Discover:

* How some ocean ecosystems are showing signs of recovery - inspiring us to keep up protection efforts

* About the emotional and cognitive lives of animals—from owls to beluga whales

* Practical ways to get involved in conservation work through the Safina Center

Featured Topics:

🐋 Whale population recovery & marine conservation success stories 🦉 Animal consciousness, emotions, and interspecies relationships 🌊 Ocean health, fish populations, and ecosystem restoration 🌊 How human dignity and nature conservation support and engage each other 📚 Carl Safina's books: Song for the Blue Ocean, Beyond Words, Alfie and Me 🌍 The Safina Center's mission to make a case for life on Earth

About Carl Safina:

First endowed professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University, founding president of the Safina Center, author of 10 books including the New York Times bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, and host of PBS's Saving the Ocean. His work fuses scientific understanding, emotional connection, and a moral call to action.

Resources Mentioned:

Safina Center: https://www.safinacenter.org

Carl Safina's Writing: https://www.carlsafina.org/

PBS Saving the Ocean: https://www.pbs.org

Subscribe for more conversations with visionaries, scientists, and conservationists working to protect our planet.

Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work fuses scientific understanding, emotional connection, and a moral call to action. His writing has won a MacArthur “genius” prize; Pew, Guggenheim, and National Science Foundation Fellowships; book awards from Lannan, Orion, and the National Academies; and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. He’s been a featured guest of Bill Moyers, Martha Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Oprah Winfrey. He grew up raising pigeons, training hawks and owls, and spending as many days and nights in the woods and on the water as he could. Safina is now the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the PBS series Saving the Ocean, which can be viewed free at PBS.org. His writing appears in The New York Times, TIME, The Guardian, Audubon, Yale e360, and National Geographic, and on the Web at Huffington Post, CNN.com, Medium, and elsewhere. Safina is the author of ten books including the classic Song for the Blue Ocean, as well as New York Times Bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent book is Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe. He lives on Long Island, New York, with his wife Patricia and their dogs and feathered friends.

highlighting Nick’s new book, The Way Around, A Field Guide to Going Nowhere.

They met as fellow authors both published by Milkweed Editions –

an independent publisher committed to ecological stewardship,

with a mission to publish transformative literature –

at an event in the autumn of 2025 celebrating the work of Milkweed in Minneapolis.

Then and there Scott and Nick exchanged books—kindling a new friendship.

Scott was especially delighted when reading the prologue to Nick’s book, to find the line,

“I live my life in widening circles,” by the poet he has long loved, Rainer Maria Rilke.

Here is a conversation between two writers,

a few decades apart in experience and age, simpatico in spirit.

The Way Around, A Field Guide to Going Nowhere

by Nicholas Triolo, published by Milkweed Editions, 2025

https://milkweed.org/book/the-way-around

“The Way Around is the kind of book my soul perpetually yearns for. It reshaped how I see the world.”—Robert Moor, author of On Trails: An Exploration

Growing up in northern California, in a family of high-achieving athletes, Nicholas Triolo was imbued with a particularly acute form of our intensely goal-oriented culture. “Do the reps,” he internalized. “Commit to the work. Grind for your dreams.” Shortly after graduating from college, he embarked on a solo circumnavigation of the globe. And then after returning to the States, he threw himself into ultrarunning, all to combat a deepening discontent.

While traveling around the world, it was in Kathmandu that Triolo first encountered kora, a form of moving prayer in which pilgrims walk in circles around a sacred site or object—a kind of “ritualized remembering” birthed by place. Unable to shake this initial encounter with circumambulation, he sets out here on three such extended walks. First, he completes the sacred thirty-two-mile revolution around Tibet’s Mount Kailash, in search of a cultural counter to Western linearity. Then, following his mother’s diagnosis with breast cancer, he returns home to California and takes part in an annual circuit of Mount Tamalpais, tracing a route made famous by Beat poets Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Allen Ginsberg. And then finally, he meets up with a quirky hydrogeologist in Butte, Montana, and joins his walk around the Berkeley Pit Complex, the largest Superfund site in the country.

At once uncommonly humble and thrillingly transcendent, blurring the boundaries of inner and outer landscapes, The Way Around models what it means to experience a true revolution of heart and home—for the flourishing of all.

There is a great outpouring of light and support during this time, and as Sandra inspires us, with no other outcome but Ascension — for the collective, for Gaia, for each of us in our own hearts and for all realms. Listeners are invited to tap in during the Sunday Unity meditations (see ,https://www.ascensionpath.com/) including Solstice, and join with others in the field to be Peace, Unity, and Freedom on behalf of all.

Sandra shares key moments from her path, including the decision she made in early 2011 to walk away from her life and follow guidance to Mount Shasta, where she lived outside on the mountain for seven years. Reflecting on that time, she speaks about how it brought “…a freedom there… a lightening of the heart…”, and how those experiences continue to inform her work of “…showing people what’s possible…”.

Throughout the conversation, Sandra speaks about presence in practical terms — what happens “…when you really free your heart…” and begin “…allowing yourself to just let everything fall into place… or fall away…”. She describes how this relates to her ongoing offerings, including weekly Unity meditations and her Light Letter, and to the way she supports people through periods of change.

She also returns repeatedly to the stabilizing quality of Presence itself, noting that “…the presence does take care of things…” and that it is possible “…to feel so held through the process…”, even amid uncertainty and transition.

Connect with Sandra Walter, and visit https://www.ascensionpath.com/

to learn more about Sandra’s offerings, free Unity meditations, and to sign up for her free weekly Light Letter and courses.

Connect with Megan Chaskey: https://meganchaskey.com/

They reflect on the interplay of essential elements such as rhythm, structure, and playfulness as pathways to belonging. Bennett describes how rhythm itself becomes an entryway: “If you have a body, you have a rhythmic element… we are rhythmic beings.” They explore the subtle communication that emerges in group song—beyond what words can hold. “Music gets people through the divisions that words create,” he says. He also explains how bringing a sense of playfulness into the workplace offers a powerful lens for leaders seeking to bring more ease, connection, and coherence into meetings, strategy, and collaboration.

Bennett shares his evolving vision, Moving Music, and his desire to pass on this ages-old practice through workshops, books, rowing and farming projects, and everyday acts of shared song. “It’s our birthright,” he reminds us. “Music is there for us—whether we’re rowing, planting garlic, or cleaning the kitchen.”

An uplifting exploration of what becomes possible when we let music move our work—and our lives—inviting us into what Bennett calls “the Way… the place where you’re getting something done and having a great time doing it.”

Bennett Konesni is a musician and garlic farmer based in Maine. He directs Bagaduce Music, runs The Worksong Project, and tours internationally performing and teaching musical labor, the songs and tunes of Maine, and his original compositions.

Links:

Bagaduce Music

Music and Garlic: bennettkonesni.com

Library of Congress: Homegrown Series - Bennett Konesni Profile Concert

Washington Post: Sea shanties are having a moment

NY Times: City Slickers Take to the Crops, With Song

NPR: Mainers Are Working To Give Historical Sea Chanties New Life

TEDxFruitvale: Transforming Work into Joy

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

TRANSCRIPT:

Moving Music: Bringing Joy into Work and Life with Bennett Konesni

Megan: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Spirit of Leadership Podcast. Listen in as we talk with emerging as well as seasoned leaders, change makers, and visionaries, and hear their stories—how they have overcome challenges, how they cultivate inspired vision as stewards and mentors shining their light to uplift and empower others, reconnecting us through a sense of belonging to the natural world and to the interweaving circles of just and vital communities.

Hey Bennett.

Bennett: Hi Megan.

Megan: It's so great to have you on the Spirit of Leadership Podcast.

Bennett: Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Megan: So I'm gonna let you introduce yourself because you have so many things that you engage in and you are passionate about, and so I'd like you to just jump right in and introduce yourself to our listeners.

Bennett: Okay. My name's Bennett Konesni. I grew up in Maine and have been either in Maine or the East End of Long Island, Shelter Island, New York, for most of my adult life, working on farms, starting farms, making music happen—whether it's for contra dancing or singing while working or writing my own songs.

And I guess if you could boil down a lot of my work, it's getting people to do stuff and have some fun while they're doing it. I think maybe the key idea that unites my work is that there's a space in between work and play—or what we think of as work and play—and I'm looking for any way or every way, basically the musical way, of getting people to occupy that space.

Mostly it's the music that gets us there, but then I think there's also a mindset thing that works for me and helps work for other people. The music is just a direct path into that space.

Megan: And how did you come to this?

Bennett: It started on schooners on the coast of Maine. These are tall ships that take out tourists these days, but it was a big part of Maine's culture in Penobscot Bay and along the coast of Maine—bringing food and timber and granite and ice all over the world.

And to raise the sails and bring up the anchor, music became a thing that was a big part of how people operated the boats. It was actually all along the East Coast and even down in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a major part of how boats moved and how teams worked together for hundreds of years in American maritime trades.

But Maine really kept it going. When I was a teenager in the 1990s, I worked as a deckhand aboard these boats, and we sang while bringing up the anchor and putting up the sails—historic vessels using historic songs and techniques to put up thousands of pounds of canvas and bring up thousands of pounds of old-fashioned anchor every day.

I didn't really realize it, but that was the foundation of what's become a life’s work of singing while jogging or singing while planting garlic or singing while rowing, singing while tipping spruce boughs to make wreaths—all kinds of community work projects that music helps facilitate.

And that's, I would say, at the core of my work and what I'm up to. And then all of the other projects—more organizational leadership type stuff—starting Sylvester Manor Educational Farm, executive director of Bagaduce Music (one of the world's largest music lending libraries) in Blue Hill, Maine, and Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island.

Those have been two major community projects, but I try to exhibit leadership through the same principle that we have while we're hauling up the anchor, which is that there's a space in between work and play. We can find that edge where you're really getting something done and you're having a great time doing it.

And I would say even if you're in a meeting, a staff meeting or a strategy session, that concept is really powerful. I try to get people there. I'm just always trying to find that spot. And when I'm not in that spot, I'm not very happy. So I'm always trying to get back to that feeling that I get.

