Heart of Motion
The Heart of Motion Podcast is an exploration of the heart, soul and science of movement - and what it means in our lives.
Movement connects us more deeply to ourselves, to our bodies and to the things and people that are most important to us. Beyond a fitness routine, why do you move? And what moves you? When we can look past the hamster wheel of ''fitness" - we start to realize that when we really live the lives of our bodies - life can be a whole lot more fulfilling, and a whole lot more fun!
Host Susannah Steers is your guide on a quest to understand how we can move better, feel better in our bodies and connect more deeply to our people and the world around us. Join her for some conversation, interviews with experts, and conversations with everyday people about what movement means to them. You might just find movement feels a little different on the other side...
Heart of Motion
Movement, Mindfulness, and the Art of Holistic Living with guest Tara Walsh
Ever wondered how movement can transform not just your body, but your entire way of living? Join us as we welcome Tara Walsh, an expert horticulturalist and outdoor enthusiast, whose life story is a testament to the power of movement.
From the physically demanding world of horticulture to her mountain biking and outdoor adventures, Tara’s journey highlights the incredible benefits of balancing high-level athletic training with mindful recovery practices. Her experience with Moving Spirit Pilates reshaped her approach to healing, teaching her the importance of listening to her body and embracing resilience.
As we chat with Tara, we unravel the art of integrating self-care into rigorous training routines. It's a shift from the "no pain, no gain" mindset to a more sustainable approach that honors the body's need for recovery. Learn how everyday rituals and mindful practices, often overlooked in favor of more intense workouts, can be transformative. By acknowledging the body's interconnected nature, Tara helps us see the value in incorporating Pilates, yoga, and other mindful activities into our lives, ensuring we enjoy the sports and hobbies we love well into our later years.
Our conversation expands beyond personal performance, revealing the profound significance of interconnectedness in our lives. By recognizing our bodies as holistic systems that mirror the natural world, Tara’s insights teach us to foster deeper connections with ourselves and our environment. We explore the necessity of staying present in a fast-paced technological era, and how embracing a holistic view can lead to more meaningful relationships and sustainable living. Let Tara’s story inspire you to integrate movement, presence, and connection into a life full of joy and purpose.
Walsh & Co Gardens and Design Ltd.
Heart of Motion Podcast host Susannah Steers is a Pilates & Integrated Movement Specialist and owner of Moving Spirit Pilates in North Vancouver, BC. She is passionate about movement, about connections and about life.
Through movement teaching, speaking, and facilitating workshops, she supports people in creating movement practices that promote fitness from the inside out. She loves building community, and participating in multi-disciplinary collaborations.
Along with her friend and colleague Gillian McCormick, Susannah also co-hosts The Small Conversations for a Better World podcast – an interview based podcast dedicated to promoting the kind of conversations about health that can spark positive change in individuals, families, communities and across the globe.
Social Media Links:
Moving Spirit Pilates Instagram
Moving Spirit Pilates Facebook
Susannah Steers Instagram
Welcome to the Heart of Motion podcast. I'm Susannah Steers and I'll be your host as we explore the heart, soul and science of movement as a pathway to more active, vibrant and connected living. Nothing happens until something moves, so let's get started.
Susannah Steers:In recent weeks on the podcast, we've talked about presence and movement not only as strategies for fitness and health, but as ways to connect more deeply to ourselves and to others in meaningful ways. Aside from the fact that my body loves to move, I think this aspect of connection has been a driving force for me in my work as a movement educator and as a human being. I honestly believe that learning to be aware of all the moving parts of our lives can have an impact not only on the lives we're leading, but on the world we're living in In these unpredictable times. I do believe that we can make a difference if we tune out the faff and attune ourselves to what is really important in the moment. I'm sure there are a million and eight different ways to do this, but since my world involves movement, that's where I've spent a lot of time exploring, and today I want to introduce you to my friend and longtime client, Tara Walsh.
