Stephen Brooks: Permaculture, Community, Fruit Consciousness & Designing a Better Future

23:36And now I have it for it. I'm not just going to give it to you. Now that's changed. Now there's like radical sharing and radical connection. And the whole community is like, wait a minute, how can I get you these seeds? How can I, you know, I know you love this.

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25:40Darin Olien:I had 300 different plants and seeds and it all burned in the fire. But to your point, every time you say that, I'm like, I remember so many stories of jumping, following a Tibetan up this mountain just getting rhodiola, for example. And you're still on the same land? Yeah. In Malibu. So you need to connect with Steve Murray today. Oh, my God. No, and he's got everything. He's got everything. You know, and he's like the kind of guy, like, he wants, like, he's so excited to come tonight and just feel the appreciation. And I think that's kind of something that I'm trying to bring back is, like, we really need to appreciate these freaking plant nerds because they're, like, doing some of the most important work.

26:25Keepers.

26:25Darin Olien:They don't even realize that they're the keepers of so much knowledge. And seeds. And genetics. You know, and it's not even so much about seeds anymore because a lot of the fruits have gotten out in and around. Now it's like now we're down to the variety level. Right. And it's not only just getting that variety, but it's also like knowing the combination between the rootstock and the signwood and like the graft that you're putting on. You know, like there's nerds out there that are like, for example, there's a Mame Zapote that our friends, it's called Parita, which is a town in Costa Rica. My friend Juan Carlos found the Mame Zapote and he grafted it and it didn't really do that well.

27:03It didn't produce a lot, like it grew weird. And then he's like, wait a minute. Maybe it's the rootstock. So he took that variety of mammoths and he grafted on 20 different rootstocks. And he planted. And so when you say, so now he not only grafted, but then he had to plant out 20 different trees of that variety at six meters spacing and tend them for three years or four years until they start fruiting. You know what? It's like real. It's a real thing. And see what the combination that works. And then he would cut all the other ones down and keep the best two, you know.

27:36Darin Olien:That just doesn't equal the attention span of most people. And also the patience. Like I have another friend, this guy Brian in Costa Rica. He planted out – it was like rambutans came from Southeast Asia. Somebody brought them to Costa Rica, an American guy like, I don't know, 35 years ago. And I remember when you would first get rambutans in Costa Rica, they – you know the word freestone, which means it comes off easily off the seed? Right. So they weren't freestone at all. You know sometimes you get a rambutan and you have to like kind of like nibble off the seed and it didn't really come off.

28:06And then all of a sudden, you started getting in. They would say, oh, mamoncino and hertalo. They would stay on the side. These are grafted mamoncinos, rambutan. And they would be much bigger. And they would come right off the seed. So this guy Brian that I know, he planted out 2 ,000 rambutan seedlings. 2 ,000. And half of them were male. He cut most of those down. So he's left with 1 ,000. And he had it all in rows. And when I'm talking 2 ,000 rainbow trees, you're talking hectares of land that you have to water and take care of in the dry sea. And this guy is dedicated. And then he, of the 1 ,000 females, he probably saved eight.

28:46And he cut down 992 trees. And then from those eight trees, see what I mean? I mean, it's just like such deep work is going on. There's such nerds out there that have gone into such deep rabbit holes. and now we get to benefit from all that work that they've done.

29:04Darin Olien:And also you have your own library of that at Putamona, right? So you were doing that for freaking years, like, oh, that tree and the story behind that tree. And that seed came here 25 years ago. And I have a photographic memory of where it sat in my nursery, where I got it. Often I'll walk people's farm, I'm like, do you know where you got that? And they're like, I have no idea. And for some reason, some people's brains work. my brain, I know where everything came from. And now even in Costa Rica, I even know the lineage of things. There's maybe 20 of us in Costa Rica that have been really active in this.

29:39And I know who brought in the first black sapotes, grafted ones from Florida.

29:46Darin Olien:So, hey, I want to shift to instead of a garden term that most people think permaculture is, let's talk about what it actually is. great i love it right because because we hear these words and people maybe even go to a better market and have permaculture you know fruit whatever but it's you know bill molson and all these people like it's a much bigger thing and because it's built in nature's principles it actually can be applied to society yeah so for you i know your origin story of like the crop dusters in Costa Rica and you're like holy shit how can we be doing this yeah so I guess my first question actually just to dig in is we have this regenerative slash movement going really going yeah what do you think the the limits are currently what's not letting it fully happen What is it letting it happen?

