Staying in the Infinite Game: With award-winning filmmaker, Nicol Ragland

A couple of episodes ago, I launched a new series on the podcast, Vignettes from the Source, to feature some of the unforgettable moments my guests have shared over the years. Continuing the series today then, is a passage of 7 or 8 minutes from my conversation with award winning filmmaker and photographer, Nicol Ragland. Longer term listeners might remember, Nicol was behind the very first Farmer’s Footprint film, among many others. 

Well, four years since she was on the podcast, we met in person for the first time at her home in Oklahoma City last week. Approaching that visit, the family and I listened to the episode I recorded with Nicol those years ago, and I remembered what a brilliant conversationalist she is. I was reminded of her belief in ‘the adjacent possible’. And when I asked my final question of Nicol, ‘what elders have been important for her and how?’, her answer was really something. It had to be the next vignette.

If you’re inspired to listen to more, or revisit the rest of this conversation, tune into episode 80. 

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 16 March 2021.

Title slide: Nicol Ragland (supplied).

See more photos on the original episode web page linked above, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Music:

Intro music by Jeremiah Johnson.

Stones & Bones, by Owls of the Swamp.

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.

Chapters

• 0:06 Introduction to Vignettes from the Source
• 0:49 Nicol Ragland's Story Begins
• 1:37 Wade Davis and Elder Influences
• 2:52 Confronting Western Savior Complex
• 4:29 The Archer's Journey to South Korea
• 5:01 The Infinite Game of Connection

Transcript

AJ: 0:06

G'day Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, your independent, listener-supported portal into the regenerative era. A couple of episodes ago I launched a new series on the podcast, vignettes from the Source, to feature some of the unforgettable moments my guests have shared over the years. Of all the conversations, of all the hours recorded over the 250 plus episodes so far. I'm talking about the passages that hit on something profound and often unexpected. Sometimes it was a moment of transformation for them, or uncanny coincidence or some other pivotal part in their lives they can't explain Sometimes. All of the above. Continuing the series. Today, then, is a passage of seven or eight minutes from my conversation with award-winning filmmaker and photographer Nicole Ragland. Longer term listeners might remember Nicole was behind the very first Farmer's Footprint film, among many others. Well, four years since she was on the podcast, we met in person for the first time at her place in Oklahoma City last week and what a week it's been since. I'll share more on that soon.

AJ: 1:17

Approaching OKC last week, the family and I listened to the episode I recorded with Nicole those years ago and I remembered what a brilliant conversationalist she is. I was reminded of her belief in the adjacent possible. And when I asked my final question of Nicole what elders have been important for her and how. Her answer was really something. It had to be the next vignette.

AJ: 1:42

If you're inspired to listen to more or revisit the rest of this conversation, I'll put a link to what was episode 80 in the show notes. Some photos are on the website too. I hope you enjoy this one. Here's, Nicol.... On your website there is a wonderful testimonial endorsement from Wade Davis who, funnily enough, was just mentioned in a podcast with the same couple of farmers I referred to earlier actually cited Wade Davis, and we shared a reflection, and I mean speaking of powerful storytellers over generations. It made me wonder to ask you and I guess we've touched on a couple in this conversation, but I guess, the presence of elders or influences in your life and the value of that and mention particular names if you want to, if they come to mind but even just in general, the presence of that for you.

Nicol: 2:41

Yeah Well, wade was certainly one of them, obviously an extraordinary storyteller and influencer, certainly for Indigenous communities across the globe.

Nicol: 2:53

There's one in particular that has just created an indention into my heart and he a gentleman called Doughty Peterson, who runs what's called the Daroba Fund in Tanzania and he was working to cut out a lot of land for the Hidzabi, this group of hunter-gatherers that I spent time with and really amazing experience, and these are people that ultimately, are operating the same way.

