 Okay, well, welcome back to my favorite books and for the first time, I'm very excited to say that it's not just me talking about somebody else's book today. I'm getting a chance to interview one of my dear friends, Luby, about her new book, which is this one here. It's called Cultural Emergence. I'm going to find out what's inside there because I'm going to ask her. I haven't had time to read the whole thing yet. I've been a bit of a skimmer on this one because it's just coming out and I'm still trying to finish my book. But it looks extremely exciting. It's full of great pictures and more than that actually because for me, what's exciting about this particular new book, Luby's new book is it brings together everything that she's written before along with a whole bunch of other things like the work of Joanna Macy and I've forgotten his name, Chris Johnson. So all the work of things like Coyote's Guide, which is also a fabulous book but very heavy and quite difficult to get in the UK. Anyway, so maybe rather than me just rabbiting on for ages, I'm going to ask Luby, what exactly is Cultural Emergence? Where did that title come from? Well, it was quite an emergent process actually, but it gave birth to that title Cultural Emergence. It was through a collaboration between myself and John Young. So Coyote's Guide is written by John Young and other people and he's a deep nature connection specialist and he was looking at that question of why are some cultures more nature connected than others and interested in this whole process of what he describes as cultural repair. And in permaculture, we have this permanent agriculture and permanent culture. And it's like, what does that actually mean? And it's a bit of a fallacy, this idea of permanence in terms of culture and actually culture is much more of an emerging process, this organic process. So the phrase cultural emergence came from this kind of intention of how do we emerge regenerative cultures? How do we repair and make cultures that are healthy and supportive and nourishing for everyone? And so that was like the origins of that. And it came through this emergence of this synergy and connection between the work I've been doing with people in permaculture and how do we use permaculture principles and design and then the practices that support deep nature connection. So we asked ourselves, what would be the practices that support cultural emergence? What would be the principles of cultural emergence? And over the last four years, that's been a process and a journey and a story of harvesting collective wisdom to answer those questions, to then formulate in the book and share with the world. Yes, it feels very much like another practical book, you know, it's not a book to just read, it's a book that's full of, you call them activities and what was the other phrase and used, reflection questions, questions for reflection. And it's very much about, I'm writing at the moment about systems and patterns as well from a different perspective, very much a sort of physical landscape sort of thing. And you're very much focused, you're always being focused on how does that affect our cultural behaviors, the paradigms we create in the world. We see around us and why it looks like it does to us. And what's particularly key, I think, is that nobody really up to the point that you wrote people in permaculture had looked at the people care side of permaculture. It's been very much a case of, I think in Bill Mollison's book, he mentioned something about provision to basic needs of crude water and shelter and that's sort of it. But as has been pointed out by yourself and others before, we can't do the physical permaculture bit if we can't get on with each other and very often people will try to get together in intentional communities, even with a shared goal of let's do this thing. And within a year or two, half the people have left, other people are coming and they've got slightly different ideas. And we haven't been trained in our culture, our Western culture doesn't train us to live in community. And you're taking on board and providing in this lovely framework for the new book, a lot of wisdom from other cultures, which in many ways for us in the West, we don't relate to because we don't live or we don't connect to our history in the same way. We've been so disconnected from nature and that sort of appreciation of nature and the importance of us looking after the world around us because it's not just about the beauty and honouring the fact that there's this amazing thing that we immersed in this landscape of life, but also that it directly affects us that whatever we put out there comes back and bites us on the backside. So there I am waffling on again. So you very much talk about a toolkit and the book is very nicely structured around these different parts. So you talk about a toolkit and these premises which essentially underline create this foundation. Do you want to say a little bit about the premises of the book, the cultural emergence? Yeah, so one of the premises there is like that we, it's an ongoing process that the creating culture is this ongoing process. There's another premises that humanity is part of the web of life and has a positive role to play in that and that's hugely you know, can be a huge shift in thinking. I know a lot of people are very disillusioned by the human race at the moment and really thinking oh you know we're just heading for the destruction of the planet and the world would be better off without humanity and actually if we're coming from that thinking it