Future is here

SENSE PLACEof

Actions speak louder than words for Futuresteading author Jade Miles, who believes in living life as if tomorrow matters and in a way that nourishes the soul

WORDS PENNY HARRISON

Jade Miles is highly attuned to the natural world. Sitting in the morning sun, listening to the pardalotes sing and watching a tiny skink dart about her garden, she can tell when it’s time to start planting; she knows when the start of summer, which she refers to as the “Alive season”, is upon her.

“Your senses are so heightened to things around you when you’re connected to the natural world. There are little moments that activate something in your system,” Jade says.

“It truly does pull you along, and it minimises your sense of overwhelm or apathy.”

It is this sense of optimism and anticipation that Jade lives by on her permaculture orchard, Black Barn Farm, in North East Victoria, which she shares with husband Charlie Showers and their three children.

Jade calls it “futuresteading” and this is the title of her new book, a practical and inspirational guide for slow living in a way that values tomorrow. “It’s a made-up word but it’s based on homesteading and has its roots in permaculture,” she says. “It’s about creating a steady future through the decisions we make and the actions we take.”

Part gardening and part cooking, Futuresteading is also about simple rituals and ideas we can incorporate into our daily lives.

“It’s an encouragement to live more simply and more in connection with your people and the natural world, and to really redefine what actually matters and what doesn’t and do your darndest to push away the white noise that insists shiny, new things are the answer,” Jade says.

This hopeful movement was forged when Jade’s twin boys, now teenagers, were babies. She and Charlie had been living in their small rural town for about a decade, both working away from home with little involvement in village life. When her car broke down one day, Jade phoned her father and asked to borrow one. He responded by telling her to put the babies in the pram and walk to town to buy some vegie seeds.

“Over the next six months, I began to make my place. I found a daily rhythm in watering, weeding and planning around the food I grew,” she says. “I paced the roads with my two little boys and began recognising faces, starting conversations and saying yes to being involved.”

“…I began to make my place. I found daily rhythm in watering, weeding and planning around the food I grew.”

Jade’s way of life, detailed over the years through her blog and podcast, has been widely embraced by people struggling to come to terms with climate disasters and the global pandemic. In fact, it was the 2020 bushfires that prompted Jade to write Futuresteading.

“Charlie had been involved in firefighting for about 15 years,” Jade says. “During the 2020 fires, Charlie was out about nine weeks, six or seven days a week, 16-hour days. Then one day, he found himself caught in a fire storm — the whole crew thought they were going to burn to death. It’s possibly changed him forever.”

Jade saw it as a wake-up call for Australia. “It was pretty visceral,” she says. “Fires are a massive part of our world. We were galvanised as a country and it was different, because for the first time I felt the country came together and said this is actually a calamity that is beyond our understanding and ability to manage.”

Jade believes it is time for everyone to take action and live their lives as if tomorrow matters — and do it in a way that nourishes the soul. The seven pillars of futuresteading, as she calls them, include finding a sense of awe in Mother Nature, taking time to notice the rhythms of where we live, celebrating the simple things, creating a sense of place and belonging in our communities, supporting local producers, harnessing the joy of small daily rituals and creating your clans.

“It’s kind of a checklist — if I do this, will biodiversity be encouraged; if I do this, will the person who made it be honoured and paid fairly; if I do this, will it add to the greater sum of my community’s vibrancy; if I do this, will it teach my kids skills that they didn’t otherwise have,” Jade says.

“It’s reframing our brain to be one that is regenerative rather than one that is extractive.”

It can seem overwhelming amid the daily chaos of life for some, but Jade says futuresteading can be about small changes and it can be implemented wherever you’re living, whether it’s a city apartment or a house in the suburbs.

“You don’t have to be living it full time,” she says. “Just take one thing that feels comfortable and you’re attracted to, and really bed it into your rhythm. Then find one more thing. It might be a habit or a ritual or a recipe. And take time this summer, when the days are long, to explore and discover and observe. It’s a time to recalibrate and set your intention for what the new year looks like for you.”

Futuresteading by Jade Miles, published by Murdoch Books, RRP $39.99. Photography: Karen Webb.