Regenerative Skills

I’ve been so fortunate to get to speak directly with so many people who have created incredible examples of permaculture abundance and ecological health and resilience through this podcast, and though I’ve also gotten to visit many permaculture projects and practitioners, many of the ones I’ve seen in person are either just in the early stages of getting off the ground, or haven’t quite found thei...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-lAJKPsQ0U&t=6s Today I’m going to kick off a new series focusing on reforestation and agroforestry. I’ve been motivated to return to this subject as it seems to be unusually pressing these days. The wild fires in the western USA and in the Amazon rainforest are not only destructive to those regions in isolation, they also have major ripple effects across the globe...

I haven’t done a special episode in a long time, in fact I haven’t done any at all this season and it’s been a while since I’ve done a Regenerative Round Table since I’ve been transitioning from the farm where I lived with my colleagues in Guatemala until May of this year to where I am now, which is a small town about a half hour north of Barcelona in the beautiful Mediterranean region of Cataluny...

Today’s episode is very important in that there’s a limited window of time for those of you, especially in the USA who care about natural building and want to see cob and other natural building materials legalized and approved by building authorities to help this happen. An incredible opportunity is coming up in the last week of October, which is just over a week from now when members of the Cob R...

I’ve talked about many different building materials through this series, but one of my all time favorites often gets overlooked because it isn’t commonly used as a structural element. Lime in all of its various forms as a plaster, paint, mortar, grout, poured floor or even in newer applications like hempcrete, has so many advantages and applications in just about any style of natural or convention...

Today’s guest, Benito Steen is one of the people that I’ve most had requested from you listeners to do an interview with, in large part because of the success of his YouTube channel called “The Nito Project” where he works with his younger brother Panther to make beautiful educational videos on natural building techniques, earthen plasters and even the japanese method of making polished clay balls...

We’re now well into this on-going series on natural building and design, and we’ve covered bamboo building, rocket stoves, design at the building and community levels, and so much more already. One of the biggest topics that I haven’t yet explored on this podcast and has always interested me is the subject of renewable energy. Renewables have been in the media for a long time both branded as a sol...

Until getting to know Daniel and his understanding of building design and healthy living, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do an episode on aircrete. I’ve focused only on natural building techniques and materials up until this point because I honestly believe that nature provides all the materials we need to build high quality and healthy structures. But since Daniel comes from the perspective of natural...

I finally had the chance to do a follow up session with one of my favorite natural builders, April Magill. She’s not only an accomplished architect, builder, and educator through her company “Root Down Design” and the American College of the Building Arts, she’s also constantly experimenting with new techniques and materials as you’ll hear in this episode. Back in the first interview that I record...

As I continue to explore the topics of natural building and ecological design in this ongoing series, I had the pleasure of speaking again with Mark Lakeman. Mark has been a big inspiration to me through the architectural work he’s done at the community level, and in exploring what it takes to design neighborhoods and gathering places that help humans to reconnect to their sense of place and overc...

In this continuation of the series of regenerative building and design, I checked in with a good friend of mine and a hero in the rocket stove and masonry heater sphere. Kirk Mobert, more commonly known as Donkey, is the founder of the Sundog school of natural building in northern California and has literally been on, and in, the ground through the development and maturation of rocket stoves and a...

Continuing with this series of exploring natural building materials, design techniques and traditions, I spoke with my friend Trey Abernethy, a long-time builder and now a bamboo craftsman. For over a decade Trey worked in the industrial building trades before moving to Costa Rica where he took a bamboo building course with Rodolpho Saenz that changed his trajectory. Trey now co-teaches bamboo bui...

I’ve been looking forward to speaking with my next guest for a long time now. Chris Magwood is the founder and director of the Endeavour center, which provides experiential education at the intersection of high-performance and natural building. Chris is a self proclaimed building “omnivore” who experiments with any and all materials and techniques he can get his hands on. He has dedicated his care...

