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Morag Gamble:

Welcome to the Sense-Making in a Changing World Podcast, where we explore the kind of thinking we need to navigate a positive way forward. I’m your host Morag Gamble, permaculture educator, and global ambassador, filmmaker, eco villager, food forester, mother, practivist and all-around lover of thinking, communicating and acting regeneratively. For a long time it’s been clear to me that to shift trajectory to a thriving one planet way of life, we first need to shift our thinking. The way we perceive ourselves in relation to nature, self, and community is the core. So this is true now more than ever and even the way change is changing, is changing. Unprecedented changes are happening all around us at a rapid pace. So how do we make sense of this? To know which way to turn, to know what action to focus on, so our efforts are worthwhile and nourishing and are working towards resilience, regeneration, and reconnection? What better way to make sense than to join together with others in open generative conversation. In this podcast, I’ll share conversations with my friends and colleagues, people who inspire and challenge me in their ways of thinking, connecting and acting. These wonderful people are thinkers, doers, activists, scholars, writers, leaders, farmers, educators, people whose work informs permaculture and spark the imagination of what a post-COVID, climate-resilient, socially just future could look like. Their ideas and projects help us to make sense in this changing world to compost and digest the ideas and to nurture the fertile ground for new ideas, connections and actions. Together we’ll open up conversations in the world of permaculture design, regenerative thinking, community action, earth repair, eco-literacy, and much more. I can’t wait to share these conversations with you.

Over the last three decades of personally making sense of the multiple crises we face. I always returned to the practical and positive world of permaculture with its ethics of earth care, people care and fair share. I’ve seen firsthand how adaptable and responsive it can be in all contexts from urban to rural, from refugee camps to suburbs. It helps people make sense of what’s happening around them and to learn accessible design tools, to shape their habitat positively and to contribute to cultural and ecological regeneration. This is why I’ve created the permaculture educators program to help thousands of people to become permaculture teachers everywhere through an interactive online jewel certificate of permaculture design and teaching. We sponsor global PERMA youth programs. Women’s self-help groups in the global south and teens in refugee camps. So anyway, this podcast is sponsored by the permaculture education Institute and our permaculture educators program. If you’d like to find more about permaculture, I’ve created a four-part permaculture video series to explain what permaculture is and also how you can make it your livelihood as well as your way of life. We’d love to invite you to join a wonderfully inspiring, friendly, and supportive global learning community. So I welcome you to share each of these conversations, and I’d also like to suggest you create a local conversation circle to explore the ideas shared in each show and discuss together how this makes sense in your local community and environment. I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land in which I meet and speak with you today, the Gubbi Gubbi people and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.

In this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World I’m delighted to be in conversation with Alana Marsh. Systems Resetter, Wayapa Wurrk Practitioner and Aboriginal Systems thinker. Alana is aligning systems of knowing, being, and doing from a place of abundance, health, gratitude, and joy, and is creating an alive Aboriginal hub in inner east Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. She talks too of nourishing the nest within our own skin so we can nourish and influence others. I know that I certainly felt so much calmer and more grounded after talking with Alana for this hour. Alana and I are also part of the Regenerative Songlines as training network. Permaculture is the way I found to apply systems thinking in a whole systems. Wayapa Wurrk is Alana’s. I’m so thrilled to be able to share this warm and uplifting conversation with you about living systems and living well and resetting systems enjoy. It’s my great pleasure to welcome to the show today Alana Marsh. Alana and I have met through the Regenerative Song lines Australian network. And there was a number of things that Alana was talking about in a recent meeting that just moved something within me, and I reached out to her to invite her, to talk the show and she’s graciously accepted to be with me here today. I’d like to acknowledge that I’m here immediately with you today from the land of Gubbi Gubbi people on the edge of the Murray river that’s also [inaudible]. Welcome to the show Alana it’s so lovely to have you here today.

Alana Marsh:

Thank you, Morag. I really appreciate the opportunity to have this chat with you. Is it okay if I add a layer to the acknowledgement as well?

Morag Gamble:

Please do.

