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Esoterracisms : Nu Healing Arts – JP015

We are pleased, proud, and excited to share a very different type of interview today with Geo of Nu Healing Arts. Very quickly we get into the hidden side of garden, feeling and getting felt by plants, the soil, and all sorts of hardly quantifiable connections that we experience(d) with our hands in the soil. Enjoy!

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Medase Paa   ߡߍߘߊߛߋ ߔߊ
Modupe O ߡߏߘߎߔߋ ߏ

Thank you for listening to

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Transcript (automated)

Mason Olonade
Peace. I’m Mason Olonade, and this is Jigijigi Africulture Podcast. Here we believe building a healthy soil builds a healthy soul, and we share strategies for how to do both. We now ask two questions. How do you grow while you grow kale, collards, tomatoes and melons? And why do you think the healthiest soils are black? Hmm, I was struggling to think about adjectives on the way here. So I always say excited, you know, please proud. I’m all of the above to have interviewee, Geo here, Nu healing arts. I met Geo at the soil soilless series workshop certificate at UDC over the summer, my birthday week. I knew just from the way that you would interacted with the class. I’m trying to accept that I’m more sensitive right than I previously thought and it’s sensitive isn’t it sort I’m sensitive, right? But that also is that. Um, but I was like this guy, I need to know this guy. And then when you talked about the fish emotion, I was like, all right after after this class, I’m going to get him on the podcast. And then I found out did you do the Chinese, the traditional Chinese medicine and you’ve been developing that into your own thing. And then, so we had talked after class, you, Mandela and I, and then we met up at your house gave us a garden tour. And we talked for eight hours,

Geo
that was vivid that was I remember, it was like, from dusk till dawn

Mason Olonade
and it was dope. I mean, it wasn’t you know, we had our both had our sort of, and then you know, and then and, and sort of just watching how, you know, being in your house, being in your space, and watching and being inspired by how you’ve navigated life thus far. And so Now I’m very excited when I say pleased and proud to say welcome. Thank you. Thank you

Geo
for having thanks for inviting me to come You know, share, kick it kick back and talk, you know, soil and plants and all the magic in between. Yeah.

Mason Olonade
Yeah, man. It’s always so cool to do this. So, and it must be very cool for you to tell us about where we are today

Geo
Yes, so, we are in the Nu healing arts studio. Uh, this is a fairly new project for me. I’ve only been in this space for a month now. So came in October 1. And it has been a long time coming of various iterations of, you know, the integrative holistic work that I do. That is showing up anywhere from teaching, you know, classes in our homeschool community to do a plant walks To work in, in a dispenser, I have no various experiences around, you know, plants and gardening and then the healing arts as well. So having an opportunity to now be in a space where I can do that, you know, can experiment this can be you know, for me, this is really my canvas and it’s awesome that I’m in a space that is full of art studio. So I’m surrounded by artists so really, you know, to be able to really maximize my creative potential and being in a space amongst artists, my wife is on the third floor she’s in the same building upstairs. So to be in this space, and you know, really hone in on what, you know, my particular style of practicing healing arts and really the creativity being you know, really at the center and core of that, you know, whether it’s the plants, the garden, anything really creative, or being able to express it in a particular way or documented in a way that isn’t just just your textbook, you know, academic, no mechanical thing, you know, to really give notes New takes add music to it do different things. And so now I’ve been in here I can go from I can be in my full tangent even though like I can go from reading this about this herb and then I can reflect on it and create art and images about things and then write about it, I can be all in a nice, you know, nice very safe space so it’s a space for me but then it’s open like I have a table here I can treat and do acupuncture so it’s a space I want to be able to teach and it’s a small room but you know, teach classes, small groups, get people in here who want to do whatever anything creative writing workshops coming here, right? Come hang out. Tea will be coming soon. Hey, congees, you know things you can snacks or things you can enjoy while you’re in this creative space. So I’m very Yes, a very special, very special because then, you know, in the works in many different ways that it could have manifested but What happened now at this time in this space and just from being here, just people that I know who are new moving into the space is like yeah, this was this was really this was meant to do. Yeah,

Mason Olonade
it’s a an interesting relationship that we have with time in general. And now I’ve been sorting sort of trying to just except for even in driving which is the probably for me the most difficult place to be patient. I’m being more patient because it’s like, like I’m despite the Leoni and aspects of me I’m not infallible and so it’s like I am going to get lost I am going to make you know, just just for the sake of having to open like even coming over here, right. I was like, Oh, I gotta get in the open lane. Then I’m in the left lane. Realize I need to turn right on the park. But what I you know, Another, another future guest, my friend Laura from eternal she was again Sorry, I haven’t gotten to the things I’m super super busy or whatever. And it’s like, it doesn’t matter. You know, whenever the time aligns, it’ll be divine is when it’s supposed to happen. It happened. That doesn’t mean that we can be lazy and just, you know, kick back whenever we start to put things into motion, but I guess however strong you push in for it, the nurses should carry

Geo
Yeah. Yeah, I mean is, is is I mean, in any case, where I mean for myself when I hear other people share their experience of kind of like, now’s the moment No, like those kind of experiences. There’s always like to say in hindsight is 2020 is like it’s so sweet to be able to look in. Look, it’s the different markers that foreshadow being in you know, a story bass is such you know, because I’ve you know looked at different and it was different from being in a standard clinic to being in this piece of real estate or the because the price wasn’t working out but I liked the neighborhood and this was just at the end of the day it was closer to home and it’s I don’t know it’s just something like even my plants are waking up I brought in this orchid and the thing just started growing is blooming a second time this year since it’s been in this space and it’s not this isn’t like great sunlight the plants are happy in here is like there’s some something that you know interject that let me know after that first weekend look like everything is perkin up and like this is just one little window is is not great is okay like but it’s not anything that you would think this you know, and the plants are. So I think energetically is a good space. You have to do some good work. Good work,

Mason Olonade
man. No, yeah, I mean, I said I was remarking upon when I walked in, or wherever I went to the bathroom I guess when I’ve been trying to pay attention to like smells a lot more and sort of just like a you know, like I just said whatever five minutes ago if it’s five minutes but just appreciating my sensitivity and when I walked in here smell kind of spicy, still very earthy, smelled like my friend’s parents houses that were of the same ilk. You know, like my my house when I grew up, you know, my mom was really into having it smell very floral. I guess fragrance, you know that that sort of fragrant sort of thing not just very under, like under the under score undertone to sort of everything and so much so that whenever when people came over they’re like, Oh, it smells like home. You know, which is cool to hear my friends will buy my house right even though you know when I I never thought that my house was necessary. Only a party house or whatever because it felt so adult there but getting here It feels very productive but also very lacks.

Geo
Okay good. That’s That’s good. That’s good. That’s something that’s a feedback up from you know a few people that have been in here so far that’s been pretty consistent. So I’m feeling so good about this. Dope, Dope, appreciate that.

Mason Olonade
When did you first realize that you were supposed to have your hands in the soil?

