8 forms of capital

MEND Season 2 - Episode 44

Season Finale & Wrap-Up with Amy & Anne

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It was a season begun with tea.

Sitting down to enjoy the art of conversation and contemplating what it might be like to move inside a world where we begin to value one another, this earth, beauty, thoughts, feelings, creative expression & simple self-determination - over the stingy value of a paycheck?

What would it look like to live inside a world that values it's people above it’s property?

That values it’s heart above it’s hierarchical standing in the larger world?

That values Nature above the supposed resources which it can provide us?

What would it look like to inhabit, move into, and begin to imagine a world like that?

Can we make it?

Can we find it?

Can we begin to converse & thereby imagine it into being?

These were some of the questions we set out to explore on this past season of MEND.

And so, we sat down - once more - teacups in hand - to reflect back on the conversations we’ve had.

To see what we’ve learned - how we’ve shifted - and how we can continue to move toward a future that is altogether different than the past - the present we now know.

What would it look like for two ordinary, inexpert people to begin to live differently - to uplift and inspire others to do so as well?

What if we believed these imperfect hearts and hands held some piece of the great MENDING that is needed in the world right now?

What if you belived it too?

What if we all jumped on board and rode that train to it’s completion?

Where would it lead?

Join us as we sit with these - and a few other questions - besides.

Here’s to the cups of tea we’ve shared inside this space.

And the conversations - visions - and movements - they’ve inspired - along the way

Cheers.

MEND Season 2 - Episode 38

Experiential Thread with Amy & Anne

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Welcome back to another micro-episode.

This week, we sit down to unpack some of the ideas we unearthed with Waldorf Educator, Jeff Lough.  Things like - How do we drop into a richer experience of this Life?  What enlivens the day-to-day?  How can we take the teachings and applications of this philosophy and apply to them to our own lives? 

Along the way, we talk Experiential vs. Intellectual Knowing, bring in some of our favorite books & resources once more & also send out the call for this coming June 1st - where we start our own little version of the Minimalist Game! (Which you can read more about here.)  

For our version - starting June 1st - we want to encourage each of you to start getting rid of at least one item a day.  For 30 days.  (If you've got more to release, by all means!  Please do!) Ultimately, though, this is not about living with less but rather, living with More.  Living with richer experiences, richer relationships, richer bodies, minds, lives, bank accounts, even.  What happens when we make the emphasis less about acquiring & maintaining our things & shift our focus to upgrading, enjoying & truly dropping into the felt experience of this Life?  

We can't wait to see.  

To find out more about the challenge, plus to contribute your ideas for a pithy hashtag for this game, drop on over and follow us on Instagram.  

MEND Season 2 - Episode 37

Experiential Capital with Waldorf Educator, Jeff Lough

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"Train up a child the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."  

~Proverbs 22:6

These were the words often bandied about in my (Amy's) childhood.  Used in that moment to speak to a certain type of religious education.  But what if we took this idea into a larger framework?  Expanded the context and the meaning?

What does it mean to educate a child as an evolutionary and still-incarnating being?

What does it look like to take the long-haul aproach - to not rush into books or standardized tests or memorized facts and figures - but to first prioritize the development of the soul - of an inherent sense of reverence, play & wonder - to build a spirited “F-you” into the curriculum of a budding adolescent because we VALUE their want and need to revolt - and have built it into the way we educate them?

And more - what would it look like to translate these ideas - beyond the classroom, beyond the realm of the scholastic, the world of childhood - and to work to educate, emancipate and elucidate humanity as a whole?

Join us as we take this hour to speak to local School Psychologist, Educator, Advisor, Administrator & ardent Advocate - Jeff Lough - about the undergirding philosophies surrounding Waldorf Education, a method devised by Rudolf Steiner in Europe during the late 1800's.  

When we first embarked upon this conversation with Jeff, we expected to find ourselves engaging in a talk around Intellectual Capital, but soon found ourselves knee-deep in the...

Experiential.

Spiritual.

Anthroposophical (don’t worry - you’ll hear that one again)

Material

And so much more.

And while we geek out a bit, admittedly, on this particular methodology and philosophy - 

I want to urge you to keep a broad and open perspective.

To listen for ways that these ideas filter into your own experience.

Your own Philosophy of Life.

And into what it means to empower and educate oursleves - at every step of the way.

What experience do we wish to have inside this Life?

And how do the ideas, methodologies, principles and patterns we subscribe to - help us to step up and claim the fullness available to us?

And what are we actively doing - to step into the world we wish to inhabit?

May the questions put forth here - help shed some light - as you move down your own path.

May they re-orient you back toward your own true north.  And help us all, collectively - reclaim a better way.  

