Earth intelligence and AI sobriety with Mel Mitchell-Jackson

This episode is for the wild hearted artists, the nature-loving creatives, and anyone questioning their relationship with AI. 

This week’s guest is Mel Mitchell-Jackson, an adventure artist and writer whose art and work seduces others into the pleasure of loving nature.

Tune in to hear Emily and Mel discuss…

• AI sobriety and discerning whether the tech we utilize is a partner or a thief 
• Why AI is a kill switch for our intuition and severs us from the beauty and intelligence of the Earth 
• Growing our capacity for uncertainty and mystery and strengthening our discernment, inner knowing, and self-trust 
• Presence in nature and creative craft as wellness practices and rebellion against the status quo 
• Receiving wisdom from the Redwoods and practicing community care 

Connect with Mel on Substack and YouTube, listen to the Persistent Bloom podcast, and check out their conversation on Off the Grid.

Thank you Bre Legan for our artwork and Paul Krasnoshchok for our music.

Resources & Links
🌹𖠿 Join the Gates of Venus waitlist
🌱✨ Subscribe to the Soil and Stars newsletter
🌔🌀 Receive the free Lunar Living guide and attune to the gentle, nourishing cycle of the Moon

Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Soil and Stars, a podcast exploring our interconnectedness and unique roles within the web of life. I'm your host, Emily Hall, and I invite you to awaken your mind, open your heart, and remember that you are made of soil and stars. Hi everyone, welcome back to Soil and Stars, a podcast where we awaken, deepen, and enchant our relationship with the living world and cosmos. This is episode number 14, and it is our second episode for season two of the podcast. Last week I introduced the season and shared who our muse and our guiding light of the season is that is shaping and guiding every conversation that you will be hearing over the next 11 weeks. And so the intention of this season is to guide all of us on a journey of deepening our relationship with Venus. And so if you did not listen to last week's episode, Welcome to the Gates of Venus, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to for additional context. Who is Venus? Why is she the muse and the guiding light? And just a little bit more about the intention of the season. And so one of the things I shared last week is that as we're going on this journey, we're revealing the different dimensions of Venus. She is so multidimensional, and she is so much more than a planet and a deity. Yes, she is both of those things, but she really is this beautiful force of nature that reverberates throughout the cosmos, the living world, that we can relate to and embody. And so one of my intentions is to reveal her different aspects so that we can get to know her through many different lenses. Versus, you know, in pop astrology, or if you learned about Greek mythology, I wrote in the newsletter last week, Venus was first introduced to me when I was in sixth grade, and I read Greek mythology and learned about Greek mythology. And the Aphrodite that I learned about at that time was very one note and very one-dimensional. And it wasn't until much later, it wasn't until my Saturn returned that astrology really came into the forefront of my life and my awareness field that this much expanded and more nuanced version of Venus really, I really started to understand and relate to her. So that's why we're having a wide range of conversations. And so we are getting into some really incredible interviews. And for the next quite a few weeks will be my conversations with phenomenal guests. And you'll be listening to one of those interviews today. And so I wanted to share that at the beginning, you know, I've mentioned this before, but creating this podcast is very cyclical. It's a little bit spiralic. It's very intuitively guided. And I just, it's kind of like the season reveals itself, and I understand the shape and like the story arc of the season, the more like the it just comes with time, essentially. And it kind of is mysterious to me. And so I have these ideas, and I'm like, oh, yes, I want to interview this person and I want to talk about this. But then after I record all these interviews, then it's like, oh, then it starts to become clear to me. Well, what is the story arc? And so what I have found is that in these first few weeks of interviews, my guests and I are not necessarily directly talking about Venus. However, why I wanted to interview them, one, because they're phenomenal humans doing incredible things in the world and they're just fascinating. And because I feel through their body of work, through their creative expression, through their worldviews, they are embodying Venus, whether they know it or not. Because that's the thing, is there's so as you get to know Venus, it's almost like a a worldview shift happens internally, where the more you start to engage with her and relate to her and view the world through this Venusian lens, you're like, oh, that person is channeling Venus through their artwork, or that person is channeling Venus through deeply standing in their values. And so that's what this guest is embodying to me. The guest this week is a phenomenal artist. I so deeply resonate with their art. If you follow them on Substack or YouTube or visit their website, their art is stunning. They do nature-based art. They are out in nature. They live in a beautiful place in the world in Northern California. And so their art and their ethos and their philosophy and their intention with their art is to seduce others into the pleasures of loving nature. So they had me right there and right then because my work and my creative expression is also about helping people connect more deeply with the earth and to enchant and enliven their relationship with the earth. So when an artist is intentionally seducing others into the pleasure of loving nature, there's just a kinship and there's a resonance. So I love that aspect of their work. And there's a stance that this artist is taking that I think is very powerful. And it is a Venusian embodiment because Venus has to do with our values. What do we value in our lives? And how do we live in accordance with those values? And usually living in accordance with our values means that we have to give up the conveniences that are so readily available to us. It means that we have to be more thoughtful, more intentional. We have to move a little bit more slowly and really think critically about the repercussions and the reverberations of our actions that ripple out into the world. And so I think it is really powerful when someone says, this is a value and this is a belief of mine, and I am going to stand in that, even if it's going against the wave of the status quo. Because also standing in our values takes courage, because it usually means that we have to go in opposition to systems of oppression that are inherently against our values. And so I think this week's guest, I really admire their integrity. And I really admire their boldness and their bravery and their courage to kind of just say, this is my line in the sand, this is my boundary, this is my value, and I'm going to champion that and uphold that and be very vocal about that. This person also is a fellow Mercury and Aries. I love a fellow Mercury and Aries. We speak truth to power. And so, yeah, so this, these are the ways that I feel this guest and this artist is really embodying Venus. And I'm excited for you to meet them. And maybe if you're listening, you already know who they are because they are just so lovely. So