Geo
When it when it really, really really set in was when I became a homeowner. Now mind you, I had grown up in experience of doing odd things from Gardening in the city. This is in Milwaukee parents being from Mississippi but we grew up in a gardeners home garden I probably grew vegetables and you know, culinary herbs, you know, pretty simple, but we consider always had, you know, something planned that always helped and assisted with And spent a lot of time down south. So it was there and I loved everything about it, but I didn’t know that it was for me to be into it till I got became a steward of this home in this little piece of land. And the first week, I was, you know, fortunately, my father helped us move into the house. And the first thing we did after like getting into house was we, you know, at that time, that’s, you know, turn over some sewing like start digging up like okay, this is going to be the plot for this and this was in like some of the first duties getting stuff off the truck and getting settled in drinks and ice water eliminated. Like a was was Pop’s is already out there with a whole, like, turn it over, like and so and from that moment, it was like, Yeah, um, because that was that was something that we really push for especially being in you know, this area, this region of where in terms of And everything and as far as the areas where we look not being able to have a yard so being fortunate to have a space in the yard to even begin experimenting, which has led up to everything that is not even to this space, like being able to, really because that’s been 10 years now that was 2009 when we moved into that space and being a young father and just so getting that garden we first moved into that place I knew like there and cut my boys here got my dad, here’s like three generations like their little boys. And it’s like, Yeah, and I just kept, kept that and other things that came into my life later. At that point. I wasn’t doing the Chinese herbs and stuff that was before acupuncture, and all that but then I kept coming back soon I started learning herbs. Like why are we growing? Any of these are but can I grow? These are like those questions. That was the first thing I wasn’t thinking the other stuff that everyone else was thinking like, how is it growing? How can they grow here and those were the questions you know, that fuelling feeding in here. I am

Mason Olonade
The you know, I remember when when I pulled up to your house, they’re high on the hill. I already had known that it was, I mean, obviously, you know, everybody’s got the number to dress or whatever, but I also knew that it was your house in the hammock, you’re attached there, and just seeing what the yard look like, because you can tell who’s who’s growing stuff, you know, and who’s just sort of, like, you know, the sort of has the homeowner association to it. Even even, you know, that theory even sort of kind of falls apart when I look at my dad’s like, how my dad is structuring all the, like, just what what our house presents, like, but, um, but that’s probably because my dad is pretty like, you know, he’s pretty Angular and pretty, I mean, I don’t want to call him OCD, but that’s like, he’s very like, Yeah, I like these to be organized. Yeah. But now you is growing you know the purple morning glories rain, which are just, I mean, prolific, and they just came out of nowhere. And so I was pulling them for me. He was like, man, I really liked him flowers, man. I was like, yeah. They’ve taken over your Tiger lilies. He was like, you know, yeah. So

Mason Olonade
it was like, okay, you know, these are his small experiments that he’s doing it and I had some because there’s all sorts of like, you know, the nettles grown and stuff like that. And I’m like, you know, as he’s like, Man, it’s just, it’s not even worth it to pull it. No,

Geo
I mean it mass I mean, so, as far as like being in a specific going from, like, Now, mind you, even in that story, I just share like we turned the soil over. I would never do that now. Right. Like just so that this just Just the evolution that has come of me in this journey and just how I even just like from starting there and in the fact of going to the no till method was something I learned from an acupuncturist who taught me so it was just like this back and forth while I learned from the, from this, what informs that and from what informs just the daily practice in you know, at home in my garden that informs me in the treatment room, so it’s just like, it’s an amazing

Mason Olonade
What’s that conversation like to learn about no till for the first time.

Geo
I mean, it was, I mean, so, I mean, the way that it was explained to me this was his name is Steven Cohen. He’s a pediatrician, acupuncturist. herbalist. Just a phenomenal position, teacher. And so this was one of his pediatric pediatrics. It was Chinese herbs, Chinese medicine and pediatrics, a weekend Weekend Intensive. And I attended. And he was explaining his process for when as a clinical supervisor, how he trains teachers and students. And one thing that he learned working in the in this was in the ER, like, we think our first action shoes are the first thing that comes to mind. Don’t just sit there, do something. Mm hmm. It’s like this, this urge to just jump into it and just, you know, handle the situation without any form of deep thought or any form of stillness. And so, this approach of being in these type of moments or in such situation, don’t just do something sit there. So welcoming stillness, and silence to allow what is the next move to intuitively come through and you navigate like in from a very high acute situation to where he learned this method was, he was translating from Masanobu Fukuoka was one straw revolution like this was the method of no TEALS like don’t just go out and start digging and you know no sit back look at what’s growing out there find out because you they might be your companions and when I began to adopt that pros I just got on fire for like I want to know everything that’s going on I was never not never put pesticides or fertilizers or killed weeds and I will hack up and pull up some stuff now with the quickness you know and so it’s because if it didn’t agree with my ideas of this very very ordered like you say the garden started off it was very like I have my tomatoes here and these are my peppers and you know to what now is looks like a wild space just like you walking in Rock Creek Park somewhere where my vegetables and stuff is, you know, this buckwheat all type of stuff back there.

Mason Olonade
when it seemed like you had more plants then pots because everyone seemed like you had like me Maybe 15 or so those those cloth pots I forget what they seemed like he had like 45

Mason Olonade
like this, this, this, this this and I was alright Geo like yeah, you do, it’s there, you know, I mean but you know is plant spacing density, they’re all herbs and it’s all pots is whatever I’m just I mean it’s all in it’s sort of experimental sort of thing so we’re not going for optimum yield or it’s just like okay, this is this is what I can grow, I can harvest this. I mean, I’m telling you story a little bit for my own personal use and in terms of shooting you know, whatever we get, we get cold or a headache or sickness or, you know, inflammation somewhere.

Geo
It’s there and it’s in the yard and so that’s that’s what happened is like, as I began to the game, I becameso so in the path that really so it wasdoing the gardening and then getting into Chinese medicine and learning that and from that In learning some things about some of the earliest acupuncture and earliest like Chinese medicine practitioner or herbalist that are like renowned Shin Jung is one, you know, probably one of the most renowned, you know, for the shin Dong Ben shajing, that’s like our Materia Medica is like the Bible. Chinese is an amazing book. And so this these people who were known to be naturalist, when you go back and look at all of the practitioners of the mighty even the way that the medicine is written very poetically, and always referring or speaking directly of nature, and nature, and these people were naturalist, they studied nature. They studied weather patterns and best No, that’s so much of that informs the Madison’s so from hearing that I really that got me into I really want to know about the ecology thing because if you’ve heard an ecology lane that’s almost when it’s the same Learning the body and learning, you know, all these different things that go into our ecosystem of where we live, you know, in your local area, and how that informs what’s going on politically in your person is phenomenal. That changed my whole, you know? You know, it all makes sense. That’s when they all started making senses, like, Okay, I see it in nature. And I see it in this person who has a fever, you know, in this, you know, these type of parallels that, you know, they’re there, but, you know, have you spent enough time with nature with plants and things? It’s just, I mean, I can just I can testify to the many people who say that you have once you spend time with plants and with the soil, and this is stuff, I don’t know, I don’t have any communicates, you know, I mean, you’re aware of these. Yes, yeah. Yes. insights just started there. They’re right when I’m working, and you’ll be like, you’re not looking for you just in general. doing some work in an insight comes or something that’s a direct metaphor for a conversation with someone you were having this like thing now is next time I speak to them I was thinking about this and now I got a perfect you know, new kind of lens and they can look at it through through a garden parable comparables of the garden. I mean,

Mason Olonade
yeah, that might have to be my book. Yeah. Maybe cuz, um, we went to I just got last week or two weeks ago was in Aruba was and we’re expecting it to be like, a little bit. Caribbean in terms of like ecology. It’s not, man. You’ve been you’ve been okay. But I’ve heard Yeah, really surprises to see these huge cacti like in this you know, I mean, I’ll show you pictures at the end but uh, So that was that was interesting but it was also interesting seeing like how the different plants that are there survive being there because not only is it basically look like Arizona there but it’s also super windy. And so they have these their national trees called This is called like a Devi Devi tree as one of the most like, like gnarled gnarly trees I’ve ever seen grew it’s really really interesting

Geo
Any thorns is it spiny?