Susannah Steers:Tara is a horticulturalist in North Vancouver and owner of Walsh and Co Gardens. In addition to a very physical job, Tara loves to work and play outside in just about any weather. She's an athlete. She adores mountain biking, hiking, paddleboarding, camping all of it. Over the years we've spent a lot of time together working through injury and pain, building strength and stamina in new ways, figuring out patterns of movement that work for her and those that maybe work less well, and exploring ways she can attune to her movement while she's doing all the things she loves to do so she can feel better doing it. I think you're going to love our conversation about movement, presence and connection from the perspective of someone with a pretty hardcore movement history. Welcome to the podcast Tara!
Tara Walsh:Thank you, sue, thanks for having me.
Susannah Steers:Well, you know what I really was excited about talking to you, because I talk to a lot of people whether it's at work, in the studio or on the podcast or anywhere, about movement and fitness and all of that kind of thing, with varying people have varying degrees of interest and engagement in the movement of their bodies and the state of their bodies. But you are someone who moves all the time. What is it? How does that show up?
Tara Walsh:So in my work. I'm a horticulturalist and I love the field work so of course I'm trying to maintain that at the you know the stage of my life, which is a little bit more challenging sometimes. So that's field work. That's pruning ladders, moving soil, moving trees, plants moving, moving, moving, moving up and down stairs, in and out of trucks.
Susannah Steers:Heavy.
Tara Walsh:- Days it can be very, very heavy and full on and it's weirdly become year round as well, which is great, and each season has sort of different demands, like summer's a lot lighter because we're not usually doing as much installation or transplanting or that kind of thing. It also is in my play life because I love to be outside, I love to ski, I love to mountain bike paddleboard hike even simple things like walk my dog. I love to mountain bike paddleboard hike, even simple things like walk my dog, ride my bike around town to do my errands. It's sort of everything in my life, personal and professional. Most of my social life is connected to doing things outside that are activities, and so basically when I am injured, I'm a little more experienced to being injured now, but it's like I'm a bit lost. I love to move, I love to be outside and even moving inside. I just love to move, it's all factors in my life.
Susannah Steers:It's interesting because a lot of us expect that we are not going to get hurt, right, and we hope that happens. But just like anything else, if you're engaged in movement, if you're engaged in things that involve your body, probably at some point you're going to experience an injury, whether it's a sprained ankle, whether it's an overuse injury, whether it's whatever you're doing. Yeah, you can do things that will help you to prevent that to some degree or to prevent frequency of injury or chronic nature of injury. But at some point in our lives we're going to get hurt and hopefully, if we're in good condition and the injury is not too crazy severe, we can come back from that with. You know, really a little time, right, it just takes some time to heal and kind of reorganize our systems a little bit and get them back moving.
Susannah Steers:So when we first met, tara has been a client at Moving Spirit Pilates for a lot of years now. Yeah, a long time. But when we first met you'd had a back injury. Yeah, a long time ago. But when we first met you'd had a back injury and I still remember you saying you know, I just need a highly trained athlete. Let me just get that out of the door.
Susannah Steers:Tara works pretty hard and trains pretty hard, and I knew how important all this work both the horticulture you know your day job, for lack of a better word and your movement life was to you and you said to me at first all I want is a few exercises to get me back on track, which totally makes sense, right? You already your body is well-trained, you used to moving, you're used to doing that kind of thing, so all you needed was a little guidance and some new ideas, new exercises to get you going. But I think you discovered as we went along that maybe there was a different way to approach it, and I'm curious about maybe what you found in that process.
Tara Walsh:Yeah, that's a really great question because I still cringe when I think about saying that to you. Because I came to your studio under duress my longtime massage therapist insisted because you got tired of putting me back together from all the falls off my mountain bike and work and things like that and I really was quite I'm going to be blunt I was dismissive. I didn't understand remotely what the work was about and I was trained. I was racing at a high level in mountain biking but I was trained in terms of drive your body into the ground Right. Don't ask, just tell her what she's going to do.
Tara Walsh:And expecting her to give without proper and I say this in hindsight now without proper room to care, proper maintenance outside of you know, an amazing RMT and you diet all of that like it was just like I'm going to do this thing and I expected my body to perform.