MEND Season 2 - Episode 35

Material Capital with Shia Su  

“What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?” 
― Henry David ThoreauFamiliar Letters

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“Don’t start where it is difficult”.  These  words of wisdom come from Shia Su, a woman well-versed in the zero-waste movement – a name she admits can be a bit misleading.  Shia offers numerous tools and life hacks for cutting down on your waste and consumerism, actions that anyone with an inkling of willingness can start to implement into their life today, one step at a time.  These can be found on her website and blog at wastelandrebel.com. She also has a new book that just came out called “Zero Waste – Simple Lie Hacks to Drastically Reduce Your Trash”.

This is what Shia urges – to start where it is easy, to take one piece of the puzzle and fit it into your daily life until it becomes a habit.  She emphasizes that it is not about the over zealous, tackle-it-all-at-once, total life altering changes – these are not sustainable and very rarely successful.  It is about the slow, intentional steps that you can nestle into your every day.

Shia now lives in Germany, but has traveled and lived in a variety of other places. She shares with us some interesting insights into how various cultures approach the issues of consumerism and waste, if at all.  In this episode she also talks about the importance of access, who you surround yourself with and the ways to be successful and forgiving of yourself while on the path to zero-waste.

What’s your first step going to be?  If you feel inspired please share it with us on Instagram or FB or send us an email, share it with a friend, with a stranger sitting next to you on the bus or in line at the grocery store…let’s share the ways we are reducing our waste and our consumerism…let’s join the zero waste movement together…one step at a time.

MEND Season 2 - Episode 34

Community Currency with Fhyre Phoenix

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If you've been following the progression of this season, you know that we've been following up these longer interviews with shorter, bite-size "Thread" episodes, where we sit down and unpack some resources on how all of us can take action in these areas - both within our individual lives, and in the communities of which we play a part. 

We’re doing things a little differently with this "micro"-episode.

Well.  First off.  

It’s not micro.  Not mini. Not even a little bit.  

For this episode we chose to dip back into our local community to seek advice and  counsel from a man who has made working with Capital - both paper money - but also social, experiential, cultural currency, as well - his Main Focus for most of his LIFE.  

Fhyre Phoenix is the creator of the Community Currency project.

If you don’t know that is - don’t worry.

Stick around and we’ll let him eloquently explain it for you.

When you have an expert living down the street from you, you don’t dilly-dally in your own small pool - you go the Fountaiin.  The Wellspring itself.

So, although this episode is full-length, we know the time will be well worth your while & you’ll get a lot out of this talk.  

We sure did.

We could say more - About how inspiring this conversation was.

About the wisdom that this man and valuable community member has un-earthed in simply re-arranging his own relationship to livelihood and money.

Or about the surprising connection to Passion, Poetry, & even Plumbing that runs through this work.

But we’ll let you find all that out for yourself.

Believe me - if you truly desire to begin to un-hook from a life that feels less-than, a job you hate, and begin to arrange your world in such a way that you feel empowered, excited, and deeply connected to your fellow man… this is an episode you won't want to miss.

Enjoy.

MEND Season 2 - Episode 31

Living Capital with Marcie Goldman

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Welcome back.

Today, we move into the topic of Living Capital.  In the traditional landscape of Permatculture, from where we’re taking a page this season…  this form of vital currency is often defined as our local Ecology.

The land, soil, air, water, animals, plants - i.e. the very stuff that sustains LIFE.

Another way to look at Living Capital, and the way we’ve chosen to cozy up to this topic is through the very intimate ecology of the BODY.  How we choose to feed and sustain and, as you’ll hear again and again throughout this conversation - NOURISH - ourselves, our families and the skin we’re in.

Toward that end, we sat down this week with Marcie Goldman.

Marcie is a nutritionist who rallies against the current culture of fad diets and the idea that stringent dietary restricitons will somehow lead to long-lasting health.

This is a woman who wants us to FEED ourselves.

On every level.

Inviting MORE food to the table, to our gut biomes & returning to a way of  - here it is again - Nourishing ourselves - that honors the wisdom of our bodies, our earth, and our ancestry.

We loved sitting down with Marcie, where we dipped into some unexpected territory around dieting, childhood eating disorders, & toxic beliefs and patterns around food (that we often get from seemingly “healthy” sources).  

Ultimately, over the course of our conversation, we circle round automatically to the reality that truly nourishing ourselves - and re-connecting to our inherent appetites and vitality - in the end re-connects us to the health of our own ecosystem.  Re-connects us back to each other, the living culture of which we are a part, and the earth itself.

You can find out more about Marcie at her website at marciegoldman.com

While you’re there be sure to sign up for her meal plan, which includes a whole array of nourishing food and herbal remedies to add into your life.

We loved sitting down and talking food and Living capital with this wise and well-fed woman.

We know you will too.