Alana Marsh:

I just wanted to I’ve got a little, um, candle here and people who might be listening won’t necessarily see this, but I’m actually, just lighting a stick of Palo Santo, which comes from outside of Australia, it’s is one way of clearing energy. And the acknowledgement country is a beautiful way of sending vibration down to the earth. So I’m just going to waft that smoke over my screen, as I send love and gratitude down to our collective mother, mother earth. For thousands and thousands of years, she had the vibrations of contempt of traditional custodians lavishing her in love and that reciprocity that was created through dance and song and ceremony, and as Dr Anne Poelina says with our regenerative Songlines work, you know, country actually gets a little bit lonely if we don’t send that vibration down to her. So I want to invite all contemporary custodians to also think about the vibrations that they’re sending down to the earth. And I like, I would like for us all, as humans to wrap a bit more intention around that vibration, because, you know, we have a whole range of vibrations that are rippling and echoing out. Um, and sometimes they don’t really come from a place of much knowing. They can come quite low vibration in terms of what they’re sending. So I invite us all to raise that vibration wrap that love around ourselves, those traditional custodians, and also that collective mother that we all share. And I love that I actually do this with Palo Santo. Cause you know, this was introduced to me from someone, um, who had spent a lot of time in south America and 300 years ago probably Palo Santo wasn’t wrapping or the tendrils of smoke when coming from Palo Santo on this continent.But we are in such an amazing point in time where there is so much going on and there is so much influence and mingling and it’s quite a beautiful thing. And just wanted to do that. So much love. I’m on the land of that Woiwurrung speakers, um, lived loved and laughed on for thousands of years and it’s an amazing privilege that we have as Australians to embrace that legacy that we’ve inherited from those traditional custodians all across this continent. And yeah, just a beautiful expression to be able to do that.

Morag Gamble:

I was going to ask you, um, how would you open up a work session? And I feel like perhaps it’s something similar to what you just did then in a way.

Alana Marsh:

Yes, it is similar it’s actually.. I find myself to be someone that’s sort of greatly affected by what’s going on. And so I’m having to put some layers of integrity around the container of me. Often I have this amazing, green sea turtle show that was my mother’s and my mother passed away oh, over 20 years ago. And so I reconnected with that after her passing and it is, it is just a beautiful shell, but I often use it. In the early days when I was sharing and, because when I hold it on my, over my belly, it reminds me of when I was pregnant myself. There’s something amazing about having that extra skeleton on the outside. Anyway, what I would do is actually flip it over and it’s actually like a bowl of humanity as well. When you look at that turtle shell. And I said, you know, why it really resonates for me because it doesn’t ask us to all become homogenized and all the same. If we were to look at that bowl, and you know, all the different, diversity’s the different genders, the different cultural backgrounds, just all the different things that make us unique and special. If we were to make a fruit salad of that in that bowl, no one gets to lose what it is that makes them unique. And when you have a contribution into that fruit salad, that’s from a certain place, it retains the color and the flavor. And when we have smoothies and you know, I’m not, I’m not saying smoothies are bad, but you know, they’re, they’re quite similar. Every mouthful tastes the same. And so I love the fact that it allows us to retain what it is that makes us unique and special, but we can all coexist in some level of harmony and connectivity and moving forward. And as you know, Morag I’m sure that, you know, often the best part of the fruit salad is the juice that’s left in the bottom. The co-mingling,

Morag Gamble:

You’ve just created this most beautiful image in my mind, but that description is so amazing because so often we’re trying to homogenize everything out. We’re trying to make it all together and the same and make us fit, but we can be together in that, in that diversity and uniqueness. Yeah.

Alana Marsh:

And I think we know from systems thinking like living systems, as opposed to artificial systems, because, you know, artificial systems rely on algorithms and knowing how things will act and respond in a certain situation. And it can become problematic when there’s a little bit of deviation and the artificial system goes away or implodes upon itself. Whereas the living systems actually, they get their integrity and strength from that diversity that everybody has a role to play a contribution to make. And so living systems require that. We see. I think through this whole stuff that we’ve got going on with COVID is just it’s a really interesting. When the sun came up this morning we were part of our sixth lockdown here in Melbourne, so I’m still processing what that actually means. And I just think, um, anyway, within living systems, it’s that diversity that gives us integrity, integrity, and ability to continue evolving and keep on moving forward. So, yeah, I love, and I was doing some work with Wayapa with adults that live with various abilities. And that’s one of the things that I really love about Wayapa as well is that it’s so accessible regardless of who you are, where you are, what your language is, your physical ability, even how society might say, or your cognitive ability is at a certain level. As soon as I was able to take it out of my head, drop it down into my heart and connect on that level. It was just such a delightful, beautiful experience. And we all retain that. We all have that need. We strive for connection. We strive for things that nourish us. We strive on love and abundance and it’s been such a privilege to share Wayapa.

