Welcome to the customary package of highlights from another brilliant array of guests throughout 2024, accompanied by some of the music and sounds of Country heard along the way – this time across two continents, 49 episodes and 78 guests, from all walks of life. Listening to it all together in one place last night was just incredible. I hope you enjoy it too.

You’ll hear a little from me first, with a short summary of the year in review, along with a snapshot of where we are right now, some intent for next year, and an update on the Kachana hearing just concluded.

With enormous thanks to subscribers and other supporting listeners for making all this possible. And to everyone who sheltered, fed and generally cared for us throughout the year, around Australia and the States.

With enormous thanks also, to all the wonderful musicians who generously granted permission for their music to be heard here. And of course, to you, thanks for listening.

The track list for this episode, identifying the music and people, is found in the chapter markers. A transcript is also available (on most apps now too). The transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully provides greater access for those who need or like to read.

Title image: AJ in a personal highlight visit to Joshua Tree National Park (pic: Olivia Cheng).

Find more:
To access the full catalogue of episodes, head to the website at https://www.regennarration.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening, have a wonderful festive season and see you again in 2025!

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A few weeks ago I released a podcast marking the premiere of an episode of Australian Story that featured the incredible story of regeneration at the hands of the Henggeler family at Kachana Station. Many of you already know the story, from its popularity on this podcast. Well, that Australian Story has gone onto well over half a million views already. And no sooner had it gone out than I got the news that fellow legendary regenerative farmers in Western Australia, Dianne and Ian Haggerty, had been awarded the 2025 Australians of the Year for WA. Now they’re in the mix for the big one, the national Australian of the Year award.

You can let the Council know how happy you are about this, and what incredible national ambassadors Di and Ian would be as the Aussies of the Year next year, via the Australian of the Year awards website and social media outlets. When sharing, use the hashtags #AusoftheYear and #NaturalIntelligenceFarming, and maybe #SustainableFarming and #RegenerativeFarming.

Marking this moment, today we revisit episode 68: Natural Intelligence Farming: The ‘world breakthrough’ regenerating land, food & communities. This was the first time I’d been out to their farm back in 2020. And listening back now was a reminder of its first impacts on me out there, which I speak about at the end, after I’d spent two days with them touring the farm and chatting back at the homestead. I also remembered my little mate, chirping in my ear from the get go.

I start with a few updated layers to the story and some thoughts from Di and Ian.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Original episode recorded on 17 & 18 July 2020.

Title slide: Di & Ian Haggerty with their award (Auspire - Australia Day Council WA)

See more photos on the original episode website linked above, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Music:
Intro by Jeremiah Johnson.
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.
The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.

Find more:
The Australian Story featuring Di & Ian.
See Di & Ian at Grounded Festival this week.

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The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

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Visit The RegenNarration shop to wave the flag. And please keep sharing the podcast with friends. It all helps. Thanks for your support!

On the morning of Wednesday the 27th of November, I got the news that the legendary Carol Sanford had died. You might remember the conversation I was privileged to share with her at the start of last year, for our 150th episode. Carol knew she was dying, so much was getting difficult or impossible for her, and even speaking was tough, as Motor-Neuron Disease (as we call it in Australia) was taking hold. Yet she was as sharp, generous and forthright as ever. Within minutes she was saying things that have stayed with me ever since, including the statement that’s become the sub-title to this episode. So today, a tribute to Carol, featuring the conversation we shared last year, and a few words I’ve recorded here today, at a place very close to my heart.

For those who didn’t catch that 150th episode, and may not know much about Carol, she’s been at the heart of what we might call the ‘regenerative paradigm’ for decades. I spent a while scrolling through her last posts on LinkedIn yesterday, and noted that she’d hosted her last Regenerative Business Summit just weeks ago. And poignantly echoing what’s been coming through The RegenNarration podcast in these weeks also, she had written:

“Citizens are less ideologically polarized than they think they are, and that misperception is greatest for the most politically engaged people. As a result the tendency is to work on fixing the polarization directly and work on issues more actively. What if the means we are going about change and agreement is only making it worse?”

