[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hello, friends.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Welcome to the Luminous Youth Podcast.
We invite you to journey with us as we question what it is to embody our evolving humanity and to feel embedded within place based culture in these times of change, how can we restore these ways of deep connection from within our homes and family collectives to create a deeper sense of belonging and ecological intimacy?
We look forward to exploring this with you all through the lens of education, human potential, cultural revitalization and parenting.
We are standing upon Bundjalung country and we acknowledge the traditional ancestors of this land and all of the wisdom they carry, as well as the current traditional custodians and those emerging. And all we have to learn from them and this beautiful and powerful country we find ourselves in.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Hi everyone.
Welcome to the Luminous Youth Podcast.
Paul and I are just sitting here on our couch on a cold winter's morning by the fire, having a little chat about World Localization Day, which was just this past Saturday. It's an amazing celebration of localization in all its facets, created by Helena Norberg Hodge. And we just thought that we should record this conversation because it's one of our deep passions and inspirations.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: Yeah. Hey everyone.
Yeah. I think where my mind goes to initially is when I first watched the Local Futures film the Economics of Happiness, which Helena led and is about the impact of globalization on Ladakh and how she's watched it change over the years as globalization pressures have impacted the community and essentially the well being of many people within it and their happiness.
And I had a similar experience to that when I visited a place called Sikkim up in the Himalayas in India.
And I visited multiple times over about five years.
And the first time I went, I was the second Westerner to ever visit that village, the first Westerner to ever stay overnight there.
And I spent a couple months there and I came back year after year and I watched the impact of transnational corporations, food and advertising begin to seep into their community.
And the waste that started being generated as those global pressures became inside that community was startling and very confronting for me. And when I watched Helena's film, it really highlighted how localization and maintaining a sense of deep relationship with your local place is a necessary step for people if we're going to come back into healthy relationship with ourselves and others and Earth.
And so when, you know, I feel like over the years that we've been doing Luminous Youth, we have really been looking at how do we apply the wisdom and the knowledge of creating localized communities in how we educate and provide learning opportunities for the young people but also the families.
I remember. Maybe, Erica, you could touch on. I remember when we first got together and you were talking about homeschooling and your three bigger children. I remember you touching on something about, like, the books and the stories that were often put in front of them. No, were put in front of, you know, us here in the east coast of Australia often had lions and giraffes and maybe you could touch on that.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that is what I found, quite startling, is that all the books that I would get from the local bookshop were about animals that were in Africa or like there was really nothing around any local animals. And so it really confused me to think that when we think when they were sort of shown animals, they weren't any of the animals they were dealing with in daily life.
And a lot of the stories that they were hearing weren't necessarily about any part of the ecology that they were embedded in or living in. They were always from somewhere else.
And the stories also didn't reflect our daily life and impart inspiring emotional intelligence within them either. They were.
Yeah. Sharing values that didn't necessarily align with a healthy ecosystem.
So, yeah, that's when I sort of also started to think about localization. And I also found my way quite quickly to Helena's work and that film, amongst others, including one film by. I think it's by Carol Black, who Helena was a big part of, called School School in the World that helped me understand the impact of centralized education on our psyches as human beings and on the happiness and connection of our communities. Because I think as a mum, it's this biological drive, I think a lot of us have to yearn to raise our children within a community of people. Not only because it's a lot less work, like, it's an insane amount of work asked of parents, but it's also, we understand on some deep level that it's healthy for children to be amongst a lot of different.
Like a diversity of adults the same as it's. It's healthy for plants to be amongst the diversity of other plants and animals and fungi and all of that. It's. It's the same. Same for our kids. So, yeah, that. That's kind of what led me to that, is that.
That yearning for something that wasn't so centralized and necessarily created by a government with questionable.
Not all questionable, but partly questionable ethics.
Yeah.
[00:07:41] Speaker C: Yeah, a thought comes to mind. And also another thread that I'd love you to continue on, but was coming back to my experience in Sikkim. It was the village that I visited it had recently, in the last decades, become part of India and become part of the education system that the Indian government was applying to rural Himalayan villages.
