In this episode of my podcast ‘Sense-Making in a Changing World‘, I am joined in conversation by my dear friend Rhonda Hetzel – award-winning blogger (32 million + views) and best-selling author of Down to Earth and The Simple Home. Rhonda’s blog is also called Down to Earth. You can find her on Instagram, too.
Rhonda and I spoke about finding pleasure and purpose in a simpler way, and of being home-based. We spoke in the midst of the covid-19 lockdown here in Queensland Australia via zoom. Around the world, we continue to be encouraged (or mandated) to stay home for extended periods of time. This calls us to reconsider what a more local home-based life means for us, and how we can make it work.
Download this list of 10 of Morag’s favourite books.
In our conversation we also explore how to make ends meet. The pandemic has brought a massive shift in patterns of work. For over a decade, Rhonda has been sharing simple practical advice for how to do more with less – with simple practical elegance.
In the introduction to her blog, she writes:
‘If you haven’t already discovered the power of your own home you are in for a delightful and beautiful shock. Come closer and let me whisper in your ear, because if everyone knows this, it will cause a revolution. The work you do in your own home will enrich you and make you a different person. It saved me from a life of ridiculous spending and mindless acquisition and slowed me down enough to allow me to see the beauty surrounding me.’
Rhonda’s books and blog are guides to simple living, and are with such useful advice – especially now.
Rhonda and I meet about 5 years ago when I was interviewing her on the author stage at the Real Food Festival in Maleny. We have been close friends since. It is Rhonda in fact that inspired & encouraged me to start blogging, and offered me a regular segment on ABC radio. I love visiting her and her husband Hano ..and her chooks and wild Scottish dog, Gracie, for a cuppa in her garden – not too far from here. I hope we can do this again soon.
How have you been reconnecting with home in 2020? Getting out in the garden and growing more food has definitely been a popular way.
Read the Full Transcript
Morag:
Hello, friends and welcome to the sense-making in a changing world podcast, where we explore the kind of thinking that can help us navigate a positive way forward.Morag:
I’m your host Morag Gamble, Permaculture Educator, and Global Ambassador, Filmmaker, Eco villager, Author, Food Forester, Mother, Practivist and all around lover of thinking, communicating and acting regeneratively.Morag:
Unprecedented changes are happening all around us. 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 towards resilience regeneration and reconnection. What better way to make sense than to join together with others in open generative conversation.Morag:
Each week, I speak with a wonderful guest who inspires and challenges me, with their ways of thinking. These thinkers, doers, educators, activists, scholars, writers, leaders, farmers, are people whose work informs permaculture and spark the imagination of what a post covered climate-resilient, socially just future could look like. Their way of seeing helps us to compost and digest ideas and nurture the fertile ground for new ideas. Together, we’ll open conversations around permaculture design, regenerative thinking, community action, earth repair, and eco literacy.Morag:
This podcast is brought to you by the Permaculture Educators program of the Permaculture Education Institute. This is an online dual permaculture design and teacher certificate program designed to help you make permaculture your life and your livelihood, too. And to help you ripple out permaculture thinking and action in your world and beyond.Morag:
It is such a pleasure today to welcome to the show Rhonda Hetzel. Rhonda is a dear friend of mine who lives not too far from me. And I first met her when I was interviewing her at the real food festival on the stage. She’s the bestselling author of a couple of books, actually The Simple Home and Down to Earth, and also the creator of an award winning blog called Down to Earth as well. Now her blog has in the realm of 32 million views, absolutely extraordinary. And it’s Rhonda who encouraged me to start blogging myself and also took me under her wing to really show me the ropes. And I’m so indebted to Rhonda for all of her kindness and her encouragement over the years.Morag:
In the context of the pandemic and everyone being more home-based I really wanted to share with you a lot of the lessons and the insights that Rhonda has been sharing around the world for a decade now about encouraging people to find pleasure and meaning in a simple life and rediscovering the heart of your home, slowing down and, and finding contentment and purpose in the every day. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Rhonda and find some really practical advice about how we can connect with our home and enjoy living a simpler, more local life. And when things come down again with the pandemic and I’m so looking forward to being able to go and visit Rhonda again, personally, and have a cup of tea in her backyard and just enjoy being in her company. I really value her friendship and her mentorship over these years. And I hope you enjoy this conversation.Morag:
