¶ Food Systems, Sustainability, and Health
Kids are getting up to mischief half the time because they're starving and it's making them crazy . If they're getting good food , they won't be crazy .
G'day Anthony James here you're with The RegenNarration . Welcome to just outside the small town of Derby , Western Australia . Today's guest has described it as being surrounded by tidal mudflats to the west , the great sandy desert to the east and the rugged Kimberley to the north .
In amongst all that , where I'm standing at dusk right now , is Five Acres of productive permaculture paradise tended by Kimberley legend Wendy Albert .
Wendy is the owner manager of Kimberley Cottages and Windjana Wellness and Sustainability Services , and this is where we are blessed to be based when we're up this way , rained upon daily by tropical fruit , veg and herbs , and inspired by this septuagenarian great-grandmother enabling it all .
In some ways she's still just gearing up and continuing to invite others in to make more of the running on the foundations laid . But how all this came to be is another story . Well , many !
Raised on a farm in Victoria , later joining Mother Teresa's sisterhood in India , Wendy ultimately migrated to the Kimberley after a chance meeting in Central Australia with the late great musician and actor Stephen 'Baamba' Albe rt . Eulogised as the patron saint of Broome, Stephen was a co-creator of iconic theatre and film productions like Bran Nue Dae .
Indeed , that was partly written on their front veranda . Wendy even had some of the old cassettes for a while . Meantime , Wendy herself was blazing other trails in Broome, and later here . Before we hear from Wendy , though , big thanks to two other brilliant women doing extraordinary regenerative work , who are also longtime listeners and cherished friends .
Nicole Masters , thanks so much for subscribing , and Dominique Hes , thanks so much for your generous donation . It's what makes this ad-free , listener-supported podcast possible . And , as it happens , it was at Wendy's last time we were here that I started the Patreon page for subscribers .
So huge thanks to every one of you who supported the podcast over that two-year period, that way . If you're also finding value in this , please consider joining Nicole and Dominique and this great community of supporting listeners, with as little as three dollars a month , or whatever amount you can and want to contribute .
You can enjoy a variety of benefits , like some behind-the-scenes footage from me , invitations to events , general updates , and , of course , you'll continue to receive the podcast directly . Just head to the website via the show notes RegenNarration . com forward slash support, and thanks again .
Okay , let's join Wendy on a beautiful sunny morning amidst this season's tropical bounty . So , Wendy , it's great to be with you here . It occurred to me this morning this is our third stab at this, right . The first time I ended up airlifted to Broome hospital . The second time you had to go to Broome to be with the legendary Pat Lowe in hospital .
So today , when we were scheduled , I'm like what's going to happen .
But here we are .
So here's to that . I did read coming into this and for the first time you know you do the obligatory ecosia search of your guests and see what's see what pops up . Yes , and I did see the ABC had dubbed you Wonder Woman at one stage . Did you see that ? (Wendy: No) Wonder Woman of the Kimberley .
And of course you've got this lovely sign in the veranda area of your house the Permaculture Embassy .
That's right . Yes , that's a beautiful sign , it's a great sign .
You could be called the ambassador .
Well , that would be nice . That would be nice . But there are people who came before me like Janet Stuckey . You've met Janet . She was doing permaculture . There were permaculture courses being run here in the 80s and 90s and people have kept bits of it and then it's fallen , fallen away a bit and but the necessity is pretty dire at the moment .
I think , because back in the 70s and 80s we actually had market gardens in Broome and derby . There was a huge one here in derby and I lived in broom then and people would come from broom . We'd come to broom to buy at Sunnyside Farm , they and from Margaret Heseltine . There was also a big herb garden that sold to the supermarkets in broom .
That was Barney Norton , at 12 mile , and there were cafes that bought the local produce and had fantastic salads , like Lynn Bunny at Rabbit's Cafe and when the cafe in Johnny Chirley , a lane opened and there was a fruit and veggie shop downtown that made juices . But none of that is happening now . Everything is taken over by the big corporates .
It's just , yeah , it's really frightening , I think , because those corporates don't grow anything here . Everything has to be trucked . So any food that we eat that we buy from the supermarkets .
You know that we haven't actually grown ourselves has been on a truck for a week at least , and that's pretty scary when you think of how sick people get up here and the number of lifestyle diseases that are being treated here .
Well , that's right . I mean on that , that's an increasing problem everywhere . Yes , in the West generally . This model of food system that it's generated , that at best . I like how Paul Hawken refers to it as a chemical experiment on human kind , at best .
But it's also an economic . It's totally driven by economics and it's also a circular system , because when you look at the big companies that supply our food , many of them are linked to the pharmaceutical companies that supply the medicines that we need , because the food is not real food . It's or it's very stale food or it's grown in very poor conditions .
Yes , partly how we educate our young fellow about this stuff . We have this term I can't remember where I picked it up Unaidentified food like substances . Yes , very often we're explaining this .
And that's the stuff , the chicken and stuff that the fast food they say it's chicken , but you do wonder .
So these sorts of issues are sort of they're systemic and there's an acute edge that you're sort of referring to up here , where well you've had recent experiences where food's just not able to arrive .
That's right .
And even power's not able to like diesel had to be brought in for power to continue through the floods , let alone other instances in the past , but certainly the floods this year . So does that have people open their eyes a little further around these parts ? I ?
think people are aware , but we're too distracted , I think , to deal with it , because the powers that be that drive the system make sure that food comes back online fairly quickly . Back in the day , back in the day when we had our own food supplies , we would go six weeks without stuff from down south and we could survive . There wasn't the drama about it .
But now it seems to be rectified fairly quickly . Look at the speed with which they're rebuilding the Fitzroy Bridge .
Yeah , it's part of the brilliance of it , yes , and part of the problem of it , isn't it ? It is , we can keep kicking the can down the road of these big systemic issues almost to unbelievable degrees . So very well , but does that just make the cliff ever sharper ?
I think it is , and it's making us more dependent , which is really scary , and the more dependent we are , the more we're sucked into believing this is the only way of doing it .
There's a great line in a book by I'll find it for you but essentially it's a person who it's talking about , this school teacher , who does the same thing every gets up , has a wash , goes to school , blah , blah , and something happens that disturbs her equilibrium and she suddenly realizes that the structure that she thought was holding her up was hollow .
It was an illusion , and I think we're pretty much in the same boat .
Yes .
This structure of food coming from all over the world , everything that we want , on tap . It's not sustainable and when it stops we'll be distraught and who knows what will happen ? It'll cause chaos .
Yes , and even before it stops . It's not the healthy way .
No , that's right , because it's so linked with the medical industry and it is an industry . Medicine is an industry rather than a service and a support .
It's funny you should say that I did see . I think I told you this the other day , didn't I ? St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne when I was there last . There's another hospital expansion . All hospitals are expanding . Yeah , we're getting sicker and sure population's growing , but we're getting sicker too .
And ironically , but without a sense of irony , the sign on the wall , the big branding of this construction project , said the future of medicine is engineering . Wow , there's the mechanistic age emblematized right there , but without that self-awareness .
