

Sense-Making in a Changing World
Morag Gamble: Permaculture Education Institute
Join Morag Gamble, global permaculture teacher and ambassador, in conversation with leading ecological educators, thinkers, activists, authors, designers and practitioners to explore the kind of thinking and action we need to navigate a positive and regenerative way forward, to myceliate possibilities, and share ideas of what a thriving one-planet way of life could look like. In today's constantly changing world, Morag's guests offer voices of clarity and common sense.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 26, 2023 • 1h 3min
Epic Permaculture Projects with Andrew Millison and Morag Gamble
Tune in this week for a conversation with amazing permaculture educator, practitioner, gardener and travelling filmmaker Andrew Millison from the United States.Andrew's passion is travelling the world documenting epic permaculture projects to share inspiration of what's possible. He's filmed in places such as India, Egypt, Mexico, Cuba, and throughout the United States. When I spoke to him, he was about to jump on a plane to head off to Senegal!In this episode, we chat about everything from student power at university & storytelling to permaculture projects around the world & the importance of water in our landscape.Andrew also runs a podcast, Earth Repair Radio, and to find the films he mentioned in this podcast, visit his fantastic Youtube channel!I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the show_____MORAG GAMBLEFounder, Permaculture Education InstituteMorag's CoursesPodcast BlogPodcast YouTube: Podcast InstagramLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/I am a possibilitarian and I believe HumanKINDness.In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country.If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.

Sep 19, 2023 • 39min
Permaculture Living with Kirsten Bradley and Morag Gamble
Join me this week for a Permaculture Writer's special in conversation with amazing permaculture educator and doer, author and grower Kirsten Bradley from Milkwood Permaculture. As this podcast is going live, Kirsten has just released her new book -> 'The Milkwood Permaculture Living Handbook: Habits for Hope in a Changing World'. You can find it in your local library, bookstore, online and maybe even in your street library!It was so great to catch up with Kirsten, chatting about everything from her writing process and the importance of books to how to find a belonging to place when you're renting and practice 'active hope'.I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed making it!For those who were interested in Kirsten's reference to the book 'It's Not That Radical:Climate Action to Transform Our World' by Mikaela Loach, here it is! And for those looking for Jonathan Lear's book around First Nations' stewardship, it's called 'Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation'.I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the show_____MORAG GAMBLEFounder, Permaculture Education InstituteMorag's CoursesPodcast BlogPodcast YouTube: Podcast InstagramLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/I am a possibilitarian and I believe HumanKINDness.In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country.If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.

Aug 31, 2023 • 56min
Loving Nature & Gardening with Poppy Okotcha and Morag Gamble
Hello and welcome to the Sense-making in a Changing World podcast. I’m Morag Gamble and this show is hosted by the Permaculture Education Institute . Join me each week in conversation with leading ecological thinkers, activists, authors, designers and practitioners to explore 'What Now?' What IS the kind of thinking we need to navigate a positive and regenerative way forward, to myceliate possibilities, to explore what a thriving one-planet way of life could look like. My guests offer voices of clarity and common sense.In this episode I am speaking with the wonderful Poppy Okotcha - a qualified permaculture designer based in Devon - an ecological home grower, forager and home cook - passionate about ecological local community food systems and forest gardening. She is part of the Grow Share Collective and tends a 5 x 30 m edible and medicinal forest garden next to her home.She loves creating, tending and learning from edible and medicinal spaces that are sustainable, nourishing, beautiful and useful and wild. Poppy is a sought after speaker at events and festivals and writes widely about her love of plants and gardening. She’s been featured on BBC Gardeners World and cohosted the Great Garden Revolution on Channel 4. She also has an online course about wild gardening.Coming from a modelling background - a rising star in the London Fashion scene - on the catwalk with the likes of Vivienne Westwood - she has presence and popularity that I am so delighted she is bringing to the world of permaculture.It was just so great to speak with Poppy - she loves permaculture thinking, designing and plants as much as me! I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the show_____MORAG GAMBLEFounder, Permaculture Education InstituteMorag's CoursesPodcast BlogPodcast YouTube: Podcast InstagramLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/I am a possibilitarian and I believe HumanKINDness.In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country.If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.