So thank you so much for joining us today, Rhonda it’s, it’s so wonderful to have you here because your wealth of knowledge over gosh, that I’ve known you for the last four years. I think so. When do we meet? When I first met you when I was interviewing you in the office tent at the real food festival, and that must have been in 2015, I think it was. Yeah. So I was interviewing you about your book, I think at this time, which was Down to Earth. Cause your simple home hadn’t come out then. And I was also, we were also exploring your blog because you have a most remarkable blog and I would have to say that you are the person who firstly inspired me to go online with all the things that I’ve been doing ever since I met you. And secondly, you took me under your wing and you actually showed me how to, to blog. I had no idea really what that was before. And so thank you so much for that. I mean, your blog is amazing. You’ve got, I think 32 million views now. It’s yeah. So could you maybe just take us back and like what’s what got you started in the whole blogging world. Why did you start doing that? And talking about The Simple Home and Down to Earth?Rhonda:
The reason that I started was I had been working as a technical writer and journalist for many years. I had a couple of businesses that I ran. Um, but I got to the point where I was really burnt out. This is when I was in my late 40s. We’d moved from central Queensland down to the sunshine coast, hinterland where we are now. And I was still working and traveling up to the mines to, to do various things. And it just got too much. I didn’t like the work, the people that I was working with were, you know, they, they weren’t the nicest people to work with. So I just decided that there must be a better way and I closed my business down and then I thought, well, okay, now we haven’t got any money coming in that I’m making Hanno had already retired. He had a shop in Montoursville and um, I just sat and thought about what I could do. And I thought, well, if I’m not going to have any money coming in, what I need to do is, um, save as much of the money that we’ve got so that I don’t waste it.Rhonda:
So I just decided that I would work at home, conserve everything that I could save as much money as I could and learn as much as I could once I did that for a while. So what I was doing was I went completely back to scratch with everything- cooking, cleaning, gardening, everything. So that the value that I was putting into that work was my own energy and time rather than money. I wasn’t buying convenience. Um, for, you know, in any of the, the different aspects of what I was doing, um, after I’d done that for a while, I remembered a whole lot of things that I used to do as I was growing up because I’m 72 now and I was growing up in the fifties and sixties. So, and things were different then. So because I was a, a writer, I started writing everything down. So if I invented a new cleaning recipe, I’d write it down. If I made a fabulous loaf of bread, I’d write that recipe down. And after I’d been doing that for a while, I thought, well, if I, if those things are really valuable to me, they might be valuable to other people as well.Rhonda:
And it would be really good if a lot of us started living like this. So I sent a book proposal off to three different publishers and all of them said no. So I had all of this information there. So I thought, okay, well, I don’t care. I’m going to blog. I didn’t like you. I didn’t know what blogging was. So I just downloaded the software and started doing it. I taught myself everything that I needed to know. And you could have blown me down with a feather because within a couple of months, there were like 20,000 people coming in every month. And I was just amazed. Um, so I kept going. I kept trying to write in a way that wasn’t preaching to people. I didn’t want to fit for everyone to think that what I was doing was the way to do everything. What I wanted to do was to show a calm, slow, and beautiful life and that everyone who wanted to put the time and energy into that could have the same thing in their own version of it. So that that’s why the blog started.Morag:
And it’s, it’s amazing. You’ve been doing that for 10 years now. Haven’t you?Rhonda:
It’s been more than that. It was 2007. Yeah. So 13 years.Morag:
Audiences is worldwide, which is, which is amazing. I think the thing too, that’s, that’s really impressive about what you do is that you’re, you’re not trying to do it on a massive acreage or, you know, it’s you just in a, in a house, in a, in a suburb of Landsberg or the town of Landsberg. And so it’s something that’s really doable. What you do resonates with how people can make a shift in their life. It’s not something so different that they have to move somewhere else to do it. They can actually start right now where they are in their own home, in their own garden and in their own community.Rhonda:
I think that it’s important. Well, I thought that it was important from day one to get out the idea that I am just a normal ordinary person. You know, I’ve got no special skills. I’m just, I live in a normal street in a suburb of, well, a rural town, I suppose you’d call it. And I don’t have any extra money to do more things that I want to do. Um, I’ve got a reasonable intelligence. I’ve got time to explore various things. And if I can write about those things and in such a way as people think, Hmm, well, if she can do that, I can do it, too. I think that that’s really valuable.Morag:
So at this time when, while we’re recording this, we’re all in a period where we’re where the world is shut down in a way because of COVID-19 and everyone is told to stay at home. And so for years you’ve been encouraging people to, to, Oh, I wanted to read the little blurb that you have on your blog, because I think It’s really beautiful. It says, If you haven’t already discovered the power of your own home, you’re in for a delightful beautiful shock to come closer and let me whisper in your ear, because if everyone knows this, it will cause a revolution. The work you do in your own home will enrich you and make you a different person. It saved me from a life of ridiculous spending and mindless acquisition and slowed me down enough to allow me to see the beauty surrounding me and I, And I think, you know, there’s so much in that, that the, the idea we’re that we’re now at this very present moment, all home-based. What are some of the key lessons that maybe you could share with people about how to embrace being at home more and how we can really start to think about making do with less? Because we have to, right now, I tell her some of the ways we can manage, you know, unemployment is going up, the economy is going down and we’re not sure the uncertainty, I think, is some of the things that make it difficult. So actually learning how we can do things differently at home can maybe shift our perception about being at home, but also helping us very practically to make do better. So any advice that you have for everyone, you know..Rhonda:
Well, I think that one of the things that we all need to do is to change our mindset about what we’re doing and what we can get out of it. It is not a negative thing to be in your own home. It’s, um, it’s quite a positive thing. And you can learn a lot about yourself by what you do every day, just as you do, a lot of people define themselves by their jobs. You can also define yourself by the work that you do at home. I think that, um, I look at what I do here at home as my job, when I first started, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t know about routines and, um, getting into the rhythm of the work I just got up and I put a time limit on myself saying, okay, by nine o’clock, I want to have had my shower, eaten breakfast, fed all of the animals, put bread on to rise, clean the kitchen up and put the laundry on. That’s how I started. That was the first structure that went into my day. And once I did that, and after I’d been doing it for a little while, for a couple of weeks, I realized that by doing something like that every day, it actually turns into your routine. So that, after a while, when you get up in the morning, you don’t have to sit there having a cup of tea, thinking, what do I have to do today? Um, because you already know once you’ve been doing it for a long time, your day develops a rhythm and you don’t have to think about what you’re doing. You just know you get up. And one thing follows the other, whatever it is in your particular home will be different. But for me, it was those things that I’ve mentioned. And I just slowly went about doing my work.Rhonda:
And what happened by doing that? Not only did I develop a rhythm, but I also slowed myself down. You know, when you read that piece before, I I’m talking about how it slowed me down enough to make me see what was surrounding me. And what I saw when I eventually slowed down was that this was my job. And I had the opportunity to develop my days in wonderful ways that I probably wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t have been doing this. Because if I hadn’t been working, when I first lived here, I was 49 when we moved here. So I was still going out shopping. I was still, um, working. I was working, I had a small office in the town and I was working there and things were much, were, were very different to what they were when I slowed down. And I was here all the time. I was still working. I still had a job, but it was all my input. It was my creation that I could do whatever needed doing. I could do whatever I wanted to do. I could change things and I could make everything exactly as I wanted it to be. No one was going to come in. There was no simple living police that said, Rhond, you, you cannot do that. You have to do it this way because everyone’s doing it this way. I just had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. And when you live with that for a couple of years, it becomes really a valuable thing. It changes your life. It changes you as you are as a person. And really it’s the work that you do every day that provides the structure of your life that provides the chance to, for those changes to happen.Morag:
Mm. And, and you’re right. It is, it, it is a mindset. If we, if we sort of see it’s being stuck at home as being the problem, then we, we fight it. Whereas if we see actually being stuck at home as an opportunity to explore new things and new ways of being, I mean, I had a massive year plan this year for, I was going to be traveling all around the world, doing a whole lot of different permaculture education. I’d been mapping it out for ages. And we were to be in Africa. We were to be in South America and all over. And when I found out that that was going to happen this year, I struggled with it for, Oh, maybe a week or two, I think. And I was really disappointed. And then I realized, actually, no, this has given me the chance to really, you know, all the time. I love being at home. And I love being homeschooling the kids. And I love getting into my garden, but even knowing that I still get so busy thinking, I’ve got to be out in the world. And my work to be important has to be out, when it’s is actually coming back home and spending time in the garden, spending even more time with the kids, homeschooling and cooking with them and, and exploring art and music and writing and all sorts of things with them more directly. And just spending time swimming about in the, in the dam here at crystal waters and floating, looking at clouds and watching them move. I don’t think I’ve done that for a very long time because I fill my days with so much. And we all fill our days so much with so many busy things, even if we feel like we’re, you know, trying to advocate for the simple life and, and living, you know, um, a more regenerative way.Morag:
So I think that embracing of just this, like you’re saying, the simple rhythms slowing down, creating a structure and, and, and what that does, what you said that gives you a sense of freedom. And I think another thing that I think it gives us too, is a sense of security because I think one thing that’s happened with all the uncertainties, that there is a lack of sense of security everything’s vulnerable at the moment. But when, when you live a life, how you, how you’re living it, then everything is far more. I know you, you know, what’s coming up, you know, you have your food in the cupboard, you know how to make things, you know, how to be resourceful. You, you make everything from scratch, you know, things like your soaps and your, um, your detergent. What other things do you do in your home to make you less vulnerable, to shocks like this and to feel more secure that you’ve, you’ve got things under control?Rhonda:
Well, I think that, um, I need to take time out of every day to sit down and appreciate what I’ve got to look around to go outside. You know, we always talk about being grounded. I don’t think that I can be grounded without going outside on the ground and actually experiencing that outside in the open air, breathing in, you know, fresh air that, um, we’re surrounded by remnant rainforest and pine forests here. So we’ve got fairly clean air birds come in. We’ve got migrating birds that we only see once a year. And, um, you know, just sitting out in the garden helps me, um, feel calm and in control. Um, I feel a great sense of self reliance most of the time, because I know that I can do just about everything that I want to do. Um, and if I only had, you know, three things in the cupboard, I could probably make five meals.Rhonda:
Um, but you only really get to that point. I think if you really, um, take the time to experience the wonderful feeling of being in your home. My world is here. My world, isn’t in Brisbane. It’s not down at Myers. It’s not at the beach. It’s not in Sydney where I grew up. It’s here in my home. And when I close the front gate, I feel as if I could be on the moon and no one could, you know, it doesn’t matter. What’s out there. It won’t come in here. Now I’m realistic enough to know that the COVID virus can come in here. Um, so we’ve been following all the rules sort of thing set down by the government. Um, we’ve got a very supportive family, so that in itself has given me a lot of confidence that we can stay healthy because we had our groceries delivered now, from Woolworth’s and then everything else that we need, our family goes and gets it for us.Rhonda:
So that’s been a really wonderful thing to experience to know that that sort of support is there. Even if we rang them at two o’clock in the morning, they would say, yes, what do you want? Um, so, you know, all of those little things, it’s not just one thing. It’s a whole lot of different things being capable enough to make all of those things that I make, having the, the opportunity to, be creative and to express myself through my blog. And my books has been a wonderful thing. Because I think that, like you, you like to get your message out to people. Um, I used to, you know, I used to do a lot more with the books. I actually thought of writing another book about recovering from the virus, but I thought, no, that’s for somebody else to do. I don’t want to take up anyone else’s job. Um, and I’m happy to do things like this and to write on my blog and to be on Instagram so that I’m getting little snippets of things out to people. People know that they can connect to me and they can write emails or whatever. And you’d be amazed at what turns up. I mean, today I had somebody sent a sketch that they’d done a piano and all..I get all these lovely emails about people who have found the blog yesterday or 10 years ago and how much it means to them. So, you know, it’s very important for me to not write a new book now, but to keep the blog going.Morag:
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there’s so much in your blog, um, from, from tips, from everything to, from, from sewing to knitting crocheting, to cooking, to, to everything, and also in your books as well. So, I mean, there’s this anyone who’s looking for ways to actually, they’ve a simple life and to, to mend things. Um, and also I love all your, um, your weekend reading as well. You put on, you know, what you’ve been reading during the week and things that you might encourage people to read. So just it’s an opening to another world of, of information and resources. And I, I really encourage people to dive into their, I’ll put all the links to your, to your blog and your Instagram and your books down below. But before we close, I mean, I think I’d really love if you’ve got any tips for how you think you can help, like direct tips of how people can stretch their money further at this time. Like some really practical ideas.Rhonda:
Yes. Um, I think the, the best thing for people to do, because I think that, our main expense for most of us, apart from paying the mortgage or paying the rent is food. So if you can cut down on your food expenditure, that’s a really good thing. And to do that, I can’t think of a better way than to stockpile. Now, what I did, um, when I started stockpiling was find a space first, I needed a big space because I wanted to have a little shop in my hut that I could go in and shop at 24/7. Um, so I took about two or three months to fill that space. And it was all, um, these, this was pre LD. So it was all done when I saw it spacious and I would go out and, with as much money as I could spend at that time, I would spend up and buy as many as I could. And I filled my cupboard up with only things that I knew we would eat. I didn’t buy products. I didn’t buy premade anything. I bought ingredients. So it was things like beans and chickpeas and rice and milk and cheese. And we had chickens at the back. We also went from eating meat, almost everyday to eating meat, um, two or three times a week that saves a lot of money.Rhonda:
Also if you can make your own cleaners, that saves a huge amount, you know, you do not need no one needs a different cleaner for every single cleaning job in the house. That is just something that’s been made up for people to make money out of it. If you’ve got soap, vinegar, bicarb, you probably got as much as you, you will need, and you can use those in various ways to, to clean anything in your house.Rhonda:
I also liked to bake bread because making, having good bread in the house, particularly if you’ve got young children or teenagers is a great thing. And if you’re going to buy a good loaf of bread at the bakery, you’re going to be spending $6 or so, and you can make the same for $2. So learning how to make a good loaf of bread, and then tailoring that recipe to suit your family, you might need more, sugar or salt or different combinations of, um, flour. I think, learning not to waste what you’ve got, whatever you’ve got, and this is something that I’ve relearned again, since the coronavirus has been around. I look at things that I would use to, I would’ve given them to the dog or to the chalks. And now I think, no, that’s our meal for tomorrow. We’re going to have lived and we will like it. Um, you know, if you save for the two of us, if I save, um, cooking another meal for, for both of us, you know, I’m saving 10 or $15. So to give that to the, chickens not an option anymore. So basically those things, stockpiling so that you buying things and using, um, ingredients rather than ready-made made products that you can keep in your cupboard and use day to day as you’re cooking from scratch, making your own cleaners and not wasting anything, not anything.Morag:
Yeah. And that makes such a difference. Doesn’t it, in particularly that idea of, of cooking from scratch and making things from scratch. And it’s not hard either, isn’t it there’s really not hard. And like you said, it’s just a few ingredients. There’s lots of different things that you can make with that. And especially if you have a little garden, even if it’s just herbs and a few vegetables that you can spice things up in different ways at different flavors and make things interesting and add that extra, you know, beautiful nutrient density to the food as well.Rhonda:
Exactly. I mean, if you don’t have a garden at the back, but you’ve got space for a few containers, I would say, go and plant up all of the herbs that you enjoy cooking with. Don’t go and buy things that you think look nice, grow only what you will use. And, if you go and buy some parsley or coriander or Rosemary, each of those things will cost you about $3. So that’s what you’re going to be saving every week. You’ll be saving about $15 every week and you’ll have more fresh herbs than you can ever buy.Morag:
Right! And every time you sort of pluck them, it just encourages them to sprout more. So it just, they just keep going for such a long time. And then you can put them up as well and give them out as gifts. You can divide them up. And they, you know, those sorts of things just create so much of abundance. Those are something else from your, from your book. So I remember about trying to save money and that was around the whole concept of budgeting. I know you have a big section there. Do you want to just talk a little bit about your budgeting concept?Rhonda:
