Introduction
Welcome back to Community Resilience, a podcast created in collaboration with the EcoVillage Resilience 2.5 Degree Project, facilitated by the Global EcoVillage Network. I’m your host, Eva Goldfarb, inviting you to gather around the fire as we explore resilience, adaptation, and transformation in our time of deepening polycrisis.
I’m thrilled to introduce Tanya Mottle, a passionate newcomer to the Ecovillage movement. Tanya’s journey began after four years of surreptitiously teaching sustainability in her English lessons in Prague. Returning to Australia in early 2019, she was horrified by Australia’s global status on climate action. She set out to explore how she could participate in proven local solutions to our global problems.
In May of 2019, she attended a training of trainers program using the Map of Regeneration, which marked the beginning of her deep dive into eco lifestyles and sustainability. This experience not only reconnected her with her homeland, but also highlighted the importance of integrating First Nations wisdom and sustainable practices with positive innovation. Tanya is now an active member, both within Narara Ecovillage and GEN Australia, and serves the movement as a GEN Ambassador, fostering collaboration between ecovillages across Australia.
Since her participation in the Ecovillage Resilience Project, Tanya is now organizing a series of “How Resilient Is Your Community”, talks and online games to expand and explore the Ecovillage movement’s impact. Join us as Tanya recounts her inspiring journey with the Resilience Project, the challenges and opportunities she’s encountered, and how she’s contributing to a global movement for sustainable living. Emphasizing the importance of community, meaningful conversations, and practical solutions for a regenerative future.
Interview
Eva: Welcome everyone, today we are joined by Tanya Mottl in Australia. Tanya, it is so nice to have you here today. I wanted to start by giving you an opportunity to introduce yourself. Who are you and, in short, what has brought you here today?
Tanya: Thank you. I’m Tanya Mottl. I’m a member of Narara Ecovillage, close to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. I am a GEN, Global Ecovillage Network Ambassador for Australia and the rest of the world. I facilitate climate conversations for tomorrow and the possible world gamification for transformation and also a fabulous game called the 2030 SDGs game. And why am I here? Because Narara has been one of 20 Ecovillages that participated in the GEN Resilience 2.5 project, which has been phenomenal at looking at the ways that we may, no, we definitely need to adapt to this changing world.
Eva: Can you share a bit about how you became connected with the movement and with this project, a bit of your background, life story with Ecovillages in a nutshell, if you can?
Tanya: I’d heard of Findhorn as a teenager. It’s an amazing place and I went, oh, I’d like to go there. And when I was living in Europe, I thought that before I left Central Europe, I would get to go and I really wanted to do the transformation game. It felt like a good transition. Unfortunately, I didn’t. I came back to Australia and bemoaned that I had not been to Scotland and Findhorn and my friends went, oh, well, it’s an Ecovillage just up the road. So I came, I visited and I was blessed that the people grabbed me. I didn’t like the site initially because it was too far away from the sea. And I had so missed the sea when I was in Central Europe. So I then found out that there was a game being facilitated here, not a game, but the training of trainers by Kosha Joubert and supported by Trudy Durians and Shane Sylvanspring of GEN Australia. And I just loved that. I loved, loved, loved that experience on that experiential map of regeneration. And I could see it being used in a coaching context for an individual tool. What’s important to me, you know, and it gave a structure for consideration and contemplation and reflection. And I said to Trudy, when I dropped her back at a train station: “I’m going to be involved with this”. So that was the beginning. And then of me sort of putting my toe in the water at Narara and going, look, I’m not quite ready. I am grieving the loss of my dad, but through the exposure and I threw myself in, I went, and this was at the beginning of COVID. So I just started doing online courses, connecting with the others and in 2020. And I tried to participate in everything that I could. You know, I listened to Paul Hawken of Project Drawdown. I was on a webinar with David Suzuki. I went to webinars with David Holmgren, the co-founder of Permaculture. And I just kept learning through all of that time. So that was how I got involved. I felt it was important. I felt like a renegade or an outcast because I didn’t feel like a lot of people in my world that I was just relanding with after four years away seemed to be as concerned as I was. So yeah, I connected with the Global Ecovillage Network. I was enormously impressed with the fact that there was the consultative status with EcoSoc and the United Nations. And that to me said, wow, you know, this has depth. So I kept going, you know, and then the next step was doing the online ecovillage design education in 2021 and collaborating at 10 o’clock at night till two o’clock in the morning with people all around the world and hearing different perspectives. And, you know, I’d had a training background. So being with different personalities and people’s processing and strengths and skills was phenomenal. So that was why I got involved.
