Terry McCosker: On a legendary life, quantum agriculture & vows forged by tragedy

Today we continue the new series Vignettes from the Source, featuring some of the unforgettable, transformative and often inexplicable moments my guests have shared over the years. 

This one is from almost five years ago, with regenerative agriculture legend, the founder of RCS Australia, Dr Terry McCosker. Terry and his family have become dear friends over those five years, but this conversation was our first at any length. And still stands as one of the most popular, and profound, on this podcast. 

I commonly look at grabbing 10 or 15 minutes for these vignettes, but on this occasion, Terry and I took off straight out of the gates, and never looked back. I found the first half hour and a bit so moving, fundamental to his pioneering life, and universal in relevance. And then I just had to patch in the last few minutes together too, featuring Terry’s story about his choice of music. 

If you’d like to hear or revisit the rest of this conversation, head to episode 67 – ‘Behind the Greatest Regenerative Agriculture Movement in Australia: Dr Terry McCosker on life, death and learning true power’. Along with the bonus episode. And also episode 136 (with photos on that web page) with Terry alongside brilliant wife Pam, at their home after the 30th anniversary RCS Australia international convergence eventually took place in 2022.

I hope you enjoy revisiting this one with Terry McCosker. 

Chapter markers & transcript.

Originally recorded 30 July 2020 (with an intro recorded today).

Title slide: AJ & Terry after the Convergence event in 2022.

For more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Music:

The first and last tune you hear is by Jeremiah Johnson.

Stones & Bones, by Owls of the Swamp.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Terry McCosker
• 1:55 How Terry & Pam found their dream home
• 5:44 Finding Success
• 10:54 Control, Gratitude, and Perspective
• 17:03 Personal Tragedy and Life Lessons
• 24:41 Values, Vision and Transformation
• 30:30 Quantum Agriculture and Consciousness
• 39:00 Musical Connection and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

AJ: 0:05

G'day Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, your listener-supported portal into the regenerative era. Today we continue the new series Vignettes from the Source, featuring some of the unforgettable, transformative and often inexplicable moments my guests have shared over the years. This one is from almost five years ago with regenerative agriculture legend the founder of RCS Australia, Dr Terry McCosker. Terry and his family have become dear friends over those five years, but this conversation was our first at any length and still stands as one of the most popular and profound. On this podcast I commonly look at grabbing 10 or 15 minutes for these vignettes, but on this occasion Terry and I took off straight out of the gates and didn't look back. I found the first half an hour and a bit so moving, fundamental to his pioneering life and universal in relevance, and then I just had to patch in the last few minutes together too, featuring Terry's choice of music. If you'd like to hear or revisit the rest of this conversation, I'll put a link to what was episode 67 in the show notes behind the greatest regenerative agriculture movement in Australia, along with the bonus episode to that one, and also episode 136 with Terry alongside brilliant wife Pam at their home.

AJ: 1:27

After the 30th anniversary, r Australia International Convergence had eventually taken place in 2022. How the reverberations continue to echo out of that gathering. It was also the first and, so far, last time I ever cried introducing a conference as its MC, relating a family story, with Terry's permission, that he shared here. I hope you enjoy revisiting this special one. Here's Terry. Terry, it's great to speak with you. We would have been in person at this time of year in Queensland, save for the strange year we've had with your conference. But here we are. I probably wouldn't mind starting with a question about your home, actually, and just because you've worked with so many other people and their homes and their patches of land and, by extension, our shared national estate. But what does your patch of land mean to you?

Terry: 2:24

It's a great question. My little patch of land came to you. It's a great question. My little patch of land came about by really establishing our vision and being really clear about that, and it's something that we recommend strongly that people do. And Pam and I could never agree on where we wanted to live. She wanted sea views and I wanted rural, and it took us a while to work out we could actually have both and that's what we got. So we went and bought a block of land that had was rural but had sea views, and then we were going to build a house on it.

Terry: 2:56

Long story short, we eventually got an architect and designed something that we wanted, and so we did that and couldn't afford it at the time. So we just pulled up and and I was pretty keen on real estate, and one Sunday night I was reading the real estate section of the paper and and I read this ad for a block of land and and I said to Pam well, what do you think of this? You know, it just sounds really good. So he said, no, no, we've made our decisions. You know, we'll stick with what we've done.

