#18 Art is Alchemy: Rachael Taylor and alternative ways of living

I met Rachael through us both creating work for Shangri-la at Glastonbury. I had the privilege of interviewing her on the Nomad Stage about her Wearable Waste installation. Rachael describes herself as an intervention artist, fashion educator and podcast host who focuses on sustainability, well being and finding alternatives to the status quo. She creates concepts and interventions that show sustainable alternatives in playful and subversive ways - that connect people to each other and their surroundings.

Rachael is another nature lover, who feels healed and revived from being in nature, and all her work spirals back to finding ways in which we can be guardians and protectors of the planet, rather than consumers and destroyers, looking for alternative ways to enjoy the lives we live, but not at a cost to the land or other people who aren’t immediately in front of us.

In the podcast we talk about;

Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk 

Adventure Revolution by Belinda Kirk

The Nature Principle by Richard Louv

You can follow and learn more about Rachael’s work at her website; shapers_of_society.org

The music and artwork is by @moxmoxmoxiemox

Nonsense in the Chaos is available on all podcast platforms or you can listen here… https://nonsenseinthechaos.buzzsprout.com You can get in touch with me on Instagram @kriyaarts or the Nonsense in the Chaos Page on Facebook

Please like, follow, and review. Also, please consider supporting the podcast by becoming a patron on my Patreon page... patreon.com/JolieRose. And share far and wide please! The more people who hear about the podcast the better.

Huge love to you all and I hope you enjoy listening to this week's episode!

The music and artwork is by @moxmoxmoxiemox

Nonsense in the Chaos is available on all podcast platforms or you can listen to it here… https://nonsenseinthechaos.buzzsprout.com

I'd love to know what you think! If you want to get in touch with me about anything on the podcast then email nonsenseinthechaos@gmail.com or you can follow me on Instagram and Bluesky @kriyaarts or at the Nonsense in the Chaos Page on Facebook.

Please consider supporting me through patreon.com/JolieRose and like, follow, and review wherever you get your podcasts from. Share about Nonsense in the Chaos far and wide! The more people who hear about the podcast the better.

