Rebuilding Community through Plants and Collective Engagement with Nelson ZêPequéno

Episode Transcript
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Parker Condit (00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome to Exploring Health
Macro to Micro.
I'm your host, parker Condit.
In this show.
I interview experts from allareas of health, and this can be
in areas that you would expect,like exercise, nutrition and
mental health, while othertopics may be from areas where
you're less familiar.
Today's conversation probablyfalls into the latter category,
and my guest today is NelsonZapiceno.

(00:21):
Nelson is an artist and creatorwho uses gardening and plants
as his art form.
He's also the founder of theBlack Men with Gardens Instagram
page, which creates a safespace for black men being
multidimensional and being intouch with nature, plants,
gardening and the natural world.
Our conversation focuses on theidea of regeneration, and there
have been many conversations andepisodes so far about

(00:43):
regenerative farming, but thisis more about taking those
principles and applying them tolife and how we live.
Some of the highlights of thisconversation are how a lack of
resources can make you morecreative and thus sustainable.
Why community organizers are soimportant to the health and
well-being of community members.
How reconnecting with nature isreally reconnecting with

(01:03):
yourself.
And understanding how consumerbehaviors, marketing and
purchasing power relates toclimate change and our future.
This was one of my favoriteconversations so far and I'm
really grateful for Nelsoncoming on and spending as much
time with me to chat and sharehis story and share his wisdom.
So, without further ado, pleaseenjoy my conversation with
Nelson .

(01:24):
So, without further ado, pleaseenjoy my conversation with
Nelson .

Nelson ZêPequéno (01:32):
Nelson thanks so much for coming on.
Thank you for having me.
I'm excited for thisconversation and it's honor
beyond.

Yeah, so we on this show.
I've talked a lot aboutregenerative agriculture over
the past probably month of showsand it's kind of become more of
a theme and we're going totouch on that a bit today,
probably more in terms ofgardening and maybe flower
arrangements, but I also want totie that into sort of life and

(01:57):
kind of using regeneration andregenerative as more of a
overarching theme for thisconversation.
I think that'll be helpful forpeople.
But I want to kind of startwith how you first got
introduced to plants.
Uh, there's something onInstagram I saw where you said,
uh, you got a plant because youmoved to LA and you're kind of
alone and you're depressed.
So can you share how you firstgot into that?

(02:18):
And then in that video youended up saying, like, oh, we
became growth partners.
I'm like oh, like, oh, this guyis a poet.
Um, I'd love to have him on.
So we end up getting connectedand it was uh, anyway, I'm
really thankful that you're onand to have this conversation.
But, yeah, let's start thereand see where, where the
conversation goes.

Oh, yeah no, definitely, you know, I actually
have.
Um, there's two stories abouthow I got into plants.
That one would be the mostrecent story of my discovery for
Love of Plants because thefirst entry into plants was all
based around cannabis andcannabis cultivation.
That's what got me interestedin horticulture and through

(02:56):
horticulture I just reallylearned the science behind how
to grow grow.
But what got me into lovingplants in general, for plant
care, was, yeah, moving to LosAngeles alone, coming here to
pursue my art form, and livingalone in this studio apartment
with nobody around me, nothaving my community just yet,

(03:17):
and being in this reallydepressive state that life
forces us all into at certainpoints of time.
I remember, for the sake of art,I decided to buy one plant so I
could learn to draw it, just soI could do a plant study,
because I realized I couldn'timagine what a leaf looked like
in my mind, enough so to be ableto draw it on a piece of paper.

(03:40):
So I went and bought a plant.
During that plant study Irealized, wow, these plants are
actually beautiful and let me goand get some more.
And I started putting them onmy windowsills and I started
hanging them up around me and itjust started to bring me so
much joy and it made me feellike I wasn't so alone and I

(04:02):
think that in and of itselfhelped me out of a really dark
place but then completelyinfluenced the new direction I
took my artwork in and thatpersona for the past nine years

(04:24):
inside with you because likecities are sort of this weird
thing if you think about it fromevolutionarily, like how we
kind of got here to be thatdisconnected, like as
disconnected as we are now.

You live in Los Angeles, I'm in Scottsdale,
phoenix.
It's kind of bizarre to beliving in these sort of like
made-up environments andassuming our body's gonna be
okay with it.
So I've kind of flounderedsurrounding myself with greenery
is a nice way to sort ofmitigate the I guess what would
be some of the downside ofliving in an area like this yeah

(04:54):
, it's, it's a great way.

I mean, you know they don't incorporate
natural spaces into large citieslike mine, los angeles, like I
live in downtown.
I mean, I've been to downtownsall around this country and some
downtowns do it better thanmost, but for mine I have one
large park around me.
That's kind of a mission to getto.

(05:16):
My neighborhood has moreconcrete than it has greenery,
so, living in this type ofenvironment, I had to make a
concerted effort to get tonature or bring it into my space
.

