The RegenNarration Podcast
The RegenNarration podcast features the stories of a generation that is changing the story, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet. It’s ad-free, freely available and entirely listener-supported. You'll hear from high profile and grass-roots leaders from around Australia and the world, on how they're changing the stories we live by, and the systems we create in their mold. Along with often very personal tales of how they themselves are changing, in the places they call home. With award-winning host, Anthony James.
The RegenNarration Podcast
Springhouse: How a voice saved my life & inspired a school, with founder Jenny Finn
Springhouse Community School has been called ‘the most dynamic and promising experiment in education and community building’. It’s a K12 bilingual school, with adult programs, community networks, and even a print shop (that’s a glorious story in itself). It also works with a participatory budgeting and pricing model, and incorporates things like restorative justice and land regeneration practices.
The school describes itself as an ‘intergenerational, vitality-centred learning community in Southwest Virginia where we are fundamentally transforming the purpose and practice of education.’ Its vision? A world where all life thrives. Sounds obvious when you say it. What else would education be for? It all stems from Meg Wheatley’s premise that ‘Life pushes back against a story that excludes it’.
Jenny Finn is the school’s somewhat unwitting founder and Executive Director, having never imagined she’d be living here or doing this. And it’s a wonder she’s even with us at all. But her death-defying tale has ultimately shaped her journey. And as we talk about it, some uncanny parallels in our lives feed a consistently amazing and often hilarious chat – in her car! Yep, we tried in her office, as it was too windy outside, but school life was in full volume as an evening event commenced. Which by the way, featured student and other presentations on Economics and the Cosmos. Now that sounds like an education.
Recorded 27 February 2025.
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Music:
Circle of Life, by Letra (sourced on Artlist).
Stones & Bones, by Owls of the Swamp.
Jenny singing an Irish tune.
Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.
The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.
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We need examples, not just ideas, not just conversations, not just thoughts. We need examples of what it looks like when a community, an intergenerational, diverse community, says you know what? We're going to come together and we're going to see what it means to foster vitality in ourselves, with each other and in this place over time. And why not call it a school?
AJ:Springhouse Community School has been called the most dynamic and promising experiment in education and community building. It's a K-12 bilingual school with adult programs, community networks and even a print shop. That's a glorious story in itself. It also works with a participatory budgeting and pricing model and incorporates things like restorative justice and land regeneration practices. The school describes itself as an intergenerational, vitality-centered learning community in southwest Virginia, where we are fundamentally transforming the purpose and practice of education. Its vision a world where all life thrives Sounds obvious when you say it. What else would the point of education be? It all stems from Meg Wheatley's premise that life pushes back against a story that excludes it. Jenny Finn is the school's somewhat unwitting founder and executive director, having never imagined she'd be living here or doing this. It's a wonder she's even with us at all. But her death-defying tale has ultimately shaped her journey and as we talk about it, some uncanny parallels in our lives feed a consistently amazing and often hilarious chat. In her car Yep, we tried in her office, as it was too windy outside, but school life was in full volume as an evening event commenced, which, by the way, featured student and other presentations on economics and the cosmos. Now that sounds like an education G'day.
AJ:Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, your independent, listener-supported podcast exploring how people are regenerating the systems and stories we live by, with thanks to new subscribers on Substack, Bronwen Morgan and Nelson Cheng, the first founding member. Thanks, brother. And to the generous souls clocking up over three years of support on Patreon Chris Houwing, Stuart McAlpine and Angie Sellitto. Thanks also, angie, for your support over here on this US tour. If you've been thinking about joining this great community of supporting listeners and readers, I'd love you to. For as little as a dollar a week, with benefits, if you like, you can help keep the show on the road. Subscribe free or paid on Patreon or Substack. Just follow the links in the show notes. With my endless gratitude, kay, let's head to Spring ouse, starting in Jenny's office and ending with her singing for us. Oh, and, if your ears are sensitive to the sound of Jenny's swooshing jacket, that gets the boot about 15 minutes in. Jenny, it's terrific to be with you. Thanks for having us at the school.
Jenny:I'm so glad you're here. Welcome.
AJ:We could start in any number of places, but I figure let's locate ourselves first. So we're in your office at the school, but let's bring the listeners in to where that is exactly.
Jenny:So we're sitting in Floyd County, virginia, and Floyd is a mountainous place low, slow, rolling hills that have a wisdom to them. I'm someone who came from. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and then I lived in Colorado with my family for over 20 years my husband and my kids and then we moved to these mountains, so I have this relationship with the Rocky Mountains and with the Blue Ridge Mountains here, and these mountains are older and the land is wise here, lots of water and lots of wisdom in those mountains. So I do believe that I had no intention of founding a school, so I'm really clear that this is the land and this is the place where a school like this could be born and thrive.
AJ:Brilliant. So how did it come to be here and how did you come to be here?
Jenny:That is a big story, let's go. So, okay, where do I want to start that story? Aj, I think I'll start it where it's most important to start, and that is an experience I had now almost 35 years ago, when I was 20. So when I was 20, I was a young adult who was very, very lost, very lost in addiction to alcohol, to relationships. I came by it. Honestly, I have an Irish Catholic lineage where there's many, many alcoholics, so alcoholism is my lineage.
AJ:I know it too well.
Jenny:Right. So it's not surprising that that's what happened for me and, as you can even see looking around my office which I didn't see this before there's lots of wings, there's lots of wings, there's lots of birds, there's lots of things related to soaring and flying, and there's a deep part of me, I think, that had real trouble, and sometimes even still does, being on the planet the way it is now, and so finding finding ways to escape. It is what I did, and it started young with sugar and things like that that are now socialized and normalized. But there's an awareness I have now where I saw and can still see the ways that I want to escape. So this is important because while I was in the escape process really dangerous something found me, and that mystery that found me has never left me.
Jenny:So when I was 20, I was very, very drunk at a party and I was about to do something not so good to the guy that I was dating and I had a really hateful thought come through that basically wanted to kill him.
Jenny:And right after that thought, something in me happened, almost like, like shook me, and I heard from within very clearly put your drinks down, you will never drink again, and I have never had a drink since that day, and I can tell you, everyone around me, including myself, was shocked that that shift happened so quickly. The wake up call happened quickly, and then I learned really quickly that if I was going to live in accordance with what woke me up, I was going to have to create a different life, one that didn't have me going to the bar every night, one that didn't have me following my boyfriend around. New things had to happen. I had to find new communities. I had to find mentorship from elders, from people who were examples of the way I wanted to live my life. So at that time it was always about well, it's always been about how do we live in a way that is more aligned with life? In a culture that is not, that is really doing its best to kind of be out of alignment, unconsciously mostly, but even consciously.
AJ:Control it, control it.
Jenny:Exactly Escape it, not be in the body, not be in the earth of things addiction. So I woke up really young and then, very soon after that, I was diagnosed with a very serious, life-threatening cancer at 25. That was that would have killed me 10 years earlier. They've just started to experiment. It was a lymphoma and I obviously survived. And I had another experience when I was coming out of surgery with that voice again that basically was telling me from within that all is well. It just kept saying all as well. And it was from after that.
Jenny:Very shortly after that, the wakeup call for me turned into a calling of service. So it was a wake-up call to me and I thought, oh my God, there is something within us that shows itself in a million different ways. For me it was a voice that I still hear. That I heard and that's my relationship with it.