Morag Gamble:

So can you tell us a little bit more about what it is and maybe many of our listeners don’t, haven’t come across it before, where did it come from and what is it and how’s it practiced?

Alana Marsh:

Yeah. So it’s a wellness modality. I call it a species-centered wellness modality that draws on some of the wisdoms and strengths. From Aboriginal Australia, first nations around the globe, really that is, has a very warm embrace of everybody through a whole range of messages. And we understand the earth as the enabling platform for mind, body spirit wellness. So Wayapa was created by Jamie Thomas and Sarah Jones in 2014. And Jamie is a [inaudible] man from here in Victoria and Sarah lived in Canada till she was about 14, and she’s got a Walsh background. So they have woven together their different strengths and created this beautiful wellness modality that enables the transmission of intergenerational wellbeing. And when you think about we have some of the world’s oldest living cultures here on this continent that for me, that’s the evidence that they knew about how to live well, how to thrive. And it’s being packaged in a way that it’s readily digestible in lots of different settings, because like most first nations, ways of knowing, being, and doing it’s extremely holistic and we all have a connection to the earth. we all see the same sun. We all see the same moon regardless of where we are on the planet. So it’s one of those gifts that’s been birthed from this continent, and it uses 14 elements to connect with the magic that the person has residing within. And with the level of some of the fear that’s around in society at the moment, the disconnection, allows people, a sematic reset to connect with the magic within their skin, and then, enables the activation of reciprocity. So to give, to receive, to feel a part of something bigger, to feel connected to the uniqueness of who we are and what our contribution might be out into the world. But then the, the feeling that you get when you look at the night sky when there’s no light pollution around, or just even being in the ocean and having that beautiful salt water over your body, when the water is warm, it’s such a beautiful biosphere that we are nested within. And we also have a movement sequence that goes with those 14 elements. So those elements, it starts off with, I might ask you, do you have any idea where would you start with the whole magnificence and the majesty of what we’re are part of? What would do you feel, feel like the first element might be Morag?

Morag Gamble:

Ah, touching the soil maybe, or reaching up to the like to the sun or the sky something.

Alana Marsh:

Yeah. Beautiful. Because that’s two movements we do with the creative element. Totally. So, everything starts with having been created. So Wayapa is beautiful because it doesn’t say, oh, it must be created this way, or it must be created that way. There’s a lot of room for that diversity of thought and opinion and knowledge that people have, but we know we have been created whenever we listen to our heartbeat, we touch our arm. So we pay respects. First of all to that fact that we have been created and allow people to think about what is the, what is the potential or the privilege that you have from having been created. And so we bring our hands up and I’m just going to demonstrate this. It doesn’t matter I’m not going to do all of them because we can’t have all of them recorded. But with this first movement, you know, first of all, we settled people into a pattern of gentle and purposeful breath. We know that the air connects us all around, but our brain can cancel out that we’re moving t through air most of the time, because we have so much happening, but we’re getting we get people into that pattern of gentle and purposeful breath, recognizing that that’s a connection point to everything around, we then do our hands up. We’re going to give thanks for all those systems in the body that are maintaining homeostasis, you know, and sometimes we can be so busy, we just forget. We’re actually just so yeah, we just forget how amazing that we have the potential of the day that we have woken up, that we have some sort of ability to make the movements that we do purposeful and intentional. So, you know, we draw it up and we take it up to the sky just as you said, up to this universe and we draw down. So we’re giving out from within, if we have capacity, we share that. So we pay respects to all that is above, and then we choose what we draw down. So we have this illusion of skin and that we’re separate everything around. We control and influence and there’s that whole thing there, but we actually, we draw down what we choose and that’s one of the few things that we can choose what we control most of the time, what we actually take in, we then extend our hands out across the waters, recognizing, you know, that we have almost 70% water in our bodies as well. And you know, that water is life. As I say, hashtag water is life. We draw in from across the surface of the planet. And as you said, we go down and we scoop up goodness from below, and then we do a big wide embrace of everything that’s around. And we honor the fact that we have been created by drawing in, from all those different stimuli and things that might be going on, what we actually choose. And it’s been really interesting with I did myself like a real head, um, thing when I was working with adults with various abilities. I thought, oh, creator, what, what would I do? And, just as I said before, dropping it down into my heart and allowing that connection to take place from there was a really profound, amazing thing to do. And there are 13 other elements that follow that. And it’s just a really beautiful process, to take people through that and allows them to remember memories, whole range of magic that they have within themselves. So really it’s just providing a container for a prompt, for a reset, that that is enabled through Wayapa. I can’t think Jamie and Sarah enough, it’s such a profound gift.