So it seems like a good time to hear from Carol again. And I can tell you that she did finish her seventh book that she was writing at the time, called No More Gold Stars. Ironically, it went onto win one.

This episode has chapter markers & a transcript (available on most apps now too).

Conversation recorded 2 February 2023, with introduction recorded today.

Carol’s family also posted: ‘If you would like to participate in her transition over the next 49 days, she invited you to practice “phowa”, which can be found in Chapter 13 of the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, or offer your own readings, prayers, or meditations.’

For more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Music:
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.
The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).

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Support the show

The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

Become a subscribing member to connect with your host, other listeners & benefits, via our Patreon page.

Visit The RegenNarration shop to wave the flag. And please keep sharing the podcast with friends. It all helps. Thanks for your support!

This week we’re back with Chloe Maxmin, for a debrief that has been eagerly awaited – by me and many of you, I know – on how the Dirtroad candidates went at the recent US elections, and where to from here.

For those who didn’t catch Chloe in episode 225 last month, from up at the farm in Maine, Chloe became the first Democrat ever to represent Maine House District 88, and the youngest member of the 129th Maine Legislature. Two years later, she’d become the youngest female state senator in Maine's history. And all on the back of engaging with her community directly and in ways that transcended the partisan politics so many of us have had enough of. Then, at still just 30 years of age, Chloe co-founded a non-profit that trains others in how to run for office in this way called Dirtroad Organizing.

In just 18 months, this resulted in 38 alumni running at the recent election. So, how did they go (including Lucia and Maria from episode 228), how did her partner (from episode 226), incumbent independent Bill Pluecker go, what does it all mean, and what comes next?

We talk about the spectrum of emotions since the election, the successes of the ‘Dirtroad candidates’, making sense of people voting for those candidates and Trump, whether there are bigger shifts taking place with the 2-party system, how much this was a gender election, whether the US is as divided as it’s said to be, opportunities for regenerative agriculture with the coming administration, issues with the integrity of the election, a burgeoning ‘Dirtroad media’, what comes next for Dirtroad Organizing, and of course music.

This episode has chapter markers and a transcript (available on most apps now too). The transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully provides greater access for those who need or like to read.

Recorded 22 November 2024.

Title slide: Chloe Maxmin.

For more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Music:
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.
Intro music by Jeremiah Johnson.
The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).

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Support the show

The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

Become a subscribing member to connect with your host, other listeners & benefits, via our Patreon page.

Visit The RegenNarration shop to wave the flag. And please keep sharing the podcast with friends. It all helps. Thanks for your support!

The Regenerate conference in Denver a couple of weeks ago was like no conference I’d experienced in the ‘regen ag’ / food systems space. Such a presence of next generations, women and varied cultures amongst the 500 attendees. And multiple moments of crazy serendipity. It also started the day after the US federal election. So the air was heavy with emotion and uncertainty, when Sarah Wentzel-Fisher, the ED of Quivira Coalition, the primary organising body, opened the conference in tears. It was a unique context to this gathering, a context that also couched some of the most extraordinary stories of regeneration you’re likely to hear in one place.

So, come the last snowed-in day of the conference, I pulled out the mic and recorded four short grabs of 15 to 20 minutes each. I wondered if I might chase more good folk down. I’d had such wonderful conversations with dozens of people. But in the end, this small sample of voices seemed to represent those conversations pretty well. While they were also each notable in some way, offering particular insight about the conference and its election context. 

Each guest introduces themselves as we go:

• Anica Wong, Communications Director at Quivira.
• Shumaisa Khan, Carbon Ranch Initiative Manager at Quivira.
• Aria McLauchlan & Harley Cross from Land Core.
• Emma Ractliffe from the Agrarian Futures podcast. 

