Raising Wildlings

Honouring Land and First Nations Traditions with Tiffany Gesler from Sow & Nurtured

December 04, 2023 Vicci Oliver and Nicki Farrell
Raising Wildlings
Honouring Land and First Nations Traditions with Tiffany Gesler from Sow & Nurtured
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Are you curious about how to reconnect with your inner wisdom and that of the land, seasons, and cycles? 

Today we are in conversation with the wonderful Tiffany Gesler, a proud Gunggari woman passionate about connecting people to their own nature. 
 
Tiffany is a seasoned early years and outdoor learning educator with expertise in Aboriginal health, midwifery, and women's business. 

In this last year, she launched her wild business Sowed and Nurtured, Toowoomba's first private bush school. 

Join us as we delve into the process of decolonizing outdoor education, promoting First Nation perspectives, and the impact of nature play businesses on families and communities. 

Don't miss out on this enriching conversation that is sure to challenge, educate, and inspire!

Other ways we can help you:

  1. Want to learn the game-changing soft skills you'll need while leading group activities with fire, water and tools? Catch Our FREE Mini Training On The First Steps You Must Take To Lead A Forest School Program
  2. Ready to create your own Nature Play business? Head to www.raisingwildlings.com.au/wildbusiness to access the roadmap to starting your business journey.
  3. Keen to find your purpose in 10 minutes? Download our FREE treasure map to find your passion without compromising your educational values.
  4. Want to know how to craft an epic outdoor program that has parents and directors lining up to enrol? You need Nature Play Now our $57 Workshop and Bundle series (people are saying this is a steal!)
Nicki Farrell:

Today we're chatting to Tiffany Gessler, proud Aboriginal and Congaree woman who's a spaceholder for women, children and mothers, and specialises in early childhood education, outdoor education, aboriginal health, midwivery and women's business. In this fast-paced world, tiffany strives to connect us to our own nature through honouring the seasons and cycles of the land and connection to country. Be it exploring the bush with a group of children or supporting a woman in birth, tiffany's work all comes down to a love of holding space for families. Last year, tiffany launched the first private bush school in Toowoomba called Soan Nurtured, with a strong vision to bring the community together to support well-being, getting children outdoors, truth-telling and reconciliation through the land. Can't wait to share this episode with you today, as Tiff is also one of our Wild Business course participants and it's been such a pleasure to watch her and her business flourish.

Vicci Oliver:

Welcome to Raising Wildlings, a podcast about parenting, alternative education and stepping into the wilderness, however that looks with your family.

Nicki Farrell:

Each week, we'll be interviewing experts that truly inspire us to answer your parenting and education questions. We'll also be sharing stories from some incredible families that took the leap and are taking the road less travelled.

Vicci Oliver:

Where your hosts, Vicki and Nikki from Wildlings Forest School Popping your headphones. Settle in and join us on this next adventure.

Nicki Farrell:

Hello and welcome to the show Tiff. How are you today?

Tiffany Gesler:

Good, thank you. Really excited to have this chat with you.

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah, me too. It's been in the in my mind anyway for a long time, so I'm glad that it's finally coming to fruition. But before I jump in, because I will go like a rabbit through the gates, would you like to lead us in an acknowledgement this morning?

Tiffany Gesler:

Yes, I'd love to. It's something that I really love to do, in a different way to a lot of the other spaces, particularly if you're in health or in your, you know, government or in meetings or even at the schools. It's like a little bit tickless to get over in Dartmouth and my pet peeve is that when you hear them finish and they go and so and they continue with their meeting and you hear the words and so. So I really invite everyone to just actually slow down for a moment and really heart, listen to this one. So, if you like, where you are, you're welcome to put your hand on your heart, perhaps close your eyes down, and we're just going to slow down, listening to our own breath and our own rhythms and our own body, coming back to our own nature first, so we can hold heartedly, listen and become aware of the space around us.

Tiffany Gesler:

May we all acknowledge the custodians of the land country you're on today. May we learn their stories, learn their truth. May you walk, grow, learn, work and raise your children on this land, knowing it's sacred. May we acknowledge the first people of this land and how they lived in harmony our mother, the connections to our mountains, the trees, the waterways, the animals, our totems and our connection to the sacred. May you now acknowledge the country in this moment, the wind on your skin. Depending where you are, you might be feeling the warmth from far the sky. You might be hearing the leaves rustling around you outside your window. Even if you're inside four walls, you can still connect to country, just bringing that awareness that this building is built on sacred ground below. May we acknowledge the ancestors and your ancestors how you come to be here today. May we acknowledge our children. May they grow knowing they where they've come from. May they know this land has stories, strengths, wisdom and sacredness. May we bring reconciliation together for our future.

Tiffany Gesler:

I personally want to acknowledge Indigenous First Nation people. Listening I send my love out to you. Any more about there. I also want to acknowledge my Grungary people and where I've come from, my maternal lineage. May I make you proud using my voice today, as I know you didn't get this privilege. And one big deep breath for yourself. Before we come back to reality, open your eyes.

Nicki Farrell:

Oh well, teary yeah that was beautiful Teary.

Tiffany Gesler:

So just really bringing that awareness to what acknowledgement is, what are we acknowledging to the land is a really beautiful way. It doesn't have to be that in depth. I just knew that various people listening probably have a book at a time. But if you're doing it with the kids, you'd be doing what's around you. Normally the birds will start speaking to you as they're doing it, the wind picks up and you can really feel the spirit around us. So really, when you're doing that acknowledgement even if it's a song or a dance or something with the kids, really bringing that awareness for them to connect to the land.

Nicki Farrell:

It was so needed, isn't it? I'm actually going to say I have a list of questions for you, but I'm going to skip right down to the bottom and talk about that need for that relationship with land. Can you talk to us about that and even your relationship with your country, the country you're working on in this day? What are your favourite things about that country? All of it?

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, I'm really blessed to be living and I'm a visitor to where I'm actually living. This is not where my people or my ancestors actually lived. I'm in Te Wumba, but I've been born and I've been raised here and I've also birthed my own children here. So I'm a visitor to this space and so I really take on that privilege and duty to acknowledge the land here. So most of that is actually probably caring for the land and that relationship. If I care for her, she cares for me. She's a refuge and a solace for me.

Tiffany Gesler:

Growing up we were actually disconnected, without families, from culture. We, through history, which I'm sure will go deep down later on we're disconnected and moved from our land. So while we didn't have culture as such and we didn't get to hear the song lines and the wisdom, it's in our we felt, it in our body and our DNA and our grandmothers were very connected to the land. Even despite being taken, we were brought up knowing and how to support ourselves with the land and listening to the land. My, my favourite memory that I can first remember is my grandmother. We were sitting under the shi-yote trees and she got me to listen, to feel you can hear it almost out west here you guys are closer to the, to the salt medicine, but out west here it sounds like the ocean. It does.