Tara Walsh:So it was quite shocking to me when I had my first substantial injury in my early 40s and it was, you know I came to see you and it was like it just peeled my mind open because that couple of things to do at home has turned into it's an integral part of my life. Now I don't like to skip my appointments because what you taught me changed how I move, just for putting groceries away, picking something, up to how I ride my mountain bike, for however many hours. It's completely blown the lid off what I think of as training and how I would even go so far as to how I engage in my body, with my body and in my body in a day to day life, because it's not, yes, yes, there's certain things that you train me to do and learn how to do that I practice, but I don't go home and do Pilates per se or what you teach me. Yes, I practice it, but I actually, the way you've taught me, I've integrated it and changed how I move, just in my day-to-day world.
Susannah Steers:Right. I think that, for me, is really one of the most important pieces. You talk about training yourself into the ground and I don't know if maybe that was a part of what we learned as young people in the day, as women of a certain age. I remember I had a shirt, like a t-shirt, that I wore proudly, that said sweat, pain, agony on the front and had on the back love it, you know. And there's all those things.
Susannah Steers:Pain is weakness, leaving the body, all of those things right which, yes, on a certain level, when you are training at a high level of athletics or of performance, there is a certain level of having to push yourself past your current limits. But if you're training that way 24-7, and that's all you know, that's all your body experiences, then there's never any growth because you're just driving yourself into the ground.
Susannah Steers:So we practice Pilates together. That's something that we do. But I think one of the things that I find interesting, both with you and a lot of the people that I work with, is you find the things that are most meaningful for you in your body. You start to recognize the things that support you or prepare you for I remember asking you another question at one point when you were off to a race. What do you do after your race? Do you just throw your bike in the back of the truck and go, or is there something that you do for yourself at the end of the race? And again, this was an older woman speaking to a younger woman.
Susannah Steers:So maybe you were still at a stage where you could, because we can get away with anything in your twenties right, you can get away with anything. Well, I exaggerate. That's not always the case, but you can get away with a heck of a lot and your body kind of figures it out.
Susannah Steers:But as you get older that changes and I find there is more time spent now, more time necessary on the smaller things, the supportive things, so that you can do the big things. It's not that you can't do the big things, but you need a little more love and attention to the smaller details, the fundamentals, the structural supports, and so what I love to hear is that you're doing some stuff at home and that that's a sort of part of your day now.
Tara Walsh:Yeah, and it's funny because for years I avoided it and I would say, in a way, I outsourced my maintenance to you RMTs, fascial stretch people, physios.
Tara Walsh:I mean I would do what I was directed to a point. Then I'm better and I would abandon it. And now one of the shifts has been I look forward to that time on the mat at home every day, or if I feel like I'm slightly off, most times I'm able to nip it in the bud and get on the mat or get on the floor, do what I need to do, just to reset myself. And that's been a huge change. And it's funny because it ties into that sometimes habit of avoiding that which is best for us, because it's not a big amount of time that we're asking and sometimes it can be five minutes that I can just reset, and then I'm actually more cognitively present as well as physically present, right, and it's. It's funny how I really didn't understand at the outset what the work was about, how it isn't just about keeping you on your bike. It it has woven itself into every aspect of my life.
Susannah Steers:How did you? Because I know it's hard, especially when you're injured, because I went through this too right when I started doing this kind of work. It was like, wow, this isn't a workout, come on, give me something. And it wasn't. Yes, there were things I needed to address, but throwing a whole bunch of muscle at it indiscriminately was not necessarily well for me. It absolutely was not the path, because that's what I'd always done. I'm curious, especially when, initially, it wasn't delivering massive immediate returns, when you weren't feeling like, wow, I've turned a corner. Today, you weren't walking away from the studio at the end of the day going aha.
Tara Walsh:Like a ride for five hours again.
Susannah Steers:Yeah, so what kept you engaged, what kept you interested? Even though it was spinning your brain around, you didn't understand it and it felt hard.
Tara Walsh:The physical. Well, there's a sweetest hit of ease and connectivity that you're like this is what it's supposed to feel like and I only have I don't want to say I only have to do that, because getting to that point is like rehab is. I understand why people choose to not do it, um, but there's this. You hit this and I don't want. It's not adrenaline, maybe it's dopamine, but you hit this sweet feeling of oh, that's it, that's what it's supposed to feel like and that's that's the body in its finest form of movement.