And I remember the books that were given the texts, you know, it was like, what are these pictures of? Or what are these roles within this exercise of this book? And we're talking about a village that still lived with temporary and erratic power at times. The closest place for a shop was sort of 20 minutes down these big mountain ranges, streams everywhere where they got their water, some chickens to have the occasional egg, and otherwise it was rice and a small amount of veggies that they grew for their food.
And the pictures in the books that were given by the government for them were, do you want to be a pilot or do you want to be a doctor, or do you want to be. All these positions that really, for that context and that village were so far out and so irrelevant to what would have made those young people well and the community rich there.
So that system which schooling the world really talks of, I could see how, oh, wow, there it is. There's the textbooks that actually portray this far away, necessary goal of progress and essentially the, I guess, capitalist and Western system that was not contextually appropriate for the children in the village that it was being applied to and that I think could be broadened out too.
What is the goal of the curriculums that are being applied to our children now and what we received in the 80s and 90s, etc. And are they still contextually relevant for. For them to be having a healthy, rich relationship with the community around them and the place that they are a part of. And so when I met Erica, I think Luminous Youth was already running and I was invited to do a workshop with them. But what Erica was doing, I think was totally inspirational and powerful for that context of landing children in a localized context of learning. And so, Erica, do you want to maybe touch, touch on that?
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Sure, Paul?
Yeah. I, like, was so important to me when I looked at my kids that this flame and this spark and this like, hunger and passion that was in them, that I just wanted to protect that at all costs. And I get a bit emotional thinking about that because it's so pure.
And so I wanted to surround them with people who still retained that.
And the way that I did that at that point in time was I created this little kind of homeschool co op Y group thing called Luminous Youth. And I just. I live in a community of really amazing creatives.
And, well, it's a diversity. It's all Sorts of people. But there are these amazing creatives and people who live passion filled lives. So I got them to come and spend time with the kids because I felt like of equal importance of the information that they're sharing and the experiences they're sharing. It was for them to actually be immersed in the energy of adults and living from a place of passion and contribution to their community.
So these people had found something they loved and obviously that shifts and changes throughout their lives, that expression of that. But they had found what it is they loved and they were contributing that back to the community.
And so it fed the community, it fed themselves. And they were only too happy to come and share with, you know, the next generation. And we had such a variety. We had like artists and healers and Tibetan monks and you know, all sorts of people come and just share their joy. And that, that was what, when they were young, that was what was most important to me is that they, because, you know, I haven't traveled like Paul has.
But one thing I would hear from travelers when they went to these places that were quite untouched by Western mind was, oh, they're just so happy and they've just got such a spark in their eye. And I was thinking, well, so do my kids and how do we protect that? Yeah, so, yeah, that's where that sort of where it was born from is that.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: Yeah. And it was like. I think there's an interesting thought I just had about like, you know, we, you were witnessing people in the community holding their passion and their contribution to the world so locally embedded in their heart that they would ignite curiosity in the way they shared, you know, And I think it just makes me think of that that gets replicated when someone shares from their heart and has that, that spark of like love for what they're sharing. It is infectious and it does show you. Oh, wow, that looks, that feels really good. Because look at that person sharing. And all our mirror neurons feel the same thing that they're sharing. And we're like, wow, this feels really good. And we're still, yeah, I mean we're still doing that essentially now, 13 years on, you know, we're still looking at how does the local village share their heart and their work and their contribution to these young people.
And in doing so, I think there's.
What comes to mind is like, I know some of the community members who've shared with our young people afterwards have seen them in the street and then been like, oh, hi. And the young people have recognized and remembered them and then they've been like, oh, hi. Oh, you know, that was the person who did this with us and did with this. And there's this populating of local relationships and local connections that happen through the village actually being a part of mentoring and educating the young people within it. And that's been beautiful to watch and I guess feels, look, there's that village type feeling is really getting generated when you do suddenly know that adult because they make these beautiful things and this person can date this and the young people grow up with this, this awareness of the inspiring local humans who are expressing their gifts in the local landscape.
I want to touch on the other thing that I think you spoke of was the story.
And I think stories become such a, well, how could I say has become the most central piece of learning or education that we utilize to educate the people who we are in relationship with.