Thank you for all your support -x-

Transcript

0:05

The mountains and the caves. Wicked witches. Crusting the unknown. Um, Today, I'm going to be talking to Rachel Taylor. Who's an extraordinary lady that I had the pleasure of meeting at Glastonbury festival. three years ago. We would put together. Together three Shangrila through the amazing Kate Dunnings who just. It's a wonderful curator. Who creates the whole of the Shangrila experience and is. Unbelievably epic. I hoped to interview her one day. Day. But her. Ability to put humans. Together and for. Just unbelievably. huge things to happen. It's quite a feat. But she's so good at it. And her nomad area. As part of Shangri-La. It's why she's been putting together activists. Who are creating all sorts of intentions and art At work, I put this all together in a festival and we all tap. And it's a bit like a summit. Barriers. If we actually had a summit with these people getting together, then the police would be. But because it's Glastonbury and it's under the guise of being part of the festival. It's under the radar. It's quite an amazing thing. And lots of collaborations are brilliant. Bits of work have come from it. And yeah, I got to the first year that the nomad area was that. That chaos me to interview people actually mainly say the different. artists and activists could hear each other and hear what each other. We're up to, and then go, oh, I want to So I sat on the stage and interviewed people and. And I interviewed Rachel. She was just a delight. And then every time we bump into. At Glastonbury, we have stunning. That blow my mind that excite me. And so she asked me to speak on her podcast. As of society. Which has been in, I. Highly recommend following up. And then she asked. Oh, well, I asked her if. She wouldn't speak on snake. Chaos. So, this is my conversation with ritual. I hope you enjoy it. I'll see you on the other side. Thank you so much for supporting this podcast and for listening. And for just enjoying really glad you're here as a listener. Thank you so much for being here. If you love what you're hearing them, please. Do you tell people about it? Share it like it. Review it I don't know what I'm doing with my life. We met at Shangri La festival a few years ago. And at the time you were, tell us about the project you were doing. First of all, when I interviewed you on the stage, what were you working on then? Oh, yeah, was that just after COVID, the first year they were back? Yes, it was the Reclaiming Waste project. It was to do with things we sort of chuck away as in food waste, and clothes we chuck away, and sometimes we can find those connections. Between turning the food into dye that could dye the clothes to make them look different. So there was a bit of like, also realizing that everything comes from nature and everything goes back to nature. So when we're thinking about creating something sustainable, it's amazing how many projects that are created for sustainability in an unsustainable way, if that makes sense. Yeah. What I was trying to show was we chuck away a lot. Of stuff that could be really good resources. And that also, when we think about making an idea, we need to think about what we're taking and what we're returning, because not everything we take is sustainable and the way we return it doesn't always replenish the planet, But as you know with me, it was also about alternative economies and it was talking about planting your seeds for the future. There's always a participatory part of hearing someone else's voice on what they think. I don't like to dictate to people. I like to hear what they've got to say, Yeah, I'm a course leader at University of Brighton, for fashion communication. So, when people hear fashion communication, normally they say, what's that? But it's Using different ways and different tools, like photography, styling, film, social media, branding to, help people kind of connect with fashion. sometimes, that will be to do with the commercial side of fashion, because it's really important. People know that, but it's normally done through the lens of being sustainable and think about what you're putting back in the world. And also we try to sort of think about fashion, not as this thing that you just consume, it's also fashion can be used as an important message. For something, you know, for change. So it, it can communicate lots of different things that may be hard to talk about, through the expression of clothes or a photo shoot can like highlight certain situations going on. So a lot of students tend to sort of personalize their projects. from, I had one student talking about disability and subcultures and how there's a lot of, There's not a quality in that because a lot of teenagers are left out who, are disabled. And she said, you know, that she was talking from her own experience that we still have all those desires that teenagers have. And she was talking about ableism. And then other students connect a lot with nature and sustainability, or it could be talking about non gender, so they're using their platform of using fashion, which a lot of people connect with to then talk about a bigger issue that people tend to listen to more because they're hearing a different story and can connect with it more. And I think that's the power of fashion, but the power of art generally. Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, that's really cool. I love that. And, this year at Glastonbury, you were talking about rest, weren't you? Which, I've just done a podcast about kind of leading into you talking about this. So yeah, what were you sharing at Glastonbury this year? I read this book called Restless Resistance by Tricia Hersey, and I'd really recommend it. it really resonated because the way she talks about rest, she's talking about racism, capitalism and how we live in some of these systems that demand our time, our bodies, expecting us to just always be productive. she's talking about, how claiming rest back is your right. that really influenced me. then I started to research, around burnout because there's so much more burnout today. And that connection of when people aren't resting the connection to mental health I connected that also with thinking about your nervous system when you're on fight or flight and if you're constantly on fight or flight and then you're not coming back to that rest in recovery. So I feel like I called it freedom to rest because that is something I hear people say a lot. If they only had time to rest or it's a privilege to rest or, you know, too many emails to not do work after work, People putting pressures on themselves that actually, even if you just take your lunch hour, can make a big difference it's people always being on, and then if they're not resting, they're getting caught up in that spiral of always being on. Glastonbury was about freedom to rest and reclaim your right to rest, because everyone has that right. there was a bed outside to symbolize rest and a lot of people would come along, you know, in Glastonbury, you get quite tired, you're walking around a lot and they'd go, Oh bed, can I sit on it? And I'd be like, yeah. inside, I had different quotes that my team painted with me, to sort of highlight rest all the posters were positive statements and affirmations about rest and questions. I had different books and when people came in, they said, what do I need to do? And I said, just rest. You know, just, Oh, well, you mean, and then when I was trying to people and I got them to sort of feed back a question, what does rest mean to you? And what stops you from resting? a lot of people said, work their own sort of pressures they put on themselves, really made them reflect of actually maybe I could take time out. I had badges and these little seeded messages. they would have different intentions like rest more grow take your lunch hour or just come back to yourself. I had a few people in tears, not intentionally, but they would just be like, I cannot believe I've got that. I was just talking about that to someone before I came in here. And I was like, wow, that's so amazing, the synchronicity of that. But it also showed that it's really needed because when we rest, we're helping the earth to rest. As well, which is what Tricia Hersey talks about, if we're on this constant go, we're draining the earth to be on constant go all the time. And you know, with the seasons, they rest, like we're coming up to winter, that's a resting time, isn't it? And it's natural for our body to have those modes of rest. so important, but I did it in a playful way. I didn't want to be all serious. I like to have a sense of humor I had one lady, she stayed two and a half hours and fell asleep and I just left her. then I gave her the book she was reading. I was like, you're so into it. Have the book. Do you know what I mean? Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. feels like Kay's really bringing people together. Like she's so good at, orchestrating the people that she brings together. It's such an amazing group of people that are there. I think that's so true. And I think how they happen to have connections. together without realizing it It was like, we'll put all these people together. I think that connect really well. And then you start having conversations with people that you didn't know you were going to be placed next. It's really great. Because I had so many different types of people in so many different ages of people coming in and you could see across the board that everyone was feeling a bit burnt out. Yeah, that's what I was thinking is that it was post pandemic, like I feel like the pandemic made us all stop. And for me, I haven't, been able to get back to the speed that I was going pre pandemic. And I was shocked at myself for how fast I was working and how hard I was working. And I'm just not up for it anymore. I'm having to live on a lot less money and accept the fact that I can't afford, you know, I've got these lovely clothes that I wear, but they're all from pre pandemic, I can't afford to buy any of them now and I can't afford to go away traveling or do anything, but I have free time now and I can get up when I want I get up late and I give myself that permission, but it does come at a price of having no money. I haven't got a pension. I'm not retiring, you know, I'm going to be keeping on going. artists don't retire, do they? They just keep creating projects And I think it's important for artists to continue because there's so many wisdoms as you get older. I think I'm a bit older now, so when I was in my forties, I would, stay up and do things. now I look at that and think, I don't need to do that because if you're working all the time, life is about living it's not just about working, I really enjoy what I do, but it's about taking time out as well. when you do that, you have more clarity, you've got to be kind to yourself. Yeah. You need calm spaces for ideas to percolate. I love January now I call it creation, hyper creation. it's when I give space for things to happen. it doesn't even take long. I literally just said, I don't know what I'm doing next year, but I'm giving myself this permission for it to now stop. People have a preoccupation with the future, even though the only real time is the present, people do have a preoccupation. If I know what the future is, then it'd be all right. Or people worry about the future, that uncertainty. So having this kind of, I know what I'm doing. it is good to have a framework, but it is good to be open, if you're too fixed in your view, you'll miss the opportunities on the side, you were talking about, how much you love nature and how you rely on nature. And I feel like if you're always grasping for the next thing that you're going to do. it's coming from a place of fear. quite often you're forcing things to happen, even though this was a much shorter period of time than I thought it was going to be, I did let go and stepped off the cliff into the unknown for a moment I went, I'm letting myself have, the winter to see what percolates and see what comes through I had a moment of fear of like, am I going to get writers? I've never had writer's block and I've never had a creative block because I always follow the threads I just had a moment of like, Oh God, what happens if nothing comes through? But I was like, just trust it. It's fine. Something will. I always trust synchronicities and when things come through from the universe someone got in touch with me and put me in touch with someone via email. I reached out to them and they didn't respond. then someone with the same name was doing something on Facebook and I thought it was them. And I reached out to them and went, Oh, were you the person that someone put me in touch with talking about pilgrimage? they went, no, but I'd really like to talk about pilgrimage. So we did, and now we know what we're doing and we're doing a pilgrimage next year. it just all came together. That's the universe leading something because that's all just coincidence. And suddenly it was like, Oh yeah, that will make sense. I read in a quote somewhere, you don't have to force purpose. I think there's a lot in that because sometimes when you try to force purpose, it's probably not purpose. purpose is flow. So if you're trying to force it, it's probably not your purpose, it felt like I was falling slightly, you know? There was a moment and I kept having moments, and it was only in the end a couple, probably about three or four weeks, but it was just that, oh God, what happens if nothing comes through? But the thing that flowed with it is during that time. Two things were bothering me, and I didn't know how to approach them. one was Gaza and what's happening in Gaza and just being like, I don't know how to do something about this. And then the other one was to do, sexual assault with women. there was a few things that have happened here that aren't being dealt with properly by the police. And I'm annoyed about it. Not just in salt being Guernsey, like just in the Channel Islands in general. I still haven't found the way I'm going to work with that yet. But what came through with Gaza was the woman I spoke to about the pilgrimage it turns out that St. Michael, which is that line, is the saint of Israel because he's the highest angel and it's the holy land. And so he is the saint of Israel. actually we'll be walking in that direction with this energy, with this archetype and the play we perform along that route is George and the Dragon, which is about a crusader fighting a Saracen knight. And so when we walked to COP 26 in 2021, we were listening to the land and we listened and it was such. Key thing, because instead of walking up there ranting and shouting we were asking people, what do you want us to say to delegates? I feel like I would like to do the same thing with perform George and the dragon, create this creative offering and a reason for us to come together. But the question is, how do we create world peace? And what does that mean? how do you feel about what's going on in the world? is there any message you want us to send to Gaza? what do we want to send down this line? What would you like us to send down this line? It's really good. that just all came together that's my way of being able to do something, I don't think it's going to stop the war. You know, it'd be lovely if it is, but it's just doing something and it's putting that energy in there, isn't it? Which then resonates, doesn't it? coming from a place of love and support changes things, it vibrates out and you don't know what ripples are affecting who. you don't know who then has a conversation with who and how that ripples out. So you just got to keep making your note send out your vibration and just add it to the symphony and try and change the symphony. And that might give people hope. Do you know what I mean? Someone who didn't have hope. Yes, someone who had hope. which is really important and that's what I love about doing stuff at Glastonbury. I was saying to my mate, I wonder if anyone kept their little message. Yeah, probably someone's got them in their wallet somewhere. Absolutely. They're on someone's altar. You do these things from a good place and, you just put it out there without any expectations of knowing if it's going to work. the intention is to just do it, not to go, Hey, look what I did and it made this impact, you know, That's what's so amazing about being an artist is trusting. It is the unknown. you can speak through different things like, with your walks, with your theater, with the different work that you do and the different work that I do, whether it's fashion, whether it's a badge, whether it's a little seeded message. It's a poster, all those things you can channel as a message, you know what I mean? that's what I love about art and creativity, it stops me feeling, disenfranchised. It stops me feeling