Susannah Steers:And what does that feel like for you? I understand that, the hit and its ease. What else does it? What does it feel like physically?
Tara Walsh:What got me hooked about it? There was an ease to it that I was not familiar with. I, and I still, struggle with the well, if it's not working, just throw more at it. But that ease is it's addictive. It's like in terms of that's all I got to do Then. If I could just have to do that, then I can do this for hours, for years, like I don't have to stop doing what I'm doing. There's lots of this mindset that well, at some point you need to get up mountain biking and I'm sure at some point I will or you know, downwinding or whatever it is that I'm doing, even gardening, like you certainly adjust. But when I have that feeling it makes me feel like I'm going to be doing a lot of things for a very, very long time. If I can keep following this path and that type of movement, because it's frictionless, it's effortless. It feels like the most natural thing in the world that your body was built to do that Right. It's all the other stuff that we do around it that makes that more difficult.
Susannah Steers:Because our bodies are built to move right, mm-hmm. And the sad reality of our lives is that we're all in a movement deficit. The life in the Western world that is created for us, that it makes it easy to get places in your car and you're sitting at your TV or your desk or your computer or so much of the things that used to be just daily activities of living are now so much less, and so we actually have to move more. But that doesn't just mean throwing everything you have at an exercise or an activity. It's the small little things too. There is definitely something.
Susannah Steers:As we age, it's a changing of the relationship. As you say, when you find the right supports, you can keep doing what you do in terms of the activities that you like to do, yeah, um, and. And so often we get to a point where we say, oh, it's just, I'm getting old and it's hard to see that. That point where people start accepting that this is about age seems to be getting younger, I guess, because it's not something. We don't spend a lot of time talking about movement. We talk about all the things around health, which generally involve just muscle mass and cardiovascular health and mobility, and it's not so much about how we live in our bodies.
Tara Walsh:No, and it's also like, especially as we get older, if I could move more efficiently, I can move more, I can move for longer, I don't. It doesn't have to reduce that, and that's part of the magic of it. The word I keep coming back to is frictionless right. It just feels like from a purely physics point of view, that's how my arm or my leg or whatever is supposed to move, and it feels like when you tap into that, it feels like you can keep doing it forever.
Susannah Steers:In the last episode of the podcast I talked a lot about what seems to be a thing we do around movement for health these days, and it's exercise, which is, you know, physical fitness, and there are, as research evolves, different recommendations what people do, but typically it revolves around building muscle mass, and cardiovascular health seem to be the top two, and absolutely I do not disagree with those.
Susannah Steers:But it seems like it's either or and I don't know if that's something that the fitness industry creates it's either sort of a certain brand of fitness that gets those results and we see muscles change and we see changes in weight and that kind of thing or body composition, or we see people doing softer things which are purely I won't say purely, but I think a lot of people figure they're just softer, easier, lighter. Maybe they're more for mental health than for anything else, and you know I include Pilates, I include yoga, I include you know a lot of other things Tai Chi in there and I don't know. I think it's interesting that we've created, you know there are people who do this and there are people who do that Right, and there are growing numbers, I think, of people who are discovering that there are value to both. But I do find it really interesting that there's sort of still a hierarchy around what people do and what people won't do. Do you notice that? Do you see that in your world?
Tara Walsh:Oh, absolutely, Because one. I was guilty of it myself when I was first "pressured into going to Pilates.
Tara Walsh:But what I see now is where it shows up for me is I have a lot of people saying oh, you're so fit you do all these things. How are you still doing these things? And I don't make any secret about where I go and where I spend my time and how lucky I am to get to work in your studio with you and your amazing team. But as soon as I say Pilates, you see the veil come down, you're complete, it's dismissed, and I do think the work you're doing like I've never been to Pilates from anywhere else. So I'll be honest about that, this is my experience. But I've started to say you know anywhere else. So I'll be honest about that, this is my experience.
Tara Walsh:But I've started to say you know movement educator, that sort of thing, and even that people are their eyes glaze over. It's quite interesting, and you were the first time it happened was real glimpse for me into your world of what you're kind of up against in terms of people's attitudes. That dismissiveness is. I find it very kind of shocking, even though I myself was a bit guilty of it, you know it's like. Well, I have because I didn't understand and I didn't at that point. I hadn't had the felt sense of what it's like to actually move, like my body was meant to move. And then, once I had that experience, I understood like boom, you can't not see it.