Morag Gamble:

How did you come to find it and dive into it so deeply?

Alana Marsh:

I had known Jamie for about 10 years prior to doing my process of accreditation with them in 2016, and he had worked in different roles and I was working in government and we actually, I was working for Department of Premier and Cabinet, and we actually had him in, for a NAIDOC event or something. And I thought I was really drawn to it. Government can have some very bureaucratic, hierarchical systems. So quite embedded within an artificial systems way of being, and not saying that that’s right or wrong. Well, I could, but I won’t because Wayapa has really, really helped me see the importance of being non-judgemental. Yeah. So I really something within my whole being was very attracted to it. And then when I started offering to have this process where other people could start sharing it and, you know, it’s amazing, we’ve got about, I don’t know, 150-160 practitioners from all different backgrounds. Probably only half of them are Aboriginal. My background is Torres Strait Islander. So, I feel like I’ve got this very unique position where government will put Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander together. But we know that it’s quite different, but there’s so many different Aboriginal nations across the continent as well.

Morag Gamble:

I picked up that you said before, cause often you hear people say in Australia we have the oldest living culture and you said cultures. And I thought that in itself was a really interesting distinction. That concept of, there’s this sense that, sort of one Aboriginal culture that was here, but it was there was so many and I wonder whether you could talk a little bit about the difference between the tourist rate island culture and the indigenous culture of the mainland, I suppose, because you, you also from, you’ve got family and company from Papua New Guinea, is that right as well?

Alana Marsh:

Yeah, I do. I do. I think it’s actually all one land mass. It’s just got water on top of it.

Morag Gamble:

Wow. You’ve just made my head explode.

Alana Marsh:

So that’s the amazing thing about this regenerative songlines project. The Camino in Spain, that is a songline that people travel and these I don’t know what you call them lay lines or Meridian points. I just get blown away when I look at images of river systems and the ripples and echoes of how life actually presents itself. So I was part of a small team that was showing a documentary on how Gibsland was colonized. So there was the formation of a Harland brigade, largely Scottish people. And it was part of my, you know, cause I’ve lived in Victoria for nearly 20 years, but, you know, grew up in new south Wales, born up in final Queensland. And I have had so many learnings through this journey and people, um, you know, had held up a lot of these people that were performing massacres as heroes and that they discovered Gibsland. So I really, it’s extremely something, but I’m just not sure if I’ve got the word, but just to profound insight to understand that there’s these clans across Gibsland commemorating somebody who was quite significant in the work of the Harland brigade. And through the showing of this documentary we had one event that was quite public and there was a little bit of trolling that happened on social media saying, oh, you know, Aboriginal people, you know, they have riots and they do all these things. And I just look at how the sophisticated governance occurred prior to colonization, because when you think about it, all these different language groups coexisting on one country, there was never in that whole time, like, oh, how about we take over someone else’s land? That whole extractive, colonial sort of we’ve been trading with them and we’d be getting some goods that I really would really like to have more of, so let’s yeah. Do raids and have a war and take over that land that never happened on this continent. I don’t think many people sort of realize, well, what does that mean? It’s just like an amazing thing. And I was listening to Bruce Pascoe one night and he said, oh, you know, the story between the rainbow serpent and the whale shows there were some fundamental principles around how things work because you know, this story is across not all, but you know, some of the nations that were on this continent prior and I expect they still are, but that the whale was a land dwelling creature lived on the land. And it actually started to sense there was potential for tension with the rainbow serpent. So it decided that, oh, I’m actually going to, go to the sea because that that tension that might arise between the two of us has no fundamental good value for our continued cohabitation on this planet. And Western science has found that the whale has a pelvic cradle, so it did once walk on the land. So those, those things, yeah if you’re guided by those things within nature, and there’s some amazing stuff happening in the biomimicry space and there’s a whole range of things, but I just know that there are such wisdoms and strengths that are largely untapped by non Aboriginal people in relation to how we could have all these different cultures. Yeah. And there is not, there is not one.. People’s say what’s the Aboriginal word for such and such. And it’s like, well, you know, there is not one Aboriginal word because there’s so many different language groups and yeah, through that diversity again that we spoke about at the beginning that the integrity comes from that as well. So we are so blessed to have been born in Australia or to live in Australia to have some opportunity as a contemporary custodian to progress some of these things and there’s been such trauma in Aboriginal communities from colonization as well. Just to assist in healing. And I think it’s potentially a tricky space for non-Aboriginal people to be in because sometimes if you’ve had the opportunity and the desire to learn, lots you can actually, and it’s never, it’s never necessarily initiation or at that sort of level, but you can actually know more as a non-Aboriginal person than some Aboriginal people do about, how things were prior to colonization and those riches and strengths to draw on. And yeah, I think it’s a very, potentially very interesting, but, potentially a difficult space to continue to play a role in the healing, as opposed to having someone think, oh, I’ve lost everything.