Jenny:And how I connect with the mystery of life is has been a number of ways Dance is a primary way for me, but quiet meditation, walking in the wood, there's a million ways that I connect with my body and with what's sacred and grow my self awareness so I can be more awake on the planet. So, having that wake up call and then realizing that oh my God, there is something deeper at play here and being introduced by my mentors to old mystics from all over the world people I wasn't alone. I realized that I wasn't the only person waking up to something that she couldn't explain and I thought well, that means that that's possible for anyone in their own way, and so what happened was to keep the story short and get it to Floyd County, virginia is.
AJ:It doesn't have to be short, okay.
Jenny:When I was in Colorado I ended up doing a lot of things just to strengthen I was just following my call, so I was doing things like I worked. I got my master's in licensed and social work, which was in a traditional program that frankly, didn't do a thing for me but other than give me a little bit of a pathway, and from there I ended up doing a residency as a chaplain in a spiritual care department, in the emergency department, and so I was faced with death a lot. I worked in hospice and there were a number of things that I did.
AJ:Can we hold that one? Because I was as you were talking. I was curious about why you trusted that voice in a, in a state and a habit, a pattern of disregard, why that voice felt to you like it had substance and needed to be followed, such that you thread through to that moment and you're you're in a chaplaincy role I know it's crazy.
Jenny:I'm gonna cough my brains out do it cut, it's something yeah, it's totally triggered, you.
Jenny:Hey, it's like it really triggered spice in the car park.
Jenny:Let me tell you we won't, we won't forget this no, that's right we're not gonna forget this process this is maybe this will be a story we tell later, because something really funny happens from this whole thing Live podcasting. Exactly.
AJ:So we have adjourned to the car in the car park, because cooking up a storm, as the staff is doing currently, really put some sort of spice in the air that derailed us in our former location. So we've shifted, but not in the big picture sense. So let's pick it up where we were, which is, I was already thinking how did you know to trust that voice and why did you give your life to that voice, in a sense? And then that's only sort of affirmed through your journey to the point where you're now assuming that level of responsibility, and almost a sacred responsibility. How did that happen?
Jenny:Amazing. I have to say that I think that's a miracle. I think it's a miracle I really can be very stubborn, very strong-willed. So the fact that I bent toward that voice While I was 20 years old at Michigan State University, living in the only residential house in the middle of town that was surrounded by pretty much every bar in East Lansing, michigan, the fact that I stayed with it is an utter miracle. But I think it also speaks to the power of that wake up right, because it was like it must have really shook me to the core. But many, many and I've known many addicts continue their addiction and even die from their addiction without, I mean while they are losing their family, maybe going to prison. So the fact that I was 20, mostly you know the norm around me because of you know I mean it was partying, I mean people were partying. It was college in the United States of America, it was a Big Ten school and that's kind of was normal around what I was doing.
AJ:Yet you stepped outside of it. There's actually one of the lines that I noticed on the website I think it was, I'm assuming it was. I noted it down and then I've just got it here in front of me right now which is from Martin Luther King Jr. It's very topical for us because we were just in the African American Museum in DC yesterday, which is extraordinary, and the quote was take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. It sounds like it was a series of steps.
Jenny:You didn't look to some abstract future, you just took the next step in these cases, Exactly that phrase in Martin Luther King Jr is really informative in my life and huge continues to be an affirmation and an elder, even though he's on the other side. For me, and my whole life has been lived that way. Since that moment, I woke up to the fact that there's I don't know what it is, but there's something that I can follow that's deeper and more mysterious, but very concrete and real. So, after you know, I woke up to that mystery and then started following it in my path. That was informed by my life experience. It was like, okay, now I'm surviving cancer, now I want to be of service, now I'm going to take this next step, now I'm going to take this next step.
Jenny:And all of those steps had led me finally to not finally, but in that moment in my early 30s to what was happening was I was being invited into any organization you can imagine schools, churches, prisons, colleges where else? Hospitals. By word of mouth, people would learn about what I was doing. What I was doing was creating the conditions for more vitality to rise, in people first, and then in organizations and communities. So I never even knew what to put on my business card. I literally don't even. I remember I didn't even know what to put. I didn't know what I was, but now, in looking back, I was a. I was a condition creator for vitality, and I was a fricking expert at that, because I had really I'm trying to find some appropriate words here I had just spilled water all over my vitality, not without even knowing it as a young person, and then really awakened to like, oh my God, just like a wood fire in a stove, I got to take care of this fire. One of my teachers calls it the fire that takes no wood, the fire inside of us that takes no wood. It's always burning, and how much we feel warmed by it, guided by it, is how much we take care of it. It's always there. It's always there. That's the grace of the whole thing is that we're breathing. We're breathing the breath of life, so we belong, we're here. How we relate with it and take care of it matters, has always mattered, and matters now more than ever. And in order to learn how to take care of that inner fire, we need places to practice.
Jenny:So I would be called into these organizations, and their design wasn't at all about taking care of the fire in our you know, metaphorical inner wood stoves. It was usually economic. Economics is part of the deal. Money, people, resources, physical that's all part of the deal, but it's not the center. It's what we do and use and expend to take care of and give of the fire. But we've gotten misguided, obviously globally, on this and have put money at the center of things.
Jenny:So when you have a life or an organization that's designed around that that's the design you can go in and try to spark vitality. All you want you may have and we did have precious moments. I had precious moments with prison administrators, with doctors, with nurses, with educators, with MSW students and when the design does not take care of that vitality, every single person who hired me to come in and do that work said that was amazing. We had so much vitality for that moment, vulnerability, and then in a month it's gone because we're not designed for that. And a lot of those leaders changed their roles and even left the systems after waking up to that fact.
Jenny:So when I lived in Colorado, right maybe a couple years before we left, I was hired for the second time by an organization called Semester at Sea and they're a college study abroad program. About six 700 people on a gigantic ship goes around the world for four months. I went in 2000 as a young, as a 20 year old, as their mental health professional, and then I went as the spiritual director in 2010. A friend of mine hired me who knew that I was doing a lot of work with dance as a way to foster vitality. I share that because when I went on the ship, I had a four-month period that I never had with these other organizations, so I'd drop in, right, I'd drop into the organization, do the thing, maybe I'd go six times, but there wasn't a continual culture that was happening. What happened on semester at sea was unbelievable. In fact, I was just teaching about it this morning with our adult program Because we had a four-month container or culture.
Jenny:I consistently, through dance, was sparking vitality and it started with maybe eight to ten dancers and by the time we pulled into Florida, there were over 200 people on the dance floor. It was the biggest thing on the ship. They've never seen anything longer term container or a longer term community or culture and you spark vitality, something different happens. One of those people on that ship is now a Springhouse staff person. Like how many years later Came? Maybe 10 years later. So, people, when we held a 10-year reunion, there were still people online who came to that reunion after 10 years. Imagine like something you did 10 years ago and then didn't do it again and you return for the reunion. That is powerful Um so we roll down this window?
Jenny:or are we hot or not? Maybe I'm hot Cause I might.
AJ:Yeah, but we can. We can give it a little a little let's do it a little, give both a nudge so we can get a three way way I love us and our adaptability. Yeah, right on, honestly, let the birds in. Okay, here we go. That wind should be okay. See how we go with that wind, okay yeah, that was my only thing.
Jenny:Yeah, yeah.