Meet Mel Mitchell-Jackson

SPEAKER_00 8:12

this week's guest is Mel Mitchell Jackson. Mel is an adventure artist, writer, retreat guide, and craft tutor based in Northern California. In 2023, they quit their job working as an art teacher at Apple to become an artist and guide that helps people heal their relationships to their art and their technology. Mel leads creative retreats and craft classes online with the goal of helping people persistently bloom. And so this episode is for the wild-hearted artists, those of you who are committed to rewilding your art practice and your life. And this episode is for anyone who's questioning their relationship to AI. Because Mel, very vocally, this value and this integrity I've been talking about, their stance is that they are practicing AI sobriety. And so we get into that in this conversation, and Mel shares what that means to them, why they are choosing to live that way. They live in Northern California, in like the hub of big tech Silicon Valley. And so they are being, they're in a place in the world where they are being bombarded with AI in a in a much more heightened way than those of us who are maybe not in like these really big like tech hubs in the world. But still, AI is creeping into everything. Mel and I recorded this conversation about two months ago. And in the two months since then, the way that AI is just proliferating everything is just wild. So this episode is so wide-ranging and so expansive. Mel talks about how they believe art making is a wellness practice and an act of resistance, which I wholeheartedly agree. And they talk about what it means to be an adventure artist and just why they love the bioregion that they're in and the connection they feel. So excited to share this conversation with you. Please enjoy the wonderful wisdom of Mal Mitchell Jackson. Welcome to Soil and Stars. Hey Emily, excited to be here. I am so excited to have you here. I feel like we're gonna have such a juicy conversation and a really beautiful conversation about art and nature and this beautiful overlap and also sprinkle a little tech in there as well. But uh to start us out, I would love if you could share maybe a little bit about who you are and whatever is on your heart today.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Yeah. Um, so I am both a painter and writer as my like central outward identities. And then before we started recording, we both were like talking about our cancer placements. And I feel like I'm also just such a crab in that I have these other crafts that support and give my work space to breathe and space to just sit. Like yesterday, I was in Golden Gate Park knitting in the sun and just experiencing my own thoughts and my own head and how these I have these practices of creative rest as well, like music making, and then all of those creative rest practices really inform my teaching practice. So thinking about all of those

Art as community care

SPEAKER_01 11:53

things, what's on my heart today are three things. One, I am really thinking about all of the people out there who are afraid of creativity or are afraid of making or sharing their work with the world because it feels like we are in terrifying times. And it's like, what's the point of art? And I think the point of art is for you to root into a wellness practice. And then I'm also thinking about my fellow children of immigrants and those parent relationships that they have in their relationships to their community right now, as well as my trans and non-binary comrades that live in states like the one I used to live in. Um in Kansas, things are weird right now. But if you're listening to this, whether you're, you know, just stuck in your art practice, if you are feeling really scared as an immigrant, or you're just like, what the hell is going on in our culture? Just know that you're loved.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Thank you, Mel. Thank you for sharing that and uplifting those communities and sharing us, sharing a little bit more about yourself and the communities and the identities that you hold. And yeah, it is very scary times. And we're recording this, you know, a month or two ahead of its release, and who knows where the world will be, the state of affairs at that time. And I hope that this conversation can be grounding and nourishing. And we did find out that we both have our Mars and Cancer in our birth charts. And to me, cancer is the sign of care, of nourishment. And in what I have been able to perceive from your creative work in the world, you know, through your digital footprint, through your website and your newsletter, is that I feel like community care really weaves through your work, and that is a deeply held value and practice of mine as well is how do we nourish each other? How do we feed each other? How do we come together? You were talking about knitting and like just knit these networks, these mycelial networks of art, of creativity, of tenderness, of care. And I think our art practice is not only a way to care for ourselves, but to care for each other. So there's just so many um layers to peel back here, but why don't we start with your art practice? You are an artist

Being an adventure artist & sacred connection with nature

SPEAKER_00 14:15

and you specifically name yourself as an adventure artist, which gives me the image of the main character from the movie Up, the animated film. I can't remember his name, maybe Kevin, and he's just like, I'm going on an adventure, and he has his Boy Scout outfit on with like a little backpack, and I'm just picturing that character, but you as an artist. So like when I hear adventure artists, so can you tell us what does that mean to be an adventure artist?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah, so I am incredibly enchanted by nature, and I live in Northern California, which is truly one of the most beautiful places I've ever experienced. Like it just blows my mind every day. I just I wake up and I look out my window and I'm like, I cannot believe I live here. Like the plants and biodiversity here is just out of control, gorgeous. And so the concept of being an adventure artist came from the fact that I started really deepening into a hiking practice when I moved out here. And I was just incredibly just blown away by every single microbiome that we have in the bay. I think that's one of my favorite things about it. And then I read um How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell, right when I moved here. And I was like, oh, I want to get into bird watching. I want to get into knowing the biodiversity here. I want to be into this curiosity. And during that point in my life, I wasn't making art because I was like working at Apple. I was like focusing on career stuff. But there was always this part of me that was still writing, still engaging with the tarot, still like having a spiritual practice. And there were aspects of my art that were coming through and just taking photographs. And so what I do as an adventure artist now, I have this little post-it note on my desk that I wrote to myself where I wrote, Your purpose right now is to make art. You must seduce people into the pleasures of loving nature by loving it through how you paint it and cherish it. So that's the kind of work that I try to do is to just be in this act of love and using it as a vehicle to get people to connect to going outside, to connect to themselves and to reconnect to earth. Because if we love earth, then we want to care for it. And that feels so important.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Beautiful. Yeah, part of the caring for earth and caring for earth as part of our practice of community care because we are all of the earth community. The earth is part of our community, we are part of her community. And yeah, I have also read, well, I listened to the audiobook of How to Do Nothing, and I believe she's based in Northern California in the Bay Area where you live now. And that book was like foundational. And I actually started listening to it intentionally on a Taurus New Moon in 2023. And I I was really grappling with my relationship with social media at the time, and I was like, I just drew a bath, and I was like, this sounds like the most Taurian book title I have ever heard, how to do nothing. And so I started listening to it, and it really was a spark in me just re-evaluating my relationship with screens, technology, social media, and I too really it kind of lit this fire within me to become more curious about the world around me and the living world around me, and especially birds. And I love that you brought up bird watching. Uh, just last night, we have this really great uh nonprofit in Milwaukee called the Urban Ecology Center, which is all about connecting people in urban cities to the nature around them. And we are very blessed in Milwaukee to have an abundance of green spaces, parks, gorgeous Lake Michigan, bike trails, walking trails. It is a very green city in terms of green space and nature spaces. And so last night I attended, there is a group, it's called 30s and birdies. And it is you meet up at this park, uh, and there were probably 50, 30 somethings that showed up, which is not actually great for birding. Those who are birders know that it's it's good to be quiet and presence, and that actually if it's a large group of people chatting and yapping, that it's likely gonna scare the birds away. But it was still a great community-building experience. And like, here are all these other 30 somethings in my city that also love birds as much as I do. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

I I love that. Yeah, I think the culture here in the Bay is very focused on our outdoor spaces and getting out in nature and seeing the things that are beautiful. I mean, every trailhead parking lot is full on the weekends. People here are really, really into it. It just, I wish that there was more presence in it. I find that when I'm out in the bay and I'm there's like one particular hike that I went on once where I'm like in Pacifica, so on the coast, in the it was in San Pendro Valley Park, and I am like heading up this mountain, and this couple is heading down the mountain, and the view that they have is a panoramic view of San Francisco, Marin, and the ocean from this mountain, and they're both on their phone doing Duolingo. And my partner and I were both like, the screen addiction is real, it is scary, and the amount that people here in the bay are always talking about work or tech culture in the on the trails is really disturbing. I was like painting in plan air in one of my favorite Redwood parks in Oakland the other day, and this like giant group of folks walk past me all talking about AI, and I was just like, please shut up.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