Morag Gamble:

What does it mean to be a contemporary custodian? I heard you say that in a, in a meeting with the Regenerative Songlines, it was last month, I think, and I thought it’s such a powerful term. What does it mean to you? What and how do you think people can step into that space to feel that term. Like to be a contemporary custodian?

Alana Marsh:

I don’t think there’s like a blanket understanding of how that works. I think that it starts with, going back to that create element with the potential of that person and the source of, and, you know, the fact that they will receive energy and they will pass on energy. So I think having that very much the essence of who you are having a deep appreciation of that is probably the first step for anyone wanting to step into that space. And then I think having that understanding of the echos and the ripples that exist of energy. I love the fact that, we have a very similar amount of water in our bodies to what is on the surface of the planet so we can often find ourselves being affected by the moon in the same way that the high tides and things like, you know, things like that actually happen. So understanding that movement of energy around, and then I think it’s around having faith and giving more energy towards the ability that we have to be self-organizing because what I could do would be different to what someone else could do. And yeah, so there is not one sort of way, but I think it all starts with within the skin, then understanding those ripples and echoes of energy. And how you determine whether this is something that you actually want to pass on, or whether it’s something you want to release and I think water’s got an amazing ability. I was just thinking before, you know, we were just in the middle of running, we’ve just wrapped up one Wayapa training process and we start another one on Monday, we were talking in the group about the amazing load that water takes. That often we go to the beach or we go to a lake or somewhere, we look at the reflection on the water and we might have a cry ourselves, but there’s never a saturation point that it reaches. And then someone said, oh, you know, I actually think the water has this ability to, the wind has this ability to clear us to cleanse itself as well, to release. And I thought, I was just thinking this morning, cause sometimes in urban settings or maybe in other settings as well, but you see plastic bags flying in the sky and it’s such a not a good sight, but then, I suppose the wind releases that when it’s stops moving it around. And so sometimes we can see people not even being aware of what they’re passing around. And it picks up speed and momentum and becomes bigger and uglier than what it needs to be. Whereas if we’re able to release that with intention to actually let it go, I think that’s the sort of the middle step and being that contemporary custodian and then people are definitely looking at what’s in my space, what am I connected to? And how do we increase our, agency as individuals, but also as a collective to become that self-organizing system because I think that’s the only way I think that’s what nature tells us. There is not one. It’s so based on watersheds and so based on bioregions. I see such movement of people today and I think, oh, if as long as, I was thinking about Oak trees and across the road from our house, there’s a park with trees in it. And I was thinking, oh there’s so many trees that have been planted there that aren’t from this country, but I can understand why. Those people wanted to feel familiar, something familiar to feel safe, connecting them with those ideals, those values inherently needed by all of us. So as soon as we become toxic and say, oh, we want to rip those out and put in native trees, it doesn’t honor the fact that, we all have this evolutionary need to feel safe, to feel familiar and that, actually doing that sort of action can be a toxic thing to do. So it’s, it’s, I don’t know if I’m making much sense for it.