AJ:In fact, let's not have the through, let's put one up. That would be true. Leave yours open, Okay great, unless yours is the layer one. Is the wind coming from there? I can't tell. The dust is Wow, yeah, it's probably.
Jenny:Yours feels better. Probably better mine, huh, that's fine, I'll be great if I just yeah, take layers off, just stick some layers on All right.
AJ:Okay.
Jenny:It's just getting better.
AJ:This is great, this is, I'll tell you right now this, make it into some blog post for me or something. I don't know. Me too, I dare. Yeah, it's good, it's great, that's awesome. Okay, so we're heating up in the car. Yeah, the sun is shining, which is quite lovely. Uh, layers of being shed and uh, and uh, windows open one window so the wind doesn't come through, and um, but it'll let it, let the sound of place in, and we're nearing to our circle, back to Floyd County and this school, but before we sort of come to that full circle.
AJ:I'm curious I guess I'm still on that like where was this source for you? And I've heard from so many people in their journeys that it's very often uncannily traced where people are aware, in sometimes surprising ways. And so I'm curious for you, given what we said before about an Irish Catholic upbringing that we share and some of the observations of that that we also share, how much you know about your broader ancestry and origins and origins and if you have any sense of a thread in there that you happen to carry today.
AJ:I can't believe you're asking me that question?
Jenny:tell me why. The funny thing is, too is my husband is on a trip right now in west virginia and he just sent me a text that said he just met a guy who speaks fluent Irish and he gave him his Irish CD that he sings he. Literally just before I came onto this I saw that the reason why that's interesting is because most of my heritage and lineage is Irish or Scottish and so I've been learning the Irish language for five years. I sing in Irish and there's some weird connections. Even here in Springhouse, If you look up at the chandelier in the Great Hall, there's the symbol of a triskeel, which is an old ancient Irish Celtic symbol of transformation. It's got three little kind of wheels, and Floyd County was settled mostly I don't even know if the right word is settled. I don't know.
Jenny:I'm not sure what they did, but they came and moved here, they came here. Irish, scottish people came here, yeah, so a lot of. If you've been to the country store, floyd Country Store.
AJ:No tip, we go in the next.
Jenny:Okay, great, there's-.
AJ:For the music tomorrow.
Jenny:Oh, great, great, great. Oh my God. That's the first place I landed on when I came in Floyd County and I wept as someone who creates community through dance. God, there's such a story there too. I was just there today leading a community roundtable.
AJ:Is that right?
Jenny:Yeah, we do beyond the school. There's so much to tell, let's continue. So the lineage is very important in terms of my own lineage and, I think, how it's affecting our work here. The staff member who met me on Semester at Sea dancing around the world. She and I for the past four years oh God, this is all coming together here For the past four years have been pilgrimaging to Ireland. I started that pilgrimage 13 years ago. My great granny is from Northern Ireland and was a total badass fighter for freedom and so, yes, I have a lot of lineage in that way too. But our press, our printing press down there, was born in Ireland. It was born in the National Print Museum in Dublin in the most. This is what I mean by following the steps.
Jenny:So it's like we didn't know why we were going to Ireland. We've been going to Ireland. I walked into the National Print Museum this is how long this is, after 10, 8, 9 years of Springhouse already being in existence, already a school already happening. We went, we just followed the thread to Ireland. We've just both had this call. We went, we met Liam in the National Print Museum of Dublin. My husband's a printer, so but I don't. I mean I don't really have a connection to printing. The husband's a printer, so but I don't, I mean I don't really have a connection to printing. My friend who we were staying with, lives right next to the print museum and there's a little cafe there. I was more interested in the scones and tea than I was the printing, so I was in the cafe, but and then I walked into the print museum and I'm talking. I'm a writer and so I'm talking to Liam and Liam's like, oh, precious person, said he.
AJ:Stop hitting the steering wheel Exactly. I'm so sorry listeners.
Jenny:So he said if you want to get close to your work, if you want to get closer to your written work, print it. So I was like, interesting I don't know what we would do about that.
Jenny:Well, welcome to. That was the beginning of the print shop. We came back, we got a letterpress printer and all of a sudden we had people donating full print shop stuff to us. There was a print shop on the East Coast called, I think, press of the Night Owl Owl is really important to me too and he had died. The printer had died. His wife gave us all. His wife gave us all of his stuff.
Jenny:So, all of a sudden now we have this full blown print shop and mentorship from some printers in California. Our whole print shop was born within a month. I wrote the book in another weird way, following the steps, wrote the book over the course of maybe not even a year, I don't even know. Maybe I had already written it, I might've already written it, and we letterpress printed it. We made I mean Sarah Pollack, who was the dancer with me, she made the book and illustrated it, printed it and the year later we went back to Ireland and we went and saw Liam in the National Print Museum and he said oh my God, I totally remember you two. And we said we did it, liam, and we handed him a book and we all started crying. We all started crying. So that's just an example and if listeners are listening and going Well, wait, what is this place? Now I'll tell that story.
Jenny:So, given everything I've said. I was in Colorado. My husband had a studio graphic design studio. I had a studio, we had kids, an urban farm. We were rooted in Colorado Springs, we had a community. I was on boards, nonprofit, la la la, doing all my stuff At the same time, my husband and I. My husband came back from some kind of a lecture at the local college and he came into our room and he said what do you think about moving to Virginia to farm? And I was like I have never even thought the fact that my husband was saying that that was something I would say. And I looked at him and I was like I don't that. My husband was saying that that was something I would say. And I looked at him and I was like I don't know why you're saying that. I've never thought of that, nor do I really want to think about it, but I will because you're saying that.
Jenny:Three weeks later I was called by a college 45 minutes from here that had heard of my work through the PhD program. I was in and they wanted to hire me to come and teach for a week. I had no idea where the college was. I was like, where are you? And they said Virginia. And I went I'm on my way, I'm coming, and the first stop? I couldn't even wait to go teach. I put my kids in the car and drove to Virginia and the first place we came through was Floyd. And the first place I went to was the Floyd Country Store, and the owners of the Floyd Country Store are now two of my dearest friends, and Heather studies the design that we've now articulated, that we share globally, and she was just at the table with me today studying how do we foster vitality in place over time. How do.
Jenny:We do that even more so at the country store, and so really, like I said, if we live in a dominant culture, I don't think I need to probably tell anyone who. Not just conversations, not just thoughts. We need examples of what it looks like when a community, an intergenerational, diverse community, says you know what, we're going to come together and we're going to see what it means to foster vitality in ourselves, with each other and in this place over time. And why not call it a school? Why not call it a school? Why not call it a school? Why does school have to be what we've all known it to be, especially in more western dominant culture that's now globalized? The more I work with people around the world, it's like that's a global system causing the same problems in kenya as it is here.
Jenny:So it makes perfect sense what when we when finally it was like a year my husband and I we were literally if you talk to people in Floyd County, you will hear this story we were pulled here. We did not leave Colorado or our community because we didn't like it or didn't we? We're just fine and with our chickens and our bees and our vegetables, we were pulled.
AJ:Which is interesting because in those other contexts of your life you weren't fine and the transformation came, which is a common story for those who've experienced transformation is it came because there was the death was coming in your case, literally. Yet in this instance, everything was fine, which for your life stands out Right, exactly, it's like fantastic, yeah, why would I If it ain't broke? That's with this. Yeah, that's right, exactly. Let me risk everything.
Jenny:Exactly, exactly.