Yeah , there they . Well , we are so accustomed to being dependent on the medical industry , on the food industry , that we don't see the irony in it . And I find it extraordinary that the medical industry doesn't acknowledge the role of food . It simply doesn't .
Yeah , we've got little pockets , ain't .
Yeah , there's some good doctors . There's some , but they're the minority and apparently in medical training , in the eight years that they spend training they do one unit of nutrition yeah , where does that come from ? It's weird yeah
¶ Sustainable Agriculture and Cultural Roots
.
So how would you encapsulate is it fair to call it a mission what you're on here ?
well , that's an interesting word , especially after listening to your podcast , but with the Irishman ? Mankan there is a sort of mission in it , and that scares me a bit , because I've no desire to be a missionary .
We'll come back to this .
Nonetheless , here we are but it is well , it's a purpose , I suppose , it's something that interests me , that I feel is important , and it's a way of contributing to society rather than just being dependent .
Beautifully said . So this contribution , what's the animating force in it for you ?
Well , essentially it's to grow as much food here , but to grow the right food , you know , you find lots of southerners come up and the extreme example of this is people who want to grow rhubarb here . It's just not possible really .
I mean , somebody will argue about that , but generally speaking , rhubarb doesn't grow up here and because all our food comes from south , we are made dependent on southern grown food . So we have to look to the tropics to find the staples carbohydrates , vitamins and minerals , you know , greens and legumes and so on .
And it's really interesting when I first did permaculture and learned about different methods of soil enhancement rather than buying in fertilizer and it was the cost of buying things like just organic fertilizer , blood and bone that drove me to permaculture in the first place . Well , it drove me to .
I'd known about it for years and in fact I'd had Bill Mullison's book for years , but I hadn't . I'd only read the section on the tropics and things about banana circles and so on . I hadn't read the philosophical background .
And doing a permaculture design course gets you to look at living and food and well , just general living , in a different way , to sort of fit yourself into the scheme of the natural world .
Anyway , so to go back to these plants that enhance the fertility of the soil , and one of them is a plant called Glycidiocepium , or mother of cocoa , and I looked everywhere for I couldn't find it .
Any of the seed places , any of the plant places , the mainstream nursery world or ag world didn't seem to know much about it , and I in fact got a few seeds from America , just through it , but they never germinated and this went on for months . I'm looking for this plant because you don't eat it .
What you use it for is it's very fast growing and it's a legume and so you use it for shade for other plants . That's why it's called mother of cocoa . So you want to grow fruit trees .
You have this tree growing beside it or close by and you keep chopping and dropping the leaves which put nitrogen and other stuff into your soil and keep it mulched and and enhance the soil around the fruit tree you're growing .
So I'm looking for it , looking for it , and one day I'm at Rosita Lovell's place in town and I see this tree loaded with beautiful mauve flowers a bit jacarander-ish but not jacarander and I said to Rosita what's that tree ? And she said oh , that's that mother of cocoa . Here's the tree that I've been searching the world for .
It's in our backyard and once I knew what it really looked like and its growth you know how the flowers , the leaves and so on and its growth habit . It's all around the old part of town , down the old butcher shop , down there the marsh . That tree , like the Moringa , is everywhere because the early asiatic people who came here with the purling industry .
They grew their own food , and so they bought this food , the support systems , with them , and so if you look in the old part of broom , you find it there too , and I'd imagine you'd find it in Wyndham .
Wow , so we've got these cultural roots obviously through the tens of thousands of years they fed themselves around here and even and then the layer of other stuff that we're more accustomed to , and this is part of this is part of your .
Well , I guess the first thing is to say this it's all of those things are still here , all of those cultural roots still exist and and literal plants still exist , but we look past them .
And this is all part of your inspiration , right that you are drawing from multiple Asian cultures and and their own and their own and the native plants and you know what we , what grows naturally ? yes , and the idea then is that this we can feed ourselves . Of course we can all year round , which includes through a wet season .
A tropical wet season absolutely yeah , and a long dry , obviously , and that's something . Then let's come to this very setting , which is where we are which is speaking loudly yes and beautifully with us right now . So here now is , I guess , the physical manifestation and demonstration .
Yes , that it can be done , as it always was . Yes , so from where I'm sitting on my left there's the big white gum and that's providing shade and this little shower of leaves now and then , but it's also letting in life because the it's not really thick canopy in front of me .
To be just behind you there's a big jiggle tree now in that's called a jiggle tree in broom , but it's called waramba here and it has has another name further in Halls Creek . But it's a legume and it's a big tree . It's got big red or yellow pods , big , wide ones when it's after it's fruited .
But it being a legume , it's happy to give sustenance to a passion fruit vine that is dropping .
You know there's these yellow balls of sweetness , yeah , falling all the time from that , so that but , let's just make it clear , like all the time , we are having a lot of passion for it and poor , poor , and it couldn't be happier , but go on .
So next to that are the Moringa trees . There's a line of Moringa trees and they're called a miracle tree because you can eat the leaves and that provides vitamins and minerals , and you can eat the pods . You get oil out of the pods and also the the .
The leaves provide a fantastic mulch and soil amendment and that's introduced from India but is also well known throughout Asia . Mollangai they call it in the Philippines , something else in in Thailand , but it's right through Asiatic countries . So that grows all year round .
It doesn't require fertilizer , doesn't require anything but a bit of water , and even without water and really good examples of Moringa at the radio station and every they are growing in rock and every year they flower and fruit and they always have a green canopy . They get no water but the wet season water .
And it does evoke for me the memory of being in the Apun over in Queensland with Ross O'Reilly , a previous guest on the podcast , who also had a restaurant where he would supply his own restaurant of the block here and I think he still has it actually on the bay there , but he was sort of moving to sell it when I was there and he had Moringa infused pasta
and it was beautiful .
Yes , moringa is so tasty so tasty . Next to the Moringa is a bed of leafy greens like mustard . There's also some daikon radish and some rocket .
The truth of that bed there , though , is that last year , when things went to seed , I had the intention of saving the seed , and I gathered up all the seed pots and left them on , luckily , on a sheet on a drying rack in the end room of the house .
Well , six months later , they were still there , so I gathered up the sheets and chucked them on the ground , and that's their result . So that's the laissez-faire gardening that goes on here . There's not sort of time wasted in sorting .
Well , as I hear that not having too much of the master controller .
No , no , that's the thing you let , if you just go with the flow a bit and and do your bit , do a little bit , put some seeds in , you know , keep the water up , do the mulching , chop and drop . Well , the garden looks after you .
Okay , I'm curious was this property too part of the old Birdwood station ?
No , no , absolutely not . Okay , no , these were just . This was just carved out of crown land about 30 , 35 years ago into rural blocks , and it was a thing that was done about that .
12 mile in broom was probably established about the same time and , you know , it was probably as a result of some somebody saying , oh , you need to put rural blocks and encourage it .
Actually , I suppose I don't know if this is true , but when you think about it , we had market gardens and stuff from 12 mile things happening in the rural blocks , and probably those blocks were established in order to promote that during that time , because that was a time of trying to get communities to be self-sufficient .
It was the time of people going back to country , and so it was a time maybe before the big corporates took over and had so much power in government .