Today we’re back with Erik Ohlsen, founder of both Permaculture Artisans, one of the preeminent ecological landscaping companies in the US, and the Permaculture Skills center a vocational training school that offers advanced education in ecological design, landscaping, farming, and land stewardship. Erik is also the author of several books including “The Forest of Fire,” Activate Your Joy,” and mo...

Today’s conversation was recorded back in the last few weeks before I left Guatemala when I had a chance to sit down with my good friend and fellow permaculture educator, Mordur G’ott, but we all call him Moli. Mörður or Moli is a permaculture pioneer in Iceland who has been travelling between countries to learn and share what he knows. In Iceland he has hosted multiple events and PDS's with legen...

In the last few episodes I’ve spoken to a number of designers and business advisors who’ve specialized in regenerative business planning and ecological work, and today’s guest many of you may remember from the very early days of this podcast.  In this episode I had the pleasure of talking with my friend Scott Gallant. It's been almost three years since we spoke on this podcast and he was one of th...

As I continue to explore the myriad options that exist for profitable regenerative work, I keep coming back to the business aspects of impact and integrity entrepreneurship. One of the people that I’ve come to rely on for professional perspectives in this sphere is Pete Widin, Founder of the Epic Eco Designer. I had the chance to catch up with him for today’s session where we explore many aspects...

Building on the theme of profitable ecosystem regeneration, I spoke to Gregory Landua, CEO and co-founder of the Regen Network. Gregory has worked in ecosystem regeneration for a while. Formerly working as the CEO of Terra Genesis, nova chocolate, the Regrarian’s platform and Gaia University. He is also the co-author of the groundbreaking book Regenerative Enterprise: Optimizing for Multi-Capital...

One of the most common concerns I hear from the regenerative community is how someone could make a good living while working directly on projects that regenerate our planet. While there are many different ways to do this, it seems that the dominant narrative in business tells us that the most profitable job prospects are those that are destroying our natural world. Exploitative petroleum companies...

We’ve reached the last episode in this month’s focus on fixing the food system. In the last three weeks we’ve talked about how co-op grocery stores offer real hope for transforming the supply and distribution of food by offering an alternative to the monopoly of the grocery giants. We’ve covered the power and importance of indigenous food and land management, and we’ve also explored the joys and r...

Continuing with this month’s focus on fixing the food system, I wanted to go back to basics and discuss the practicalities and challenges of growing your own food with just a modest sized yard. I reached out to Crystal Stevens who is an author, an artist/art teacher, a folk herbalist, a regenerative farmer, and a Permaculturist. She is the author of two award-winning books, Grow Create Inspire, an...

In continuing this month’s focus on fixing the food system I had the pleasure of speaking to a personal hero of mine, Sean Sherman, author of the “The Sioux Chef.” Sean has been the recipient of a First Peoples Fund Fellowship, the Bush Foundation Fellowship, National Center’s 2018 First American Entrepreneurship Award, 2018 James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook, and a 2019 James Beard Lead...

Today I’ll be kicking off another month dedicated to an important topic in regenerative living. For a long time now, our food system has been a primary indicator for so many markers of health in our society, from the way that our food is produced, what kinds of food we eat, how we cook, how it affects our health and even our ethics as consumers. For the next four weeks I’ll be taking a look our fo...

I’m so excited to share this interview with all of you, not only because I had such a good time speaking with Loxley and Rhapsody from the “Story Connective” but because they impart such incredible insights into story-telling, connecting to community, and a topic which I’m increasingly interested in, which is listening; not only listening as a passive way of absorbing information, but active liste...

In our last interview in this month’s focus on regenerative communities, I had the pleasure of speaking with Alan O’Hashi, Alan is a newspaper journalist turned documentary filmmaker and screenwriter who works with groups and organizations to help them tell their stories and is also organizing an intentional creative community in Cheyenne, Wyoming. For the focus of this interview Alan speaks from...