Mason Olonade
legume like that and so you know, fixing nitrogen and stuff too. But the leaves are about you know, is like this big is the last digit on your pinky. Thousands of them on you know, on this on this tree and it grows like you know, grows kind of spirals on the ground and then it begins because the winds when they come are coming fast. So it’s it’s interesting to see that there is growing 15 feet from the seawater and you know from the ocean

Geo
so now you go use some more things about this plant like oh, this is like Yeah, yeah, real deal.

Mason Olonade
Yeah. And there’s another another thing. See, great. I’ll show it. I thought it was a fig or something because it has big leaves like a fiddle leaf. I thought it was some sort of Ficus but it’s a whole, a whole different thing. But stuff is not really fruiting because climate change is made. The rains come way less than they used to come because we were seeing the Noni trees, soursop trees, cashew trees, mango trees, we’re seeing all these things, but nothing had fruit there. You know, they look very healthy. But it is true. Yeah. But the whole reason why I’m bringing that up is because of this insight that you’re talking about. We went to a butterfly farm. It’s amazing to see all these butterflies because prior to the establishment of this butterfly farm, there were no butterflies there because very few Flowers there for butterflies it didn’t exist. And so once the farm came then butterflies out there because we saw them super far away from where the farm was. But after I got back I had this vision upon waking or that, you know, life spoke to me and told me that I didn’t kill any more caterpillars. Hmm, I was like okay, but what about if I’m trying to grow tomatoes or something like that? Now you know, I one of the sort of points of dogma for me is healthy soil makes a healthy plant healthy plants won’t get sick. So you won’t even get tomato hornworms or cabbage if if you if you’re growing them the right way. However, life finds a way right? At the same time, so there’s always the the verbal balancing that you’re doing. And so I was like, Okay, well, then I have to really start up in my pollinator game, because I need to start attracting these parents. parasitoid wasps. So then this was Saturday. No, this is Friday night. No one was this. I think this was a Saturday. And then the next weekend was last weekend for the first frost when I was talking on the phone. I was in the garden. And then I’m looking at I guess it’s like one of the many variations on like bone set and stuff like that. And then I saw this bug that I never seen before. And there was that parasitoid was going there. Like

Geo
draw strokes here. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Mason Olonade
So even though you know, I had this sort of thing, but it was, you know, eight hours later, you know, here was like, okay, and it was that and then the lady ladybugs and this spider that I never seen before. And then finally like the praying man And he’d been by my side

Geo
the whole ring is bringing it over calvalry.

Mason Olonade
All my hitters! Yeah, and he was looking at me too late, you know? Right.And I was like, Alright, cool. So I don’t have to worry about this. I tried to bring some of the plants inside and then I saw that like, like I was telling you about me in this in this Datura that that thing was just full of spider mites so i was like, You’re not coming right back out there Oh, yeah. Don’t don’t even care about about any of that sort of stuff. And so, I mean, that’s those sorts of insights are really what sort of drives me in in the garden not in a sort of one sided aspect because it’s never it’s never that. You know, this listening to you on edible activists. I think for the second time, you were talking about just being out there. Asking questions and just talking to the plants and, and I shared this with you about, about how you, excuse me influenced me with this when I was trying to figure out what was going on why why am I finding this doctor all over the place? And I said, You know, I was in my garden and I said to it and you say, Hey, you know, I’d like to know the status, what is the nature of our relationship or whatever, and then realize on my way to work, I was like, that’s the complete wrong prophecy to give to the plant in the first place. And although I didn’t get the answer in a way that I asked it, when I changed it and said, I’m ready to learn. You know, I stumbled upon, I didn’t tell you this, I don’t think but I stumbled upon an entire grove of the Torah in Rock Creek Park alongside Japanese hops, I didn’t even know existed and then the plant that is called the Fourth sister. Cleo. May she’s, yeah, cleanse. Yeah, I found those because it like it was the sun was hitting this flower and I was like, What is this flower? You know, I’ve never seen this video. It’s like, it’s like four feet tall, right? And then it has all these brassica seeds hanging off them. Like, this plan is crazy. And so and then I’m staring at it and then I’m like, who is chief and I hear smell like i mean i’ve you know what I’m talking about right? So I’m assuming I was looking around and then I was like, oh my god oh my oh you know just I stepped over them to get to the clean domain and then it was all here and my girlfriend was and she’s like, you know this is this is crazy. This is so crazy this right there just yeah, I mean it was I mean, not I mean it’s just yeah, just from here to like the door that way And then to, you know, to like, where the I know this is really helpful. It was really great radio, but maybe two units over it was just, you know, and that was the Those were the last plants before the bank before the before the park. Then this professor that I I told you about I found that talk from the guy from Ghana who, um, I emailed him and then like two weeks later he got back to me, I called my aunt who I hadn’t talked to in like a year or so. And then while I’m talking to her on the phone, then I find some more on campus. And I’m like okay, so whenever

Geo
they making it plain for you just making it plain Yeah.

Mason Olonade
And so it’s just like it’s not not everything has to be you know, set in, in the in the type of English that I want to hear it in the language and I really know outside of the this sort of green soils language that I’m quite adept at,

Geo
you know what, in you sharing it, I have the same exact experience. And from hearing so many people’s plant stories, that’s a very, you know, like, you know, like in most stories you familiar with, like the hero’s journey or kind of this. It’s like this, this process that, you know, all of all plant stories have this kind of skeletal structure all moves. And is, is this point to where you’re out after the request has been made, you know, to play it to nature, wherever. And is the moment when you realize you’re in. It’s like, you go into this liminal phase right before, isn’t it so it can be very brief, or it can seem like it lasted 30 minutes or an hour, but it could probably be a few seconds, but this is time where you go is like the Allison one or you go from reality into this place of wonder and awe and wonder is not the thing that you were actually looking for, or it’s just one of it is usually that time Pulling people’s stories or even looking at some other plants something else kind of distracts and gets there or is there something particular about the one plant and then once they go from soft eyes I’m gonna go Yeah, the focus and realize that all of a sudden that you learned and so with that in a lot of people with fungi and mushrooms I’ve heard very similar stories about where people are hunting for mushrooms and things and it’s that type of experience like it’s like you’re in wander this space and the wandered kind of takes you to this in between space that allows you realize like I just stepped over a quarter acre