Aug 23, 2023 • 1h 7min
The Medicinal Forest with Dr Anne Stobart and Morag Gamble
Welcome to the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast. This episode is part of our special permaculture writer's series. My name is Morag Gamble. I am speaking with Devon based herbal practitioner and herb grower, educator, author and founder of the Herbal History Research Network Dr Anne Stobart.Anne has two books available through Permanent Publications, The Medicinal Forest Garden Handbook (2020), and coming out this year, Trees and Shrubs That Heal: Reconnecting with the Medicinal Forest - with 80 plants profiled, each with a simple recipe. Ann has also published her PhD research, Household Medicine of 17th Century EnglandBack in the early 1990s, Anne joined a permaculture design course at Dartington in Devon and was inspired to cultivate more herbs for use in her clinical practice. Anne grew many herbs in the cottage garden and on the allotment. but she and her partner wanted to grow more of their own plant supplies, so purchased Holt Wood in 2004 and transformed it from a redundant conifer plantation into a thriving medicinal forest garden based on a permaculture design.Anne has worked extensively in education, including leading a professional herbal medicine programme at Middlesex University in London, UK. She is a founding member of the Medicinal Forest Garden Trust, a member of the advisory board for the Journal of Herbal Medicine, and is an Honorary University Fellow at the University of Exeter.Anne has also published research articles on historical recipes and the history of herbal medicine, and has a continuing interest in research into agroforestry and permaculture related to herbal medicine.CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT ABOUT MORAG'S COURSES AT THE PERMACULTURE EDUCATION INSTITUTEI'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the show_____MORAG GAMBLEFounder, Permaculture Education InstituteMorag's CoursesPodcast BlogPodcast YouTube: Podcast InstagramLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/I am a possibilitarian and I believe HumanKINDness.In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country.If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.

Aug 2, 2023 • 1h 20min
Community Food Forests with Gavin Hardy and Morag Gamble
In this episode I am speaking with Churchill Fellow, Community Food Forester, Community Gardens Australia - QLD Coordinator, muliti-award-winning Landscape Architect and Permaculture Educator, Gavin Hardy - based not far from me in Meanjin Brisbane.Gav and I go way back - to the early days of setting up Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane, where he is now the education coordinator.In 2020 Gav was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate the potential of community food forests and orchards . Because of the pandemic his journey was delayed, but finally he got to visit 10 of the world’s exemplar sites and recorded 51 projects in the USA, Canada, UK, The Netherlands and Italy. We sat down shortly after his report was released for this chat.In this conversation, we talk about what he learned, the insights and recommendations for establishing successful community food forest and orchard projects here in Australia (but obviously ideas that are relevant around the world) as well as his path into permaculture and how his livelihood is connected.Gavin's Churchill Fellowship Report. LEARN PERAMCULTUREStudy permaculture with Morag Gamble at the Permaculture Education Institute. Discover all our online courses. Permaculture Design CertificatePermaculture Educators Program (design and teaching certificates)Permaculture gardening - The Incredible Edible Garden CourseShare permaculture - communications & marketingI'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the show_____MORAG GAMBLEFounder, Permaculture Education InstituteMorag's CoursesPodcast BlogPodcast YouTube: Podcast InstagramLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/I am a possibilitarian and I believe HumanKINDness.In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country.If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.