We're outside. Stop don't talk about that here, but please give us a break.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Focus on being in with nature, and I think that's the thing that frustrates me is it's like I do feel like the Instagramification and the social media of all of it has turned being in nature into a performance for some people, and it's not so much about connecting, it's just like a place to go to have a business meeting in the bay for some people, and that hurts because I feel like I'm going to church when I'm in the trees. And for me to hear people talk about their like zapier zaps on a trail when I'm at church is heresy to me. I'm like, you are doing bad things, please do not do that here. I don't want to be a cop, but I'm also just like, leave my spiritual space alone. It I did not invite this here.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Yes, when you are with the trees and in the presence of the Redwoods, you are at church. I 100% feel the same way. When I am walking in my greenway trail along the Milwaukee River in this very pretty wooded area, when I'm with the maples, when I'm with the oak trees, I am too at Church. And it's interesting, you live. I feel like let's weave in some of these threads of tech because this is also a part of your work is supporting creatives. Your work is so multidimensional, which is why I love it. Um, and just what I've been able to see through your website and newsletter so far is that one, you're supporting people with their crafts, like you're teaching. Um, I do hope to take your drawing class at some point because that is something I want to pick up as a skill so that when I'm out on my hikes, on my walks, or just sitting in the park, that I really want to learn how to sketch plants because I'm an herbalist and I feel like that is just another relational practice to deepen my relationship with these beings through drawing them and just for a beauty practice, for an art practice, to sketch beings that I love with my whole heart, and then to be proud and inspired and to hang that up or to keep that in the monographs that I'm I'm creating and just weave that into my herbal practice. So um, and you support creatives not only with their crafts, but you know, healing their relationships with technology. Um and so you, I mean, when I think of like the Mecca of big tech, it is the Bay Area. Like you are in like, and also in such a beautiful space with ancient redwoods. Like there are very few, to my knowledge, spaces across the globe that have Redwoods. And I have been to San Francisco once, uh, two years ago, for a work trip, and I was able to squeeze in a little um guided van trip, and we went to Mir Woods, and it was my first time being in the presence of Redwoods, and it was crowded, but it was so beautiful, and I love trees so much. They're such intelligent

Artificial intelligence & Earth intelligence

SPEAKER_00 23:54

beings. So I'd be curious, Mel. I really want to weave in this thread. We had a little email correspondence of earth intelligence and then artificial intelligence AI. And uh on your website, which I recommend listeners going to check out, you have a very clear AI policy, what your relationship to AI is in your business and in your art practice. And also you practice AI sobriety. So I'm wondering if we could talk a little bit about your relationship with AI as it relates to business and art and what it means to practice AI sobriety for you.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Yeah, so let me go through a number of different facets here. I feel like so I live in the belly of the beast, living in the Bay Area, and I also live in one of the most beautiful pieces of earth in the world. Like this is a Mediterranean climate, it is gorgeous. The biodiversity here because of all the microbiomes and different ways that the fog sits on the bay, creates a really, really unique place to live. It's also a place where all of the tech money and billionaires decide to live because um, you know, this is basically heaven. Like, why wouldn't you want to live in a place where the weather's great all year round? And so I think because of that, it creates this situation where there's this tension between survival. Like if I'm having compassion for those people I ran into on the trail, like there's this tension between survival of this is a very expensive place to live. We need to find a way to support ourselves, and also recognizing that I feel like big tech now is like big tobacco. It is just it is designed for addiction. And so there's this tension, this intense tension living here and being someone who makes work about the nature here, about the thing that is universal. Everybody who lives here loves the nature here, regardless of their relationship to technology. But then, you know, driving across the Bay Bridge, you get to see the beauty of Marin, you get to see the beauty of the bay, and you also get to see billboard after billboard telling you that there you don't need to hire a writer again, you can just prompt it, then push it. You can like it's just extremely hostile marketing language that makes you feel as though if you aren't in with the AI crowd, then you are gonna get left behind. And I have always come from like a DIY uh institutional questioning approach in my creativity and in my work. And I saw firsthand what tech addiction looked like. Uh, I worked at an Apple store, I worked for Apple, and when I was working there, I had this, you know, desire to work for like a Tristan Harris style. Um I had this desire when I worked there to work for this like philosophy department within Apple that was maybe thinking about screen addiction and tech wellness and creativity. And then I found out that that like didn't exist and I was very disappointed.

Technology as partner or thief

SPEAKER_01 27:27

And so it started to make me think about what exactly is humane technology? What are ways to use these things that aren't taken from us? And so so often when I'm working with students and when I'm working with whether it's a tutoring student or I'm working with my classes or I'm guiding people through the hikers way, all of the work that I'm doing that is facing with community and helping care for them acknowledges the fact that our technology has two functions. It can either be a partner or it can be a thief. And more often than not, it's a thief. It's stealing our time, it's stealing our energy, it's making us feel as though we're partially inadequate, it's making us feel like especially with like stats dashboards, you know, you put a piece of content or something out into the world, your art out into the world, and then suddenly it doesn't do well. And so you think that the art isn't very good when really it's just that you didn't engage with the addiction aspects of the platform in the way that the platform wants you to enrage people, frustrate people, and take. And so I am always caught between this tension of technology has a lot of really great things that it can do. You know, I use my phone all the time for notes, for notion, for coming up with ideas for creating, but it also can be a place that can be a complete black hole where I can open my phone and next thing you know, I'm like deep in the rabbit hole on Wikipedia or Substack or I'm scrolling and I'm inputting other people's ideas into my own mind. And I'm polluting the um, I'm polluting the well. And and that that feels really intense. So to bring it around to like the earth intelligence versus artificial intelligence, I have been studying social media addiction for probably since 2016. Oh like 2014. Really just thinking about like my relationship to Tumblr was very addictive and being someone who's very easily like seduced by an infinite scroll. And I've always been very interested in like what's the relationship between infinite scroll and our identity. And when things like AI came onto the scene, I was a a tech perk then who was like, hey, you know, I just left my job at Apple, I'm gonna try this thing out. You know, it could be fun, it could be helpful. I'm usually the the while I have a skepticism of how it can cause harm, I'm also in this place where I'm like, I see what this could do. But then going back to that binary of is it a thief or is it a partner? I think what AI tries to prov provide to us is the idea of a partner as a Trojan horse thief. Because every single AI app out there that I know of in this current moment, whether it's from ChatGPT or Anthropic or Google, are surveillance companies. They are interested in surveying us and they are interested in deepening us into addiction. And I don't think that you can have a creative tool, especially thinking about how I, as an artist on the internet, showing myself to the world through social media and knowing the way that social media affects me, how it could be beneficial for me to continue to be surveyed at an even broader scale and have even more of my work stolen from me. And so when I first started working with AI, I found it really scary and really addictive. I found it to be a tool that wanted me to give it everything, and that's how it is designed. It is designed to hook people so that it develops dependence in people, and through that dependence creates a situation where people get hooked into it and they then are stuck, you know, tying their intelligence or their intuition into a subscription. And there was one walk I was on, I was near the the waterfront, I was birding with my partner, and we're like at the waterfront, and we're talking, and we both were like, wait, AI is a kill switch for your intuition. That's what it is. Anytime that you're uncertain, I was reaching for this thing, and anytime that I was sitting in the muck of not knowing, instead of recognizing that the not knowing is part of the work, I wanted to offload that. And I think that that's where it's a thief. Because in the not knowing is how we fumble in the dark and find the the true answers. And I think this is where we get into that like earth intelligence thing that you and I were talking about in our in our chat, and that's what I help people develop in the hikers' way is like going outside and sitting in the quiet and observing so that way you're not bored. It's not boredom that you're trying to cultivate, it's a discernment, it's a judgment, it's a being able to sit and witness and allowing yourself and your own relationship to your creativity and your spirituality and your like internal knowing to be there and be open to receiving it. And I think that I decided to say, you know what, I'm AI sober because I was like, this is a hyper addictive technology, and as a queer person, I have helped a lot of people through addiction, and I've also seen how tech addiction functionally harms people, and so I had to say, you know what? I am not gonna use this, and it's created a unique position for me to be in where I'm like still trying to figure out how I want my own identity on the internet to be related to AI sobriety, but it also just feels like a slightly risky but very confident yes in my body to say no to these things in this moment.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

