What if the forest you walk through is already a food garden, and the real work is remembering how to see it that way?

In this episode of Sense Making in a Changing World I am in conversation with writer and public radio host Elspeth Hay about her beautiful new book Feed Us with Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food. Elspeth calls in from her home on Cape Cod and shares how one simple realisation changed everything for her: acorns ARE food.

From that moment she began following nut trees back through time and across continents, uncovering oak, chestnut and hazel commons, stories of enclosure and colonisation, and the quiet resilience of people who never stopped tending tree foods. Together we explore how this different way of seeing opens a path toward food systems that feed people and whole ecosystems at the same time.

We talk about:

• How nut trees like oak, chestnut and hazel can sit at the centre of generous food systems
• Why perennial tree based polycultures can out produce industrial monocultures once we count the full costs
• Humans as potential keystone species rather than ecological mistakes
• Cultural burning, oak woodlands and remembering that our presence can be beneficial
• Commons, local economies and finding belonging by staying rooted in a place

Elspeth invites us to see ourselves as “radical regenerators” who are not just analysing the old story of agriculture, but actively weaving new ones in our own communities.

ABOUT ELSPETH HAY
Elspeth Hay is a writer and public radio host based on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She created The Local Food Report, a weekly program on CAI, the Cape and Islands NPR station, and her work on food and ecology has appeared in places such as the Boston Globe, NPR and Heated with Mark Bittman. Her book Feed Us with Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food explores how nut trees and tree centred cultures can help us reimagine food, history and our ecological role as humans. You can learn more about Elspeth and her work at: elspethhay.com

I hope this episode encourages you to look again at the trees around you, the stories you have inherited about food and farming, and the quiet possibilities for belonging that are already rooted in your ow

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Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far.

• Check out the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast website & Youtube channel

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Explore Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Program

Morag also shares conversations through Our Permaculture Life YouTube and the Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

Learning to Lead Like Life Itself

How do we lead in a way that feels alive, kind, and connected to the living world?

In this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World, Morag is joined by Kelly Wendorf, author of Flying Lead Change and founder of EQUUS, whose work brings together horses, neuroscience, and ancient wisdom to reimagine what leadership can be.

Kelly shares about leadership as a natural, relational process. Not command and control, but care and connection - moving from hierarchy to harmony.

Her principles of leadership — Safety, Connection, Peace, Freedom, and Joy — mirror what we see in every thriving ecosystem. The same qualities that sustain a healthy forest or a permaculture garden can also sustain our families, workplaces, and communities.

Morag and Kelly talk about what it means to lead from presence, to cultivate trust rather than fear, and to listen so deeply that the next right action becomes obvious.

Rewilding leadership is about remembering that life already knows how to lead. Our task is to learn again how to be in conversation with it - to listen to the more-than-human world, and to design our cultures, systems, and movements in ways that honour the web of life we’re part of.

This is a conversation for anyone sensing that leadership is less about power and more about participation - an invitation to step back into the flow of life and let nature show the way.

🌿 In this episode we explore:

• What rewilded leadership looks and feels like
• How the wisdom of the herd translates into human relationships
• The connection between permaculture and leadership
• Leading from behind: creating confidence, not control
• Presence as a regenerative force in times of change

Kelly Wendorf is a leadership coach, educator, and founding partner of EQUUS, an innovative organisation offering experiential learning with horses for leaders and teams. Her book Flying Lead Change: 56 Million Years of Wisdom for Leading and Living explores ho

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

Support the show

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far.

• Check out the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast website & Youtube channel

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Explore Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Program

Morag also shares conversations through Our Permaculture Life YouTube and the Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

In this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World, I speak with acclaimed artist Bryony Kimmings and award-winning projection designer Will Duke about their powerful new theatre work, Bog Witch.

Commissioned for the launch season at Soho Theatre Walthamstow, Bog Witch is Bryony’s first solo work in over five years. Known for her fearless, hilarious, and deeply moving autobiographical creations, Bryony has been called “an artist of exceptional integrity, imagination, compassion and guts” by The Guardian. Her work spans theatre, film, and television, including projects with the BBC, Channel 4, and the National Theatre.

Will is a leading projection designer whose practice spans opera, theatre, and dance. His acclaimed visual designs have appeared on international stages from the Royal Opera House to the National Theatre. Will is also a student of the Permaculture Education Institute, weaving ecological design principles into both his creative work and daily life.

Together, they open up about how storytelling itself can be a form of climate action — using humour, vulnerability, and imagination to re-enchant culture and invite us back into the web of life.

We are living in a time when climate narratives risk becoming tired or overwhelming. What Bryony and Will remind us is that culture shifts through stories — stories that make us laugh, cry, grieve, and imagine differently.

• 🎟 Tickets for Bog Witch: Soho Theatre
• 🌐 Bryony Kimmings
• 🌐 Will Duke

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

Support the show

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far.

• Check out the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast website & Youtube channel

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Explore Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Program

Morag also shares conversations through Our Permaculture Life YouTube and the Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

In this inspiring conversation, Morag Gamble speaks with Rob Hopkins - Transition Towns co-founder, author of How to Fall in Love with the Future, and creator of Field Recordings from the Future.