Terry: 3:24

And so the next morning I rang up the real estate agent and booked us in for Tuesday to go and inspect this place. And we inspected it and I walked out and I said you're gonna have to make a decision, aren't you? And it was everything that we had written down that we wanted in the house, in the land in spades. It was 30 acres instead of two and a half. It had three sheds instead of one, all the fencing was done, the water was in, the gardens were done, it had a 360 degree veranda around the house, which we'd been talked out of because we couldn't afford it, and and so by friday we owned. So we're in this piece of paradise where we sit up at a hill and we've got sea views, we've got our cattle and our camels that run around the house and in the paddocks just below us and some beautiful tropical pastures, and it's extremely peaceful and just a beautiful spot to sit and contemplate.

AJ: 4:23

Is that where a lot of your reflection would happen? Is it you know, on that veranda?

Terry: 4:27

Actually, surprisingly, not the veranda's too distracting. I tend to have a lot of my best ideas in the shower. Believe it or not, I get a lot of brainwaves and breakthrough thoughts in the shower, or mostly, yeah, a lot of the best ones I've ever had. Have uh in the shower. Or mostly, yeah, um, a lot of the best ones I've ever had, um, have been in the shower and, and that's just about being relaxed, and your, uh, the knowledge is in your subconscious and uh, you shut up long enough for the subconscious to send a message through to you and uh, so that's. You know, uh, how a lot of them have come about.

AJ: 5:03

It's fascinating, isn't it? You're not alone there. Indeed, I read a book called Rest a couple of years ago, and I think the subtitle was something like how to be more productive by doing less, but essentially it was charting the science and the famous people throughout history who have essentially worked only about half a day, but really intensively, and the rest they switch off, which is where the creativity or the breakthroughs come through. So your 50-year legacy, Terry, of working in the space, now your remarkable success with graziers and farmers all over the country, and the world for that matter. What does success look like? What have you?

Terry: 5:41

seen. Look like what have you seen? Success to me is seeing the change in people. Uh, I start working with people who I've never met and you meet them at the door and whatever, and then work with them for about a week or so and then work with them over years after that and over about a four-year period.

Terry: 5:59

The transformation in their attitude, in their fun and and joy in life, um, the, the enjoyment they're getting out of their landscape, their, their animals a lot, you know their business, um the whole thing, and that's that's success to me. Um, and it's not about money and it's uh, but it's really about the transformation in people and it's just, it is an unbelievable privilege to be involved in that transformational process in people's lives and I, you know, every time I experience I can't believe that I've had the privilege of being part of that journey I guess you you're working with people who have been in stressful situations of one kind or another, so you must be seeing that transformation from really doing it quite tough to then feeling like they're on a good wicket again.

AJ: 6:55

Is that true to say?

Terry: 6:56

Yes, and I think what a lot of it is. It's about being in control. A lot of people, their lives, their businesses, are out of control. So you've got a drought and that's out of control. Uh, prices change and you're out of control. Communication's not good in the family and you're out of control. You don't know what your business is actually doing, so you're out of control.

Terry: 7:20

And I think that one of the the things that we tend to do that actually makes the difference is giving people the tools to get them in control of every one of those things. And when you're in control, you know how you're going to handle the next drought. You know how you're going to handle the one you're in. It's not that it's pleasant, but it's not a disaster because you actually know what you're going to do. And I've actually had people say to me after we've sat down and developed a brilliant drought plan I can't wait for the next drought to try this out. You know, and that that's the attitude that you really need to have. I've now got the skills and the tools. I can predict when a drought is coming. I know when it's over.

Terry: 8:07

Those are things that you need the tools to do that, and once you've got those tools, you're far more in control, and that then tends to give you peace of mind, and then you're able to settle down and actually start to enjoy what you've got. And actually start to enjoy what you've got, and I think one of the things that we teach as well is that then be grateful for what you do have. So often people are focused on what they don't have and anxious about that and worried about it and so on. But sit down every day and just be grateful for what you do have. You know, I encourage people to just first thing in the morning, wake up and list 20 things that they're grateful for for the day, and and sometimes people find that hard getting to three. But when you insist I insist you do three and then do another three, and then do another three, and by the time you get 10 or 15, they're starting to get the hang of it that there is actually a lot of things in their life to be grateful for.