Eva: Thank you so much. And I’m so impressed that you did that EDE from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Tanya: Yes, I was on.
Eva: Yeah. Amazing. Joining an ecovillage after the founding. I’m very interested in hearing a bit more about this process. How was it to enter into an established ecovillage? How did you feel received, incorporated into really the building process?
Tanya: Narara is actually still building. And so we’re still very much in the building community stage. So I felt very warmly welcomed and particularly because the woman in our community circle, Cila is Scottish and an incredible communitarian and warm. So she found a way for me with what was happening in my life to be able to come and participate, even though I wasn’t a full member of the cooperative so that I could have that toe in the water experience. I could witness and participate. And I was even given the possibility for a consultative status, which really engaged me, you know, and that was all through Zoom. Not entirely. I mean, it came and it went. I’ve seen the site go from three houses and then we had the 2019 Sustainable House Day and they come up like mushrooms and there were people coming to the site and it was exciting. And then we had COVID and more and more houses got built and we’ve moved some of our heritage plants from the horticultural department of primary industries research station to different parts and kept them. And so the history has been, you know, and the stories that have been woven through that time because I think history is great and learning that we’re about one of Australia’s oldest arboretums and walking in there in the summer when it’s just so hot and it feels like 10 degrees cooler. And then when we have the fireflies and it’s magical and then when we have the bunya season and the big gnats go and drop on us, not on us, not on us. And we do have to be careful of that. But nonetheless, there is a festival around that time. So it’s been a magical learning about the people that have embraced the site, the magic elements of the site, the projects that have grown and developed and of coming into a space now, you know, certainly welcoming others along their journey to joining. And community is where we do our biggest personal development, right? And it’s also an opportunity in times to have deep conversations about how we can connect, collaborate, be in community and come to deeper reflection. And certainly I’ve seen that growth now with not only the sustainable development goals, but also the inner development goals and that need for being and gentle transformation as well as, you know, sometimes abroad.
Eva: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for all of the resources you are already bringing. These show notes are going to be very rich. Talking a bit more about Narara, you have shared that you are outside Sydney, but if you are a bird flying over, I would love to get a visual of what this ecovillage looks like, what your bioregion is like, so we can orient a bit on the planet.
Tanya: Right. For many people who are considering coming here, you’d come by train or you could come by an EV or you could come by an electric bus. We had the community Congress, Community Energy Congress come to us that way. And we do have drone footage of the entire site. And what is quite normal about this area is that all the valleys are quite different. And it’s a very pretty site. It used to have a lot of forest on it and the forest was actually logged and the stream came right up to the bottom of the property. Well, unfortunately, because of development of highways, that’s quite been silted up now. We have a lot of ridgeways around us. We’re surrounded on three sides by forest or bush and it’s very quiet as a result. Although we do also have the distant sound of the freeway uphill of us and down the valley, we can sometimes hear the trains as well. So we’re actually only about a 12 minute walk from a nearby train station and quite close to urbanization, but yet it’s quiet and very beautiful. And we have the opportunities on a very large site to go walk about and to be truly in different parts of the site, whether or not that’s high and looking back down on the village and by our water tanks or across to our other rural lots and imagining how that could be. So that’s where we are geographically. And looking down, you can see the one side where we’re abutting suburbia and the other sides where we have the creek and the forest around us. We have a central spine coming through the village, which has some of our growing area on one side, our administration really in the heart of the village. And we’ve been able to utilize the existing buildings. We’ve removed quite a number of them, but the existing buildings, we are upcycling or up-purposing into something because we have incredible skills and human capital within the village. So that will be used again as more of a heart of the village so that we do come together, which is really great. Yeah. And the other exciting thing is because of our position, we have a lot of an ecosystem with quite a lot of biodiversity and through the regenerative practices of clearing invasive weeds, we’ve managed to regenerate particularly frogs. When we have frog ID week, it’s hilarious and delightful. And the people that get involved in the frog ID and the little jigs that they do, it’s great. And the same thing with birds. And we’ve participated in a regeneration project to regenerate the habitat for swift parrots, which is the swiftest parrot in the world. And these fly between here on the central coast and also down to Tasmania where they do their nesting. And that has been part of what Bob Brown, who his civil unrest has been globally acknowledged for what he did to save the Franklin River in Tasmania. So this connection between where species travel around, which is akin to many places that are regenerating wetlands and so on.