Totally so.
You kind of used plants to kindof get out of a depression.
And I was saying, right beforethis call, I had a similar thing
where I tried to reconnect withnature when I was living in
Colorado.
Slightly differently it was um,it was actually a guy from LA,
guy named Jeff Waldron, I thinkhe started hanging up swings all

(05:52):
around the city, um, just as away to make people smile, and I
was like, oh, that, I'm likethat would make me smile.
I'm an adult and I've been onthe swing and probably a decade.
So it was back in Coloradoprobably almost 10 years ago at
this point, but I just startedcrafting swings and hiking up in
the mountains and just hangingthem up on trails so people
could swing in the middle of ahike.
Um, yeah, I called it the Aspenswing project and it was just a

(06:15):
, a fun thing.
That was like very outwardlyfacing and forced me to get out
in nature and it it totally justsnapped me out of.
It, just gave me purpose.

Yeah, that sounds like an incredible
project.
I really like that and I lovepublic installations.
It seems like at the core, weunderstand that one of the only
ways out of the depressive statethat our constructed system,
societies, war, culture andeverything around us communities
, work, culture and everythingaround us it seems like one of

(06:50):
the only ways out of that is toreclaim natural spaces, but also
reclaim our sense of joythrough play and through
interacting with those naturalspaces in joyful ways, like
frolicking.
How many people get a chance tofrolic nowadays, nowadays?
But you never really stop andthink that could be the cure for
these really heavy feelingsthat we deal with, on, you know,
daily basis yeah, it's funny, Iuh so swinging is definitely

(07:15):
one of those things that bringsthat to me.

And then also I have an electric skateboard and
I feel like that's been one ofthe best purchases I've gotten
in the past like three years.
Just because, like the, the joyof having like wind in your
face, it's such nothing bringsme like childlike, uh joy, like
riding that skateboard, whichseems like such an absurd thing.
But yeah, you just try to findthe, you just try to find these

(07:38):
things that you can sort ofrecapture uh bits of that.
That ask that part of you, Iguess.

Yeah, that's actually a huge part of this
work, especially when it comesto Black Mammoth Gardens, and
just the image that seeing menworking with flowers and plants
has in itself is dismantlingthis idea of masculinity or what
we identify with masculinitythat haven't served us as men at
all.
So we associate it with ourwork, with our ability to do all

(08:13):
types of stuff within thesesystemic structures, but we
never identify with our abilityto grow a garden or to go and
play, to go and swing, or to goand play, to go and swing.
And I think, because we've putso much focus on the previous
things I mentioned, we see thatthe mental health crisis in our
country has just been growingout of control and again, part

(08:37):
of this work is to reclaim thoseparts of who we are and to
reimagine what it is for us tobe men in this society and in
this system.

Yeah, so you mentioned Black Men in the
Gardens, which is definitelysomething we want to spend some
time on later.
I want to circle back to that.
Just on the idea of mentalhealth.
Anytime this comes up, and justgiven our current environment,
I always try to point out haveyou read any work by uh kaboor
mate?
no, I don't think I have okay,uh, he wrote his most recent
book, I think it's called themyth of normal.

(09:11):
Um, he advocates he's a medicaldoctor but does a lot in the
like mental health side ofthings, and he advocates for the
idea that a lot of theresponses of what we're seeing
is completely normal to thecircumstances we're living in,
as, as opposed to peoplethinking like, oh, I'm abnormal
for having this condition orthis sort of disease state or
this response, and it's likeit's a very normal response to

(09:36):
the environment that we'recurrently in.
So I always try to bring thatup.
I do want to get more of yourbackground, though.
Like can you just share withpeople?
Um, you touched on horticulture, but like what?
What do you do exactly?
Cause I've even I've spent alot of time on your Instagram.

I'm like there's a lot there's a lot here
.

I know you travel quite a bit, you speak on
panels, you do some work withclimate Um.
Can you just give me a briefoverview of um what you do in a
sense?

Yeah, you know my Instagram is dedicated to my
artwork and my artwork isactually something that I do
personally.
Professionally, I've beenworking in experiential
marketing for the past seven,eight years now.
I work as a creative producer,a project manager, sometimes set
designer.

(10:23):
Where I started was set designor scenic design, just building
environments for TV, filmproductions, commercial and,
specifically, events Just prettymuch building cool stuff that
other people get to engage withand take photos in front of.
I do that professionallybecause that allows me to use my

(10:44):
art form in a practical,professional way that allows me
to sustain myself as an adult inthis system where I have to pay
rent and pay bills.
My driving motivation issustainable design.

(11:04):
It's about bringingsustainability to my industry,
which is heavily, heavily,heavily, you know.
I don't know if you've everseen the end of a production
whether it's like a TV show orcommercial or an event but
literally they just wheel inhuge dumpsters and trash
everything that we spent weeksbuilding up.