And you know, that it's interesting here in Australia, I guess because we, us with European ancestry, you know, we have not been connected to this ecological landscape for a, for many, you know, generations that there's this great wisdom that gets passed down to us from our parents and our grandparents and etc. Etc. You know, the loss of that connection and wisdom being passed down has happened to many of us here from European descent now living on indigenous land of the first nations of Bundjalung here for example, but all around Australia.
So you know, growing up I think we, you know, I knew what certain trees were and you know that was a eucalyptus and you know, that was a mulberry tree. But when it came to all the books that I was aware of and reading, it was lions and giraffes and oak trees. Oak trees and yeah, all these trees that weren't part of this landscape. And so part of our philosophy is, you know, how do we once again build relationship with all of the non human beings that form our community here, the people community. But there's also, we're part of a community of breathing plants and animals and etc etc. And so, you know, the story aspect has come into our work more and more deeply. Looking at, well, you know, the, the velvet worm for example, just a velvet worm story that I just recently wrote, which is about a worm that has lived here in this landscape for, you know, millions and millions, millions of years.
And what is its role in this ecology here and how does it behaviors, how do we learn from its behaviors and within that we are learning from the beings of this landscape and what they do. And by doing so we're forming a relationship with the velvet Worm. I can look outside now and think, wow, imagine all the velvet worms out in this rainforest and what they'd be doing. This would be amazing. And suddenly there's this awe and wonder about the local landscape and the local happenings that are happening there.
And as we've been telling these stories with more so the younger, the younger ones instead of younger ones, sort of 3 to 10, 3 to 11.
I've recognized that we will go somewhere and they will be, oh, this is where you told the story of the barn owl, for example. And I'd be like, oh, was it? I said, yeah, yeah, we sat underneath that tree.
Oh, okay. What was, do you remember what the barn owl story is about? And they'd be like, oh yeah, it was about, you know, being, being mindful of, you know, sensitivities of others. For example, I'd be like, okay, cool. And then no parts of the story.
And so what I recognized was as we tell these stories in the landscape, then there becomes a place based story that reminds them of an animal that lives in that landscape and a life lesson or a life skill that is tied into that animal's behavior.
So as you do that more and more places, then there's starting to have this constellation of places which remind them of stories, which remind them of life skills, which remind them of ways of being in relationship to each other and to all the beings of the landscape that they inhabit.
And I guess that feels like what, what us orphans from our traditional indigenous cultural ways need to return to. So that once again we like absolutely love the landscape that we're a part of. And we like want to take care of that piece of soil because it could have this cute as velvet worm wiggling around in it. And we start to be aware of like, wow, there's this deeply rich relational system that is just outside my door. And everywhere I go I'm reminded of those relationships that are happening here because I've been visiting them, drinking story and remembering that place is tied to that story.
And so that idea of localization, I feel like that's really how we have taken the wisdom and the understanding from Helena and Local Futures and those films and gone well. How do we who don't have the ancestral knowledge and are orphaned from our homelands and our ancestral lands. How do we once again relocalize our way of being in a place and gift that to our young people through education system such as this?
[00:22:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think another aspect that, like what that makes me think about is that the very act of localization Say, for instance, because you've just been talking about it through story is the story is like a living thing. It's something that is alive and we're talking about animals that they live with. It's very, you know, it changes with the stories we tell, change with the seasons. They change with the places we're in. Like, you wouldn't tell the stories we tell if you were living in Victoria or Western Australia. There would be different stories. So it's a very like, as far as traditions go, as far as things that we hand down, they're very alive and very relevant to where we live and the beings that we're in relationship with.
And so, yeah, it just made me kind of think that sometimes, particularly, you know, I can just only speak for my own schooling experiences. My own, you know, is that a lot of it was kind of like abstract and not necessarily about where I lived and. And the people I'm in relationship with. So I love the, again, that. That living flame aspect of it all.
Yeah, yeah, it's just. It's just so. It's just so alive. It's just so.
Yeah, it's just. It's the relevance.
[00:24:31] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think that's like. You bring me to another thought about those stories. And that's like, when we are using this localized philosophy on creating relationship with the landscape through story, you know, it's.