Jul 26, 2023 • 55min
Affordable No-Dig Garden with Stephanie Hafferty and Morag Gamble
In Episode 100 of the Sense-Making in a Changing World, I am delighted to be speaking with STEPHANIE HAFFERTY who is based on a half-acre no-dig permaculture farm in Lampeter, Wales.From the Half Acre Homestead, Stephanie explains how to grow year round using climate friendly regenerative organic gardening methods for abundant harvests and fewer weeds, working harmoniously with wildlife, and what to do with your harvests, from seasonal meals to preserving, homemade body, home and garden care, remedies and natural dyes.In this episode, Stephanie shares a wonderful story about how she discovered permaculture and gardening, the joy she derives from it, and how growing food has helped her to put healthy food on her children’s plates on a modest income. This affordability and accessibility piece is a big part of what Steph is about, and what she shares with people - nothing highbrow or expensive. Just straightforward simple advice to get a diversity of healthy food from the pot to the plate.ABOUT STEPHANIEStephanie is an award winning garden and food author - she wrote the Creative Kitchen, and co-authored No Dig Organic Home and Garden - and she’s a cover girl for a recent Permaculture Magazine! Stephanie is actively involved in Permaculture Wales and UK, and is a Vice Chair of the Garden Media Guild. She’s also been featured on the long-running UK gardening show, BBC Gardeners World and other shows, and has 30 years of practical experience to share. She runs courses in her edible garden (and soon online) is a simple living and no-dig gardening advocate, a sought-after speaker at gardening events and she consults with edible gardening projects far and wide.Stephanie has created and worked home, community and market gardens, gardens for large estates, restaurants and galleries. In 2021 she led the RHS No Dig Allotment Demonstration Garden at Hampton Court Garden Festival. Follow her gardening and homesteading life on YouTube, her blog or social media.I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the show_____MORAG GAMBLEFounder, Permaculture Education InstituteMorag's CoursesPodcast BlogPodcast YouTube: Podcast InstagramLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/I am a possibilitarian and I believe HumanKINDness.In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country.If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.

Jul 19, 2023 • 1h 2min
The Regenerative Landscaper with Erik Ohlsen and Morag Gamble
In this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World I am delighted to be speaking with Erik Ohlsen - a well-known, successful and much-loved Sonoma-based ecological designer, permaculture practitioner, educator, author, regenerative entrepreneur who runs multiple companies deeply grounded in a love of nature and based on permaculture ethics and principles. Eric is one of those wonderful people who gets stuff done!!!In this conversation I ask him about how he has grown his wildly successful Permaculture Artisans company that is regenerating landscapes from urban to rural, and even as we spoke in the process of informing the design of a permaculture agrihood. It’s a wonderfully inspiring, uplifting and wide ranging conversation - spanning from with his early volunteering projects giving away gardens while cultivating huge social capital and skill development, to his current work, a his legacy book as he calls it, about to be released by Synergetic Press - the MASSIVE 550 page guide - The Regenerative Landscaper: Design and Build Landscapes that Repair the Environment.This is going to become the go to manual and curriculum for permaculture learners who want to put into practice all they are learning in permaculture courses - it gets right into the nitty gritty and shows how to make it work!Towards the end, I ask Erik about his process of writing and feel entirely liberated in how I can now set about writing too. Executive Director: Permaculture Skills Center Owner/Principal: Permaculture Artisans Youtube Chanel: PermacultureArtisansI'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the show_____MORAG GAMBLEFounder, Permaculture Education InstituteMorag's CoursesPodcast BlogPodcast YouTube: Podcast InstagramLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/I am a possibilitarian and I believe HumanKINDness.In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country.If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.

Jul 11, 2023 • 1h 1min
Deep Ecology with John Seed and Morag Gamble
In this episode I am delighted to be speaking with pivotal figure in the world of deep ecology - a concept I came into contact with at Schumacher College in 1992 when I studied with Arne Naess - the Norwegian mountaineer and philosopher who coined the term Deep Ecology. My guest today is deep ecologist, rainforest activist and author JOHN SEED - a fellow ecovillager. He’s based at Narara Ecovillage in NSW and I'm at Crystal Waters on Gubbi Gubbi Country, QLD.John is the founder and director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia. He has worked for rainforests worldwide since 1979. He says many of their campaigns have been successful, but sadly, for every forest saved, another 100 have disappeared. He realised he cannot save the planet one forest at a time - what we needed is a profound change in consciousness. Deep ecology reminds us that the living world is not a pyramid with humans on top, but a web. We, humans, are but one strand in that web and as we destroy this web, we destroy the foundations for all complex life including our own.It’s not enough to have ecological ideas, says Arne - we have to have an ecological identity and ecological self. To nourish the ecological identity, John and the american peace scholar-activist Joanna Macy developed a series of experiential rituals called the Council of All Beings. John co-write a book, Thinking Like a Mountain in 1988 about the council of all beings, with Arne Naess, Joanna Macy and Australian Pat Fleming.https://www.rainforestinformationcentre.org/john_seedhttps://www.facebook.com/johnseed.deepecology https://www.instagram.com/johnseed_deepecology/I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the show_____MORAG GAMBLEFounder, Permaculture Education InstituteMorag's CoursesPodcast BlogPodcast YouTube: Podcast InstagramLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/I am a possibilitarian and I believe HumanKINDness.In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country.If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.