incapable because when I'm looking at social media and people are posting things all the time and showing what they believe in and care about. I'm not up for doing that because I don't want The algorithms and people to know what my views are I do want to do something. it's just working out how, I have to let it percolate. I have to let it come through and find a way of doing it that feels right. authentic for me, and then it feels like the right thing to do, It's interesting what you're saying about speed and how big busy is actually bad for the planet because I was just looking at something about how chat GPT or AI thing uses like 10 times more energy and water than doing a Google search. And that was really useful. Cause then I was like, okay, I only ever use that if even a Google search wouldn't do it, and if not, then it needs to be a Google search. every time you're using social media, every time you're using anything is using power and energy. And they're not a cloud that's this lovely little fluffy cloud in the sky. It's a hot battery that needs water, cooling, And land. So sometimes when I was doing digital futures, when I was working somewhere else, education, I was looking at the impact of like technology, And ai. And also, it's not just water, it's land. sometimes that land is taken, would've been land people would've been living on, or they then won't have access to as much water all the databases. I don't think everyone thinks databases, I think they think of it in the cloud, but that involves a database Now that's gone up in a level with ai. I'd like to think about how to make that sustainable, energy wise. they're going to have to, because if the earth keeps getting hotter, then they're not actually going to even be able to survive. At the rate that we're going, the world will be too hot for these databases to actually carry on working. And sometimes when you think about the things we use technology for and all the rare earth materials that it takes just to have a phone and what we use it for. And then you sort of think about rare earth materials you need to survive. You're like, Hmm, are we using it in the best way? Do you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, it's the same as what you're saying about things that are green and like electric cars. I do think electric cars are probably better than obviously petrol, but you still were using lithium and all sorts of precious metals that in themselves are not good. We should just drive less, stop driving so much. It's habits, isn't it? then it becomes like this progress, but not really progress, because it's almost a false progress because it comes at a cost that is the earth. We got all these labor saving devices that were meant to be progress, but actually it's just made us busier and more tired. So for everything and everyone involved, it doesn't feel like a benefit. It feels like it's just, except for profit, which is just some mad kleptomania number there's that thing where it almost makes people overanalyze. I find that if I'm in nature and you just be in nature, you don't think about anything and then you'll get wisdom from it because you're not trying, sometimes with technology, social media, the fit bit and all those things as much as there's a place for them. Sometimes people are overanalyzing themselves. rather than trusting that inner wisdom, it's all measured. I think that's the word, it's measured, And you can lie to yourself about measurements, whereas you can't lie about how much you actually feel better or whether you fit in your clothes or not. You know, you can be saying, Oh yeah, but I've done a certain amount. so many steps or whatever. And we're like cheating the number of calories and the thing that you're eating, like you can lie to yourself. Another target to reach. And if you don't reach it, someone's going to feel bad about himself. And then you have people feeling bad about themselves because they didn't do the 10, 000 steps and it's like, it's okay. Yeah. It doesn't matter. It doesn't so I'm gonna, um, put the cards up for you to say stop and say, yeah, it's not reading. It's just something to give the universe a little prompt for us to talk about something. So if you tell me when to stop and I'll stop and pull the card out. Art. We've already been talking about that. It's really interesting. It's a beautiful card, this card. So this card's almost like a kind of yin and yang. There's a duality to it. It's a phoenix and A dog bird type thing. What they call Griffin, It's a real alchemy it feels like. I think art can be alchemy for someone using art for healing, Going, doing art to heal themselves, and I also think it's alchemy in the sense of someone giving out art, you know, like in Glastonbury, that's a kind of alchemy what I tried to do at Glastonbury is I'm kind of talking about alternatives to status quo when someone's not in their groove or they're doing something, but they don't really want to do it. they want to do something else and here's their thing they'd love to do, but they feel like they can't. I think that's that's alchemy in the sense of, yeah, totally. Art sort of shows you. What's possible and what could be possible it gives hope and it also gives people a new way of thinking. That's what I like about it. yeah, absolutely. You're transforming something, aren't you? From something that, well, it's dead to gold, isn't it? But in life that could be a challenging situation into a lesson that you've learned something through it, even though it might not have been easy. think art helps to show that without having to say anything. It can say it in feeling and emotion from what someone gets from just looking at a piece of art. When I was in Madrid in the summer. Oh my gosh, I'm not going to be able to remember the Picasso piece. You know, there's a really big one and it's got a really cool name and I can't remember. Is it the battle? The one that's like a battle? The battle. Yes, it is that one. With a bull and stuff in it. And you just look at it. You go, I've seen that in books, but wow. When you see it in person in real life, it's another thing, you know, the emotion that goes into what, and what I love about, which I think is alchemy as well, is how everyone When I see a piece of art, whatever it is, theater, I'm talking about art, it could be theater, dance, someone will be getting a personal transformation from it, That's how I sort of see alchemy, you know, like you with your walkie Absolutely. the artist has an intention and they're creating the art and people are reading their own things into it, but also just even the act of seeing someone do it, I remember there were two moments for me in my life that changed my life. One was seeing a bunch of seven, eight year old clowns at Edinburgh and I was maybe. Six or seven myself. I was like the younger end of however old this group were, but they were sort of my age and older. they were French. There were a group of French kids and thinking back on it, they obviously lived in a kind of commune or something. They were a community and they obviously grown up with each other and they were there in clowny outfits and stuff, just doing street theater. But it was the camaraderie and that's kind of what we have with the pilgrimage. We're this weird group of people that move through a village. We move through a town and sometimes it can just be that some housewives chatting over their fence, just see us walk past and we completely disrupt their reality that fleeting moment makes you realize that there is a whole world out there that you're not aware of, that you could be living you interpret it however you interpret it, it could remind you of a book you read as a kid Dream you had of running away with the circus, which was what I had. And so seeing these kids and the way they were connected and just the way they were so free to perform on the streets. I was like, I want to be part of that. I want to do that. And then another one was seeing the Marat Saad, a play, sixth form college when I was studying theater studies. And up until that point, theater had all been theatric. It had all been theater that you kind of used to and would expect, but the Marat Saad was done in a way that had almost a Tudor. Mama's player kind of vibe to it. So it had a folky theater feel to it I'd been working at this Tudor reenactment since I was 10 and was obsessed with the players and we would perform these plays of George and