(11:25):
So for me, it's all aboutbringing sustainability.
It's about bakingsustainability into that
production practice so that wecan, you know, obviously lower
our footprint.
But you know, when I speak tothe executives on these things,
it's about, you know, increasingour bottom line.
If we're not trashingeverything, we're able to reuse

(11:45):
these scenic assets and adopt adifferent activation, then
obviously we're saving money.
So, essentially, I work to bringsustainability into my industry
as well as advocate for it on acommunal, on a social level,
where, yes, I'll do panels andtalk about sustainable
creativity, because I trulybelieve that, when we are

(12:08):
looking at all the issues thatwe're facing due to climate
change and ecological loss andall these different issues that
we're facing, it's going to takeextreme amounts of creativity
to innovate our way out of theseproblems that we've been handed
down.
And all of that innovationcan't just be, you know, let's

(12:31):
build a brand new product.
We actually have to think supercreative, think outside of the
box.
So to get there, we have toempower creative thinking and
empower the next generation ofpeople to dive into their
creativity, understanding thatthey have a unique perspective
that's going to allow them tosee the issue from a different
way.
And all of these different,unique perspectives brought

(12:53):
together is ultimately what'sgoing to bring us out of the
place we find ourselves in now.

Yeah, that's a great point.
And there's some smart personwho said you can't use the same
line of thinking to like.
Whatever the problem is,whatever line of thinking you
use to produce that problem, youcan't use the same line of
thinking to find the solutions.
It might have been Einstein oryou, probably there's some.
I just butchered some quote,but anyway.
So have you always been thisinvolved in this kind of

(13:22):
proactive in your thinkingaround sustainability, or was
this sort of a slow shift?
How did you get to basicallywhere you are today from a
mindset standpoint?

Yeah, I feel like working class people have
understood the same thing thatthe intellectual class has
understood, and we just go aboutit from different perspectives.
Every working class family thatI've ever known has to think
super creative about how theysustain themselves.
Me growing up, I didn't have abudget for art supplies, so I

(13:59):
had to get creative with thethings I had around me, and that
deeply informed my art practice.
Now where it's like, yes, if Ilook at my lack of access as a
barrier, then I'll never be ableto be an artist, but if I look
at my lack of access and focuson the things that I have around
me to create value in my life,then I can.
It's unlimited.

(14:19):
The potential is unlimited.
So working class families havebeen dealing with this for
generations, for eons at thispoint, and it requires a certain
level of creativity to be ableto sustain yourself in a system
like this that's constantlydevolving in a sense, whether
it's through inflation orwhether it's through job market

(14:42):
loss, all these different things, we have to find ways to
sustain ourselves.
And for me, being an artist ingeneral, that informed my
creativity, that informed my artform but then ultimately led me
to think about it.
Yes, on a more intellectuallevel, where it's like, okay,
well, so then what's thesciences behind this, what's the

(15:02):
applications behind this on agrand scale?
But be able to bridge that gapin a way where it's like again,
like some people, once they hearabout sustainable doctrines
that you might learn in college,they're actually like oh no, my
grandparents used to do thatwhen I was younger.

(15:22):
We never let a container ofbutter go in the trash, like
that became the container forsomething else.
Or like I've been wearing mygreat grandparents' pants
because, you know, when we reusepaper towels, we don't just
throw things away and it's like,oh well, that's sustainability
right, but we're doing it out ofnecessity.

(15:44):
That's sustainability right,but we're we're doing it out of
necessity.
And unfortunately, more andmore of us are going to be
pushed into doing it out ofnecessity unless we start
getting creative about findingsolutions.

Yeah, I worked in marketing much earlier in my
career and again I'm going tobutcher someone else's quote,
saying like, if you need to getgood results from your marketing
department, cut their budget inhalf because you're going to
force them to get reallycreative.
It's like you can't just throwmoney at the problem anymore.
You need to get creative withwhat you have.
And, yeah, you do much moreoutside the box thinking if you

(16:20):
will.
It's not just a bunch of adbuys on Instagram and Facebook
anymore.

It's funny, you know, that necessity, the
necessity and the lack ofaccessibility, again like it can
be viewed as a barrier.
It can be viewed as somethingthat's working against you, or
it can be used as something towork with and ultimately it
takes somebody creative to seeit in the latter form, you know.

Mm-hmm.
So where did you move from andwhat brought you to LA?

Uh, I was born originally in Accra, ghana.
Uh, I moved from Accra, newJersey, and from New Jersey to
Cincinnati, ohio, where I spentthe majority of my adolescence,
to Cincinnati, ohio, where Ispent the majority of my
adolescence.
From Cincinnati, I moved to LosAngeles, california, about nine
years ago.
I was actually just looking ata post that I made in this again

(17:16):
, this depressive state in thiscity and finding myself in the
city and the state that seemedto be stomping on my creative
aspirations.
And I remember I was justviewing this post where I was
saying something about like youknow, I've always put other
people's goals ahead of mine asa way of escaping failure.

(17:37):
Um, and and with that being thecase, I'm leaving to los Los
Angeles to pursue what I feellike I need to pursue for myself
.
It was a mind-eff to look atthat post and be like, damn,
where was I?
Immensely when that happened,but then also to be able to look
and say, well, I've been doingwhat I set out to do.