AJ:Yet it didn't feel like that.
Jenny:No, no, it didn't. No, we were confused by the whole thing. I can remember when we left, we were getting dressed for this kind of going away party for us that was being held in a local coffee shop and we felt my husband. I remember him saying I feel like I'm getting dressed for a funeral. Wait, why are you guys doing this?
Jenny:And I got here, and before I got here, I did some kind of rituals. I did some ritual on the Snake River in Wyoming just to let go of the part of my vocation that I was doing in Colorado Springs which was really important to develop skills, develop courage important to develop skills, develop courage. Have my ego slaughtered repeatedly by going into these organizations to foster vitality where you know maybe the CEO wants it, but the doctors at the conference table are like who is this person? Why are you inviting us to just stand up and move our bodies? Like we don't want to do that? So it was all really good practice for me. So I wandered the country roads here in rural Appalachia for about six months in my pajamas and just wondered and finished my PhD, which was really all for me about. It was I didn't need a PhD, it was all about learning for me which is sad to have to say that.
Jenny:But I mean because now it seems like education is a means to an end, when it's our birthright to live and learn. And I went to a great program in Arizona, prescott College, and had a great cohort where I was really able to just have an alchemical experience really learn and grow and um, and so I wondered and I was like, what's my commitment now?
Jenny:what is my calling now? And my calling was to in place over time, see what would happen if a community came together and intentionally designed themselves in a way that fostered life that fostered vitality.
AJ:Okay, so you chose a school which I mean you say, why not? In a sense, yeah, but on the other hand, comes with a whole bunch of strictures attached to the culture, the dominant culture, exactly, having done this myself. Yeah, post-grad, yeah, benchmarks, you have to meet and all this sort of stuff legitimizing stuff in that culture. Yet you took that on and were you sort of doing this solo at the time? Yeah, so how did that start?
Jenny:Weirdly, there was a guy, joe, here in Floyd County who had some kind of connection to my work on Semester at Sea. I never met him before. He had heard about my dance work, found out that I lived in Floyd, him, and another man, ezekiel, who we also had mutual connections, but I'd never heard of these two in my life until I came here. They had tried to start a high school connected to another school in town. It wasn't going well. High school connected to another school in town. It wasn't going well. And Joe called me and said similar thing that happened in Colorado Would you like to come and do a little, you know, like dance or whatever? Whatever, come work with us. I'm like I, you know why not, I just got here, I'll just do it. Well, it ended up that school crumbled and so it was already in that, that form of school, and it was crumbling. And then I found myself sitting at the table with these two beautiful men saying how. I cannot tell you how many times I asked Wait a second, am I one of the founders of this school? Am I doing this with you two? Are we doing this? Are we doing this?
Jenny:And that's when Spring House was born, with the three of us and then it attracted a lot of the staff are still here from within the first two to three years. So it started attracting people, especially young adults, and we were really clear that we were not going to follow. We didn't want to follow the national standards. I mean, we didn't need another, we didn't need another thing. Like there's places that you, you literally it's illegal to not follow the national standards.
Jenny:Here it's not Really, yeah, and so I didn't know. I was like. I was like I mean, is this even legal? You know what we're doing. We're kind of making this up. What are we doing? And that has been our ethos from the very beginning and even though we're now accredited I've had conversations with our accrediting body and I even thought about this this morning not sway from our vision and our mission, which is to live in a thriving world and to fundamentally transform the purpose and practice of education. So if that is ever on the table like we will never there's some standards we will never meet and that just has to be okay.
Jenny:We're not going to like, work on them, like and when we got accredited I basically said we'll never meet these standards to like silo subjects like English, math, spanish, like. In fact, we keep trying to get away from that and we keep coming back to it, probably because we're trying to be legitimate in the eyes of parents and we are so conscious of that now I mean we just had a conversation on that front porch we don't want to. That's not our mission. So we are really working on strengthening our connection to our own. We call it like the source of our own lives and our collective source, which means, honestly, a lot of sitting in quiet, a lot of listening to each other, a lot of singing, a lot of dancing. It's a different roadmap to listen to that mystery. It's not a logical to listen to that mystery. It's not a logical that comes after Like, once it pops up like, okay, we're founding a printing press. This is interesting. Now all kinds of logic and things come in. Or last year someone said why don't we be an English-Spanish speaking school?
Jenny:I mean we have like 100 asylum seekers here and immigrants who are living in Floyd County or more. Why don't we? We know diversity makes things especially when it's cared for makes things more vital. Why don't we do that? And we were all like, ok, let's try it. And now, oh my God, we're checking in on our staff meetings in Spanish and it's all right. So it's like it comes up and then you use, then there's all kinds of cognition and logic and the rational part. But to listen to what life is calling from us takes a whole different kind of skill and roadmap that, frankly, there is no way we are going to get through this mess without that surrender and listen and humble listening to that and many of us just even those might be listening going. I don't even know what that means.
AJ:Right, and I totally get that. Yeah, we need to learn it.
Jenny:We need to learn it and it starts with stories where, when I woke up and was like, ok, I guess I'm not drinking anymore, I would never have stayed sober if I didn't see other young people who were sober. So I found my way to programs and things where it was like I'm looking in the eyes of someone who's like I've been sober for a year. This is what my life is like now. I'm not falling downstairs and driving drunk and making an ass out of myself. You know it's like. It's like oh, wow, that sounds appealing, that sounds like a good thing. So, but I if that were just an idea that you know, it's like.
Jenny:I looked in their eyes, I remember their names and so that's like you know our mutual connection. When they came to visit, I mean, one of the people said he heard me speak at a conference and he said this is the first time that I have heard someone speak about a possibility and then say it's happening and that that's actually true. He's like I'm actually, you know, I was like he didn't use the word skeptical, but he was like I've just not seen it and he's like now I'm here. Now that doesn't mean Springhouse is perfect, it's a utopia. It's a group of people willing. It's like that quote from Rudolph, I think, barrow. It's like we're willing to be insecure enough to try to create and audacious enough to try to create a very local, strong example of what it looks like for people of all ages to seek vitality to seek vitality.
AJ:Wow, that really landed, Because you know our mutual connections that you referenced, which, by the way, stem back to Guatemala my time there which listeners are sort of getting increasingly au fait with as these links show themselves 20 years on.
AJ:So, yeah, the friend in Baltimore that came here and is looking, with a group of people, to set up something and this is part of what you do now help others set up schools to this end, and some of these people not just him are faced with the prospect of staring down the teacher's pension and benefits that they've worked hard to attain, and in a society which even differs from Australia in that way, that is, less safety net oriented, collective safety net oriented and, for all of Australia, adopting neoliberal stuff too and similar small brother politics to what's happening here. We've still maintained a lot of that social infrastructure, which I'm proud and happy about. I can see why people would feel a bit more insecure here, but yet, listening to that phrase you finished on that that's partly what it required Of all the things that you guys have not being a utopia and all, but that you were a group that was committed to going there, and obviously not just materially, but I'm imagining, inclusive of materially. You were prepared to put it all on the line. Yes.
AJ:I guess, now that you work with others to inspire others to take up their form of this sort of a model, have you heard a bit of that yourself, or how could I possibly actually do it? Or have you sort of got your ready message, as part of what you share, as to how you guys faced down those sorts of moments?
Jenny:That's a great question.
