to, to en enough that we can store food, you know, over multiple seasons so that we're not always at the, uh, mercy of the, the, the weather or the temperature or the crops that year. That's, that's our genius is that we can adapt and. and become more, we can overcome limitations, but at the same time, can we go back to be in that rhythm? Not, not, you know, go back, maybe not go back, but remember that we are part of that rhythm and the cycles and if we can plant in the moon cycles if we learn that one day we might actually benefit because there are, there's technology that is non-human that has been developed over millions of years in nature. There's a design wisdom within nature that we, that would benefit us if we were to work with within, uh, and to paint using the palette that nature has created, would, I think, in theory, I, because I'm still a novice, I don't know, it's just an idea, but would allow us to not only have everything that we, all the luxuries that we've grown accustomed to, but also do it so that we're, it's not at the expense of the earth. Yeah. And so it's not extractive. Mm-hmm. but it's additive. Mm-hmm. because nature is additive. Nature by design produces no waste. It just is, it's just re regenerated. It's, um, recycling, composted, recycled.

In a literal way. Like there, it, it is that recycling in the same way that you mentioned the boroughs before, right? That it is just constantly reentering cycle after cycle and utilizing every, every piece, every mineral, every microorganism inside of the soil to become again. And I think that's, it's been a gift transformed for me. Transformed. Yeah. And it's been such a gift for me to see that and to witness that possibility within myself from moment to moment and to then interact with that transformation at the level of going outside every day and becoming the observer, which naturally I think pulls you out of that. egocentric space. You can't be an observer and not be, it gets you out of your head. It gets you into a sense of being part of a place.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. And, and, and, and saying that, I think that's such an important benefit, is feeling at home. Feeling that you have place in the world, being human can be so lonely, and when you take the time to get into connection with nature, you realize that it's quite comforting, you know, that you are important, that you do have a role to play. There's so much mental illness and, and, and just human. Tragedy because people feel isolated and, and, and unseen and like they don't belong. There's so much shame and, um, an anti humanness. Right? Yeah. Especially in environmentalism, you know, uh, ironically under the guise of helped the planet, it's l you know, let's, let's, let's, uh, de depress human beings, you know, and make them smaller.

Yeah.

Make them a blight on the earth too, which naturally builds that wall of separation again, between us and nature, between us and our environment. Not a part of it. Right. You're, you're

the problem. You're the problem. You shouldn't be here. Yeah. Your existence is actually a, a bad thing. Yeah. And that does a lot of, I mean, just think about what, you know, what a kid. Here's what, what they must go through if you were to say that out loud to them, right? You are nothing. You're terrible. I wish you were never born, right? And then you hear that echoed through environmentalism, that humans are bad and you know, you, you shouldn't be here. And you're, it's, it's because of you that the world is ending and that being, you know, destroyed. Whereas imagine the creative support that humans can be if they feel connected to the earth, if they feel like they belong, if they feel like they have purpose. We're just driving people into depression and into nihilism. And they want to escape and numb and they want to not feel anymore and they want to die. They want to not be here cuz they feel like everything is for not, they feel like the world is gonna end. And, and so they, they give up. But if you connect with nature, if you, if you find your place at home in the earth, from the earth as part of earth, that's a to, there's a totally different message. The message is you are safe, you are home. You do have a reason for being here, and you're not, you're

not alone. I wanna bring into that the idea of community. One of the things I found in watching some of your Earth speed videos and kind of exploring is this idea of community above ground is also as important as the ways in which we build microbial and soil, food, web communities. Below ground and that there was a video and it talked about this idea that we're pushing self-care when what we need is community care and to bring in spaces where we can be together. And I think so much of what I just heard you say is in this isolation, we are disconnected not just from nature but also from from other humans. And you're doing some work to build community in Texas, which is amazing. And I think that, that a lot of us that have kind of returned to this lifestyle, have created these little hubs where we're trying to build community outwards, recognizing that the nature of human is in collaboration, not just with Earth, but with each other.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We. Yeah. I I, I sort of have been loosely trying to develop this concept. Uh, it's, uh, like, uh, oscillation therapy because we have the capacity to, well, the world, the universe, everything is infinite. It's infinitely big and it's infinitely small. Mm-hmm. and every, and, and, and there's a dynamic between the polar. There's a polar dynamic. Energetically, everything's waves. Right. The high point of the wave and the low point of the valley of the wave. Yeah. And where am I going with this? So we are alone, we are individuals, but we're also part of a community.

Yep. We are paradoxes. Right. Light. We are light is both a wave and a particle. Yes. And so our human existence is also paradoxical.