And I'm so grateful that you are taking that stance, and it feels like it's from a place of deep integrity and also connection with your inner knowing because you have experienced directly the harm of these generative AI models. I listened to, and I'll link it in the show notes, but you did an interview with Amelia Ruby on Off the Grid, one of my favorite podcasts, and you were talking about AI sobriety, and you very vulnerably shared the years that you were using the generative AI models and like Chat GPT and exactly the revelation you just shared that you realized in those moments of feeling uncertain, which is deeply uncomfortable, and is something that we all go through. And I actually feel like um

Growing our capacity for uncertainty & cultivating intuition

SPEAKER_00 35:17

one of the teachers uh that I have learned from in the past is Carmen Spaniola. And I took a class with her last summer, and she said something that has been sitting with me all this time and has just been growing like a seed, is that she feels like the greatest thing she can do right now in her work, and I'm paraphrasing, is helping people cultivate their capacity for uncertainty and to be in the uncertainty because it's so uncomfortable. And her work is also really much uh uh revolves around supporting people through collapse awareness and how to live, you know, meaningful lives uh and and simplifying our lives in this time of collapse. And so weaving in um the intuition piece here when you identified and realized that AI was becoming this kill switch for intuition, that instead of sitting in the uncertainty and maybe going out and trying to receive an answer while you're out on a walk, because how many answers come to us or creative ideas or downloads come to us when we're just out walking? That's like where I get all of it. And I whip out my phone, similar to you. I use the notes app. Um, there are tools that, you know, are more supportive partners than thieves, and I'll just like stop on the trail and like pause for 10 minutes and just like write out everything in my notes app and be like, okay, I just received this. Phone goes back in the bag or the pocket and I continue on. Or, you know, for any of the tarot girlies or all the other diviners out there that use all the different divinatory tools, tarot, runes, shells, bone throwing, whatever it may be, right? There are infinite divinatory practices that we can turn to to look for answers instead of going to AI. And I think, and like also going to the earth, I think um one of the things we corresponded in via email is what I said is like, why do we need artificial intelligence when we have earth intelligence? And I feel like from my point of view, generative AI, like the chat GPDs and just the way that it's being shoved down our throats right now. And it's interesting to hear about the culture where you live in the Bay. It's not necessarily like anywhere close to that amplification here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the Midwest. Like there's certainly, I mean, people are talking about AI, but it's like we're not, you know, and again, also my can I'm very ingrained in my community here, and my community is like queer witches and artists and community builders. They're like, you know, they're they're hosting song circles and sharing circles and you know, showing their work at makers markets. They're, you know, we're they're not like, I'm not, there's not a lot of people in my direct community that are like talking about AI, right? Other than, you know, maybe more philosophical like stuff. So it's just interesting that yeah, I really love that you practice AI sobriety. And I feel like just like you named it's a kill switch for the intuition, I think it is severing people more and more from the earth. It's giving people yet another addictive lore, a hook. And I am someone that it I would, you know, maybe don't quite claim alcoholism, but I am alcohol sober because I have a deep history of alcoholism in my ancestral lineage in my own life, and so I practice alcohol sobriety. And I have had to go through that journey of becoming alcohol sober, and I know that especially being a neurodivergent queer person as well, um, having like I do, it's easy to get addicted to things. I have been addicted to social media. I probably could get very addicted to Chat GPT, but it just gives me such an ick. And I have such a robust spiritual life and connection with the earth that I don't need to turn to it. And I'm just sad that there's yet another reason for people to be hooked on their devices instead of going out and experiencing the wonder and the magic and the awe and the beauty and the intelligence and wisdom of the earth herself, of the birds that migrate and leverage and attune to the magnetic field of the earth to travel and to migrate, like of the communication of the trees between the mycelial networks beneath the earth and how trees will communicate and send messages not only between their root systems and mycelial networks, but by literally giving off phytochemicals and communicating through these chemicals on the air to alert their tree kin that there is a predator or that there is a caterpillar. So it's like these levels, this level of earth intelligence that I am just beginning to dip my toes in. I am just an infant in like studying ecology and herbalism and bioregionalism and just starting to get to know how intelligent the earth is. And I will be exploring this for the rest of my life. And it's like to me, I find so much more wisdom and answers in looking to the earth and the earth's intelligence than artificial intelligence.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Yeah, I think this gets into the like gender gap also within AI. I identify as non-binary, but I, you know, was raised in the Midwest as a girl. And so I understand um compulsory heterosexuality and also the performance of womanhood. And I think the thing that bothered me the most about AI was this like space of wanting to replace the the like good worker girl. And I didn't like that at all. And there's also this part of me that I like didn't talk about because I've been reflecting on like AI sobriety a lot after that conversation with Amelia and the essay that I wrote, and like thinking, you know, people want to hear me talk about this more. What else can I say? And I have really been thinking about the tools that I've used throughout my life that haven't been AI because I keep asking myself the question of like what is it that I could do back when I was like, you know, I before I was using Earth Intelligence, I was a total city kid. I was an art critic, I wore all black, I sold designer shoes at Nordstrom, I was this like stompy, stompy boots, snobby um person that really was disconnected from nature. However, I was not disconnected from intuition or disconnected from magic. I was very interested in how the tarot could help me. And I have this seed of an essay that might be out by the time this airs that is the title is My Younger Self Would Have Been So Addicted to AI, and here's why. And it's I I have this whole notebook here of questions I asked the tarot, of deep uncertainty that I was owing through when dealing with burnout and overwork in the traditional art world, with dealing the with the fact that I made the terrible mistake of dating one of my former professors and having a weird relationship with that person that was really intense and created a lot of tension in me and a lot of uncertainty because there was strange power dynamics. And I know for a fact that I would have been running everything through AI. I was so anxious, I was so uncertain, I was so afraid of messing up, of failure, of making mistakes, of not getting everything perfect, that I look at that younger version of me, like pre-Saturn return Mel, and I'm like, oh, I see this tool and I see a young person that would have been incredibly susceptible to give all of their personal information, all of their data, all of their sensitive, tender experiences over to this technology because I was a techno optimist. I was someone who saw technology as a way to connect people who had like I had really great experiences on MySpace. I built community through early Facebook in the art scene in Kansas City. City. So I had this techno optimism that I would not have looked at these things and questioned them. But I'm glad that instead I have these journals where I was really confused and not knowing who I trusted and not knowing what I direction I wanted to take my life. And instead I was connecting to spirit, connecting to ancestors, connecting to learning about astrology, learning about, you know, what spirituality meant to me. And I think the thing that's so scary to me is why would we give away our creative not knowing and also our spiritual uncertainty or the uncertainty that we need in order to cultivate depth in a spiritual practice? And that to me is the thing that is so scary. It's like, no, we we need earth intelligence. Like, if you're feeling really pulled to AI and you're listening to this, please go read Emergent Strategy by Adrian Marie Brown and like let it change you. Let you let yourself open into what community and what the earth can do and how the earth can teach us, because we are not in alignment if we are offloading everything to this service that is again surveying us, taking each of those sensitive, beautiful things about us, those things that we would normally share with our own spirituality, and then turning it into data that allows us to be advertised to and spied on by an increasingly fascist government.