(17:58):
I have those days where I feellike I could be doing more.
I'm actually proud of where myjourney has taken me.

So I grew up in New Jersey as well, um,
originally, um, I think peoplewho create content somewhat
consistently once you've done itfor a long enough time, you
really see the value in beingable to look back on it and
you're like oh, this is a verygood visual diary of where I was

(18:27):
and what I was thinking, whichyou know can kind of make you
cringe at moments.
But also it can be very helpfulto look back and be like all
right, well, that's that's whereI was in the world and you can
just use that as thesebenchmarks.
Um, to look back, my partnervery recently just started a
YouTube channel and you probablyknow the fear of like putting

(18:47):
yourself out there, um, at first, and I'm like, if nothing else,
just use this as a benchmark tokind of chronicle where you
were at the time, and it's agreat way to relieve some of the
pressure from getting started.
Um, but, yeah, I appreciate yousharing kind of the moments
before you had moved to, uh, toLA, but you feel like you have

(19:07):
been accomplishing what youwanted to.

And like I will still wake up and I'll be
like.
Well, I'm still struggling inthese aspects and I still don't
have this figured out, but it'snice to be able to know that I'm
actually working, doing thethings that I want to do, and
I'm privileged enough to be ableto use my art form to create a
living but then ultimately getto connect with more people like
you.

Yeah, it's certainly a privilege to be in
this position, like being ableto sit and have these
conversations is such a pleasurefor me, Not only yet just to be
able to connect with greatpeople in the world, but it's
also like I get to learn so much.
And to be able to do this andfacilitate conversations and
share it and hopefully spreadthe message, it's like what a
joy to be in this position.

(20:05):
It's really absurd.

Yeah, it's a blessing.

Yeah, can you share a little bit more about
the horticulture, like what wasyour educational background that
kind of got you so interestedin horticulture?

For me, everything has been self-started
in general.
When it came to systemiceducation, structured work, I
just didn't fit in.
So I had to find a way to buildsomething sustainable for
myself, and it's got to beself-motivated for it to be

(20:43):
sustainable for me.
So with horticulture, themotivation was to be able to
have weed and not have to pay alot of money for it.
So I studied the Girl Bible byJorge Cervantes and learned
everything I could from everysingle resource that was
available at the time to reallybe able to cultivate cannabis.

(21:07):
And I did that for a couple ofyears, successfully cultivating
cannabis in Ohio during a timewhen it was extremely illegal to
do so, and that in and ofitself taught me horticulture,
but I never really applied itagain.
So like, oh, I can.
With this thing that I justlearned, I can actually grow a

(21:28):
farm now, of other things, youdidn't realize the skill set you
had on hand.
Yeah, I didn't realize ingeneral, because part of
cannabis cultivation is duringthe end, right before you
harvest.
You actually spend a largeamount of time with magnifying

(21:50):
glasses studying trichomes, sowe're looking for different
variation in the color of thesetrichomes that will signify to
us that this plant is ready toharvest.
And just spending hours lookingat plants under a microscope,
like you start to reallyappreciate like it was some of
the most beautiful things thatI've ever seen, just studying
trichomes, and that just made meinterested in plants in general

(22:14):
.
And fortunately, during thattime where I was switching over
when I moved to Los Angeles, thecannabis is plentiful here so I
didn't have to grow myself butI didn't have the space anymore.
So I think that appreciation ofplants just really crossed over
into an overall appreciationfor plants and then the

(22:35):
horticulture knowledge allowedme to keep my plants alive.
I still lose one or two everyonce in a while, but I have
plants that have been rockingwith me for years now at this
point and I'm going to continueto do you have any advice for
people who are a little bitscared to start, even with a
house plant?

they, like I've killed so many house plants I
just can't keep them alive.
Do you have any advice forpeople like that, which was, you
know, me a few years ago?

yeah I say just get flowers, get fresh cut
flowers every week and do a newbouquet in a vase and just bring
some type of natural elementinto your space.
It's going to beautify yourspace.
It's going to make you feelgood when you see it.
When you arrange it in the vase, you're touching it, you're
getting that grounding effect ofeven just working with plants.

(23:21):
That's the main thing Irecommend because ultimately,
again, like we've been talkingabout these systems that have us
so down in a lot of ways, andit's that same system that's got
you killing plants.
None of us have time to takecare of a plant.
It's a lot, it requires a lotand instead of, I feel people

(23:44):
that understand the benefits ofplant care are quick to push
people into trying to get thatbenefit, without understanding
that if you push somebody intotrying to get that benefit and
they spend a lot of money onplants and then they end up
killing the plants, thenultimately they didn't just get
any benefit, they didn't get anymental health benefit.
It might even be the adverse,where it's like you just wasted

(24:05):
money and you're upset becauseyou just killed this plant.
So for me, I would justencourage people to first just
get into buying themselvesflowers, taking care of
themselves in that way, and then, ultimately, you can start to
learn.
You'll have more time to spendreading, learning about specific

(24:29):
plants, because I think agreater study needs to be done
For me specifically.
I live in SoCal, so I purposelychose plants that thrive in the
environment that I live in.
That takes so much work out ofit.
I don't have to worry aboutkeeping these succulents alive
because they're drought tolerant, so it's okay.
Actually, I can get some cactior some things like that.