Then we launch into where they’re from, their ancestry, brilliant regenerative work, conference reflections, how it might change what they do, and finally their raw reactions to the election result (and of course their favourite tunes). It resulted in some viscerally felt wisdom for this moment. I also offer a bit more on the conference and surrounding vibe at the start and end of the episode. With thanks to Quivira, HMI and AMA for kindly having me along.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 8 November 2024.

Title slide (counter-clockwise): Anica, Shumaisa, Emma, Aria & Harley.

For more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener below.

Music:
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.
Intro music by Jeremiah Johnson.
Shumaisa’s song choice.
The RegenNarration playlist.

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Support the show

The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

Become a subscribing member to connect with your host, other listeners & benefits, via our Patreon page.

Visit The RegenNarration shop to wave the flag. And please keep sharing the podcast with friends. It all helps. Thanks for your support!

One of the most remarkable stories of regeneration on this podcast – still the second most listened to episode - featured in a landmark ABC TV special back home last week. One of Australia’s best journalists, Walkley-award winner Ben Cheshire, pulled together the story of Kachana Station, in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, for one of Australia’s most loved, influential and long-running TV series, Australian Story. Beautifully introduced by another legendary Aussie journo, Leigh Sales, within a few days of screening, it had already notched up over 120,000 views.

It was about a year ago when I first proposed to the show that they feature the Kachana Station story. Come January, I was happy to hear from producer Winsome Denyer with her interest. Then Ben called me in July to say they were going to do it. We managed to line up an interview for the show the following month when we were in NY state. And when it went to air last week, it landed a day ahead of yet another state tribunal hearing, set to cast judgement on the family’s appeal of a government order to shoot the donkeys they use as a key part of their regeneration efforts.

To mark the moment, I hope you enjoy revisiting one of this podcast's very special encounters in a truly incredible part of the world, for what happened to be the 100th episode back in 2021. I start with an update from last week’s hearing, and a reminder of a rare opportunity to catch Chris in person at the new Grounded Festival being staged in Tasmania next month.

This episode has chapter markers and a transcript (available on most apps now too). The transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully provides greater access for those who need or like to read.

Recorded at Kachana Station throughout the week of 13 September 2021, with today’s introductory update recorded in Baltimore USA.

Title slide: from Australian Story.

See more photos on the original episode website linked above, and for more from behind the scenes, become a subscribing member via the links below.

Music:
The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.

The tune accompanying the intro is by Jeremiah Johnson.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).

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Support the show

The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

Become a subscribing member to connect with your host, other listeners & benefits, via our Patreon page.

Visit The RegenNarration shop to wave the flag. And please keep sharing the podcast with friends. It all helps. Thanks for your support!

When we were in New York recently, I dropped by to visit Douglas Rushkoff at his Queens College office. For those who don’t recall Douglas from his previous times on this podcast, he’s a media professor, documentary-maker, host of the Team Human podcast, and best-selling author of 20 books - including the updated edition of Program or Be Programmed, out now, with particular additions around AI. There’s a launch party for that tonight if you happen to be in or near NY. Douglas is also one of the pioneering forces behind the internet. So when he tells me in this conversation that he’s starting to believe that the whole narrative of the internet is bull shit, it feels big.

We actually sat down over lunch initially, but hadn’t talked long before Douglas suggested we press record on it – that others might be interested in this too. So this one’s a little different. Going out on both our podcasts. Less interview, more conversation. On our respective lives and work, their latest surprising turns, magic, perspective and possibility, and yes, this journey of ours across the US this year. Including the light all that might shine on the US elections. It wound up feeling like a fun and profound tonic for the week ahead, and this high stakes time generally.

For those who’ve listened to this on Team Human already, you’ll find a tad lighter edit here, with a little more of the personal stuff left in, in case that’s of interest to you.

This episode has chapter markers and a transcript (available on most apps now too). The transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully provides greater access for those who need or like to read.

Recorded 9 October 2024 (inc. subway snippets; intro recorded in Baltimore).