Susannah Steers:You know, we talk about going to see people and and and the people that we see, that, the professionals that may support us in various ways, whether it's physiotherapists, whether it's Pilates teachers, whether it's doctors, whether it's yoga, you know, like wherever fitness instructors, wherever you go, everybody has a certain pathway in right and everybody may have their pieces of the pie in terms of what we, as individuals need to learn. I think one of the things that is most exciting for me is when I start to see people like you who sort of go oh, if I pay attention to this in a different way like I'm the common denominator, I'm the body in which all of these things is happening and I am the one who's experiencing this, that or the other thing, and when you can reclaim your own agency. You had said earlier you outsourced your understanding, and I see that everywhere. It's something that we do. We want the simple answer. We want for lack of a better word the magic pill.
Susannah Steers:We want the thing, that's like okay, if I do that, all the rest of it is solved. And what I find fascinating is when I see people like you kind of go oh, you're not going to get everything in a Pilates studio, that's not real or even desirable. But there are pieces there that I hope you can take with you and incorporate in your world and I know you have other sources, whether it's being on your bike and getting the information there, or whether it's at a stretch therapist or wherever you're going, you're living your life and when you start to pay attention to what the pieces are and how they all come together inside of you and something like a movement practice that may incorporate Pilates or other things, is a way to I don't know bring attention to and help you integrate them in your body in a way that you can use in your life Absolutely, and I think, well, there's a combination of.
Tara Walsh:In my experience there's a combination of things like in the time working with you and recovering from you know, various injuries and just mileage.
Tara Walsh:I've always, prior to working with you, I've always thought about, oh, I need to get physio for this, or my shoulder bothers me, or my knee or whatever.
Tara Walsh:And now I think of it in terms of the connections between the whole chain. It in terms of the connections between the whole chain and that's been a game changer in both recreational and my work, in terms of how I'm going to get something done, or how it feels to do that thing and then to be able to go and do it again when you're set up, not just thinking about, oh, I have to mind my knee. It's like, well, if I tap in and feel that whole chain of what's all connected to make that action happen, you have a natural exhale and it's almost to me, almost like meditation, that calming presence that it brings mentally and physically and being able to bring that to a high level. Cardio thing is also not something I ever, ever expected. Like you know, a stiff climb on a mountain bike. If I'm holding the right position, I'm still working, I'm sweating, I'm doing all that, but there's a connection between my mind and my body that is very different.
Susannah Steers:You're receiving information as well as directing.
Tara Walsh:And you're present in a different way, like it's more of a whole body experience, if I can say that Like. For me it is a very I don't want to use the word spiritual, but you start to have a better sense of the mental, physical connection.
Susannah Steers:It's funny. I often describe, I think, what you're saying. You know, we often think of the body as being quite linear, right, and X does this to.
Susannah Steers:Y and these hook in and there's quite a mechanical perspective. For me, and this has always been my felt sense of the body is it's more like a holograph or a hologram, that there are all these things working at the same time and sometimes one takes a little priority. Or, like the graphic equalizer on your stereo, you know like it's all there, it's all in the same container. We like to think we can compartmentalize the mental and the emotional and the physical and do that, and for a long time I was really good at compartmentalizing and probably you were too, or I still am, if I'm not being present. But I think what I find interesting about that is you start to feel it as a whole. So it's less about this linear thing, it as a whole. So it's less about this linear thing. And yeah, you can maybe process into the track of how does my spine support and what I'm doing with my shoulder affect the power in my hip and you can play with that, because now you know how to go there.
Susannah Steers:But, also, you start to recognize that I didn't get a very good sleep last night. That's going to change things. How do I put that into the puzzle?
Tara Walsh:And.
Susannah Steers:I'm really sad about something in my life right now and in a way, you can look at those things almost as additional loads on your system, like adding weight into a weight program. It's adding an additional load, and so, really, then, what we're looking at is how do we manage that load, and is just throwing more weight at it the thing that we need to do, or are we looking at a different solution? Maybe your best bet that day isn't a really hard ride.