The stories are alive because we're actually talking about the here now, what we're witnessing at this present time as the winds change or as the, you know, the patterns of the cycles change. And so just the focus on, you know, the place we're at and what is happening at this present time in that place brings that relevance and that great context to the story. Like, oh, yeah, I actually see. Oh, yeah, I can see that actually happening now. Oh, yeah, I can see that there now. I can see that. And so it's not like, yeah, it's just so contextually relevant that they're like, oh, I'm embedded in this story. This is the story of now and me within this place right now as well.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: And I think that's what stories have always been traditionally, before we wrote them down. Stories. Stories have always been traditionally relevant. They've been alive, they've been age appropriate, they've been specific to the scenario, the child. It's like they would just randomly tell them a story because at 6 to 7, you learn this story do, you know, like, it's relevant. Particularly stronger stories are relevant to the localized experience of that child. Maybe their parents are Getting divorced.
So then this stronger story would be relevant to tell that child to help them understand that experience. But a child not experiencing that might not really. They might experience that as, you know, like really like abstract and really potentially scary or do, you know, like. So, yeah, I, yeah, the personalization and the. Yeah, yeah, I love that.
And I feel like we can bring that into our parenting as well. We can bring that into our homes. It's taking it back to the hearth of the family.
It's taking that, I don't want to say like taking it on as an, as a responsibility, but maybe more like a guardianship of our child's and our own relationship with the living world around them through the stories they hear, through the people they learn from, through the games that they play. You know, like we can take guardianship of their growth and our own growth through localising it.
[00:27:29] Speaker C: That quote comes to mind. I can't remember who it is, but that quote of like, you know, we see, we see people really wanting to take better care of Earth and its ecological well being and in doing so it's like we can, there's many parts of that which are necessary. But there's a quote saying about, you know, like, when we really learn to love nature and love the world around us, then it's natural we take care of it.
We love our children so deeply. So of course we're going to take care of them. Your partner, the things you love, you take care of them, you naturally want to take care of them. So it's like if we can learn to love the life outside our backyard and the life community that we visit every single day outside our, outside our doors and inside our doors and everything, then, then we're going to take care of that and that. You know, imagine if we all just took care of our direct local surroundings. There'd be very big differences in the way that we're caring for this earth as a, as a species.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And it gives us something to anchor into.
It gives us something to be rooted into.
You know, I think of like a tree with its big strong roots because, you know, the reality is we do live in really tumultuous times and you know, we're blessed that we live in a pretty safe place. And I know this would come up for a lot of people, you know, like.
And so I think it's even more of a time for us to really kind of root into our local ecology. And you know, because it reminds me of, you know, those beautiful old myths.
So common throughout all myths is this, it's the friendship with the little bird that saved the man from danger. It's the, it's the relationship that he created with the owl that led him through the forest when he was lost or she was lost or whatever. And I feel like there's actually a very deep truth and a reason why that's a repetitive thing.
It is our relationship with our local environment that will give us the wisdom to see through these really tumultuous times that we find ourselves in and give our kids as well as our family something to really anchor into.
[00:30:13] Speaker D: From within the humble home is the potential for great change, the potential to see our children in a way that keeps them more whole, more deeply connected to the truth of who they are so that they may serve the world from their hearts.
If you feel called to expand your ideas around what education truly is and how to tend to the soul or the hearth of our families while keeping each person's true essence intact, you are invited to consider a one to one familial wisdom seminar session. A personal exploration around the practicalities of how life centric learning could look within your family constellation.
For more information, visit luminous youth.org another.
[00:31:02] Speaker C: Thought tying it back to Helena's work is like the happiness that comes from knowing your local environment is of massive value and so significant itself. If you can walk outside and see, you know, those, those little ants that are going along and you can imagine that underneath, I wonder where they're going and underneath the ground there'd be this like, you know, tunnels and tunnels and tunnels and imagining what the queen would look like and imagining, you know, all the happenings that are happening just outside your, your door or what that bird's doing and oh well, that's the solo one doesn't live with the other ones, it doesn't have it. I wonder where, you know, there's so much wonder, so much wonder that we can instill through knowing about the relationships that are happening in our local ecology. And I feel like that brings me so much happiness and joy and so, you know, to talk about improving our well being through the happiness and the, all the follow on impacts that come through that localization and localizing your education and the way you understand it has so many positive implications.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: It does. And doing that together, I feel the most powerful thing I've done as a mother is, well, there's lots. But one of the most powerful things I've done as a mother is learn beside my children, learn together, learn about the ants together. You know, like I remember doing that with My, My older children, like. And then we were just like, mind blown together, you know, it was. It was a fun thing to do together because I didn't know and I didn't pretend to know.