(24:52):
When you start just evenlearning and paying attention to
your own environment, you'llunderstand what can come into
your environment and thrive withyou.
You, if you live in a placelike Ohio, where for six months
out of the year it's going to begray and then it's going to get
super cold, but not only doesit get super cold, that means

(25:13):
you're going to have to blastthe heat in your home, which is
going to drop the humidity andmake it hot.
You need to understand thesethings to really know what type
of plant's going to thrive inthat environment with you.
So I think it's about lookingat it holistically.
While you're looking at itholistically, just buy yourself
flowers and enjoy the splash ofcolor that they bring in and joy
that they'll bring you as well.

Yeah, you're echoing a handful of the things
that I had Greg Peterson on theshow.
He's an urban farmer and I waslike what am I going to do?
Cause he was basically the onewho inspired me to start growing
food out on the patio and I waslike what should I do to not
kill these plants?
And he goes.
Most people go to home Depotand they buy a tomato plant and

(25:56):
they plop it in and they don'tpay attention to what zone
they're in what time of the yearthey're planting it.
He's like if you just plantsomething that's made for your
zone and plant it around theright time of the year, whether
you're going from seed or you'regoing from transplant and, by
the way, there's a PDF of this,at least for Arizona, that I can
share with people If you'reinterested he's like if you just

(26:17):
plant it at the right time ofthe year, you're going to have a
much higher level of success.
He goes if he's like you couldbe of the greenest thumb you
want, but if you plant stuffthat's not made for that zone at
the wrong time of the year,you're working against nature.
And that's kind of the theme oflike regenerative and so much of
what I've been learning moreabout.
It's like, as far as how we growfood in this country, we just

(26:39):
do things in the stupidest waypossible because we can, like we
have the resources and themoney to just throw at problems
in this country and that's whatwe do, instead of just working
with how things naturally workin the world.
Um, you were speaking beforeabout kind of the beauty of
plants, and I think it wassomething that I'd lost for a

(27:01):
long time, where, like, Ilearned about plants in school
Because it's just part ofprimary education, and like how
plants grow, but I saw a videoof it In like a glass with the
side so you could see a seedbeing planted and then it being
watered and it growing andsprouting, and I was like this
is like the greatest magic trickBecause that's going to grow

(27:22):
and create food and then you cantake a seed from that and
replant it and it's going tocreate more.
I'm like it's like the world'sgreatest pyramid scheme and
we're like we're doing it allwrong.
Like nature just has thisbeautiful way for us to produce
food and we're just doing it notthat way miraculously that.

That's that awakening moment that everybody
has when they're subjected andwhen they finally do get their
hands on plants or do get theability to see how nature works.
In and of itself we start torealize that it's probably one
of the greatest crimes committedagainst all of us is that
miseducation and that disconnectfrom where we come from to such

(28:06):
an extent that now only onepercent of the people in this
country control the overall, orthe overwhelming majority of the
food that we eat.
But it can be as simple as allof us growing the foods that we
eat.
It can be as simple, and it'sfor a reason.
Obviously, we can't be growingfood and working in their
factories at the same time,right?

(28:28):
So it's like, okay, well, oncewe do go through that awakening
and we do start to learn andtake those type of things into
account, then we start torecreate those systems in ways
that benefit us and that don'tleave us all depressed and
disconnected from where we comefrom, you know.

Yeah, I think plants are a great way to sort
of introduce people to that in aless direct way, where you have
to start caring for somethingoutside of yourself which I
think is a big issue here whereeveryone's just like kind of
huddled up with their stuff, thekind of me, me, me.

But if you have a few plants or you start
growing some food, oftentimesyou have too much of that one
thing and you can't use enoughof it and you start giving it
away and then it's uh, I thinkit's like this a little gateway
drug into making people not caremore about other people yes, of
course you know, one of the oneof the benefits, one of those

(29:24):
things about gardening,especially for me me as a man is
that gardening aids in therecovery of emotional connection
in and of itself and that leadsthen to more community care,

(29:46):
work outside of bills, outsideof all of the things that have
been built up here.
We start caring more aboutnature and about community.
We start to see better effectsjust on the mental, spiritual,
emotional, societal level, andI'm happy to see so many men
coming back to that, because werarely have these places where
we can show that level of care.