Nicol: 3:20

You know, our genetic human beings were 50,000 years ago, right, I mean, like I said, no sense of ownership, no ideas of please and thank you and their language, really just operating from the land, from a place of relationship to place that I've never experienced before. And I spent a couple months with them and I had a handful of images, maybe 20, 30 images and my partner on the ground there connected me to him and I was back in Arusha and he in Swahili. They were speaking in Swahili to each other and I went into his living room and sat down and was drinking his cup of coffee and he had kind of furrowed brows and really wasn't into the, the connection at all and I heard him say to my partner he said it in Swahili. He said I don't have a whole lot of time for a Mzungu that wants to change the world and Mzungu is white person, right.

AJ: 4:21

I could have guessed yep.

Nicol: 4:22

Yeah, and I felt, I felt his intonation.

Nicol: 4:26

you know his loss to transition, but I really felt the energy of it. And Ethan, my partner, told me that after I had a long conversation with him and in my own experience in spending time with the Hadabbe, I had this again, my own agenda and my own unconscious biases of romanticizing this tribe of hunter-gatherers in East Africa, which so many people do for First Nations, right, and I had this idea of they want to stay there. We all have to go back to our indigenous ways and you know when, in fact, the truth of the gifts of modernity is that cell phones and bicycles and hospitals save people, right, and so I just, I'm constantly, I think of him, often in that idea of saving right and this idea of, you know, this white person wanting to change the world and and being really confronted with that. And how, again, how do I, how do I go into a story and go onto the ground, listening and ultimately collaborating and adapting ideas that I never knew before, right, and then incorporating that into this collective whole called humanity?

Nicol: 5:47

Right, but it was right, but it was just, it was just a stunning confrontation and ultimately, he did bring me in and trust me and know that I didn't want to, you know, dominate or or think that, you know, even just my photographs as an individual photographer was going to make a difference, but rather, how could I, how could I take part? You know, photographer was going to make a difference, but rather, how could I, how could I take part? You know, yeah.

Nicol: 6:11

It was really humbling, yeah. And then the tribe themselves, I mean, and just really being part of a group of people that so far from my understanding of relationship to land and their food system, was really, really incredible. Yeah, in fact, there's an amazing story that happened. So, as you can imagine, hunter-gatherers were incredible at archery, right. I saw five-year-olds that would shoot birds out of trees 200 feet away, right.

AJ: 6:40

Wow.

Nicol: 6:40

So they grow up and have this epic skill with bows and arrows and somebody from the Tanzanian government thought that it would be a good idea to take one of these elders to South Korea and put him in an archery contest in South Korea. And I was listening to this story and my friend Ethan was translating and I was like, oh my god, like you're coming from, you hunting and gathering and living in caves and singing around fires to South Korea, which is first world and neon signs and cars.

Nicol: 7:13

Yeah, you know everything is with it. And so I said what? I didn't even know what to ask. I just said what did you, what did you see? And he said he took this like long pause. And he said I just didn't understand why everyone had their own plate of food oh wow, that's outstanding isn't that amazing. It was just, and I was like is there anything else? And he was just like and that was it and it's nothing that you were thinking about. Nothing.

Nicol: 7:49

Case in point, not at all you know, yeah, and again just completely eradicates, like my own, conditioning of first world as we know it and getting back to just the simplicity of like why aren't we sharing plates of food right and knowing where that food came from, right?

AJ: 8:15

So yeah, it was really extraordinary.

AJ: 8:18

It reminds me of in Douglas Rushkoff's book Team Human. He talked about First Nations concept of wetiko, which basically was apparently the word describing the apparent illness or disease that white fellas had when they first came to the shores and were acquiring land and cutting everything down, and the First Nations there viewed it as some kind of illness. And it just reminds me of that. Why weren't they eating from the same plate, nicole? You know what else? It brings me straight back to that beautiful line of yours. What if it's not about solving but about maintaining a connection?

Nicol: 8:52

Yeah, well then we stay in the infinite game, right? There's that idea of the finite and infinite game, and that's again another principle of regenerative understanding is it's infinite, it's a constant connection, it's constant curiosity, it's constant imagination and allowing yourself to be open to possibility and ideas and relationship to place and land. Thank you.