unknown 45:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

And the surveillance state is so real. You know, you you wove in emergence strategy, one of my all-time favorite books, when I think about pedagogy and how I approach my life just as how I want to be in the world, it's really that small is all principle of emergence strategy that we can really focus on are fractal in this living world and that will ripple out, much like the murmuration of starlings that Adrian Marie Brown and that, you know, when Mel shifts one way and it's talking about AI sobriety and having these really deep introspective reflections and conversations, like

Emily's personal boundaries with AI

SPEAKER_00 46:23

already just being briefly connected with Mel has already shored up some of my personal boundaries around AI usage. And I shared with you over email Mel that you know, the the main AI tools that I utilize is one, there are AI um uh what would you call them? Frameworks or tools within the record the we're recording this in Riverside, which is just not, this is not a promotion for Riverside at all. I just want to say it's just a tool that I use to record and edit this podcast. And there are AI capabilities in it. And I was upfront with Mel. I was like, you know, the AI feature or the feature is that I use is is magic audio. I'm doing all the editing myself. My goal is to be able to hire a professional editor when I have the funds to do so. And for now, I'm using the tool to get this podcast out into the world because it is a love language for me. It is a creative practice, it is a community care practice, and I love this podcast, and I love broadcasting and amplifying these conversations because I think there's so much wisdom and heart to be shared and to be received. And then the other tool that I was using was Grammarly Pro. Um, I write a newsletter much like Mel does. I love writing, I love personal essays, and I got a Grammarly Pro subscription at the end of 2025. And Grammarly is an AI tool that will help edit the grammar. So although I did not feel like it was really compromising my voice, and I wouldn't accept every grammar edit because sometimes it would plug in words, and I'm like, that's that's not the words I'm using. That's not witchy enough for me, that's not deep enough for me, like it would put in words that I would never use. Like I use the word enchanted a lot, and I use a lot of magical words, and it would try to like swap those out for more practical words, and I'm like, no. But in learning about Mal's AI sobriety and reading your AI policy on your website, where you also shared that you did use Grammarly, you know, from certain, I think for a couple years, and now you no longer do. And it wasn't just your AI policy. I also saw a note on Substack from someone who is a writer whose wife is an editor and was explicitly saying how disheartened his wife is receiving all of these manuscripts that have been clearly edited through Grammarly and through AI. And I was like, okay, maybe it's time for me to pump the brakes. And maybe this is a skill. Like, I am still very new in my writing practice. I really have only been writing publicly since 2023. I didn't do blogging or Tumblr when I was a kid, but writer's workshop in elementary school was my favorite class. I was a little writer when I was a kid, but my teenage years, my young adulthood wasn't so much writing, kind of lost it and then came back to it. But it did make me shore up these boundaries and be like, you know what? I don't need to have perfect grammar. And sometimes like sentence structure and prose, like I'm just gonna have to figure that out over time. And that's just like a skill I'm gonna have to hone myself. And so I did after getting connected to your work, Mel, that was one of the boundaries I kind of shored up for myself was okay, I'm not gonna use grammarly anymore.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Well, that's I'm glad that it helped influence you to negotiate your boundaries. There are definitely like when it comes to things like the magic audio tool, I think those go into like a machine learning category. And if folks that are listening to this go to my website and look at my AI policy, also if you want help writing an AI policy, that is work that I offer through project support. So I would love to help you write one of your own and kind of negotiate what these boundaries look like for you.

AI and the surveillance state

SPEAKER_01 50:11

I don't think that all things under the umbrella of AI are evil or bad. I I want to say that. I think that there are things that are machine learning that have been around for decades, like text-to-speech, um, that are not problematic and can happen in a private manner, like voice memos on your phone. That is using on-device machine learning to do transcription. That is not sending that to any server. It's not surveying you. It's there are there are ways that you can use technology and machine learning that are beneficial and good. However, the thing to always keep in mind is where is your data going? What is the privacy policy of that particular company? And what are they using on their back end? And for me with Grammarly, when I looked into it, it looked like it was being used basically like the writing was being put through ChatGPT. And I have huge moral issues with, you know, Sam Altman and that that particular crowd. I also, you know, living in the Bay Area, got exposed to a friend who ended up in the effective altruist cult.