Tara Walsh:yeah, you know, it could be a gentler ride or a, you know, something different yeah, and there's a kind of a magic freedom that comes from allowing yourself to feel what your body needs, and I actually think it makes you a better athlete because you're more tuned in and it's that. I don't need that today. I don't need to hammer more home, I need to, I'm off, I'm tired. Today, I'm going to listen to that. And also the whole concept which was mind blowing for me was to ask my body what she had to give that day.
Tara Walsh:Yes, as opposed to, I have this list, I have this ride I want to do, or this hike or the ski, and this is how it's going to be. And then I'm not really enjoying it as much because I'm not, I'm asking too much, or I've already asked too much. The well is a little bit understocked. So it's a very interesting. It's kind of the opposite of the mainstream, what I perceive as the mainstream fitness program, end of things. It's like not pushing myself all the time, which was what I only, the only thing I knew how to do, and so when you change that, I feel like I'm. It's a kind of a richer experience because it's not driven by just the mind, it's a whole physical experience of I'm here, I'm now, this is what I have today, and I think that actually I feel like that's made me a better athlete.
Susannah Steers:I mean, when we look at the typical training arcs, right, if you're training for a competition, you're working towards it, you know towards it. You're starting at A and your whole training plan is designed to get you to your peak performance on the day of your competition or of your season, whatever. That is kind of thinking into that larger training arc, because there are physical realities around how you're going to build that strength to get to where you want to be at the right time. But what I find interesting is when you really start to pay attention. Yes, I mean, the only way you get stronger is by pushing right. The only way you are going to gain more is by taking yourself out of your current comfort zone. You've got to change that right. It's got to be something a little bit different.
Susannah Steers:But again, if you're paying attention as an athlete, when you're in your body all the time, you start to recognize when it's the kind of fatigue that's fatigue just because you're doing something hard, that's new, or when it's like whoa, I'm done, I'm just done, and it doesn't mean you have to stop and do nothing. No, there are other ways you can move your body. There are other ways you can do things. Maybe it is just a rest day, or maybe it's a day when you're doing something a little bit quieter, but I find sometimes it takes courage to give yourself the grace or the permission to to take that time for yourself, because the pressures are very much not in that direction.
Tara Walsh:Yeah, and it also begs the question of like what's driving the need for that compulsive working out? What am I avoiding? What am I not? Why am I unable to sit with having a rest day, giving my body what she needs?
Susannah Steers:Yeah, or the food she needs, or the many, many different pieces that go in there. Obviously, I am not training world champion athletes and. I'm sure they would weigh in in a different way on this, but really I'm always more interested in people and, yes, the performance. If the performance is important to them, I want to help them do that. But I also want to recognize the person in there and what is important about their lives beyond the performance that they seek.
Tara Walsh:Well, and I think that ties back to your hologram analogy, because I think in some ways we're very driven for one dimensional must have workout and tapping into this work, you start to feel physically yourself as a three dimensional, like it's not just this one track of must must, feel sore and tired and feel like I got very structured thing. There's nothing wrong with the structure thing, that's how you get places, but it's also allowing for what else is in the mix and I think that's where we're kind of like a lot of people are maybe missing out on that okay.
Susannah Steers:so now I'm going to go out into the world of woo a little bit, but this is my world, I live in it, so I'm going to own out into the world of woo a little bit, but this is my world, I live in it, so I'm going to own it. We've been talking a lot about connections. Right, there's connections inside the body, the heart, the muscles, the brain, the nervous system, the various parts of you, your fascia, how they all connect together emotional, physical, mental health. Those all play together. You're a horticulturalist, you work in the natural world and I know for sure you see connections in the systems in which you work every day.
Tara Walsh:Oh, for sure, yeah, if you're paying attention.
Susannah Steers:So I'm curious because I feel these whenever I go for a walk, when, like, I find, the deeper I go into this work, the more I feel these whenever I go for a walk. I find the deeper I go into this work, the more I feel connected to everything around me. So it's not just me myself and I, but the more I can sort of feel into those things and those influences in me, I feel more in relationship with the world around me, the people around me. I am more excited about the natural world.