Title slide: Douglas & AJ after recording (pic: Josh Chapdelaine).

See more photos on the website, and for more from behind the scenes, become a subscribing member via the links below.

Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.
The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).

Send us a text

Support the show

The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

Become a subscribing member to connect with your host, other listeners & benefits, via our Patreon page.

Visit The RegenNarration shop to wave the flag. And please keep sharing the podcast with friends. It all helps. Thanks for your support!

This is a bonus extra to episode 228, featuring the Q&A that took place after the film screening of Rural Runners in the Shepherdstown Opera House, West Virginia. That award-winning film is the story of Chloe Maxmin’s incredible community-based electoral wins in Maine from episode 225. By Chloe’s side every step of the way was her best mate, and then campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, with Canyon’s parallel rise as a champion ultra-distance runner woven into the story. After this screening, Canyon hosted a conversation alongside three local candidates at the upcoming elections, who had each been through the program that Chloe and Canyon subsequently founded, called Dirtroad Organising.

You’ll hear from Lucia Valentine and Maria Russo (my 2 guests in the main episode), alongside Canyon, and the other local candidate in the room that day, Troy Miller. And we hear about some of the other candidates and their experiences across the country, too, including in the so-called ‘battleground’ states.

If you’ve come here first, tune into the main episode with Lucia and Maria, ep228 ‘Grassroots Transformation in Rural West Virginia: Breaking the Political Mold with Lucia Valentine & Maria Russo’.

You’ll find a few links in the show notes as usual, along with transcripts, and a few photos on the episode web page, with more for subscribing members.

This episode has chapter markers and a transcript.

Recorded (on the phone in the audience!) 13 October 2024.

Title slide image: Maria Russo, Troy Miller, Lucia Valentine & Canyon Woodward (pic: Anthony James).

See more photos on the website, and for more from behind the scenes, become a subscribing member via the links below.

Music:
By Jeremiah Johnson.

Send us a text

Support the show

The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

Become a subscribing member to connect with your host, other listeners & benefits, via our Patreon page.

Visit The RegenNarration shop to wave the flag. And please keep sharing the podcast with friends. It all helps. Thanks for your support!

“I've had several folks share with me that they are voting for Trump. But they're also voting for me.” That’s what Lucia Valentine told me when I spoke with her and another first-time candidate for the State of West Virginia at the coming elections, Maria Russo. This seemed to say so much about the coming elections here. For a start, that they’re far from as simplistic, binary and polarised as is often portrayed. And that what these women are up to is important, hopeful and possibly transformative.

I met Lucia and Maria at the Shepherdstown Opera House, for the last screening of Rural Runners on its latest national tour. That’s the award-winning film on the story of Chloe Maxmin’s incredible community-based electoral wins in Maine from episode 225. By Chloe’s side every step of the way was her best mate, and then campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, with Canyon’s parallel rise as a champion ultra-distance runner woven into the story. After this screening, Canyon hosted a conversation alongside three local candidates at the upcoming elections, who had each been through the program that Chloe and Canyon subsequently founded, called Dirtroad Organising. (Available in a bonus extra out soon.)

Lucia and Maria are two of those local candidates. And they’re both giving it a real shake in a rural area with a Republican ‘supermajority’, upending all sorts of assumptions as they go. And offering a pretty special finale here too.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 13 October 2024.

Title slide: Maria & Lucia (L-R, supplied).

See more photos on the website & for more from behind the scenes become a subscribing member via the links below.

Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.
Regeneration, from Regenerating Australia.
The RegenNarration playlist, by guests.

Find more:
Lucia Valentine’s music.
Playlist Maria promised.
The community independent elected to the NSW parliament.
Cathy McGowan - ep85, Politics that Works: A proven way becoming a powerful movement.

Send us a text

Support the show

The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

Become a subscribing member to connect with your host, other listeners & benefits, via our Patreon page.

Visit The RegenNarration shop to wave the flag. And please keep sharing the podcast with friends. It all helps. Thanks for your support!