Tiffany Gesler:

Through the shi-yokes. Yeah, so I I have that, really that memory really embedded in me and yeah, I think I is the question. But yeah, pretty much that connection to the land and relationship to the land is it's like our own family, our own mother, and that's not just for Aboriginal people. Your ancestors would have been just as connected to the land and you're perhaps still feel that relationship to the land because it's in your DNA, in your in your blood as well.

Tiffany Gesler:

If we didn't live with the land and relationship with the land before Woolworth's Coles and you know we would have probably starved to death because we weren't living with the seasons and the cycles and knowing when to harvest and to grow, and so we all have that connection.

Nicki Farrell:

It's, it's so important at how, if you're not connected to land and to country, how can you go about, I guess, taking those baby steps to take? Because a lot of it is fear. It's fear of wildlife, it's fear of even just getting muddy and dirty and you know what's going to, what's going to hurt me, which I think for you and I, I know I'm well beyond that and I find comfort and solace being on country. But how do we go about, especially if it's cultural? You know we have other cultures living here, so they move from overseas, and so it is a real deep fear. What kind of baby steps can then people take to try and break down those fears and those barriers?

Tiffany Gesler:

I feel, starting in your own backyard, everywhere sacred even in the middle of Brisbane or middle of Sydney, in that that cement areas and the big buildings, it's still sacred ground. You're still seeing Father Sky, you still got the sun, feeling the warmth in your skin. Hopefully there's trees and some kind of nature around you to connect with. But yeah, even our own nature feeling in our own breath. We are nature. We're not separate. We've been told all along that we are disconnected and we're separate to her, but we're not we are nature as well.

Tiffany Gesler:

So, depending on the, on the scale of things, of how anxious you are, but just stepping into your own backyards and really acknowledging that beauty around you, and then, obviously, your parks, even if it's not natives like, it's still nature as well. And then, yeah, I would be just keep pushing that threshold, exploring even in your own car, driving in the car, you're still surrounded by country you can connect to, but obviously that bare feet on the on the land or that connection directly to the land, a lot better than being a car. But yeah, I'm just sharing different scenarios that it's all around us. Even in my room right now I can see the sun and the shadow of the trees. So this is always that awareness, that knowing, already around you.

Nicki Farrell:

I love that, that you're right and that we always we are told by the media and whoever else you know the days that we are disconnected, but that we're not as disconnected as you feel that you can't help but be connected. And I actually have never thought about that. I always just think of people as being disconnected. But you're right, you can't possibly. You can't possibly live here and breathe the air and have the sun on your back and yes thank you.

Nicki Farrell:

Thank you for the reminder. It's really poignant. So we met through wild business and you have started a beautiful business, so a nurtured. Can you tell us about your journey to starting your own business, and I'm particularly interested in what was your inspiration to start? And then, what was the straw that broke the camel's back? What was the thing that you finally went? Oh, speaking of, I've got a blue faced honey eater just tapping on my window. You were saying that it comes and says hello.

Tiffany Gesler:

As soon as you listen. Yeah, so it's that listening and that connection looking around awareness.

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah, they are always out here this time of year in the banks here that we've planted out here, but I've never had him come and tap on my window before. So thank you for that gift. So yeah, I'm really interested in the straw that broke the camel's back, that made you take the leap, because I think a lot of people listening go, I would, I would love to, but, or you know I could, but I can't because of this. So can you walk us through that, your story?

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, so it's actually a story that started from me working in early education, working in beautiful spaces that allowed me to have roles as an outdoor educator. This was before it was trending and before sustainability sort of came a big hot word. And I was scratching my head, thinking sustainability is something that you know, my people did for thousands and thousands of years. You know, it's not just composting, recycle bins and you know worm farms, so I was really lucky to be in a space to give me that.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, I was really lucky, though, to be in this space where that was heard, and so they gave me a role, and so my job was to weave in sustainability but also Aboriginal perspectives, and so my thing was to bring the children outdoors to have this relationship to the land, because if they're connected and have this relationship and have these memories, we're going to have the caretakers of the land when they grow. They're going to care and love this land, they'll want to look after it, but if they don't have this connection, they're not going to know what they're caring for or what they're protecting. So, yeah, my biggest thing was to actually do a little bit. Something left feel, but still very connected to that was sharing how the land is cared for and also the connection to the land. So I also worked in different spaces, like community schools, where I sort of had these pockets of being able to do this, but it still wasn't full freedom to be what I wanted it to look like, while I'm very grateful for these little opportunities, yeah, I just wanted to be at bring the kids to bush, because it was still quite safe. We only go to parks or, you know, paddocks or something like that.

Tiffany Gesler:

So I think what really broke really put the fire in my belly to get to jump was probably COVID, seeing a lot of the stress and anxiety, not only because I was. They worked in healthcare, so amongst all that happening, everyone was really trying to get indoors and hide and I was doing the opposite in I suppose I wasn't rebelling, but I was like the anti-dotes to be outside, to be connected to the land, to fall this stress. I mean also for our well-being and our health. You know, being locked up in hiding and in fear wasn't, you know, going to support and I really set working in both healthcare and in education. I saw the kids really stressed and they were coming up with all these different anxieties and germ germaphobia sort of feelings and yeah, it really broke my heart to see that. So, yeah, the antidote was getting outside when we could and yeah, it really, I think, wanting that freedom to do it on my own. But I did have those fears of others. Probably you're having that because I'm a single mum also. So it was really making a big leap to trust that it would all work out for me and it did. It just kept on working out, working out.

Tiffany Gesler:

Then we were homeschooling, so I was doing it with kids in the backyards of the different homeschooling families, yeah, and then, like I said, it's sacred even in your backyards. But I really wanted to get the kids even more, you know, connected to the bush, more wildlife, more that connection and bringing in that truth-telling and the Aboriginal perspectives and caring for that land as well. So, yeah, I think that's pretty much my story in a nutshell. But what really brought the fire on Bailey?

Tiffany Gesler:

Obviously it was always there, but it was the kids and seeing them so disconnected and it's almost like an obligation in a way, that I knew that the land is such a beautiful space to hold us into. It's the antidote to this disconnected world that we live in. That's the go-go-go, busy the schedules, the be there, be over there, be back here and just constantly fast-paced world that our kids are feeling, and we all know that the kids are feeling it. We only have to look in, which is probably another rabbit warrant to go down. But the schooling systems and yeah, we all know most of us listening and knowing that our kids are not it's not working and it's not working for everybody, whether it's Aboriginal people or anybody. It's the whole colonised system doesn't work for all of us. At the moment, in particularly, A you.