If we're singing and rowing, I have more energy when we finish. We could row for an hour and a half hard and sing the whole time, and I have more energy when we get back to the dock. Or we could plant 5,000 heads of garlic in a morning and I'll have more energy at the end than I did when I started, which isn't how we normally think of those sorts of activities.

So if I've ended a staff meeting and I have more energy than we had when we started, I know that I found that spot.

Megan: Yes. And it's interesting that you began with this as a teenager—you came to this with your own openness to it.

Bennett: Yeah.

Megan: And to experience. I think as teenagers we're looking for that sense of community and finding that with other people. But it's interesting that something that's very hard to do, like the weight of the sails and the anchor, actually energizes you. Do you think it's also the communion with the other people so you don't have to be using words to communicate what needs to happen?

Bennett: Absolutely.

Megan: There’s some other kind of communication.

Bennett: Yeah, you nailed it. The division between work and play is a false dichotomy, I think. And we use words because they help us communicate— we live in a world where words are used all the time and they help us understand what's going on. And they have a fundamental flaw, which is that every word takes the full variety and diversity and complexity of any concept and starts to build walls around it so that you can say, “This is the difference between red and green.” You build walls around the concepts.

But when it comes to things like work and play, in the effort to simplify communication about these ideas, we create a division that doesn't fully capture the nuance of what's going on. And so when we're singing—especially if we're doing wordless songs—we neatly sidestep that issue with words. And even if we are singing with words, they often take a back seat to the type of communication which is happening, which is around rhythm, which is around melody and harmony—around other musical concepts that seem to have… they probably have different pitfalls to communication around perceived skill.

People think, “I can't sing. I can't carry a tune in a bucket,” people will say—which is about a technical ability to deliver a melody, which does get in the way of communication. But ultimately the division that happens around words is really a big one to get over, and music gets people through it in a really nice way.

Megan: One of the wonderful things about you, and being with you when you're leading songs—I haven't actually rowed a boat with you doing the songs—but some of the ones that I've done with you and witnessed, that energy that you generate… Everyone belongs. It's a place of belonging.

Bennett: Right!

Megan: And so it doesn't matter what anybody's skill level is—everyone feels this togetherness.

Bennett: Yeah.

Megan: And it generates that happiness.

Bennett: Yeah.

Megan: And so I'm curious about those aspects—like the rhythm. The rhythm must be really important when you're doing the work.

Bennett: Yeah. Yeah. The rhythm is so key because if you have a body, you have a rhythmic element. Your heart is beating. The way you move your arms—your kinesthetics—define a sense of rhythm as you're moving through space. So we're familiar with rhythm intimately. And that's one place people can just drop into very easily, even if they think they can't sing a melody or find harmonies.

We are rhythmic beings. And so that's one easy entrance into this state between work and play.

You said something really interesting—that when I'm making music happen in a group, people feel included or they feel like they're a part of it. They can very easily be a part of it. And that's very intentional by me.

Last night we played a contra dance in Amagansett—me and Shepsi and Molly—and I noticed that phenomenon happening. People just felt included, like they could be a part of a musical kinesthetic experience even if they'd never contra danced before or been in a community dance.

And that's because I think of technical skill being lower on the hierarchy than the feeling of inclusiveness. A lot of people invert that relationship—they put technical skill at the top of a hierarchy, and at the bottom there’s a sense of play and inclusiveness. That's a pitfall that a lot of musicians and musical settings fall into—that it’s the technical musical delivery that’s the most important, and then the feeling you're getting by making the music is secondary.

And I think it works really well when it’s flipped on its head and we think about how included you feel, and then the technical stuff comes along. And I've noticed that—at Bagaduce Music in Blue Hill—we have dozens of classes. This year we've had 800 different class meetings of all sorts of things: guitar class, Northern New England Ensemble, a community chorus, a children's chorus.

Over and over, I keep thinking about this idea: If you start by helping people feel like they're a part of something, then the technical stuff comes right along.

So that inclusiveness I think is really… that's what I was looking for last night, much more than anybody's particular ability to dance or engage me on a technical level. And that’s maybe one of my secrets to leadership: we all have in us something to contribute and belong at the table—belong in whatever setting we're in, whether it's on a boat or in a staff meeting.

If we start there, then people bring their best—whatever that is. And things unfold in a positive way. People start to feel the euphoria that comes from the play-feeling—the feeling where we're working and we're playing. It's familiar to me because I get to do this all the time, but last night at dancing, they were working—they were moving physically. People were sweating, their brains were working as they were learning the dances. But there was this euphoric, tangible joy in the room. Some people call it a flow state. And I'm just trying to get people there.

The hardest thing is in the mind—settings, where it’s really about ideas and language.

Megan: Like when you're heading a meeting.

Bennett: You're heading a meeting, yeah.

Megan: So do you start with that sense in yourself—because it's important to you to create that in the meeting? Do you access that within yourself in order to bring it to the space?

Bennett: On a good day. On a good day, I'm there, and I'll start a meeting with something fun. Recently we had a staff meeting where I said, “Okay, we'll go around and take 15 seconds each—just a personal update. How are you feeling? But describe yourself as a weather forecast.”

And somebody said, “Cloudy with a chance of sleet.” Somebody else said, “I'm a sunny day in October.” That kind of thing. So to have just a fun engagement with what could ordinarily just be, “Oh, I'm fine,” but instead you turn it into something a little more playful and imaginative, creative. That kicks it off in a really nice way.

And I can pull that off—I have the sort of presence or ability to help groups in that way—when I've had enough sleep and some healthy food and am well hydrated and gotten some oxygen in my lungs recently. I'm always trying to get to that place.

Speaking of words—I've been trying to come up with a word for the space in between work and play. It’s really a Venn diagram overlap. I tried “plark”—play and work. That word doesn't feel quite right. But if you take “work” and “play” and you take out the “ork” and the “pla,” you get “way.”

Megan: Oh, that's awesome.

Bennett: It's just the way to do it. The way.

Megan: Yeah. There you go.

Bennett: So I'm always trying to find that Way.

Megan: You obviously have this connection and this desire to be in that state of play. Has that been with you your whole life? Do you remember? Obviously as children we play.

Bennett: We used to clean the house on Saturday mornings as a family, and Mom or Dad would put a CD on and we'd put on some Cajun music—Rockin’ Sydney. It was this one great Cajun or Zydeco album that we listened to. And we had a bunch of fun upbeat music that we would listen to while we cleaned the house. I was seven or eight years old, and that was already a thing—to combine music and work and have fun while you're doing the thing that you have to do.

Megan: Right there. That is just so fascinating.

Bennett: Yeah.

Megan: Because it got into you.

Bennett: Yeah. Got into me.

Megan: And you were doing it as a family—what you're talking about, putting on the music. And when you're young and that comes into your being, then it's established. You don't have to get back to it later on in life. So when you're saying the word “play,” you're lighting up.

Bennett: Yeah.

Megan: And so it's the word. Maybe in your adult life, in your job, you have to justify it—that it's getting work done.

Bennett: It's work. Yeah.

That's an interesting point. I've pondered this question: is it just play that I want to do? Is that really what I want to do? And I will say that I've found that music-making—when there isn't some sort of work happening—to be less satisfying for me on a fundamental level. There's something really beautiful about play that actually is also accomplishing some project or goal or something's happening.

That work can even be the physical—like stacking firewood or making contra dancers move around a room; that's one step away from a sort of pure functional work. And then I think about doing kirtan with Shepsi and Molly and doing these Hindu devotional chants, which are helping people do spiritual work. All of that I find gives me the same feeling.

So in a way I'm playing, but there's still something happening. Sometimes play is just for play’s sake, and I guess that has its own satisfaction. I can just report that there is something really sublime when they meet in the middle—when there's some meeting in the middle. It's also totally underexplored in our Western culture, I would say.

Megan: So right there you have a desire—a mission—to bring this into people's experience. Because you know what it feels like and how completely different it is. When you think about people’s relationship to work, they just assume that it's going to make them tired. And you're talking about being energized.

In a meeting, where you're not necessarily singing, the work could be the strategy and the strategizing—which again is a communion. You're in that space where there's a field of everyone being aware of each other and working together.

Bennett: Yeah. There's a creativity that's born—a playful creativity—that can come in if you're doing a strategy session. It can be quite sublime actually, but it takes that willingness to be playful and be creative in that setting.

Megan: So that's a very unique aspect of your sense of leadership and being a leader. Can you give a sense of what you would coach someone in—being able to bring that in? Say someone isn’t necessarily a musician. But they could participate in your groups and bring that to their leadership.

Bennett: Yeah. There's a couple things that I would say if someone wants to learn from me and the way I'm approaching leadership. One is: confidence is really important. Because when people sense your hesitancy or lack of confidence, they start to turn off. Or maybe they're skeptical and the project starts to crumble.

It's very easy to be skeptical—certainly singing while stacking wood isn't normal in our culture these days anymore. Singing in the woods was a much more common thing 150 years ago. But even just bringing a sense of play into an office setting—not common. Not very common.

So you have to really believe it and know it inside—just know that it works—and start to look around and see the workplaces where play is a part of that group setting. They're around. If you start to look around, you'll see some businesses really have a sort of playful sense about them. Silicon Valley has had a lot of play worked into their offices over the last decade or so. Pixar is a great example—their whole workplace for making those amazing films is an incredibly playful, creative space. They design it into their space.

But how do you get confident? I see my confidence being built partly by understanding and appreciating and realizing that the theoretical will work. It's a theoretical concept that has total validity across cultures all around the world throughout time. There are work songs—people have found a way to make music help the work happen.

So there's the theoretical understanding, and then also the practical skills. And this might be the best thing to take away: I memorize the songs that I'm gonna sing. I brush up on the techniques and tools that are gonna help people who are feeling less confident or have never seen this before or thought of it before, so that they can easily get into that space between work and play.

So there are structural elements like rhyme schemes—I have a whole series of rhyme schemes that I use across different songs. There are melodies and forms—call-and-response forms that I've sat down and memorized and internalized that give me the confidence to know I can go out into a garlic patch and have three hours of songs ready to go. And that kind of confidence—those skills—then engender confidence in myself, which then gives other people permission to jump on board.