Jenny:That is the first thing people say is we could never do this, because it's that survival kind of yeah Right, like I couldn't do it. And that's why you know, I say, and you know in the in the short book that I wrote and we printed the five principles we follow, to start something like this, which we didn't even know that we were doing is we take care of vulnerability, we cultivate personhood and we do that embody in the sacred and in our self-awareness. So this isn't like some philosophical thing that we just came up with in our closet. It's like we looked at 10 years of experience and we articulate, we asked ourselves for a year what did we just do?
AJ:How did it happen?
Jenny:Yeah, how did it happen? We I haven't even seen the staff's resume. I don't care about that. What I care about is that they're willing to strengthen their body, their soul and their self-awareness, and I'm committed to anything. I ask of them and they ask. I do the same, we do the same. We're a community, and then we build beloved community by respecting individuality, by fostering unity and by creating systems to take care of relationships.
Jenny:We learn from the earth about growth, so we build an example, we sustain it and then we help it as it spreads, and then to sustainably keep at it. In loving and serving others, we learn how to accept reality, follow our call and keep going. So that's what we know. We know that we do that. At the center of all of that is this mysterious thing that we just can't get around, and so when I'm working with your friend, when I'm doing that many times even when I was just on Zoom with them for six hours we connect with that mystery, starting in ourselves, with our very own breath.
Jenny:It doesn't matter how we do that. We can run to strengthen our bodies, we can swim, we can pray, we can meditate, we can sit in quiet. It has to have nothing to do with any kind of religion, to foster a sense of wonder and sacredness. And we can grow, and should honestly grow, our self-awareness in a number of ways that allow us to really be clear about our gifts and our shortcomings.
Jenny:And I've never been able to do that. I mean, I'll only go so far alone. I have mentors in communities who I trust, so I share that, because if I don't foster that connection with that power within me, I will make something else. That power and it's usually in our culture money, money, becomes the be all, end all for security, or my husband or my status and prestige, or even even like being overly organized, like even even a form of let's hold on to this schedule. It's like what is actually at the center, it is the living, breathing, breath of life, and that if you go a school I even went to there that's called BIO and it's really about returning to the breath of life. It's not a religion or an ideology, it's a practice.
AJ:Okay, now I have to chime in with a little something. I was thinking about it before because my Irish ancestry is sort of making a bit of a return in my being and I never thought of myself much in those terms. I felt Australian and I really connect with that drier, harsher, you know less green, particularly in the west side, not like Ireland, right. Yet the podcast leads me to this guy called Munkun McGann. You, you haven't heard.
Jenny:I do not, you know. Yeah, he was just in the school that I was in.
AJ:Oh my God, okay Beautiful, you're going to love it. So I connect with Munkun as much because he had just been to Australia, going to some of the places we've been to with the podcast, in Northwest Western Australia, for example. So there was something else going on, and what was going on was he'd been invited to an Irish Aboriginal festival like an ancient Irish, like Indigenous Irish if you like Aboriginal festival in Fremantle, so near Perth, near the capital, sort of 12 miles from us, and we're sort of I guess what are we in miles? Sort of 8 miles, 14 kilometres from Perth on the coast and straight down the coast south, 12 miles is Fremantle and that's where the Swan River comes out, or Derbule Yerrigan is the Aboriginal name. So he'd connected with that festival and then really connected with some elders, including some elders from the Kimberley ends up being invited there.
AJ:So does that? And we were just about to be there, but by the time we were there he'd gone there. So does that? And we were just about to be there, but by the time we were there he'd gone. So we linked up online while I was there and then had this lovely conversation, which then is sparking all sorts of stuff in me. I guess I'd felt emerging in a similar kind of way, but it really put a kick to it.
AJ:And I say that now because of what you just said about what's embedded in the language, which is his whole, what's ended up becoming of his life a guy who'd left Ireland all the more because of his freedom-fighting heritage, which he became a bit suffocated by, funnily enough, funnily enough, but ends up full circle back in Ireland, applying his travel, writing, travel, documenting mind to his roots, irish roots, and that it comes up with this kind of language which, of course, is shared it's the basis of this festival in Western Australia is shared by Aboriginal culture there, and to think that they found the links were enormous. It's like that's not necessarily a given, but in a way of course, and you can imagine that that would be true. Well, in a way, right, of course, and you can imagine that would be true. Well, in the region we're in right now, and and on we go yes, fascinating to think.
Jenny:Yeah, and you know it's. It's when people, if people are listening and they're like I don't really even still like. One of the things I've relieved myself off is trying to explain the mystery of life. However, however, just have a blob in the center of life.
AJ:However, however, just have a blob in the center of that schematic you talked about. That's just that. It's just a blob yeah, the source of everything.
Jenny:But to put a little story to it is I think it was maybe a few years ago I had a surgery on my neck and it was just like a you know skin kind of removal thing. But when they showed me they're like, do you want to see the wound? I was like sure, I'm. Like, oh, it was a huge like hole in my neck, right. Okay, so it took, I cared for it, took care of it. But every day I watched that heal, I took care, I cleaned it. I put you know, did all this stuff, but I wasn't healing it, you did it yeah.
Jenny:I wasn't healing it, there was something else healing it. There is something that moves through these trees before you can see it the buds are starting to happen.
Jenny:Yeah, right, and there is something, there is a life force moving through that tree. There is a life force moving through me and through you and through anything that is a form and is living. We need to learn how to respect that. Not only respect it, but partner with it.
Jenny:And I have had the good grace of being able to partner with the source of my life in me for 35 years now, and I have been relentless about that journey. I don't leave it and that's a miracle I don't get distracted. I haven't gotten distracted from that. And so as you build a relationship, I that's with my partner or with what created me, and I just haven't. I've been married to it, I'm in love with it, and so I keep coming back to that and it keeps showing me the way. And I want to have more places that teach us how to fall in love with our lives and listen, trust and follow, because, as the poet David White has said in one of his poems I think it's what to remember when waking the plans we make are much too small for us, way too small, lovely.
AJ:Right, okay, you hit the ground running with this school. Yeah, you choose this ground, or it chose you it chose us, it's already in your eyes. Yeah, tell me how it happened.
Jenny:We started in a basement of an eco village, super grateful. That's where Joe and Ezekiel were when I came. We were there and then Joe and Ezekiel found their way out into different things, followed their path and I stayed with a small group of people and we just knew it when it was time to go from the basement. I mean my office was in a shower closet, I mean we were really grateful, but you just know when you're like it's time to go.
Jenny:Anyone who started anything new knows right it starts in your freaking kitchen, you know, do what you got to do. Yeah, exactly.
AJ:And you can.
Jenny:And you can. You can, you can start anywhere. You can do a podcast in a car yeah, when you're choking on smoke from the kitchen. So we ended up moving to kind of another. Well, we moved to a building that was even less conducive. I would say it's just a step away, and this is what I love about this community. We all showed up painting walls, doing everything, but I knew I was like this is not going to. This cannot last for more than a year.
Jenny:This cannot be the place Like I don't even know that I would send my kids here. So that year I knew I didn't know what was going to happen and I received a call from a beautiful couple from not from this area, whose young adult had gone through one of our programs. They called me and said we believe in what you're doing, we want to support you and we are going to purchase you a permanent location wow to move into this place used to be a chinese medicine clinic it was in foreclosure, yep which by the way.
AJ:By the way is what my wife does. Who's sitting in that building? Oh my.