Nicki Farrell:

That's a beautiful segue because I wanted to talk to you about. We obviously are called Wildlings Forest School and I can imagine that's a slap in the face to First Nations people everywhere when it's such a. It's a colony word, you know it's been, it's a colonised concept. How can we, as Forest School or outdoor leaders, whatever you want to call us decolonise our practices? Because it is waterfied, it is colonised, we are working on stolen land. What are some of the ways that we can firstly acknowledge that and start doing the work to really break down those practices?

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, before I speak, I really just want to bring that acknowledgement, that all that awareness that I'm not shaming when I speak this and there's no judgment yeah because I know this is a hard conversation or hard to hear from people as well. There's a lot of guilt, a lot of shame. But if we don't have these conversations or bring this awareness, we're not changing, and what doesn't change doesn't change.

Nicki Farrell:

We need to have uncomfortable conversations and we need to eliminate the white fragility as well around it.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yes, and there seems to be people who only want to hear so much, and then it gets too hard. But that even even in itself, is a privilege. But what I want the listeners to is to invite an understanding that this is a responsibility for our future and for our children's future. And it doesn't. It's not just for us Aboriginal us mob, who. You're not doing it just for us. You're doing it for yourselves as well, because you're you're being colonised, everyone's been colonised in the Western world, and it's not working and we can all come, no and, and the way we live together is going to support everybody.

Tiffany Gesler:

So to decolonise your spaces, I think, is really that coming back to your own self and decolonising your own stories. We're not at that level yet, thinking of our spaces and our children, we're just coming back to our own stories and knowing where we came from. So I would invite you to look at your family history. Where have you come from? Where did you settle in in settles, know that we were the first to settle in that space, but just knowing where you were born and where you've come from, where your grand, probably your grandparents, or even your great grandparents, depending how far, how young you are, understanding where they've come from and your roots, because that's also going to benefit you, knowing your story and where you've come from and then knowing from them forward the privileges. So, while I know a lot of there's been, there's all sorts of diversity that's come here to Australia, to this is out there now their home. Some haven't come from good backgrounds either and some have come here for a refuge. I understand that, but there's also is a big gap of privilege. So, understanding and even looking around you, do you see Aboriginal people in your I don't know city or your way of work. How many Aboriginal people do you see working there in the? In this, I don't know, I'm thinking schools and hospitals. In comparison, how many Aboriginal people do you see working in these leadership roles? We need more of us as leaders working in the spaces.

Tiffany Gesler:

So just having that acknowledgement that you're in a privileged space, space when you have these leadership roles, particularly in a space when it is to do with nature and teaching and and being on a land, and then I would be looking at okay, I'm privileged and I have this opportunity. What can I do with this privilege? How can I support, what can I do with this privilege, rather than just unconsciously, you know, going on about your business without realizing. So they're really big conversations and really big reflections on your own self and it will probably bring up some yucky feelings. But beyond those yucky feelings then comes action, awareness. So it's not something you're going to have in a day be decolonized, constant, constant. Yeah, even for my own self, I I'm aware that even I perhaps would be privileged in comparison to mob up north who are living in conditions of poverty, in third-rail conditions and having all these health, health concerns and health issues and just depraved affordability and deposition.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, financial freedom is another one to reflect on. Is that even my own grandmothers weren't paid to work, or weren't, so there's a big gap there and there's probably more my generation that are finally getting out there to have this financial freedom.

Nicki Farrell:

But there's that missing of that generational wealth. Because of that right, Because your ancestors weren't paid for generations. The generational wealth is barely starting in this generation. So there's a huge amount of privilege that white people have over First Nations mob because these generations weren't paid. Yeah, exactly.

Tiffany Gesler:

So yeah, that could be a big hard pill to swallow for some people to hear. But I'm not saying you know, you can still work on your spaces. I'm not. There's only 3% of us in the population. We're not coming out to take away from you either. But before reconciliation there needs to be truth and you need to have that awareness and yeah, so then I would be looking at how we can then reconcile and bring without the hero tapes, without being a savior.

Tiffany Gesler:

How can you walk with us then moving forward, knowing this now I really think a good practice I like to do because, like I said, I'm a visitor here too, in this particular space is when I go to work on this beautiful space that I'm in, I really think about the people before me who are on the land, the children that played on the land, like I think of the women's business and in, like you know, the harvesting, and I think of the men doing their business out, because we've got a sacred mountain we can see from our space. So I'm really acknowledging and feeling into what was happening beforehand. So when I'm then bringing children to play there, I've just got that awareness that is a privilege even for me to be there with these children.

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah, it's beautiful. When I first came down to our space in Nambu, I remember thinking that same thing. Just I wonder how many generations of people in mob have played here, you know, for thousands, of thousands of years, and what a privilege it is to that this space is actually even still here. I'm so grateful that there's spaces left for children to play like that, because gosh, I know there are in a city, brisbane, like you said, there's so much more concrete than these spaces are.

Nicki Farrell:

They are decimated. So, yeah, I want to touch on again, without you know, making it about white saviourism, but paying the rent and also the ways that maybe is wild business, as you can pay the rent. So one of the ways you could possibly do that is bringing in an equity discount for BIPOC folk. Even in our staff meetings we try and we're reading a text. Every staff meeting we have, we break down a chapter and it might be on white saviourism or white fragility or, and it still astounds me, and our team is fairly, I would say, in Australia, which is a really, really sad thing to say a fairly educated on First Nations perspectives, and we are missing huge chunks. When our team are missing huge chunks of history, we're missing huge chunks of understanding. We're missing so much.

Nicki Farrell:

So, just just trying to bring in those things where we're educating ourselves and not relying on First Nations mob to be constantly educating us, because that's a big thing, it's a big weight on everybody's shoulders.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, so the colonisation decolonising is not us mob, it's for you doing the heavy lifting, yeah.

Tiffany Gesler:

I love that, though I love that you're in your meetings. You're exploring different texts and paying the rent in different ways. There's many ways that you can pay the rent, and that could be caring for countries signing up for something that brings even reconciliation through the land, supporting land care. I don't know what you have in different spaces, but here in Toowoomba we have working bees under the council where we weed invasive weeds with friends of the Scarpman. Here there's so many things you could do for caring for the land, but then obviously there's listening to diverse voices and what do the elders want you to do.