Yes , I think that's what we're at a flash point of now , isn't it ? There's this , on the one hand , this looking to get back to those roots for what we've lost , yes , but this doubling down of the yes , well , they're getting scared .
Exactly going harder yeah and making people dependent , and the worst dependency is the technology and you know the entertainment People can escape into watching movies and waste so much time . I mean we all do it . I mean I'm not exempt from this myself . You know you find a good movie and you will waste all day .
Well , that's the good of the arts , isn't it ?
That's right , that's the beauty of it , but you can be inclined to get sucked into all sorts of things , and so that's really dangerous , I think , and it's also , you know , making us dependent on other entertainers like again the entertainers the local entertainers have to really struggle to get gigs .
Yeah , but like the plants , they're here too and they're very good and they're fantastic .
But it's like we were saying before we started , that the the technology is such now that we can , that locals can put their work out there without you know going to a studio and same with recording back in back in the day you know , to get to record oral histories , you record . You needed all this technology but now your phone can do it .
So it's really important I think and this is sort of going away from food in families that they sit down with the older people in their families with their phone , with the audio and and it's such that you can get talk to text .
So I do now like every podcast that goes out has a transcript of me .
Yeah , that's right , it's not hard anymore , so . So maybe a little message , and this as well , is talk to the grannies and to the old people and get their stories down while we have this technology still functioning , just in case there's , just in case there is a massive power outage and we have to go back to writing things down , pen and pencil .
It's very well said and it's coming up a lot actually , and it's part , it's certainly part of my motivation , as you know . Alright , let's back up a bit . Yes you did grow up on a farm .
I did yes In Victoria , though In Victoria dairy farm yes , when there were lots of dairy farms . Yes , yes yeah , in down in Gippsland . How was ?
that for you .
I loved it well , and I loved it in particular because I went to a state school there . Where was it ? In Foster in Victoria . My parents actually came from the Western District of Victoria , so they were , you know , kind of King Catholics and my early schooling up to about grade five I think it was was in Catholic schools .
And then we moved to Foster and there was no Catholic school , so into a state school . It was the most glorious freedom , you know . It was just wonderful .
How interesting . I mean , I wonder and partly expect I might have felt similarly if I'd had that sort of shift myself . You heard in the last episode I was pegged for a priest at a young age , but you ended up coming back to Catholic school .
Well , I had to go . I was then sent to boarding school . When I reached , when I got to secondary school in Melbourne in Geelong .
What school was that ?
Sacred Heart . So that was a bit . You know , that was very disconcerting Really , yeah , yeah . So it took a while to get out of the clutches of the , the lunacy of the Catholic Church because , when you grow up in a particular environment , when your families all think the same and when you're and they're really tightly controlled families .
It's sort of cultish you know we , you sort of look at cults , but when you look closely it's the same mind control methodology . Yeah , which is really sad .
I mean , I remember it too well , dad . I think this has come up on the podcast before , but you know Dad and I end up pretty good before he passed away , so I'm sort of comfortable with being honest about this in a public way , partly because of that .
But I was booted from home at 15 for being blasphemous , which already sounds pretty hardcore in the end , yeah , but no exactly . But all the more that was for going to the Baptist Church up the road to see if they made a bit more sense which they had more fun . I'll say but I'd still felt the same shortcomings .
But I guess I want to put the astros on this straightaway too right , we were having a conversation off here before about the good people in these places too , so it's not an absolute monolithic thing , but by the same token , we have learned so much more about the institutional trauma .
Yes , that is a kintakult like behaviour where you just lock down it , back down the hatches , and you just believe in the face of all . Yeah , so there's all these complexities .
And it's a social system , it's your family , it's everybody you know . So it's very frightening to walk away from all that and it's easy enough for us to do because we hit .
Well , it can be easy enough to walk away these days because there's so much easy transport and you know , yeah , but back in the day , back in the 70s , and it wasn't easy to walk away from your family from your social networks .
Much less access to this sort of media diversity , yeah , which is ironic because the mainstream media is less diverse than ever , but there's this under .
That's right .
Understrate that we're doing here right now .
¶ Life, Religion, and Activism
But you know , it just occurred to me . You know , what I think saved me is my is the fact that I was always a reader . That was your portrait , and so , and also , and of course , books were often censored if they were seen .
Well , that's right , dad was a Christian brother . I don't know if we've had this chat .
Yes , that's right .
And till he was 26 , which was its own trauma how he ended up leaving . He didn't sort of want to but didn't want to . It was a longer story , but Well , he'd be my generation .
Yeah , exactly yeah .
And he wasn't allowed to read the newspaper .
That's right , we never . Yes .
Wow , and had to get permission to go out on the weekend . Yes , to see if footy game even .
Well , he was lucky . He had the money to go to a footy game .
Oh , they'd get little bits of pocket money . When that was part of the trauma I'm alluding to . Anyway , that another story . That's a whole other story , yeah .
But yeah , maybe we should focus back on what's going on here .
Well in terms of a bridge here , because I think it is . If I've got it right , you ended up joining the sisterhood yourself .
I was with Mother Teresa's Crouch for a while , so why did you choose that in all this ? Because they appeared to me to be real . No , and to do something real and to live what they preached . And they certainly did . There was no two ways about it . They weren't living high on the hog .
Like you see some , especially the priests and the bishops and all the hierarchy . We had two sets of clothes . We didn't use the shower , we used a bucket . And what do you call it ? You know the bogey style . A bucket and a jam tin For to bathe . All our food was donated and , yeah , we lived the reality , but the mind games were there totally .
Totally that absolute power over every thought and control of , and that's what did me in in the end . You know what ?
time of your life was this .
In my early 20s . Okay , so you had , had you gone to university or anything like that Been a teacher training , I'd done teacher training and I was teaching in primary school . Okay , but Catholic primary school it was all Catholic . I ended , okay , still a little bit , a bit disaffected , but that's how you were connected with that opportunity . Yes , okay , yes .
And then you start to see the same sort of patterns and ended up having a bit of a a bit of a clash with Mother Teresa herself .
Yes , well , how I left , and it's interesting . But how I left was I don't know . Something happened that was just too silly for words and it had to do with the treatment of . There are about 10 of us Australian novices in this in the group , and they don't , they didn't really know how to deal .
There was a wide variety of people they didn't know , and and trying to have the same regulation on 10 different , very diverse people is a bit it gets silly . And so I , just one day , I just had enough and I , without permission , used the phone to ring a friend in North Fitzroy and said bring me some clothes , I've got to get out of here .
But you know , just because that's my nature , to put up with things for a long time and then explode there's no half measures . So she she went down to Coles and Smith Street and she wasn't sure of sizes , and so she bought two pairs of jeans and two t-shirts and brought them up , and one of the others said there's extra clothes I'm coming to .
So he escaped .
And when you and $30 .
They gave me $30 .
Yeah , similar thing with that when he left . So Pat's and Bella , I think it was at the time and along with the $30 you got a letter .
That's right . I got a little bit later on because Mother Teresa wasn't in Australia at the time , but it was reported back that I'd left and I got this email . You know we used to have email letters .
Oh yeah .