Right. So I, I feel like the wave of evolution and. Human development is oscillating between self and community. Hmm. Right. So you're individual. I'm me and I don't, you know, I can like go out on my own and go carve my own path and push forward ideas that are maybe a little bit strange or odd and they haven't been accepted yet. And I can innovate. I'm an entrepreneur, right? I'm a creative force, but then I also wanna be accepted and and honored by the community. I don't wanna be so weird or so different that I, that I lose, I lose my cool Right. Um, so I feel like we're in a place in human development where I think in all, all society, I think we on individuals go through those periods of individual individuation and then also where we wanna be. Accepted and close to community, one undeveloped community. And we as, as like a collective humanity, like society. We go through egocentric and then like communal centric periods. I feel like, I think we're craving community, right? We've gone through this hyper, you know, narcissistic time where everybody's a on needs to be an entrepreneur. Everybody needs to be Elon Musk and, you know, scale a business or you know, get all of the attention on TikTok, be a influencer, be, you know, insta-famous, whatever. I think society is craving what it's like to be in community. There's, there's a lot of. Sicknesses of isolation. And we need to re, we need to figure out how to treat our, the elderly better. Yes. Instead of pushing them off into homes where they're more likely to die alone, how do we bring them in and embrace their wisdom? And, you know, recog let them and recognize how important their wisdom is to our growth and our learning as young, as younger people, but also how it, um, gives them a sense of continued purpose. People without purpose, they die. Right. And so I think we're, we're a little bit out of balance, or maybe we're going through another period of now coming back to community and um, and that is also part of our return home to nature and coming back to the community of the microbes and the. Animals and bacteria and even the wind. The wind is uh, uh, part of our community. All the things.

You touched on something I really love, which is this idea that I, I like that you called it oscillation therapy. I'm, I'm a little curious how that would play out, but. The universe expands and contracts, right? And we see these cycles of culture where, where one generation kind of pushes off the other, or one overarching narrative or idea kind of pushes you. You get this highly individuated society and the counter to that is going to be coming back into community. And I think the, the key to that, and what I'm curious, sometimes how we cultivate is, is a sense of balance of not letting the pendulum swing all the way over here, but to come to this place of balance. And I think that within the idea of that wave function where you're getting these oscillations, if you can kind of decrease the amplitude or, or increase the frequency, you're getting some of that balance within, within our human spaces, on our human timelines.

Yeah. And I wonder if this idea of balance is even achievable. Yes. Or if yes, or if balance is simply that detached awareness, that spiritual observer that is within us, that is just, you know, just taking note, just watching. So that's, I guess, the idea of oscillation therapy is to be mindfully engaged with recognizing that we are both, and to know where you are, where you're operating from in that moment. Are you thinking of all the world's problems and how great and big, like, and complex all of society is, and how the environment is, you know, being destroyed in so many different ways that it's overwhelming. and that you just, you start to break down. Or are you so myopic and self-absorbed that you're, you've, you're not even participating in, in life or society and you're, you know, just simply consuming blindly, you know, or So which one are you in? And can you, can you observe a, uh, can you see the world at large a all the troubles and wars and, and recognize that without staying stuck there, and come back to the present small moment and then act and then take action. So I was thinking about, so when I was doing ocean work, I was looking at the plastic problem. 10 million tons is estimated to make its way into the ocean every year, 10 million tons. So how big is that? Un unfathomable, right? Like, how do you even begin to tackle that? It's too big. It's too big. So what happens? People just shut down. Either they get so riled up, like the world is messed up and that's like, you know, messed like, I don't know. They just try and be as big as that problem and they fail cause they're just like one human, right? Mm-hmm. they may have a big me megaphone, but they'll never be as big or as loud as that mass amount of plastic. So how do we recognize that big challenge, but come down to earth and find something small and actionable? So that's when I created, for better, for worse. It's, it's controversial on some level, but I started the plastic straw movement. So I was like, well, I did not realize that. Yeah, well people had, you know, talked about straws, but Sure. I sort of popularized it. So I, uh, I created Stop sucking, which was the, so, so the whole idea was to, to break down that big problem into a single unit of measure. One, one unit of plastic in the ocean. Yeah. And so I was like, oh, the straw is like a perfect representation of that. Yeah. Cause it's small, it's mic, it's practically microplastic. And it, it, it's like something that we can all take action on. Yeah. So instead of worrying about the 10 million tons, just worry about the plastic straw. And if you can do that every day, you know, however many times a day that people wanna give you a straw, then maybe, maybe you can start to chip away at this bigger problem.

I love the philosophy behind that, because I think that one thing that I've noticed, and then having conversations on the podcast, it comes up a lot, is that oftentimes these problems feel so big, so insurmountable that we don't even try. Right. And there is this component of like, well, let. Let's just try a couple of different things, even if it's on a really small scale and just begin to see what's possible. And so I think, I think that really opens up the door for that aspect of let's just, let's try some stuff. Yeah.