Jenny:God, that's what this used to be. Okay, an herbal garden, a medicine garden was here, big one, wow, and it's still. A lot of the plants are still there, and then lots of acupuncture, all kind of Tai Chi Qigong was happening here and it created this incredible energy here. It was in foreclosure, that community kind of. I'm not sure what happened to it, but it fell apart and they bought this 11 acres in this building. The economic design is rooted here in trust, so we don't in the trust of something greater than us. When I get scared and I don't get scared anymore, but I did for many years I would continue to hear this voice Do your best, be in service to life, and you will be taken care of over, like over and over.
Jenny:I can remember the moments and so we take that really seriously. I mean, we have systems in place that remind us of that. We have a participatory budgeting process where the whole staff meets every March and we talk about what we need financially, what we need financially. We create the budget. We look at what the community needs and make sure that those are in alignment, that we have enough staff to do that. Do we have too many? Do we have too few? And we decide we come to the table together and say, okay, I've looked at my numbers, this is what I need this year. Some people might come to the table and say I got an inheritance from my grandmother. I actually I could drop my salary down 10 grand.
Jenny:And so it's not about more, more and more. It's about what do we need now and what do we need to thrive? Not to survive, but thrive. Like someone might say, I want to go get my master's this year, so I need this much. Or I would like to start putting away to buy a house, and so these. We have these conversations communally with each other, so we trust each other a lot, and then when we have, I think 80% of our budget is people. That's how we are. You don't need a lot to do what we're doing and we pay. No, this is our building, so we don't have to pay any rent or anything.
AJ:This is so central to everything, especially when I talk about the fear people might feel, even amongst that cohort that I've connected with. They're going to start their own thing or things. Maybe is essentially the fear comes from thinking okay, this society is made to have us all isolated on our own and need to have that pension fund or whatever retirement fund or superannuation. We call it in Australia the same sort of beast, and I better not risk having to fend for myself and have it go wrong. But I guess there's perceived to be a leap to get into a context where you can and you do take care of each other.
AJ:So, yeah, hearing how you do that, like I instantly imagine it playing, as others have been doing and experimenting with as well, but playing out with, for example, agriculture. So I've met a lot of regenerative farmers, for example, but they'll struggle with the same thing. They'll be getting squeezed by the same market forces while they're trying to do this thing bring back nature, along with healthy food and so forth and thinking how am I going to get through that where it doesn't match, the logical types don't match. Until it reaches this sort of a point where the dialogue between retailers, distributors and the producers is let's get together and figure out where our needs are shared and what's required, which doesn't seem like rocket science. Frankly, Shooting could be done.
Jenny:Right, and it does take our financial manager, who we used to have but don't now. Now we do it in house. He said I've been doing this a long time and there is no way any of my other clients could do the process that you're doing. He's like I've never seen it. There's no way, because it takes an emotional not perfection and emotional maturity that he's like people are. No one would ever reveal how much they make to someone else because it triggers all kinds of stuff within the, within the organization, and for us it's not. The salary isn't first. The shared vision and mission and goals are first, and then the acknowledgement that we live in a culture where we money is a resource and we need it, but it's not at the center and people don't. We have a fundraiser every June, one a year, and it's a local, it's called Give Local and it's all the nonprofits participate in it and we raise like, let's see, last year we raised in three weeks $125,000 from nearly 500 unique donors.
Jenny:So, when you look at the other nonprofits in the area, it's not even I mean, the next one down was like 40,000, right. And it's not because people aren't doing good work. It's because we understand that we need a network of support that includes the participants but goes beyond it, and we have people who never have taken a class here but believe in the vision and share the vision and the mission and support it at that fundraiser or we have a whole partnership model where people join.
Jenny:We've been really creative because what we do is we look and transparent and transparent, and so we look at this is what we need, we, this is what the money that we need for the next year. And then we come together and go how are we gonna? How are we gonna? Get it because financially no one is turned away for lack of funds. So some people here pay nothing. Okay, literally zero. Um who come to school?
AJ:and they don't feel weird for that either.
Jenny:They don't know. And then some people pay 10 grand. It just depends on what they have. But all of that, all of that is on the surface of something much deeper and maybe more mysterious that takes systems of commitment to grow, that kind of trust. That is that one little voice I heard in me Do your best. So if there was a year where I'd be like, oh my God, we have this plan to try to bring in major donors for 80 grand, let's say I'm like where is it? How are we going to even get that? I can remember sitting under the tree out here and being like what if we don't get it? There we go.
Jenny:And Carolyn was like I mean, then we figure something else out, but we have no reason to fear. There's no place for fear here.
Jenny:We will trust ourselves and each other and that's what we do for each other and we were fine, I mean we were fine, yeah, but weird stuff happens, like even just a month ago we got a check in the mailbox that we didn't expect for $24,000 from someone who had us in our will and the person who was even connected to that person didn't even know we were in their will. See, it's this kind of thing, but that's all kind of like, that's all like fancy. I think it's like kind of flashy or something to say that. But why I'm saying that is because it's a testament to something that I could never explain. I don't understand why it is things like this happen, where we have this building now, and I don't know because a lot of people do good work and don't receive the resources they need, and I don't know because a lot of people do good work and don't receive the resources they need, and I don't. I can't explain why. That is. All I can say is we are still here, radically and fundamentally explain it.
Jenny:But I do pay attention, as a practitioner and a scholar, to I want to practice and then I want to reflect on the practice and see is there anything we can pull from this to share on a podcast in my car or to share with people who are in Maryland trying, who are like you know what we want? Liberation for all life. That means we're going to have to align with life. What does that mean? That's what this experiment is. This is an experiment. What happens when you continually, forever and ever, eternally, align with life? Because it never stops.
AJ:There's no place of arrival requires a learning for certain processes, certain systems, emotional maturity, trust, being there for each other. So, yeah, we're shifting cultures, so it's big in that sense. So, yeah, come back to the school. Now You've got the land and you set up and you're running it like this as staff and so forth, and it's rolling along. And now you've had, I imagine now your graduates are starting to stack up. Yeah, how do you run it sort of day to day? How does the learning take place that aspires or literally lives out these principles and creates such a way in people that they do have the capacity to connect and to trust and to find ways to align with life in that way?
Jenny:Now, that is not rocket science, but I'll tell you, I've made it rocket science, which has made it confusing. So let me tell you what I mean by that.
Jenny:So it's about when healthy adults are embodying what they hope for, they have something different to pass down to others other adults, other young people and then that it becomes beyond adults. Like I have a 14, there's a 14 year old teenager here. He and I are writing a grant right now together. I just saw his little, his slideshow and his video that he put together. I'm like, oh my god, super articulate. It's all about building bridges with food and creating community and sustainable economics. I'm like, okay, see this in this. He's been with us for three years, so it's about creating culture and that is that really just takes community practices and shared values and, honestly, rites of passage that allow the community to really develop and deepen. That's the fundamental foundation. Like, if we could do that for a long time, we're fine, but then you have the pressures of I mean, is that school?
Jenny:then yeah, exactly, or what's your transcript going to look like?
Jenny:Like what is all of that stuff? Right? So that's the stuff I navigate, yeah, exactly doing. What are we even doing? What is this spring house thing? Is this legal? Are we allowed to do? You know, it was all of that. We didn't know who we were yet because we were just starting right and as we did that, we stuck together. Relationship was was number one. That can get a little codependent and weird after a while, where you're like wait, are we all deciding about what kind of toilet paper we're gonna buy? Or like Like. Is that necessary?