That blew with the stripes on it .
Exciting , ordinarily .
That's right , yes , and she said you know the story of the rich young man that walked away , that you know , essentially , that I was going to hell because I'd left . Well , that sort of sealed the deal for me , really .
To think she meant to the trouble .
Yes , I've wrote it . It was a long letter .
To make sure you knew it's unfortunate .
I lent it to a Jesuit friend and I never got it back .
Oh yeah , it would be amazing to see .
Yes , it would .
But traumatic in its own right . I mean , you have a chuckle , but wow yeah .
Well , it sort of that kind of attitude is an illustration of the hard line that doers I , you know .
Yeah .
I am God kind of thing , and that's not true . Nobody can , nobody's infallible , nobody really knows the answer , nobody . Nobody knows why we're here , what we're doing . You know , life is a great lottery really .
We come back to the master controller .
That's right . Yeah , yeah , there is none .
So from there you were back in Melbourne , that's right . What ?
did you do next ? Well , because I'd been working at this homeless shelter we had in Fitzroy , I'd encountered a lot of Aboriginal people that I didn't know . Aboriginal people existed before then .
And this is Smith Street particularly- this is Gertrude Gertrude . This was .
The shelter was in Gore Street and , yeah , this is around Gertrude Street . Back in the day before the gentrification of Fitzroy , and that's where most ab , a lot of Aboriginal people lived in Fitzroy and Collingwood , that's . You know .
It was it's faint Keep housing yeah , oh , in charcoal lane , yeah , yeah , now , with the fancy US to mind you .
Yeah , that's right , aboriginal run .
Yeah , you know , that's the famed Archie Roach yes Breakthrough album and music and .
Ruby Hunter and I knew Archie Roach when he was a little kid .
Really .
And so I suppose I got the job at the legal service because I knew people and had , you know , sort of a background of teaching and administration . But also I knew Fitzroy and knew the circumstances of people's lives and what was happening there . So yeah , that was in the day , early 70s , setting up the legal service .
From there I went to Alice Springs to do the same thing , to help the estate . My role has always been to just help with training and then get out . You know , give empower people to make yourself redundant To understand the system and move on , and that suits me . That's the kind of thing I can do , yeah .
Set something up , sort of see the need and get going , help people do what they want to do . And that they were exciting times .
Yeah , because all these things were revolutions in their own way .
That's right totally , and it was due to the Whitlam government giving people a voice , giving that free university education to people , and it should be free now too . It's outrageous .
It's interesting that that government ended up being such a blip in time .
Yes , it was , but as you said , before it set the standard and we didn't go back , no matter how much this previous government tried to sort of put it back in the box .
We didn't go back . So that was how long were you in Central Australia then doing that ?
Till 1975 , when I got married in 75 and we went to Canberra for a couple of years and then came back to Brune .
Okay , so clarify that timeline for
¶ Life in Central Australia and Broome
us . So you married someone you met there , like in Central Australia .
I married Stephen Albert because he was with a group of Brune boys who were working in Alice Springs . Right , I didn't know , you bit down there . And so when the legal service started in Alice Springs , the white society didn't want anything to do with white people who worked for Blackfellas .
Basically , they thought it was just really wrong that Aboriginal people should be controlled by the government and just that society at the time just thought it was really weird that our bosses were traditional people . You know that they didn't really . And so we socialized with the locals and that was wonderful it was fantastic and he was down in Alice Springs .
Well , there was about 20 young men from Brune working in Alice Springs at the time . So that was another little microcosm of society . Yeah what was he working on ? Well , he was working in the art gallery , but his cousin was working as a community advisor in Pulpanya , so we spent a lot of time out there .
Right . So then , what was the Canberra interlude ? What took you ?
Well , stephen was appointed to the first National Aboriginal Education Committee .
He was the chairperson of it .
So and that's what started getting recognition in schools and getting bilingual education . It was the start of a lot of things , and there's a few biographies of Stephen around that detail that . That's a really interesting story .
That is a very interesting story .
And getting teacher aids into schools and so on .
Wow .
That was . There wasn't anything like that before then .
And when you went to Brune , had you been there before ?
Oh yeah , we'd been on holidays a few times .
Okay , so you knew that you were up for that move .
Yes , oh yes , yeah , yeah , it was hard to go back to the city after being in Alice .
Yeah .
You know it's . It's sort of once you get a taste of the , the . I think it's to do with the horizons . I say it myself yeah , and when you , even when you drive back towards the , towards the big cities , the , the fences are suddenly apparent and you're confined . It's that confining that is disconcerting you .
Once you get used to the freedom of a big horizon , it's hard to let it go .
So you've gone to Brune , and so we're talking late 70s at this stage . Yeah , early 80s yes , and you start a family in Brune .
Well , we already . Michael and Joseph were born . Michael was born in Alice and Joseph was born in Canberra .
Oh wow , there you go .
They were little . You know , they were kids when we went back to Brune .
And then your third child .
No , no , just . Oh yeah , we had Stephanie , stephen's daughter from a previous .
So that's in Brune . So what was Brune like for you ?
in those days One of the things I really it was . It was wonderful . There was a lot of family interaction , like there was no television much there . You know the test pattern and ABC , that was all . So there was always family gatherings and entertainment and so on . So you knew who everybody was and you knew , you knew your relationship to them .
You know you sort of knew who to call auntie , who to call this and and that reciprocity that exists . And Brune was , there was no curbs . You know the streets were wide and you know there was no paving .
I love this as an idea of what was better .
Yes , yes , but it was less constructed .
Yes , and controlled . I guess it's the same thing , isn't it ? I've thought for a while a benchmark of development could be the fewer keys you have .
That's right . Those sorts of things Absolutely yeah . And yes , you didn't sort of lock up that much . The houses had shutters that opened to let the breeze through and you went to sleep with a witsa wrong around you and the fan on you or slept outside . You know that that was just and that was fine .
One of the things that was most disconcerting to me was the midday siesta , when all the shops shut . Everybody came home for lunch .
All the government workers you know the people from the wolfies , the water authority and people would be on the back of a truck and truck would go around , drop everybody off for lunch and a break and then go back to work at two o'clock . And you know , if you needed to go to the shop at lunchtime you couldn't because they were closed , every shop .
Is that a good thing or a bad thing ? It's a fantastic thing ? Yeah , I think so too , because you have to have a break , have a really good time and you need a break in the middle of the day . And be together .
And what changed ? That was again coming of the corporate supermarket . They couldn't cope with closing in the middle of the day . They just didn't know how to do it .
So I did read Stephen's eulogy and he was referred to as the Pied Piper .
That's true , yeah .
Yeah , you saw a bit of that , a very charismatic fella .
Yeah , very charismatic and he did a lot of good in the education and in promoting music . He led the way for a lot of people .
And encouraged a lot of people and you've told the stories about how your front porch would often be the scene of some of these musical gatherings and indeed the writing of the original brand new day . That's right , yeah , and you told us about that . Well , was it fun at the time . Did you know , did you have a sense of what was happening ?
Well , it was just what ?
no , of course not , yeah , it's just hanging out Of course not you .