Yes. I think that the best thing that you can do for your life, not just now, but for the length of your life, is to own your own home, to do that. You’ll need to, have a deposit and you’ll need to pay a mortgage off usually, unless you’re incredibly wealthy and just go and buy what you want. But for most of us, it’s, I’m saving for a deposit and then I’m paying a mortgage off. Now I know that a lot of people can’t do that, that there, there are people who will be renting for the entire life. Um, and that’s fine too, but what you miss out on when you rent is that at the end of your life, if somebody wants to evict you, there’s really not a lot that you can do. And you’re going to then when you’re old, you’ll have to move. You’re going to, you don’t know how much money you’re going to spend. You have to, you know, it’s just much more comfortable, um, knowing that you own your own place.Rhonda:
So what we did was we, we bought a house. We had a 25 year mortgage, which we paid off in eight years. We did that by, paying our normal monthly payment fortnightly instead of monthly and whatever spare money we had, we put on the mortgage. Um, and eight years later, we were completely debt free. We, or we had also gotten rid of all of our credit cards by then. So we didn’t have any, you know, we didn’t have any debt. We had bought a car for cash. And from then on once we’d set this very firm foundation, we had, um, a very well, I suppose it was an easy life. I mean, day to day, there were difficulties. But overall, when I look back on it, once we had our house paid off things, there was another freedom there for us.Rhonda:
So, to do that, what you need to do, um, there are specific things written in the book, but you have to create a budget for yourself and to create a budget, you go through everything that you’ve spent money on in the past 12 months, if you’ve kept your receipts and bills and all of that, it’s going to be easier for you. If you don’t, you’ll have to make a fairly good estimations of what you have spent. The next thing you do is you track what you’re spending. Now, most of us know what we’re earning, but hardly anyone knows, how much you’re spending a week. So you either, you can actually download smething from the government website. Now, the money smart website, where you can track this on your phone. If you haven’t got that, then you just take a little notebook. And every time you write something down, you, every time you buy something, you write it down and then add that later on to your list of calculations. Most of the time, you’re really gobsmacked. When you realize that you’ve been spending, you know, $30 a month on water and cups of coffee and magazines and all that sort of stuff, but it really does help you, um, identify what you’re wasting your money on and all of that money for things like water and coffee, they can go onto your, onto your mortgage.Rhonda:
I’m not talking about being really miserly or miserable doing this. If having a cup of coffee is really important to you, don’t do it every day, you know, cut back on it, try and reign things in for yourself because, um, if you’re going to continue a lot of life where you’re just buying whatever you want to buy and, um, you know, to make yourself happy, you’re not going to be happy in the long run because you’ve missed the opportunity to get your own house paid off. So what else do we do we make sure that you’re, every year you go through all of your bills, like your internet phone, electricity, gas, all of that stuff, insurances, and make sure you’re paying the least amount of money for what you’re getting, that will probably involve you doing a little bit of research and finding out what the opposition would offer you, and then ringing up your own supplier and saying, look, I really want to stay with you. And because you’ve been very good and, but I’m on a budget and I need to stay on that budget. So what can you do for me? And most of the time, they will either give you a discount or they will give you more product for what you’re paying at that current time.Rhonda:
So that’s an annual thing that you need to do. Um, and you know, you just, you have to stop, you have to change your mindset, you have to stop recreational shopping, um, and just work out for yourself, how you convince yourself that this is the best place for you to be. Because the mindset thing is a really big deal. It’s hard to do. It’s hard to go in those first few months from being out there and buying convenience and whatever you want to staying home and being much more prudent. Um, it’s hard for everyone. It’s not just hard for me or you, it’s hard for everyone. And that’s one of the major hurdles that you need to get over.Morag:
Hmm. I think for me, one of the biggest freedoms and sense of security and contentment too, is that I, that I don’t have a debt as well, that consciously Evan and I, we, we built our own home stick by stick. Whenever we had some money, we’d buy another bit more and another bit more. And then over the time our house was built. And so we did it a little bit differently, but it was still with that consciousness of not having a massive debt for a long period of time. So I think it took us about sort of eight or so years to build. So it kind of a little bit like, you know, you bought the house and then she’ll get eight years to pay it off. Well, we just built a house over eight years, bit by bit without borrowing anything. And, and that was so, so now we have it and we don’t. So when the, when the economy changes or, you know, there’s less coming in or whatever, it doesn’t, it doesn’t create that level of stress. And also not having debt for, we don’t have any credit cards and we don’t ever borrow to get anything. If we don’t have the money, we just don’t get it and learning how to, you know, make clothes. And I mean, I know you make all of your clothes too, and how to, how to fix things, sourcing things at secondhand stores, upcycling things, you know, sourcing food from the garden and the chickens. And so the whole kind of permaculture foundation to our life gives us that security, but then layering on this sort of understanding about how you can move with less so that, you know, when we do experience shocks like this, that you can just, you can roll with it because you know how to do with, with so little, but, and not in a restricted way, but in a, in a wonderful, joyful way.Rhonda:
Exactly. Yes. And living like that makes you feel as if you can do more and that you won’t, and no matter what comes along, you’ll able to cope and gives you that inner strength to know that, you know, when something like this comes along as bad as dangerous and sad as it is, um, if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to be okay.Morag:
Also, I think you touched on something really important as well about the connectedness that you have, like the strong family connections, but also the community. So even though not necessarily, you know, all the people that are reading your blog, that you have this community, it’s an amazing community around you. And, um, I feel similarly, you know, with the, I live in the crystal waters, um, community, and that there’s this sense that you can’t, you can’t fall over. And because there’s always someone around who will help you out, you know, and, and so same with family or community or neighborhood wherever you are having those sort of sense of strong connectedness that you’re not sort of an isolated, but you’re not doing this. You’re not, you’re not necessarily shutting your gates and shutting everything out that you are in your home, but you have that strong relationships with a support network, I suppose. And, and to feel like you are contributing to the world and, and, and able to whatever happens. And I think, I think that contribution for me is a really important one. If I still feel that I’m able to make a contribution, it’s not about what I’m getting and how I’m feeling in myself all the time. If I still have a chance to be doing something that I feel is important in the world, and to be able to give if I’m still in that position and I’m in, I feel safe enough that I can give, then that makes me feel whole.Rhonda:
Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think it’s a very, very valid way of you know, being yourself as you know, I spent many years up at the neighborhood center in Malanie as the coordinator there. And I only really left there because Hanno had a bad accident and I had to be here with him, but I’d been there for many years. I used to often drive down the mountain in the afternoon thinking, wow, what a day and it had been so difficult and I dealt with such sadness, um, that I felt as if that time that I’d spent, um, had been worthwhile and valuable. I still feel that now, even though I don’t do it out in the community, doing it on my blog and writing my books and having this, um, worldwide audience who, who want to be in touch with me, it makes me feel validated and loved. And a lot of people say that when you get old, you become invisible.Rhonda:
People don’t want to know you you’re irrelevant and turned invisible when you go shopping and all sort of stuff. I’ve never felt that I always feel very visible. And, um, and I think that, um, being part of the community, no matter where it is, is part of being living this life. It’s part of a simple life because, um, for me, and I think for you too, it’s sharing and helping people get to the next level where they’re trying to go. It’s trying to get accurate information out to everyone, because there is so much wrong information and inaccurate information out there. Um, you know, it’s sort of it makes me feel as if I’ve still got a job when I’m doing all of those things to make that happen to the people who know me and know of me.Morag:
And it’s such, such valuable information. It’s kind of it’s particularly for younger generations or even in my generation. I don’t remember my, you know, it’s, it’s more something that my grandparents would do, like learning. Like my mum taught me how to sew, which was such a fantastic thing and how to cook from scratch and how to garden. But there’s a lot of those really important skills that, you know, from my generation and below having to almost relearn from scratch, they’re not things that have just been passed down because you’ve watched and you did them with you with your family at home. And so the sorts of things that you’re sharing is so valuable. And, and I think, you know, particularly now at this point in time, while we are in this, in this pause and we are staying at home is to, to embrace this time, to learn, to rehone those skills and to really rethink what is it we can do to become more resilient and to find the joy and the creative outlet and the contributions that we can make when we are based from our, from our homes and not see it as a trap, but as a platform for wonderful personal growth and platform for us to be able to really ripple out that work, um, beyond.Rhonda:
Yeah, I see it as an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to slow down and to see what you’ve actually got. Um, and to have the time to, you know, maybe start thinking about a different sort of life and how you might structure that and how you might start it. You know, I’m always open to people saying to me on the blog or on Instagram, can you write about this? And I’m happy to take up any of those opportunities to write about people. What about what people want to know about, um, because as you say, you, you’ve learned a lot of stuff from your, your mother, and that’s a really great thing to, you know, to, to be able to look back on.Rhonda:
When I was growing up in the 50s, Um, everyone was living like I’m living now and how you’re living now. Um, it’s a, it was, there was no other way. It was just what everyone did. Um, so really I’m not inventing any of this. I’m just remembering it and changing it on to people who are coming, um, behind me and hoping that they will learn it too and share that when they’ve got the opportunity to do it.Morag:
Thank you so much for doing that. And thank you so much for joining me here today, Rhonda and I do encourage everyone who’s watching this to check out Rhonda’s books. So there are, there is Down to Earth, um, which is called a guide to simple living and it’s packed full of so many of those useful skills that we’ve been talking about. And then, um, more recently, um, which Rhon has written since I met her. So this came out in 2016, um, The Simple Home and month by month guide to self-reliance productivity and contentment, which is goes month by month through things that you can do in your home. And again, all sorts of things that we’ve been talking about here, and of course your blog Down to Earth. Um, and I know that people really value diving into that treasure trove of information and to enter into your calm, sensible world of things that you can find at home to find that contentment, security and freedom and, and productivity. I think that that thing about this is work, what we do at home is work.Rhonda:
So thank you so much, Rhonda, it’s been an absolute, I wish I could come and give you a hug, but you know, for a few months yet, Rhonda and I live maybe maybe half an hour from each other.Rhonda:
It’s been lovely Morag. Lovely seeing your beautiful face again and talking to you. And, um, I guess I hope that both of us, we can keep doing this and get information out to people. And I will like, if you send me an email with all of your information, I’ll put that up on my blog and we’ll try and get a bit of a bit, a few things happening.Morag:
Great. That’d be wonderful. Thanks Rhonda.Rhonda:
Thank you. Bye bye. Bye.Morag:
So thanks for tuning in to the sense-making in a changing world podcast today, it’s been a real pleasure to have your company. I invite you to subscribe and receive notification of each new weekly episode with more wonderful stories, ideas, inspiration, and common sense for living and working regenerativelyy and core positive permaculture thinking of design interaction in this changing world. I’m including a transcript below and a link also to my four-part permaculture series, really looking at what permaculture and how to make it your livelihood too. So join me again in the next episode where we talk with another fascinating guest. I look forward to seeing you there.
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Thanks for tuning into Sense-making in a Changing World today. It has been a pleasure to have your company. I invite you to subscribe (via your favourite podcast app like iTunes) and receive notification of each new weekly episode.
Each Wednesday I will share more wonderful stories, ideas, inspiration, and common sense for living and working regeneratively. Positive permaculture thinking, design, and action are so needed in this changing world.
What is permaculture?
Take a look at my free 4 part permaculture series or Our Permaculture Life Youtube and my permaculture blog too. For an introduction to permaculture online course, I recommend The Incredible Edible Garden course. I also offer an online Permaculture Educators Program (Permaculture Design Certificate and Permaculture Teacher Certificate) and involve young people in permaculture through Permayouth (11-16yos).
Warm regards,
Morag Gamble
Founder, Permaculture Education Institute
I acknowledge the Traditional owners of the land from which I am broadcasting, the Gubbi Gubbi people, and pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging.
Thank you Rhiannon Gamble for audio editing – a challenging task this week with poor connection
Thank you to Kim Kirkman (Harp) and Mick Thatcher (Guitar) for donating this piece from their album Spirit Rider.