Adele Jarrett-Kerr

I value wisdom a lot more than I value knowledge - Series 2, Episode 6

This week, I’m joined by Adele Jarrett-Kerr (she/her); a mother, writer, home educator and breastfeeding counsellor, originally from Trinidad and Tobago, now living in Cornwall. Adele also works with her family’s small, regenerative farm near Falmouth and hosts a podcast about human connection called Revillaging.

Join us as we talk about the importance of developing critical thinking, what our children teach us, experiencing colonial dismissal, deprogramming from the dominant culture, different ways of accessing knowledge and the problematic nature of academia, partnering with nature in farming and so much more!

If you haven't already, be sure to join our Facebook community to connect with other like-minded queer folks and allies.

Find out more about Gem Kennedy and Queers & Co. 

Podcast Artwork by Gemma D’Souza

Resources

Find out more about Adele’s work on her website

Listen to the Revillaging podcast

Check out Soul Farm

Follow Adele on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter

Listen to Adele’s podcast for the Freedom to Learn Forum, Address the Harm: Self-Directed Learning for Decolonisation

Full Transcription

Gem: Welcome to Queers & Co., the podcast on self-empowerment, body liberation and activism for queer folx. I'm your host, Gem Kennedy. I'm a transformational coach, as well as creator of the Queers & Co. community.

Gem: Hey folx, welcome to another episode of Queers & Co. I don't know about you, but lockdown fatigue has really set in in the last week or so. It gave me a lot of hope, actually imagining people listening to this in like six months or a year, and hopefully lockdown being a thing of the past, or at least things being easier. So yeah, if you're listening in the future, well done you. For everyone who's listening now, in February 2021, I hope you're all keeping safe and managing to look after yourself. I wonder if there's anything that you could do today that would help your day feel a little bit easier, maybe help you feel a little bit more supported. I'm really conscious of that at the moment, because as I said, locked down in our household is really becoming tiresome. The children just want to see their friends, and we just want to be outside seeing all the people we love. So it's feeling really frustrating.

Gem: Luckily, I have a really great guest for you today. And it's someone that I spoke to back in December and oh it was so good. When I listened back just now when I was editing and transcribing the episode, I just had so many thoughts, there are so many things that we touch on. And I'm really hoping that she's going to come back and talk to us about some other things that will become clear as we go through the episode. I think you're gonna really enjoy it. And I'm sure that you'll get lots from what my guest has to share.

Gem: One of the things I'm conscious of with the podcast is that I know lots of people who listen don't have children. And I feel like there might be a tendency to switch off when there are sort of children's rights or unschooling specific podcasts or guests who are working in those fields. But I really would encourage anyone to listen because not only do we talk about the ways we are with our children, there's so much learning that comes from how we think about education ourselves and how we allow ourselves to discover knowledge. And I think what my guest had to share around that was just really fascinating, and I learned a lot.

Gem: So without further ado, let me introduce you to her. She is a mother writer, home educator and breastfeeding counsellor, originally from Trinidad and Tobago, and now living in Cornwall. She also works with her family's small regenerative farm near Falmouth and hosts a podcast about human connection called Revillaging, which I'd highly recommend you have a listen to. Introducing my excellent guest, Adele Jarrett-Kerr. Hi, Adele, thanks so much for joining me

Adele: Thanks for having me, Gem. I've been really looking forward to this conversation.

Gem: Me too. And we kind of already jumped in before we started recording. So we decided that we better start recording so we can capture what we're talking about. And really, we were talking about sound quality, but actually kind of what the subtext was like unschooling and queering things, I guess. And so it'd be really interesting if you're happy to just introduce yourself and how you identify in sort of various ways.

Adele: Yeah, sure. That's good. Yeah. So my name is Adele Jarrett-Kerr. I am originally from Trinidad and Tobago, and I live in the UK. I've lived here for 15 years. So I'd say that that is a huge part of my identity. I'm an unschooling parent of three kids who are nine, six and four. And we have always done life without school, but have kind of transitioned more and more towards unschooling, as I've learned more about children's rights, but also decolonizing myself, that's been a huge part of our process. And we run a farm, and I'm one member of a team of four who run a farm here in Cornwall. It's a no-dig farm, which uses regenerative practices, although I'm always a bit cautious of using that word, because it is a word that comes from indigenous and African cultures. And we are trying to embody that in all ways, not just in the sense of the way that we do agricultural practices, but trying to get into the philosophy of that and living regeneratively. Yeah, because it's become a bit of a whitewashed buzz word. So it's like a lot of thing and I sure we'll get onto that at some point. I'm trying to think of what else would really say? Yeah, I dunno I think that probably covers a few things. I have been working as a breastfeeding counsellor, well volunteering as a breastfeeding counsellor for quite a significant portion of my life now, last almost 10 years, but I'm kind of taking a break from that but I feel like that has actually informed a lot of the things that I do as well. So it is worth sort of mentioning. And I'm not sure if there's anything else, I probably can't be neatly packaged, like most of the things about us and will probably emerge as we have the conversation rather than me saying I'm Adele and I'm this, this, this and this.

Gem: Yeah, I think it's really useful place to start. And there's so much already that I'm like, Oh, I wanna know about this, I wanna know about this. And our paths have crossed over the last year or so in different spaces, but not enough. So I'm really keen to find out more. So you came to the UK 15 years ago, and your journey to the children not ever going to school and also decolonizing your life in general as well as education... Yeah. How did that kind of journey unfold? And was there like one thing that catalysed it? Or was it a very gradual process?