If you're just thinking about how to facilitate meetings, that could look like practicing icebreakers—like having icebreakers at the ready, having jokes at the ready, literally making a list of jokes that you tell and brushing up on it before the meeting and having one or two ready to go.

There's a really great book called The Change Handbook.

And it has hundreds of different group projects or systems for getting group feedback and making change—having a handful of different ways to facilitate group process, for instance.

Megan: Yes. Excellent—group process, yes.

Bennett: Any leader should have those fun, compelling, different, useful ways of getting people to work together at the ready. And that takes work ahead of time. The seven Ps—we can't get away from the seven Ps of success: Prior Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

If you're preparing for a board retreat or preparing to harvest several hundred pounds of balsam tips—both require a little bit of preparation. That gives you the confidence that then allows people to come in.

We cast almost five acres of field with winter rye at Sylvester Manor in 2007. We had 120 people in the field spreading the rye. And I had prepared the songs that I thought would work, and I wrote them down on a little note card and put them in my front pocket. So I was ready that in the next moment, after the first song, I could just refer to the card. And that way I didn't have to rely on remembering in the flow of things—I could just glance at the card and then boom—into the next one, which was a song that I had prepared and was ready for the moment.

Megan: That's really interesting because we think of play as being spontaneous, right? So that preparing the ground—literally and metaphorically—so that you’re creating that space so that people can just ride in it.

And I just want to say, my experience of being a dancer while you were playing last night—I was not aware consciously of your music. I could just ride it. I wasn't thinking, “Oh, now I'm hearing you playing, and I'm trying to follow it.” It was all of a piece.

 [00:25:00]

Bennett: Yes. And the structure… there's something about structure and rules and discipline that enables creativity. It's often overlooked, but I think the most creative people often have a discipline they're inside of—a daily discipline. “I'm going to make one drawing a day,” or in my case, it could be “I'm going to write one verse a day,” or even “I'm going to play with one rhyme scheme a day.”

With work songs, for me, it's often about the structures of the songs themselves, which deliver you to a moment. If you have an AABB rhyme scheme, sometimes if I have the flexibility—and I often do—to switch it around, I might make it ABAB, because that gives you double the amount of time to think of your next rhyme.

Megan: Just to give a clue to people—because when you're singing in the field, sometimes people are then chiming in and coming up with their own verse, with the rhyme. So they have to, like you said, have the time for that to come to them.

Bennett: That's right. Yeah. And even me—I try to give myself a break by, if I'm writing the song, giving myself the time to improvise the lyric. I often think of the way that I do work songs as a tradition of spontaneous invention, where we have a form and we might sing three or four traditional verses to an old sea shanty and then start improvising new verses using the same form.

So again, this play between structure and innovation or spontaneity—it really doesn't work so well if you go out without any structure whatsoever. People love a little structure.

Same with the contra dancing. We get big crowds to come contra-dance. It's just a different way to experience movement and music. But I can say that a lot of people feel really comforted having a little bit of form. “We're gonna do-si-do here, you're gonna cross the set there, we're gonna balance and swing at the top of the B section.” It's a comforting structure that then allows people to improvise as they're dancing—“I'm gonna move my body a little bit differently here,” “I'm gonna do a little twirl there,” “I'm gonna have a flourish here.” And amazing things happen that way when there's just a little bit of structure.

Megan: And also, just as when you're dancing and the music is cuing you to the next section, because you know intuitively—you’re not thinking about it—you’re feeling, “Oh, we're shifting into this next part, and that means we're moving into this next…” So that we're doing it all in communion at the same time.

Bennett: Yeah, absolutely.

Megan: So I would like to just segue here and have you talk about this—because we were talking about this when you were last visiting—that you have this desire to be able to pass on all of this that you've been gathering through the years, through your experience. I'd like you to talk about that and bring a little bit of this play to: what’s your vision for that?

Bennett: I've been researching work songs as a practice and art form since the early 2000s. I started using them in the mid-90s but didn't put my academic frame on it until I was in college in 2002, more or less—2001, 2002.

And then I started looking around and realized, wow, all over the world for most of human history, people have used songs or music to help get the work done. So that led to going to different countries and working with different people. And I think we're really missing out—our culture is really missing out—by forgetting how to do this. Whether it's singing while doing the dishes or sweeping the floor, or even having a workplace chorus that meets after lunch.

One way or another, I would feel really bad if I died without sharing that vision—that people can do this. It's a natural human thing. It's our birthright, actually. No matter what culture your grandparents were a part of or where you're living now or what you're doing, you have the tool. It's right here. You've got a voice—most of us have a voice. Most of us—all of us—have some sort of rhythmic component. And all of us have work. Even if we're out of work technically, there's still work to be done—cleaning the kitchen, for instance. Or even dealing with trauma and the miseries that life presents.

And the music is there for us. Music is there for us.

So how to share that? What I've been doing for the last couple of decades has been leading workshops mostly, and helping people on different farms and different contexts sing while getting something done, or helping rowers—sailors—sing while getting things done.

Atlantic Challenge USA is one organization that does seamanship training in Maine. We go out in 10-oared rowboats and sing while rowing, particularly with teens and twenty-somethings, helping them connect with a sense of place but also learn this transformative tool that takes the attitude we have about work—which is one of suffering, wanting to avoid the suffering of work—and transforms it into something closer to play.

So I want to help the world. I want to keep going on with the workshops, but then I also need to find other ways to help—books, podcasts, lessons, things online that people can learn from. I think that's what I'll have to do. Talks—I’ve done some talks. I did a TED Talk over a decade ago. But there's more.

Even just getting into more communities and helping them jog and sing—there are jogging groups all over the world. There are 10Ks. I should start entering some of these 5Ks and just singing—getting groups of people to sing and jog. That's my hope. Use any method possible, really.

Megan: Excellent. Looking forward to seeing how you evolve this. And I encourage everyone listening to follow Bennett—his journey in this passion to bring this playfulness to our sense of getting things done.

Bennett: Yes. I've been calling it “The Work Song Project” for years, but I'm thinking of shifting into calling it “Moving Music,” because then it really can include contra-dancing and other sorts of forms of music that get you moving. And also it's moving in terms of—it moves you to a different place. It could be spiritually. It could be physically.

Megan: Emotionally.

Bennett: Psychologically. Yes—emotionally, yeah.

Megan: We look forward to following you and being a part of everything that you create. And so I'm going to put in the show notes all the ways that we can get in touch with you, Bennett. And thank you so much for filling us in more deeply on your process. I'm grateful to you.

Bennett: Glad to be here. And if anybody wants to reach out, you can email me Bennett@worksongs.org or Bennett@bagaducemusic.org—and that’s the name of the music library. I'm happy to talk with anyone and come to your community, do some fun projects, or just talk on the phone.

Or I have a “dial-a-work-song” system where if you're picking cherries in a cherry tree and you need a song, you can text me—207-FLUX-OXEN is the Google number—and I'll see a message and I'll call back and leave a song on your voicemail.

Megan: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome, Bennett.

Bennett: So yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me, Megan.

Megan: Thanks so much.

[00:34:00]

They reflect on leadership as resonance—“we don’t need to force anything”—and how it “begins with self-leadership… with consciousness, with coherence and awareness,” aligning with nature’s cadence: “when my mind, my heart, my body move [with] the same rhythm, in the rhythm of all things…” Giu shares tender passages of challenge and renewal: rebuilding taste and smell after illness (“Brain, please register”), meeting menopause as initiation, and welcoming change as devotion to life—“What an opportunity to be reborn.”

✨ Connect with Giu

Instagram: @giu_bergamo

Online classes in English at Giving Naam: givingnaamwellness.org In-person classes in Portuguese at Naam Yoga São Paulo

Giu’s app with classes in Portuguese: ritmosbemestar.com

• FULL TRANSCRIPT

Megan: Hello. I'm so happy to be talking with you today.

Giu: Oh, Megan, I'm happy to be here with you. Thank you for inviting me.

Megan: Yes,

Giu: It's a blessing to be here.

Megan: Yes, for all of our listeners, this is Giu Bergamo and she is in Brazil and she is one of my favorite people and teachers. And so I am so excited to have you here on the Spirit of Leadership Podcast.

Giu: Thank you, Megan. I'm so glad. I'm glad to be here. Yes, I'm from Brazil and my accent is special.

Megan: Yes, definitely. And can you tell people about yourself, who you are in yourself and what you do?

Giu: I want to begin saying that I'm a soul. And as a soul, I inspire myself to act with movement, teaching people to move their bodies as a temple because our bodies are our temple.

And then since the beginning, I started to dance when I was very little. I'm little in weight, but it is a way of living to move the body. And I start very soon when I was seven. So this gave me the special relationship with my soul because my soul could feel the movement and then I start to, to dance and then teach dancing, teaching ballet.

Then I became a publicist in my studies and then I said, okay, I don't need this in my life, but I like, and I just move again to the body. And then I studied Pilates and Gyrotonics and then yoga, and then I came to Naam Yoga that changes my life completely because Naam Yoga is the yoga for the soul.

And I say, okay, this is my tribe. I like this. And then I study everything about Naam yoga, all the teacher trainings. And I'm a leader here in Brazil, I think is a soul leader in Brazil because we connect to the souls. And I continued teaching and then I teach the kinds of yoga therapy, hormone yoga.

And also I'm an astrologer, Vedic astrologer, which gives me this soul path. The soul path that aligned me to the stars, to the cycles, to the nature. And I love to be in nature. And then I want to guide everyone who I meet, and it's like when we move our body, I want to express this combination of many energies that we are getting in touch with.

Not only the movement itself, but the sensation, the environment and then we are together. So I like to say that I'm a teacher that inspires you to guide, to be guided through your soul, your soul guidance. And then I can help you to move your body to, to feel this, the soul. Like - how can I say? - soul class and then you know what I'm talking about because you do my classes and then you can share some that you feel in my classes.

Megan: Yes. It's so wonderful to hear you talk about how you came to this and that you came through dance from early on, which is also how I came to yoga - through dance.

And I think it's one of the reasons that I really love your classes, but also you bring that, you definitely bring that soulfulness through. Your imagination - when you're talking - and I remember one time when you were teaching and you were saying imagine that there are rainbows coming out of your fingers.