SPEAKER_00 51:23

And I have not heard about this.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

So it's a it's a pseudo-religion where they feel the people who are working in AI feel like they are creating God. Oh goodness. And they are eugenicists. They believe that the best way to help humanity is to run statistical probability models as to whether or not certain humans deserve to live or die in climate collapse. So it is like the most doomery and horrible um type of uh pseudo-religion that people are falling into. And, you know, having a close relationship with someone who got pulled down that rabbit hole was a real eye-opener for me in terms of AI sobriety and in terms of recognizing that like this is a very dangerous place because we're not thinking with our soul. We're not being led by soul and we're not being led by our nature. We're being led by ego and technology as a religion. I recently read Neil Postman's Technopoly, which I highly recommend if people are wanting to like get a perspective on how technology has become our source of authority and almost like a replacement for religion and divine in our culture. And that was written in 1992. So the year after I was born, this book was written, and it's very clear that the the current state of affairs with the patriarchy and AI and technopoly have all just like kind of crossed in this really insidious way. And I think, you know, bringing it back to the work I do, this is why I teach the hiker's way in the manner that I do. So in like week zero, people root into their values and figure out how to connect to the earth in their neighborhood, basically doing a lot of research and a lot of internal work. And then in the next week, we go out and we start experimenting or the next cycle. I changed it from weeks to cycles because it felt more aligned. And cancer. Yeah, figuring it out as we go. Um in the next cycle, people start deepening into what does it mean to go out in nature? What can we hear? What habits can we build that are not focused on productivity, but are focused on practice? So, like what does practice look like for you and what bite-sized version of that makes the most sense? And then in cycle two, we take a break from social media or AI use. So then it's like we've we've built a foundation of our values, we've built a foundation of our relationship to the natural spaces around us, and then we start to ask questions of how does tech relate to what we're doing? And how is tech maybe getting in our way or distracting us or creating situations in which we're turning to tech with our uncertainty instead of turning into ourselves or into our guides or into spirit or into tarot or astrology, et cetera, et cetera? Like, why are we not choosing magic? And then in week three, then we get into things like inner critics and judgment and thinking about the ways in which you know, the outside world, and I think about this cycle all the time, especially when it comes to taking the stance of AI sobriety, because with Substack, you know, my AI sobriety essay is probably the best performing piece on Substack. And so I get fed tons of AI booster posts on Substack of people who are very much in the antithetical camp to me. And I can tell that it's like the system itself showing me that I am against the current zeitgeist and how being against the current zeitgeist is a career-limiting move or is wrong or is incorrect. And I fundamentally don't care because I love the that block button is so delicious. I love this so much, I love nature so much, I love having an organic brain so much that I don't want to touch these things. And I've talked about in a in a YouTube video as well as in another essay, like what AI sobriety looks like in practice. And in practice, for me, it's community. Like it's asking others for help, it's trading labor, it's creating that sense of resource and recognizing that there is abundance and there are answers if we look to other humans. And I find it so dangerous for us to be disconnected from other humans, especially as artists, because as artists, as creative people, we build movements through the relationships that we have with others. We gain confidence by taking a class with someone and having them give us the permission we've always needed to make our work in the way that we've always needed to make it. And I think those are the things that I am taking these stances to have a direct line in the sand and be like, yeah, sure, you could go over there and do that. But I'm gonna go over here and do the opposite because I think there's deep value in this, and doing it in the Bay Area right now feels like the most ultimate rebellion. Like it feels like I am like flying in the face of these extremely powerful people and organizations and saying, you know what, I don't care about what you're doing. I think it's irrelevant. I think that it, yes, I don't want to say that it's like completely irrelevant because it does have labor implications. And I like have done a lot of research into the Leadites and I read a lot of Brian Merchant's work, and I highly recommend if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of going and reading his blog, Blood in the Machine, and his book of the same title.

Resisting the harms of Big Tech by practicing AI sobriety

SPEAKER_01 58:10

But I think that that we're getting into this place where I want to help people rebel. I want to help people recognize that I don't want to pay a subscription to an AI company in order to access my intelligence for the rest of my life. I want to deepen into community, to build relationships, to actually find ways of doing things through embracing my humanity instead of giving it up to these corporations.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

Wow. Wow, wow, wow, Mel.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

Yes. Practicing AI sobriety is an act of resistance, and then where you are physically located in that hub of the big tech area is even, it takes a lot more courage. It takes a lot more being rooted in your values and who you are and what you care about and what moves you. And I think it's really powerful. And already, like I know that you are just going to continue to impact others. And I'm so excited to share this podcast episode with folks who are thinking about AI and their relationship to it, and really offering this as like some deep introspective questions. And you know, we haven't even gotten into the environmental impact of AI, and you know, that's probably been my biggest thing of having an ick with it in the first place, is you know, there are all these data centers popping up uh and being built along the coast of Lake Michigan. And the Great Lakes are 20%, I believe 20%, I need to fact check this myself, but I believe it's 20% of the entire world's fresh water supply. And these data centers are getting uh pushed up. And one, there's pollution, there's impact to local communities, there's an economic promise of jobs, but actually in the long run, that's not actually going to infuse capital into the economy like it's being promised that it will be. And essentially, all of the water that is needed to cool these data centers down is basically, I'm just viewing it as like completely draining Lake Michigan and draining these beautiful, sacred Great Lakes that have been around, that are melted glaciers and have been around for thousands and thousands of years and that have been sacred to the indigenous people of Turtle Island and of this place. And to me, like I love Lake Michigan with every fiber of my being, the entire Great Lake system. And I want to act and live in integrity of being in right relationship with the earth. And that means doing what I can to, I feel like harm reduction has come up in other conversations that I've heard you where you're talking about AI sobriety, you know, and I know that, you know, it's such um everything is very nuanced where, you know, yes, like individual recycling is not gonna solve climate change. And at the same time, from an emergent strategy lens, our individual actions, our beliefs, our creativity, our community work, our relationships, those ripple out and influence our entire community around us. And so our individual actions do matter, but not but more through an emergent strategy lens rather than like the hyper-individualist capitalist lens is what I'm talking about. You know, our individual behaviors do matter at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:56

I think what uh, you know, getting into the idea of data centers and into like to tie it all back to like the work that I'm making and like the idea of being an organic artist in this era is that like I'm working class. I grew up working class. The one thing that I recognize is that this is a labor issue, it is a class issue, it is a solidarity issue. And there's two ways to get people into that space, right? You can shame them and say, hey, don't do this. And in some ways, I've been guilty of that type of shame behavior in some of the ways that I show up on, you know, social media around my AI use. Like I'm very sassy and very um, I've got uh Mercury and Aries, so I have a tendency to like speak the truth to power as much as possible and just say sassy things on the internet.