Adele: Which bit of the journey? Cos there are quite a few things that you've just mentioned there.

Gem: There are, aren't there? I'm wondering... I guess my question is around you had children and did you always know that they weren't going to school? Were you already kind of in touch with children's right and understanding decolonisation at that point? Or was it later on? I guess, because for me, the real catalyst was having children...

Adele: Well that's the case for so many of us, isn't it? Yeah. having children is just such a profoundly transformative experience. I don't want to see that in the sense of... because some people like to say that you can't fully experience life unless you become a parent, which is just not true because there are lots of different pathways into these things. But because it is, I guess, because it's hard in a lot of ways, it does kind of speed up the process for those who experience it anyway. Although there are other big things that can bring us into that. Yeah, for me, it definitely was... I had always known that I was going to home educate actually because I hated school myself. And I had the fortune which a lot of people don't have of knowing people who were home educated when I was growing up and envying them. And also because, well... as I didn't grow up here, I guess the rules probably would have been different here, but it was quite laid back in terms of whether I went to school or not.

Adele: So actually, for much of secondary school, my mother, she just allowed me to just not go if I didn't want to. So I would go for like the bare minimum, and then just not go for quite a lot of it so I guess that would probably be, well, it would probably be considered school refusal here. Whereas it wasn't that kind of an issue there at the time anyway, particularly because I was still able to... I happen to have the privilege of being able to make the grades anyway, because I test really well and then forget everything I've learned. So I was able to game the system in that way, which shows that the system doesn't work. And yeah, so all of that stuff kind of came together for me. And then I had the really strong feeling when I was pregnant, that I didn't want this child to go to school, at least not at first, it just felt like for me, it was the family togetherness. That was important. And I think that's the case for a lot of people is that you start off with kind of a few ideas. And it's only as you do it that you start to gain more reasons for why you're doing something. And that's definitely been the case, I think even now at this point, I would say that my reasons are either different or more in number than they were even a year ago. So I think that just keeps on happening as we get to know our children, as we get to know ourselves and that's what becoming a parent was for me, it was kind of taking a good look at myself, and getting to know a lot of things about me that I wouldn't have gotten to know. And what I hadn't got to know yet, but in a very kind of quick and intense sort of journey way as they like to call it.

Adele: And yeah, and it was really strange as well becoming a parent in a culture that wasn't mine. It was a second culture shock in a lot of ways because I experienced huge culture shock when I moved here. Actually, it wasn't just culture shock. I call it colonial... Well, it was a sense of just feeling that I wasn't fully accepted. I didn't fully belong. I was constantly reminded that I was foreign and that my foreignness was somehow worthy of being dismissed. So it was a colonial dismissal that I was experiencing. So it wasn't just culture shock. And I didn't experience that again when I had my child, but what I had was just feeling like a really primal all of the things that I would have probably... I hadn't even had a chance to think about. All of the things that I would have expected to have... I don't know some sort of like memory of what you sort of expect when you become a parent. But none of that was there. And it's the whole not having your family with you. And I know that it's different here, families often aren't very involved with each other, but I come from a culture where they are. So it was a lot of those things kind of allowed me to think with a bit of a blank slate. So it was a gift really, because it was a chance to really look at what was important to me. And I think that that kind of informs a lot of my perspective, when I'm talking about things is that I've been given the opportunity to come at things from kind of a slightly different angle, because of having moved because of being kind of on the margins in some respects. And people in the margins are always the ones who are able to disrupt because we see things from a different angle.

Gem: Yeah, absolutely. And it's so powerful to think about that in terms of unschooling and the way that we raise our children, and I know that you, if anyone hasn't listened to it, they should definitely go and check out the talk that you did for the Freedom to Learn forum on decolonising education, and I'm conscious of not repeating all of it. I think what was so what was so fascinating about that, is that you talk about when families are unschooling, if they're not actively decolonising their practice or their family culture, then it's kind of not really unschooling, and it's not really having that radical impact that as unschoolers, they're often intending to have.

Adele: Yeah, because unschoolers can feel that we're upsetting the colonial power structure between adults and children, which is true. And in indigenous cultures, children are much more at the centre, and much more on an equal playing field. But while we're doing that, if we're not kind of coming alongside our children to gain these tools together, well, to disrupt the culture and to... Think of how to put this. To look at things together through a informed lens, then we're not actually giving our children, we're actually doing them a bit of a disservice, because we're just saying, "Go out there and be educated by the dominant culture". And we know that the the dominant culture is not decolonised, the dominant culture is there to just keep perpetuating the same kinds of harms, over and over again. And so you're just putting your child into the world, but not actually, you're definitely doing some good by trying not to oppress them better, but you're not giving them the tools to think about where they might be oppressing others, or where they might be accepting messaging about themselves from others. You know, because not all the messaging comes from us, obviously.

Gem: Yeah, it's so true. And I'm thinking about... because obviously, we don't want to be pushing our children to learn a particular thing, but at the same time if they're not aware that those resources are available, if they're not aware, for example, that the dominant culture is a thing, then to them as you said, I think this really great quote, where you said, "If something appears to be neutral, it aligns with the dominant culture". And when we're kind of not preparing our children with those tools and resources to sort of critique things and to look at things from different angles, then, yeah, it is just a perpetuation of the mainstream dominant white supremacist culture.