Susannah Steers:You know I always was, but was but more now yeah, I don't know is there anything you notice about that as you go deeper into this kind of exploration in your body. Does it change anything?
Tara Walsh:it does it because it brings a different quality of presence, because I'm not caught up in I do still obviously get caught up in my agenda of like I need to get out for a ride, I need to blow off steam, I need to, whatever, yeah but what it's brought is a quality of presence that has more room for, I would say, compassion and curiosity, and a quieter presence, if that makes sense, where I can sort of stop and see things or feel like I'm more here and attuned to what might really be going on, as opposed to what I wish was going on or I think is going on, because, of course, I'm pretty woo-woo myself.
Tara Walsh:I believe everything is interconnected. I see it at work. Different gardens with different, shall we say, care practices have different feels to them. People's emotional reaction to the spaces they're in, be it interior or exterior, is a thing depending on what's going on in that space, also what other creatures are inhabiting that space. I believe there's a lot to be said for the interconnection of things and I think, in order to connect and this is just my belief that in order to connect with the exterior world, we have to be more connected to ourselves, and I think that's a lot of what working with you has taught me, like a lot a lot.
Susannah Steers:You know, at first glance it can seem like a pretty introspective and sometimes I wonder maybe it's just the introverts of the world who like to think about it this way and I you know that's it is right.
Susannah Steers:But there's, there is something that deepens when you can sort of connect and you find meaning in the things that you're working with and then you start to see meaning in different places and the relationships have greater importance when you understand that they relate, you know they connect everything. This seems like a little small piece, but that little small piece is important for the whole and I don't know there's something about the times we're living in that make me feel like that's important.
Tara Walsh:I think it's extremely important because, with technology and all this discussion about connected, connected, keeping you connected, I think we're more disconnected than we've ever been and I think we need to reboot and find that connection, not just to ourselves as a species, but to our place on this planet, to our communities, to the other creatures that we share our living space with and plants and all of that. Like we have this very isolated sort of approach and we don't exist in isolation. Nothing on the planet exists in isolation.
Susannah Steers:No, and we as humans seem to have this top-down thing that it makes me think of the compartmentalization right. I mean, we can do it, but it's an illusion. It doesn't actually exist in the world this way.
Tara Walsh:No, it's very much a human construct, and I think that's a fantastic analogy because, like my world is plants, so let's take plants, for example. We objectify them, we see them as these pretty or ugly things that serve us Well newsflash. This planet's not habitable without them. For us, for anything else, they are the foundation of everything and they're trying to complete their own life cycle outside of what they look like, in our value system attached to them. And I think once we can sort of peel out of this if we can maybe hopefully peel out of this top-down mentality I think that's going to go a long way to making a lot of change, because the other beings that we share this world with are more than human. We have them down beneath us, but I think that they have an understanding, in a way that we don't understand, of how to exist here, and it's much more shared.
Susannah Steers:It's much more shared. It it again. It makes me think of the, the indigenous worldview of all my relations. Right, everything is connected to everything and you're living not just for you now, but for seven generations in front of you and behind you.
Tara Walsh:And there's, I guess, a much bigger hologram. I was talking about the body as a hologram, but scale that out and we're all a lot more important to each other than we think we are. Every time you inhale, you're bringing a part of the plant that produced oxygen through photosynthesis, and every time you exhale, the plant it's, and you can take that and expand upon that, because that's actually how the world works. Nothing exists in isolation, not even us.
Susannah Steers:Not even us. Well, Tara, thank you so much for joining me today. I always love talking to you.
Tara Walsh:I know I can chat to you all day, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I always love talking to you. I know I could chat to you all day, thank you. Thank you for inviting me, sue. I really appreciate it.
Susannah Steers:Where can people find your horticulture company?
Tara Walsh:Well, we're based on the North Shore and we do some work in Vancouver, but we're basically based on the North Shore and running around a few trucks with a Walsh Co logo on them, trying to practice our craft at the highest possible level.
Susannah Steers:I'll include a link in the show notes so people can find you, thank you. Thank you, sue. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon. See you soon, take care, okay, bye. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Subscribe and, if you love what you heard, leave a five-star review and tell people what you enjoyed most. Join me here again in a couple of weeks, for now let's get moving.