AJ: 9:15

And I think that's also a mind switch that people start to instead of focusing on what they don't have, they focus on what they do have and enjoy that a lot more, and I think that's a that's a really important process in life actually yeah, I instantly see the relationship between the two, because you're talking about how you can two things really not expect things to be different from the reality example, the drought you're in but also how you can I guess it's that old glass half full thing where you're not always looking from a position of scarcity, you're looking from a position of strength. And how can you navigate the realities? And that you're capable of navigating the realities that you're immersed in.

Terry: 10:00

Yeah, I guess I've always had an abundance philosophy rather than a scarcity philosophy. Most of what I've done has been long term. I've always been thinking and working, you know, years and years ahead of where we are. One example of that was when I was chairman of the Beef Expo. I was chairman of Beef 97. When I was chairman of the Beef Expo, I was chairman of Beef 97. And we were planning for things 20 years in advance, which was five expos in front of the one that we were on, and we were making decisions that actually were not necessarily right for the expo that we were running, but I knew that they were right for future ones. And so I've always sort of taken that view that we really we need to be thinking well ahead and not just focused on today, and doing that with an abundance mentality.

AJ: 10:56

And when you say control, I mean you're instantly saying in terms of looking for the next drought, you know that drought is going to happen in this country. So control isn't trying to control the world, if you like, or the circumstances you're in. It's controlling what you're doing within those circumstances.

Terry: 11:15

That's correct, it's controlling your reaction. So you know, it's the old statement it doesn't matter what happens to you, it's how you react to that that counts. Whether it's a drought or a price change or anything, all of those things or covid19, you know any of those things that can go wrong in our lives, it's not the fact that they're going to go wrong, we they are. There's all sorts of things. Life's a journey. It's never a straight line and and it's an opportunity to keep learning. Every one of these turns and twists in in life's journey is a learning experience. But then it's an opportunity to keep learning. Every one of these turns and twists in life's journey is a learning experience. But then it's how we react to that twist. That's really the critical thing. And whether that's managing a property, whether you're losing your job at the moment with COVID-19.

Terry: 12:02

You know I was talking on a plane the other day, which is a bit of an unusual experience at the moment. On Monday, you know I was talking. I was on a plane the other day, which is a bit of an unusual experience at the moment. On Monday, you know, just a couple of days ago, and I was talking to one of the stewards there. Now he'd been put off very early on. As soon as he sensed that the passengers numbers were down by 40 to 50 percent, he went and started looking for another job and he has spent three months working in a freezer just moving, you know, packing and moving stuff around, but he's kept his family going. He was, he was proactive about that and he's back at work again now.

Terry: 12:42

But you know he saw it coming. He reacted. He thought well, you know, I'm just not going to sit back and be driven to the ground by this and went and got a job. And it's amazing how many jobs there are around. You know, I was again dealing with somebody else within the last week and looking for a person to live on farm and work and they said we just can't find anybody. I said how come you can't find anybody when there's supposed to be over a million people unemployed? There's something seriously wrong when we can't find somebody in that level of unemployment. Again, that comes back to attitude. There's so much around our attitude to life and how we react to what's going on around us terry, I'm so curious about where this came from in you.

AJ: 13:32

I know that as a young bloke in your even early to mid-20s I think an already sort of a bit of a prodigy. From what I've read, charlie says you did the equivalent of three phds, no less, on your on your work in the northern territory, which really set up your life's work. But you also married Pam, your life partner, started a family. So ostensibly this wonderful opening time in your life, but then struck by tragedy also with the accidental death of your young son. So I know you're talking from personal experience and values forged in that experience. But particularly as a young guy experiencing such tragedy, how did you harness that towards the outlook you're talking about here?

Terry: 14:16

The day Sean died, I vowed that his death would not be in vain, and it drove me very hard for the next. It was nearly 25 years before I got over it and realised what I was doing and I drove everybody around me just as hard. So I wasn't a really good person to work for for quite a long time because of that drive, and I guess I've not ever forgotten that vow and I hope that what I've achieved has helped at least make up for the loss of his life.

AJ: 14:55

Yeah, later on, of course, you're also to hit what you've called the valley of death, which you work with people on extensively, where you were almost 40 and broke.