Adele: Yeah and it's the critiquing things, that's such an important skill, the critical thinking, and it's something that we need to develop in ourselves first, so it's not really so much about like, we've got to teach our child how to do this thing is that's not what we're aiming for, but we need to see it for ourselves. And for a lot of us, we don't see it, because we have fallen asleep with this culture, we have to wake up to what's happening. And so we need to educate ourselves, we need to be thinking deeply, we need to feel deeply and allow things to come not just into our minds but into our feelings and our bodies. And then from there be able to... we will notice things and we'll be able to model this kind of critical thinking and not just a case of like just being negative and pulling apart everything but modelling love you know and generous thinking, and all of all of that stuff. And it's really interesting to me... so I bought these, well actually I was given these Nancy Drew books by a friend years and years ago, and I just thought I'll just hang on to them because my kids might like it. I sort of vaguely remember reading some Nancy Drew as a child, and my nine year old is now of the age where she's reading them, and she said she's going to read them because we're in a pandemic, and she can't get to the library and her reading material is a little bit thin on the ground, but she said that after I read them, I think you should get rid of them. Why? And she said, because it is so sexist and racist. Oh, okay. So then we were talking about what were the things that came up and she was talking about First Nations people and the gender roles and all of that stuff that's going on. And I just thought, yeah, that's really interesting because I don't remember, because I read them as a child and because that kind of modelling wasn't happening. That's not something that I'm levying at my parents at all. It's just the way that the culture was and we are becoming more awake to things. I'm sure that if I read it now, I probably would be quite shocked. But I'm thankful for the fact that we have enough of these conversations, and she kind of sees my decision making process around things enough. And she's making decisions for herself. So that she knows that she feels able to read this because sometimes she decides she's not gonna read something. But she knows that she feels able to read this, and notice those things and critique them, but she also is able to say, but that's not a reason that we should keep it hanging around, because there's plenty else out there, and you'll have time to buy and replace it with other things, when the time comes for my sisters to read them.

Adele: It's so great. Like, it gives me goosebumps thinking that there are children who are essentially, um, I guess, like I was more aware or potentially, I guess, yeah, I was more critical of the world as a child and teenager than I was in my sort of early 20s. And it's so great to hear that there are people growing up with that, and that that's encouraged in a family and, you know, it's the culture that has been set and there's discussion ongoing, rather than it being stifled, or, you know, something we shouldn't talk about. I'm thinking about my nine year old who, sometimes we talk for example quite a bit about pronouns and gender and stuff, and sometimes I'll say, "Oh, you know, that that man over there", and she'll correct me and say, well, you don't know if they identify as a man. And I'm like yeah actually, that's so true. I don't. I'm non-binary myself, but we do make those assumptions or kind of still have those dominant things that pop up from time to time and it's so great when your children are like, hold on a second, or, yeah, they're not living in that paradigm that you're having to remove yourself from.

Adele: Yeah I mean, doesn't that just show just how internalised these things are, though, that, you know, even if it's something that we are actively having to confront, because of our own identities, we're still prone to accepting what the dominant culture says, without kind of... it's programming and it's a constant thing that we are having to work out because we've gone through a lifetime with this programming, but they're developing these skills early on, and hopefully, they won't have the same issues later on. I'm kind of intrigued by why you were saying that you think your early 20s was a time where you kind of... you were more critical, but then your early 20s, you sort of softened with those things a little bit.

Gem: Yeah. Yeah, I think what I realised as my kind of relationship with my body. Well, from from sort of 10, I had a very bad relationship with my body. I was very passionate about kind of political causes, and you know, would write lots of letters and stuff as a child. But as I grew up, I think that my focus shifted, because that wasn't seen as like an attractive or an acceptable quality to be outspoken or passionate about things. And I kind of moved away from that thinking like, yeah, I guess I just didn't think that that was acceptable. Obviously, I knew that it was if you were a certain kind of person, but I didn't feel like I was that kind of person. It's all very, like messed up, I think in misogyny, in sort of internalised homophobia, and yeah other stuff. So I think, yeah, it wasn't until having chosen that I really was like, holy shit, I need to do something like this isn't. Yeah, that there's more that will there needs to be more than this, I guess. And I think that that showed in all different areas of my life. Like in terms of the work I did, again, I just thought, you know, I couldn't do the things I wanted to do because of who I was or how I looked. So it's all just yeah, really not good. And I think the thought of children growing up not having that. And it's not to say that they won't, you know, encounter other trauma and other kind of difficulties, but I guess starting from that solid foundation where they're able to express themselves and able to engage in social justice in a way that is like, encouraged by the people around them, and actually something that is just a norm rather than, you know, oh, you're the strange, outspoken person. And, yeah, I just think it's really exciting. And I'm intrigued by when you talk about living regeneratively, and what that means across different parts of your life, so not just farming, for example, it will be so great to hear about what that means to you in different ways.

Adele: Yeah. Before I talk about that though, from just listening to what you were just saying, I think the interesting thing for me about parenting at this point in parenting is that it's so it's not so much, well it is about the kids, but it is so much about kind of trying to understand what's happened for me, and kind of, you know, if I'm talking about unschooling, and so on, it's kind of equally or maybe more biased towards thinking of trying to figure out how I got to this point, and to sort of work out what needs to be worked on, what needs to be sat with and what needs to be released all of that stuff.

Gem: So true, I almost don't want to move away from that because I think yes, it's so so true. And there's there's that process of going through sort of deschooling ourselves. And then actually, what does it look like to follow my own interests and to allow myself to not need qualifications to be bestowed upon me by an institution like actually to seek  learning and, like, try things out, and if they don't work, then try something else. Yeah, I always thought I had to wait for someone's come and give me permission to do a thing. And, and I guess that's such a thing in like, dominant work culture as well, you know, you get promoted, or you get given an opportunity, rather than you actually being able to create something for yourself, and express your creativity in a way that feels good.

