Dear Reader,
We’re back after a one week break, and I’m very excited to put this episode in your inbox in time for the weekend.
This week’s guest is the legendary Stephen Brooks. Stephen grew up in Miami, and when he was 20 he travelled to Central America and saw a crop-dusting plane spray pesticides over a field of indigenous kids playing football. It stopped him in his tracks. He had no farming experience and only one local mentor, but he decided to spend his life working with life and nature, not against it.
Thirty years later, Stephen has built five permaculture villages in Costa Rica, including Punta Mona, along with the viral “Church of Fruit.” These are places where people live together, grow their own food and restore the land around them.
I loved this conversation because Stephen doesn’t pretend to have all the answers. He thinks the place to start is asking better questions. Where’s our food coming from? Where’s our water coming from? Where does it go when we dirty it? He also made a point about the word “sustainable” that has stuck with me. Imagine asking a friend how their marriage is going and they reply, “Oh, it’s sustainable.” You wouldn’t be reassured. You’d be worried for them, because it sounds like they’re only just getting by. Stephen’s point is that we’ve set the bar too low. Sustaining isn’t the goal. We should be aiming to thrive, and to leave the land better than we found it.
We also get into what he’s learned about holding a community together, why he thinks we should prepare for people moving out of the cities, and whether villages like his are one-off successes or a model the rest of the world could follow. Near the end I ask him where someone should start if they want to reconnect with themselves and the natural world. His answer surprised me, and I think it’ll surprise you too.
You can listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or watch on YouTube. If it stays with you, please share it with someone who’s dreaming of a different way to live, or leave us a quick review. It helps more than you’d think.
With love,
Finn