Just it was just the way it was . And then things develop in their own way , and so you you like . When I was just one example , when I was in Alice Springs , it was the beginning of the Pupanya Tula artists and people would give us paintings , or you could buy a you know a dot painting for $10 .
And so most of my family got dot paintings that are now worth thousands . Wow , do you think I have any Fascinating ?
For those who don't know , brand new day has become a cultural phenomenon .
It's the most extraordinary thing , it's the most wonderful thing in terms of expressing , you know , the reality of existence . What's real , what's real , and that merging of that , merging of all the influences , it's really obvious .
Could only have come out of broom really high .
I think so . Yeah , because broom , that's the the , the thing about broom . Back in the day , all right , there was a bit of high society that you didn't know , but people got on and mixed there wasn't . Well , I've never sort of , I've never had because I had no reason to .
I was never tested in my youth but I've never judged anybody by the the color of their skin you know , it seems like a very strange thing . Yeah , you can't say all people are like I mean , I might say I might say it about Catholic clergy now you might put them all in one and say they're all bad and that that's the thing .
So we all have our prejudices in some way , because you've been bitten by that .
Yes , yes , so all right , but really I can't see that that the color of your skin should make you any different . And everybody's different in some way . That's the the nature of existence . Our fingerprints tell us that from the start they're all different , and we can't pretend to be the same as anybody else .
Here , here . So did you start the Kimberley bookshop straight away , or was there a leading no ?
no , no , no , no . How that started . Was there the uniting back in those days , before the incoming corporate , before there was big supermarkets ? Bob King had Seaview . That was a supermarket and that was in a tin shed and it encompassed a newsagents as well . Down the Newtown beach , which is all built up now and lots of paving and roads and everything .
Is that building still there ?
Part , not really . No , there's a bit of a facade . I think the stonework is still is a bit of stonework is still there . But the tin shed , I mean there was a tin shed first that had a bit of a supermarket and they got the Gordon and Gotch distribution list , which is comics and a few novels .
So the guy at the Uniting Church , he started a little bookshop in his back room and he would order things for us you know , order from Penguin and Places and then he got shifted somewhere else and the sisters had stopped
¶ Bookshop Development
teaching . The John and God sisters had stopped teaching and sort of had mostly retired but were looking for something to do and they thought a nice bookshop would be a good idea . So it was at the same time that the medical service was starting up and there was a severe decline in the numbers of religious . So the sisters had big buildings empty .
So the medical service was in one wing and they bought the bookshop and put it in another wing and I volunteered my time so graciously . I was teaching at the prisons in the afternoon but I volunteered to help them to establish the bookside of things because I was an avid reader , so that's it Makes sense .
Yeah , it's full circle .
And so that's how it started to develop , and I got paid in books which is pretty fine . And then , when the sisters really wanted to retire , I bought the business from them . And that was , that was in , that was after the Royal Commission , because I worked on the deaths in custody . Okay , so now we're talking late 80s , yeah , and again 89 .
The Royal Commission was for those who don't know , another pivotal moment in Australian history . I guess we would like to think of it today as having been more pivotal to actual outcomes , but still it's completely central to the nation's dialogue , that's right .
Today needs to be .
So what was the link ? I mean , you obviously had these legal service days . Was that part of what linked you to that ? How did you know ? Not necessarily .
I was . I had a few , a couple of years in Melbourne running community services for the Fitzroy City Council , but three years was enough of that . But yes , I had fairly strong research skills .
So that's how , when I finished in Melbourne , I came back to the commission for 12 months and did work on the legal services and one of the most interesting findings I thought was that the amount of money that the government gets in terms of fines Really , oh God , yes , fines of dollars from fines of people .
That's why a lot of people choose to go to jail instead of paying the fine . I tried that once when I had a speeding ticket , but they wouldn't take me to jail , they said I had to pay . But anyway , an interesting story about buying the bookshop .
So the bookshop then was down in that Perler's Road , a very big building owned by , oh , some locals , perling people , and the rent was quite high . And there was it wasn't just a bookshop , then there was art supplies and stationery and holy pictures and I was really only interested in the books . And that's right .
The people who owned the building wouldn't , because I was sort of mixed up with Aboriginal society , the people that owned the building wouldn't give me the lease in my name . Oh dear me . They said I had no business experience and you know my parents had had businesses for years , by definition . But that was . They knew nothing about me , only my connections .
So I thought , well , keep it . And there'd been a building up in Napier , where the next door to where the bookshop is now . There'd been an empty building up there and I asked the real estate agent about that . The rent was half the rent of the great big place . So the lease finished on the 31st of January .
So we had everything out , loading into cars , really taking it up the street .
Beautiful and just yeah .
But that was also that sort of community spirit that people got in and helped move everything and crammed it into this building that was half the size , so Filomena had to take the holy pictures because there wasn't any room .
This is relevant right , Because this comes back to the inadvertent missionary . That's right , yes , this was a break . What's your final definitive break ? Do you think from that ?
Oh no , not really , Because I've always stayed friends with people in the church and the sisters . I mean , Sister Joan is still alive and she's a good mate .
Yeah , so they're institutional , the judgments on the institution .
It's the institution that you have to break from , not the individuals that you know , and you have to have respect for their beliefs . But yes , so , and then from there that landlord turned a bit , that building changed hands and the landlord turned a bit strange , and so the building next door was empty and the owners were sailing in the Witsundays .
But the real estate agent chased them up and I made an offer and they accepted it and so we renovated where the bookshop is now and that had been an old brothel and frock shop and all sorts and it was full of little little rooms covered in hessian .
So we gutted it completely , took the ceilings out , kept as many of the floorboards , because if you notice when you go in the bookshop , some of the floorboards are quite wide . They're a different tone to the different size to the ones we have today . But yeah , oh it's beautiful .
It's just beautiful it is , and Marie has just done the most amazing job making it even more beautiful .
Yeah , yeah , that's amazing .
But our specialty was local books .
Really like a precursor to Mugabala , in a way .
Well , no , mugabala has established , had been established by that time , but and of course we sold , we promoted there .
As the Aboriginal publisher , which has since become cultural phenomenon as well .
That's right .
So that came up in the 90s as well , didn't it ?
Which was the initial funding for Mugabala was from Bicentennial funding in 88 .
Oh , there you go .
Okay , and so that , yes , that's what got them started .
Wow , so it's thriving local market gardens and local books and . Aboriginal publishers . Again , you can see this beautiful force coming up .
Yes .
While you've described this alternate force , that was happening the corporatised yeah . More control .
But it's still there .
Yes , it still leaves the local force is still there and it's it's .
People are getting more aware day by day , I think .
Indeed To double back to the Royal Commission . No small thing on your life's map , I imagine .
Well , you know it was . It was a really important thing . Yeah , I was very proud to to have been appointed to , to work in it .
And that's how you connected with Kate Ortee , who connected us .
That's right . Yes , that's right .
Who was a magistrate at the time ?
Well , no she . She was the magistrate . Then she became a . She was a lawyer in Melbourne then and she would she came to work on the commission ? She lived up in Broom though she was she was the senior council .