Adele: This is something that I was talking to somebody about recently actually saying that because I was on the pathway to do a PhD that was a dead set plan. And then I had a bit of a mental breakdown, a bit of mental breakdown, I did have a breakdown. Not a total breakdown because I was able to get through my masters, but enough that I needed to take some time out from from academia, because I was definitely being harmed by continuing as I was. And the intention was okay, I'll take some years out, and then I'll go back to it and I'll have a clearer picture of what it's going to look like and what I want to do with it. And then I had kids, and it just seemed like okay, well, that's just not going to be possible. And I beat myself up about that for quite a long time because I have this really useless, really niche masters. And it's no good for anything. And it was a waste of money, and all of that stuff. And I've kind of realised as time has gone by, it's not just that I can't go back to doing a PhD because of all the various time constraints of my life right now, but I don't actually want to because, and I think that was part of the reason why I needed to take a break, was that I needed to figure out that actually I didn't...

Adele: Sorry I'm just dropping things. I'm moving my arms around. Caribbean people, we speak a lot with our hands. I'm actually knocking things off my desk now.

Gem: No problem!

Adele: But yeah... also, because I'm not somebody who I don't think I'm ever going to be a specialist, I'm somebody who just likes... I'm very interested in lots of different things, and my brain really values novelty. So it's not so great if you're trying to focus and do a PhD. And it was one of the problems with my master's as well is that I really found it difficult trying to focus on just this one thing. So what I realised was actually I do need an institution to tell me that I'm an expert, and actually the whole... there's a problem around that idea of experts, and authority, and all of that stuff. If I have a platform and an ability to speak, there are lots of people who don't have any platforms, who can offer just as much wisdom. And I think I value wisdom a lot more than I value knowledge. Whereas before, I'd say when I was in the academic, you know, when I was on that path I don't think that was the case, I think I very much valued knowledge more than wisdom, which is part of this whole structure, not just in terms of the education system, but in terms of the capitalist system that says that you know, we're looking for wisdom. No, we're looking for experts, but we're not looking for Seers, you know, so.

Adele: Yeah, we're not looking for the people who know things in their bones. I was having a conversation with somebody about this on the internet last night actually, where we were just trying to understand each other's point of view. And I think we were just sort of slightly missing each other a little bit, because they were sort of talking about that you need to do the work and read the books to be able to do the thing. And I was saying that's one way of doing the thing, it's not going to be everybody's way of doing the thing. And it's actually slightly ableist because not everybody can read the books. And actually, there are different ways of knowing things. Sometimes we do. And some people are more able to access knowledge by just listening in to themselves and working out what's right for them that way, or by talking to other people and so finding knowledge in community. So yeah, there's all of that stuff. Anyway, kind of going back to what I was saying about the PhD though, is that I had a conversation with a friend who has a PhD and is a university lecturer and we were talking about, well, for a start, she opened my eyes to a lot of actual job options, which are available to me with my master's, which was never offered to me when I was at the university. It was kind of like you're either doing a PhD, or we have nothing to say to you, which I think is... I'm so angry about now, I'm really still processing that. But also we were talking about like all of the different possibilities. And one of the things I found myself saying, is that you don't need to be an academic because anybody can be a public academic now with the internet. I went away and thought about that and I thought, actually, but that's still... what gives people the authority in sort of the public sense? When you think of somebody being a public academic, which is a term a lot of people are using now is that they're given authority by the number of followers they have. And that's also problematic as well, it's like we're still trying to figure out what does it look like to listen to each other or to value what we have, to see ourselves outside of capitalism. And it's a very, very complicated thing, because we don't know what it looks like. And all of that has to do with the fact that we've lost community, and so we don't have these pathways to listen to each other and share wisdom and all of that links in with regenerative culture, which we can start talking about now if you like.

Gem: Yeah, I just have... Yeah like, I've nodded a lot, through what you've been saying just yeah, and thinking about that... Gosh, yeah, like thinking about in academia, for example, being an expert. I have a business coach, for example, who has never actually done a coaching qualification and I would never have considered working with them before, because I would have just thought, you know, they don't have a qualification. And actually, they're incredible. And they're going to be on another episode. And they're just... they're anti-capitalist business coach and the way they talk about things and not having that lens, or like all of that kind of crap that has been passed on by someone who's a supposed expert, is really liberating. And I think, yeah, there's so much snobbery around where did you acquire this knowledge from? And who gave it to you? And how you come across in sharing that? And actually, we're so disconnected from any kind of ancestral knowledge. Well, I am, I'm not saying everyone is, but in sort of white supremacist culture, people are often so disconnected from their ancestry, that there isn't any other knowledge to seek apart from in books, or, yeah I guess it's been made, like the only the only knowledge that we can seek or could seek historically was in libraries with things written by white, straight, rich men.