30:53Darin Olien:And then also, what does it look like fully exercised? Because we have, and this is a big question I realize, because we have a monocropped false society that's set up, subsidized, extract, extract, extract, right? And yet it's still plate spinning still, right? It's crazy. It's crazy. and if you regenerate and permaculture the land also economy shifts and there's a lot that happens so just viewing into that lens a little bit like what are you seeing because I know it fuels you in a good way and it's a great time to be alive too you know so what have you seen what are you seeing what are the pros what are the cons where could systems thinking permaculture systems thinking even applied even more like that's a lot that I just yeah no no I love it all I love it all so a few things that are coming up for me right now is you know I just remember not that like a few years ago I was giving a tour and I was giving this a plant tour and this woman was just like she was like this really kind of haughty English woman and she looked at me and she was less like in her strong English accent she's like you know that all these principles and things you're doing can never to feed the world like i was like you know and you know i've driven several times across the u.s and through the midwest and i've seen the hundreds millions of acres of corn and soy and knowing that 99 of that corn and soy that's been grown is being grown to feed animals you know and i always thought that was an american thing like wow america is just a mess like what a wreck and then i drove from barcelona to rome and i was like wait a minute it's the same freaking thing in europe it's the same thing you know and then i took a long helicopter ride to this uh in from nairobi to the south sudan border to the largest uh one of the largest refugee camps in the world and you know what i saw it again you know and then in like what's happening in brazil And then I'm down in the Amazon and they're like, it's the same thing, you know?

33:13And so if like just there needs to be a paradigm shift in our diet, you know? And that's why something that I am so, you know, excited about is this kind of concept. You know, there's been trends in diets, you know, better than anyone. You know, in the 70s, people were like macrobiotic, you know? And then the 80s, like it was like vegetarianism and then veganism. And then people went raw. and then people went paleo and whatever. And then those same raw food people that were only eating raw fruit and were like fruititarians, they were like guzzling bone broth. And it was like, these have been trends that have gone on and very little of those trends, there's been the animal rights reasons and the human health reason, but there hasn't really been that focus on planetary health.

34:01And so the diet that I am excited about promoting and sharing is this like perennial diet. How can we shift? Like, you know, one thing that I appreciate about the raw foodists is that they were like, some of them were 80-20. You know, do you remember that? Like some of them were 70-30. And like, how can we like start analyzing the reality of our diets on, you know, how many perennial foods are we eating? You know, and just to kind of like go back to where you were, you know, you started the question like with permaculture. Permaculture, just to kind of give the snap, you know, my definition of it, it comes from two words, permanent and culture.

34:33Culture is so rooted in food and agriculture. It's almost everything that culture is based around. It's like the way we design where we live.

34:43And so the way that I define it is how can we meet our goals and use less energy? It's like, duh, it's so simple. And when I say meet our goals, do we all have the same goals? Usually I keep speaking in front of a big crowd. I look out and everybody's like, no, we don't have that. In a sense, we kind of do. You know, we want to play more than we work. We want to feel loved. We want to eat great. We want to be somewhere beautiful. We don't want war and turmoil outside of our house. Like these are, I would say anyone you ask, that would be their talk.

35:11Darin Olien:You want to be healthy and all that stuff. Yeah, all those things. So I think we all pretty much have the same goals. And then, you know, how can we meet those goals and use less energy? Like what am I even talking about? Like if I had to answer, like do my taxes or answer 20 emails, you know, I'd be like tired. So we have mental energy. We have physical energy. Like I had to run, you know, five blocks down the street and run back. I have a certain amount of physical energy. And then we have our financial energy, you know. And it's interesting. Like we don't even think about it subconsciously.

35:40Everything we do is somewhat rooted in those energies, you know, that we're expending. And then where permaculture comes in is like how much is whatever I'm about to do, how much is it taking from the planet and non-renewable resources? And so once we put that lens on, and it's kind of like I used to refer to like before we all had Macs, and what are those things, PCs, they used to use the antivirus. So every processes that you'd have to go through would have to go through this filter to make sure there was, it's kind of like permaculture. Like every decision we make, wait a minute, how can I do this and use less energy?

