003, Dave Jacke: Interconnection

Soul Soil: Where Agriculture and Spirit Intersect with Brooke Kornegay

We can design sustainable agricultural systems all day long, but if we don't also have sustainable social systems to support them, they are far more likely to fail. Today we cover this and many other topics with Dave Jacke. Dave Jacke, primary author of the award winning two-volume book Edible Forest Gardens, has studied ecology and design since the 1970s, and has run Dynamics Ecological Design since 1984. Dave has consulted on, designed, built, and planted landscapes, homes, farms, and communities in many parts of the U.S., as well as overseas. His homestead is an eagle’s flight from the Connecticut River in Montague, MA.

What's integral to sustaining ecosystems is crucial to sustaining social systems....and to do that, we need a healthy inner landscape.

In this episode...

• The motivating force behind Edible Forest Gardens (2:10)

• Who do we have to become to create sustainable landscapes? (8:25)

• What a healthy, balanced landscape feels like (11:40)

• Forging reciprocal relationships with system elements (15:50)

• The role of emotions as an adaptive mechanism to give us information about ourself and our environment (21:15)

• Healing the trauma held in the body leads to more presence, increased ability to "be here now" and speak your truth; wholeness is interconnectedness (26:10)

• Why grow forest gardens? (28:10)

• In order to have successful sustainable landscapes, we need to also design collaborative, egalitarian social systems. In order to have successful, functioning social systems, we need to work on our inner landscapes. (33:30)

• Redefining guilds (37:10)

• Designing for results (46:00)

Resources

• Dynamics Ecological Design

• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

• Old Path, White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha by Thich Nhat Hanh