(30:07):
It's always hidden.
It's hidden from society ingeneral and it's it's it's
controlled and it's only sharedwith the people closest to us,
behind closed doors.
And, you know, never letanybody else see.
You have to always maintainthis facade of this masculine
identity in this, this way.
But when you see a man out, youknow working and care for plants

(30:32):
and teaching his kids or otherchildren how to care for plants
and care for community byproviding them with produce that
he cared for and brought tothem, that he cared for and
brought to them.
It's such a beautiful thing tobehold and it's such a beautiful
thing to be a part of.
I'm telling you, any man thatdoes this feels it on such a

(30:54):
molecular level and it'scompletely transformative in and
of itself.
You mentioned watching thatseed grow.
I view men in today's societyas that seed that's been buried
under soil and that soil is therigid enforcement of, let's say,
patriarchy.
And when watching that seedgrow and sprout through is

(31:16):
watching that transformation ofsomebody.
Get in touch with their caringside, with their community side,
with, you know, supportive side, and redefine everything else
that was dictated for us to bein general, you know yeah, it's.

It's hard to break through that resistance,
though, because there's a lot ofpressure working against that,
so I guess that segues nicelyinto like is that why you
started black men, man withgardens?

yeah, that's.
That's a huge, huge reasoningbehind it.
At the core of black man withgardens is about reclaiming
narrative.
One of the easiest ways todehumanize people or dehumanize
communities is to show them inspecific ways.
You notice that the people thatare afforded humanity in

(32:05):
today's society are allowed tobe three-dimensional.
We see them care for family, wesee them in the garden, we see
them as part of community, butthe others are only shown in
these one-dimensional ways ofwell.
I'd hate to even dive into thestereotypes that they provided
for us, but, in general, for meand my community.

(32:26):
Specifically, at the time whereI created Black Muppets Gardens,
you were more likely to see avideo or photo of a Black man in
some type of negativeinteraction with police or with
the system than you were to seea photo or a video of a Black
man caring for plants, and thatdidn't sit right with me.

(32:50):
It was during a time where Iwas looking for inspiration.
I was looking for anything thatcould help me on my journey.
When I came here, I was alone.
I didn't know what to do.
I started to get into plants,but I still don't know what to
do with that.
Everybody that I was learningabout plant care from didn't
look like me, and I mean,growing up, we become used to

(33:10):
that.
But obviously I still want tosearch for examples of ways to
live that match my experience,and it's impossible to find that
, so I started to create itmyself.
Obviously, because of the typeof artist I am, in general, it's
like there isn't that manyexamples.
It's all about creating a newvisual.

(33:30):
Cool.
I'm going to take on thisspecific task myself and not
rely on anybody else to providethat narrative or that
representation for me, for me,and also what I can do is search
harder for that representationand create a platform that is

(33:51):
committed solely to increasingand facilitating holding space
for that community and sharingthat community again with us
holding up a mirror for us andcreating a safe space where we
can come and be ourselves andsee us for who we are.
And it's incredible Like theBlack Mammoth Gardens hashtag
now has more than 20,000 posts.

That's amazing.

When I started , if you search Black Mammoth
Gardens, there was 100.

Yeah, you get that sign less than 100.
What are you trying to say?

It might even say honestly, it might even say
100 plus, but then you click onit, you scroll and you get like
50 taps out, you know.
So it's been great to see thatmany you know black men or men
in my community feel morecomfortable sharing that side of
who they are.
Yeah, feel more comfortablesharing that side of who they
are.
And each representation, eachphoto that gets posted, each

(34:52):
video that gets posted,counteracts that negative
representation that someone elsedecided that they were going to
share about our experience inan effort to keep us
one-dimensional.

How long ago did you start that?

I started that page in 2017.

Okay.
So, seven years ago.
Okay, what do you think you?
What's the most surprisingthing you've learned from sort
of facilitating and garneringthat space?

I think the most surprising thing I've
learned is that it's who, it'swho the F we are, it's who we
are.
And it's crazy because growingup as a Black man in America,
we're so I mean everybody, we'reso deeply influenced by media
in general and, again, nothaving the media growing up that

(35:39):
, like Black men work withflowers, Black men garden, it
was surprising to me to see that.
Hold on, like that's what themajority of us are spending our
weekend doing.
That's what the majority of uscare to do.
We want to be out of nature, wewant to, you know, we want to
produce for our families.
We are these people already andI can share that, you know,

(36:05):
even as a Black man.
It surprised me because, again,I was just as much a victim to
the older white lady that toldme that because of the page and

(36:29):
because of the images that shewas able to see on the page, she
was less likely to think thatthe black man walking behind her
was going to rob her and morelikely to think that he was just
on his way to the farmer'smarket or something.
And it's kind of a stab insomething and like it's.
It kind of it's like a stab inthe gut, but then it's kind of

(36:50):
uplifting a little bit, CauseI'm like I understand why you
would think that if the onlyvideos you see of us are being
arrested, being brutalized bypolice, whatever it is, um, then
it matters more.
It matters just as much thatyou're able to see who we are on
a human level and be able touse that information to form

(37:11):
your perspectives about us,Because perspective is reality
to a sense, and because of theperspectives, because of the
narratives that were portrayedabout us and the perspectives
that it created, our experienceshave been negatively impacted
for generations, and this work,our work and the work of a lot
of people, are changing thoseperspectives.
I mean, it's a burden to haveto do that, but we're changing

(37:37):
those perspectives andredefining our experience along
the way.