And I'm just like a little child like, oh, that's so wonderful. I’m imagining rainbows coming out of my fingers while I'm moving and breathing. And so it's that combination of feeling, the sensation of being in the body. So the soul embodied, so the soul can express itself through our physical sensations.

And there's a kind of sensuality about it that is soulful. 

Giu: It is, it's perfect. I remember this class and I - my imagination is very fertile - how can I say this as…

Megan: fertile,

Giu: fertile. And I can imagine since I was little, I could imagine many things.

And then my mom inspired me to do okay, you can build the whole city by your imagination, so keep going. And then I said, okay. And then after 50 years, I've just imagined, with my clients, with my students. It is so wonderful. Thank you for sharing about this, rainbows. And then yes, when we go to imagination, because imagination is a leadership for creativity.

So when you get your mind going while you move your body, you have mind and spirit because the imagination is the spiritual realm, right? You can imagine. And then you can feel the imagination. So you bring to your body, this non-reality to the reality. So when you do this movement, imagining the fingertips like rainbows, you can touch the rainbow itself. Because we only see the rainbow very far from us when we see it when it's raining and then there's the sun. And then you are the water, you are the sun, and then you are the rainbow with all your colors. So it's beautiful. Thank you for remembering this. Yes.

Megan: Yes. And it's interesting when you talked about - that's the leadership - the soul and the imagination being the leadership of the life force and your expression in life. 

How do you experience being and becoming a leader? How have you experienced it in your life and in your community?

Giu: I think leadership for me… When I began, I had no idea I was a leader in Pilates. I was a leader in Gyrotonics. I was a leader. I am a leader in Naam Yoga because it is how I'm working nowadays, but for me, begins with self-leadership. This ability to self-knowledge to lead yourself with consciousness, with coherence and awareness.

Because to be a leader, we have to lead ourselves. When my mind, my heart, my body move the same rhythm, in the rhythm of all things - that is happening with my presence. And then I can turn my presence itself in leadership, in a leader is the, is the truth? 

I like the teachings from Naam Yoga because leadership, the teachings lead us to the truth. And then you don't need to command, I don't need to command, it is like flowing naturally. I'm inspired by the rhythms of the nature. I love nature. I just came from the Amazon rainforest, from this past weekend.

And yes. The rhythms of nature are like, we don't need to force anything. It's like it's real. And then the way I live, by the way I live and then I inspire others, I think is the true leadership. So it radiates from this alignment, from this work that we do every day, not from, I think it's not an effort.

I think it's like my body aligns. And I speak and then people follow me. so naturally, and I think it's the altar of consciousness. Yeah.

Megan: Beautifully said. Beautifully said.

Giu: Yes, because, as a Rosicrucian, I just lead very early, in the temple, as the columba, the name of the girl very young, from 12 to 14. I decided to be a columba. I don't know the name in English, but is the one who represents the consciousness in the temple. It's like a, it's like a pomba. The name is the bird…

Megan: Dove. 

Giu: Yes. The dove. The dove. It represents the consciousness of the temple. So as a columba, as a dove, I had to incense the temple and then the four corners, and then in the altar, the Shekinah inside the temple was a triangle.

I lit the light, the candles like doing a prayer. And then as a consciousness I light this candle as love, as, truth as life. And then I began very early. So it is like when we lead the light of consciousness for others. I had no idea what I was doing at 12, 14 years old, but now I know it was a path in life, of consciousness, of the altar - is the altar of consciousness, altar of the soul.

And then we can lead, we can lead others to do the same. Not inside the temple, the building, but inside our own temple. Because the Shekinah represents our heart where the true light, the true wisdom, the true life can shine. So our body is the temple, and I love to teach classes so that we can enter this temple.

Megan: And that's exactly how I feel when I'm taking your classes. Even though it's online, I feel…

Giu: Good, good.

Megan: We're right there in that beautiful space. Yes.

Giu: You know what you are saying about online classes... I don’t know if you remember when we entered the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Levry said, “I can reach you through online. Please feel your heart, feel your energy.” That class, I said, okay, I will. You go from this. I will give, I will send the energy out through the space, through the wifi, through the corners of the earth so we can share energy, so we can feel each other.

Otherwise,we couldn't stand online. I'm feeling your energy right now and I'm shining with you, so it's beautiful. I think. Yeah, we can all do the same.

Megan: And that's one of the reasons too, that I'm doing this podcast series is because it's so wonderful to have a conversation and then be able to share it with others, so we're not limited by time and space.

Giu: Yeah.

It is an illusion. I don't know. I'm just repeating this, because it's not an illusion because I see my clock. Okay. But it is because our mind-frame was trained to see the clock.

And then I created a class that I call, Plans, Your Plans in the Solar Rhythm. So when you open your agenda, you see all the times in your agenda.

There are times for the sun because noon is the sun. 7:00 PM is the sun. 7:00 AM is the sun and the cycle. With the sun, we can do our plan. So we can move, I don't know, the old, the old ancient life, with the sun. And then we perceive all our plans running through the sun. So, time exists in our mind, but is like infinite, is infinite.

This is, like, tricky as humans because we are trained to see the time like frame and the time is: you have no time…you have to do this in this time, but really, we need to enjoy. In the Amazon, there's no time. There's only the time of the sun and the rain and the moon and the stars, so we don't have to worry about the time, just see the sun. We feel the nature, the sounds of nature, the sounds of the forest, and then we return to the sounds in ourselves. So it's it's wonderful. Is wonderful. It's wow. I wish I could bring everyone there to feel the Mother Nature - is the womb, is healing, is true. Healing from within - and then we can remember who we are being there.

Megan: Beautiful. That's so beautiful. And one question I'd really like to ask you is what challenge, what is one of the - because I'm sure that you've overcome, faced and overcome many - but what is one challenge that you can share with us that you have faced and overcome? That's really made you who you are and who you are becoming?

Giu: There's many, but I remember when you were saying, I remember in the pandemic when I lost my senses, I had no taste and the smell, no smell, no taste. And then, I said, wow, what I'm going to do? I don't feel the food. I cannot taste the food. I cannot smell the food. And then this was like a challenge.

And then through Sukshma yoga, through breathing, through Naam yoga, through the meditation, I said, okay, I need to - how can I say this - 

Megan: revive. 

Giu: to bring significance again, yeah, to revive, to bring this… Okay, I don't feel, I don't smell. And then, okay, I need to train my brain again.

Okay, what I'm tasting now is… Brain, please register.

Like I was learning the first smell, the first taste of each food. And then I train my brain through the breath. Because of this, I'm devotee of  Sukshma yoga, and I keep going teaching everyone because it's like a powerful class, a powerful way to return to the breath and then give the brain food through the breath.

And then that's what I did. 

And then now, five years later, five years from this day that I felt no sense, no taste and no smell, now I can smell and taste food again, like training the brain. And also we have the shadows, right? Menopause - I'm in menopause - is a shadow.

Like what you are bringing out, there's no training to enter in the menopause. I'm training myself to regain the power to… regain and then to - I think the word is - return to myself, the real self. Because we don't need to do nothing, but we can do everything in this feeling.

It is the same five years from the COVID now in menopause. I'm just bringing new significance to the life with… I think it's the same body, but it's a completely new body, new way of thinking, new hair, new skin because everything is changing our mood. And then again, I stand in this soul leadership.

How can I do this for me and then inspire others crossing the same path. Who is crossing my path that I can help to listen to their own body, listen, this rainforest inside of me that is changing. It's completely changing because I keep returning to the forest each year, seven years that I go every year.

Everything changed there. It's wow, this is… last year was completely different. Yes. So I can be different each day. So let it be. How can I love myself in the mirror today? What can bring to me this life that I'm looking for? How can I inspire my clients? How can I inspire the people who I meet today?

So yeah, it's like the trees, is like the forest. So I overcame the COVID, but I'm overcoming now this new Giu that is old but is new. How can I move? How can I stand tall with all these changes? Yeah, I'm just teaching myself to accept - I think it is acceptance - but it's not acceptance in the negative - is the positive.

Wow. What an opportunity to be reborn.

Megan: Yeah. beautiful. And, you express it so beautifully and come round to that inspiration and how you inspire yourself. And then that is very inspiring to all of us in your circle, your big circle. 

Giu: thank you

Megan: And can you tell people how to be in touch with you and how to join in, and experience this?

I can put links in the show notes, but please tell us.

Giu: Okay. I'm teaching through Zoom. 

Also, I have Naam Yoga. Sao Paulo - a place, a physical place that I founded, 15 years ago. I teach there classes in Portuguese.

 But online, you can reach me on my Instagram that is Giu underline Bergamo.

@giu_bergamo

And, I have my own app where I share my Portuguese classes. And then we can add the link to this podcast.

App

ritmosbemestar.com

Also I teach for Giving Naam - givingnaam.com - where you can find my Naam 5 classes that are amazing classes. We move as a whole in five exercises that are all the same, but it is completely different, each class.

https://givingnaamwellness.org/p/naam-giu

And then I teach Sukshma. Also for Giving Naam.

https://givingnaamwellness.org/p/sukshmahmethod-giu

And then you can find me in all these places, and then you can share, you can ask me things and then you can, meet me in my WhatsApp too if you want, because it's a way to connect too. 

Yes, please share all this.

Megan: Yes, we'll share all this

Giu: English classes, Portuguese classes, and Instagram and WhatsApp - amazing to know, and then reach out to everybody who wants to reach out to me.

Megan: Yes, and please do reach out because you are just such a treasure and I'm so grateful.

Giu: I'm grateful. Oh my God. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I'm super happy to be here with you. Thank you. Thank you all.

Listeners, I'm sending you love and light and then waiting for you in my classes or maybe in my Instagram - will be a pleasure.

Thank you.

Bill McKibben—legendary environmentalist and author of Here Comes the Sun—joins Spirit of Leadership to reveal the swift global surge in solar and wind energy and the hope it ushers in.

In this inspiring episode, host Megan Chaskey and McKibben explore how renewable power transforms lives worldwide—from California’s solar-charged batteries to Pakistani farmers replacing diesel pumps with solar panels to power irrigation.

One especially moving story: in just eight months, communities in Pakistan—guided largely by TikTok tutorials—installed the equivalent of half the nation’s electric grid with solar, slashing fuel costs and bringing new resilience to daily life.