The pleasure of artmaking, community building, and being in nature

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

But then there's also this part of me that is back to that thing about my own art of seducing people into the pleasures of loving nature. And I think it gets into like another Adrienne Murray Brown book of pleasure activism. Like, how do we get people to build solidarity through love, through a deepening into what they care about? And that's why I focus so much of my energy into building a retreat center, into teaching classes on creativity, because I think that art should be for everyone. The way that I was taught art in art school was not helpful in terms of building working class solidarity and support for the arts. It was a way of continuing to uphold elitist, you know, billionaire class ideas of what good art is. And I'm not interested in teaching art for that world. I'm not interested in making art for that world. I only show my things at makers markets. And I think that what I want to try to help people cultivate is like a deep love for nature and a deep love for creative craft and those two things as incredible rebellions and wellness practices in this era. Because if we can build solidarity, like in my dream world, we're building solidarity with people, where we're doing community organizing, and we're also doing like stitch and bitch craft nights where we all get together and make things together. And that action of making in community is such an important act of rebellion. Like it is such a vital and useful tool in our toolbox to remind us of what makes us human and what makes human art valuable and that can never ever be taken by some you know corporate, you know, profit thieving. I only care about product, not process machine. It can't have that. It just can't have it can't have a wellness practice, it can't have a spiritual practice. It is a product. That's it. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:09

You're preaching to the choir over here. Yeah, I feel like our work overlaps in that your work is to re-enchant people's uh love of nature. And that's kind of my work too. And I think about, you know, I'm trying to re-enchant people's relationship. I always say the living world and cosmos, soil and stars, right? It's to root into the soil, to get to know the tree that lives, you know, in your yard or on your block, uh, to get to know the names of the local weeds that are popping up out of the sidewalk crack, to get to know the bodies of water, and also to get outside and look at the stars. And did you know that Venus is visible in her evening star phase? And that you could just go outside right after sunset and be marveled and amazed by her brilliance as the Brightest star in the sky. She is a planet, but she looks like a star. And so, yes, just these practices of rooting into community, also a huge part of my life. My background is community organizing, and I love that your background is in art organizing and community organizing through the art lens and through the art world. And yeah, mine is, and I know you're also through political organizing as well, that we just share these threads of wanting to reconnect people with the earth, wanting to reconnect people with nature and then in community. And my husband and I talk about this all the time. We both share a love of gardening, and we have just been on such a long healing journey together, and like this whole kind of arc of going from I also earlier you were talking about being a city kid. I too was a city kid. I lived in cities for a decade and six years in Chicago, and that's where my husband and I met, and I was such a city girl. I freaking loved being a city girl. And then just this arc of like Saturn return changing everything and needing more green space, needing more earth connection, needing to slow down and heal from burnout and recover, because I too agree that art and connecting with nature and the the two combined and woven together are healing and wellness practices. And my husband and I have just been on this journey of deepening our connection with the earth, learning about organic farming and becoming like so fascinated by community-supported agriculture and regenerative farming practices and organic gardening, and then this sparking this love of herbalism and plant medicine that feels very ancestral to me. And my husband and I always say, like, we are members of our local community garden, and he does a work share on an organic uh vegetable farm, a community-supported agriculture farm. And there is something so human about being in the garden with our neighbors as we're all gardening and weeding and planting and cleaning up the garden together and just talking, or when he's out in the field with the other farmers and with the other workers at the farm, that there just is something so human and so delightful and so enjoyable about being outside, hands in the soil, and connecting and talking and laughing and sharing stories. And then also, you know, I always mention the Milwaukee River Greenway on this podcast because it's that's my daily trail that I'm walking. Two of my best friends that live in my neighborhood, our connection and our relationship has the foundation of it is going for walks together, weekly walks together around the Greenway and getting to know each other and talking and having heart-to-heart and really deep, soulful conversation as we're walking and hiking together. And I was like, this river knows all my secrets. My husband and I got married on the river, like my ancestors lived in this neighborhood and had a relationship with this river. Like this river knows my secrets and knows my highs and lows. And to me, that is the most meaningful way to live. And like, yes, technology can be a tool, right? Like you and I are connecting and having this amazing conversation. And I hope that this will continue as a seed of a new connection and relationship that will continue to blossom and that will continue to use these tech tools to keep us connected and in touch with each other and to support and amplify each other's work in the world. And at the same time, while we're also cultivating really meaningful lives, creative lives, work lives, community lives that don't rely on tech. So just so much of what you I feel like you're taking me to church, Mel. I love

Inspiration from the Redwoods

SPEAKER_00 1:09:50

it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:50

So all of that, while you're saying that, I have this like very exciting story to tell you about uh going to Mirror Woods for the first time. And I was walking through Mirror Woods and I overheard the ranger giving a talk. And so I like pop over and I'm listening to the ranger giving a talk. And this was, you know, I at this point I knew I had a relationship where I was like, yeah, I'm into socialism, yeah, I'm into like radical political organizing, I'm into imagining a different future for this earth because that was like the I think maybe year two of my Saturn return in 2020. And so I'm listening to this guy talk and he starts chatting about the how the redwoods work. And there's actually studies being done right now as to whether or not the redwoods are individual organisms or if they're all one community, because these trees are three to four hundred feet tall at their tallest, however, their roots are no more than ten feet deep, they are wide. So all those trees are holding each other's hand and they share nutrients with one another. So when one over here doesn't have something, one from over here who has a little bit more water from the last rain pushes it through the roots over to the other. So they all communicate through this mycelial system, and when they are under stress, they develop these burls that allow them to regenerate. So when they are under stress, they I think about those burls like they're art. And so they're thinking about like, okay, I know that I could fall over tomorrow, and I want to have this burl so that way I can regenerate and immediately like birth the next generation of what I can do. And I'm doing a maker's market tomorrow, and I'm like quite emotional about the idea of some of the paintings I've made this year selling and having to let go of them and like give them to a new home. And I think it's like that burl, right? It's like the the regeneration space that we can interact with of recognizing that they can just start anew. And it's why the Coast Redwoods are actually less endangered than the giant sequoias in the Sierra Nevada, because they have this ability to regenerate and to not compete with one another, but be in this constant harmony, and it's like that's the earth intelligence that we need to look at. Those are the systems that we need to be like, okay, these guys have it figured out. They've been here for more than 2,000 years, they know way more than us. And we need to listen to the ways in which these plant systems have figured out a way to sustain themselves through fire, through um all kinds of chaos and earthquakes, and yet still be standing. And their persistence is such an honor for me. It's like instead of I think so often as artists or as creative people, especially in our hyper productivity culture, which is like another draw that people feel fall into with tech, is we think that we have to be perfectly consistent. But I think that what we actually need is to be persistent, that we need to like recognize that there are cycles and flows as we go. And throughout this like weaving cycles and flows, we can find moments where we're like, I want to persist in this space, I want to persist in this space, and then in order to maintain that persistence, I try to sit with the times where I'm less productive, the times when I rest, the times when I connect with others. And I think the the real truth, if I'm learning from these giants, these giant coast redwood trees that I love so deeply, if I'm learning their lesson, the way that you stay standing and you stay persisting is you don't only think about yourself as an individual, but you think about your relationship to all of those around you. And you build these senses of solidarity and you build, you ask, you know, what are the needs of your community? I just started a a Patreon last month,