Yeah, the perceptions that are portrayed,
they kind of come acrosseverywhere.
I got to pause for a second.
I'm getting a little feedback.
Okay, that sounds better now.
Yeah, I think it's just laggingfor a second, so I'll just
start over.
Yeah, so, like, the perceptionsthat are put out there, they get

(38:00):
you know, they affect everyone,right, and you kind of shared
that story of that older whitelady and then it was one of the
I think it's one of your pinstories on your Instagram.
I think it's one of your pinstories on your Instagram.
It's like a roundtablediscussion and you were talking
about how there's a negativeconnotation for black people
working the land and you werekind of advocating for the fact

(38:21):
that it can be if we reframe itand kind of change that
conversation, shift it to anempowering position which, like
once I read it or like listenedto you say that I was like 100%.
I totally get that, but it wassomething I hadn't consciously
thought of and it had to be putin front of my face like as
embarrassing as it is to admit.
But yeah, so I think it'simportant hopefully for me to

(38:47):
have these conversations soother like white people
listening be like you need toacknowledge like these are the
perceptions that are out thereand we all need to kind of work
to help shift them, um,hopefully, in a better direction
definitely that's 100.

True, you know it's the perceptions of one
thing but, like you justmentioned, there's trauma
associated with this type ofwork as well, and you know
trauma, trauma-informedagriculture seeks to address
these issues in the realm ofagriculture and it's been a
barrier working within mycommunity.

(39:21):
We don't want to, intrinsically, or maybe based off of our
experience, we don't want to goout into the woods.
There's trauma there.
We don't want to.
There's trauma there in ourpast experiences.
But then even the disconnectthrough redlining, the lack of

(39:44):
access to natural green spaceswho does it all belong to?
It's not us.
So how can we have theseexperiences right?
And when you grow up, nothaving these experiences, not
having the access to it, youstart to develop fears around it
.
I was afraid of frogs for areally long time just because I
never was in an environment thathad frogs.

(40:06):
So I never touched them growingup.
I never played with them oranything like that, and because
of that I just had thisunconscious fear of frogs.
I'm like I don't want to touchthat thing.
It's slimy, this thing is apart of nature and if I had any
opportunity to be around themgrowing up, I wouldn't have this
unconscious fear of it and what, for me personally, what that

(40:26):
unconscious fear represented tomyself was an unconscious fear
of nature and I had to deeplyaddress that.
And I'm still addressing that,because I'm still afraid of
butterflies.
I'm like you know all thesethings, and so there's trauma,
there's a lot of work to be donein our community and again it
begins by just even getting usto touch plants, to touch grass,

(40:47):
to go hiking, to go camping,and it evolves more and more.
And then, next thing, you know,people are talking about
homesteading.
You know.

Yeah, a lot of the conversations I've had on
this show around health andhealthcare.
One of the big question marksis always social determinants of
health, which is the aspects ofhealth that you cannot directly
control.
Right, it's not your step count, it's not the medical doctor,
you see, it's not how much youexercise, what you eat, it's.

(41:16):
Is there access to grocerieswithin walking distance?
If you live in a city and youshould be able to walk there,
it's not a 20-minute bus ride.
Are there access to greenspaces?
And a lot of these are deeplyrooted in like systemic, racist
policy and infrastructureproblems and, through most of

(41:36):
the healthcare professionalsthat I've spoken to, there's
never that acknowledgement.
It's always like we're workingon, you know, not to say it's
like a weekend seminar, butthat's how, like the solutions
being presented kind of feelfrom the healthcare side and
it's so frustrating.
I mean not even to be likepersonally affected by it, but
just to like have theseconversations like we're not

(41:57):
even having the rightconversation, we're refusing the
acknowledgement of theconversation.
And just to give people aconcrete example of this, robert
Moses was the parkscommissioner.
He was a very powerful figurein the like the 1920s through
the 1950s in New York city.
Um, but he created about 400parks in New York city and I

(42:23):
think only four of them were inuh predominantly minority
neighborhoods.
So, like, when you talk aboutaccess to green spaces, it's
like these were decisions thatwere made 80 to a hundred years
ago.
It's like they, those, thosestill exist, like that
infrastructure is still there.
Um, so it it's a much broaderconversation around these things
that needs to happen, and itcan't just be like how do we do

(42:44):
uh sensitivity training fordoctors?
Like cultural sensitivitytraining for doctors?
Yeah, that's important, butthere's there's bigger issues at
play.
So, anyway, I just want, uh, Iwant to try to tie this into uh
health and health care as thetheme of the show, but uh, well,
it's all.