May 31, 2023 • 1h 12min
Social Forestry with Tomi Hazel Vaarde and Morag Gamble
How do we tend to land and culture at the same time?This episode was a conversation of hope for me, exploring the concept and practice social forestry with Tomi Hazel Vaarde - everything from ancient indigenous knowledge to stories of forests. Also Tomi reflects on design - avoiding it being an imposition, but something that emerges from connection with place and community - an incredibly important distinction for a permaculture designer. Social forestry is the Tomi's big picture thinking, their frame of reference for engaging in local and bioregional restoration. "Social forestry is tending the land as people of place. How do we cooperate with each other to do useful things in these places? It's always site specific, and it's always culturally specific."Tomi Hazel Vaarde is a long-term resident of Southern Oregon and is deeply situated in place and permaculture. He's a prolific permaculturist - advising farms, stewarding forests and teaching environmental sciences for more than 50 years, even helping Bill Mollison in the first PDC on the West Coast.Tomi's latest book (published April 2023 by Synergetic Press) is Social Forestry: Tending the Land as People and Place - an acclaimed guide of practical placemaking advice and ancient lore - a must-have for anyone wanting to have a reciprocating relationship with their communities, themselves, and most importantly their awe-inspiring forests and landscapes. In this conversation, we also discuss this book and the many projects that have informed its emergence.Enjoy!I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the show_____MORAG GAMBLEFounder, Permaculture Education InstituteMorag's CoursesPodcast BlogPodcast YouTube: Podcast InstagramLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/I am a possibilitarian and I believe HumanKINDness.In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country.If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.

May 18, 2023 • 57min
Permaculture Design Companion with Jasmine Dale and Morag Gamble
In this episode of Sense-making in a Changing World I am delighted to be speaking with Jasmine Dale - permaculture author, designer and educator as part of our special permaculture writers series.Jasmine's book is the Permaculture Design Companion: A practical workbook for integrating people and places - a step by step guide to applying permaculture in your own life, in any context. It combines creative and analytical activities with self reflection and observation. Published by Permanent Publications.Here's a link to one of Jasmine's articles - Developing Personal Resilience with Permaculture (Issue 107: pg 69) in Permaculture Magazine available until June 18th 2023 Here's a link to another of Jasmine's articles - Permaculture Design in Practice in times of crisis. (Here is access to the whole Magazine issue free courtesy of Permaculture Magazine until June 18th 2023 - her article is on pages 45-46)In our conversation, Jasmine shares a wonderful story about how she discovered permaculture and about how doing a permaculture design course transformed her life. She also shares insights about being part of the founding group of Lammas - an off-grid ecovillage in wales - where she cut her teeth as a permaculture educator - and this is where, with her husband, she build the famous hobbit house (which sadly burnt down a few years back). Jasmine talks about her way of teaching, designing and applying permaculture thinking. Right now she mentors community groups with a focus on nature connection and basic skills for resilience. Throughout the I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.Support the show_____MORAG GAMBLEFounder, Permaculture Education InstituteMorag's CoursesPodcast BlogPodcast YouTube: Podcast InstagramLinkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/I am a possibilitarian and I believe HumanKINDness.In this podcast my guests and I explore How are we to live? Really live, as nature ourselves, tending the conditions where life can thrive. We ask How do we become the kind of humans this moment is asking us to be?This podcast is one of my acts of myceliation. Each conversation is a thread in a vast network of people speaking up for life with love and care. This podcast beams out from my hand-built solar-powered studio in the midst of a permaculture food forest in a permaculture ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country.If this episode lights something in you, pass it to one person who needs it. That is how myceliation works.