Practicing emergence, adaptability, and resilience

SPEAKER_01 1:14:40

and through that experience, I've started doing group tutoring, but I'm calling it the emergent classroom because I'm asking the community, I'm like, I'm not just gonna tell you what I want to teach you, I want to know what you're struggling with, and I want to design curricula that is directly focused on the struggles because I think that's what art school didn't do for me. It taught me how to exist in a system that was dying, that is that is dead, like the traditional gallery system is falling apart, and so I look at that system and I say, How can I build something new that will help others along and we can persist together as in an act of community care?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:30

And that's what it is to be emergent. I feel like we both share emergent strategies as influencing our personal pedagogies, but to be emergent is to be highly adaptable and to cultivate resilience from these rapidly changing and shifting political, you know, and global and climate changes and disruptions. And also to not just go with the current of the status quo of empire, right? It really is patriarchy and empire and capitalism and colonialism that is weaponizing AI and weaponizing big tech, right? Like there is, there are ways you mentioned humane tech earlier, and there are ways that they can be humane. And it's really up to us as the people who are the world builders, are the community builders, are the visionaries, the artists that so clearly see the world that we want to live in, the better world, right? Empire is collapsing, empire is dying, and so many of us are here to be seeds and doulas of what is next, right? And like becoming an organizer and learning about abolition of the prison industrial complex. One of the, you know, organizers, thought leaders, teachers that I consider, you know, who really educated me a lot through her writing and her public offerings is Miriam Kaba. And many abolitionists like Miriam Kaba will will talk about when you have that long vision, when you're thinking, like you said, beyond just the individual self, Mel, when we're thinking about the future generations, the ancestors, the past generations, is that the seeds that we are planting today through our creative work, through our businesses, through our art, through our community building, through our service, through our gifts, right? Any of these modalities is that we are planting seeds for trees that we will likely never see bear fruit. And but they are bearing fruit for the future generations to shift culture and to build the world that we want to live in. And I think there are many fruits along the way. There are many flowers and fruits along the way to celebrate and to revel in the pleasure and the joy. Even just you and I having this conversation today is such a bright spot. That's why I created this podcast. One to share, but two, because I love being in conversation with people who inspire me, people who are world builders, people who are doing amazing, visionary, beautiful things in the world. And it fills my cup so much to form a connection, to learn more about you and your story and your passion, and then to broadcast that and share that. And that is such a fruit to celebrate. So, Mel, this conversation has been so amazing. And I appreciate the story you shared about Earth intelligence because with the trees and the redwoods and the community that they form, that is the intelligence we need to be looking to. That is who has solutions of how to be emergent and adaptive and resilient in climate collapse. Look to the plants, look to the birds, look to the trees and the waters, right? Um, there's so much wisdom to be had. And so, Mel, I would love, you know, you've mentioned a few of your offerings. You know, you have craft tutoring, you have the hikers way. I would love if you could share a little bit more, um, maybe to kind of wind this conversation down. If folks are really feeling uh just excited and lit up by your work and especially, you know, all your beliefs and all the things that you weave together,

Connect with Mel

SPEAKER_00 1:19:18

how can folks uh support you or collaborate with you?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:22

Yeah, so I think um I I've tried to make as many little tendrils, really. I think every I have a map of my favorite redwood trail that I'm looking at as we're talking. And I feel like the Redwoods are my biggest inspiration for like how I build my business. So at the very ground level, at the like root and seed level, I have a Discord server. And you can join it by joining me on Patreon. Um, it's either $3 a month or $15 once to join that Discord. And the Discord server is amazing. I have been working at it since 2021, and we now have 350 people there, and we're all just casually sharing our art, talking about our struggles, really just building community with one another. And I recently did a project with that group where we all traded sketchbook zines with one another and made really cool art and had this incredible collaborative experience. And so that felt really incredible. I'm saying incredible a lot. Um, but it felt really connected to my values to have that community space. And from there, I've used that space to that space as well as a voting system for my classes to determine what I teach next. So I have a wait list on my website of different classes that are coming up, and whatever has the most wait list signups becomes the next class that I teach. And so it looks like the next class will be about um overcoming screen addiction through knitting. So the antidote antidote to scrolling by knitting, and I'll be teaching that with a friend who's been scrolling. I'll be teaching that with a friend who's been knitting for her whole life and scrolling for her whole life. Um so funny, so funny how how our brains do these things. And then I also offer one-on-one craft tutoring. So I work with students as a direct support to find out what their needs are. And as I've been doing this work, I've been doing craft tutoring since 2023. And as I've been doing this work, I've realized that what some of my students need in the in-between is support for when they don't necessarily have like a specific craft question, but they need like community and peer review. They need compassionate critique that's not scary, they need systems and practices that help them get resourced and make space for making their authentic creative craft. And so that's why I started a new level on my Patreon that allows people to get access to the emergent classroom. And so that is kind of going to be my main focus this year is the emergent classroom, deepening into the hikers way with students and teaching that live later this year, and really just getting people to get outside, to be in nature, to connect to themselves and to heal their relationships to technology, because we need to recognize that it's not a space that we have to go in alone. If we do this with others, with our roots intertwined, that is where the magic really happens. And that is the kind of work that I try to consistently put out in the world. And the short films that I make with my partner on YouTube become these spaces where we can help people wake their heart up to the magic of nature and get out there and observe it and make art and write and connect with our intuitions together.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:19

So many beautiful offerings, Mel. I signed up for your drawing class, so I put my vote in for your drawing class to return at some point. So highly encourage the listeners to check out Mel's website. I will include all of their links in the show notes and just to explore on their beautiful website and plug in in all the different ways that you feel aligned to. So, Mel, is there anything, any final reflections or any thoughts that you kind of wanted to leave the listeners with? Or are you feeling complete with our conversation today?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:56

I think the last thing that I will leave everyone with is that art making truly is a wellness practice. It is a place that is driven not by prestige and our outward expectations, but our inner freedom in pleasure, by magic, and by connection with community. So I hope that after listening to this, you want to go make some stuff, that you come connect with me on Discord, and that we build community together through your creative craft.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:30

Thank you, Mel. It has been such a gift to be in conversation with you today, and I just so appreciate you and your beautiful work in the world. So thank you so much, and thank you to the listeners for tuning in. Until next

Outro

SPEAKER_00 1:24:45

time. And thank you to Paul Krasnoshok for our music. To support the show, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, leave us a review, and share this episode with the people you love. You can also become a patron for $5 a month or $50 a year by subscribing to the Soil and Stars newsletter at ofSoilandstars.substack.com. Your patronage supports the sustainability of this project and will help me hire professional support in the future. Thank you for tuning in. Visit the show notes for links, to connect with our guests, to subscribe to the newsletter, and for other resources mentioned in this episode. Thank you.