TNP271 Parenting, Planning, Collaboration and Community-Building in Collapse Times with Kirsten Hunter

The Numinous Podcast

In this episode, after a personal update, we get to have a delightful, informative, hopeful conversation with someone I consider a possibility model in collapse times, my friend, Kirsten Hunter. We're talking about parenting, trying to plan ahead, and how we go about trying to build community, trust, and collaborative decision-making during times of tumult, precarity, and turmoil. We get into managing the particular challenges of being a renter who is also gardener and a small scale farmer with a desire to live more communally.

Kirsten advocates for a return to earth-oriented living in response to the polycrisis of unravelling ecological, social, political, and spiritual systems under late-stage colonial capitalism. She is a mom, a civil servant, a volunteer counsellor at a local mental health non-profit, and a facilitator of the Work that Reconnects, an experiential framework for navigating collective despair, hope and love for the world. Kirsten lives as a 3rd generation euro-settler transplant in WSANEC territory, colonially known as Saanich, BC, where her family rents a small rundown acreage. Kirsten and family specialize in rebel-gardening on rental properties, with a focus on regenerative ecosystem restoration. They are also passionate about braiding together cross-cultural rituals and practices that reflect their mixed Coast Salish, Metis, and Euro-Pagan ancestral family lineages.

Referenced in this episode:

The Work that Reconnects from Joanna Macy

HelpX (WorkAway and WWOOF are other options)

Follow Kirsten on Instagram @tendingnettles

Visit their family's website at www.goodseedland.com for seeds and more farm-based goodies

Join us in The Numinous Network!

Other episodes referenced:

TNP226: Wild Horses of the Chilcotin with Wayne McCrory

Selected collapse-themed episodes of The Numinous Podcast: 114, 161, 193, 207, 268