Eva: Wonderful. Wanting to land a bit within the resilience project. I’m curious if Narara as an ecovillage had a concept of resilience, a shared concept of resilience before entering the project and how this understanding has shifted over the last years. And if you have one now.
Tanya: I think the fact that we grew out of an existing horticultural site where research was done about imported plants and how they might adapt is somewhat foundational to even how we are as a village without perhaps it having been stated outright. But I think that because of the site, because of the people that have come, horticulturists, permaculturists, scientists, and passionate people, that I think that the sense of resilience has been in understanding and connecting to the land and recognising that we’re all part of a whole. And there’s certainly the sense of gratitude as well as, gosh, we like other species are all so different and learning to accept that.
Eva: Digging in a bit into the project, one of the earlier exercises that communities went through was a historical timeline. And this is a tool that was really profound for a lot of communities that I’ve talked to in helping them identify different phases of their project. I’m really curious what you learned from this process about Narara and how you as a community respond to change.
Tanya: Personally, it gave me such deep respect for those of the Sydney coastal ecovillage that was the initial iteration and how they’d searched up and down the coast for the right land for what they were looking for. And that was because our founder, Lyndall Paris, had been to so many ecovillages around the world and had done the social element of the ecovillage design at Crystal Waters and had a clear picture of what was needed. And she and her husband went, wow, this is it, when they drove into this site. And about resilience and the historical timeline, because there were setbacks to be expected. Yeah, the history and mapping that to what was happening locally, bioregionally was very, very interesting. And seeing how the village has evolved in those areas, social, ecological, and economically, through the governance that’s come through and through the process in 2021 of reviewing the vision of the village and doing that. It took six months to review. And that actually is now read in many of our meetings so that we come back to the vision of why we’re here, why we’re doing what we’re doing. And it does help, especially we’ve just held a new members orientation. And that timeline does help as well for people to understand the depths of foundational work that has been done by the pioneers. So things that have been important is, as I mentioned, finding a site that was important with the water, the aspect, the possibility to regenerate. And also because the desire was to be a demonstration ecovillage. So that’s happened. We’ve had challenges because the local council has gone into administration, financial administration. So that has made the project take a lot longer. Knowledge of soil research, and particularly we had a visiting professor who said, it’s incredible to see a group of individuals carrying on that knowledge of growing food and of being able to share land together. You know, we’re doing it perfectly and perfectly, just saying.
Eva: Aren’t we all? Yeah. I want to really underline that point. I have heard this a lot through my ecovillage research of just how important a really strong vision is and how important it is to have this very present within the community. So I like that you draw this out. You also spoke to a few challenges that emerged during the starting process. And I’m curious if you have any reflections as to how those challenges, what they were, first of all, and how they were met by the community, either in a resilient way or in a way they could have been.