Terry: 15:06

You know, going broke in retrospect was actually a good experience. It gives you a real understanding when you're working with people that are under pressure, when you're working with people that may have debt or family pressures and all sorts of pressures um, you know what that's like and you know what they're going through and it helps you provide some advice that might be useful in dealing with that. And I think all of those experiences from the you know, from Sean's death right through to going broke In fact, just recently I've gone, I've listed all the mistakes I've made in business in life and all the successes I've had in business in life and and then sat down and looked at what were the causes of the failures and what were the causes of the successes. All the successes, the causes were the same and in all the failures the causes were the same but completely opposite. I was always very goal orientated and when I was doing the research in the Northern Territory, that was very, very goal orientated. We set out to to solve enormous number of problems and and solved every one and a heap that we found on the way that we didn't actually know existed.

Terry: 16:33

My big mistake after that was and this was the late 80s and the bond era and all of that sort of stuff in Australia, and so I set a goal to make a million dollars, and I in that process, then I lost everything that we set out to achieve and it wasn't until a few years after that we started again with absolutely nothing we had. We had an old car, we had our clothes and I still had my family, and that was probably the most important thing and we started again then developing RCS as it is today. And it's interesting. You know, when you've got nothing to lose, you're likely to take on things that are completely different to that if you have something to lose. So financially we had absolutely nothing to lose, so we just started on something that was brand new and completely different.

AJ: 17:28

At the top. Your description of success was very much based on the things you're describing right there, and I can imagine the things you were learning through. Those difficult times would test your relationship, your marriage. Yet you guys have been life partners. What was the secret to that success, if I can use that word in this context?

Terry: 17:52

I think there's a number of things. Certainly, pam's patience is one of them. Patience is one of them. Um, she's been a brilliant mother and has raised our children to be wonderful adults that I'm very, very proud of. And I wasn't there for a lot of their upbringing. I was traveling and doing all sorts of things. Um, that's the first. The second one was when you have, when you lose a child, marriages will go one of two ways you will either split up or you'll get closer together.

Terry: 18:23

And the day Sean died within I had to break the news to Pam we jumped in the car, we were on the station and we just drove out and went to a little waterfall. We just sat by that waterfall and we just talked and we decided there and then that neither of us would ever blame the other for what happened, and that was a massive decision. It's so easy in those circumstances to try and figure out somebody or something to blame, and I guess we must've been guided somehow or other, but we decided not to blame anybody. That was a massive step forward. Yeah, and I think Pam was. I think she's very gutsy. She just stuck beside me when we were going broke and that was a very bad experience for her, very hard experience for her, but uh, we're still here. I think we've married 47 or 48 years this year. Um, then we were on and off for about six years before that.

Terry: 19:30

So, um, yeah, certainly a life partner and, um, a brilliant person and and not just the partner that she in that sense, but also a partner in the business. She just the partner that she in that sense, but also a partner in the business. She was the backstop, she was the person that got in and made things happen, that organized everything in the background. So when we started doing schools and doing all sorts of stuff and I was traveling, she was the one behind that, raising the kids and running the business and doing things in the office, and she did that for, you know, 25 years. So that was also. Working together was also, and I guess you know that can be stressful too, but we managed to get through that. But the moment we started having grandchildren, I knew she was going to be out of the business and that's exactly what happened. She's as brilliant a grandmother as she was a mother.

AJ: 20:23

Yes, playing a valued role, no doubt. And speaking of values.

Terry: 20:27

you know, one of the reasons why, um, I went broke was that, uh, it was.

Terry: 20:33

I had this goal to make money, and it wasn't until after that and I sort of like got back on the wagon again, if you like, and I realized that making money is not one of my values In fact, it's almost against my values and so what I was doing I'd set a goal that was incongruent with my values, and the big lesson that I've learned from that is that it can actually make you go backwards when you do something like that, not just stay static. You know, it can be very damaging and, again, what a beautiful lesson to learn that your goals must be congruent with your values and your vision. And we probably wouldn't have had to do what we did to establish rcs as we did, if we'd have been comfortable, you know, and had a backstop. So there was no, there was no backstop, there was no plan b, so it just had to work and so, uh, you know that again, you know that's just, I guess, serendipity, it's looking back on it you wouldn't have it any other way, really.

AJ: 21:40

Yeah, again, consistent thing with a lot of people I speak with as well. I'm curious. A couple of points there, terry, maybe to start with. A lot of your work I mean your success since then and certainly your work with others is still about having people with profitable businesses on country. So it's like getting that North Star right actually sets the parameters for the bits in between your relationships, your profitability, state of your land, etc. To work as well. So it's not like taking your eye off money or not, or even what did you say. It's almost against your values to think about the money, but still the money works out.

