Past Interviews
The Interview Series is on pause. The recordings below are rich with relevant insights!
Click on each speaker to learn more about what we covered in-depth.
Pandora Thomas
Interview with Pandora Thomas In this 2015 interview, Pandora shared her insights on many compelling topics that are still super relevant, including: Standing in the value of your cutting-edge perspectives and skill-sets in this time of ferment The vital importance of building skills in social permaculture Building capacity and supporting the leadership of diverse communities Cultural…
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Maria Klemperer Johnson
Interview with Maria Klemperer Johnson Maria shares the story of how she became a carpenter, and the her passion for supporting women to enter the trades. She teaches carpentry skills to women through her business, the Hammerstone School of Carpentry for Women. A smart businessperson, Maria’s fantastic courses include basic carpentry, framing, building tiny homes, and sketchup tutorials.…
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Maren Waldman
Interview with Maren Waldman Love the arts, but not sure how to earn your living uniting your artistic endeavors with permaculture? Maren Waldman, a multi-media artist and educator, shares insights from her right livelihood path. Maren has studied the body in motion for over two decades – from dance technique to anatomy to somatic work.…
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Looby Macnamara
Interview with Looby Macnamara Leading the Edge of Cultural Emergence How can we facilitate cultural change? What do we want the new culture and new story to look like? What part can we play in helping it to emerge? Looby Macnamara has designed a regenerative right livelihood that translates the use of permaculture principles and…
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Lisa DePiano
Interview with Lisa DePiano Wondering how to create a right livelihood that combines many disciplines into high-impact, regenerative work? Lisa DePiano is grounded at the intersections of public art, economic development, participatory design and social justice. She came to permaculture from a background as a community organizer in West Virginia working against Mountain Top Removal and…
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Jennifer English
Interview with Jennifer English In her interview, Jennifer shares her insights regarding Cultivating our confidence to access our true passions & desires, to work together, and to manifest change on a planetary level. “What would the world would be like if everyone were doing the work they love and getting paid for it?” Transitioning from…
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Jasmine Fuego
Interview with Jasmine Fuego The Art of Creating Transformational Space Jasmine Fuego, Co-founder of the Permaculture Action Network, is part performer, part educator, and full artivist. Jasmine pulls from her worlds of permaculture organizing, performance and youth education to curate and create transformational events centered around bridging art and culture with social & environmental…
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Frances Rose & Acorn
Interview with Frances Rose & Acorn Feeding Life with Practices that Serve How may we integrate multi-capital abundance into our right livelihoods? – and more, understand it to be essential? How may we keep our offerings financially accessible, while truly valuing our labor? How do we center our core values in all that we do…
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Bonita Ford
Interview with Bonita Ford Bonita speaks about having a multi-faceted approach to your right livelihood, and using small and slow solutions to start out as a permaculture teacher without going into debt (while offering affordable tuition to participants). In this context, Bonita talks about her “bridge job” and building relationships through high-impact, focused volunteer work that gives back…
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Connect you to powerful mentors who share their wisdom about designing a right livelihood outside the mainstream economy.
Raise the visibility of amazing work done by folks who identify as women.
(That said, ALL are welcome to join us for the interviews.)
Are without pretense. We talk about what's hard. We also celebrate successes and cultivate mutual support.
Focus on how entrepreneurship can be regenerative—in service to Earth Care, People Care, and Surplus Share.
The past interviews were conducted back when I was piloting my programs with the word "Thrivelihood."
What’s A Thrivelihood?
When I interviewed Jeanine Carlson for my “Pattern Language for Women in Permaculture” article, she explained a model for embedding high-quality, nature-based child care into permaculture courses so that more women and families could attend.
The solution was to see the young ones as precious assets to the learning community, and to have that be the core of the business model.
As a result, the teaching staff included licensed childcare professionals. During morning sessions, the kids and adults learned separately–the children in outdoor adventures. Lunch was a community affair, and the afternoons were hands-on applications of permaculture for the entire group. The outcomes were happy families, more women teaching and learning, and the entire learning experience was richer for everyone because of the intergenerational relationships.
This model “re-values” the caring work and weaving work–that’s often done by women, for little or no pay. Jeanine emphasized that this work shouldn’t go unpaid, and women shouldn’t just eke out a living, they should be thriving in this work—she said “we even call it a thrivelihood!”
That word encapsulated for me an audacious and timely vision that so many of us share—one of people doing the regenerative work they love; having ample time to recharge and connect with Beloveds, and standing in the value of their contributions towards an abundant future for all.
Since then, the women I've worked with have emphasized over and over that they want to understand how to harness the tools of entrepreneurship in service to co-creating our regenerative future, so I've transitioned to using the term Regenepreneurs.