Tanya: Sure. I’m going to start with the vision because that was an incredible thing. And it’s actually, it was part of the resilience project to do some visioning. It was part of, and it’s now part of what is happening here in Sydney next week, this week, Climate Action Week, visualising the future. And it’s interesting that the visioning that was originally done was a drawing and how that’s come to pass. And visioning how we might live and work together through coming together and having discussions has made a big difference. So coming back to the challenges, well, the council was an issue. That was an external issue. And the way that that was dealt with was through the group of members going to the council meeting and making themselves known through, if you will, passive resistance simply by being there so that the council went, who are they? What are they doing here? And it was like, well, we’re present so that you see us and so that you actually move our housing, the entire development forward. And so that our individual development applications can be developed as well. So that was one challenge. There’ve been other challenges of death, divorce. There’ve been the challenges of, during building, when we were our own property developer, we had two builders go bust. We had to lock the gates so that the subcontractors who were not being paid were not taking off site the resources that we had paid for, doors, windows, things that they would then be able to utilise. So financial things. There’s been a turnover of members. And that has been because the project was going to take, we didn’t know how long. And so many people have left because it costs to continue renting whilst your property is being approved. And we have a fairly stringent internal process to make sure that our ratings are as high as can possibly be so that we can be a demonstration ecovillage. So other challenges, projects that people would agree or disagree on. And of course, one of the biggest disagreements and challenges was COVID because we had a full range of where people sat in terms of vaccination or non-vaccination and fear that came through understanding, misunderstanding and recognising that perhaps people were doing the best they could, people, governments, et cetera, in a time that, you know, movies had been made about, but had we really thought that through? And I think that as well goes back to the thing now of what I’m seeing with challenges here in our bioregion, that we have a disaster recovery and resilience network. And there’s a lot more mapping going on of areas that are fire, flood, drought affected. And there’s a lot more encouragement of community connection. There’s a lot more awareness that insurance is no longer available to properties that are built on a floodplain that has been flooded, you know, three times in the last two years.
Eva: It’s really impressive that there is a bioregional awareness of resilience and the need for resilience moving forward. So that’s amazing. That’s definitely a leg up. Trying to shift some of these challenges into points of hope or overcoming. I’m really curious what practices were created or integrated into Narara during these different times of sadness, of fear, of external circumstances and maybe overwhelm that would come with that. What practices really helped you build your community resilience and overcome these things?
Tanya: I think that prior to the pandemic, there had been a lot of, well, first of all, people would come from Sydney for a weekend to work on the land. So that was a shared vision. Then there was the community dinners that would happen at that time. There was the members meetings. There was the evolution of how long or how short or, you know, the working days that happened at that time. There was the building of the experimental building in the campground of using straw bale and other earth building practices. And because that was intergenerational, I don’t know if there was any throwing of mud, you know, but there was fun things that got done. So that was somewhat of a resilience. Now we’re also blessed because we have a number of people that are in the community thing that have strong practice or skills in facilitation and bringing people together. But we also have John Seed, who is a peer of Joanna Macy for the Council of All Beings. So John’s deep ecology workshops and John’s simple way of being have been valuable to us, invaluable. We also, you know, in coming out of COVID and the differences, we’ve had listening circles so that people could speak their truth, you know, how challenging it has been for whatever position you may hold or if you sit on the fence like Switzerland. And so those have been useful increasingly as we’ve come out of the most fearful part of COVID has been the increase in and the reopening of our open days once a month. We had the experience weekends. We’ve had John Seed’s deep Ecology. We have had a lot more music, which has been wonderful and more community dinners. And we celebrate such things as the solstice, the equinox. And, you know, again, because we have psychologists and counsellors in our midst, you know, we’ll quite often have a little ritual around burning something that we want to leave behind and then putting an intention into something that we can, for example, posts that we put into the ground for the stage two development. So doing these little positive rituals.
Eva: Absolutely. Thank you so much. I hope that ecovillages going through similar struggles can draw from one of those things or individuals. I always underestimate the simple power of listening to one another. Sharing circles is one thing that I utilize a lot. So thank you for bringing that in as well. You’ve already touched a bit about the four dimensions that ecovillages operate within the social ecology, economic and culture. And one thing I’ve experienced through doing these interviews is that there’s a lot of interplay between them that comes out when you start talking about resilience. So I’m wondering if you can maybe speak to one, you can pick a pair, but how two of these elements have really shifted or affected the other one in your time with Narara and talking about resilience.