And, and you can, I think you can apply oscillation therapy to, you know, all aspects of your life. You know, like what, what, what? And, and we're so thrust into because of media, the big problems of the world. Yes. Right? And everything seems so present and we have to, we somehow have to solve all the world's problems. All of a sudden we have to take the weight of the world on your shoulders. No, no one person can do that. And we all have, we're also ego, uh, focused that we think we're the ones that have to save the world as individuals like you, yourself are the one that's gonna save the world. Like, like, Not you, we like we together, right? So how do you work in harmony with others? How do you get out of your, your own feels so that you can, so you can get out of bed in the morning and activate, and then how do you do it with others? How do you come together with community in, in harmony and, yeah. So anyway,

No, I think that's the perfect place, and I know we're coming up on time. I think that's the perfect place to kind of begin to wind things down, because I think that taking it out of the individual and, and putting us back into nature and back into community is so much a part of a recipe for something. I'm not sure what it is, but it, it feels, it feels important,

it feels salient back into wholeness, back into Kintsugi. You know, we're fragmented as a society and I think we can come back into cohesion. We're not at, I mean, I think in many ways, The divide between us politically and socially is largely a projection and manufactured, but it's not real, you know? And so we can actually start to come back together if we have the courage to get out of ourselves and recognize that we, we do need each other. We need to be seen, we need to s to to witness each other and extend, extend ourselves. I, I was, I was a New York City liberal, totally arrogant, and you know, I, I, I mean literally coast to coast, flying from one side to the other. over the flyover states, by the way, Texas, where I live now, being one of the places that I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole because everybody there was so backwards and how could they vote that way in all the things? And it was, it was actually the, the election of Donald Trump that I, that freaked me out so much. I was like, how could the, the, those people vote for someone like that because he's this and that and the other? And I was so stuck in my own perspective and what I believed that I realized, I, I, I decided I was gonna start to reach out and understand those people, quote unquote those people, so that I could make them change. So that I could save them. And the more I reached out and the more I really truly started to understand, their perspective. I started to realize there was a part of the hole that I was missing. There was something that I hadn't been seen. And, and ironically, I was the one who changed They were the one who changed me. And thankfully cuz I got to expand outside of my egocentric myopic liberal bubble into more wholeness and found so many great humans that are now, um, mentors and teachers and surrogate grandparents. So, ha, happy to ha, happy to have landed in one of the flyover states.

Yeah. There's something to be said for. I love what you said it, because politics is, I think in many ways there's, there's aspects of illusion to this and it's not real per se. And I think that when we live in the very tangible world, this feedback of nature, it somehow lessens that grip on us. And I always think that we come to know ourselves more when we seek out people that we feel are other. When we seek out those people, those other people mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. that aren't us. Mm-hmm. that is when we meet the parts of ourselves that we least expected, or that maybe we need the most.

Yeah. And it's back to, you know, what we were saying earlier is, uh, having the courage to step into that abyss, that unknown. And, and having the faith that that's where the medicine is. Yeah.

Well, I think that's the perfect place to wrap things up and that way you can go be with your dogs and your wife, tell everyone where to find you and where to find, where to find earth speed. I really enjoyed diving deep into the earth speed videos that are on YouTube, so I'll put my call out to everybody to explore that, to explore. You have some great mentors on there, Zach Bush, Jamie Wheel, uh, Ryan Engelhart. Like there's some, there's some really cool conversations that are unfolding in

those videos. Yeah. Thank you. And you're next. We gotta get you I appreciate that in the hot, hot seat. I would love that. Yeah. Yeah. So we're at, at earth speed and, uh, across all the channels, Instagram, YouTube, primarily, although we just recently got our YouTube channel. Reinstated because the algorithm ti Tyranny had us blackballed for, for some stupid reasons, mis or disinformation about the speed of earth or something. I don't

know. Yeah, that's, that's how YouTube likes us disconnected.

Right, exactly. So anyway, we just got that back and, um, starting to contribute there as well. So yeah, earth speed. And you can also find me as well at Adrian

Grier. We'll have links to all of these things. I wanna thank you and I, one of the things I really wanna thank you for is sharing your story. I, it's a, it's a vulnerable thing to do, and as I listen to some of these podcasts that you've been on, that I'll, I'll link in the show notes. I think that by sharing our stories, people have an opportunity to have sparks and beginnings of their own transformations. And so thank you for doing that because it's, it's not an easy thing to do and I, I do think it makes, makes a big difference.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. For that acknowledgement. Thank you.

Yeah, it was a pleasure.

Likewise.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Mind, body and Soil Podcast. If what you found resonated with you, may I ask that you share it with your friends or leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts. This act of reciprocity helps others find mind, body, and soil. If you're looking for more, you can find us@groundworkcollective.com and at Kate underscore Kavanaugh. That's k a t e underscore K A V A N A U G H On Instagram. I would like to give a very special thank you to China and Seth Kent of the band, allright Allright for the clips from their beautiful song over the Edge from their album, the Crucible. You can find them at Allright allright on Instagram and wherever you listen to music.