Jenny:Right or it's like I'm going to bring three people with me to talk about our model, when really I could go and talk about right. It starts to get a little codependent and teenager-y.
Jenny:I mean almost almost ideological, in that sense, Exactly it gets a little weird, and so it started to get a little weird. You can feel it in the system, and so it started to get a little weird. You can feel it in the system. I could. And then I, of course, as I do, sought out mentorship to help me see better what was happening To keep learning.
Jenny:Yeah, my own flaws. Where was I? And basically what I realized was there was a teenager in me that was like oh, this is comfy cozy, I don't have to stand on my own, I can just stand with this, my little cohort here, I don't have to stand on my own, I can just stand with this, my little, my little cohort here. And what happened after that? I would say the past three years, maybe four, literally right now. Right now, looking as a staff at like, hmm, I think we might be going in a direction. That's a reaction to where we were. I think it was needed and now we're going.
Jenny:Now, wait a minute, have we made things like when you talk about the day-to-day schedule, is the day-to-day schedule that different from what? If you, the listener, was looking at our schedule, you'd be like it doesn't look that different to me than what most of us grew up in. Right, and it doesn't't have to if it doesn't need to. But it's more like we're putting so much more weight into the, the curriculum, the structure. We're making that the center and we're we are losing. There's a little bit, just a little, and we're all so close to the system. Probably others wouldn't even notice, but we do, where we're like wait what happened? Where is that time where we were huddled around the table together? Where's that energy? We were at people's houses. We were let's not get all corporate on ourselves here, and corporate meaning you know um like a siloed and yeah, and over an organized body, you know
Jenny:and so now we're awake to that and now what we do, like yesterday, how we respond to that is I put a candle in the. We meet every single wednesday for an hour and a half as a staff have since almost the beginning and we dance every other day I mean every other Wednesday together and we sit around that candle and I just say let's listen. The collective source is us. So if you're moved, speak and then we look at what's said. Don't get too attached to the schedule, like. I could tell you all the schedule right now, but I hope it's different in ways that better serve us. It's not the point, the schedule. We have a curriculum. You can order a book on our website. You can order a book that I wrote about the design. That's fantastic. I would invite you to come get your feet on the ground at Springhouse and I guarantee that there is something you will take with you that's different. And then, if you want to dive into it, like over time, that's where the books and things come into play.
Jenny:But I think it is scary to start something new, especially in a field that's so rigidly defined and, I think, put on a pedestal in a way that lies to our kids, our young adults, where they end up in college. Even my own kids are like wait, this is what everyone's calling the golden key, seriously, you know, and we're paying 60 grand for it a year. I mean, seriously, that's ridiculous. So it's like for us to really continue to listen, for the courage. I hope Spring House continues even more to live in alignment with its mission. I think we're just getting started. I think we are such a strong example already, but I hope what we've done will give us the courage to throw into the crucible, into the fire, what is no longer needed and watch whatever phoenix arises and follow that phoenix, because we're not going to create something new out of our old experiences or even our current day.
Jenny:And where is that imagination going to come from? It's going to come from the creative source within us and when we hold hands together, when it comes from the collective source in place over time. This is what happens. Springhouse is what happens and maybe others can relate to that. You know, Spring house is what happens and maybe others can relate to that.
AJ:Yes, I mean being here now. There are students presenting in the salon Right now on Economics and the cosmos, which I just love. When I heard that, I'm like, yes, we'll be there For that. And of course, we're looking out on the land that's budding, as you said, as we just move. What are we now? Late February, so moving into spring here, and part of what you've done here is a land regeneration project as well with students, and that's been a part of the learning for people, and we will be back tomorrow. And then we are going to be at the Country Store for the Friday Jamboree the famed jamboree, and then a bit more besides. It is amazing to be here and feel that energy. There wasn't a single student or staff member that passed us as a family without saying hello and hello to every one of us. There were little things immediately that exhibited what you're talking about. It was quite wonderful.
AJ:I'm wondering for you, as much. You know you've talked about mentors a bunch of times. There may be names that come to mind, or perhaps just an ilk or a general source, but I'm curious as to the roots you've delved back into. Obviously, the Irish stuff was part of it, but are there others. We mentioned the people who were on this land before, the roots you've delved back into. Obviously the Irish stuff was part of it, but are there others? We mentioned the people who were on this land before. Are they around and included? What other mentorship and roots and lineages to this stuff have you been tapping?
Jenny:We have connected with the Monacan Nation, who there are people that still live here. They helped us craft our land, acknowledgement, which is fantastic, and also every time we read it I'm like, okay, I love this that we're saying that through our consistent curriculum, we are committed to facing the oppression and injustices that we live with today and we're still on this land. So there's still more that we could be doing in that way. In terms of when you walk into the adding our teenagers should be adding to that wall. That's a staff and board, our board of trustees. We've put elders on that wall that have inspired us and led us and guided us, coming from all different kinds of lineage, and so for me, it's just. I would not be who I am without the people who have guided me, the elders in my life, starting at 20 years old I mean 20 years old having a woman who was really a therapist, a shaman in disguise, and working with her for five years, working with a Catholic priest, a Jesuit monk, who were awake people, bonsai tree growers, you know like they were. Just John Zay was a Franciscan monk and took care of bonsais and taught me so much about the like, accepting the fact that I am a mystic, that I am in love with what woke me up and that I'm going to feel like a big weirdo for the rest of my life. But just get used to it, learn, find others, you know. And God, people on the dance, melissa Michaels on the dance floor, I mean so so many people. Ellie Correal through Qigong, and my dear Edith, who is a current mentor and guide to me now, I mean for 15 years. I mean every. You know. We meet every Friday and talk about me and what gets in the way and what doesn't.
Jenny:And mentoring is a practice that we practice. Here Every staff has a peer mentor. I have a peer mentor with the trustees. Here, every teen has a mentor. Mentoring is how we pass down collective, individual, but also collective wisdom, collective ways of being. So there's things you'll see like that mentoring dance, singing, studying about ourselves, having personal practice time every day, studying about the cultural context we live in, the power of possibility right now through the cosmos. Like you'll see, there's a whole undercurrent here that is very intentional and structured.
Jenny:What I think we, where I think we are waking up, is that the structure that guides us and informs us. It's like a seed. It doesn't have to look exactly. It's structured and intentional, but it doesn't have to be like a almost like a tit for tat. On the surface, a carrot seed does not look like a carrot. So, as a designer if anyone out there is a designer it's like you plant the seed.
Jenny:The alchemical process is what we need to allow for, and what I want to know is, when we plant our curriculum and our design and then we hold and we listen, what does it want to bring forth? Because it's very easy, as human beings, to force it. Well, we study possibility in this way, and what does that mean? The alchemical process? It means creating systems that allow for the community to listen to themselves and each other and make sure that's representative. Because if it's not and it hasn't been in places with teenagers, I mean in places like Springhouse have we listened enough to the teenagers as we've created our days? No, we have not Right, and so it's like.
Jenny:That's what it means to be. To allow for the alchemy is to allow for that messiness inside and inside the collective.