So this is the thing , the stories you guys have . I could sit around and record all day when you come full circle where we started . Yeah , and that is how we connected , because I knew Kate as a fellow graduate of an old mentor . We shared Frank .
Fisher yeah .
Well , I'm sort of writing a book about some old material at the moment . And then , when we were coming here five years ago , when the podcast effectively started , she said oh well , you've got to meet Wendy . And she was right . Thanks , kate .
And Kate's new book about the Forest River Massacre is just fantastic . It is Just yeah , yeah , it's just the forest river to light .
No one better to have done it .
Yeah , yes , because she is a really hard worker , she does and smart , she's , so smart .
Oh , in so many ways , yes , institutionally smart Like , yes , it's hats off to Kate .
¶ Transitioning to Permaculture
So when did you decide Broom was to leave ?
Bring it here . I think that room was getting so big , it was colonised by tourism , essentially .
Mid-90s .
No no 2003 . I told the bookshelf .
Oh yes , that's right bit later .
So that's when I came here , and I came here with the idea of maybe going , of sort of leading a quiet life , maybe going fishing down the river Really . At least two or three times a week , but that hasn't happened , and when I came here , it was all just manicured lawns On this block , yeah , and pieces of bush .
So it was cared for , but in a very different way .
That's right . Yes , yes , and the previous owners would be horrified to see the chaos .
The mess right yeah .
But , and I tried to start growing a few things and you know I had this vague understanding of permaculture and the need to grow the tropical food , but you know I wasted a lot of money on buying exotic fruit trees that would then die because I hadn't looked at the soil . Oh yeah , I hadn't looked after the soil .
How interesting the family didn't come with you .
Well , they had , you know , they had their own lives .
Kids were growing up , and Steven yeah yeah , they spent it .
No , we had been separated for a long time . Had you , oh yes . And the kids . My children had already been married and had their own children . So yes , and in fact I'm a great grandmother now .
Oh , you're really . I always thought you were great when fitting another title .
But starting here and coming to realise the cost of growing anything if you were going to import fertilisers , is what drove me back to really studying permaculture and finding out how to grow things in this environment with the minimum of effort , because you know , cutting things from place to place and buying imports is just nonsensical .
We have the raw material here , we have plenty of sunshine , we have plenty of water and we have the plants that will support growing , and so you set up systems . If you want to plant exotics , you set up the systems to make them comfortable .
Which is what you've done .
And you also get the things like leafy greens that will grow through the wet .
Yeah , get nature at your back .
Yes , yeah .
So you had this vague understanding of permaculture . At some point you decided I've got to get right into this .
Yeah , to get an understanding . So I went to Kuala Lumpur to do it in 2012 . Okay , I mean , you know a while to get that organised , to get to understand that yeah , or 2011 , maybe something around there .
Well , we're on that .
Yes .
I don't know . I guess it's notable for me that you were in your 60s then .
Yes .
And I mean I had Rachel Ward on the podcast recently in her 60s Switches to this regenerative farming thing . There's so many stories like this that I've taken heart from frankly Hit their straps .
Yes .
At that age .
Well , because you start to sort of see life's reality Once your children are grown up . Well , what's your purpose in life ? And what's life all about and what kind of world are you living for , you know , have you given to your children ?
Or are you living behind and you see things in a different perspective and you're not so much under pressure to just get a job and feed the kids kind of thing you can sort of . You only have to feed yourself . And if you can do that around you . That's good .
Bang Gives you the freedom . Yes , there's so much to be said for it . So yeah , 2011, . You turned to Asia for this yes , to do a DDC , because it's fine .
I mean , the permaculture design course is based on Bill Molison's big manual . There's 12 chapters . It's 12 full days was 14 days . You get a break in between and you study each chapter every day . You really study and it's worth it .
It's absolutely worth it to put everything in perspective and even though it's studied in that manner right around the world in all sorts of different environments and climates , to do it to actually do it in a place with a similar climate to your own , is beneficial , I think , because if you do it in another climate , you get carried away by what they are growing
. You think , oh yeah , I could grow that , but you learn what grows in your environment , even if it's on the other side of the world , kind of thing . So that's really useful .
Yeah , fascinating . So the process then . How much did it change ? Did you instantly think , oh yeah , I'm on it now and start to see results ?
It's a long process , though it has been for me , Like I said , together the plants that I need to understand how to use the local plants to understand these mahogany trees .
You know we've got beautiful shade from very high mahogany trees , but the mahogany leaves are allopathic , which means that they don't encourage the growth of other plants , so you can't use as raw mulch mahogany leaves .
And you just found that out .
I've only just found that out Interesting isn't it ?
Yeah , the layers .
Yes , if I knew then what I know now , it would be amazing . But anyway , somebody else will hopefully benefit from it .
No doubt Well those trees there when you go .
Yes , they were here . Yeah , I figured they weren't quite that high .
They are spectacular .
And just to say about mahogany trees , if you prune them properly , if you just go and cut them , they panic . They're like everything else they panic and they'll put out lots of leaves .
But if you prune them properly you can have a high cover without a big leaf mess and like broom got rid of all its mahogany trees because they didn't know how to prune them properly . If you prune them so that you've got a light canopy , then they won't fall over .
But if you leave a heavy , heavy canopy , it acts like a sail and the wind a big , high wind , in a storm or whatever they'll just drag them over . They'll just fall over . Because then the other thing is you shouldn't never water mahogany trees . That encourages them to put it down a deeper taproot .
But if you have a mahogany tree and nurture it and water it , it gets lazy . It just puts its roots out in a shallow manner and that's when they fall over too . So there's practical advice in this podcast .
It's interesting because to see neem here , cotton , bamboo , mahogany and even so many of the stories now with livestock that are so brilliantly regenerative . And there's the famous title of the book it's not the cow , it's the how . It's not anything , it's the how it's the how yeah . It's management period without master controller . That's right .
Gentle management , you know just Custodian shit . When the neems , if your neem tree flowers and the seeds fall and they all germinate , you just mow them like lawn .
So interesting and you might have got wind the big announcement over in the East Kimberley of the ammonia or the green I'll use these terms but I don't entirely buy into them anyway . Biggest stories around this , but the green ammonia plant , the hydrogen deal , that was struck with mob . True , yeah , it's a struck with mob .
So it's a massive project and done , as the language goes , with indigenous folk there as co-share holders , not just stakeholders , and they seem on board KLCs , on board locals . So it seems solid on that front . But it's interesting as these so-called green ammonia projects come on board . You talked about the plants that fix nitrogen in your soil .
Do we need ammonia fertilizers ?
No , we don't need ammonia fertilizers . We need to put our food waste back in the ground instead of having two like the Shire Derby has two waste collections every week during the wet season because people put food waste in their bins and it stinks . Nobody should put any food waste in a bin . It should be back into the soil .
It's really illustrative . I think that , again , from the other perspective , green's not green in itself of any kind , whether it's solar panels or EVs or ammonia , yeah , until you look at what you're actually doing it for , that's right .
And if you even need it , and all the more then I think of the oxymoron in this to say it's ammonia fertiliser , if in fact it's a really destructive force .
It is , it is absolutely .
For soils and climate . Yes , in that sense .