Tiffany Gesler:

You could be hearing the voices of mob around. How do they see it? Because we're so diverse, there's like 400 or even more languages and mobs around Australia, so there'll be different needs depending where you're listening from, for what that means, and I love that there's discounts, which I have been able to do as well, and also been on the receiving end, because, like I said, there's that gap, freedom gap between finances or even just getting to the location, especially if we're in bushland that's not accessible to the suburbs or the cities there could be travel to where you have to go, so having those travel discounts as well, or even just putting on one term, once a term you invite there might be an Aboriginal health centre or, I don't know where you're living, there might be even Aboriginal community gardens, so you can invite them to come out one term or once a year, even something, and to support those kids that probably aren't getting those opportunities, unfortunately.

Nicki Farrell:

That's a beautiful idea. I can think of actually one in Brisbane. I'm going to put my team on too. I hadn't thought about that. That's great. It's so and so simple. Like our staff are so keen For any ideas like this. If we can throw them out, we might even start a list of ways that we can pay the rent for as well businesses, even as parents. Like you said, I love the idea of just reconciling and connecting with land, and giving back to the land is such a simple win-win for everybody. It's so nourishing for everybody to do that together as well.

Nicki Farrell:

I know other businesses that donate. There's businesses that do 1% for the planet. Will they do 1% to First Nations, either businesses or not for profits, depending on what business they're in? There's so many ways you can do it. We work with community centres as well, and just if there's anyone in a community centre that needs a day in the bush, then they just come. There's just ways that you can even do it without having to which is going to sound terrible reach into your pocket. But I know when you're starting a business, giving cash is not easy to do. But you can give time. You can give time, you can give spaces in your programs. There's other ways you can give back, so on that, some of the amazing work you do is go out to early years centres and settings and show educators how to bring in Aboriginal perspectives. What are some of the ways that you love to see earlier settings do this?

Tiffany Gesler:

So walking into centres and also having experience working in different early education spaces, the main thing was a lot of tokenism and I think it's getting better. But your perspective is going to be different to Aboriginal perspectives or what you think the kids need to learn. So what I'm saying is that, when you take away the whole, let's sit down and learn about Aboriginal people today. Let's sit down and learn about Aboriginal culture In particular. Let's do it because it's NAIDOC week, or Reconciliation week.

Tiffany Gesler:

And then the rest of the year there's crickets. There's no conversations. You've got the Aboriginal flags come down and all the beautiful displays come down for the rest of the year. So I've seen that in centres. But I've also seen beautiful centres that I've walked in and I'm like, what do you want me for? Because you're doing a beautiful job. It feels so culturally safe and I can tell that you've done the work.

Tiffany Gesler:

Your staff are doing the work. You're doing it every day and it's embedded. It's not just once a week kind of thing. I think private schools are actually a space that seem to do it just for NAIDOC week, for example. I think embedding it in our early education spaces is really just talking about it every single day. It doesn't have to be a sit down. Let's learn this.

Tiffany Gesler:

It can be a question or an open-ended reflection that you can learn with the children. You don't need to have the answer. So, for example, sake, I know it springs coming around so you might be starting to plant some new things in your gardens, in the spaces. Also, you can together think I wonder what Aboriginal people before us would have been planting at this time of year. What is a land doing now? What's flowering now? What can we put into the spaces that reflect the season, what's going on and what we can eat and grow? What's going to benefit the animals and bring in more animals for us, like the bees and the butterflies and the birds?

Tiffany Gesler:

So you may not have those answers, but you go together with those questions and the kids are so pretty connected and awesome and they'll have ideas. Maybe they're doing cubbies and you might just be thinking that's not work, like it could be falling over all the time and they can't work it out. So you'd be like I wonder how the architecture of shelter for the first people that built here, what could they use? Were they using bamboo or were they using the wood from the eucalyptus or the different trees around in the space? That's a really good question to ask, particularly if you've got a lot of European trees around. You'd be thinking even further what's actually native, particularly if you're in a park, those botanical parks that, because the Europeans missed their home, they planted all the plant, flowers and the trees that they missed and I can't say that for all parks, but a lot of parks are like that.

Tiffany Gesler:

So, yeah, so just exploring with the children, and it's embedded every day in conversation, and you probably don't think these little conversations are doing anything, but I can tell you from years and years of experience, the kids are really taking it on and it's probably a more connected way for them to learn, because they're learning through play, they're learning through exploring with you. You're not being an expert, you're sharing with the kids. You're learning as well. So that would be my advice for Aboriginal perspectives in your spaces and then yeah, that's only thinking learning side of things and then you've got the wellbeing and the connection and even your acknowledgments every single day that can be embedded. So, yeah, I think, just starting, take it back a little you don't have to have these big grand programs or curriculum. Most of it's just through communication sorry, conversation and connecting through that way.

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah, they're such little sponges, aren't they? They're little children. They just like you said and I think you've nailed it when you say that, when they're on country and their hands are in the dirt or they're touching the trees, and you're having those conversations, Some of the things that my children have remembered from six, seven, eight years ago, from what I thought, exactly like you were saying, was a passing conversation, and they've just sunk in because they were maybe touching the sap or they were laying on some paper bark and we were talking about it, and I just think, gosh, it's conversation, it's story, isn't it? And talking about the land like she is alive, because she is, yeah exactly, and for mob we didn't have books or curriculums or schools being learnt through the conversations, through the stories, through the songs and through the land.

Tiffany Gesler:

So and like, how did we get from 80,000 years ago to here with still having this knowledge? Despite having you know the disconnect and the things that have happened to us in history? We still have this deep knowledge despite all of that.

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah.

Tiffany Gesler:

And that is because we spoke it through the land, through our stories, through our people and our elders that have this wisdom that they pass on. And, yeah, they're not sitting there thinking, oh, today we have to learn this ABC sort of thing to make sure the kids know. Yeah, let me just visit my textbook.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, it's through that embedded community which is a big strength for us is that community and families and relationships. Yeah because we always get sort of like. I noticed that we hear a lot about the bad things that have happened to us and the weaknesses, but we don't speak so much about the strengths. So yeah.

Tiffany Gesler:

I'm really acknowledging that that is a strength of ours, that, despite everything that has happened, we are still here, we still have this knowledge, perhaps from some spaces it's just gone to sleep for a little while, but it's still all within us and that wisdom and that those knowledges are being passed on just naturally through our voices, which is why I feel very privileged today to speak because my grandmothers couldn't, even though I was quite anxious to speak.

Tiffany Gesler:

Sometimes it just comes blurt out because I know I'm not speaking just for myself, I'm speaking for my family and my ancestors.