36:17And when I say use less energy, like when we talk about regenerative and we talk about perennial diets,

36:22Darin Olien:It's like, okay, everybody, are you ready to upgrade your operating system? I know I am. I'm always game to do that. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That's what we're doing over at Super Life Patreon. This isn't just behind the scenes membership. It's a global experiment in conscious living that I am connected to, committed with, in every cell of my body. Each week, you'll get exclusive access to deeper podcast conversations, extended interviews, voice notes from the road of me personally, personal reflections, behind-the-scenes footage, community wellness challenges, and even surprise drop-ins that I no longer do on social media because I don't really dig it anymore.

37:16Darin Olien:We're talking decentralized healing, reclaiming sovereignty, ancient wisdom meets future tech, and a tribe of people with you walking the path. If you love this podcast, the Patreon is where we go deeper, get more real, and reclaim our power together. Join us at patreon.com forward slash Darren Olean. That's Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com forward slash Darren Olin, D-A-R-I-N-O-L-I-E-N. Join the movement, support the mission. Let's rise together. Every time you grow an annual, it takes so much freaking energy. Often at scale, you're using big tractors, which are made from, you know, steel and running on diesel, which we're fighting wars over, you know.

38:08and it's fully just like ripping through the soil like you know car like the whole carbon reality that's happening and you know and um not to mention that once you do that you have to you're growing annuals that are constantly taking out what do we have to do we have to put in fertilizer usually coming from you know byproduct of the petroleum industry nitrogen you know or it's coming from like fish emulsion or seaweed or if it's organic you know but it's still intensive energy inputs where perennial diet is just my patty my neighbor patty from punta mona he used to say boy if you this is so deep he goes boy if you plan things right all you do is reap all you do is reap you know and in permaculture the first few years it takes a lot of energy to get set up but then and i just remember at punta mona like all of a sudden there was so little energy into attending, and so much energy going into harvesting and processing.

39:05Darin Olien:You know what I mean? Like all of a sudden there was this shift. All of a sudden, abundance. Yeah, all of a sudden you didn't have to work. And that's what Bill Mollison used to say. How can we design our realities to maximize hammock time? And hammock time doesn't mean we're just laying in the hammock. It means we're playing with our kids or we're playing guitar or we're doing yoga or we're going on hikes because we're not so grinding to meet our goals because it's just giving and giving and giving. And that's going back to this relationship with plants. The plants, they just want to give to us and just take care of us.

39:38And they don't want us to have to – It's like nature didn't have to do all that work. Nature didn't have to fertilize. It had nitrogen-fixing plants. It had a symbiotic reality happening in the forest that the plants were working together. So you didn't even need human beings to do anything. So we're just – It's like when I teach permaculture, like the first day of class, like what I'll say is like what comes up for me as what we're going to do for the next six months in this class or the next three weeks if it's a live one is like we're going to talk about things and you're going to be waiting for some brilliance like for like some code cracking thing that I'm going to say but like honestly the word that comes to mind most for me is my favorite three letter word that starts with a d and ends with an h and it's just like we don't want to eat food with neurotoxic chemicals in it we don't want to drink water with chlorine we don't want to live in houses and buildings that are like off-gassing, cancer-causing things.

40:29Darin Olien:We don't, it's like, no. Like, of course we don't want to do that. Yes, it is so like incredibly sick how numb and how deaf we become. So the reality is that we're living in. Like, it's like, how can we be doing this? How can we be like buying something that's like ruining a whole, you know, culture's reality? And yet we just do it. We do it and we're also like we don't see it anymore. We're so blind to where that purchase is from. We can't see the off-gassing. Sick. And yet we're just like a hamster. And the disruption. And that's where the law of circularity, there's always cycles. And so even now, there seems to be a pressure.

41:22Darin Olien:There's pressure. And maybe COVID was certainly another problem. Yeah, totally. And it also showed how we can come together as humanity and radically shift. All of a sudden, the whole world's wearing masks, and the whole world's getting shots, and the whole world's doing whatever they say. And the whole world's now worried about their health. Yeah. Like, just like, you know. And so now there's pressure of, like, what are we doing? And so, you know, being fueled by the people around you, because I know you work really hard. You're not hard, but your nature is to stay connected. and share knowledge.

41:55Darin Olien:How much of your life do you feel right now is being fueled by others, being fueled by other things to create other systems? And how excited are you to be at this time right now to be able to and get to share your knowledge and move these systems forward? Well, I just appreciate being here with you right now on this podcast. This is what I do with Ecoversity, which is a company we started at the same time the TV show came out in 2020 because I had this student that was, she took a permaculture course in Punta Muna. I was just like, Stephen, like you can't be doing this for 20, 30 people at a time.