Unknown Speaker
with a quarter acre of it and not even know it because it’s just, it’s the Curiosity is like the hook and it gets you down into this space is like literally it’s like you travel into this. When nothing else is around isn’t the sound stop you like and your here? It’s like, dang. Like, that’s interesting. So now we’re going to start like, really, really like keeping note of like, when people cannot, like, it’s I’m hearing this over and over that looks great. And I know I’ve experienced that multiple times. So,

Mason Olonade
yeah, I mean, um, you know, that’s what I mean, you said it back to me. So I’ll say it again, that’s what Buhner is talking about, in terms of, you know, if you really have an interaction with this plant like that, then you probably this thing is supposed to help you, in whatever way is supposed to help you. Um, but you know, according to the functions that we understand it to, but with the particular reverence, reputation that Tara has, that’s the thing that’s kind of, like, I’m reluctant, but I keep finding it in these sorts of delightful environments. So it’s like, I don’t, I wouldn’t expect any sort of other. You know, I was I was literally thinking about that on Monday because I was going through j store and looking at Sort of sort of pre colonial understandings of this plant based on what the Native Americans were doing on the indigenous people were doing on the southwest and towards in like Mexico and stuff like that, and how they’re interacting with a plant. Well all of them I still like you know, I’m going to partake from your roots for this particular experience, don’t be humiliated please.Because that thing will take you to Yeah.

Mason Olonade
It’s so so that’s sort of where I am with it. But I mean, now I’m just like, you know, just trying to collect seeds from it and then do maybe like a larger planting next time because I think that those plants are quite beautiful on their own. That’s what this place smells like their flowers. We’ve got to really yeah, cuz the one that I have Smells vaguely peppery. Hmm. As is really, I mean, I, I’ve never smelled a plant that smells like a flower that smells pepper. But it smelled like it smelled like you might sneeze.

Geo
You got too strong of a whiff like yeah,

Mason Olonade
cuz you smell pepper and then you’re like, Yeah, but with that when I sat there it was I was gonna be the last bloom of the season. So I just sat there and just, you know, just put my nose on it and then just inhaled and inhaled and inhale, you know, breathe into my stomach and just to see, you know, what, what happened? And I guess it led me directly to that one. Yeah, the next week when I was talking to my arm.

Geo
Oh, yeah, yeah, man. The plants have theYeah,

Mason Olonade
I mean, it’s their ecosystem that we’re walking on. Been here. You know, for so much longer than we have, yeah, is

Geo
it it’s always so much to learn. It’s like you’re always there’s is all you’re always a beginner with it. It’s like, even with the same plan. Take dandelion, for example, like, you think you can know everything about dandelion, but then it’s just from seeing how the plan is coming up and then how it’s going to seed and where those like so many, many, and it’s good to see people out here in the world, like using plants as inspiration to create models for social change. That’s that’s something that’s really, really powerful man. Yeah,

Mason Olonade
I just I in terms of business, that was one that I just heard today, which is talking about this sort of concept of lazy marketing, which is developing, developing your brand from sort of the most emotional place because then your brand becomes Well, they said So many things first marketing the future well, marketing is a conversation that brands need to engage in. rather than sort of being like, Hey, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. And then sort of creating a conversation that you want to have period. And then other people that are attracted to that conversation will then be engaged with your business. Um, from a from Oh, yes. So from that then you do as the flower does that then you just refine your conversation to attract your pollinator because that pollinator mix your seed, you know what I mean? So it’s not the flowers, they know they make nectar and all these different things. But you also don’t hear flowers like like you would hear a bird right? You know, I mean, they the, you know, like the orchids have this sorts of different color strategy. To attract the particular why’s for the particular be the particular fly that is perfectly adapted to you know, engage with this that all these Steinman and Bissell and you know, the OVA and all these different things rather than trying to sort of be like, out there. Yeah. And I thought that that was that was you mean he was like you know, this is this is how it’s done and it’s done very efficiently and it’s a story older than time. I like that.

Geo
Yeah, I like that a lot. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Mason Olonade
One um, what was your favorite, favorite favorite crop that you grew this over? This past growing season outside of growing the opportunity to have the new studio? Oh

Geo
no, but I really enjoy this year. This was the first year growing, First time growing a few but in particular the miracles of Aztec miracles um and the reason I just had have heard of you know the plan out familiar with I’ve never grown them and how not just because of the beauty no in terms of these balloons is just almost like cotton candy looking huge orange and yellow blooms, but it was it kind of took me by it’s like when plants surprise you with their height how much you see like miracles. You know the miracles are small in the gallon, half gallon in these things like four feet tall and like I’m here but at the same time, very shallow roots. The roots are all just like the miracles don’t have like deep tapper like is just like cleaning like right at the surface is right there. And nothing going it’s just all like damn you see this huge stone you think that oh man this thing has the roof and it’s just like you go to is like wow they’re strong and as I just hadn’t met like do mean they feel like like tree branches like bow hard you know the stems got all you know some of them and it’s like okay more to learn about this one because the green starting from just these little seeds that I kind of reminded the reason that I get remind me like the dandelion seeds you know this is very small is blown away and you know and like this huge dirty that’s just fascinates me Yeah, I think fragrant, no, not too fragrant, just very gardening. Very you know normal just green but nothing for about a minute was just like some of the photos it was like when you take pictures of some plants or flowers and those very catchy to use like the nofilter like the the hashtag or where Whatever but isn’t it like it’s so the camera doesn’t even capture like the like like the electricity coming off of this this cover like I have some roses that grow that are the same way as like yeah the red like the camera and this is like high HD they they can’t they can’t even touch it it just looks blurry is too much especially when you take an abroad day abroad song I and like these miracles were the same way. It’s like the origins you can’t even see the defining features and so like is popping so hard. It’s like you really got to get into it like Yeah,

Mason Olonade
when and then my camera. Yeah, the Samsung S nine and it’s, you know, although it’s recording I’m not kidding you at all. It is what

Geo
shamed my device.

Mason Olonade
It’s particularly it struggles with taking pictures of blue and purple flowers because like certain like like clematis or something My back and have this purple, like Indigo that can, you know, he can take up the whole biv of the roygbiv. And it’s like, I’m gonna choose one particular like, what is it? You know, I’m choosing one shade. And it’s like, but even the shadow in the folds of these vague delicate flowers like it can’t, you know, it can’t just like or, you know, I grew those, um, those uh, what, uh, what do they call these, those, those blue morning glories that i was growing over the summer. And some of these things. I mean, they were looking like denim, you know, wow, it was crazy. Like, like even even, you know whether it was all the way like super dark blue to very like, I mean to get the first the first peak of blue sky after a thunderstorm type blue, all of that sort of stuff and it could only capture like one particular shade of which I’m super thankful but it’s like I really want more people to see this even even when I went back to you know Baker Creek to see how they took pictures of them you know they have at least an SLR doing this sort of thing. And I could still see it as like the similar thing it’s like now that I know what a bunch of these look like. Looks like. I mean we’re getting 10% of the mystique of this particular thing. Because especially in especially with roses I saw we have these these like off white pink rose very delicate color but the brightness from the sun at like 3pm it would just look like just it would look like it was glitter or something like that. Super cool, but it couldn’t. I was like and now if you can do it like this with this thing it should be able to in everything and it’s like just just went that route but that one was I was very thankful because those Roses had been like it was just like a thorn bush for so long. And so then when I finally pruned it back hardcore, then it started shooting out these flowers. And I was like, Ah, this is what you sometimes you do have to you know prune even though it’s like oh I don’t want to I don’t want to hurt the plant like not just the haircut it’s like a little trim a little little trim or something lines line up a shape up and you know, you know what that makes me think of too