Nicki Farrell:

So yeah, that's so powerful it's. And again, I think people forget, people choose to forget or it's not in their consciousness, how long mob was silenced for you know, when you couldn't speak your language and you couldn't practice your customs and your rituals and the dances and use language and, like you said, the strength and I hate saying the word resilient, because no one wants to be resilient forever and an entire culture shouldn't need to continue being resilient and strong like at some point. We need to have these safe spaces where you can just be and not be strong and resilient all the time. But, gosh, the fact that that knowledge has been so protected and passed down is just a bloody miracle and so grateful for that. Oh my gosh, I've got so many questions, tiff.

Tiffany Gesler:

That's okay, I can yell about it all day.

Nicki Farrell:

So I'm going to drag us back to Wild Business for a little bit, because I'd love to know what the hardest part of starting your business has been, or what the hardest part of your journey. So, whether it's a start or post start up, what's the hardest being and what do you wish you'd had more help with?

Tiffany Gesler:

So I've very much feeling the gratitude for having you guys to have that support, because I felt very alone. Like I shared that I've been working in these spaces, in the early education spaces in particular, where I still felt quite alone. It was like dragging people to listen or dragging the teachers to understand that there was a different way. So it's really been really good to have people that understand and have that same passion to get the kids outdoors and in business, because we've got people outdoors and getting out there, but not necessarily in business, and particularly here in Toowoomba it hadn't happened before in a private setting, I mean like there was a few daycares I'm aware of.

Tiffany Gesler:

So from what I'm aware, I'm one of the first ones to do it privately. So Congratulations. Yeah, thank you, and probably that would have been the hardest, I think, was that I was like, while I'm very proud that I was the first, it also felt quite, you know, alone in all that because a lot of the Toowoomba people weren't 100% understanding what it was going to be as well, so it was sharing with the families of what my vision was.

Tiffany Gesler:

Some of you some of them had heard of wildlings and yourselves or had been down and travelled down to you guys.

Nicki Farrell:

so Now that I have to travel, yay, yeah.

Tiffany Gesler:

And most hadn't actually understood what exactly it was. So it took a bit to share that we're not a school or you drop off and go. This is actually a space that you are going to be a part of, although I did have drop off programs too. But yeah, just sharing that it's a different thing, especially Toowoomba. We while I'm very grateful for Toowoomba, but it is feels a little bit conservative.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, so we are still got a long way to go and unfortunately it is a space where a lot of racism happens and we also in a space where a lot of the custodians of this land are not here today because of you know they were displaced into missions or, you know, had that we've had masquas around around Toowoomba, so, yeah, so something bigger than me really wanted this to happen, also for the land, for reconciliation and for truth telling.

Tiffany Gesler:

So, while it was hard, it, but there was something bigger than me that kept kept me going, kept me going despite all the fears and the worries and definitely a few lows, as you're learning that imposter syndrome and wondering what it even is going to look like, because you have the vision, but it's unfolding and you're just really clinging onto that. But it, yeah, it's so beautiful and it actually has worked out even better than I thought. Opportunities, yay, coming in, yeah, it's. While I vision the kids out there. It's even bigger and epic. And I know this is only just the beginning and it will continue to unfold and grow and, yes, I'm really excited to see where else it's taking. Now these foundations are being laid and I'm aware there's another one that's just started as well at Highfields.

Tiffany Gesler:

So I'm really excited to see that these Toowoomba kids are getting these opportunities. Yeah, it's really good to see.

Nicki Farrell:

The ripple effect of your programs and particularly with your knowledge and your stories and your the history and your passion and purpose. I cannot wait to hear and see the ripple effects of, like you said, it's not just taking kids out, bush, it is completely going to change, I hope, the culture around and the stories we talk about nature and the connection that we all have with nature and I honestly think this is it will change what? Not just Toowoomba, but the spaces where all of these bush schools are popping up. I do believe this generation that's coming through are going to protect our land better, and maybe I'm an optimist and I've raised colour glasses, but the talk that I hear these children talk about I never heard in a classroom, never, ever heard children talking about nature the way that the children in these programs do, and that gives me such hope.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yes, goose bumps, I feel that too. And working with kids I'm probably sharing my age a little bit now, but I think it's going on for decades nearly. I've been working in early education particularly since I was 17 and I don't think it was just my ignorance I actually do see the kids changing and they're feeling more.

Tiffany Gesler:

They're more, even defiant as well, like they're just so, yeah, they want a world different and then sharing that and you can see that and they're keen for this as well, with and, I hope, without burden, which is what I'm trying to share yes while we have these kids so connected and understanding, if they have this nature and these spaces for solace, that the burden will be less because you know they're doing it in relationship with the land and it's embedded in their lives yeah.

Nicki Farrell:

What's the best part, then, about owning a nature play business, let's say, other than that, other than seeing that ripple effect? How? What about for you personally? How is owning your own business, whether it was a wild business or not, but particularly a wild business? What's been the best part of that for you?

Tiffany Gesler:

Mostly freedom and flexibility. Like I said, I homeschool, so I'm working hours like I used to work shift work and night shifts and nine to fives, and now I'm still working hard. But it's really working with the rhythms of what I'm feeling for balance myself and I share. I also work in women's business spaces where we really connect to our own rhythms of our rooms, so I'm really mindful of you know how much I'm giving in certain areas of my cycle as well, which is just rippling into my home.

Tiffany Gesler:

My home because I've got a teenage daughter as well, so I'm able to be there with my kids as a single mom too. I think this would benefit anyone to not sharing that. That's any different, but I'm just saying that I've opened up opportunity to be more present in the home because this is something that's lighting me up and also supporting, yeah, our lives, and I get to call mother nature my boss, so I love that I made something to say that I'm working for her.

Tiffany Gesler:

I'm not working for a system anymore and I'm not working for what's. I'm working for what's working for us, that we're designed to do, and, yeah, I really love that and it's supporting me and my body and my mental health and yeah, it's working all night long and then sleeping all day against the cycle of what you're doing.

Nicki Farrell:

Oh, isn't it? I would 100% agree with you about being able to honour your cycle. It's on day one for me. You will often find me on the couch, even on a work day. Just, I just don't work or I'll just do the things. I'll follow the dopamine. That feels okay and anything that's too hard. It just just leave it for my do phase. I'm in my do phase now and I will get through my lists. Yeah, nice, and I'm power through them.

Tiffany Gesler:

When you gave me the invitation to come talk, I actually looked at what I was going to be so I could easily look at last week when I was in my winter, but yeah, I made sure I wasn't.