Adele: Yeah. It's just hugely, hugely problematic as well, because there are whole cultures that are left outside of that because things were not written down. And there is still a... I keep trying to find Caribbean folk tales for my children, I can't find any of the ones that I grew up with, or any of the ones that I consider to be like the really, really gripping amazing ones. And I realise it's because they've not been written down. They have just been repeated. And so the only thing that I can do is actually tell them, you know, to my children, and I'm very fortunate that I have that link. I think if I hadn't grown up here, I mean, I don't know it depends. It depends on... everybody's family situation is different. But I'm very grateful that I did have access to that. Although unfortunately, my children find my stories too scary. Well, I think it's probably because they're growing up in a culture that is so different and so their measure even for what is kind of comfortable is different, as well, which is fine, I'm just kind of learning. I'm learning from them what it means to grow up third culture, which is not something that I have an experience of. So that's and that's fascinating in its own way. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in there about, what really makes a human, you know, so yeah. And I feel like actually what you're saying about somebody needs to have had qualifications or whatever, I do that a lot, where I go into situations, even this is despite the fact that actually I have a postgraduate degree, but it's an incredibly, incredibly niche thing. And it's early modern literature and culture, but my main focus was on the 17th century British translation of the Quran. So it's not anything that I'm ever going to use in well, apart from in conversation. It's not anything that I use in my day to day life, but despite having a kind of a postgraduate degree, I often feel unqualified for things. So like, even when I was coming into this conversation, I was thinking that I don't really feel like... I have a little bit... It's the imposter syndrome that people talk about so I don't really feel like I'm qualified to talk about anything, because most of my experience comes from day to day living and reflecting on day to day living, as opposed to going off and doing a tonne of research and getting kind of the external validation from other people. And I was really thinking about that about, like, the fact that just presents that I need to... just shows me that I have more work to do on validation, and working out, because it's never going to be enough external validation. Basically, it's one of those things.

Gem: Yeah, I relate so much to what you're saying. Sorry to interrupt.

Adele: No, it's fine.

Gem: I was just gonna say like, that's so interesting to me that you prior to the conversation would feel like what could you talk about or that your knowledge isn't in some way, what like ratified or like okay by some expert? I think to me that lived experience is what's so interesting and that's what I think I learn, I don't know about you, but I feel like I learn so much more from hearing people's stories and their experiences of actual life than like a theory or, you know, that's why textbooks can be so dry, because they're just talking about something in isolation. Whereas if you were to read the same kind of themes, but about someone's actual life, it's so much more powerful. Yeah, I think there's so much to talk about and yeah, I feel like this could be a very long episode.

Adele: Well I realised recently that conversation is the way that I learn. I learn a lot of ways. I do read a lot. I did go through a long period of time where I genuinely couldn't read a book, which is why I feel quite strongly that we need to normalise gaining knowledge in other ways and validate that as as another way, because you don't have to be somebody who reads a lot. And a lot of us carry a lot of shame around that because you know, it's a more more worthy activity than a lot of other activities, forgetting that for a lot of history for quite a significant portion when the book emerged there were a lot of concerns around that as well. So you know, it's swings and roundabouts with these things. But I couldn't read for a long time. And recently, I'd say like in the last few years, really, I've started being able to read a lot again, because I was always a reader prior. And it was a kind of a brain fog thing. I genuinely couldn't understand what I was reading before. And finally, I got to a point where I was able to read and finish a book again and actually comprehend what I was reading. And what I found was that actually, yes I was learning new things from books, which was brilliant and really exciting. I love learning new things. But a lot of things that I was reading, were actually confirming things that I had learned through conversation or experience, or just observation you know. Just living with my children, I learn a lot through them. I think partly because it goes back to that thing of every stage your child has that it sort of gives you a portal back to when you were that age as well. And you have things you need to deal with there so it's an incredibly rich learning ground. So I'd find that these books were kind of telling me things that actually I had come across before through those things. And what it's meant for me is kind of saying that actually, I can validate the lived experience there. That is a form of I don't want to say research because I still feel that that kind of plays into that whole idea that knowledge is the most important thing. But it's been a kind of a more organic way of gaining wisdom. And it doesn't mean that reading isn't a good thing. And I think that reading for lots of people can help to jumpstart things, especially as we are a society that lives in the mind, and says that mind knowledge is the most important thing. And we cut ourselves off from the other centres as a result. So sometimes we do because of that, or because of our personalities, some people just do access things with the mind first, we do need to maybe read something and then allow it to drift into the other parts of us. But if there is a problem with saying that it all needs to be there, and that we can't find these ideas, and we can't learn, we can't grow, we can't become full people through any other any other way.

Gem: Just popping in with an episodely reminder to take a few deep breaths, and to have a drink of water. And whilst you have a few deep breaths, perhaps you might like to notice what's around you. It may be what's in the room or what's outside, wherever you are. Just take a look at what you can see. And what can you hear? What could you touch? Are there any textures around that you might like to feel? Is there anything you can smell and perhaps anything you can sense just checking in with your body? Do you get a felt sense of anything in particular. And then perhaps bringing your attention to your feet, just noticing your feet on the floor, perhaps they're curled up underneath you, maybe in your bed, wherever they are. I find it really helpful just to pause sometimes and to notice things as a way to bring me back into the present because I have a tendency to live very much in my mind. And so if this is helpful to you, then it's maybe something you'd like to try as well. And while you do that, just to let you know, I currently have a waiting list operating for people who would like to work with me. If you think that you might be interested in working together, then head to my website, gemkennedy dot com where you will find everything you need to know about the practicalities of working together. If you head to the bottom of the self-empowerment coaching page, you'll be able to add your name and email, which will pop you on the list and I'll be in touch as soon as a space becomes available. And now let me hand you back to the wonderful Adele.

Gem: Yeah, it makes me think of all the ways that we silo off subjects and you know, think about this in a maths way or this in a physics way or whatever it might be. But actually, if we think about life as being like one big thing, and with lots of overlapping sort of intersections and different experiences, then I think it's easier to hold it, maybe hold like the multiple complexities that one thing can be true in one subject, but can be like the absolute antithesis of truth in another subject. And yeah, how do you hold that if you just believe what is being recorded? Or what, what you're reading? And there's something more about living through experience and, and learning that way I think.