42:33Like the whole world need, you need to get like permaculture factory going on. I was like, whoa. And so, so yeah, I mean right now with Equiversity, I'm like online teaching a lot. You know, now we, you know, I teach online permaculture. You know, Equiversity teaches online herbalism, six month like like certifications and then we just started this garden club which i'm on one or two times a week you know just popping on live hey i'm in you know santa monica right now on my boy dan only and we're gonna walk around and just look at plants and i could just do that and next i know there's like a thousand people on the plant tour with me you know so like yeah i spent a lot of my energy doing that like i you know i often refer to myself and it's kind of the book i the title of the book i want to write it's called karmic billionaire i feel like a karmic billionaire like i just feel like i give so much you know to this planet and to like trying to share this gift that i've been given this relationship with plants and so i really feel like the i feel really well cared for you know i feel really appreciated you know sometimes not so much financially but that's actually you know patty also nothing patty used to say is boy

43:38Darin Olien:you can't take any of that with you to the burying ground boy you know so it's like i don't really feel concerned. You know, I feel like, you know, I want one metric that I used to when I first got into the kind of organic food space. I think there was like 1.5 % of US food production. 1.5 % was organic. I think now it's like seven or 8%. Who's the biggest seller of organic food? Walmart. Why is Walmart selling? Not because Bill Walton's like in promotion of organic food, because people want it. You know, there's enough people in the world that want to eat organic food. So Walmart has whole walls of it.

44:14You know, you go to, what's the big one? Kroger, what do you have out here?

44:17Darin Olien:Air One. No, but no, the big, the mass ones. Vons, or you go to like these big LA food stores, they're freaking half organic, Safeway, you know? It's like they're half organic. Why? Because we're in California and people are waking up. You know, and I feel like, you know, as people become, you know, as information, you know, in the old days, you could just hide everything. You know, every freaking worker has a video camera on their cell phone, you know? It's like, dude, what they're doing is sick man like look what they're doing in this river look what they're doing to me look at the you know and so it's like people are waking up and i feel like you know there's so much doom and gloom out there you know the guy that's name that rhymes with dump and all the all the you know talk about all the bad things that are happening and the wars and and it's just so distracting like i visit my parents in miami and i'm like shocked how much they watch the news and just how much, you know, and meanwhile, there are so many amazing people and projects.

45:12And like, that's why I appreciated so much, you know, what you did with Down to Earth and now what you're doing with Pursuit of Happiness. It's like, there are so many people that are figuring stuff out and that are waking up

45:22Darin Olien:and it's like mass, it's like happening. Yeah, it's happening and we're gathering. You know, and there's probably today, there's probably 5 ,000 ayahuasca ceremonies happening today, you know? I mean, that's like, you know, it's not my thing, but like - Ibogaine. Yeah, my friends are right now in Mexico at Beyond. He's there for his second treatment. It's like things are happening, and plants are screaming, and people are waking up. Yeah, and there's pluses and minuses to some of that stuff. Of course, of course. But certainly as a source for it, but as a source for it's going to take care of everything.

45:57Darin Olien:And for the most part, some of those things, not to open this can of worms, it opens the door, but you still have to do day-to-day work. It opens there, but then you've got to walk through. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so like, you know, because you're in such a— Did I answer your question? I can't even remember. Yeah, yeah. And I think kind of on that, what are you the most excited about right now? Like what's your vision that you're really, number one, one that you're digging because you're nonstop. It's true. Right? You're digging into now, and then also what's your legacy push? Great. so what I'm excited about right now so I have all these like kind of things that I've done you know I went to Mona and the education with Ecoversity from that to then Ecovia, Alegria and Tacotal the communities that I've created Envision which is like these events you know the event reality and then I'm so and then the whole plant obviously the whole plant thing that's mixed in with all of that and then my love for music you know I'd say those are like my four kind of things that I'm so excited about and then so what we're doing now is you know Alegria has started basically, you got to see it, like in its infancy, wait until I show you the videos of the garden now.

47:09But from all of, like, I just keep doing things and just learning. And how can I tweak and improve and do more? And also, how can I incorporate all of the passions and things that I love? So with Eterna, Eterna is our new project. Eterna means eternal in Spanish. And we went to the coast, north of Nosara, which has become such an energetic hot spot. And it's funny because I was never really excited about it. It just kind of felt like this new age kind of like gringo yoga area. And so I would go there and be like, yeah, it's not really my thing. And then all of a sudden, I couldn't believe the people it was attracting there.