Yeah , and you see , if you use your food waste as fertilizer and there are various methods like we did it . We were doing really serious bakashi here when I was getting food waste from one of the hotels , but was that King's Sound ? No , no , that was the spinny way and but it depends on the cook .
If the cook doesn't want to separate the food waste or doesn't want to be bothered , they weren't . And the management of the hotel , if they believe in , you know , recycling food waste , will you write Shell here ?
I get the food waste from there every day and that goes into the soil and and to the chickens and I get their coffee grinds every day and that's just one place and I get five kilos of coffee grinds a day .
Wow .
That I make into a fertilizer . That I'm doing the you know bakashi fertilizer with that . And you're sending that's one place that makes coffee .
And it's a service station . It's not even a restaurant .
Well , if they'd open a restaurant , they'd be the only restaurant worth going to in town .
It's one of the great characteristics of Derby that that should be true . Yes , bless them .
And they're fantastic cooks and they use fresh food . I was getting it from one place which will remain nameless because it's in history , but I noticed that even with bakashi the food wasn't breaking down because it was so processed .
Wow , there was so much additives and preservative in that food that even after you know a month or so , with the bakashi bran and in the soil , it wasn't breaking down .
Didn't go anywhere . No , and that's DM me .
That's scary , because if you're eating all that stuff , what's it doing to your body ?
Unidentified food like substance .
Yeah .
You're about to supply the new or the renewed IGA in town .
Hopefully .
yes , there's a woolly's but you , so you've sort of , there's the loop .
Yeah .
Potentially in motion there .
Yes , well , the new IGA say they want to buy fresh local produce .
Yeah .
And you know they're just open so they're just getting organized . They're under a bit of pressure , so whether they'll get any passion fruit or not , moot point . So when there's this current flush of fruit finishes , hopefully they have their egg together to start buying by then , but that's what we need Local suppliers .
And local outlets yes , yes . Yeah .
But actual market gardening in this environment is very difficult unless you understand how to utilize what the resources you have .
By tapping into the understandings that are . Yeah , the roots are there , as we said before , and of course , you're amongst that , and one of the things you do is indeed get involved at the school and elsewhere .
Yes , in training yeah , and so forth , as well , is that still something you're passionate about ? Oh , yes , yes , and to have you know . So people and I'm always open to people coming and having a look and seeing what we're doing and getting and people walk in here and think , oh , this is beautiful , and that's the thing about .
¶ Promoting Food Security and Sustainability
All you need is water .
You've got the sunshine , you've got the soil , and so it's really great when community people come and see this is what's possible with just those things , and it's something that it's a bit sad that the people responsible for wastewater treatment in communities are not doing something with that wastewater , because it would be so easy to put in some banana plants and
have a banana plantation on every community just fed by the wastewater . You know , bananas don't require a great deal of management . It's quite simple and straightforward .
And so for you . You manage a livelihood out of the welcoming of people in into the cottages that are on site that were on site as well .
I believe , when you got it .
Yeah , that's what underpins you to be out of then .
Fiddler and in the garden .
Yeah , yeah , change the world . It's relevant , isn't it ? Because people need to be able to lean on something , at least in the interim . Yes , till they jack production and these outlet connections up that actually work ?
Yeah , whatever they are . But at the moment , really , what I'm doing is trying to see what's possible with the least amount of external input . And we also manage to feed ourselves , and you know .
So very well , I mentioned before , you're effectively next door to the old Birdwood station .
Oh yeah , not far away , not far .
Do you count the legendary Robin Treadwell there as an influence on ?
you . Oh , yes , she was fantastic , and when I first came here , they had a big market garden . They used to bring food boxes into town . You know we used to buy from them . Yeah , she was amazing . And this is where this is .
This is where I think it's important to disseminate the information and get as many people doing it for themselves as possible , because too often , if you rely on one person and that one person drops dead , well , there it goes . Yeah , that's where education is so important .
She was , for those people who don't know , the first Australian rural woman of the year . Yes , and a massive influence on the Haggertees .
Yeah , when they were up here . Yeah , which was just a tad before you and she had amazing energy , amazing and vision .
And , interestingly , a mate of Ian's from back then , jack Burton . Oh yeah , owns it now .
Yes , well , I don't know . I know that they're catering to tourists . They've got . They're not focused at the moment . I think they're growing stuff . I really don't know what's happening out there .
And what about this corollary ? You sort of started up Wingiana wellness and sustainability .
That sort of is the education arm of the thing really , and there's a small group of us trying to sort of promote food security and this kind of growing . But we're trying to do it with individuals , because you've got to start with the individual . You know people have got to be independent themselves and get away from dependencies .
And you've got Olivia , my wife at the moment teaching yoga .
That's right Out of there .
And shiatsu therapy as well . You were a yoga teacher .
That's right when I first came here . But you can't do everything . No , you can't .
But you did you teach yoga as well . Yes , yeah , yeah , there you go Because everything's related .
You have to eat properly , like we don't put dirty fuel or any kind rubbish in our cars Because we know the cost and the impact of of not looking after the cars . I wish we understood that about our bodies as well . But there is the food and then there's the exercise . If a car sits still , it goes rusty .
If our body sits still all day , it goes rusty too . So it's really important that balance of food and exercise and understanding your body .
And there's so much in that that even I know you're passionate about . I mean we hear the stories of the epidemics of youth crime through the Kimberley and elsewhere in . Australia at the moment . But you know of many instances . I mean we've had Fred Prevenza even talking about the classic instances of the impact of nutrition on children .
That's right . If kids are well fed , they're not going to go . Kids are getting up to mischief over the time because they're starving and it's making them crazy . If they're getting good food , they won't be crazy , and this isn't just you theorising , no , no , this is reality and one of the organisations in town that deals with kids .
When they swapped over from processed to fresh food , they noticed a difference immediately in behaviour .
You can't understate that , can you ?
No , that's , that is so important . But getting the medical system on side with that is really hard work . Yeah , it's so back end , yeah , reactive .
I wondered too , wendy , in the broader sweep of your life and all your experiences , I guess , what the colonial context means to you . How do you feel ? How does that come into your teaching , even Like ? How does it play out your sensibility around land ownership management in the colonial context we find ourselves in ?
Well , I think that we just have to respect the fact that the ground we walk on is part of us , that , and it's true that we come from dust and we return to dust , and our existence depends on what comes out of the ground , and so we need to treat it with respect and we need to look after it , and we need to understand our connection to the dirt on the
ground .
Have mob here been interested in what you're trying to do ?
Absolutely , absolutely . People love it and people want to do it , but they constrain . You know there's certain constraints . Not everybody believes
¶ Gardening, Sustainability, and Music
in it . So when you're starting a garden , one of the most important things is security . Keep the dogs and the drinkers and the kids out of where you're trying to grow . So that's where things like that Glears City , asepium , that mother of cocoa . One of the things you can do with that is make it a living fence .
And you see that in Asia , everywhere , you plant them very close together and you do what's called preaching you . If you've got two plants very close together , you get a little side branch of one side branch of the other , scratch the bark and bind the two scratched bits together with a bit of tape or something and they grow together .