Morag Gamble:

Absolutely. It’s actually sort of opens up a world of feeling of an acceptance in a way and that connectedness through that acceptance, that we all have these ways that we, that we ground ourselves with intent. And, but how does that happen without it being a colonizing force? How does it happen gently and how do we embrace what is here now and move forward in a way without, without the, I don’t know cannot move forward without the anger? And I guess that’s what this Wayapa work is doing is finding that intent and sending out those ripples without that sort of the toxic energy there, because you’re saying what comes out then can be amplified and make a difference. So taking responsibility, what is emerging from us individually and as a community, I suppose. Am I kind of.. Did that land, right?

Alana Marsh:

Yeah. Yeah. That was awesome. I think about that whole idea of anger I just think it, it’s really that force of energy often when we have someone saying this and someone saying that opposing views, dichotomy of difference that the only way that a lot of times people can progress that is to add another layer. You’re not hearing me, or this is this and that. And then it just escalates crazily out of hand. And somehow not letting anyone off the hook necessarily. It’s not about saying, oh, that’s just the soft option. Or that’s just giving people an out. It’s actually just creating that space to have those conversations that might be difficult to have those expressions of how things work to change the way that we give access to all the privilege that we have here in Australia. But it can never really happen while there’s just that escalation where things just get out of hand. And that’s why I think when that’s going on that whole escalation point, that’s almost like when we become like ice cubes so that water in our body becomes locked down and it’s just very brittle. And there’s, no, there’s not until you’re able to release that somehow to have that ice melt a little bit, that there can be that mingling that creates that fruit salad, juice down the bottom, because every, if everything stayed locked down and it wouldn’t get that opportunity to mingle. And so, it can be, yeah, I think it’s a very interesting path. I think we’ve got an amazing couple of years ahead of us.

Morag Gamble:

So part of what you talk about is this systems resetting that, well, that’s actually a big part of what you’re talking about. Like resetting sort of knowing and being, and doing. So I’m hearing that at this sort of this personal local level. How do you see that happening at this level that we kind of maybe, an Australia wide level or global planetary level that reset. Like, what is that reset that we needed at that scale and how, what’s your I mean, there’s… Time is this hugely complex notion and there’s, there’s deep time and, we have, we’re feeling time right now. Like we, there’s all these conversations about 10 years, 12 years. In, by 2050, by this, like this, we feel like there’s this compression that’s happening right now. Where does the sort of the system resetting thinking, enter into this conversation around what what’s going on now and, and how we can systems reset everything. That’s an a bit of everything question. I don’t know, feel to go into wherever it feels comfortable to respond. Sorry about that. That was, that was a bad question, but anyway, nevermind.

Alana Marsh:

No, no, it’s a good question. Cause I grappled with that one myself and I think I think that because of those ripples and echoes that. We have so many echoes happening within our skin, I feel like there’s that individual wellbeing, but we have to have that momentum where it’s joining up into collective wellbeing and it will happen in different ways in different places. But I think that that connection to earth is such a accessible, such a profound, such a simple thing but there are a lot of pressures for it to be disregarded or to allow the disconnection to continue. So I sort of kind of feel just at this point in time that it’s really about creating. I think Marg she talks about the islands of sanity within the skin and that hopefully we all join up and we create this momentum and because it’s all based on those self-organizing principles, it’s gonna look different in different places. But I kind of feel that, I mean, I’m seeing it that it’s happening. So I have hope I have faith, but exactly how it’s going to happen. I’m not really sure? because it’s much bigger than me.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah. So in the resetting and that connection to connection to the earth connection to country I feel somewhere there’s a, it’s a really, I mean, I think this is what drew me in many ways to permaculture a few decades ago was this deep possibilities of finding a way to connect with the systems which support us. And it started with me as a very kind of intellectual activity of finding a way to make it make a difference and relocalize food systems, all these like it was a very intellectual activity, but the more that I’ve delved into it, and I kind of enter into the space now and feel like I am the garden, gardening and when I’m in the garden, I’m barefoot. Because the sensory notion of like all the texture of the heat and the moisture of the soil, I can I feel it. And it becomes this incredibly intuitive way of being, and as I, as the garden is evolving around me that the diversity and the richness is also evolving. And I’m starting to notice things like the changes of the seasons with the different birds that come in, which indicates in my garden a change of “well now it’s time”, “or the mulberries are ” because this particular birds arrived. And I know that, and it comes every year and it has for, well over a decade now. And so there’s this sense that through permaculture, we can find this deepening and this understanding. So it might start in one place. I want to grow my food, but as you enter into it, or you want to find a way to reduce your ecological footprint. And so you relocalize your life and then as you get, like these different layers emerge and you just deepen into it. And so I wonder whether there’s other things that you’ve come across similarly that you’ve found people have talked about in the work that you do, that kind of almost like tools to deepen relationship.