47:46And I got invited to do this cacao ceremony over New Year's, like maybe five years ago.

47:50Darin Olien:Everyone needs a cacao. Yeah. So I go there, and I'm just like in awe of what's happening and the people it's attracting. and then we found this property and it's so interesting because it was so out of my league like it was so much more expensive than anything I'd ever done before and it was just like just like sometimes you have to jump and trust and so we bought 100 acres on the beach 15 minutes north of Nosara it's on the most epic beach it's like a cove all the other beaches around there are all surf beach so it's like 10 minutes that just too epic either way surf beaches but it's this gorgeous cove and it's right in this town called San Juanillo which is a fisherman's like a small quaint fisherman town and so what what did i want to do different than i did in all agree is one thing i wanted to really create an event space so like my lessons and my learnings from envision i want to keep doing that i don't want to do it as big but i want to keep creating gatherings so we designated a big piece of the land and we've already created an event space we've already had you know three four hundred person gatherings and And it's just like beautiful hill overlooking the ocean.

48:56Sunset's right behind the DJ. And it's just like, wow. And then I really wanted to create that kind of regenerative educational hospitality reality. So we took a big piece. And right now we're doing that, kind of like Punta Mona 3.0, where it's like this educational hotel. But it's not a hotel. And it's not just a retreat center, but it's kind of like this ongoing residency.

49:22Darin Olien:So you're doing real estate buys and stuff? So that, and then the next thing is that there's, so there's a creek that divides the property. On one side of the creek is the event space and all the hospitality. And on the other side of the creek, there's like 60 or 70 lots where you can live. And then you go to the event and you just walk home. You know, so what we're doing, and then there's hundreds of acres next door that we're trying to just keep growing into. It's like, you know, I've been working on this kind of global redesign. And how can we merge, obviously, the agriculture, which is so big in everything we're doing and which we accomplished in these past communities in Ecovia and Alegría and it's like merging agriculture with where we live but now the educational regenerative hospitality and the event space.

50:05You know, and then like the last but not least is my partner Andrea. She is Costa Rican and is, you know, she came from, her mom's from Paraguay, speaks Guarani, which is like the only, Paraguay is the only country in the world where their first language is their indigenous language. Wow. you know and so she's like super connected to like wait a minute how can we do even and i feel like with all agree we did a lot we're doing a lot of great things with the town and the neighbor and the neighboring you know communities but she's like how can we do even more you know so we're really like wait a minute we really need to listen to the community we really need to figure out like and we need to get everyone that's going to be involved in our project like this is the most important thing we could do you know there's so much you know there's so much talk about you know colonization.

50:49It's like, you know, and, you know, in Alegría, there's people from, you know, 35 countries, you know, so it's like, we're trying to create these diverse realities. And how can we make them, you know, half or more Costa Rican, you know, and it's, it's a, it's a challenge, you know, it's like, and how can we come to a town that's like a, you know, local fisherman town and bring, you know, this kind of music and culture and ritual that is so different, from their reality and still bring such - Support them and care. Support them in ways. So right now we're creating this whole after-school program and creating this whole school up against - So it's so cool because the property is right up against the town.

51:32So we have this opportunity. At first I was like, oh, bummer. You can hear dogs barking. I was kind of bummed to be up against the town. I was like, wait a minute.

51:43Darin Olien:What's the opportunity? What's the opportunity? So now what we're doing is like literally up against the town, we're creating the school and the after-school program and the volleyball court and the, you know, the multi-use, you know, art building. Right. And so. And then that will support the community even more. Totally, totally. And, yeah, and it feels like we're really on to something. And, you know, then for me, you know, I'm a huge Phish fan, the band Phish, P-H-I-S-H, you know, which came in my Grateful Dead roots, which is, you know, people often ask me, like, what was like the first thing that really triggered you?