The the way you've scratched that little branch and join the two scratched bits , they grow together so you can form an impenetrable fence .
Wow .
That's living . And then you use the vegetation to chop and drop and as you fertilize it . So you don't need $40,000 worth of fencing , you just need to poke a few sticks in the ground and wait for them to grow . What about the shire ? Is the shire on board ? I think it would be , but I haven't had much to do with them .
Yeah , I think they need to be educated .
Comes back to education .
And it's one of the important things is that waste ? That's what I want to get them to understand the whole waste management system . And I think Broom has started a bakashi system , is promoting bakashi for its food waste , organic waste .
And you get . You've got a woofer coming soon . Yes , so you're inviting people to come and help with this . Do you go fishing ?
No .
It didn't happen . Maybe that's my role , we'll see . Would you describe yourself as having again in the wash up the broad sweep of your life , a spirituality ?
now . Well , it's just , I think , having respect for the universe and accepting that life's a lottery , and doing your best for people you know to be kind to people , that's all . Be kind , be kind and you'll be perfect . Here's a quote from the Bible , actually , and that's the main thing .
That's a nice way to sign off compassionately , isn't it Well ?
it's all we can do , because we never understand . People don't know what you're dealing with and you don't know what . We have no idea what other people are dealing with , how they're , and so they may be annoying you , but all you can do to save anybody else is to wish them well . You can't save or change other people .
You can only wish them well and see them as individuals in their own right and not think that you're the center of the universe , because you're not . You know , we all just have to battle along , and if we can be kind to each other , well , that's all that matters .
Your love of books .
Oh yes .
Have you turned your hand to writing one yourself ?
Well , I'm trying to write a manual for what I'm doing here , and I did get a start when I was stuck in Broom for six weeks over Christmas With the floods . I haven't touched it since , so I need to get back to that . No , I'm happy to read , really .
And , yes , in terms of what does happen to this next , where you're not around , there's the manual , so that's well , hopefully , yes part of the thing .
And hopefully some . I just you know , when I wanted to sell the bookshop , marie came along at the right time , and Marie and I were discussing this on the weekend . I think she's ready for someone to take an interest in the bookshop , but she won't let it go to somebody who won't look after it , and the same here .
I would like somebody to come along and continue this . You know the groundwork is laid and the mechanisms are there , and I only . You know I do a couple of hours of work a day to maintain it , but somebody who , with more energy , could really develop what's been established .
No doubt . I mean . It's extraordinary , Extraordinary even to think that the large part of what I see here now is just in the last decade .
Yes , yeah , wow what we could do from here , you know the last thing .
What's that Music . Is there any music that's been significant through your life , or even just something you're tuning into at the moment ?
Well , the musical influences that I recall , more or less in order Linda Ronstop , tony Childs , dead Condense .
Oh , wow , yeah .
Yeah , they're the power what ?
was it about Linda .
Oh , just her songs . I mean that was that era , I suppose . But Tony Childs , I mean , oh my God . And you know she comes to Australia .
Really .
Yes , I missed out on going to a live concert . I was so in Victoria and I did it is . If somebody wanted to organise it , she would come to Broome .
There we go . There's another invitation .
Yes .
I think of Dead Condense and Lisa being Australian , Lisa Gerard .
Yes , yes , oh my .
God , what a voice . Yeah , never forget her voice on the film Baraka either . That's a highlight for me .
And of course the pig rooms .
Oh .
And it's interesting , you know , when I was doing yoga teacher training , it was with an Indian organisation and so it was all encompassing and we did chanting and the purpose of it and really it's to do with your breath and your and how your breathing assists you to be well .
If you breathe properly , you're well , you're you're , you know , because the breath is the cleanser of the body and we I remember coming out to my having this , this lesson on chanting and its impact and how it's also to do with your emotions that you need to express your emotions and then let them go . And that's what the verse of a song is about .
It's expressing what's going on , and then the chorus is letting that go , the chorus repeating . The chorus lets the story go , sends it out . So I understood that from the , the , yeah , the theory of that .
And I came out to my car and turned on the , turned the car on and there was a pigroom CD , you know , in the car came on and it was the , the , the song about my land , and it's talking about the land and you know all the stuff that's happened . And then the chorus comes and you let the story go . I mean , how amazing is that ? That .
That's what music really is , and I don't think people understand what that's about , maybe on a subliminal level .
Yeah , yeah , we feel it .
We feel it , but to really understand that this is how you get rid of the anxiety in your life by talking it out and then letting it go , and you can do that through a song , and that's where country music really does that . That's why people love country music .
Yeah , it's so interesting to think . The power of nutrition , so understated in itself , healing capacity , intergenerational healing capacity , the power of breath perhaps even more so , and we're cottoning onto that too as a society, hey ? And t he power of music and language itself , as Manchan talked about, and it's ancient roots . WENDY: yes !
AJ: Oh the portals for going about the stuff . WENDY: And where are those things in hospitals ? Totally ignored .
There's a little bit of the task . WENDY: where we're supposed to go and get well .
The key elements of wellness are absent .
Something to work at and seek elsewhere at the same time yeah .
Yeah . AJ: Wendy , what an adventurous life you've led . WENDEY" Really I don't know what you've just done it , haven't you ?
What a legacy as well , and we love being around you and here .
AJ: Thanks for having us . WENDY" I feel very lucky to live here . I feel so lucky to live in this beautiful place .
It's beautiful .
It's just magic . AJ: We're very grateful that Kate sent us your way . WENDY: I'm grateful that I got here , that this was , you know , part of the lottery of life .
Yeah , yeah . I'm very grateful too that you've been so generous with speaking with me on the podcast too .
Thank you , Anthony . We're a chance to spread the word .
Indeed indeed .
To do the mission
That was Wendy Albert . For more on Wendy, Kimberley Cottages and Windjana Wellness , including a workshop Wendy is co -hosting this Sunday with my wife , Olivia, see the links in the show notes . A nd if not then, if you can, come visit some other time and even get stuck in for a bit . S o many possibilities here .
I'll put some photos on the website for those interested and I'll send a little video to subscribers . If you or your kids might enjoy a child's eye view and a chuckle or two, Yes he has put out two short episodes on his podcast offering a guided tour around Wendy's place on episodes four and 14 on Yeshe Interviews .
That's Y- E-S-H-E, available on Spotify and a few other places . Oh and in case you're wondering on those hospital visits I opened with, both patients are okay . Finally , remember to join us , if you can , at the next big regenerative agriculture event in Australia in Margaret River , WA . I'm privileged to be emcee and really look forward to seeing some of you there .
I believe the final program is being released this week . For subscribers to the podcast, I'll continue to send you behind the scenes footage and pics and things as we get around the country . A nd if you've been thinking about becoming a subscriber I'd love you to join us .
It's with thanks , as always , to this community of generous supporters that this episode was made possible . Just head to the website via the show notes RegenNarration . com forward slash support and thanks again . Thanks , too , for sharing the podcast , if you can think of someone who might enjoy it , and for continuing to rate and review it on your favoured app .
It all helps . The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden , off the Soundtrack to the Film Regenerating Australia . My name is Anthony James . Thanks for listening .