Tiffany Gesler:

So that's honouring myself and if I'm example that I'm hoping what I'm doing now will example for my children. Yeah, because we talk about burdens, about, you know, supporting the land and that connection, but I think the system's already burning. It's already a burden. So we're really actually supporting by doing this work because you know, these systems are already a burden on our kids when they want to want them in there nine to five and yeah working.

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah, that's such a patriarchal system, the nine to five. You know, men's testosterone works in a 24 hour circle but, women's doesn't to expect us to do that every 24 hours when, like you said, our winter, we need to recover and recuperate and heal and cleanse, and but gosh, let's get us in a new phase and we'll move out, and so let us.

Tiffany Gesler:

And that's honouring that nature and us, and you know it ripples on to that wanting to support and be out and out you know the outer nature and the season, yeah, brings that awareness yeah, exactly decolonising ourselves.

Nicki Farrell:

So good, so let's go, because it's. I love that if you've got we cover everything with us. It's like nature and your business. But also homeschooling can you tell us about again? Similarly, what was the thing that made you take the leap and then what's been the best and hardest part of your homeschooling journey with your family?

Tiffany Gesler:

yeah. So I haven't always homeschooled so, but always thought about it working in education. I knew that the system, the public system, wasn't going to work for my children and I actually still sent my daughter there for her first year in prept, despite those big feelings. So I haven't always thought you know, this is what we're going to do. But she shared with me through her behaviour, in her, her body and her big emotions that it wasn't going to work. And all that time of my life I just remember how hard that was, separating from her every day, knowing that she wasn't in a space that she was thriving. So she was my biggest teacher in that. But we did actually find a learning community that I did work for as well in the end, a beautiful space where, yeah, that's all about having us but yeah, things changed things obviously.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, just being mindful there that I'm not dissing anything, but the system still creeps in in those spaces too, and while I have so much gratitude for this space, it equally didn't end up supporting my son either, as he really craved that land and that connection outside.

Tiffany Gesler:

So if he had big emotions it was lovely that the teachers would just know that if he climbed up the tree you leave him alone, he'll be back down in five, 10 minutes. So he had those beautiful teachers and spaces that allowed that there. But unfortunately that did change a little bit. So I was questioning, while also questioning my own ability to jump into working outside, working for myself. It also unfolded all at once with a big kick up the bum again, having my son now teaching me that this space also wasn't working.

Tiffany Gesler:

So, and that's our personal experiences, I understand all children are different, so I wish we homeschooled earlier because I've absolutely loved it, the freedom and. But even like learning through their interests and I would say we're probably more unschooled because we don't particularly do anything as far as, as far as you know, workbooks or anything like that. We're mostly learning through the land, learning through our garden, backyard garden. So community is a big thing for us and it feels like my day in my cup. So I'm learning and feeling that connection all along as well, and to see his body soften, like like I get emotional sometimes talking Hopefully won't get too emotional, yeah, but I just think about it.

Tiffany Gesler:

So he would have and it's so tense and then he's a, so his body so soft now and he's just such a different kid. Honoring him and what he's wanting to learn and what he's wanting to do, and and the friendships and the community that we have also have been a part of homeschooling as well has been absolutely beautiful. So, yeah, I really am so grateful for that, for this opportunity to do that for him and in my yeah, just for our home as well. Yeah.

Nicki Farrell:

Just being able to honour your culture, like your children and family need, I think, is, you know it, the way our schools are set up. You know we talk about embedding First Nations perspectives but there's no way in a curriculum Sorry, there is a lot of ways we can, but there's no way we can get kids on country like they need to be, to, to be in touch with culture like they need to be.

Nicki Farrell:

you know, like it's no, it can't provide that in a classroom and again, I know that's a privilege, I know that's like a lot, of, a lot of people, whether that's resources or time or whatever. I know that's a huge privilege, but it's such. We're doing such a disservice to mob keeping kids in class or to any child, but particularly to mob by keeping kids in classrooms. It's just, it's not a natural way of being anyone.

Tiffany Gesler:

And that's why you see kids in particular mob and communities are struggling in schools because, yeah, they know deep in their deep in their blood and their bones that it's not, it's colonisation right there that you have to be schooled and in our generations, before we're taken from their families to be schooled, so it's really intergenerational stuff there. I do see some little pockets here and there of hearing of programs, you know, taking the kids out and I know, particularly here in Tuumba there's a boys group that go out and do things and a friend of mine works up North in a community school and they're working hard to get by the river each day or certain times of the week through their schooling.

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah, it's different, different things. I know Benny, at Newsoflexi. School does a lot of work. On country too, there are pockets, but it doesn't seem like it's in the mainstream schooling system either. It seems like you have to almost extract the children out as well, which you know is not necessarily bad thing far better off on country and being extracted, but again, it's that separation from community that's happening then as well.

Nicki Farrell:

It's almost. Yeah, there's a lot of work that needs to be done, but hopefully, if there's more pockets like this, setting examples too that we did a little bit of work with kids at risk here. And you know there's only one or two mob kids in the community here in that group they thrived. Oh my God. They were so skilled and so confident and just flourished in this program that we ran and I just went gosh. This is like I know. The reason they're in this program is they're not feeling that success in an academic classroom. But look at this young man thriving and stepping up and leading and his peers looking up to him. Why can't we do this? There's no reason we can't do this in a school like we have so many beautiful schools with beautiful grounds. It drives me batty. I can't imagine how batty it drives you guys.

Tiffany Gesler:

Let's just put them all in a small classroom and control them this way, but then you're putting out fires the whole lesson because they're, you know, the bounce on the wheels.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yes, yes, I don't understand how it's not. And I'm not saying don't send your kids to school necessarily. They're just meaning that there's better ways, that you know we've been schooling and the curriculum's not really changing that much Like I know that a lot of the curriculums look very much the same like even from when I went to school and it's just not changing. And I think I can't remember the statistic, but I think was it 10 years time, and only you might know this bit more than me. 10 years time is only going to be like 80% of the jobs are going to be not, not what we have today and what we trained for, so there's going to be different kinds of jobs. I think perhaps not the quite right statistic there, but you know where I'm going. Is that you know?

Tiffany Gesler:

you know we're sending these kids there for something they probably won't even need, because there's all these different jobs that are be changing. No, because AI will be doing it, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Nicki Farrell:

It's going to be the skills that, yeah, the skills that machines and AI can't code for, isn't it? It's going to be community and relationships and leadership positions that these, yeah, it's going to be really interesting and I hope our schools can keep up, and I was speaking to teacher friends that they are currently not keeping up, particularly with the AI at the moment, but I'm hoping to get an AI expert on in the next, hopefully, month or so, because that's fascinating to me. Yeah, I'm intrigued?