the Dragon and do all this stuff. And to me that hadn't seemed like theater. And then this was a Peter Brook production with, Glenda Jackson in it performing this play that had jesters and tumblingness to it. And I saw it and I just went, Oh my God, that also is theater. This thing that I've been doing since I was 10. Is also valid in this space. And that's what I actually did for my A level I wrote a mama's play and made all the masks and costumes and we performed a Mama's play in the Round. that was my A level theater piece. And it made me realize that I could do that and that my folk theater counted as being part of the theater world and the high art world and stuff. And it's. Yeah. It's those things where you're like, Oh yeah. And that's possible. Oh yeah. And that's possible. it's the message and the work you're creating, but also just the inspiration of you doing it that triggers people. It's like an intervention, isn't it? Like when you walk past those people, just looking over their fence, that's almost like a really quiet intervention. Like who are they? Oh, hold on. there's a whole world out there. They exist, you know, that you might not have thought about until you walk by. And I think also alchemy to me means transformation, you know, that's the power of art. It's very transformative for the person doing it and for the person seeing it. when you make art like whenever I'm making stuff for Glastonbury, I feel like I'm learning as I'm making. I'll be sort of going, wow, yeah, I'm doing this, but I'm learning from it. Like when you talked about that in my podcast, when I was interviewing, you were walking through the land and you were transforming as you were going, cause you were eating the hawthorn, was it? When we were having that conversation. Yes, that's right. Yeah. It's like you walked the land and probably from the start and the finish, you transformed. You know, so to me, that's the time. alchemy in its sense, isn't it? We're always transforming. Absolutely. In life generally. And it is because our whole life is an art, you know, and it's that when we have taken the sacred and the art out of our lives and made it a separate thing, which is what we've done. So spirituality, creativity, love, all of the things that actually is what life's all about. We've taken that out and we've said, Oh, sometimes you go do that. If you go do an art course, then you'll do that. Or if you're at an art class, you'll do that. Or if you go to church, you do that. Or if you do a yoga retreat, you do that. But the rest of the time you do a nine to five job and you work really hard and it's tarmac and feral pigeons. And that's what it is. Like, that's what reality is. And we've just been tricked. Like that's a complete trick. And actually the whole of our life is an improvisation. It's a creative act. Everyone's an artist and the whole thing is alchemy and we got alchemized into existence through a magical act of an egg and a sperm and we'll alchemize out of this reality into something we don't even know what's going on. The whole thing is fascinating. And that's what's so powerful about that, for sure. It is, isn't it? It's beautiful. Being alive is such a bloody brilliant thing. It really is. Oh, that's a great card to pull. I'm glad we pulled that one. Excellent. So let's do another one. I It's me on my own as a little one woman bands, trying to make this happen. So anything. That you can do to help promote it would be hugely appreciated. And if you're able to, and you. You are in going to do so they only have a Patrion page. If you want to give a few quid a month and that just helps keep me ticking along, which I would Be hugely grateful for. And it's, such a kind and generous. Thing to do. And I've. You know, you're keeping an artist, the float, which would. Be, you know, in this climate in this time is. It's very difficult thing to be an artist. It's normally hard to be an artist, but it's even harder at the moment. So I Would be hugely grateful. And if you're able to afford nine pound a month, which. Which is the secondary, there's only two tiers. Then you get the. Videos of this podcast, you'll be able to see me sitting in my lovely pomegranate necklace. So, yeah, for that, you get a few extras, but there's lots of little bits and bobs that I put up there. I put videos. and, articles that I write for Guernsey press I share on that. For both. Tears. So you get something for it, but I just appreciate you listening and. Thank you so much and on with the show. How amazing was that? I just love Rachel. And she. There's so much that I'm trying to explore at the moment around one. I find it a fascinating subject. I want to keep talking about it and keep on packing it. I'm thinking about it. And she gave me some ideas for the island, which. Yeah, that's, what's so exciting about the people that I meet at Glastonbury and the conversations we have. There are new ways and different ways of living. And there is, there's more. More moving parts. Oh, sorry. That's my cat. There's more moving parts at the I don't know what I'm doing with my life. think I'm going to go for that one that's right on the end. This one? Yeah. Brilliant. Cool. So this is Futility. So this is sword. So this is the mind. So what feels futile and it's very much to do with the mind. So swords are the mind. So thinking and overthinking. You can see it's quite sharp and shady. I think overthinking is a common thing these days, Yeah, I think it's very easy to live in your head. You know, and that's where you come back to living, right? Because if you think about being embodied, you're in your body, Whereas I think sometimes in society, with the social media, I'm not going to just blame social media because it's definitely got its place. It definitely is helpful and it's really good. But I think sometimes, you know, I was talking about the analysis that we're sort of evaluating ourself, performing like you were saying earlier, and sometimes, you know, different Social media can play into that, but it could also play into helping people with not overthinking, you know, there's all the help things with regards to helping, people to be aware of the support, et cetera. But I think In today's world, especially if you don't go out in nature much, it can be very easy to be in your head. when you're in nature, there's a sense of feeling grounded, feeling in your body. You know, and also some of the lifestyles these days, they're quite, you know, sitting. Not moving much. So for me, I think it's really important. Two things that I think are really important is movement and nature, because when you're moving and when you're in nature, you're in your body and when you're in your body, you can really think about how you're feeling, whereas when you're in your head. You might be anxious, And that tends to feed that more. if you're feeling a bit anxious, you go for a walk, you'll be like, Oh, I feel really good. It makes such a difference. So that's what I think of like mind stuff. I think culture today is very mind led. Yeah, absolutely. it's encouraging us to, and I feel like that's the consuming because it's exhausting. I've gone and done a Vipassana where you go and meditate for 10 days and you don't talk for 10 days. And I've done that a few times and I love it. And you feel like you're unprogramming. The programming that you spent all day doing where you're looking at social media you'll have cleared all of the notifications on Facebook and then you open Instagram and clear all the notifications on that and then go back to Facebook to see if it's gone and then shut them both and open them again just to see if anything else has happened in that second you just keep doing it because you can't just sit there and do nothing. And it's what you're talking about with rest. Like we've lost the ability to sit and do nothing. And I feel it. I feel like I've got quite a balanced life, but I'm really bad with it. So I give myself a digital detox in January till I'm trying to go till about Easter, I try and go to about Easter where I just stop all of it. It's going to be a challenge next year, because, Of the podcast because I need to promote it on the podcast. Or it might be that I do a break with the podcast then, and I'll say, I'll be breaking for January, February. maybe that's the way to do it because I do need to treasure that element. And it's the same with female cycles as well. Like when I bleed, I need to give myself that