Tanya: I definitely say that society, you know, and our use of sociocracy imperfectly. We were very blessed to have on our board for some years, Gina from Western Australia, who’s a sociocracy practitioner. And that helped us enormously, as well as the connection to sociocracy for all who have a lot of online resources. So it’s the social element where we continue to contract and recontract with whatever projects it is that we’re doing. And that has helped. And there’s been constant review of our domains within the aims and domains of the different sociocratic circles. So that’s been interesting and helpful. And the overlay, you asked me to do a second one, is that correct?
Eva: Maybe digging in, how do you notice that the social adaptation and society’s influence maybe shifts one of the other dimensions? How does this affect your community culture, your ecological impact, your economic resilience?
Tanya: Well, there’s two areas that I really see. Sorry, I’m not very good at just doing one. One is the ecology, because the social groups work out the differences, et cetera, and come to understand how effective sociocracy can be. That the working groups perform better together, not always. And I think that that’s like anything. And I use sailing as an example, because you’ve constantly got to adapt and change and transform and sometimes go very slow and other times be quite rapid in your decision-making. So for me, it’s the ecology and the way that the site has evolved with the constant thought about food resilience. And I would say that also that as the social element and the more and more considerations have been utilised or adapted, that we’ve become more cognisant about the ways that we do things economically as well. Something that has come up here at Narara just recently has been the SDG number 12, which is responsible production and consumption. And this is because we’re blessed. We’ve got a PhD candidate doing research about circularity and ecovillages. So it’s really been that, how is it that ecovillages have a low impact? And it’s through, if you will, a consciousness or a mindset about what do I need? And therefore, what can I refuse? And how can we keep everything, just like in nature, circular, so that we are using fewer resources? And that’s where I would go back to Project Drawdown and my horror at hearing Paul Hawkins say, you know, with Donut Economics, that there is a certain amount that the planet can sustain. And when I heard it was six pieces of clothing per person per year, I was horrified. That’s an example of data. Now, I have to say, I’m on my fourth pair of underpants purchase this year. So I’ve only got two pairs of socks that I can buy now. And that’s it. So that’s why I believe in the circular economy, the fashion economy, not buying anything new. So this responsible consumption and being aware of whether or not it’s in the food that we purchase is not all wrapped in plastic and that we’re buying local or that, you know, if there’s cardboard boxes, how can we re-utilise those in the garden? If we’re having a coffee at our gorgeous coffee cart, can the coffee grounds do go into the compost, which then goes into our community garden, the community garden that then comes back, goes into the produce created at the coffee cart, or it’s sold in a little village pantry.
So this responsible consumption is again, a mindset of the impact that it has elsewhere. So that was something that I felt was really important. And the way that we transform our world through both acknowledging Indigenous wisdom, but also embracing innovative technology. It’s a combination of the two hand in hand. And I think that that’s a really important thing to consider and reflect upon. And to think about, just as I have a moon waxing outside the window, you know, what are the things that bring us back to something that we really love?
Eva: Thank you so much, Tanya. I think these are all wonderful examples of how ecological data really can impact our social choices and rituals and celebrations. Thank you. In your experience throughout the Resilience Project, and since joining Narara, do you have an imprint of whether Narara is becoming more or less resilient to deal with future climate adaptation change?
Tanya: Definitely more and more resilient, because there’s more and more awareness, you know, about the importance and the delight of growing food. There’s more and more awareness, again, around, you know, how blessed we are to have a dam and that what we may be able to utilise that for. And also the preparedness, again, the committing and recommitting to the social elements with sociocracy and particularly as we bring new members into the co-op. Yeah, I think those are the primary things. And I think the more that we actually share and have the discussions, it’s really challenging because we have so many people that are currently building their houses, currently designing their houses, you know, then about to launch, and construction costs have gone up enormously here in Australia. So that has meant that people’s dreams of what they thought they could achieve versus what they’re now probably going to have to achieve are very different. Everything is changing. And our ability to change and adapt, I think, is the biggest thing.
Eva: Thank you. I’m going to zoom out a bit now, looking at the Resilience Project as a whole, if there have been any really big takeaways or big lessons that Narara has from this project implement into your community culture?