Together, they dive into the climate crisis through the lens of this surprising upsurge in renewable technology, grassroots activism, and the deeper spiritual connection humans share with the sun—our omni-present source of light, warmth, and now, limitless clean energy. Amid global challenges, McKibben offers a powerful reminder that we stand at a turning point: a moment when optimism and action can rise together.

If the links are not clickable, copy and paste them into a browser.

McKIBBEN'S BOOK:

Here Comes the Sun A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization

https://billmckibben.com/books/here-comes-the-sun/

CLIMATE ACTION ORGANIZATION

https://thirdact.org/

JOIN US FOR SUN DAY - DAY OF ACTION, SEPT 21, 2025:

https://sunday.earth/

THE MATTHIESSEN TALKS: BILL McKIBBEN, A LAST CHANCE FOR THE CLIMATE AND A FRESH CHANCE FOR CIVILIZATION

https://www.matthiessencenter.org/bill-mckibben

Sunday, September 28, 2025 - 4:00 PM–5:30PM GUILD HALL, East Hampton, NY

Presented with The Peter Matthiessen Center

https://www.guildhall.org/events/the-matthiessen-talks-bill-mckibben/

Transcript of interview with important links:

https://bit.ly/transcript-here-comes-the-sun

with Owen Ó Súilleabháin

What does it mean to lead from the unseen?

In this soul-rich conversation, Owen Ó Súilleabháin joins host Megan Chaskey to explore leadership from a place of reverence, imagination, and deep attunement to natural cycles.

Drawing from his lineage, artistic practice, and work in leadership development, Owen speaks to the Celtic understanding of seasonality, the power of visionary leadership in times of change, and the vital role of synchronicity and story. From the oak forests of Ireland to the shifting seasons of Western New York, he brings a perspective both ancient and timely — offering a path of leadership rooted in humility, relational intelligence, and love.

This episode touches on:

• Visionary leadership
• Organizational dynamics and cultural renewal
• The wisdom of Celtic awareness of cycles of change
• Synchronicity, art, and the symbolic dimension of transformation
• Leadership as a tender, sacred responsibility shaped by inner truth

We close with a Shaker song Owen sings — a reminder that love is both the guide and the pull of the unknown.

In this episode, teacher, and leadership guide Owen Ó Súilleabháin invites us into a deeper rhythm of leadership—one rooted in ancestral wisdom, nature’s cycles, and the call of the unseen horizon.

Owen shares stories of his father’s visionary impact on Irish cultural education, the soul of Celtic timekeeping, and the courage it takes to create something the world cannot yet see.

“A visionary leader takes an organization somewhere no one can see—it doesn’t exist yet. It's over a horizon. Nobody knows exactly where it’s going.”

Through myth, metaphor, and synchronicity, Owen draws connections between nature’s timing and our inner seasons—offering a vision of leadership that is relational, intuitive, and attuned.

“Trying to harvest in winter won’t work. Each season has its wisdom. The work of the leader is to know what time it is.”

We explore the sacred pulse of life through Celtic eyes, where love and mystery guide action, and silence itself can hold a leadership role.

“Love doesn’t know where it’s going. That doesn’t mean it’s not real—it means it’s humble, tender, and true.”

This is a rich conversation for those longing to lead with presence, precision, and poetic vision.

“Let yourself be drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” — Rumi

Thank you so much for listening.

I trust something in Owen’s words opened insights for you.

When he spoke of the oak tree—“rising in the darkness before the world can see,”

and of visionary leadership that “roots in stillness, in what the world cannot yet see”—

we can hear a deeper wisdom in that timing.

A rhythm already alive in us, often unnoticed.

I’d love to invite you to explore further through a short private audio I created:

Hidden in Plain Sight: Your Luminous Timing.

To help you begin feeling into that rhythm in your own life—

by tuning into natural cycles—subtle, ancient, deeply supportive—

and discovering how they can guide your choices, especially in times of change.

🎧 You can listen for free by signing up at https://bit.ly/4jITf1x

Or, ready to go deeper on a regular rhythm?

Let’s take the next step together—an opening to a new way of listening.

The rhythm continues in Your Luminous Timing—a private podcast guiding you every two weeks with lunar insights and timing cues to help you move through your life with clarity, creativity, and intuitive precision.

I invite you to join my series here

https://bit.ly/your-luminous-timing

✨ Listen your way: in your favorite podcast player. You'll receive instructions once you sign up.

🌙 What You’ll Receive

Inside Your Luminous Timing:

🌿 Lunar Listener — $11/month

A steady rhythm to support clarity and momentum.

Includes:

• A private podcast episode every two weeks
• Guidance for workflow, planning, self-care, and more—grounded in the current lunar phase, cycle, and intricate patterns
• Insightful stories and real-life reflections
• A special welcome episode when you join

🌌 Celestial Seeker — $33/month

For those ready to go deeper.

• Includes everything in Lunar Listener, plus:
• Monthly celestial timing overview episodes—covering lunar phases, cycles, solstices, equinoxes, and eclipses
• In‑depth timing cues (including ideal windows for launching, signing contracts, and when not to!)
• Guidance on optimal times for self-care, gardening, and seasonal alignment
• Bonus Q&A or spontaneous insight drops
• Priority access to workshops and future events

🎁 Bonus for New Subscribers

Join today and receive a special bonus episode to help you sync with this week’s lunar energy—right away.



Her TEDx talk, Do You See the Signs of the Universe?, has reached over 3.3 million views, and she is the author of a book on signs and how to elevate your vision and transform the story of your life.

Through her WiseWoman Energetics one-on-one mentorship, her writings and meditations, and her international Zoom wisdom circles, Ulla invites you into a sacred space where luxury meets wisdom — and every step is a creative dance with the Universe. She guides and empowers her clients to awaken their inner knowing, align with the energy and essence of their dreams, and lead with presence, purpose, and love.

https://wisewomanenergetics.com/

https://wisewomanenergetics.com/book/ Signs of the Universe by Ulla Suokko

https://youtu.be/c_X_sPNUDes?feature=shared Do You See the Signs of the Universe? | Ulla Suokko | TEDxBigSky



TRANSCRIPT

Ulla Suokko - Signs of the Universe

​[00:00:00] 

Megan Chaskey: Welcome to the Spirit of Leadership Podcast. Listen in as we talk with emerging as well as seasoned leaders, change makers and visionaries. And hear their stories, how they have overcome challenges, how they cultivate inspired vision as stewards and mentors shining their light to uplift and empower others,

reconnecting us through a sense of belonging to the natural world and to the interweaving circles of just and vital communities.

[00:01:00] Hello, Ulla. I am so happy to have you here today in this conversation. I know that it's going to be very inspiring, heartwarming also. So welcome. 

Ulla Suokko: Thank you so much. I am so happy to have this conversation with you as well and extend it to all those who are listening to us. 

Megan Chaskey: So I'd like to introduce. Ulla Suokko, and she's a transformational mentor and author and speaker and artist.

She wears a lot of hats, which is a beautiful side of her sacred personality, and she has a fascinating global journey, which I hope we can touch on a bit during this conversation. And she holds a doctoral degree from Julliard. So there's this wonderful aspect of her musical being that she brings to [00:02:00] all of her teachings, and she's traveled the whole world as a performer and as a person who inspires.

And her message is about authentic alignment and intuitive guidance and personal transformation. For example, she has a TEDx talk, Do You See the Signs of the Universe? And we'll put a link to that in the show notes because I highly recommend watching that. And she's the author of the book, Signs of the Universe, A Practical Guide to Shift Your Story.

One of the phrases that I want to bring out here in your introduction is how you said you inspire the people you work with to awaken inner knowing and align with the energy and essence of dreams and lead with presence, purpose, and love, [00:03:00] and that phrase, leading with presence and purpose and love inspired me to reach out to you and invite you to be on this podcast interview.

I'm so grateful that you're here. Tell us where you're speaking from. 

Ulla Suokko: I am currently in Finland, in the northern part of our beautiful planet, and we are still in these beautiful full moon energies as well, bathing in the energies that just keep being very strong for us and supporting us to exactly invoke the essence and energy of our dreams and embody it. And I feel that there's a certain urgency for all of us to embrace the spirit of leadership [00:04:00] in our own unique way and find that leadership of love that I call it within us so that we can truly be part of the shift and transformation on a personal level, but also on a global level altogether.

Megan Chaskey: It's just so beautiful that you're bringing it to this moment too, where we are as humanity and being part of this shift that is happening. I am really appreciating your voice in expressing that. When I was coming up with the idea of the essence of this podcast series, being a poet, I received the phrase spirit of leadership.

So it's led me on an exploration of what that means and [00:05:00] why it's come to me, and also sensing into what are the conversations that need to happen. Intimate conversations, but also that we can share with people to inspire them. When I was reading your book, you talked about leading with love, a verb. Spirit of leadership, yes, is a state and it's a presence. When you said lead with love, it brought up a whole new thing for me, so I would love to hear you speak on that. 

Ulla Suokko: I feel that we are on a beautiful and powerful threshold where the old way of leadership, somewhere out there that we follow is now to turn within and really understand that we all have amazing power [00:06:00] to generate change, and it's not necessarily the kind of change in the old way of thinking where we go to the barricades and change things out there again. But when we do learn to use the miraculous power that is within each and every one of us we can generate these incredible shifts that absolutely makes a difference because when more and more of us are really awakening different parts of the amazing layers of the universe that we are investing our own energy into the bank where the change that we want to see is happening instead of opposing something out there, we find the yes within ourselves and we find the power of true leadership [00:07:00] of love and the spirit of leadership that needs to be on the individual level. We are not anymore just a herd. We can find that kind of leadership and be inspired by it because it's always present, but instead of fighting something that we don't like, I really want to invite all of us to follow what we want to empower because as the saying goes, where your attention goes, energy flows.

So we are powerful beyond our current understanding, and little by little we can awaken that power in a very organic and authentic and safe way. I think that I, many of us also that are spiritual change makers, we've had to [00:08:00] deal with even the word power because it has been maybe something that we haven't wanted because we were burned at stake.