And it was such a deeply connective experience to actually learn about our local plants, what weeds we could eat, what fungi we could eat, what, how massive that ant thing would be, home would be under the ground together and wonder, like you said, Paul, like, wonder about it together. Like it puts you on the same level and that builds connection because it's a thing you're doing together. They don't feel.
Yeah, that's a whole other topic about teaching, but yeah, it's just a beautifully connective experience.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've touched on story, we've touched on relationship, you know, local, local seasonality, you know, and being in relationship with the happenings of your landscape. You know, coming into warmer times, colder times. There's so many seasonal celebrations and ritual and processes that can be tied into the local place that you're inhabiting as well. And I think it's a big. That's a whole other huge conversation. But I just wanted to touch on it because I feel like, you know, when the landscape outside is speaking of a certain essence, for our own personal experience to consider that essence and look at how it is impacting us and internally, I think is also part of that, you know, really re. Embedding ourselves in the local landscape as a, As a.
As that we are being shaped by the landscape that we're a part of. And it's actually, you know, impacting our way of being in the world because there are all these changes constantly happening, both external to our body, but also inside of us as well.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: True.
Are you discussing. Are you felt like. Just to clarify, are you talking about seasonal celebrations there like that the invitation would be for us to return to seasonal celebrations being relevant to where we live rather than.
Or as I do, I do both or we do both, you know, like, is that what you. You're seeing there, like that, that, that Easter built and things like that?
[00:35:37] Speaker C: Oh, I mean, yeah, but you know.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: What I mean, like, yeah, the celebrations that you're having, even if you can't get out of, you know, in this sort of not all communities, but like, if you're finding yourself in a situation where there's this, this, you know, celebration that everyone's having, that isn't necessarily relevant to what's happening in the world around us. The invitation I give myself is. How do I localize it? Like, rather than Take it away. How do I localize it?
And that's just a really fun, creative way of still going with the flow, but also saying, well, this is how for it to be reflective of literally looking outside our door. How do we localize those celebrations? How do they actually mean something? And how do we mirror and be a part of the ecology we're in?
[00:36:36] Speaker C: That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: It's a fun invitation.
[00:36:42] Speaker C: It is.
Was there anything else that we wanted to check in about? I think this is like a tiny fragment of the localization movement and I think, you know, if I would recommend that any human should watch the Economics of Happiness, really, I think it's a necessary film for our time.
And looking at the ways you can localise other aspects of your life besides your education has significant impacts on community, on financials, all sorts of different, you know, the environment, your footprint, etc, etc. There's so many aspects of the localization conversation that could come into play here, but.
[00:37:33] Speaker A: And that we will discuss. I think. I think it's a really great discussion because so many other things coming to my mind and I feel like it would be really beautiful to discuss how it affects our well being as parents.
You know, we live in a time where there's a lot of really.
Hey, Jones. Our eldest son, Jonah. We're just recording a podcast. Jonah, say hi.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: Hello.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: That we live in a time. Oh, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. Where there's a lot of like really, you know, tired, really drained parents. So I feel like that would be a really another topic we could discuss at a future time.
But it looks like our time is up.
[00:38:28] Speaker C: Paul Griever Our time is up. Hope you enjoyed our conversation and we look forward to sharing more with you in the future.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Yes, bye for now.
[00:38:37] Speaker C: See ya.
[00:38:38] Speaker D: Thank you for joining us today for. For more inspiration, nourishment and learning, please Visit
[email protected] Moyeo Erbo Sarasto crijo Quo lauja Com Adribo May you trust the longing of your heart to lead you home.
Prayer words in my ancestral mother tongue Proto Celtic.