Tanya: I think that the coming back to what has been foundational in the planning over the last 11 years since the site was purchased, of using the map of regeneration, using that as a base point and reviewing and mapping that to how we look at our projects. I think that’s been a really valuable tool. I think the Resilience Tracker is one that, you know, we looked at and I think that we need to come back to and have a review point for that and other areas. The awareness that we are willing to be experimental. I personally use the IPCC 2022 Climate Mitigation Report, which had Findhorn on the front cover. And then it also had a summation of that, and I think it was over 3,000 pages, that the scientists were saying was that we need more ecologically aware and socially innovative experimental communities that go together and network, and to provide educational outreach. And this was really reinforced when at our open day last month, we had a professor of property law come and visit us and make an incredible comment. She said, you know, the Department of Primary Industries or the Department of Agriculture used to teach what was possible, you know, through the experimentation, acknowledging some experiments had been wrong, and that Narara was an incredible example of individuals taking that information and resharing it back and demonstrating it. And today, just today, you know, we implemented a new car sharing. And as I sat and gave the induction to the others in the car, how you drive it, how you charge it, you know, there was this real sense of, oh, we’re doing this together. You know, and the questions that came up, and I said, you know, we’ll work it out. And we just document it so that as we experience this as being an effective way of showing that collaboration can work, and that we can minimize carbon impact, that we can actually have these experiences as being not just input output, but actually being a social connection, where it’s really worked well for us. So these are some examples of working together, which is great.
Eva: Do you have any advice for a project or an individual wanting to start some sort of community project who has not participated in the Resilience Project to build resilience themselves and within their community practice?
Tanya: Heck yes, do your research, do an ecovillage design education program, because it’s a whole systems, you know, you start in the social area, then you would go to the ecology and have some understanding, then dive into the economics of it, then dive into the cultural, and then finally finish in the worldview, you know, the whole systems and integrative systems and how everything is interconnected. I feel that that is foundational. And not only the ecovillage design education, but also the co-housing project, or education I did with Robin Allison from Earthsong in New Zealand, who turned out to be a buddy in many ways during the project, because I went and visited them twice. And they came here, and Robin did a workshop here as well. And creating buddies, you know, that you can learn from. And I don’t know if you remember, but when we did our ecovillage design education, we had a participant from Turkey. And when they had the horrible earthquakes, bang, she picked up the phone, the email, and messaged somebody else to say, what resources are there, so that we can help these people with emergency resilience, and to be able to get back on their feet. And a lot of that is around the permaculture principles. And I was very blessed a couple of weeks ago to meet Roe Morrow, who does permaculture for refugees, and she was just off to Bangladesh. And really the understanding that comes from when you understand the principles of working with the planet, you know, the sun, the water, the rain, and the soil, and of course, how we interact with each other, then it can be so delightful. And that can create, you know, the impetus and the positive upward spiral of collaborating on projects. I hope that answered your question.
Eva: Beautifully. And it also fills me with a lot of connection to the reason I became involved with the ecovillage movement in the first place, because there is so much potential within this connection. And it really just takes passionate individuals willing to make it happen, willing to make the connections and create these lines of relief when difficult situations come about.
Tanya: Yeah. And a lot of it is that thing of the research, taking a scientific approach, collecting some data around how things perform, acknowledging that things are changing, and so we have to adapt and change to that. Yeah, I think it’s really fabulous and interesting how just as scientists have done that, and as I said, you know, there may have been plants or animals brought in that are now invasive, and the recognition that we’ve made mistakes. And I love that we’re shifting back to this acknowledgement of First Nations, Indigenous, ancient ancestral wisdom of thinking, behaving, and responding. And I love, you know, that we see our First Nations people saying, you know, we’re here together. How do we improve country?
Eva: Absolutely. I’m hoping this understanding really leaks out into the wider world. Wanting to shift now a bit more personally, as we wind down, hearing about you, how personal and interpersonal resilience has a role in your life?