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah, I'm intrigued too. I'm mainly intrigued because I think that it could open up so much. It could explode our education system very quickly, I think. And if it does that, it opens up more creative jobs, and jobs that people want to do rather than need to do or feel like they should do, and hopefully that's that could be really great for humanity. If that's where it goes, yeah.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, if it stays in there, I'm happy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But when you start intellect, intellecting, our actual like, bringing intellect into our own, you know, bodies and health and even our land, then that's coloc. That to me is colonizing as well. I worry a little bit, a bit hesitant, because of that. But, yeah, I'm pretty open minded too, so open to change because, yeah, the way we're doing it now is not working.

Nicki Farrell:

No, but it does seem like we need a bit of an ethics board for these. Yeah, ai, that's kind of running ahead of everyone that created it too. But yeah, hopefully we'll find out a bit more when I'm waiting to hear back if we can book this person in, but we'll see how we go.

Nicki Farrell:

Oh, tiff, I could honestly chat to you all day, but let's move into our rapid fire questions. So what's your favorite book of all time and why? Or podcasts, or anything, or what are you currently reading, if it's too hard to choose?

Tiffany Gesler:

I have books everywhere. I start reading them, start reading them, put them down and start another one. So just thinking favorites, I'm just going to say Victor Steveson's Fire Country is a big one for me, with that caring for country and the old ways.

Tiffany Gesler:

I think we very quickly forgot about the fire and all that was going on in Australia at the time because then all of a sudden, we had the floods. But I do feel the season is shifting again and before we know it, we have all this fuel for fire again because we've had the floods and the rain, particularly here in Queensland, I mean. So I think it's something that we need to be mindful of again and I know that there's these beautiful programs actually happening with a caring for country through these old ways. That was probably a big one for me. Long man by Bob Randall is a big one that really impacted.

Tiffany Gesler:

I haven't heard of that one. Oh, he's a beautiful man from out I think it's Bundoa out that way, speaking of the spirit of the land. He was a stolen generation and I think it was his father who was a white man and his mother was Aboriginal. So it's that journey that I resonated with having walking the two worlds of the white and your Aboriginal family and coming back together and reconciling for yourself. So that was a big one, and he speaks so beautifully about the land and that connection and even particularly when you've been disconnected, how it calls you and you feel it and how the land remembers you. Yeah, I think I'll leave it at that, because I could probably talk all day about all the different. So I just really urge to diversify your podcasts and your books that you read, that you're listening to different voices, particularly Aboriginal voices here, because we're so diverse, even in our own mobs, but we have so many stories about the land.

Tiffany Gesler:

So, yeah, we're very lucky that we've got a lot out there at the moment. But even reading different times, not just the modern ones today. Go back and read ones from the 90s and the 80s and it's really interesting to see their speaking pretty much exactly for what the modern authors are speaking today. It's very much the same. And so that's a good thing, but also a bad thing, because you think well, that's a 30-year-old book and nothing's changed. So yeah it is still really good, good to listen and read, though.

Nicki Farrell:

I'm going to put Songman on my list for sure. Yeah it's one thing. We try and keep our library nice and diversified because it's so easy. Again, Sunshine Coast is very much like Tornbiter. We're white conservative here, so it's really important for my family just to have different books on the shelves and different voices as well.

Tiffany Gesler:

There's so many beautiful children's books too that are coming out, which I'm so glad to see that seeing it in mainstream. Going back to Bob Randolph, he has a documentary as well called Carneting, and he has some children's books as well. I love how he speaks about the land that before Cleopatra we were here living in harmony. Before Jesus watched the earth we were here living in harmony. So it really gives you that timeframe of how ancient we are and how a lot of the European countries get traveled and explored and really honoured for their buildings and their land and all these different monuments. But here we have thousands and thousands beyond. Even in Tuomba we've got a 6,000 year old site and that's just one example Such ancient things here in this very land that we can homeage to.

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah, and honouring it. The caretaking that has happened for this country to be in the state that it was when white man came and colonised is phenomenal. The beauty and the agriculture and the fishing and the way that it was set up for longevity and for generations and generations is just something that's not celebrated enough.

Tiffany Gesler:

No, it's protected. We've got mining companies blowing up sacred caves and sites and paintings. But then Nostradamus when was that, I can't remember and everyone in the world was raising a billion dollars to save it. Yeah, and it's like how many hundred?

Nicki Farrell:

was it.

Tiffany Gesler:

And actually Ella Bencroft. She's an amazing, strong Bungalow woman that speaks a lot for community and particularly for mothers and families. She's actually over in Europe at the moment and speaking the same how it feels so odd to almost like really so in all of these places. I think she was in Greece, for example, but she's like yeah, it's cool to see, but like it's not in comparison to what we feel here with the ancients here.

Nicki Farrell:

She's an amazing storyteller, isn't she? I follow her too. It's just her way with words is just magical.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yes, she's doing a beautiful, amazing work for charity, for mob. So, yeah, getting. I actually was down there in February and was really grateful to be able to be a part of that.

Tiffany Gesler:

There was just a camp of I think about 120 women and oh, that was the first time I've ever felt the most loved, I suppose, as far as how what community could look like and just the passion for the mothers and the women there. Yeah, it was beautiful and even having, because a lot of the attendance like she gives scholarships for Aboriginal women but a lot of the attendees were actually white women, but just to see so many women cheering who were non-Aboriginal, I've never felt that before when they were listening to her and her mother, her mother's, bronwyn Benkvot, who has beautiful kids books, actually, yeah, I just never, felt that before that that monitoring and excitement and support.

Tiffany Gesler:

So, yeah, someone that I really recommend supporting her charity actually.

Nicki Farrell:

There we go. You're looking for places to pay the rent? Then there's an amazing place you can send that love. Yeah, the returning, it's cool. Mm. Oh, I love that. Yes, here's to more strong women and more voices being heard, mm, mm. So, on that, where do you go if you're happy to share and obviously you might have your spaces that you don't want to share as well? Where do you go to reset after a tough day, or what do you do?

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, that would be going out on country and it actually is a space that I work with the kids here in Tumbabu because I actually care for that space of land as well. So I have that relationship to there. If it's not there, I'm normally finding just a really big old tree to anchor with and, like I said, the backyard, like I'll be getting my hands in the dirt because reality sometimes I can't get in the car and run away, so I'm just putting my hands in the dirt, putting some weeds and carrying for the space of land I have where I live. And if things are really big, we're getting in the car and driving six hours west back onto country along the Maranoa River. So, yeah, we go out there when we can. Unfortunately it's hard to get out there being so far, but when things are big we go out there for that solace and that connection and that support.