Together they explore why imagination is vital for permaculture, community resilience, and regenerative culture, and how anyone can practice imagination activism to create hopeful, practical change.

Rob shares stories of playful, community-led projects, his work with sensory futuring, and how cultivating longing rather than fear can mobilise people to act for a thriving future.

If you’re a permaculture educator, changemaker, or someone longing for new possibilities, this episode will give you tools and inspiration to nurture imagination in your community.

Rob Hopkin's links:

• Rob Hopkins website: robhopkins.net
• Book: How to Fall in Love with the Future
• Record: Field Recordings from the Future
  
  

Key Themes

• How imagination fuels permaculture and community design
• Transition Towns and lessons from grassroots change
• Inspiration from and for permaculture.
• Sensory futuring and field recordings from the future
• Cultivating longing vs. anxiety in movements for change
• How to make activism joyful, creative, and effective

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

Support the show

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far.

• Check out the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast website & Youtube channel

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Explore Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Program

Morag also shares conversations through Our Permaculture Life YouTube and the Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

Join Morag Gamble in this episode with Leah Rampy and Beth Norcross to explore the possibilities of transformative relationships between humans and the more-than-human, and discover the spiritual wisdom of trees.

From deepening our understanding of thoughts beyond language to learning from trees and mycelial networks, they share stories about our connections to nature and our processes of becoming rooted and fluid.

On Earth Day this year Leah & Beth released a book together called, Discovering the Spiritual Wisdom of Trees, exploring:

• Moving from science to spirit: how forestry and ecology meet mystery.
• Trees as spiritual beings and patient teachers.
• The loneliness of isolated trees—and what it teaches us about human community.
• Practices to connect more deeply with trees wherever you are.
• Cracking open: the vulnerable yet transformative journey of opening to nature’s wisdom.

Leah Rampy is a writer, speaker, and retreat leader living in a co-housing community who weaves ecology, spirituality, personal stories, and practices to help others deepen their relationship to the natural world. She is the founder and leader of Church of the Wild Two Rivers, and co-founded Save Our Soil - a volunteer organisation promoting soil health, local food, native plants, and regenerative agriculture.

Beth Norcross is a passionate spiritual guide, author, naturalist, TEDx speaker, and founder of The Center for Spirituality in Nature. She offers nature's wisdom for living with connection, resilience, joy, and hope, particularly in challenging and uncertain times.

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

Support the show

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far.

• Check out the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast website & Youtube channel

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Explore Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Program

Morag also shares conversations through Our Permaculture Life YouTube and the Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

This episode, Rebecca Tickell - an award-winning documentary filmmaker, passionate storyteller and environmental activist - joins to explore the art of regeneration.

Rebecca creates films, like 'Common Ground' and 'Kiss the Ground', that combine powerful cinematography with a hopeful movement for soil regeneration and health. In a world where extractive systems of agriculture and development have destroyed two thirds of the world’s topsoil and exacerbated climate change to dangerous levels, we have two decades to restore what has been lost. Amongst the crisis, Rebecca shows us how to reground and regenerate - wherever you are with, whatever you have.

Tune in to get inspired and you can find more of Rebecca’s work at her website.

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

Support the show

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far.

• Check out the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast website & Youtube channel

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Explore Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Program

Morag also shares conversations through Our Permaculture Life YouTube and the Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

Tune into this episode with Poppy Okotcha, ecological home grower and community gardener, to hear about how we can rewild our relationship to the land around us - in our backyards and beyond!

Poppy has just released a book, ‘A Wilder Way: How Gardens Grow Us’, a beautiful memoir on her connection to her garden and how settling down her roots in tending a patch of land has helped her grow as an individual and explore how we can all grow a better world. Flipping the narrative from humans being in control of gardens to being part of the garden itself is such an important shift!

From the process of writing her book to the holistic process of rewilding ourselves, this conversation with Poppy really uplifted me - I hope you enjoy it too!

To find Poppy’s work and her book, visit her website.

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

Support the show

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far.

• Check out the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast website & Youtube channel

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Explore Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Program

Morag also shares conversations through Our Permaculture Life YouTube and the Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

This episode, join me to explore mindfulness with the inspiring Fleur Chambers - multi-award-winning meditation teacher, best-selling author, philanthropist and creator of The Happy Habit app.

In this conversation we explore the question many of us have - how do we learn to be in service with our work? And how can we be present in this journey? As both Fleur and I run a business, we share our experiences in how we have found our confidence in finding a flow in our work.

We also touch on how meditation can be a rebellious act - a small way of becoming more audacious in our everyday life, while grounding ourselves to meaningful action. What we need more than ever is to connect with our inner permaculture and find confidence in our purpose.

To find out more about Fleur's work and publications, visit www.thehappyhabit.com.au.

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

Support the show

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far.

• Check out the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast website & Youtube channel

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Explore Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Program

Morag also shares conversations through Our Permaculture Life YouTube and the Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.