So now it's time to actually understand that true power is really love and true power is blossoming and true power is creative and supportive. And the other stuff that we've talked about as power has not really been power. It has been something else that has been disguised behind the definition of power, and that's one thing that I really invite all of us to do is to examine the words that we use so that we can feel the energy of the words like spells. And the more we awaken and [00:09:00] more powerful we become, the faster those spells also bear fruit. And so let's take that beautiful responsibility of defining the words anew and allowing us to even change their energy in the world.

Many words that have been misused, love included, love, power, money, so that we can absolutely redefine them and reembody them within this spirit of leadership, and I would say spiritual leadership or holistic leadership, where it's not against something, but it's all inclusive. Not exclusive, but inclusive.

So [00:10:00] really to pay with the idea and play with what does this mean to me and how can I look at it in an empowering way? What is the story that I tell about anything really in my life? And is the story supporting me or is it weakening me? Is it making me feel light and confident and happy? Or is it making me heavy or limited?

And we have that power. We really, truly are ready to use that power and step into a new era of leadership and new era of taking responsibility of the change. 

Megan Chaskey: Yes. 

Ulla Suokko: And transformation in this world. 

Megan Chaskey: Yes. So beautifully said. I love how you weave [00:11:00] together the inner experience with how we perceive what is happening around us, and the sense of, yes, it's our individual inner experience, but it's how do we connect with that unified sense of empowerment that is happening in the broader field, people's awareness. Do you see that happening? 

Ulla Suokko: Absolutely, and I choose to see that happening because the other stuff is also happening, but I choose to put my focus, my attention to all the powerful stuff and good stuff and stuff that I want to support in this world, and that "we" thing happens also when we authentically align with the truth of who we are.

Because [00:12:00] ultimately each one of us is the universe, and at the same time, there's no separation at that level. So to harness the individual power is really harnessing the universal love when we do it in an authentic and aligned way. And of course our mind is like, what? It's okay. I always say, let's have our mind do some Sudoku or something.

We honor you. You are brilliant, you're great. But right now I want to travel the universe. Right now I'm going to spiral into the galaxies and sorry you can't follow here. So let's get back to you as a later moment. 

Megan Chaskey: Can you tell a story of when you followed that thread yourself? Because you have some very inspiring stories that you've told in your book and in your TEDx talk, [00:13:00] and I feel that it's the way you express those moments when you were at that threshold and you needed to find your way.

To be given that sense from the universe. I love the intimacy of your stories because you bring us into that moment of not knowing. Tell us a story, a specific story. Yes. What comes to mind or what comes to heart 

Ulla Suokko: Really, because I've been writing about this, I have so many stories, but I think the one that is also in my  TEDx talk when I was a student at Julliard and I felt really insecure about my future. It is even now a good story because it's very universal in that sense that we can have those moments at any given time on [00:14:00] our path, and it was one of those moments when I felt that nothing's working and I was really afraid that I don't know how to bring forth my gifts and talents because the doors somehow seemed very closed for me to go ahead in my career.

So I just decided to speak to the universe and I said, Hello, hello, anybody there? We need to talk because I'm really afraid and I'm frustrated and I don't know what to do. And I think the best thing would be to give me a sign, a clear sign, so that I would know if I'm even on the right path because I am really willing to persevere if I know that this is the path that I should, I continue on. That's also something that I talk about now. There's no right or wrong path. There's just [00:15:00] your path. Yeah, you are always on the right path. Right? Wrong is our, that kind of juxtaposition that is about separation. But now I already know that that's surrender to the path that we are on and the answers are given to us.

But in that moment, I was feeling that I was not on the right path. 

Megan Chaskey: It was also because by being at Julliard and being a professional flute player and what the world puts out there as the path for the professional. The professional musician. 

Ulla Suokko: Yes. A performer. Yes. And a lot of pressure in that bubble to perform.

Always top level. And if I can just deviate from that story a little bit. I think that for me, maybe the most powerful thing that I learned at Julliard or powerful [00:16:00] container within Julliard was that I got a scholarship for community outreach work, and I got to play in hospitals and mental wards. And homeless shelters.

And ultimately I became the liaison between Julliard and Hospice, and I played at people's bedsides for the families and the person who was dying. And I think that was perfect. High Five Universe, perfect training for me because I really could see so tangibly the healing power of music and ultimately whether I performed well under pressure in an important concert was really secondary to those moments of playing and talking to those people, and I also [00:17:00] found a gift there that was mine to work in this world. I have since accompanied many people in those fragile moments in different capacities, also as a healer and the kind of mentor and transformation coach that I am.

So that too was already a hint that at that time I really failed to see it clearly because then I found myself in that position like, oh, nothing is working and my career is not moving on. Whereas it was moving on exactly as it was supposed to move on. But I didn't see that because I was expecting those, I was looking for signs for the more traditional concert artist path that was more of the Julliard path.

And, don't get me wrong, I [00:18:00] really loved the education that I got from Juilliard. Absolutely was amazing. The first school where I was challenged because I always wanted to learn so much, but I felt that school was too easy. So at Juilliard I was challenged, I felt in the right way. So anyway, I was there on a very hot summer Sunday, desperate. And I was asking for a sign from the universe, and I was demanding for a sign. Really? I was like, yeah, give me a sign and give me a sign that I can understand none of those cryptic messages that I have no idea what they mean. And then after that, I went for a walk already a little bit relieved because I had talked out loud to the universe.

I felt that something had to change, but I didn't know how and I didn't know what to do, and I felt really sad and then scared. And then I was walking, [00:19:00] uh, on Broadway and crossing Broadway at 81st Street. I. And there was a book out upside down and I thought, oh my goodness, somebody must have dropped their book.

Because I'm very respectful of books. I love books. And then I thought, I can at least look what the book is. And I turned the book around and its title is The Singing Flute. I'm really shaken at that moment and I was thinking, could this be my sign? It's really quite obvious, but I was still doubting. But I open up the book and the first sentence is, this is a story of a little finish girl.

And here is a Finnish girl, a flute student at Julliard asking for a sign, and there's a book that I always say that they were supposed to drop it on my head, [00:20:00] but they missed because I was hesitating, crossing. And I love that tangibility of that sign also, because I think that was the biggest sign so far at that point, and as you can see, I've given a TEDx talk about the science of the universe. I've written a book about it. I keep teaching about it. This is an important story in my curriculum of life, and I would really invite all the listeners to start really gathering these stories because we all have them.

We all have signs. Some are smaller, some are bigger. And another thing that I want to say that, okay, you got the sign and what? It's not yet, it doesn't come with all the answers. It's just the sign, like a kick on the butt that okay, [00:21:00] yes, we say yes now go figure it out. Now go. Go be it. Go embody it, go find out, allow it to unfold and pay attention to the signs because they are everywhere all the time.

We are guiding you. But please pay attention. And that was basically what also happened to me in that moment is, okay, boom. Okie dokie. Let me pay attention. I'll be a good girl. I'll listen now and I'm not trying to force the signs to be what I want them to be, but I'm going to start paying attention what really is given to me.

And then I realized that I was not meant to be anything traditional. I was meant to really carve my own path so that I can serve the best with all that I am. Because even as a musician, I always wanted to [00:22:00] inspire people and the training almost, almost at various points of my life, almost killed it. Wow. The demands of the high level performance started eating up the soul of, the joy of music. Wow. Uh, but I persevered through those moments and the first of those happened when in my teens already. And I can see why those happened too, because being now the guide and mentor and teacher, I had to also have those moments so that I can understand when people have those setbacks and when they almost give up.

Because I also almost gave up so many times. And to [00:23:00] learn how not to give up on yourself, how not to give up on that spirit within you, not to give up on, on your soul, and not to exchange the essence of your dreams with something that the world tells you are supposed to value. And I think that all in all, everything is always perfect, but let's pay attention so that we can, instead of becoming a victim of those moments, we can turn it around and see that we can be leaders in that moment and we can make choices that really, truly are empowered and we can teach that to ourselves. We might need to unlearn some of the patterns that we've thought are ours, [00:24:00] but none of the conditioning is really true to our blueprint and the conditioning comes from what we learn from the world. And what I'm doing in my work is to really invite people to the truth of who they are and finding that pure center of love and creativity. Power that is within each one of us.

And for me, signs of the universe become, they are not the end of it. When we ask for a sign, we better ask also for a manual after we get the sign or an outline, what then, or ask ourselves that. Because remember, you are the universe. So you're not really asking it from outside of you. The universe speaks your language.

The universe [00:25:00] speaks the language of your imagination and your intuition. It speaks in your poetry because it responds to your vibration. And the more you elevate your vibration, which means feel lighter, feel better. The more the universe can play with you on those frequencies. That's why gratitude is so powerful, because gratitude really prepares you to receive more of that frequency that you are grateful for.

Megan Chaskey: It's lovely. I'm feeling while I'm listening to you, the playfulness also, that it's not a prescription. So you're training in music. That you enjoyed that challenge of going to school to master playing music, [00:26:00] and yet you are the instrument. Your flute is the instrument, but you are the instrument. So it's always in the moment, always paying attention.

You were enjoying this challenge because it was asking you to come into that role of learning to master something. It's interesting then in that process, you came to the point where it was a track and it was prescribed, and then it was, okay, how do I get back to playing with the universe and feeling that is playing through me?

And you had that experience of playing at the bedside and with people in hospice. When they were at a transition point, whether they were the caregivers or the people who were going through that transition and [00:27:00] talking about playing, I love hearing how your experience as a musician is informing how you listen, receive, and respond, and play with the energies.

Ulla Suokko: Yes, and thank you for seeing that because I really think that the training to listen and mind you, not all musicians listen either. I invite all of you musicians out there. You really also pay attention because we need to listen with all of our being and like you said, no matter what instrument we play, we are the instrument.

It's just an extension of who we are. And I always say, you are the flute. We are all flutes through which the universe plays. And I use the word universe because it's a beautiful word that doesn't carry too much [00:28:00] baggage that we can all play with without having to define it infinitely. But that is very true and I feel that mastering any craft, whether it is learning to play an instrument, or writing or acting or computer science or programming, whatever it is, when you really master it, its teachings can be brought to any other system.