Alana Marsh:

Hmmm. I think what you speak of is very beautiful and evocative, and you’ve opened yourself up and everyone has potentially different access points to this sort of awakening. And I suppose it’s a continual process and so many layers, so many layers with it all. And yeah, I sort of keep going back to, cause I’m still learning lessons myself, but we can only be open to the lessons of the future by having some sort of peace and connection within self to outside of self. So that whole that’s yeah, extremely powerful thing. And it very much is about the layers and once sometimes you get the opportunity to go back and actually sit within a layer or be within a layer that you thought, oh yeah, the last time I had this amazing, quite big experience in that space, but I’m being sent back in some way. So it doesn’t have it’s not a linear line that whole idea and those concepts of deep time that you were talking about before. But I just know for myself that for me that as soon as yeah. It’s, it’s very much about keeping alive that vibrancy and that aliveness as soon as I start to become a little bit fearful or questioning this or someone tells me, oh, that’s a crazy thing. And it’s like, as soon as I start subscribing to that, it’s a slippery slope for me. I had two strokes in the limbic region of my brain. So I had two clots that came to the top of my brainstem. And so it’s the part of the body that maintains your systems in your body. And I’ve had probably two experiences since then. And I’ve been doing all this stuff to work with the neuro-plasticity of my brain and reduce my vulnerability to hearing that little voice that says, oh is this the right thing? Or is this.. Whatever? And let’s say it’s a really yeah. Can, be a really ugly expression of Alana Marsh that I don’t really want to be. And I think that it’s something that I’ll continue to unpack further and actively try to address that. But I think that’s probably something that we all have to have to work with in different ways because we all have triggers little things from the past or what they might be, but that’s just happens to be mine. And that’s I’m sure I’ve got other ones as well, just between you and me, but that’s her, that’s a really big one for me that whole yeah. And that’s I’m very much about that layering, that essence of who I am and the potential that I can have in the world as an intentional link in that chain of humanity, and formed by by my ancestors, but with love and hope for the future generations that hopefully come and then understanding that sort of lateral movement of energy and then working at that localized self organizing way.

Morag Gamble:

I just wanted to ask you as well, a little bit about you. I noticed that you also have some Irish heritage in you. Do you have any links at all with that? Do you identify with that?

Alana Marsh:

I do. I do. And I believe there’s a huge resurgence of this way of being in the world over there as well. So I look forward to deepening more into that. I feel like we want to weave all the different strands that we have in our life tapestry because it’s potentially a huge undertaking that we have in this moment in time. And obviously we have these ideas of deep time and we can be guided by that, but also we have places like the UN saying we need to make some drastic changes as a species within 70 years. And we have, and I turned up at the right time. So like for this meeting, we sort of were straddling all these different ways of being in the world. And I think anything that can nourish that intention and that manifestation of being that intentional link in the chain of humanity is what’s called for this point in time. You know, it’s extremely exciting, but we’ve got some big work to do at the same time, so, yeah.

Morag Gamble:

In terms of this work too, with some of the words that I’ve heard you using things like reconciliation and reciprocity and what, like how we talked a little bit about reciprocity, but how has this work, do you feel helping with reconciliation and in what way can we, I think maybe can we accelerate that? I don’t know if that’s even the right word, how do we open up more to that?