is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy then and it you know it depresses us. It makes us hugely pessimistic. We have that we're you know constantly finding stories that reinforce that belief and there's plenty around but if we turn that around and think actually we do have a positive role to play we can become part of the try as Pat McCabe calls it the thriving design for life that we have. Humanity has a thriving design that we aren't the only species on the planet that hasn't got a place in the web of life. We have and if we come from that set of thinking that premise then how we relate to nature how we see ourselves as individuals and collectively shifts dramatically and that shift can lead to all sorts of things. So you say you know the what's manifest in the material world comes from you know our thinking humankind thinking you know what the the chairs that we sit on the desks the computers the buildings we have that our agricultural systems they all manifest out of our cultural beliefs and our paradigms and our values and our priorities of what we you know what we focus our human ingenuity into creating is it do we focus our human ingenuity into creating better iPhones or eliminating poverty you know and it's maybe not on either all how you know but where do we put our priorities and that's where then the you know the things in the material world shift. So those premises sort of create the foundation then from the toolkit and they're more that that's a couple to get going with. Yes it's very interesting this idea that humans are a problem we should get rid of them well the earth should get rid of them but it's not us as human beings that are the problem it's the some of the behaviors we're doing at the moment because some of the things we do are still lovely it's just a few other things we're doing are creating a big mess from a social and environment perspective and so we just need to change those I mean Charles Eisenstein has lovely quotes about humans are kind of in the teenage phase and we're just playing with our gifts and we haven't quite figured out what we're doing yet and we're making a bit of a mess but our situation now is to find a way through that and Bill mollison talked about you know we know everything we need to know to fix the the earth situation but what we didn't have so much of in the west at least was a cultural understanding of how to do that and what you've done with your new book in particular has brought that really sort of the latest version of how we might do that providing us with a lovely toolkit. So for me it's yeah it's the latest version of this lovely kind of framework and I think when when you sit down and you spend a lot of time writing the book and I know you do you're very good at getting disciplined and writing your books and what you're doing is you're taking time it's taking new time but you're putting things in a framework that just makes it a lot easier for the rest of us to just okay now I know what to do and I could and yeah so let's talk a little bit more about the book itself so then the bulk of the book is these three phases as you call them and do you want to tell a little bit about these three different phases of cultural emergence? Yeah so they're the phases are challenge and awaken, moving, invigorate and nourish and empower and when we have a balance of those in our lives it leads to more regeneration because it leads to this emergence so we're not stuck we're not stagnant we're moving forward and it's a regenerative process it's renewal it's invigorating and so you know the challenge and awaken it stimulates us it gets us thinking you know we've been very much in a challenge and awaken phase over the last 12 months collectively patterns have disrupted it's like we're in cultural quicksand what's happening here but that can lead us then into well how do we move forward then what's our vision what do it what can we use in terms of design process to manifest things in our lives and then the nourish and empower phase it's about connecting with ourselves with other people with the more than human world and how that can resource us for the other phases and we need to bring those into balance and that's really I feel what one of the you know my intentions moving into this new year is how do I nourish and empower myself and others and seeing that we have had a lot of this challenge and awaken how can we do more nourishment empowerment that can lead us then into more move and invigorate can lead us into effectively designing and yeah as you say moving out of that teenage that collective humanity as teenagers into being productive and adults that can look after the earth well yeah yeah lovely thank you and so then in terms of the book's framework within each of those sections which is in a quite big long section do you have these core routines do i say a little bit more about core routine yeah so if we think of cultures as you know habits and this web of patterns you know habits being patterns in our lives pattern thinking packet patterns of behaving so if we create these routines these practices that we do regularly in our lives and this is where it isn't just a book to read it's a toolkit to use if we use them regularly then they become our personal culture and our personal culture then ripples out into the cultures we're part of and so they become part of our own culture part of this web of patterns that we have by doing them regularly so i call them yeah core routines from john's work in nature connection what are the core routines yeah connection and then what are the all practices