permission to stop on the day that I bleed and to do that. And it's just recognizing that we need these moments in time to let us. Have that time to rest and stop. I just think body everything like, yeah, sitting there meditating, I could feel my body resting and the muscles in my body felt like wax and they were dripping over my skeleton it really hurt, like it was painful, but all my RSI went and things like that. And then there was this retreat in Vipassana. When I was in Vipassana there was this. Point of pain in my shoulder and it wouldn't go. And then on the last day I went, how do you know I won't meditate anymore. I'll just, I can think if I want to. It's fine. It's the last session. and I ended up thinking about a thing that had happened to me that made me really angry and upset. suddenly I realized that my whole body was full of fury, remembering, and I relived it, like I was watching a movie. I remembered every single detail of what happened. I was so angry. then I just thought, it's not happening now though, is it? And I breathed out. And as I breathed out, my shoulder just unclicked and this pain I'd had in my shoulder just suddenly unclicked. everything's so stored in our bodies. There's that book, The Body Keeps the Score, which is really good. So when we walk the land, we walk the pilgrimages. It's an epic thing that I don't think we could possibly comprehend the meganess of what's happening with that. Because we are, we're giving the land a massage. Our feet are actually having this connection with the ground. We spend a lot of time walking around barefoot and a lot of barefootness on the earth. So we're getting that earth connection where we're getting that electric. impulse that's coming up from the earth, there's actually electricity coming off of the earth that we're then connecting to. And we're also just out in nature for that long and the speed of walking and everything. Cause I do think, for hundreds of thousands of years, we were hunter gatherers and we walked, we're not meant to be looking in each other's eyes. We're not meant to be sitting on chairs. We're meant to be walking at a slow, meditative state. And that's when we talk and like all of my ailments, like, sciatica and food intolerances go when I walk, everything goes because your body's just processing it all. and it's healing you as you walk. Yeah. I love books, but two books I'll mention because I won't remember the author. I'll send you what the authors are. But one is, Talking about land in walking, there was a book my sister gave me called Adventure Revolution, she works a lot with people going through anxiety mental health, or different challenges. And she takes them on a long walk, over mountains, quite challenging situations where they have to climb a mountain. we're designed for adventure. We're designed for uncertainty. Even though we're always craving certainty, we're actually designed to be in uncertain situations. when we're out in the countryside or climbing up on uneven territory, these are all things our body are built for. And she was talking about how when people go back to normal life, they're like, well, I did climb a mountain, so maybe that is not quite as well as I thought. Talking about festivals, when I went to Elderflower in the summer, and you're out, aren't you? Or even Glastonbury, you're out all the time in nature. You might be staying in a tent, but you're still in nature, you're still outside. And the weird thing was, when we were driving back And we stopped at Sainsbury's to get something to eat. when I was walking on the concrete, it felt really weird. I was like, this feels really flat and it feels odd. I can't feel the connection to nature on concrete. I thought that was really interesting. another book I'm reading is called The Nature Principle. he talks about how we've got attention fatigue because we're always on. You know, there's a message there, like you said, the notifications, then you're online, then you're doing this, and then you've got your workload, and then you've got your own thoughts as well. And then he said, so what's happened? We've got fatigued. And he was talking about nature, and soft fascination, which is when you're in nature, you're not having to try. You're not having to work anything out. You're not having to problem solve. You're not having to understand anything. It's not trying to grab your attention. It's asking nothing of you. And I just thought that was really nice to think, Oh, when you're seeing nature, it's giving to you, it's not taking from you, and he was saying that in today's culture, it's taking your attention all the time. And yeah, they called it soft fascination. That's really interesting because that's when you become, more embodied and less in your mind because you're just being aren't you? And coming back to the silent retreat, I bumped into someone, I was having an interesting conversation, they'd just been on one. And I asked them the question, I said, okay, so you've been on a silent retreat, do they give you a day to get back to noise? Because when you've had silence, she said, yeah, they give you a day where you can talk, to each other. But she said what she found, I said, what was it like when you came out back into the real world? She said, I felt like everyone was demanding something of me, whether it's a sign, whether it was a post. And we've just got so used to all these signs and coming back to thinking about mind, we're not realizing we're spending a lot of time. In the mind really it's about mind and body, isn't it? somatic yoga is mind and body being more in our bodies will help our minds, I remember feeling so exhausted from being in London when I was younger from all the signs that I couldn't help reading. I remember that being exhausting when I was 18, I moved to London before the internet. So that was before, cause I got my first email address and was using the internet when I was at university. So this was before that, being tired from the sign reading in London and now thinking, God, we're way beyond that. You're seeing a sign, you're figuring it out and then you're thinking about how that relates to you. And then, sometimes. It can make people not feel so great about themself or questioning. Or even if it's not making you feel great about yourself, it makes you angry about what they're trying to make you do. Like you can feel the anger of how they're manipulating you and then that's made you feel something. But very rarely is it going to be positive, is it? Right, so we'll do the last card. Okay. Stop, just that one back a few. Or just, yeah, go for that one. This one here? Okay. So this is defeat and what's, so something I wanted to talk to you about, and I feel like this relates to or links to it is, money and alternatives to money. So how do we defeat, how do we defeat the things that are. that feels like are attacking us or destroying us. My first. Thought when you said, what, what can we do about what defeats us, just the word trust came to mind. And if you think about it, that's what's on money. It says in well, in American money, it's we trust, isn't it? In money we trust or, it's about trusting. I mean, it's all based on debt, isn't it? Cash. when it was first started, it was a borrowing thing. it was like, I owe you five pounds. I'm going to write it out on this piece of paper. And then I'm going to trust that you're going to give it back to me. And then that eventually turned into pounds. I think maybe when money first started, it was a bit more solid, it would be a gold bar. You knew its value. when I was doing my MA, what I found really interesting was that. When you go into the British museum and look in the money section you see the evolution of money, how it's become less real. I went to a positive money talk, they talked a lot about money and that aspect, I just found that really, really? You know, when you transfer, it's just all, Yeah. it's in the air and it's not real, but it exists somewhere, surely. You know? I think it's an interesting one, money, because in some ways you need money to do certain things. Right? But you don't need money to do everything. And that's what I came to the conclusion when I was doing my MA and I, It started with me writing a future story and the future story was what if we stopped making new things? And then I was like, how would that affect, fashion? Because that's what I was exploring. How would that affect shops, how would it affect