Tanya: It’s about whatever balance is and recognising that, you know, my thoughts and my body change constantly. And so just recognising what do I need right now? What’s the most important thing for me to feel somewhat in balance or somewhat grounded so that I can be agile? So that’s my personal resilience. And, you know, I personally find that through getting wet, whether it’s minimum on my face, you know, oh, now I’m awake, now I can function, but I prefer to get my head in the water. And everybody’s different, you know, and certainly what is a practice that I may have about connecting back to my personal vision? And my personal vision is about thinking of future generations. And how do I embody being as joyous as I can now here in the village for these little people that are coming through with their joy and delight and their awe for the natural world? And for the things that we can share, that resilience comes through sharing. And, you know, it’s learning. I just love constantly learning, learning to be creative, learning to grow things, learning how not to kill things, you know, plants, particularly where they’re edible. And on that interpersonal thing as well is connecting, recognizing differences, seeing how I can be myself and support, you know, as part of holding hands that we’re doing things together.
Eva: And as you do enter into more intense spaces of change or loss, what are some practices you have to help cope with these?
Tanya: Practices personally would be, you know, my own meditation and mindfulness. And I’m grateful whenever we have programs that are offered, whether it’s within the village and we have a number of mindfulness practitioners, including John. The reminder of those simple things and connecting and walking in the forest, a mindful, soulful talk or listen or just me and my friend, the dog, and recognizing that it’s just so lovely or observing a butterfly or a stick insect, you know, a really big one. And then it really I’m looking forward to the community dance, you know, and the community dinners and the community film nights. Oh, it was so valuable us watching the Firebird about Findhorn, how Findhorn had grown and, you know, the challenges they’ve had and how can we learn from that? And how did it make some of us reflect on just how lucky we are to have the village that we’ve had the vision and that grows and changes and that essentially there is kindness.
Eva: Essentially, there is kindness. Thank you so much. So you’ve also spoken a bit to how these acts interweave with your community practices. So thank you very much for bringing that in. Can you also share, aside from walks in the forest, how practices of connecting with other living beings help boost your resilience? This is something that was focused on a bit of the project. I’ve heard you touch upon it through time in nature, through walks in the forest, working with plants, keeping plants alive, learning how to grow food. Just wondering if there’s anything else you want to touch upon there.
Tanya: Absolutely. I think that John Seed’s passion for making compost and John Seed being such a demonstration because everywhere in the village that he has lived, bam, it’s green. And seeing that that’s so possible. The other thing has been walking around with different members of the village on the things and the knowledge that they have, whether or not it’s been the horticulturist who holds a flower and says of the Davidson plum, isn’t this a beauty? And John Seed having the Bunya Festival and telling the story of the Bunya trees and how the Aboriginal people would come together for a festival. That’s magical. The discovering new sites, parts of the site, especially by moonlight, beautiful. Hearing others with their gratitude for their walks, going to yoga, you know, going to Tai Chi, doing the dancing in the dark, going to the walkway and seeing the village from the opposite side where the beautiful trees have been growing and growing and growing and hearing that we have more of the swift parrots coming, which is just divine.
Eva: I’m hearing a lot of perspective shifts, changing the way you do things, be them at night or from the other side. And also deep awe of nature. I’m very curious how cultivated this in your life, this awe of nature. Is it something that has been with you forever? And how do we bring this awe wider than ourselves?