Alana Marsh:

I think, I think reciprocity is enabled by giving that we need to give something to receive something. And so I think the reconciliation space can be very much informed by that as well. I think it’s a potential way forward. I think I’m saying I think a lot, because I’m just thinking as we talk, and this has been really good for me, because you’re allowing me to say out loud, some of the things that are in my heart and what I’m thinking. So just and often as adults where we’re worried about looking like we know everything, or we have this perfection paralysis and stuff like that. So I’ve been very vulnerable here in thinking through some stuff. But I think – here I go again – that whole, weaving. Someone asked me earlier this week what does reconciliation mean to you? And it’s like weaving a future together. So I know that’s some Aboriginal people don’t like the word reconciliation because they think that it’s reconciling or bringing together two things that were once joined and they don’t necessarily feel that that colonization that it was a level playing field or that they were just totally sort of decimated. So reconciliation is.. But someone from overseas said reconciling can actually mean just the bringing together. So I use that word not to say bringing together two equal things in a new way forward. It’s just actually about weaving a future together because we are all here. Aren’t we? We all co-exist and that’s the reality. And we will never go back to pre colonization times, but we have an amazing opportunity to weave some of those wisdoms and strengths from precolonial times to elevate that along with existing and emerging technologies. But the piece that I find that we’re missing a little bit is the activation of will. People are either sort of so caught up in some, whatever the reasons might be. We potentially have all the technology that we need. We can be doing things to respectfully elevate those wisdoms and strengths from Aboriginal Australia. There is just not a lot of motivation to come together to do that. I think some spaces it’s amazing and it’s there, but generally sort of speaking. And so we’re at this very important point in time because political correctness will actually push those fertile places where that needs to happen away. And we won’t necessarily know about it and I suppose it’s that whole thing around being authentic. Yeah. And I just sort of think, oh, it’s all it becomes overwhelming when I think about it like that. And I just think, oh, I’ll take it back to the, to the what’s within the skin, the source, think about those ripples and echoes of energy and then think about self-organizing systems and have faith in humanity.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah. So my final question then is around the Regenerative Songlines Australia. And so that’s something that we’re both part of and it’s something that has some just amazing leaders there. What is that process for you and what are you hoping that regenerative Songlines Australia might be able to do as a group together?

Alana Marsh:

We weaved that future together. We weave us together in an authentic expression. We know that it’s going to contribute to international momentum, which is amazing. I love the fact that we were asked to develop a roadmap and we said, no, a songline process is so much more relevant for this continent. You know, we don’t want that connection with the fossil fuel industry. So it’s obviously going to work at that local bioregional level, but coming together from around the country and sending that energy, that ripple and echo of the energy is amazing. It’s just, yeah, really, really exciting. And there’s been such amazing, yeah. People that have been attracted to that and have been drawn to that, and their whole self-organizing principles around how we are set up and how do we keep it indigenous land and it’s a process that brings much hope and joy to my heart.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah. Thank you so much for taking the time today to talk with me. I feel like my cup is full and running over. And that as you were speaking, a lot of the times, I don’t know what it was, but I feel like a sense of clarity around me. Like there’s a vibration, like, there’s something that I feel like I’m kind of buzzing. I don’t know if that makes sense.

Alana Marsh:

Wonderful. That’s wonderful. So I’m passing on some energy to you as well. So yeah. It’s landed in a great spot.

Morag Gamble:

Yeah. Thanks for taking the time. And it’s just, it’s great to very often see you as we get together in these zoom meetings all the time, and we’re never in the same room and we just see these little headshots and look a little bits of conversation that happened. And it was so nice to have a chance to really meet and talk and chat like this.

Alana Marsh:

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for reaching out.

Morag Gamble:

That’s all for today. Thanks so much for joining me. If you like a copy of my top 10 books to read, click the link below, pop in your email and I’ll send it straight to you. You can also watch this interview over on my YouTube channel. I’ll put the link below as well, and don’t forget to subscribe, leave a comment. And if you’ve enjoyed it, please consider giving me a star rating. Believe it or not, the more people do this. The more podcast bots will discover this little podcast. So thanks again. And I’ll see you again next week.