Your path with that other system is easier because you've already mastered yourself through mastering something. Whatever the craft is for any individual, I am the kind of person that I need to keep learning new stuff to keep nurturing that curiosity. That's why I'm always learning something and love being in that [00:29:00] learning state and challenging myself throughout my life.

I've heard people, well-meaning people say you should focus on something because you are spreading yourself thin. It used to bother me until I came to a point where I realized that no, that's who I am. I need all of those things to be excellent in any one of them. I would get bored and flat if I just concentrated on one thing.

I. So I've had to have many things because they all come together. They dance with me in the wholeness of who I am. That's what I also want to say to whoever is listening, that if you feel that you are drawn to many directions, explore them all and allow yourself space to explore them without feeling that you should [00:30:00] be doing something else or you should not be doing.

No, find out for yourself. I also honor fully and completely those who are absolutely mastering one thing in their life, and that's what their path is. It's not less or more, it's just who they are in truth. And all paths lead to Rome. 

Megan Chaskey: It's a beautiful message and I'm so glad that you brought that forth because there is always that questioning when you're listening to someone and you are following what they're saying, but inside you're going, okay, what am I taking from this that's going to help me where I am now?

I think we're always listening for that. I do anyway. And that sense of playing with it and it being a dance, it's interesting to look [00:31:00] back over your life too, right? And see the places where you thought you were doing something completely different than you are now. When I look back at my education, all the different things that I did and I didn't pursue them in a professional way, but now I see how they all come together. Yeah. And to me that's the beauty of looking at your own life and seeing the story, the archetypal story, like you said, the blueprint being authentic to the blueprint. Yeah. And you can see that there was no point where you went wrong and you took a wrong turn and had to diverge.

When you can look back at it and see the nuances. 

Ulla Suokko: Yeah, and I want to continue for those who are listening, who might [00:32:00] feel in any way or form that they wasted their time doing something in their life and now they would be ready for something. There's no such thing as wasting your time. Everything is part of your unique path and your unique expression and your unique university of life so that you become you so that you are you now. And I really want to encourage everyone to honor their past, whatever there has been and some really hard things and some scary things can be included in that. But now is now, and you don't have to be a victim of your past in any way, you can shift that story so that you can take your power back from your past.

I think that [00:33:00] it is really important to work through any regret or victimhood so that you can be empowered in the now and make choices in the now from that spirit of leadership, of love, that you can change your story today and move towards what you do want rather than keep looking back what you don't want or what you wish wasn't there.

Make up a new past for yourself if you need to, because it this point, it's just a story. It can be ingrained in your cells and that might need some help to clear that from all the levels, but it is chewable and you can be free to create from the infinite Now moment. 

Megan Chaskey: Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you so [00:34:00] much.

I feel very inspired and I know everyone listening will be inspired. Can you tell us some of the ways that we can engage more with your work so that we can follow on from this wonderful conversation. 

Ulla Suokko: You can find me on my website, wisewomanenergetics.com, and you can also find me on Instagram under my name Ulla and Facebook as well.

And if you do feel inspired to explore your journey more deeply and would love to have support with that, I do have a complimentary discovery call that you can book from my website and no strings attached. Only love. You can book that call and we can have a conversation and see how I could support you in awakening to that brilliance of your becoming and embodying [00:35:00] your highest vision and the essence of your dreams.

Megan Chaskey: Beautiful. It's a beautiful website and I'll put the links in the show notes so you can find her there. I want to express so much appreciation for that little Finnish girl inside you that has gone through all the things that you've gone through and what you're bringing to the world and you bring to yourself.

I am enjoying this also because I feel you're speaking about the poetics of life. The same way you're talking about the healing power of music. The poetics is the nuances of how everything speaks with the everything else. So thank you so much. 

Ulla Suokko: Thank you, and the [00:36:00] poetics of life is also in that energy and essence of the words that we use.

That's why One last thing that I invite people to do is to make a list of your power words. And start using those words in your conversation and in your envisioning your dream life and really keep adding to that list and keep tasting the words and keep redefining the words, and keep using them as magical spells.

Keep using them as miraculous tools to co-create with the universe so that you can work with your frequency. Very specifically with your own power words. 

Megan Chaskey: Yes. That's wonderful. And comes back to the way I received the name of this podcast, the Spirit [00:37:00] of Leadership. Those words have a life force, and then it attracts the joy and the feeling of inspiration.

Yes. And the courage to reach out to you and the beautiful experience of you having responded with a beautiful yes. So I'm very grateful 

Ulla Suokko: And that yes, and that joy and that lightness and playfulness elevates our vibration, and that speaks to the universe that responds to us in that vibration. So we keep generating goodness by just joining forces and bringing that joy forth.

And all of you listeners, you've been given the torch now, so let's go and in infect the world with joy. 

Megan Chaskey: Thank you so much Ulla 

Ulla Suokko: you [00:38:00] too. Thank you.

Scott Chaskey is a lifelong writer who has built the spirit of community and tilled the soil at Quail Hill Farm for 30 years for the Peconic Land Trust. With a desire to have more time for writing, he decided to “graduate” from the farm and focus on his passion. This led to the creation of Soil and Spirit, a series of interconnected essays, inspired by an epigraph from John Hay that appeared in his previous book, Seedtime: "To what useful end could I use my eyes without acknowledging that they are only one of the earth's inexhaustible ways of seeing?"

Join us for this episode woven with hope, magical connections and the importance of caring for the community.

UPCOMING READINGS BY SCOTT CHASKEY FROM HIS BOOK SOIL & SPRIT:

• Scrawl Books, Reston, VA, Wednesday May 24, 7pm
• Flying Cloud Bookstore, Easton, MD., Friday May 26, 5pm

TRANSCRIPT

Megan Chaskey [00:00:55]:

Welcome to this episode of Spirit of Leadership, and I am so happy to be speaking with you, Scott, and celebrating the publication of your new book, Soil and Spirit, and I look forward to your sharing with our audience some of the things that led up to your writing this book and in the process of writing this book the aspects that relate to leadership and your leadership in the CSA movement and the influences of those who've inspired you in the writing of this book.

Scott Chaskey [00:01:48]:

Thank you. I'm excited about talking about it.

Megan Chaskey [00:01:52]:

So tell us a little bit more about the conception of the book and how it evolved as you were writing it.

Scott Chaskey [00:02:03]:

Yeah, so I've always been writing. It's a lifelong affair for me, but I wanted to have more time to write. And so the timing just seemed to be right to graduate (your words) from Quail Hill Farm, where I pursued community through soil, tilling the soil, and through building community through the members of the farm for 30 years for the Peconic Land Trust. But I wanted to have more time to write. So that led to this book. Actually, the seeds of it came from the book that I wrote before, which was called Seed time. And there was a particular epigraph that I used in the end of that book and feel that that was the beginning of this book. So Seed time ended with this epigraph from the wonderful writer John Hay. "To what useful end could I use my eyes without acknowledging that they are only one of the earth's inexhaustible ways of seeing?" And so that was really the end of Seed time, but the beginning of Soil and Spirit. And I guess I like S's because the titles all have S's. But I conceived of the book quite differently because it's really a series of interconnected essays and I planned on traveling quite a bit. Various chapters were going to be built on my travels, but along came COVID and so there was no more traveling. So the book turns out to be quite different than the way I'd planned it and the proposal that I submitted originally to Milkweed, the publisher. But maybe it's a better book because of that.

Megan Chaskey [00:03:56]:

In what ways would you say that?

Scott Chaskey [00:03:59]:

I was interviewed not long ago. Someone said it was a journey inward and it had to be because I wasn't traveling outward. But at the same time, instead of actual traveling, I went back to travels that I had taken many, many years ago. And it was fascinating to realize that, because I never thought I would write about some of these subjects that turn up in this book in a way that is not separate at all from the original conception of the book, but is totally interwoven. So that actually I've now given a few readings from the books, and I feel it's so interconnected. So I sort of joked when I gave a reading and said that, "well, I really have to read you the whole book." But of course that would take 3 or 4 hours. That's not going to happen.

Megan Chaskey [00:04:54]:

Well, it is going to happen because we're going to make an audio version. Everyone will enjoy hearing the full book. Beautiful voice.

Scott Chaskey [00:05:07]:

Okay. It will happen.

Megan Chaskey [00:05:09]:

Yes, it will happen. So what's interesting is that I had that sense in reading one of your chapters that it was very important to actually go back and read it again right away because of how everything is interconnected. And you'll say a phrase or quote a phrase from somewhere and then take us on a whole series of connections that bring us back to that phrase, that brings more depth of meaning to it by having made that little internal journey in that one chapter. So the same thing is going on in the book. And do you feel that there are certain stories that carry that thread through the book?

Scott Chaskey [00:06:09]:

Yeah, I'm actually really glad that you mentioned just the word "story", because at the beginning of writing this book, I wrote notes to myself over and over again that what I was doing was telling stories. And I suppose a writer does that in one way or another, but more directly, it can be heard more directly by the reader. And so therefore, I really focused on a narrative within each chapter and the chapter that you're talking about, which has to do with a trip across Ireland, which I actually took 50 years ago, but which has been with me for 50 years. And it has to do with riding an old bicycle across Ireland and discovering a branch of white heather among all the purple heather, placing that on my bicycle. And that's a symbol of good fortune and luck in Irish lore. And it was that for me because it led me to a village called Kilkenny, where Seamus Heaney was appearing at an arts festival. And I had no idea that I would be meeting Seamus Heaney, despite the fact that we exchanged letters. And there's a whole story, a longer story to that. But that's part of the interconnection that you're talking about, it's very strong in that particular chapter because it was magical traveling across Ireland.

Megan Chaskey [00:07:41]:

Yes. And the magical part of that is because it has to do with a plant, it has to do with that white heather. And then you bring that attention to plants, their names, their characteristics to that particular moment. And then also tell us the story about what you found in the attic.

Scott Chaskey [00:08:10]:

What I found in the attic?

Megan Chaskey [00:08:12]:

While you were writing that - the letter.

Scott Chaskey [00:08:15]:

Was it the letter from Seamus Heaney?

Megan Chaskey [00:08:18]:

Yes.