Geo
It’s like the beauty of nature that it will always nature will always there’s there’s some aspect is like the veil only part of the veil you never going to get the whole veil maybe you gotta die they see this whole veil thing you ain’t you’re not gonna just see like what’s under there fully is always gonna keep that secret it’s just not gonna reveal it all like in these pictures like when you see people like when it’s a not Eclipse but like like different full moons like you got these these Harvest Moon like these beautiful people. We’re trying to capture it. And I don’t care what kind of camera camera the moon always looks like crap. Every single like there’s no great pictures of the moon ever because it’s like nothing captures like what you’re seeing with your eyes. It is large. And it’s like, even the cameras will make it looks much like a diminished. Yeah, zoom in. It’s just fake zoom. Yeah.

Mason Olonade
You know, and it’s like when you’re talking about, um, you know, being still first like when I when I lose, you know what I found when I lose stuff like if I’m like, if I was holding holding this stylus and I dropped it, but this was the character was the same color as this. I know, don’t even move any part of my body first and just like, let my because my eyes already know where it went. You know? And then you know when I mean this is so true, especially for context because they’re invisible. It’s just a slight shade of blue that you can see and then when it’s folded up or something like that to try and find this So you just like in this you know, you just reach for a video What the hell and so when I bring that up because the moon like in in these in these sorts of things even with you know even in pictures that I took in Aruba is just like these your eyes like subjectively zoom in on these things so that millions of miles that it takes for me to get to this to the moon it looks like it’s just beyond my fingertips and I pull my phone out it’s actually that this like, man, I really thought that this is gonna be something or like you know, we saw you know in the Caribbean you know, you can see like green in the sunset. Not there. Yo, it was nuts. I’m sure if I tried to do that my phone be overwhelmed by the amount of just, you know, it’s used to take insensitive issues of DC not of the Caribbean Sea. No So it’s just like, some of these things I don’t even think are like meant to be captured.

Geo
They’re not. It’s like nature’s like no keep that for myself. There’s some things that I ask specifically. There’s some things in your optic in your retina is things that are going to that are going to be able to pick up certain aspects of this beauty that no nothing that we make will ever even come close to even mimicking. But yeah, but you see, like, clear night football and you see the stars just like not right.

Mason Olonade
Right, right. Yeah, I mean, we went to my parents at a time Shane Hilton Head and we went out there once on the in the water at night. On a moonless night. able to see the Milky Way. You know, I mean, I don’t remember what it looks like. But I remember what it looks like. You know, I saw so the first time I was like, I need glasses. Because it was like, Oh, this is off now, like nothing is exactly focused anymore. But it’s like some of those things. It’s like there’s so many subtleties there that it’s just like, this is way better to sort of tell a story about rather than to show somebody randomly. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Geo
Add that to note this aspect of being around fire, right, sitting around a fire and tell stories. That’s where it’s at man. Stories.

Mason Olonade
How have you grown while growing, all that you’ve grown? Meaning How is your well being improved, being in the soil?

Geo
It’s an appreciation. I mean, patience is the overarching if I could just say one word is the patience that it has developed, but it’s like seeing things The patience that comes from seeing things from beginning from seed to fruit or from seed to harvest like we were talking about herbs or it’s just see from the beginning stages when you were happy you’re right in the end you got to see saw these Moringa seeds and they start germinating should not do those who knows taproot and then numbering or it could be any plant but just you got this plan and then is, becomes a thing is here and you see it from beginning to end to when it has beautiful leaves and then you go and you harvest those leaves and you boil some water and you make some tea and you drink that and that there’s a patience that you have to have to go like you can’t just go from C to green Moringa tea is like this is like you know mom’s two years we independent we talk about a tree or a small shrub and how you grown but Still is like time and the right elements and all these aspects of just your love and attention, you go in and you develop the relationship with this plant and then now harvest and then is, yeah, that’s it, but there’s, there’s patients that comes from that, because, you know, they like for the things they do for me the things that I really, really thoroughly enjoy the things that bring me the most satisfaction in life and the things that, you know, really know, make me feel as free, you know, feel liberation and feel freedom, you know, to that level, it’s like going from C to C Yeah. Now we can do it again, it just like makes life, you know, timeless, really cool. By the time we get to the T is like, of course, all we have is this present moment has always been a present moment from the seed all the way so this collects and all these moments and now you’re in this moment, and it’s like Yeah, I can do that other stuff. I can be as patient if I can if you can grow a seed and watch the seed grow from you know this stage to harvest you can put that same type of patience and process in logic mirror and whatever other aspects of your life

Mason Olonade
I remember the first when I was growing peppers the first coughing fit that I had after eating the first pepper that I was like “Ah, now I know what to do” wow this is you know yeah this is this this is this is awesome. And I was I was collecting a heavenly blue no nuts that’s the I forget what the name of it is but the club’s collecting seeds from the morning glory less or actually this morning. And you know, the the main concrete said it wasn’t as prolific Producer, but it was like, man, if it’s windy, like every flower is going to get pollinated, like I say, 15 flowers came only I got 13 pods each which contain at least four seeds. So it’s like what is not prolific? You know, I planted four plants, and each one of them was, you know, like that, you know, so it’s like, so it’s just very interesting because they were selling these 10 seeds for 10 bucks. Mm hmm. I mean, it’s not as prolific as morning glories. But it’s still like, I mean, you know, from from, you know, so it’s, it’s, it’s interesting to start seeing, um, to seeing seeing seeds come to fruition and become seeds again, and I have even more than growing stuff to eat it I’ve just been very more even more excited is growing. flew to straight to see I was like, I’m just gonna let this bezel grow and go to see like really, you know because and that sort of relieves a whole lot of pressure on me onto what I’m doing because it’s just like I just want I just want you to be the you that you need to be to reproduce healthily. Yeah. Because those are the seeds that I want rather than the best tasting basil, most aromatic, you know, just focus on what you’re supposed to be focusing on and and it’ll work out I can, because all this stuff is someone who works, you know, trying to talk Bazell time you cut one and a mix two or four? Yeah, you got a cut for 16 You know, a lot of work man.

Geo
Like you start doing that with the African map. Have you seen the small of the African map with the binary What is it from 1 2 4 8 16 teaches kids mancala it’s like a mancala. Yeah, they learn how to count with That’s I mean that’s what that makes me think of when you start having to prove that in your your holy basil and all those that yeah but that that makes me think of

Geo
me makes me think of some things but really in with the Chinese herbs in particular that’s really been my approach to it is like a lot of people will ask in the guard like do you make medicines where is the garden is and I’m like actually no like that put that as even on my website this for like conservation and education learning and I’m saving up of course saving my seeds but it’s like, I’m trying to really learn from these by like, what like, what is this plant? That’s this perennial that I’ve had like how has it changed over the past five years so now we’re talking about plants are like oh, I have a really I have a six year relationship with this. It was good area plant like from sea to, to this and from what enters and checking in the spring going back checking and talking into like, this isn’t just like an annual relationship like this is going on and just can’t imagine like from planting trees and stuff like that so I mean that’s next level but it’s like that’s letting the plants be what they are I’m not interested in making made even I will make medicine it’s enough for me and make like small batch for the home you know, for wife or kids. So you know, people come by but it’s nothing that goes to market or anything like that. This is no this is straight up of one of our and, and just let the plant be and absorb as much of that information that I can be just punch. No.

