
Village Dreaming with Mara Ripani
03/31/24 • 74 min
I just polished off my last jar of blackberry jam and it’s only April, which is why I need today’s guest to assist me in the finer arts of sustainable homesteading.
It’s Mara Ripani of Village Dreaming and Orto cooking school, a force of and for nature with a passion for greening cities, growing food, permaculture, preserving food, baking bread and sowing seeds.
Mara is about as earthed as its possible to be while still having a social media presence, propagating skills of from-scratch cooking, foraging, fermenting, soap making and seasonal attunement from her breathtaking solar passive farmhouse here in Central Victoria.
In this conversation, you’ll hear Mara’s alarm go off a couple of times telling her she needs to tend the bread, and you might too hear us chewing on dried plums, sipping on fragrant bay leaf tea that Mara poured for me on arrival.
This chat feels really apt as we move towards the colder months, one last hurrah of abundance and colour and harvest before we drop all our leaves, exposed and ensconced for winter.
Mara’s home on the web ~ Village Dreaming
Floral syrup recipes (including Mugolio ~ pine cone syrup)
Take a tour of Village Dreaming
I just polished off my last jar of blackberry jam and it’s only April, which is why I need today’s guest to assist me in the finer arts of sustainable homesteading.
It’s Mara Ripani of Village Dreaming and Orto cooking school, a force of and for nature with a passion for greening cities, growing food, permaculture, preserving food, baking bread and sowing seeds.
Mara is about as earthed as its possible to be while still having a social media presence, propagating skills of from-scratch cooking, foraging, fermenting, soap making and seasonal attunement from her breathtaking solar passive farmhouse here in Central Victoria.
In this conversation, you’ll hear Mara’s alarm go off a couple of times telling her she needs to tend the bread, and you might too hear us chewing on dried plums, sipping on fragrant bay leaf tea that Mara poured for me on arrival.
This chat feels really apt as we move towards the colder months, one last hurrah of abundance and colour and harvest before we drop all our leaves, exposed and ensconced for winter.
Mara’s home on the web ~ Village Dreaming
Floral syrup recipes (including Mugolio ~ pine cone syrup)
Take a tour of Village Dreaming
Previous Episode

The Parenting Episode with Devon Harris
Are you keen to join the dots between parenting and activism? Want to grow a beautiful parallel paradigm in and through and with the yoof?
I’m not a parent, but I am someone who believes that our “impact” starts at home; that the work of our times begins with ourselves and the beings in our orbit.
So I reached out to one of the greatest women I know who also happens to be a parenthood black belt. Her name is Devon Harris and she’s here to school us in Aware Parenting, which is a thrillingly disruptive alternative to parenting-as-usual.
Devon is a parenting coach, consultant and mother who helps just as many kiddos as she does adult people, because the Aware Parenting approach is relevant to everybody – especially, as I discovered, to our petulant civilisation that’s stuck somewhere been the terrible twos and teenage angst.
We talk about compassion and non-punitive discipline, power reversal games and listening partners, community childcare and schools as feedlots.
I loved this conversation and feel great about bringing it to Reskillience – and grateful to Devon for being such a wise and hilarious guest. Syd, Devon’s kid, was also hanging out as we recorded so you’ll have the pleasure of hearing from him too. So, without further ado, here’s Devon Harris to show us just how radically rewarding raising children can be.
Next Episode

Today I Go Slowly with Jade Miles
Jade Miles is a very special mate of mine. I turned up on her doorstep as a WWOOFer in 2018 and we got on like asparagus and eggs, which is what we had for dinner that night if I recall correctly.
You probs know Jade as the host of the Futuresteading podcast, keeper of Black Barn Farm and writer of the most personal and compelling instagram captions in all the land.
I love that Jade is consciously bridging the personal/professional schism, exploring ways to bring her whole, complex self to her roles as CEO, farmer, speaker, writer, facilitator, mother, friend and bush rat.
In this conversation, Jade gets more personal than ever — which is saying something because we love a juicy yarn. From her approach to podcasting, the creation of household rituals, how seasonal imperatives shape her schedule and why she is the way she is, this is one intimate Reskillience experience.
Jade has a new book on the cook called Huddle, coming next year, and if you don’t already have the Futuresteading handbook in your hot little hands I can highly recommend it.
Black Barn Farm’s home on the web
Beau Miles ~ Get Over Yourself
Anthony James ~ The RegenNarration
Tyson Yunkaporta on Futuresteading
Casper ter Kuile
Cecilia Macaulay
Claire Dunn ~ Rewilding the Urban Soul
Richard Powers ~ The Overstory
Indira Naidoo ~ The Space Between the Stars
HUDDLE is out Autumn 2025
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