Scott Chaskey [00:08:19]:

Yeah. Otherwise, probably that chapter would not exist. So I wrote a letter at the urging of a teacher, Robert Morgan, a wonderful poet, who, when he read my poems, he was a professor at Cornell, and he said, "Have you read Seamus Heaney?" And this was before many people had heard of Seamus Heaney, long before he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which I'm so happy that he won. So well deserved. So I wrote him a letter, and believe it or not, that letter still existed. And I had no idea. I mean, having traveled back and forth across the ocean a number of times and lived in England for ten years, and somehow, in a box, in a random box, this letter that Seamus Heaney wrote back to me in let's call it 1976 still existed in his red pen, and he was teaching at Berkeley at the time. And he wrote back, and the origin of the letter really was because we had come upon the same words, we had written the same line. And I wrote to him in amazement as a young poet, and he wrote back, saying how he loved the language of the poem, which I'm still up in a cloud about.

Megan Chaskey [00:09:42]:

"Both our weights."

Scott Chaskey [00:09:44]:

Yeah, "in both our weights", yes.

Megan Chaskey [00:09:48]:

Beautiful line. So that was amazing, too, that you wrote him that letter and then sent it to his address in Ireland.

Scott Chaskey [00:10:02]:

In Ireland, teaching in California. He sent the letter to me in my dwelling in Massachusetts, but meanwhile, I had enrolled in a program in Ireland, and the letter was forwarded to me in Ireland while he was in California. Yeah, it was an amazing story.

Megan Chaskey [00:10:21]:

Amazing.

Scott Chaskey [00:10:22]:

And it continued, and I suppose that's why I had to write about it, because of actually meeting him there, in Kilkenny in this Art s Week. Yeah, it was an amazing, magical happening.

Megan Chaskey [00:10:35]:

And then you found that letter in the attic while you were writing the book.

Scott Chaskey [00:10:39]:

Right.

Megan Chaskey [00:10:40]:

So there's definitely a lot of magic, that story.

Scott Chaskey [00:10:45]:

Yeah, well, that's the spirit, I guess. So the book is called Soil and Spirit, and there's the spirit part of it. The soil is obviously what I've sifted through my hands and what I've used with shovel and fork and by tractor with tiller and all that for 40 years. So the soil is very obvious. The spirit is unseen, as it should be.

Megan Chaskey [00:11:11]:

And in relation to the spirit of leadership, how do you feel about this connection with Seamus Heaney as a poet and that connection with the land?

Scott Chaskey [00:11:31]:

So, actually, the first poem in Seamus Heaney's first book is called Digging. So there you go. There you've got it. He grew up in a farm, and there you've got that connection. But there are so many other connections in the book, because I go back and speak about the great Northumbrian poet Basil Bunting, who was my teacher at the University in Binghamton. And I never guessed that I'd be able to actually fit a chapter about Bunting into a book, but it fit into this book. So on the spirit of leadership, these were the influences on my life, the very foundational influences on my life, these very strong friendships and mentorships that led to, that influenced me being in a role of a leader later. And I didn't intend to write about this specifically, but it's there. It's in the book.

Megan Chaskey [00:12:31]:

Yeah. Beautiful. And also in each of the stories, because it's about your travels, you also are relating them to people who in those places are leaders, innovative leaders and visionaries, for example, in the chapter about China.

Scott Chaskey [00:12:56]:

Right. Yeah. Each one is a story in itself. But that trip to China was fantastic. And that all came about eventually because of this wonderful woman, Shi-yan, who actually started the Community Supported Agriculture movement in China, coming to work on a CSA farm in the States and then realizing, she said, "why don't we have this in China?" So she did something about it, she went back, started, and by the time that I reached China for this international gathering of CSA farmers and advocates from all over the globe, from 40 different countries, all practicing Community Supported Agriculture, there were now 500 CSAs in China five years after she brought the idea back from this country. Quite phenomenal, because the idea of CSA, well, there's a seed of it in Japan that started in the early sevent ies, and then there was a seed of this community movement in Switzerland in the early eight ies, and that was brought to the United States and now brought to China. Amazing story. And so I had to write about something to do with that. And so there's the chapter in China.

Megan Chaskey [00:14:22]:

Right. And so inspiring her story. And she was also very inspired by you.

Scott Chaskey [00:14:31]:

Well, I hope it was mutual.

Megan Chaskey [00:14:34]:

Yes. Well, I think it mattered a lot to her that you came and saw her in China and saw what was being created there.

Scott Chaskey [00:14:45]:

Yeah, we were all there because of community. And nothing could be stronger than the community of all those people speaking all different languages, practicing the same, really the same, thing traveling there. My first thought was what in the world is Community Supported Agriculture like in China of all places? But in fact it's not so different because it has to do with the community of soil, the biology of the soil, and the community of people looking for nutritious food.

Megan Chaskey [00:15:25]:

Yeah, that's a very beautiful chapter. And give us a sense of what it feels like now that you've completed the book and what it's like for you to have brought these stories into this format.

Scott Chaskey [00:15:49]:

Well, for me it's really about reaching people. It's not obviously my single story. I actually felt that after all these years of working, digging in the soil locally and working to build community locally, that by writing, I can actually reach many more people. And that's what I hope for this book. Already it seems to have wings, good wings. It's taking off. And that's ultimately what it has to do, not so much with a message, but with a sharing, a basic reality which is often lacking in our modern existence. And reality has to do with tending soil, caring for place, caring for community of people. And everyone who reads about that can share in the importance of it. So, yeah, I just hope it reaches many people.

Megan Chaskey [00:16:54]:

It already, as you said, is reaching people. And we have some readings coming up, and we will put the schedule in the show notes. So I look forward to hearing from people who get to hear you read in person. And it's a beautiful thing that you're doing, bringing your voice of hope. And I know a lot of people have mentioned that, that it's a seed of hope that is really touching people's hearts as they read your stories, because people need that sense of what's being cultivated and that it's cultivating hope. So thank you for the work you're doing.

Scott Chaskey [00:17:46]:

Thank you for reading and listening and asking questions.

Megan Chaskey [00:17:52]:

And we'll be back, we'll do another episode. So thank you.

In my new project, BeTheDot,BeThePresence, I aim to bring people together to hold a space for leading their way through the art of calligraphy.

https://www.nahiduntold.com

www.kathyengelpoet.com

instagram: kellajaja

"The Lost Brother Alphabet" available at:

https://gfbpublishing.org/shop?olsPage=products%2Fthe-lost-brother-alphabet

https://momeggreview.com/2021/04/02/the-lost-brother-alphabet-by-kathy-engel/

https://ghostfishingnyu.info/

To Kneel

https://portside.org/2019-06-28/falling

http://lalela.place/2020/08/11/a-retreat-in-collaborative-poetics/

check out: https://www.livingdictionaryproject.com

check out: https://www.theenclavehabitat.org/

Formerly the head farmer and director of one of the original

community supported agricultural projects, Quail Hill Farm, for 30 years

with Peconic Land Trust on the East End of Long Island,

Scott has served on several boards of environmental non-profits.

He is the author of several books including

This Common Ground, 4 Seasons on an Organic Farm,

and Seedtime, on the History, Husbandry, Politics and Promise of Seeds,

books that are a celebration as well as a call to action

urging us to renew our role as citizens of nature.

Creating an essential foundation with potent generative health & wealth solutions for individual & collective transformation.

Coming from over 3 decades of conventional & alternative medicine, Grace is currently merging permanent health & wealth solutions to create a platform for transformation. She shows individuals & businesses how to thrive using potent tools to elevate conscious health & wealth potential. Consultant to coaches, leaders & influencers, she harnesses data from ongoing research to validate efficacy of physical & non-physical modalities.

http://linkedin.com/in/grace-chang-living-solutions-consultant

https://linktr.ee/gracemeiyenfoo

practices the Yoga of Immortality, called Sukshma Vyama powered by Naam,

and she is a trainer of teachers and she practices Harmonyum Healing founded by Dr Levry

used to relieve stress and help the body heal from the negative effects of trauma and disease.

Instagram @alyssanaam

Bridget was first elected to the Southampton Town Board in a Special Election in March 2010 and won reelection in 2011 for a four-year term. She then was elected to represent the Second District in the Suffolk County Legislature in 2016. She is an innovative leader for economic growth, an effective advocate for our environment, and a dedicated champion of government accountability. Before running for office, Bridget worked as an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan where she served as a member of a Trial Bureau and Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit, and later as Chief of a Unit devoted to attacking fraud in public programs. Today, Bridget lives on the east end of Long Island with her husband Bob, son Jai, and dog Dune.

an activist for equity and social justice, leader in her role as midwife to this new world,

an educator for youth leadership and a healing practitioner

dedicated to connecting people to their own deep healing.

Facebook: Francine Madera

Instagram and Twitter: Cinera17

Bizhiki Nibauit Standing Buffalo.

Artist, Activist, and a student of his culture as a member of the Shinnecock Nation.

He serves as a bridge between his community of Shinnecock and communities abroad.

Website:

Www.bizhiki.com

She takes self-responsibility to heart. One of her guiding principles is that 

she will never ask someone to do what she’s unwilling to do herself.

As Director of Harmonyum and co-founder of Naam LA, Courtney 

has dedicated her life to helping others in their healing journey,

to move progressively from self-rejection to self-acceptance 

and from self-sabotage to self-love.

Instagram: @courtneynaamlife

Rev. Dr. Nóirín Ní Riain, Irish spiritual singer in many traditions, author,

Interfaith Minister (One Spirit Interfaith Seminary), musicologist, Celtic spirituality expert and creator of a theology of Listening

 for which she coined the term, Theosony, meaning "The Sound of God". 

Nóirín has traversed many diverse paths during her life-time

and lives out her life in great gratitude for the good of it all, 

despite “the hollow lands and hilly lands” (William Butler Yeats)..

https://www.noirin.love/

With her two sons, Michael and Owen, Nóirín offers courses and tours:

Courses — Turas d'Anam

(h)Edge School offers a ‘way in’ to traditions and ideas that we may not have granted ourselves permission to fully investigate.

By exploring rich veins of inherited human culture, we have an opportunity to reclaim our common bond, through learning,

curiosity, laughter and conversation.

(h)Edge School is a series of conversations around the inherited wisdom that the arts and spirituality hold for our contemporary lives.