Terry: 22:19

That's correct. It comes if you're doing the right thing. And when I sort of analysed my successes and failures, all the failures were times when I went and focused on making some money and had no clear vision for it, no values, there was no sort of underlying good to it and it basically was contrary to who I am. Every success I've had is the complete opposite, where I've just focused on the bigger cause, the bigger reasons for doing things and the real whys, had a clear vision. And that was one of the real turning points in RCS, because it had been going for about seven or eight years before we really started to go anywhere and it was clarifying the vision.

Terry: 23:09

And I can still recall where I was sitting. It was about nine o'clock at night. I was sitting in the lounge chair in a house we owned in yipoon and this came to me and I sat there and wrote it out. And it is still the vision that we operate by today. And it's when I'm employing people, when I'm talking to people, the number one thing of importance is actually profoundly sharing the vision and it's that vision that's actually driven everything we've done since and and it's still there, still written down almost as it was.

AJ: 23:48

That's getting close to 30 years ago a constant thread through our conversation already, these moments of contemplation that really set you up, and there was another one right there, and so I'm sensing a virtuous cycle, which I know you try and instigate through your work at RCS as well, where you get yourself prepared, slash, relaxed enough to deal with what comes, to continually have the space to stop and allow the insights and the vision to percolate.

Terry: 24:20

Yes, having that space is important, and I guess that's another lesson I've learned and allow the insights and the vision to percolate. Yes, having that space is important, and I guess that's another lesson I've learned is that you have to actually slow down long enough to allow things to come to you. And one of the other great lessons is that in order to have something new come into your life, you generally have to give up something, and usually it's have to give up something, and usually it's harder to give up something than it is to accept something new. And if you just take transformation of land and businesses, for example, you've got to give up tradition, you have to give up the way that you thought things should be done in order to allow space for a different way to do it. And in the transformation process, it's that giving up something uh, that I've found through personal experience, that is is probably the the really key step in making making progress to go forward.

AJ: 25:19

You said before you might have been guided in some way with getting through some of the tough times Again, particularly as a young bloke. Where did you get that guidance?

Terry: 25:30

from? That is a really good question. Again, I've been guided, I think, for a very long time, and stuff just comes to me and I've got no idea where it comes from. There's usually a level of certainty about it and that could be at many, many different levels. You know, I was having a conversation very recently, uh, with a young person about basically their life and their attitude to some things, and there was stuff just coming to me and I was just asking questions and the questions were spot on. It actually went right to the heart of their issue.

Terry: 26:10

Now I don't know where some of that stuff comes from, um, but I understand it's intuition. You know, I I believe there's three levels of consciousness. So there's the, the, the consciousness that we're in right now talking. You know, we're conscious, if you like. There's our subconscious, which is orders of magnitude more powerful than our conscious mind, and then there's the superconscious, and the superconscious is where our subconscious in particular can tap into things like the zero point field and the overarching consciousness, and and I guess that's, I suspect or sense that that's actually where it comes from. And you experience this when you're teaching and I've spoken to a lot of other teachers about this and sometimes somebody will ask you a question and you will shoot back with a brilliant answer that you know is absolutely right. And then you'll think to yourself later where did that come from? You know, I didn't know that, I knew that, and a lot, of, a lot of teachers experience that, and I suspect that, because you're in the moment and you're very present to what's going on, you're actually connected and your conscious is connected to your subconscious, which is connected to the superconscious, or the zero point field, which actually gives you access to all information that's ever been known, and so that, I believe, is where it comes from, and I don't know how or why I'm able to tap into that.

Terry: 27:45

Well, I've been trying to figure it out recently. I've actually I'm writing a draft of something which may may turn out to be a book, and I was reviewing again the successes and failures. And why have I had an influence? I'm just a, a country kid, you know, that grew up on a dairy farm with nothing special. I've had no real education, and that also has been a bit of an advantage, I think, because I'm not stuck in paradigms. But I guess one of the books that I've read that um has really resonated with me was power versus force, and that says that different individuals have different power and gandhi is a great example of that. So gandhi was a guy with power and he defeated the entire force of the british empire, and the thesis of that book is that power will always overcome force. Mandela is another classic example of a man who had the power to overcome massive amount of force.