Mason Olonade
Yeah. Yeah, it’s um, I mean, I feel I’ve once you know, I spent, I don’t know, maybe three or four episodes talking about, I guess the virtues found within Fukuoka’s of his work and Youngsang Cho’s work and I’ll just sort of this very natural farming sort of thing and extend into houseplants and everything so it’s like my monstera’s and fiddle leaves are covered in the dust of outside from the summertime now that I brought them in and you know well you gotta you gotta kill him off because it’s going to impair photosynthesis yes you know of course but I mean really you know as a player really really we got 4% cut on this foot

Geo
we gotta pack up pack it up, we gotta go.

Mason Olonade
Like it’s gonna move towards the light. You know when it when it when it wants to when it can just as much as as much as the orchid did and having brought my plants inside has been like two weeks. I could feel they have feel them having adapted to the room. I haven’t seen them adapt to the room. But I walked into my now you know, because I’m going back and forth to my girlfriend’s places spent a lot of time over her place. So I’m not spending as much time with my plants as I’ve, as I’ve done in the past, and having them outside for this summer. I mean, they’ve grown. Like I can’t even use my room like how I used to because of the chair that I have on swivel, I have to have it at a particular angle, so as to not rub rub rub. The fiddle leaves which is like it’s kind of like and then redo this whole thing and now the sun’s changed positions. They’re not even it’s it’s a whole thing but I did. I looked at the newest monstera leaf, and it changed from that image shore light, vintage image or green to that hardened green. But it was standing like you know, this chest out, so to speak. And I was like There’s always it’s always, I mean, just like you saw when you saw that work and you’re like, oh, cool, you know? Yeah, exactly. Because it’s still like, you know, although I still had the same like, you’ll be alright, you know, it’s survival of the fittest and all this sort of thing and still like as much want everything to be perfect for you Even though I’m trying to, you know, sort of relinquish that sort of anxiety ultimately about child rearing.

Geo
That I’m telling you this to no till it I mean, it’s, it’s applicable in so many aspects. It’s just like, man, just chill, just don’t just do something just sit there that the plants will see like, and that’s a lot of the insights that have come to me in the garden have particularly been when doing what people said don’t do or is it might not work or I don’t think so. Put the seeds in the let’s see hmm well actually growing actually germinating looking now I don’t know that far as optimally like but as far as like along that conversation there’s a lot of things that if you just life becomes easier and in yeah perennial garden I mean because right now this year’s been a crazy year I’ve been doing a lot of traveling and not so going back about a year or so maybe maybe even two years ago really having an idea of planning the garden in a way that it can be okay to just go just printed just like this was in the park or in the week of summer. They didn’t grow without it needing me, right being the steward of the garden day like no, I can go out I might have to go out of town. I might be out of town for a couple weeks. Then come back in his nose. The plants are fine, right fine.

Mason Olonade
Oh, you were gone?

Geo
Right.

Mason Olonade
No, that’s that’s exactly. I mean, I think that that we shouldn’t be growing. I mean, like we were talking about how the plants don’t get sick. plants that do get sick are getting eaten. So that is making space for the healthy thing to come. You know, nature abhors a vacuum. So, you know, and everything like that. And so it’s like, even if I have to do too much to keep you going. Should you know that? I mean, I’m saying that just for plants. I’m not extending that out. Yeah. That can be kind of problematic. But I mean, especially someone who has like, tons of allergies. It’s like when when Mandela and I were growing in this in this space, we don’t have irrigation. So it’s like we had to I mean, I was calling I had buckets positioned all over my house to collect water. Wow. And it was really i mean that I mean, and then, you know, sometimes I had to just use the house to make the water to bring down downtown to grow everything, but it’s like, why would I want to grow stuff that has to be, like drip line irrigated and stuff like I don’t have so much work and it’s not I mean, I’m not growing anything for yield. I’m a scientist I’m growing these sorts of things, ultimately to see what can grow down off the street. You know, like what, you know, can I can I grow corn on the street? You can do exactly, exactly. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I grew, you know, and I mean, even further up Georgia or not georgia avenue, but for the, Warder Street, there was somebody who had that whole corner lot flanked by data, since Of course, it was awesome. It was awesome to see. And so, you know, I was able to sort of track development and see, I’ve you know, they’re just growing regular sweet corn and it was this very interesting point where I was watching, you know, because we they say don’t transplant corn corn, you know, you got to direct seed corn. I didn’t know and it didn’t matter because the corn, you know, he saw that corn is tall is this ceiling, you know, the corn and those and all of those were transplanted from the one gallon pot like wow, you know, and when they were in that one gallon pot, they were looking like that scarf they were looking not well, when I put them in the ground. Soon as they were in the ground, never like he just took off and it’s like, you know, you’re not supposed to do all these you’re not supposed to if you’re growing these sorts of things in corn country, you know, and it’s like, but if you don’t know anybody else that I mean, I didn’t even know My friend lives right off the Park Road. He lives. He lived there for two seasons now and he’s seen nobody even harvest that corner was going over there at Park and water. And outside, I didn’t know anybody else who’s grown corn before that hasn’t already lived in corn country. You know, so it’s like, Who knows? I mean, this quote is from all the way from like Mexico, so, no, like, I’m setting the rules, like epigenetically setting the rules forever for this for this sort of thing. So yeah, you know, and, and I, I really want people to understand that that it’s like, well, if you want to be that sort of very, like, I’ve got my LL Bean, all the you know, 10 toes down, all that sort of thing. You know, my whole wondering, can you know, the all copper and all this. If you want to be that type of gardener, that’s fine. But that’s what you’re given to your plans, and they’re going to react hardcore when you pull back Cuz you’re going somewhere else? Yeah, as you know.

Geo
Okay.

Mason Olonade
So it’s just like, I’m not particularly with that, you know, because you want when you want these things to thrive their way.

Geo
I mean, it’s, I mean, if they don’t, I mean, to thrive their way and plants are a lot more resilient. Do you know we give them credit for being now figure it out? Like you say, you say don’t don’t start it in, you know, don’t transplant them. And they weren’t happy but and I mean, I mean just looking at some of the the, the quote unquote weeds crawling around DC and some of them face like when you walk up and see like I’ve seen lambs, hugest lambs quarters in my life, just in the hood northeast DC on the corner just chillin on benning road Lambs quarterr six feet tall. Yeah, spread it out, like four or five feet wingspanout just like a Christmas tree. Right? It is like, Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Mason Olonade
We I cut down a amaranth just a wild one. That was, you know, our height. Wow. You know, and this was in late August because I didn’t want to do it a seed because I thought that I was going to keep that keep that man. It was like, I mean, they were all in leaf hoppers, and, you know, all those beetles tearing it apart. And I didn’t want to cut it down. Because it was like, I don’t want them to go to my corn.