routines the habits patterns that we create in our lives yeah there's a very lovely introduction by john in your book honouring your work which i really enjoy reading and yeah thank you it's yeah he's been really lovely to work with him and to get it for it to come from this emergent space with with him and with maddie harland who's editor and your publisher as well as mine and you know she's very much bought her wisdom into this from teaching and i've been co-teaching with star hawk as well so and andy gouldering so a lot of other people have bought their wisdom into developing this toolkit as well and then we have the principles of cultural emergence because in permaculture we like principles don't we do and it's and i think you call it something about principles and moving forth so it's about how do we that last part of the book is very much about creating sort of momentum really isn't it and where do we go from here so exactly and how do we do this on a small scale of ourselves what the you know the cultures of you know how do we create a culture of self-esteem of trust for ourselves how do we create a culture of collaboration in our family for example you know how do we create a culture of safety in our neighborhood what are these cultures that we're trying to create how can we name them and help them to move forward and manifest yeah very much yeah so it was nice for me as well too as i was say skimming through at this point but to come across you know so thinking differently so your seven ways to think differently which is one of those books that i remember getting through quite quickly because it's a relatively small book but you know fascinating um but it sort of sat on its own to some degree although it was sort of attached to this one although of course there's a later there's a new version of this now isn't there there is yes this is the second edition second edition so but it's sort of loosely attached itself to that but within the cultural emergence book this then becomes part of challenge and awaken because it's about how you look at the world isn't it and how you're thinking about what you're seeing and then your design web which i remember you talking about originally the design web was sort of something was part of the book but it was the thing that most people seem to grab from the book and make use of in many really interesting ways and so then that becomes that's become part of um is it move and invigorate move and invigorate section isn't it so in here it has yeah so it was really nice for me because i love putting things together i'm very much the kind of person that i don't do jigsaws but i see the world like a jigsaw of ah that this whole chunk over here joins to this chunk here and look they fit and look it's a bit missing so what is that bit and it feels very much like this book has been has done that so you spent time making the jigsaw of all the parts and the parts that you've you've come up with and created and parts that other people have that fit nicely on there um and that for me is what feels particularly exciting for me about reading this book hold on i'll probably be told off if i spend too much time reading at the moment um because that's writing a book as well it seems to me looking at the structure of the book that that's what you've done is you've just pulled the door together in a really nice way that it fits beautifully um and so it's absolutely why i would thoroughly recommend anybody particularly if they read any of your other books before but even if they haven't doing any kind of permaculture that it's key for us to understand this bit because it is all about how do we work together in order to create a better world in the physical sense as well because this is the bit that we haven't done very well yet so yes totally thank you and it's yeah i mean as you your your quotes on the back of the book are there it belongs in the hands of every changemaker and in the hands it's a doing book and it's it's not just about like you know we know we say that permaculture isn't just about the garden and it can be used permaculture can be used for designing anything and what i really love from hearing people's stories that have read people in permaculture it's like oh and then i went to i went on to use your design web for caring for my elderly parent or for moving house or for changing jobs or setting up my own business or starting coaching other people you know and it's suddenly you know for learning a new language and all these things that i wouldn't have necessarily thought of to design people have gone yes i'll use this and and so and then because i'm a diploma tutor as well i get to read lots of other people's designs and i'm teaching it and so then i've i've actually sort of upgraded that information that was in people in permaculture about the design web for cultural emergencies like what are the questions that i've been asked what are the sticking points what are the things that people haven't quite understood that i've needed to explain more and so i put all of that into um this book as well maybe not all of it but it's you know it's it's an upgrade on the design web as well so they they fit together yeah well i just want to say congratulations it's fantastic to see it in print i'm very excited about it and we definitely recommend it to anyone doing community stuff permaculture stuff anyone who wants to even just get on with their neighbors it's permanent publications it's out now and it's a very lovely book thank you lube and uh all the best with whatever you're doing this year thanks Rania bye bye