Adele: Yeah, so that's regenerative. That bringing together... well not bringing together but that observing that everything is together, that things are not separate, that you know even big things like thinking about life and death, that you know, those things are not are not separate from each other, they're part of the same strain and that there is a holistic way of looking at things where we we are able to know things in all of our centres. And yeah, I'm just thinking about mind, body, heart, in kind of a figurative sense there. But yeah, the fact that we do separate these things is very colonial, for a start. It's very capitalist as well and it just makes it really easy. It's kind of we need to simplify things, because that's the easiest way to understand things and then figure out how it's useful for us so that we can then move on. You know, rather than sitting with that complexity. This goes into lots of things. I'm thinking in terms of the farm.

Adele: We've been saying for ages, and we need to change this. This is a phrase that my partner came up with. We've been working in this walled garden that this guy has allowed us to use. And we're bringing the walled garden back to life and he works in marketing so he has found a phrase that a lot of people really like but it always bothered me and I couldn't work out why. And it's only recently when I started thinking more and more about regenerative agriculture, and the ideas around life and death, that actually what it is, is actually disrespectful to that space, saying that it was dead because it never was dead. It's just that humans weren't getting what they wanted to get out of it. So we weren't bringing it back to life. What we should be doing is trying to find ways to partner with it, and see the land that way and see ourselves that way as well. And so that's something that we're kind of having a lot of conversations around at the moment, because it affects the culture of the farm. It's quite a new thing. The farm's only been growing for two years, and we're massively growing at the moment. And so we have to really think about how the wider culture of this thing is going to look. And that's one of the ways, is kind of thinking about how are we existing in this space? How do we see the people in this space as well? Do we really see this dramatic separation between nature and us? Is that playing out in the language that we're using? Is that playing out in the decisions that we're making about how we spend money, about how we treat other people, about how we look at because we do a lot of a lot of feeding people who who are experiencing food poverty, does that affect the way that we're seeing them? You know, are seeing ourselves as serving them? Or are we seeing ourselves as partnering with them? You know, is it solidarity? Or is it something that is actually just there as a marketing type thing. There's a lot of things to think about, that do come out of these little things, you know, this little phrase that just seems like quite harmless, and actually just quite kind of fun. Like lots of people said, Oh, they love that idea of like, we're bringing this walled garden back to life. And it just always, there's something in me would just be like, my stomach just being kind of knots about it. Like something just doesn't feel right. And that's the thing as well is that, you know, I sort of needed to read more so that my head could confirm what actually my body already knew - that something wasn't right about this phrase.

Gem: Yeah, and it almost sounds I guess, it sounds colonial in a way.

Adele: Yeah!

Gem: Like going into a place and you know making it proper and whatever. And what's the word? I guess yeah like taming it, or all those kinds of colonial ideas of why it's okay to go into a different country and completely change and decimate the culture that exists there already. And, yeah, it's so fascinating. I wonder... I mean, I'm sure there's loads, but what kind of links have you noticed, coming up? The more you work in farming, and the more you learn about nature, I guess, and this is probably my idea of what it would be like, because I don't have a farm, but what kind of synergies or links have you noticed between nature and the way that you work with nature, and also with things like social justice? Yeah, I guess it sounds like a big question. I don't know if that makes any sense.

Adele: It is a big question. But also, because we're doing so many different things with the farm as well. So my role in the farm is I do some of the growing, but my main role is community engagement. So I'm very much thinking about the people side of things, in terms of the people who we bring on to the farm to do volunteering, and how we are making links with people who we're supplying, people who are not paying because of our sliding scale, which funds boxes for them. And trying to work out beyond that, what we're doing, because we're eventually going to be running events, and so on. So I am very much thinking always about how people and the land come together, possibly in a different way to how the people who their main job is growing are thinking about it. So my role is kind of also to help them to think about what they're doing in a more conscious way as well. Just to have those conversations so that we kind of understand each other and learning where everybody is when they're doing this as well. Sorry, I've lost my train of thought, what were you asking?

Gem: I didn't ask a very good question, that's why. I just sort of said some words at you, sorry.  So my question, I guess, in a more succinct way was like, what synergies have you noticed between nature or farming and activism and social justice?