AJ:This is a particular time in the States that is feeling very messy to people and, I think, probably across the board. So those who wanted to see it happening at a federal political level like this are going good, but it's still messy and those who didn't are feeling perhaps more of the fear and vulnerability that we talked about too, which, on the one hand, I guess could jam people up. On the other hand, with a whole bunch of people it does seem to be spurring them on. We're seeing all sorts of civic engagement coming out of the woodwork in all sorts of numbers, under the surface of what's happening at that federal government level. I wonder for you how are you perceiving the ramifications of what's happening at that federal government level? I wonder for you, how are you perceiving the ramifications of what's happening right now in the context of what you're up to and trying to spread?
Jenny:It's always about bio, the Irish word for life. It's always about life. For me, what are we fighting for? What are we actually fighting for? Are we fighting for a political party? Are we fighting for a particular cause? Are we fighting for a particular cause? All of that is what it is, but for me it is deeper than that. It includes all of that, but it's deeper than that and there's a couple things that have come to me. One is just in this moment, as you were talking, I see the face of my father, who is now dead, john Brady. He died when I was 31.
Jenny:So over 20 years ago, yeah, and he, when he was 14, was run over by a Detroit city bus, nearly lost his life, was told he couldn't have children, couldn't walk for three years. He had his accident, let's see, on September 28th 1960. I'm his first child and I was born on September 28th 1970. So my dad, when he was run over and God bless him, was in a family system that was, you know, irish alcoholic, god bless. And he won a huge settlement from the city of Detroit of money at 14. Imagine, couldn't walk. So money became the center for him, money. He knew he could buy his yellow GTO when he could start to walk and he could drive in and it'd be like whoa, there's John Brady in the yellow GTO Right. So money became, became life for him, and how many of us in our world can relate to that?
AJ:Money is God in our world, and even in his case it's understandable in a way.
Jenny:Right, it's understandable.
AJ:Right, it was a source of recovery.
Jenny:We make it the thing Right, and anyone who's listening is like oh God, you know that's Pollyanna, whatever.
Jenny:I am not saying that we don't need money. I am saying that money is not life. Money is a resource, and I know this because I have faced my own death and even right now I have another form of lymphoma. So it's in my skin, so it's supposed to be more manageable. So they've told me to think about it like diabetes, which, let me tell you, you know I'm like great, as long as I can stay on the planet, as long as I can continue to eat strawberries and look in my son's eyes and dance on the dance floor with the Springhouse community and look at these trees and sing and dance and sit in cars and do podcasts, whatever I need to do, right. So? But I can tell you that money is not what I think about most days, and I can also say that I know a lot of people do, because they don't have it Right, and there's a group of people that have a lot of it, especially in this country.
Jenny:So, so I share this with you because when I looked into my dad's eyes when he was dying, I can tell you that it wasn't money that, and in fact, to hear my to hear him say you that it wasn't money that, and in fact, to hear my to hear him say, you know, jenny, I probably drank too much, I probably worked too much, um and I smoked too much, he died from lung cancer and um, he said, is that it? I said that you know what, dad, that covers it. Um.
Jenny:So I share that because I learned in looking at a dying man who happened to be my father that it's like, oh shoot, I kind of missed the boat on that one, I missed it a little and I think we're missing it. When I look at, we are absolutely following the dollar one way or another right now, following the dollar one way or another right now, and I just wonder I've gotten this experience at Springhouse to see what happens when you center life and then you see money as a resource, people as a resource, physical resources like buildings and cars and things and vans, physical resource, the earth is a resource. It's like when you see that life is at the center and there's all these ways to foster it and serve it, something different happens. But so many of us are just trying to survive, we can't even get really to that point is I think it's no matter which way. It's going to take a real warrior to return to the power of life, and that's what I'm interested in is returning to that power.
Jenny:I don't live at a time and in a culture that is concerned with what I'm saying right now. I don't, and that's okay. Saying right now, I don't, and that's okay. I know I'm not here to save the world or change the world, but I am here to live my truth and that's my truth, and so I can live that anywhere, any which way. I'm doing so.
Jenny:Even when I go into the oncology center, I'm orienting around life, not cancer. I'm not ignoring cancer, though it's like that's why I'm in the oncology center so. But I'm saying I'm standing for life in here because even when this body dies, I will continue right. And my oncologist, who I love, is like Jenny I have never in my life met anyone who is saying what you're saying in these offices. And that's not because I'm special, it's not because I'm great, it is because I have been practicing for 35 years, practicing staying connected to that source, through recovering from an addiction, through two cancer diagnoses, through the death of my father, through many people. I love dying or getting very hurt from addiction Over and over. I could give a lot, right, we all have our stories, but my orientation is to this mysterious breath of life that I find great. When you asked about lineage, I find great comfort in wisdom traditions in ancient wisdom.
Jenny:I don't feel like a weirdo when I go back.
AJ:No, it's interesting, isn't it?
Jenny:I don't feel like a weirdo at all. I feel very normal.
AJ:Most of the human journey is consistent with what you're saying. Yeah, just not right now.
Jenny:Exactly Not right now. Exactly Not right now. So if I work on just accepting myself and accepting my experience and then create a space where I can pass this down, because now it's all about legacy for me, it's about what am I leaving? Not so I'm remembered, so that the power of life being the greatest resource we have, that that teaching is remembered. I'm part of a long story in that I'm not alone in that story.
AJ:That's beautiful, you know, in a sense, given that my friend Dana in Baltimore who came here, we met in Guatemala. I was in Guatemala because I had become so sick of the earning spending cycle just make enough to get by, and when are you actually getting to the heart of a calling, or what's worth something in life, of putting life at the center? I was so jack of that that I went to Guatemala and that was my journey to get to the heart of it, and it sort of set the tone from there. Funny to think that that resolution is what has led me here all those years later. It's been magnificent to speak with you. I'm so glad to have met and to have had this conversation and at the school. But I never leave these conversations without talking about music. I'd love to know. I'll put you on the spot, but you can take your time. I'd love to know if there's been or is a piece of music that's been significant in your life or just now that you might tell us about.
Jenny:I can't believe you're asking me that I'm not going to tell you about it. I'm going to sing it. So I'm going to sing the first. Oh God, mary, mary's my teacher. I hope I do this justice and I hope I can fully remember it. It's an old song and you know it's so beautiful. It's called Auren Wincha and it is about basically a woman's dying wishes that she wants her death to go in this particular way, and the story basically is that it doesn't go that way, but who knows if she cares because she's gone. So here's the first verse. It's a long song, so I belong most here in a lot in like the deepest it's all the people, all the family, all of that in the land, of course, but this is an older thread than that. That holds me close.
AJ:Thank you, my goodness. You want to keep going? Have me back.
AJ:Thanks so much, Jenny.
Jenny:Thank you, what a blessing. Thanks.
AJ:That was Jenny Finn, founder and ED of Springhouse Community School. Thanks also to Development Director Carolyn Reilly for such a warm welcome, to Media Director Sarah Pollock for the wonderful guided experiments in the print shop, to West Aussie student Zephr for her shining presence and to her old man too, notwithstanding misguided Hawks footy club allegiances. To Gigi and H for having Y and us adults in their classes and to old friend and podcast subscriber Dana Scott for connecting us all. I've put a bunch of photos on the website and, of course, various links in the show notes. As usual, I'll have more for paid subscribers on Patreon and Substack soon, and great thanks for making it all possible. You can join this generous community of listeners by heading to the website or the show notes and following the prompts. Thank you so very much. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening, thank you.