people? What about lifestyles? And then I got to the conclusion that actually there was all these other alternatives, like swapping and renting. And actually we don't need money for everything, but we think we need money for everything because money means you can buy something, but you do need money to have a home, do you know what I mean? Well, you do in England anyway, right? So you do need money to buy some food to a degree. but you could grow your own food. You could be part of a food hub or community. I started to explore alternatives and collated them. I wrote a paper about it called invent your own fashion economy. I based it on fashion because that's what my MA was. then I thought. Actually, and that's when I sort of started the ideas at Shangri La actually is possible to not rely on money for everything, like you were saying about clothes, if you rallied around with all your friends, you could have a clothes swap. You wouldn't have to buy any clothes. You could just all swap your clothes, when it comes a bit harder is for, if you want to go on holiday. There might be some negotiation, but you're probably going to have to pay for your flight. I think people put, their trust too much in money and what it's going to give them. And sometimes it doesn't give them what they think, connecting back to what we were talking about overworking. It's normally, Because someone's got to pay for something because they're now in this situation where they've got used to their money and then they need that money. you do need money for some things, you don't need it for everything. And I think when you start looking at alternatives, it's really interesting. the future is more about alternative. economies that don't have to be big. They could be small you're seeing more people bringing in new ways to sustain themselves. Patreon is a great example they are still pretty underground, And haven't sold out to anyone as far as I'm aware, as an artist, it's the same with Bandcamp, you can put your work out there to your fans. They want to invest in what you're doing. They want to see more of it and you're not trying to oversell to them. They're wanting to support you, So I think that's a really good alternative. sometimes, it's the carrot and stick, just a bit more, just a bit bigger, I just need a bit more stuff and then I'll be happy and then I won't work as much or I won't need as much money, I'm not going to say we don't need money for stuff because I think we do need it for some stuff. I just don't think we need it for everything. you're making me think of Cuba. Cuba is stunning. I love Cuba. I was there before. I don't know what's changed since their relationship with America's changed, but it feels like it has probably changed a bit, I was there before that it all happened and they, they'd had a. the embargoes. And so they didn't have access to a pen factory and there wasn't a lighter factory. So they just didn't have pens and lighters and they didn't have a car factory. But because it was from the fifties, they had those beautiful fifties cars that you could just gaffer tape back together again, and you can just fix bits and stick things back on because that's the way they were made and people did have original seventies clothes that they were still wearing because that's what they had And it worked, they were on their feet when I was there, getting by. seeing that, you can see how it does work. on Sark, on the island where I live, we have incredible jumble cells because our main issue is getting rid of rubbish. I'm in the government. on the infrastructure committee and Rubbish is the main issue for any politician we do amazing jumble sales, but at the end of the jumble sale, all that stuff. Unless you're going to pass it on to the next jumble sale, which means someone's got to store it, then that will get thrown away. But we're at least trying, everyone is at least doing the jumble and recycling. Our jumble sales are amazing, especially coming from Brighton, where I know that they, the boutique shops would just be full of this stuff. This is all like retro, my whole house is seventies and full of all this incredible seventies furniture that if I'd bought from a boutique shop in Brighton, Brighton would have been thousands of pounds, but I got for like 30 quid in total for all of it because it was all from, people passing it on to each other. I think what's interesting about that, is waste again, it's one of those hidden things, waste, isn't it? We put it in the bin and it goes somewhere, not sure where, to a dump, it's very easy to not think about waste. I think we all to a degree have too much waste, whether it's food waste or waste, it's very difficult in that sense. And another thing about passing stuff on, in swapping and having jumble sales, I love what Kat Fletcher does, she's got a free shop in Brighton. I send my students there. And say, if you're going to start somewhere, start at the free shop you can get, things for your home, but you can get free clothes. You can get, you might get some props for a shoot you're doing, she's keeping it in circulation, but giving it away for free. that's helping people who can't afford it, but it's also helping other people realize I'll go there first before I go and buy something new. And I think more places like that would be amazing. say all the stuff that's got left from your jumble sales. What if there was a shop that was just a free shop with all the stuff and, So we do have a charity shop, so we only have one clothes shop on the island and that is a charity shop. we don't have free healthcare. we have, the Professor Saint fund, which, the money goes towards our prescriptions. it means our prescriptions, are actually cheaper than. they are in the UK, but we have to pay for everything else. we do get cheap prescriptions because we've got this charity that we're putting money into the whole time, doing fundraising events for, and also this charity shop. So the good things go to the charity shop, but there's still scope for us to do stuff because actually. we're thinking about merchandise and ways of making and doing things that we could make money from, but rather than it being new merchandise from new things that's being generated and is then more resources being used, it's an interesting idea to go, what about using stuff from the jumble Yeah. That's a really interesting idea. Or thinking, okay, how else could we circulate this? How else could it become something? And I think when you sort of open the idea of alternatives, I think when we think in these linear ways of money, profit, I think what's happened with money is just so caught up in profit, and sometimes that profit is over people and planet. So I think money is energy, isn't it? if it's only getting hoarded. It's not giving back, if you're thinking of money as circulation, energy is better when it's circulating. with regards to people not feeling defeated what alternatives that are positive for you, other people on the planet, could you create, and sometimes it's just asking that question. what else could we do with this stuff from the jumble everyone comes up with an idea and before you know it, you've designed a whole system to put all that stuff in circulation before Glastonbury I send a list and then I'll go in and she's collected all this amazing stuff anything I don't use, I bring back I don't chuck it away. I go, okay, I'm not going to use this now, but you can have this back. it's like asking that question first, before I buy new, could I source this somewhere else? even if you had like, you've got your charity shop, but Maybe there could be a free shop and it's just got this stuff in it. People go, Oh, you know, that thing I didn't need. I need that now, And like a tool shop or a swap shop thing as well. sewing machines. I know loads of people need sewing machines and I've got a sewing machine that I know is really good, but I've not used it since I've been here. And so I could, I don't need to have it in my house. it's a library of things, like they've got it through. They've got a library of things. Yeah, that's right. Because when I was doing all my research, I was like, right, what are alternatives that is sustainable? Library of things, free shops, swap shops that use community groups coming together, cooperatives, anything that's not just based on Some one person's going to profit from it, so I think those are all alternatives to money we need a bit of