Adele: Okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the things that going back to this thing about how the land is not something that we're doing something to, it's a biodiverse system that we are entering to participate in. So, you know, we're there to be a part of it. And to work out what that looks like, obviously, we need to make money because that's just the way that that it is. But we want to do so much more than that and then lots of little decisions, like lots of corners that we could cut with that to get somewhere faster and say that, well, that's okay because, you know, we need to make money or it doesn't completely go against these principles. And we really try not to do that. And I feel like the way that that links to the social justice stuff and the activism is that we can do that, we can cut corners, we can look for how we can get somewhere faster, because a lot of the rules of no dig, it does require patience, it does require just waiting. And sometimes you worry that the predators for your pests won't come fast enough. And sometimes they don't come fast enough for your timeline. And in the same way with social justice and activism, you know, we want to see something happen right away. With all of the stuff that's been going on with Black Lives Matter this year 2020, I don't know when you're going to put out this episode, but this past year that we've had, the reaction for a lot of people who are waking up to the issues around racial injustice for the first time, or possibly just in a more urgent way for the first time, they want to see change right now. And I think they sort of felt like if I just do this thing, then we're going to see systems fall, and it's all going to... but coming at it with a very simplistic picture of what that looks like and then being really shocked when people were saying things like, we've got to defund the police, and all of these things. Oh, but that's going that's going too far. No we can't get rid of capitalism, and all of these different things. Whereas people who have been in this space for a long time, we are saying that we recognise that these are very complex ideas, and you do need to sustain your energy to be able to go through them, and a lot of it is that it's going to be a case of it's a slow journey, it's not something that we're necessarily going to see in our lifetime. Like when I think about decolonisation, I think about it, as I'm healing the generations that have gone before me, but I'm also thinking about the generations after me. I see I'm at one point in this long, long history of decolonisation and I don't know when it's going to happen, I'm sure that my children growing up in the culture that they're in, and in the imperfect understanding of decolonisation that I have, they're going to be growing up with some features of colonialism. And hopefully, they will be able to... well, I know that they'll be able to do more of the work so that the next generation is going to be further along. And you know, it's kind of recognising that we don't just hit a button, and the light goes on, you know, but that actually is more like waiting for the wasps to come. And it's sometimes not having an answer as well. We've had so many things happen this year, where we've just been like so what do you really do about this? And the answer is, you can't really do anything about it. And some things just are destined to return to the land through the compost heap. And that's something that you've got to make your your peace with as well. So there's lots of things that you can draw out of that as well.

Gem: Yeah, yeah, I can imagine there's so much learning, if you're doing that kind of being involved in that on a day to day basis. I'm trying to work my way through a permaculture course online at the moment. It's kind of a social justice lensed course, which is really interesting.

Adele: Oh!

Gem: Yeah, I'll send you the link in case you've not seen it before. Not that you need it. But I mean, in case you wanted to share it with anyone else.

Adele: Yeah I'd be really interested because a huge a lot of permaculture is problematic because it's essentially cis white guys taking African and Indigenous ideas and ideas from all over the world, India and so on and then just repackaging it in a very neat and tidy way. So yeah, it is problematic.

Gem: Yeah, this is interesting in that it deconstructs the stuff that's been presented by white dudes as like this is the way that they've come up with to do the things and it thinks about how you draw it into community and other things as well. Yeah, and I guess that brings me to like... I'm conscious of time. So it brings me maybe to... I feel like I've got two questions. I feel like maybe you'll have to come back, Adele.

Adele: It's really good that you're conscious of time because I just forget these things. I've just looked at the time like oh right.

Gem: Yeah, I don't want you to just suddenly realise like three hours later, that I've kept you asking you all kinds of things.

Adele: That is the story of my life though. I'm time blind. I'm completely time blind. Something that my family finds really, really funny. Like I was saying the other day, I don't get how somebody, it can be dark really early. Like from the time he goes dark at 4pm, I think oh it's really late. And nobody else in my family gets this. And I just assume, yeah. I'm glad that you get this because it seems like a perfectly normal thing to me. But then anything you experience is normal, isn't it?

Gem: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I'm like pyjamas on and ready for bed. Is it the evening? Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. Um, okay. So I'll finish with one question and maybe with the invitation that it will be great if you wanted to come back another time and talk more. So the final question is, I always ask people to share what they're really enjoying at the moment. And I wondered if you had anything that you'd be happy to tell us about?

Adele: Yeah, so I thought about this, because I know that you had mentioned before to have a think if there was anything I wanted to share. And I was thinking, I need to mention a book or some music, or some show or something.

Gem: No, no.

Adele: But then I realised that actually, no that's kind of counter to where my head is at right now, which is thinking about all of the different spaces that we that we gain wisdom and nourishment and decolonising that, and I'd say that the thing I'm really enjoying right now is learning to sleep properly.

Adele: Yeah. It's something that I've really well, I'd say struggled with my whole life, but I don't think I've particularly struggled with it, I've just kind of accepted that I'm a person who just isn't going to sleep very much, which there is something freeing about that, just accepting that. But I've recently just realised how much of that is it's not just a case of I need to sleep because sleep is self-care, but actually not sleeping is an act of self-harm for me. I'm staying awake and finding other things to do because I don't actually want to deal with certain things in my life. And I had a revelation about this the other day, because I was up and I was just like, I'm wide awake at a time when I shouldn't be because I have a four year old who's gonna wake me up before I'm ready to be awake. And what should I do about this? And actually, I thought, well I'll journal, which I often do sort of at different times of the day. I don't tend to do it at night, which is for me, that is a sign that the staying awake and finding reasons to stay awake is about self harm because why wouldn't I journal at that time, when I'm all alone, and everything is quiet and my brain is at its most creative. So I was then journaling and I realised the thing I wanted to talk about was this kind of long-term rage that I was feeling towards a certain person in my life, and a lot of things have come up with them recently. And I thought I need to write about this anger. And just to see where it goes. And it took like seconds to go from writing about how angry I was feeling to getting right into what was actually underneath which was fear and grief and not dealing with certain... not feeling able to feel angry at some other people and situations in my life. And so then going underneath where that anger was coming from and once I'd dumped all of that stuff out, which I don't think... I think it was really good to do it at that time when I was struggling to sleep and wanted to be asleep, because once I'd done all of that, then I just felt so sleepy.

Gem: Nice!

Gem: Wow.

Adele: Yeah. And then I just went straight, straight to sleep. So I had this amazing sleep and I felt like a superhero the next day until sort of like mid-morning which is early for me to start feeling tired because by then I'm usually kind of like properly waking up. And what I realised was actually it was because I'd had more sleep than usual.