‘The biggest strides in hemp-crete construction are going down on one of the smallest reservations in America.’ That’s how the bill reads on Patagonia Film’s latest production, The Green Buffalo, launching online globally today. It’s referring to the Lower Sioux Indian Community, on the southern bank of the Minnesota River about 100 miles SW of Minneapolis. Turns out we had driven close by after leaving Kelsey Scott’s place on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, where we recorded episode 222. But it took getting to Charleston, South Carolina, to meet filmmaker Joel Caldwell, and learn of this ‘against all odds’ redemptive story – one that holds so much promise for the Lower Sioux, and the rest of us.

Joel is a photographer and writer hailing from rural Washington State. Having turned his hand to film making, he found himself transformed by five years following stories of regeneration, together with wife and project partner Hailey Wist. Then come 2024, he was blown away all over again by this story. It’s ended up becoming Joel’s first production with Patagonia, and as you’ll hear, has an incredibly poignant moment for me personally too.

This episode has chapter markers and a transcript (available on most apps now too). The transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully provides greater access for those who need or like to read.

Recorded 30 September 2024 (intro recorded in Baltimore).

Title slide: Danny Desjarlais, from the film (supplied).

See more photos on the website, and for more from behind the scenes, become a subscribing member via the links below.

Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).

Find more:
Trailer & how to host a screening of The Green Buffalo.

Joel on Substack.

Premiere live screening of The Green Buffalo is this Friday 25 October, in Charleston, followed by discussion with Danny Desjarlais from the Lower Sioux, alongside Joel, and April Magill from the local Root Down Building Collective. All welcome. 

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Support the show

The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

Become a subscribing member to connect with your host, other listeners & benefits, via our Patreon page.

Visit The RegenNarration shop to wave the flag. And please keep sharing the podcast with friends. It all helps. Thanks for your support!

In some ways, the first 150 seconds of this excerpt from episode 226 with Bill Pluecker (alongside partner Chloe Maxmin), say everything that needs to be said about where politics is being done better in the US. They sum with the passage that became the lead-off quote in that episode. And they lead off this powerful last ten minutes or so of my conversation with Bill.

Bill, an independent representative from Maine, invites us into a world where the beauty of rural landscapes and the preservation of traditional ways of life are under threat. He shares his passion for sustaining the farming heritage of his community amidst cultural and political tensions brought on by external influences. His six-year journey, so far, as an independent politician in a predominantly conservative area paints a picture of dedication and authenticity, as he navigates the complex political landscape to bridge the gap between progressive values and pro-farmer policies. Bill's successful approach is a testament to the power of personal relationships in politics, where he strives to be more than just a soundbite, but a relatable figure who listens and acts for the benefit of his community.

We gain insights into the challenges and triumphs of running as an independent candidate without preferential voting systems. Bill provides a candid reflection on how he built trust and rapport with his constituents, emphasising the importance of human connection in an often de-humanised political arena. From preserving the cherished landscapes of Maine to ensuring the viability of local farms, Bill's narrative is a compelling look at the intersection of politics, identity, and community. We draw to a close with law that Chloe sponsored while in the Maine legislature to increase public participation in electoral primaries. And of course we talk music!

If you’ve come here first, you can tune into the full episode 226, ‘An Independent Farmer Wins in Maine: Transcending the ‘battleground’’. You’ll find a few links in the show notes there too, along with a transcript, and a few photos on the episode website, with more on Patreon for subscribing members.

Title slide image: Bill & Chloe at Begin Again Farm, near Warren, Maine (pic: Olivia Cheng).

Music:
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.

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Support the show

The RegenNarration podcast is independent, ad-free & freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you too value what you hear, please consider joining them by clicking the link above or heading to our website.

Become a subscribing member to connect with your host, other listeners & benefits, via our Patreon page.

Visit The RegenNarration shop to wave the flag. And please keep sharing the podcast with friends. It all helps. Thanks for your support!