Geo
Yeah, that’s where the Yeah,

Mason Olonade
but it was, I mean, there were so many different Emirates around but it was like, I mean, I’ve, I’ve seen Yeah, I’ve seen I’ve seen the same on the alley. up to there. There was another element that I saw from like, maybe knee height. And then it had grown to five feet because it had grown through like this IV cover, you know, and then once it passed that IV, the English IV coverages and I was just like, I last last year when I was growing amaranth has grown orange and the red one. I was like, I gotta feed them you know, I got to do all this again. You know, I was making fertilizer and you know, just from making different ferments and stuff, but it was like

Geo
“I don’t need that” I might grow right up carpet right here, it’d be happy.

Mason Olonade
Right? All this nutrients although just gonna take them all up. And yeah, it’s, it’s it’s quite amazing to see. You know, see clover in these sorts of pathways personally and all these different things growing especially like, yeah, especially at the beginning East capital in that They were the were the brothers selling bean pies. And that sort of madness got

Mason Olonade
so much traffic and it’s still Green still Green. Green is

Geo
people coming out the gas station, throwing dorito bags is green. Yeah, it is probably about 20-30 different weed weed varieties just about right go through there’s probably like you say some purslane, there’s some, probably some seeds for some, some dock one of the docks probably up in there and there’s definitely some amaranth pigweed or something in there some plant tame. There’s some dandelion seeds in there. I mean, we could get just peace through just that and see how much like how diverse like man.

Mason Olonade
Yeah, and it’s I mean in like, even you were showing us with the with the, with the wild, wild violence and stuff like that. All that stuff is edible.

Geo
It’s all edible. I love it. Yeah, I’m always talking Not the violets man the violence or like, I’ll just pick up some violets recently in the last couple of days and it’s I don’t know it’s been like a violet takeover because this year like in the spring the yard look like it was like a nice little spottled blanket like I’ve never seen so many like they’re definitely but again two or three other people into like one person in Virginia like people told me like yes, have you seen the violets this year this like and this is like and this is your round green like this is you can pick those leaves and

Mason Olonade
yeah, yeah, when you were talking about the you know that the the Lamb’s quarter boss, you just cut that whole thing and just put it in a pot. that’s a lot of greens! Those tiny leaves as big as my thumb. I mean a plant that big would have all that’s a lot of food and a lot of food on moving in. I mean, I didn’t even know that until this year that lambsquarters and quinoa are cousins. So it’s just like, it’s just like it’s just that one’s just bred for seed and then as I grew some quinoa this year I haven’t eaten it though. I only got like, now

Geo
you can grow how much more quinoa looking to grow up with that and that’s the thing too. It’s like so once we start getting that’s another conversation but it’s like, Man the answer I’m very fascinated by these plants that are like, very prolific seeders and, or they invasiveness is just like, like, for example, this plant right here the Shan Yeah, we talked about this Chinese yam earlier, man, I think puts out so many of those small little bulbules

Mason Olonade
though Yeah, maybe showing it to us. Yeah.

Geo
And each vine can have up to anywhere from 80 to 100 or so these small little bubules can all fall down to the ground and then become notified. So you think of something like that. I You do not want that. For anything yeah and at the same time look at in the case of famine or something right or dire situations how many people can get fair like you just get a fourth of an acre just this yam just wasn’t planning in one year’s time you can have enough to feed multiple like literally like the food believe to all the yams are like this thing is prolific. Look at lambsquarters Yeah, dandelion, like all these plants that are like super invasive, superseedy, like they’re just like, hungry to just get in the ground within how much we can do with it. Right. And just those plants alone man, you can stave off pretty much any any illness from a preventative standpoint. Yes, is

Mason Olonade
we weren’t we were noticing that same thing with with his sweet potato is that it was like oh my God, my greens that can come up his name is or like me, there’s the sweet potatoes. I mean, we were like, if if I would have actually taken slips in space that thing accordingly, man that all 1200 swqft all sweet potatoes

Geo
all greens that you can just go over here,

Mason Olonade
you know, and then, you know, and so it’s it’s crazy to see that they that orange amaranth that i was growing and reason why I bought it was they were saying that one plant can produce a pound of seed. Think about that. And that’s what one seed to a pound that’s another you know.

Geo
Yeah.

Mason Olonade
And so it’s like, you know, immediately I was like, you know from that one, I mean what I mean a pound a pound, you know, I mean, it’s just, you know, cuz the seed itself is, I mean, I don’t know how many milligrams it is or I mean, or. Yeah, I was like a little.

Mason Olonade
Well, that’s what I’m saying. You know, it’s so small. It is

Geo
Yeah, like I don’t know people sold them when they like how

Mason Olonade
Yeah. Well in a commercial seat thing they just way out like, you know, just 200 grams in it that

Geo
makes him happy or whatever but it’s them tomorrow. Yeah wants you to see this like, it’s like it’s so small you

Mason Olonade
like, it was a one seed packet. I just, you know, did this thing and then ended up

Geo
no yeah.

Mason Olonade
And it was just like him and you can eat the greens from this sort of thing. I don’t know much about this stuff. I was just saving the stock for trellising for the next year, or you could just rebury it to make compost or whatever because it’s all carbon. But it’s like yeah, all these sorts of things. I mean, and then you go on a regular dumb, prolific time, prolific Basil, depending on the variety or whatever mints, obviously very prolific, and so it’s like it’s not too much and then you get you get a harvest of peppers that you just dry them and they’re forever, forever, and it’s just too expensive. That’s what I’ll be working on next year a lot more with with a lot of more wild greens because that’s what Carver was talking about is you fromMama Lee is

Geo
that that was that was a, he was just like, we get caught up in a in a I guess a lot of the stories that are become we get excited about is what we learn in our limited educational you know upbringings about Dr. Carver’s work, in particular a lot of our greats but Dr. Carver’s like peanut right, that’s it, baby. Stop this this master the one of the greatest masterminds of the last millennia. The greatest thinkers, prolific makers of this last millennia they narrow it down to peanut, peanut man. Yeah.

Mason Olonade
Reading reading the reading the book that he did. Well, somebody did with him and Henry Ford, and they made a whole body of a car from soy. That was, I mean, in the car, his body is stronger than steel and lighter, like, huh? or, you know this. And then I was talking with some friends this past week, and they said that peanut butter is really just an American thing. That it’s really not a bet. I mean, the two of them has said that, that people really don’t eat peanut butter outside of this country. I was like, wow, that’s our brother’s legacy. For real real. This is like this is our thing. Even I mean, you know, like, that’s why I mentioned him like on every every every show. Yeah, just like no, he’s

Geo
Yes.

Mason Olonade
All right. Um, cuz I got it. We got to go through some of these questions man. Or as you’re gonna have a two parts to this. All right, well

Mason Olonade
Hmm. Why do you think the healthiest soils are black?