Gem: Okay.

Adele: But the thing is, so then from there, I started really, really thinking about how am I going to make sure that I get more sleep and actually wrote down as I have it at the side of my of my bed this question: Are you awake because you're trying to harm yourself? Because there are valid reason for being awake. But sometimes I realise I'm actually doing things to keep myself awake. I am trying to just hold on to myself, rather than actually release myself. So yeah, it was a huge epiphany that came out of this thing and it's massively massively improved my sleep since. And when I haven't slept, it's helped me to kind of think about is it because there's something that I need to do and that's been helpful as well to kind of write down the different things that I need to do, which actually aren't to do... I mean, there are practical things like don't go to bed with my phone, but often the things that come out are, I need to have a conversation with somebody, where we remember some happy or funny times about this person who I'm feeling really angry with, or you know, just things that just wouldn't emerge otherwise. And I realised that what that is, is that it's this kind of process is bringing together the different centres to me. It's allowing me to really feel those things that I have been trying to hold myself back from feeling by staying awake and distracting myself. And it's also allowing me to process through my head because I'm writing and you know, that's where the words exist, but my body is informing this by sleeping, and just generally allowing me to actually feel not tired or sleepy again, because I'd got to a point where I just felt like I don't really feel sleepy. I'm either on or off. There's not this in between, sort of stage. Yeah, so that's been a really healing thing for me.

Gem: That feels huge. I'm sure there are going to be so many people that can relate to that as well. Like hearing you say that I got goosebumps, because yeah, I think I don't know about for you, but in terms of my sleep around parenting, I started to take late or have late bedtimes in the hope of like reclaiming a couple of hours of being alone.

Adele: Yes. Oh, my gosh, don't we all do that?

Gem: Yeah. And then at some point, hearing you say that, I've kind of realised at some point, it actually became like a form of self-harm, rather than needing the space to be alone and to process things, it was just like you're going to stay up late and tomorrow, you're going to be really tired, because you haven't gone to bed on time. And that lack of like feeling sleepy as well. I think that definitely having children, I'm not blaming my children, but going through that process of having children and being awake at all kinds of hours, I've definitely come out of sync with sleeping.

Adele: Yeah, and I think because this has been a high anxiety year for well all of us and because it's also a time where we don't have as many commitments, we have the ability to look at these things a bit more deeply. I know, for me, it's been a case of getting the news, or hearing about something that's happened with a member of my family, or a friend or something, and my instant thing would be like, well, I'm not going to be sleeping tonight. I'm just going to have to accept that I'm going to be up and what am I going to do with that time, usually things that actually aren't that helpful for me. This has kind of helped me to think about why that is the case. Because obviously, it's not an inevitable thing. But then the reason why it's become such a habit is because I sort of feel like I see all of this pain out in the world, or I'm experiencing all of this pain in myself and rather than actually find a way to process it, that allows me to really enter into it and deal with it. The better thing is to just numb myself in a way, distracting yourself rather than allowing yourself to do the things that you need to do. Yeah, which I think a lot of a lot of us are doing so...

Gem: Absolutely, yeah, I definitely... Yeah, wow. I'm gonna think on this so much more. Thank you. What a great thing to share and recommend.

Adele: Yeah, get more sleep.

Gem: I think everyone listening would be like, yes, I should definitely do that.

Adele: Well it's that thing about when you grow up and realise that water is what it's all about. Forget all the other things you thought it was. You thought alcohol was where it was at, coffee was where it's at. Water is where it's at. That's what you learn in your 30s and 40s and so on.

Gem: Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me, Adele. I've had such a great time. It's been really really interesting.

Adele: Thank you so much for having me. I feel like this conversation has helped me to process and solidify some things and actually it was really interesting hearing you pull out that thing from that talk I'd given for Freedom to Learn because I'd totally forgot that and I was like oh, yeah, maybe I do have wisdom.

Gem: You most definitely do.

Adele: But yeah, we need these reminders because of just how messed up the world is basically, telling us don't listen to yourself. You can't know what's good.

Gem: Totally and yeah, that imposter syndrome that often comes with it as like an AFAB or generally like a non-white cis man person then it's yeah. There's always that doubt isn't there?

Adele: Yeah, and for me as well, it's colonial disregard as well. It's feeling that I don't have anything to say because I'm from a small island. And this is something that you're speaking to from your location as well is that it's being, it's being socialised to give deference to the person who has authority. So that is going to be the person who fits into the dominant culture as you know as normal. So, yeah, it's a lot of stuff that we're constantly having to deconstruct otherwise, we're just gonna keep perpetuating.

Gem: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Adele!

Gem: I hope you enjoyed this episode with Adele Jarrett-Kerr. I know that I loved it. And I really hope that she can come back soon and record another one with me. It's really grey and rainy here so I think I'm gonna put my pyjamas on in honour of my conversation with Adele and get really cosy.

Gem: Of course, you should absolutely go and check out Adele's work and here are some of the ways that you can do that, by listening to her Revillaging podcast where she has some really interesting conversations with really insightful guests. And I would highly recommend that. It's wherever you get your podcasts usually. You can also find out more by heading to adelejarrettkerr.com, or following her on @adelejk on Instagram, or @adelejarrettkerrwriter on Facebook. And finally, to find out more about her family farm, you might like to head to soulfarm.co.uk

Gem: All that's left to say is I hope you have a good week ahead and thanks again for listening to another episode of Queers & Co. Take care and see you next week. Bye!