Nicki Farrell:

Amazing how land can just can hold you like that. It knows, I swear it knows when you need to be held. If you had to choose just one thing to change about the education system, what would it be?

Tiffany Gesler:

One.

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah, we could have a whole podcast.

Tiffany Gesler:

I actually think, well, it's gonna say, get them outside, but I think it actually would be just listen to our kids and give them voices because they have. They're amazing, beautiful children that have voices that are not being heard, and there's obviously hierarchy and egos and control, but if you're listening to their kids and what's on their hearts, they're gonna feel heard and supported and loved. So, yeah, just love on the kids and connecting. I've worked in these spaces and thinking things are happening in a room and it's getting big. My first thing to go to is, okay, let's sit down and connect what's going on for these kids, cause it's more than what you're seeing in their behavior, some things that they're needing to hear or say or yeah. So that's why I actually do have a soft spot for those kids that get labeled naughty or get labeled with these behaviors, cause it's usually that they're just, yeah, needing that space to be held and heard.

Tiffany Gesler:

So, yeah, including our own children in our own home if you're not in those spaces?

Nicki Farrell:

I'm saying something about the children that don't get the most love are the ones that actually need the most love, or something along those lines, or the ones that are almost pushing you away, are the ones that actually need the most love. And, last of all, you've got more than one business, so where can we find out more about your work or works?

Tiffany Gesler:

I wish I had time for studying this website stuff, but I haven't got there yet. So you'll find me on Instagram and so a nurtured or Facebook and if you are interested in any women's business kind of things connecting to the nature of you and your cycle of you and the seasons of you, I work in a beautiful space here in Toomba called SheeGathered and you can find me under woman nurtured, where I used to speak a little bit on my so A Nurtured page about all this birthing and bleeding but the audience wasn't ready for that right beside a post about being in good school.

Tiffany Gesler:

So I recognise that wasn't what they wanted to hear, so I separated the two. Yeah, even though I find them so interconnected and related working as a midwife, it's so interconnected and related.

Nicki Farrell:

They are, aren't they? But yeah, yeah, I feel you. I feel like that's how I came to this. Work was through birthing and parenting and, yes, I was a teacher before that, but I was a different person. I was a different teacher.

Nicki Farrell:

Yeah. I know what you mean. It's all connected. We can't separate parenting from children, so we can't separate bleeding and birthing from children, but one day it'll all be together because we will understand Saying that I don't know. We've separated out to businesses because it was almost too much to have business and programs together as well.

Nicki Farrell:

It's such a funny space, the online space, where you have to niche yourself. It's really hard to show, yeah, but I find it really frustrating because, no, humans are just one-layered. We're all such layered, multi-faceted beings and it's pretty frustrating to have to split your time and effort and energy into two separate spaces. It's just you and me behind there, behind these spaces. Yeah, exactly.

Nicki Farrell:

I agree, funny little space, and so it's the best way to get ahold of you. Say, if you're an early years educator and wanting to bring you into their space, whether that's for consult or for them to come to you for excursions, what's the best way for them to get ahold of you?

Tiffany Gesler:

Oh, so yeah, I have an email that you can reach me on Through. Instagram. Yeah, you'll be able to find me on Instagram or Facebook, and then I do have an email.

Nicki Farrell:

Beautiful.

Tiffany Gesler:

Hello, so I'm at nurturecomau.

Nicki Farrell:

Beautiful. Highly recommend absolutely doing that. If you're looking for someone in the Toowoomba region, tiff's your gal, she's an amazing practitioner and so passionate and purpose-driven, and I just can't wait to see, having followed your journey Obviously not before you started while business, but if your very first email to us was just a giant yes, I was just like.

Nicki Farrell:

I want to see where you are in one year and five years and 10 years, and I just know that you being in this space and doing the work that you're doing is just going to make such big change. So thank you, for I know it is carrying that burden because I know it can be a burden and thank you for that, because it is making change. I can see it already.

Tiffany Gesler:

Thank you. Thank you for seeing me and supporting, and it was really kind of a big deal for me to talk to you today, because I listened to you guys when you first started the podcast, and I think it was at 2020. I feel like I've been listening to you for a while. Yeah.

Tiffany Gesler:

And I actually, I think COVID, yeah, yeah, you guys sort of like through the podcast, were even supporting me in my journey of going homeschooling and not feeling alone, hearing these people out there that all have this passion for the world and the kids and nature, and so, yeah, thank you as well, and Vicki as well, thank you for supporting me in my wild business.

Nicki Farrell:

I love it. Honestly, I say this probably every week, but I love this part of my job because of that, like I just I don't think any of us realise and I don't think you will even see the impact that you're having already for years. Like when we started the podcast a couple of years ago, we would honestly, we were doing it for ourselves. It was COVID and we were like what can we do? And we want to speak to these people, what's the best way to do this? And but we get this like this delayed kind of gratification, but like the delayed impact I guess is so far reaching and it's gosh. It makes it so extra worthwhile because I just have loved spending this time with you. But I also know that there'll be someone listening right now that in five years will go that podcast that I listened to with Tiff. Either maybe take the leap or, you know, thought I'd try homeschooling or we booked her and now we have this ongoing relationship to land or like it's just. It blows my mind and I'm so excited for it.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, I love that, thank you.

Nicki Farrell:

Thank you so much for joining us and you can check out Tiff at so Un nurtured and all the spaces. Please support her work and we can't wait to. We'll have to get you back on again because, like I said, I've got another. Brazilian question. We'll break that up to another episode.

Tiffany Gesler:

Yeah, I just want to send some thank yous and love out to the listeners too, knowing that what we spoke about is a really big conversation. So thank you for doing the work in this city.

Nicki Farrell:

It is. There was a lot of layers in there, even just for schooling. I often don't reflect until after the episode and I go oh gosh, I'm sure I make a lot of people uncomfortable, but thank you if you're still here. Yeah, because it is. It's, you know, it's all of us sitting through uncomfortable conversations that is going to make change for the better for everyone not just the chosen, you know, few billionaires. Yes.

Nicki Farrell:

Amazing. Thank you so much. I hope you've had a great restful couple of weeks and that your programs are beautiful and blossoming, and it's such a beautiful time of year to get back on Country too. So yeah, until next week, stay wild.

Connecting to Land and Indigenous Wisdom
Decolonizing Outdoor Education and Acknowledging Privilege
Promoting Aboriginal Perspectives in Early Education
The Impact of Nature Play Businesses
Homeschooling Challenges in Traditional Education
Exploring Aboriginal Voices and Land Connection