Terry: 28:53

So there's a scale of consciousness and people like Mandela and Gandhi and so on, we're up in the 400s on a scale of 1 to 1,000. And it's also about how we connect emotionally with what's around us and what emotions we live in. Generally, if we're living in fear, we're living in jealousy, we're living in some of those lower level anger, those lower level emotions. We're below the consciousness level of 200. As we go above that level of 200, as a human, our consciousness starts to climb and we reach higher levels and on that scale there's only two people have ever reached a thousand, and that was Jesus Christ and Buddha. And you can see, for example, the influence of Jesus Christ.

Terry: 29:51

2,000 years later. It is still extremely influential. So that's, you know, that's power versus force, and I've done a bit of dowsing there and I think I'm a little bit somewhere on that power scale, and I think that's probably where the influence has come from. This and that's energetic. It's not, um, you know, it's got nothing to do with an individual. Really, it's to do with energy. So that's sort of the conclusion I'm coming to. I could be barking entirely up the wrong tree there too, but you know, that's uh.

AJ: 30:26

I'm trying to justify something to myself well, it's interesting because you're going off what has been working, and this is interesting to me. I had a listener and a friend contact me recently and say that he was on a farm in philip island in victoria, victoria. So he's an engineer. It worked in energy largely, but with again taking a broader perspective and developing that. And he said he's on this farm, he's with the farmer and happens to be a high profile scientific advisor with that person and they're talking about how they doused a water source from the kitchen table off a map.

AJ: 31:05

And my friend said I really struggled, to be honest, to contemplate that and I think it was the person who's not the farmer, the scientific advisor no less says I can't help you with that, I can only tell you what happened, and I've spoken to other farmers who are working in this very way too. So it's like the people who are on the ground working in this way and finding what works find no contentiousness in this, and, of course, first Nations people around the world wouldn't either, I expect. So it's just a matter as I understand it, terry, I mean you focus heavily on science in your work, but not only that. There are other ways of knowing, if you will.

Terry: 32:01

Yeah, and I guess, having a science background and also wanting to understand why the science of these sorts of energies is actually in quantum physics, and the book I suppose that most influenced me in this area and I'm actually just reading it again at the moment is the Field by Lynne McTaggart, and she's a journalist who decided to dig into consciousness and started talking to physicists from all over the world and have done all sorts of interesting experiments, and she only reported on scientific experiments and stuff that's been done and really dug into consciousness in a very deep way. To me it was probably one of the most influential books I've ever read. So that and a couple of other books that I've tried to read around quantum physics indicate to me that there is a reality, if you can call quantum physics a reality. One of the guys that wrote one of the books I read on quantum physics said if you think you understand quantum physics, you don't understand quantum physics and that it's such mind-bending stuff that, um, but there is science there, you know, and the quantum physics side of this, uh, of the super consciousness, is the zero point field where everything is stored, and so there's, you know, there's a, there's a quantum physics calculation that says if you could capture and use the energy in one cubic meter of zero point field, you could boil all the oceans on earth and it's the holy grail of energy. But I'm I'm hoping they don't tap into it, because if you start using that energy, then you're actually. There's all these thoughts and all these knowledge and all sorts of stuff that might get burnt up. You know, I really don't know, but it's, there, is science behind it.

Terry: 33:49

What I'm finding now is that stuff that I can talk about today and get easily 80% acceptance and people interested in what would have been classed 25 and 30 years ago as voodoo or woohoo or you know, absolute rubbish and I was probably in that. I would have called it the same thing, you know, 30 years ago. But there is no doubt that the level, the consciousness of humans is increasing and people are more and more open to the fact that there's a spiritual realm to life. And whether you believe in, you know, the Christian God, muhammad, buddha, or just the universe and the zero point field, in my understanding they're all the same thing and we all, every one of of us, we're actually part of it. We're not apart from it, and I think that's. That's the thing that we really need to get. We're the plants and the soils and the animals and everything is actually. We are so interconnected that I think in our western world, in a western society, we've disconnected so much from the universe and what you're talking about.