Tanya: Personally, I was blessed to grow up in a national park. I was blessed to be in a place where I could only get to by boat. So I was constantly surrounded by that. We knew that there had been Aboriginals in the area. It was probably not too long before we had moved in when Aboriginals were actually moved out of the northern beaches of Sydney. So there was always that sense of wonderment. There was the sense that we were free range like chickens and that we were able to go out in the bush and able to go to the waterfall and able to find some Aboriginal carvings. I grew up understanding about tides and how that affected and the winds that were at a particular time of year. I didn’t know a thing about growing food and it’s been the greatest delight learning about permaculture and recognising that’s something I definitely need to have. And in awe, well how could you not be in awe when there’s a full moon and it’s beautiful and the water sparkles and you can feel the whisper of a wind. It’s divine. And it’s the same thing with the sunshine. But equally I recognise that when the tide goes out, you know sometimes you can see the dumped fridges, the cars, the glass bottles that have been carelessly, thoughtlessly discarded, the oil slicks that have come from vehicles or boats, cars that have been poorly maintained because we haven’t valued how it is to care in our industrialised world, to deeply care and to understand how those systems work. So how do we come back to a place of awe? I think it’s sitting with children and telling stories. It’s the story of the hummingbird that when there was an incredible fire that all the animals ran away from the forest, but the hummingbird didn’t. And the hummingbird would go down to the water and bring up a beak full of water and drop it on the forest on the fire. And the gods apparently looked down and said, it’s time. This little bird has so much courage and bravery. And so the gods reigned so that the fire stopped. Now that’s a story I heard both in the Storytelling Festival in Ireland and in Scotland. And the story is one for me of continuing to do what you feel is right. And that sometimes something bigger than us is looking out for us. And that is why we should have hope. Hope to regenerate this magnificent planet and hope to regenerate our social connection because the planet will look after itself and the planet will look after us. So we need to connect.
Eva: I absolutely agree. And I feel that’s such a beautiful round ending. Wondering if there’s anything else you would like to add before we part ways today?
Tanya: I think that looking for tools that create conversation would be my biggest take out from my own personal quest to learn more. And it’s been a marvellous thing to look back at my first visit to Narara where I knew nothing other than it was time to do a permaculture course. And to what I feel like I have learnt through my practical PhD in being a human on a planet that has enormous potential for regeneration. We have enormous potential for transforming our world by 2030. And that the ecovillage and permaculture movements are fabulous. And you don’t have to be part of an ecovillage to be an eco-citizen. I mean, we are all part of this place. And so just finding something on, for example, the map of regeneration, which has got a structure. So what’s something that I love, that I’m passionate about, that either I have skills to contribute, so my value is giving back, or what is something I would really love to learn? We see that with the volunteers that come to ecovillages that want to learn about natural building and then are bewitched by the creativity that comes from that. And equally, there’ll be those that come because of the practicality of modular building, that in these times of extreme weather, that we do need to build or rebuild homes quickly and shelter quickly. And that is the right of everybody to have that, and that there should be equality for all. So that’s why I’m so passionate about the sustainable development goals, because I think they’re a very simple way of looking at things. And when we understand the way that the story in between of lack of poverty, quality education, wellbeing for all, life on planet or on the land and in underwater, and how it all connects, clean air, I think it’s exciting times to be learning. So we’re all educators, we’re all learning. I think these are exciting times to truly look to how do we transform the planet.
Eva: Thank you so much, Tanya. I’m hoping you can leave us with just one tool that you have learned for starting conversations that any listener could take and implement in their day today.
Tanya: I think asking the question, how do you feel about something? How do you feel about the changes that are happening right now? And what is something that you’re really passionate about that you feel that you could not live without in your world? So asking those kind of questions helps a person to recognize, A, how are we feeling, because I think we’re immensely disconnected from our feelings. And what is something that you feel is that you absolutely love? Is it whales? Is it butterflies? Is it about creativity and expression of that? And is that art something that you express through your tattoos? Or is it something that it is through your garden? Is it something that it is by innovation? Have you created something that demonstrates small footprint? So what is something that in conversation you are passionate about? And if you break it down to four areas, which makes it far less, I don’t know, is there something socially, ecologically, economically, or culturally that excites you? And then of course, my thumb was showing up, the fifth dimension being the whole systems.
Eva: Thank you so much, Tanya, for all of the wisdom you’ve imparted on us today. And this ending remark, I love it. And it’s actually come into my life quite often lately. “What is your passion”? as an icebreaker in conversation. So thank you for bringing that in as well. And for spending some time with us today.
Tanya: Thank you, Eva, great to connect across the world.
Eva: Absolutely.
Outroduction
Join us again next week, as we continue the conversation over what it means to be resilient in our time of deepening polycrisis. While you wait for the next episode of Community Resilience, we invite you to explore more about the Ecovillage Resilience 2.5 degree project by visiting us online at ecovillage.org/resilience.
GEN Staff
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