52:15I was like, 1988, October 14th, I saw the Grateful Dead in Miami Arena. And I felt like community for the first time in my life, like deep community. We're like literally almost any person of the 25 ,000 people there, I could like go and

52:27Darin Olien:cry on their shoulder because we're just, we're in tune because our love for the Grateful Dead, you know? And then, you know, 30 years, you know, 35 years later, it's like Fish and, you know, now there's this new band Goose and like the culture that's happening around these bands. It's like, you know, so I feel like how can I incorporate all of those passions, you know, deeply rooted in consciousness and in change and in evolution and in a way that's going to be deeply merging the plants because they're the ones screaming the lessons. And so that's what I'm most excited about right now. Like in this moment right now, I'm really excited about the event space and the music venue and just that opportunity.

53:08Like we did our first event at the end of January. It's called Floresta. and we brought Rosemary Gladstar who's like the grandmother of modern herbalism. She's written 30 books on herbalism and this woman, Adriana Yalis who's the founder of Anima Mundi. And so like our headliners were the greatest herbalists in the world. And then we brought Rising Appalachia and we brought Elinario and all our favorite singers. But this is rooted in education, you know, and creating events that are like before and after experiences for people. It's like, wow, I went to Floresta, you know, and now after I'm just like You can see everything different.

53:42Darin Olien:Very immersive. Yeah. Right? Not just this thing, but this thing. Yeah. And really inviting everybody. You know, that's why I love Burning Man. I'm so passionate about Burning Man is because it's a co-creation. It's not like an audience and everybody's like, oh, what's the lineup at Burning Man? Blurs. There's no lineup at Burning Man. It's a co-creation. Whoever wants to show up and share does. You know, so and that I feel is like kind of what we did with Envision was like we really created a space where, you know, people can bring their knowledge and their art and their talents and their, you know, we have the art gallery and then we have, you know, four different workshop spaces happening simultaneously.

54:22Darin Olien:Yeah, incredible. And, you know, we know that the community gathering is probably more important than ever because of the screens, because of the attention spans, because of mental health. You know, that separation of we've offloaded connection to false connection. Totally. And that is gripping us. I'm going to give you an example. So in Equiversity right now, every week we have a live permaculture class. and I'm feeling it more now than ever before. Like literally I go to the class. It's an hour and a half. It's amazing. And now every class, seven or 10 minutes before the class ends, somebody's dropping a Zoom link because they can't stop.

55:07They want to meet after class and just keep hanging out. And I just feel like how lonely people are. And then all of a sudden they're in this Zoom room with 200 people.

55:15Darin Olien:With people of like minds. Yeah, they feel so alone. Like, you know, they're the black sheep of their families. They're the only ones of their friends. they feel like they're the only one seeing that movie. And all of a sudden they're in a Zoom with 200 other people. So it's like, wait, let's keep this going. Let's meet in the Zoom room after. So I think to keep creating those spaces, I'm really excited that we just launched with Ecoversity this garden club. It's called Not Your Average Garden Club. And basically it's the opportunity. Every week we invite people to share their gardening experience, like deep nerds on compost and microorganisms and bed design and backyard design and like all these different, you know, but at the end of the day, like you're going to get the knowledge, but you get to hang out with people and ask questions about your garden and show us pictures and like.

56:00Darin Olien:With legends. So, yeah, it's so fun. And then I guess another thing that I'm really excited about is to have this, I bought this small property near Alegria that's called La Huerta. And they say I brought my whole crew from Punta Mona, all the people you knew, Rob and Peter and all my crew from, and Celia, all my crew from Punta Mona and Dave. They all left Puente Monde and went, and I bought this farm. It's 12 acres. And Rob, I don't know if you remember him, is from Spain. He's such a – you probably didn't even meet him because he doesn't stop working. He starts working at 6 a.m. with the workers.

56:31They stop at 2, and he keeps going until 6, and he puts on a headlamp. And he's an incredible nerd. And what they've created there in the last three years, the plant example, like I'll show you after this some just before and afters. like that they're really good at like taking a picture of now and then look in a year and then look into what they've created on this 12 acres in the last three years just gives you so much hope in what's possible so it's a non-profit you know and we're hosting group it's a it's called la huerta farm school and i feel really really excited about that and i just i just feel excited about knowledge and i feel excited about finding the channels and the avenues to spread it and yeah I just feel excited.

57:15Darin Olien:Well, and the great thing is you embody that permaculture and the care, care of the earth, care of the people, care of what you're doing. And then with future care, that's the new ethic. Yeah. Yeah. And the amazing thing when you're in that flow of nature, it is so abundant. Yeah. And it provides so much. and it's that we've all grown up in this extractive culture thinking these are the way things are but when you have examples like yourself you see the abundance in front of you. One seed becomes a tree and that tree becomes thousands of seeds. Seventy fruits and thousands of seeds and that's the law.