Geo
I mean, it’s, I mean, Black is the origin. If you want to, so is the or is like, is literally, when we think of where we come from, out of, you know, abyss that is a womb is like being there when we think of a life from, from coming from. Nothing to something. When we think about the darkness of where sound comes from where we speak, it’s just like this deep tunnel. There’s just darkness and just just magnificent people seeing in ideas and thoughts when people talk. It’s like all this comes From this almost is where black is not invisible but it’s just black correct we don’t know it’s just it’s too dense it’s too deep to pierce and so like the the strongest like of all of us we could we come from that abyss man and it’s it contains all but there’s nothing at the same time like one of those things is like what is it like can you

Geo
can you grab the blackness now but it’s there in this is it’s informing our life and then don’t from a standpoint of how we use the word like in for us just kind of going off sidebar from the question but just like blackness so that we think about what black is like it means sometimes people equate the blackness to the soul of a thing I like the idea but looking at it from a different way looking at from what I’m saying like is the origin is like that part of you that’s not tangible is that the dark from where you come from? Is that your core is that but it’s your soul in that blackness it just, it’s gonna make things grow because they’re getting fullness of the origins if you will. And then as that’s interesting because even when I think about like new healing arts and that the cure like the word new is really a play on words because it’s new as a like, kind of new healing arts but it’s really looking back that’s a kinetic term that I’m using. So like when we consider like new is like, the origins like the original bismal water so when sound travels across water and life cover like that’s new. So it’s this ancient, very ancient original. And so when I think of blackness, I think of that same abyss that darkness original nature so mean things like Given their their command from this origins to be in go out and into life and be this plan or be this person in the call is coming from some dark, abysmal place, but this has the imprint for what this plant should be or what you should be. And I see that I mean, the dark the black of soil, they’re like, they have that they have all the essential original components that’s gonna make whatever life is coming from a limit according to how it’s being commanded to be according to his order, you know, core grow that corner, some some some dark, some black, Jet Black, so is getting the full command from the source site, B Corn. CORN capital C

Geo
all caps

Mason Olonade
Be as corny as possible!

Geo
Be as Corny as you wanna be

Mason Olonade
What is a resource that you’d rather For those looking to increase their agricultural understandings

Geo
well start local find the closest extension program that is close. I mean, that’s that’s where because out here and while we’re talking about, you know, Dr. Carver and you know and his project Thomas Murrow Campbell and you know these people who you familiar with Thomas Monroe, so he’s basically Dr. Carver’s protege like he’s the one who actually went about what was a was about the Negro farmer goes to the something there. So I forget the name of it. It was the book but he also was one of the first people who went over to a, I forget where in West Africa when this book was written from extension projects, in conjunction with, you know, the USDA like he sent over he was the understudy. He’s the guy who studies that when they started taking extension programs across the south, you know all the way to you know throughout the southeast yeah Thomas Monroe Campbell definitely look him up. Yeah, we’re gonna definitely check out but these people are

Geo
you know, they they represent something

Geo
they represent the like this this this, this call to read to read to reclaim that and be part of what’s going on locally they were teaching and going around to the local farmers and the local farmers were able to get this information all big since extension programs to this day exists because of those initial works from from those brothers who are out here sitting away and so you can go My grandfather was part of that programming with Thomas Monroe Campbell. I found out just last year, that my father was a 4h kid,

Mason Olonade
huh?

Geo
How I go my entire life and I knew that they grew up on the farm and all this was as I was doing the pieces and asking the questions and doing the research and you know Dr. Carver and I’m reading Thomas Monroe Campbell’s work and it’s like and I asked him because I’m looking at his routes through the southeast and it’s like goes through Mississippi like you know they show like where Thomas Monroe was set up in and I was asking my father and he was like, you know, four h Yeah, I was four I went to four h camp every summer I was like What? Thought you were at Bible school He also did what it was like no Vacation Bible School and they went to the extension camp they went to for agent or like his was my uncle our canning, and you know, homemade type of stuff and husbandry, crops agriculture and that my grandfather would have you know, he will win awards he would go and they will have the contest for growing largest this and he will present have his booth and he won multiple times like this was a thing and it was the local community as all the people that was part of this small little town in the Delta so if you’re interested in getting that extension experience so I get reach out because that’s the place where you can go as you know we know we know UTC you can get at least free certs free free certs and free information and go hang on and meet people who are doing who are just dying to you know have somebody to share this information with and you can come and just do it for free just come hang out right

Mason Olonade
right. I popped his last question our podcast is based on these this you have a proverb Jigijigi ko see fa tu. A firmly rooted plant cannot be uprooted. What is your favorite agriculture plant related proverbs are saying

Geo
this is one from it is the quote goes to Masanobu Fukuoka , I’m not sure which book, um, which of his books, um, and I’m, I’m paraphrasing because I don’t know the exact words aren’t coming to me, but the quote goes as such. It’s one of those where regardless of snow or rain, I’ll be in the fields. And that’s and I’m paraphrasing the exact words of that. But really what I took from that is that going back to the very first workshop that I ever taught, I use that quote at NAU as kind of like the inch at the top of my little sheet that I had on my one pager, and it’s like, you know, regardless of what’s going on in the world, like I have to, I got to hit these fields like these fields are here and the plants and we have to eat. We have medicines that are here and are growing and life is just this ongoing thing and it’s like regardless of that, Okay y’all want to be over here and be at war with this but you want to be here and you love here and everybody who’s in between every other space. We are have a dependency on what’s going on with the people who are steward in tilling and me are doing whatever way they grow. They’re in it. They’re in the soil there.

Geo
There’s no break for the farmer.

Mason Olonade
I was trying to I was sure yeah, there is there’s um Oh, man, I butchered this last time and I and I saw it this time and I can’t remember what it is anymore. But there’s this there’s another Yoruba proverb that talks about that, that there’s there’s no social life is strange is that Farmers Yeah, roughly. If you would like people to how can people contact you

Geo
people can contact me through my website that is www dot new spelled in you. So new healing arts.com so that’s www dot new healing arts.com you can definitely check me out there if you’re on Instagram. It’s the same at New healing arts garden. That is a amazing place where you can get access to some of the A lot of it is plants that I am particularly growing in the garden in the herb garden. Some of the content does feature plants from some of my travels and throughout the Caribbean, in Jamaica and in Costa Rica. And I have I have so much more juicy information like that’s it A lot of stuff that I got, I have like backup. I haven’t been active I got a lot of stuff that’s like this is like a trip from March to Costa Rica. That is like it was too much, it was too much it was botanically technically so much is like okay, I just gotta piecemeal this, but isn’t so definitely be on the lookout for some things coming on there. And then words that I manifest if you go to the new healing at New healing arts garden, and duplicate garden paper, click on that, that takes you to my private page where I do some plant stuff, but that really gets more into what this studio in this space is about, you know, creativity. My engagements with various forms of arts and music for myself, you know, family and it’s good stuff, but for the really geek out is the new Hill and arts garden. That’s if you want to geek out on some plant stuff like new healing arts garden as well. Yeah,

Mason Olonade
we’d like to extend a super sincere many many thanks to Geo for sharing his wisdom and experience. Please visit olona.de/jigpod for the full show notes. Leave us a five star review on all the streaming platforms you listen to and we will say then as we say now, Asante Sana, Medase Pa, Modupe O. Thank you for listening to jigijigi peace