Spending time in wild places has taught this 5th generation farmer to quietly find ways to listen to others, those who often don't have a voice but have so much to teach the rest of us. The challenge is in finding ways to give them their own way of being deeply heard.
Engaging in relationships with local traditional owners is the beginning of her journey of uncovering history and rebuilding the path forward. To make this possible, Tanya leans on love, not the 'sugarised' popular culture version, but the kind that asks us to step into harder, more complicated challenges where climate is creating environments which are anti life. Tanyas 'tomorrow' is focussed on growing her heart big enough to lean into the challenges we all need to confront.
"Despite it feeling vulnerable - we need big love to stay committed to our people, place and the challenges faced by humanity.
Show Notes
Navigating succession planning on the family farm
Why she farms
Her love of music took her to Tenant Creek and taught her how to listen
Wilderness School in the USA
Success = love for and from others, love for place, love for land
Reckoning with the truth of farming land that was colonised by her family and never ceded
Love for the visceral raw beauty of the country she calls home
Doing the work required to repair the damage done.
Using ‘invisibility’ to navigate a male dominated farming sector
Her dads support to be what she wanted to be despite being female
Identifying with women who were not ‘visible’ but were still offering valuable contribution
Finding maturity and strength in your own way and time
Being part of a team on family farms
Deeply listening
Exploring solo, observing the outside world until the connection with self is seamless
Letting the outside wash over questions you are wrestling with
The formative experience of living with indigenous Australians on country
Experiencing what it feels like to be a white minority - a necessary unsettling experience to gain profound perspective and humility
Diversifying her farming to incorporate horticulture as well as livestock
Actively seeking time in community where collective efforts were her salve to city life
Using community dance to release unspoken tensions
Her love of music and dance since very early childhood - fluid, joyful, embodied wonder that gets us out of our heads - she now dances in the paddock with her sheep
Breaking into song with her gran in her last week of life
The power of community to dissipate grief
Leaning into grief with open emotion and active presence while we celebrate and harvest memories
Grieving collectively
Being reassured by the sense of their being a collective effort
Her freelance for Wonderground
Being apprenticed to country as a way of caring
References
David Org - Ecological Literacy
Wonderground Journal
Podcast partners ROCK!
Hidden Sea - Wine that saves the sea
Nutrisoil
Wwoof Australia
Buy the Book - Futuresteading - Live Like tomorrow matters
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