58:11Darin Olien:That's the real law. And I think we're in a moment right now where, Darren, we need to design beyond our borders, think beyond our borders, and then also design beyond our generation. Because a lot of the work that we're doing now isn't even for us. And you look at some of the work that's happened in China with the swales and just the earth just healing. Some of the most amazing projects in the world are in China, which China has such a bad rap, yet they're regenerating thousands of acres through the creation of swales. You know, it's like I see, you know, I've seen, especially in the tropics, you know, cutting down redwoods and, you know, and, you know, some of these Douglas firs that are 2 ,000 years old.

58:53It's in our lifetime or even in three generations, we're not going to be able to fix that. But in the tropics, like I've seen in my 31 years in Costa Rica, I've seen areas that when I got there were cattle pasture and now are like secondary healthy forests that are diverse and thriving and the animals are back. And the, you know, and it's like, or I've seen areas where you plant creek sides, you know, where the creek doesn't even happen anymore. And then you start planting the creek sides. And in five years, there's a creek running. And that's real.

59:26Darin Olien:And it starts your favorite, it reminds me of your favorite word. It's pumping. It's it, it is. This is pumping. You know what actually my favorite word is? That you actually, when we first started, it's something that you said that really I was going to say it and I forgot. It's a Spanish word and it's saborear. Saborear. Sabor means flavor. And then the verb saborear, it's like actively taking in the flavor. In English, it translated English to savor, to savor. You know, like how can we deeply drop in and savor what's happening right now? I'm sitting here with my brother, Darren Owen, who I haven't seen since New York, what, two or three years ago.

1:00:09And it's like we don't see each other that often, but like I'm savoring this moment. I'm savoring even the way it feels in this studio in Santa Monica. I'm savoring the trees that I saw on my way here. I'm savoring how it just, the plant that we just saw outside, the yellow shrimp plant, I'm just savoring this moment because it's all I have, you know? And I'm deeply present and I'm in deep gratitude of like, I'm honing in on all the things that are going right. Like I don't have a toothache right now.

1:00:38Darin Olien:I don't have an earache right now. Like my organs are pumping. Yeah. You know? So it's like, I love that word saborear because it really, it really just describes like, don't forget to feel all that's happening. And that's the thing I put tomorrow. Like we have those circles before meals. And I do that everywhere I go. Like I did it last night at night at the Thai restaurant. It was like three people that I just met. You know, it's like, wait, let's just take a moment. Well, I'm just grateful that we got this time, that it worked out. I mean, it's the commitment you have and the dedication and the life lived and the life that you are dedicated to in the future.

1:01:19Darin Olien:Your every cell is operating in that way, and you embodied that. And I love it. And let's keep creating. Please, please. Where are you going in Indonesia? All over the place. And what are you hunting? Well, we're going to the green school. We've got Indonesia. We're exploring the generosity component of the culture. In Bali in particular? Bali and Jakarta another island with what's that Organization Conservation International in Borneo Indonesian Borneo I'm not sure anyway just make sure you eat a lot of durian of course you know I had I had durian with Doug Evans oh I sent him a picture yesterday I was at I walk into my friend's house yesterday and there's a huge sprouting box that just arrived I was like yeah we were in a conference and he's like he goes hey I got durian in the car okay we're in the we run out to the freaking uh parking lot and we're just like shoving our fingers and i'm on my way right now from here to go to 99 ranch to buy durian for tonight church of fruit people are you coming to church of fruit tonight i unfortunately i gotta i've got a freaking no worries a committed yeah six o 'clock yeah but yeah life is life brought us back together i'm excited i'm excited for you and i want to talk i want to talk to you deeper about your projects because I have a big vision that I'm working on aside from all of this other stuff.

1:02:50Darin Olien:I'd love you to come down. You know, one thing that's been coming up a lot for me is this relationship we have with land, you know, and so many people never even really had a relationship with land, you know, and it's like, it's a deep love and affair. It's like a deep, we can connect with land so deep. And the minute I walked on this land and now every person I bring, I can't wait to come through that portal. and you come over this like little hill and it's just like expansive ocean everywhere you look and it's just like, what is this place? And how can I be here? I'd love to see it. And I want to bring you to my property.

1:03:25Darin Olien:It's a special place too. Thank you, my man. You're the best. I love you, bro.