money for some stuff, but if we take the focus off that we only need money, it, you start to see, I mean, that's what happened when I was researching money my main question was how does a creative sustain themselves so they don't have to sell out. Because you see them all the time or they stop doing what they're amazing stuff that they do. They go, not making any money. So, not going to be able to do it. Or they suddenly sell out and then what was really original and really pushing the edges suddenly isn't the same happens to subcultures. They all got commercialized and commodified I was having this conversation the other day with a student, more people need to say, no, To some stuff. if they said no to being bought out by a massive company, How is anyone ever going to push new ideas? if everyone's just saying, yeah, and you're just getting the same old thing, they might go loads of money for it. How is things going to change? whereas if those companies that you look back in history, they said no. And then. They made all these culture changes that were positive, the more people go, actually, yeah, that's how people do it, but actually there's these other ways you could do it, and you're seeing more people become CICs, more people become cooperatives. And the reason for that is they want to give back to the community. If every business was giving back to the community in some way, it'd be so different, Thank you. That was amazing. That was giving me loads of stuff to chew on and go off and do and create. I'm really excited about that. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. the last thing I wanted to ask you is about the chaos crusade. what was your suggestion for people to do to stop the kind of hamster wheel and get off for a second. personally, my view on getting off the hamster wheel is rest. Give yourself permission to rest. everyone's rest is different, but for me, I can honestly say going out in nature daily, For 30 minutes, whether it's walking, whether it's just sitting and that's not doing, that's not being plugged in. Do you know what I mean? It's not nature with your headphones on and you're listening to your favorite track, or scrolling on your phone as you're under the tree, it's just literally being still and quiet or walking. Try not to think about anything and just letting nature wash over you. And I think if you do that every day, for a week for 30 minutes, preferably in your lunch hour. If you don't take lunch hours, make that part of it as well. Take half an hour lunch, sit in nature, see how you feel at the end of the week. I guarantee you, you will feel free for sure, definitely. Yeah, and I need to do it, even though I live on this island surrounded by nature. And I love walking and I love being in nature. Like today, I haven't been out of the house yet And that can happen really easily. I looked out the window and it was sunny and gorgeous all day. I try to, go out when it's sunny because we are at the mercy of the elements here when it's wet and rainy, I can basically get on my bike and dash to the pub, but that's it. there's no bus, no taxi, no other indoor spaces. I'm not going to a gym or a swimming pool. I've literally got. Three pubs to go to, and that's it. you do have to hunker down in the winter. So when it's sunny, I do tend to try and go outside, but also I had things to do. Like I had lots of things happening today and I just missed the opportunity. I am going to go out tonight. it's a dark sky Island. We go out under the stars and go out. There's something about it. Near the sea and the nighttime, we don't probably see as many stars because we're in a city and it's quite light, But it's all quiet and I find it so peaceful. I was running around today, I've seen glimpses of nature go, oh yeah, there it is, the sunny day, it looks amazing. I'm just going from A to B But I think it's just noticing. That, you noticed it, you could do that for days when you don't do it. And I think the more you spend in nature, the more you notice when you don't. and we are nature. So when we're in nature, we are connected to ourselves. The most connected you can be. Is in nature, for sure. And you know that well with your walks, don't you? Yeah, I love it. I love it very much. And she is. And it, like you say, it's not being plugged in because I can go for a few weeks where I'm out and I'll go for walks and I'll go down to the beach and I'll go for a swim. And obviously I won't have my ear pods in when I'm swimming. But on the walk, I'll be listening to a podcast or a story as I'm walking. just the other day I took my earphones out and I wasn't listening to something and I was like, I feel amazing. And I was like, Oh yeah, it's because I'm not listening to anything. your attention has gone, Oh my gosh, I can relax. I don't have to put tension on anything. I can just be. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Brilliant. Oh, that's amazing. Well, thank you, Rachel. Thank you so much. It's really enjoyable. I love hearing all your wisdom. So, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I'm going to stop that. the So there are more Inventions being invented. The space between. The first invention. Fire. And then like an RA head or an ax head and then the whale. Those periods of time are quite long. And then they've got shorter and shorter and shorter. And now the doubling. Putting exponentially as is memory storage. And this. It is changing things. So equivalent of the propaganda that was being used. During the war without dropping pamphlets and things on. In London and stuff, but. But, but there, but people have the capacity to do research and Actually find out whether things are true whether people are doing that or not is up to them, but. We have the capacity to find out so many things and to learn things and. So many things have been created and invented. That even though they're spying. Buying less and there's all these algorithms and there's ways of knowing what we're doing online. There's so much. Going on. And there are so many human beings. And. That gives me hope. And there are people thinking about different ways of living and being society. And a dreaming, a positive future. And it's just brilliant when you meet them. Um, and you go. Yes. Okay. That's a different way of thinking. I had never. thought of that. That's amazing. Cause we were just looking at, in SOC about ways of creating. Dating branding and. uh, merchandise that people can buy. When they come over here, what we also daily's jumble sales. Where loads of stuff gets thrown away. At the end of the jumble sale. And yeah, it's brilliant that we're having this sort of lost. Ditch. Attempt to trying to. Recycle and reuse these things, but. They will then get burned or, you Actually, we should be using that stuff too. We could be doing more with it. And Rachel really inspired me. It's like, we should be upside. Up cycling and merchandising and making new things with. This stuff, because we've got so much stuff and actually most of it would be hugely. Expensive in the boutiques of Brighton. You know, we're throwing things away that would go for. So much money in Brighton because everything here is from the seventies. Loads of vintage. Stuff here, retro stuff. So, yeah, it's given me. Lots of food for thoughts and ideas, for things that we could do here. if anyone has any ideas of any of you run a shop in Brighton or. Have any connection to upcycling initiatives? Let me. No, because honestly we could send you crates of stuff. This island. is full of hoarders and. It's just, there's so much stuff here. It's crazy. My house is full of stuff. Everything, everything is full it's jam. At four. And we've got loads of things. So yeah. Any ideas. Very much interested to hear them. So, thank you ever so much. I'm so excited that. I'll be doing the next podcast, but the one after. After that I've already done the interview and it's with Heather, Samson, who I mentioned. And my podcast about rest is revolutionary. talking about menstrual. cycles and. Female cycles. I honestly honestly recommend. Command that men listen to it, but I'll talk about that more next week. I'm so excited about how this podcast is unfolding. It makes me really happy. Thank you for listening. Keep, keep listening. And I promise this adventure. Scott so much. Do you still happening? Um, I'm very excited about what's happening here. Thank you. Yeah. Cheers! Have a great day. Cheers! I don't know.