Terry: 35:08

Some of those farmers that go back that are talking about that stuff. They're just reconnecting and they're fortunate enough to be reconnecting at an earth level. They're earthed, if you're, if you like, and therefore they're able to connect. But if you live in a high rise in Sydney or Melbourne or you know a major city, and you're surrounded by sounds of cars instead of birds, you're living on concrete instead of soil, you're eating artificial food instead of real food, the chances of you being connected and earthed are really remote. And one of the early experiences I had here, which again was an experience that woke me up to the power of these sorts of energy, is a process called vibrational kinesiology or vibrational medicine. Yes, and the power in vibrations and sounds is unbelievable. And you know, I think that birdsong, for example, in the morning, opens the stomata on plants to allow them to start to breathe and pull in the CO2, et cetera. You know it's all of these things are so much connected.

AJ: 36:26

And you run workshops in this stuff now and have done for a little while. How do they go?

Terry: 36:30

we've been running workshops in this now for 10 years. We call it quantum agriculture and they're going very, very well. Uh, it's been very slow to get going, but the impact on the people that are doing it and using it now it's it's. I guess the thing that's exciting is that it's practical and it's only limited by your imagination. You know, we've got one guy, for example, who was running a crocodile farm, has played some of those sounds to the eggs and increased the hatchling survival rate by 10 to 12%, which is worth a million dollars a year net to that farm. I've had guys that one guy did an experiment where he was selling sheep into a big sale yard where there was sort of 10,000 sheep sold each time, and every time he put his sheep onto the truck, he just blessed them and intended for them to top the sale in their class and then, three or four days after each sale, he would pour through the MLA data and four times out of four his sheep top the sale in their class. Now that's not an accident.

Terry: 37:43

I've seen water change quality, wells change volume and it's all intention, our thoughts, but particularly our intention, is so powerful and and when you don't understand that, it can be working against you. And and I guess this is where you know if we're not grateful for things in our life and we're focused on things we don't want, what we're actually doing is attracting the things that we don't want. And I first learned about this in ecology. You know that if you focus on weeds, you're going to get more, and it's exactly the same in our life. If we focus on weeds in our life, we get more weeds in our life. And it's a much, much bigger principle than just one for ecology, but it's again, it's another, I think, one of those fundamental sort of principles of life Focus on what you want, not on what you don't want. Focus on what you want, not on what you don't want.

AJ: 38:44

It's been absolutely fantastic chatting. Thanks for spending extended time with me. What a journey even this conversation's been, let alone you who lived it. What's a significant piece of music to you in that journey that you can tell us about here?

Terry: 39:00

There's one that I was on holidays in Ireland a couple of years ago and there was a farmer stood up in a pub and sang a song called In my Father's House and it really resonated with me and it's recorded by a guy called Daniel O'Donnell and I just love it. It's it's a beautiful Irish music and and with my inheritance Irish background, the Irish music appeals to me. But the message of thinking back to your childhood and what you've learnt in your father's house is, yeah, it had some real resonance with me, so that's the one I'd pick for today.

AJ: 39:41

Beautiful Because you do credit your mother and your father, both for setting you up with the value set we've talked about today to a large extent.

Terry: 39:49

Yeah, I got my love of the land and nature and so on and animals from mum and I got I believe I got my humanity and my interest and understanding of people from dad who was a second world war vet and, um, I, with you, know the benefit of hindsight and I was too young to understand this when he was alive. But how you could come through fighting in new guinea for four years and come out of that and be a normal father, it just is beyond me and I just, you know I take my hat off to him and all those guys that went through that.

AJ: 40:30

Yeah, that you can be a normal father, as you put it, and then pass on a sense of humanity out of that. Yeah, yeah, cheers to that. Yeah, thanks, terry. Thank you very much. Thanks, anthony, and all the best to you and your podcasts. You're doing a great job yeah. Cheers to that. Yeah, thanks, terry. Thank you very much.

Terry: 40:42

Thanks, anthony, and all the best to you and your podcasts. You're doing a great job.

AJ: 40:47

My pleasure and a bloody life. Well lived so far, terry, good stuff, thank you. We'll speak again soon, thanks, Anthony, see you next year Will do Cheers, mate. Bye. That was Dr Terry McCosker. thanks to our generous supporters and partners. If you, too, value what you hear, please consider joining them by visiting the website via the show notes regennarration. com. Thanks for your support, and thanks also for sharing, rating and reviewing the podcast. The tune you're hearing is by Jeremiah Johnson. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening,.