It's all associated and deeply rooted or
connecting back to health,mental and physical.
Um, whether it comes, you know,one thing I think about is when
we work with children and weteach them how to grow their own
food.
Anybody that's done that worknotices just how much more

(43:22):
children are interested ineating fruits and vegetables
when they've seen how it's grownor when they've actively
participated in growing it, ingrowing it.
So when you're so fardisconnected from it, not only
do you not have any interest init, but they make other things
that are more addicting, youknow, and that are more readily,

(43:44):
and that stuff happens to bemore readily accessible, like
fast food.
And so when we think about howthe deeper physical, mental
health effects that has on along term, it's unfortunate
because my community is beingimpacted by health issues at an

(44:10):
earlier age now due to just dietin general, issues at an
earlier age now due to just dietin general, and I think it's
almost every community inAmerica now is starting to get
colon cancers earlier, startingto have liver disease earlier,
and my little sister just passedaway from kidney liver failure.

Sorry to hear that.

I appreciate that.
And one thing the pastor saidthe pastor that's at the funeral
, he's, you know, he's like 80years old and he's the one
that's mentioned the fact that,like, why are children dying
from these things that in my dayit was the oldest people that
were suffering from?
And we don't realize how, justhow connected that is to our

(44:54):
disconnect, our disconnectionfrom nature in general.
And by being disconnected fromnature we're susceptible to so
many horrible things that, again, the 1% of people producing the
foods that we eat now are areum, producing it and, and you
know, feeding to us because it'sall that's available.

Yeah, um, where's it going to go with that?
Oh, I feel like also like youcan look at these individual
aspects of health um, exercise,nutrition, whatever you want and
I think those have been largelyisolated from the community

(45:37):
aspect, I think.
I think you need to eat so wellnow and you need to be so strong
and you need to get so muchsleep now um, all independently,
because the the lack ofcommunity is so prominent, um,
where it's like you have to belike the strongest version of an
individual possible becausethere's nothing backing you up

(45:57):
in the way that community haslargely been degraded.
I think a lot of those healthaspects can probably be a little
bit more lax if the communityis a lot stronger.
And that's something I'vechanged my tune on a lot,
probably over the past five orsix years, where I was like

(46:17):
here's the data, it's empirical,like if you have a lot of
muscle mass, you're going tolive longer, you need to get
seven to nine hours of sleep,because that's what the data
says.
You can probably buffer a lotof this stuff if you have a
really strong community and youdon't feel like you're solely
responsible for everything thatcomes your way in life and you
can sort of disperse thatamongst a strong community.

(46:39):
I want to kind of parlay thatinto the fact that you seem like
a good community organizer.
Is that a fair assessment?

Yeah, that's part of the work that I do.
It's probably one of thebiggest parts of the work that I
do is community organizing.

What can people do to become more active or
become better participants inthe community?

That's a great question.
I think about this a lot aswell because I'm a community
organizer, but I'm also aparticipant.
Um, it kind of goes back towhat you're saying.
It seemed like for a time therethat the majority of solutions
that were handed down to us isto become the best individual

(47:27):
that we can be, all within thecomfort of our own home, never
having to interact with anybodyelse, just do the best you can
do for yourself, and thatdoesn't work.
It just doesn't work throughdifferent modalities, and so,

(47:55):
with the work that I do, I'mtrying to find ways of what
exactly that can look like,because it's something that
we're all struggling with.
It sucks.
That it doesn't suck I'll saythis that there are a lot of
community that are out therethat you can participate in.
Unfortunately, that requiresresources on the community
organizers for the communityorganizers' efforts, so

(48:20):
sometimes there's always goingto be a paywall, so it's going
to affect the people with theleast amount of resources, right
, but the people with the leastamount of resources might need
it the most.
So it's about actively justgoing outside, being out in
green natural spaces, findingcommunities that are also

(48:41):
engaged in doing that, and beingopen and honest with your
communication with them, to beable to interact and to engage
with them, because I know abunch of organizations here in
the city.
I'm going on a group campingtrip this weekend and then
another one next weekend, and Ilove camping by myself.

(49:02):
But I'm like I realized I needto go and do things with other
people right now, because I'malso going through a lot of
stuff and I can't just theirpies myself.
I can't just fix this stuff inmy own echo chamber.
Actually, I just need to go andbe a community doing the things
that I've found are fun to me.

(49:22):
So, like you said earlier, youlike skating.
It's about joining a skate club.
What I love about the hugecities now, too, is that you
could go and take skatinglessons and that's going to put
you around other people that arejust as equally excited about
skating that you can buildcommunity with, whether it's

(49:44):
rock climbing, camping.
All of these communities areopening up.
So, okay, I think I got it.
Now, if you want to be a betterparticipant, identify what
brings you joy and then gooutside and find other people
that enjoy the same thing.
So, for me, I love plant care.

(50:04):
I love floristry, so I went andfound floral workshops.
I facilitate them, but I alsoattend them because I get to
learn something more aboutfloristry, I get to work with
plants and I got to take home abeautiful bouquet at the end of
the class, right?
I love camping, so I'm going togo on a group camping trip and

(50:27):
the activity is going to bringme joy in and of itself, but
then I'm going to get to meetnew people.
I'm going to get to interactwith these people and possibly
make new friends and comeoutside of myself.
It's such a slap in the face tothe systems of isolation that
they created for us, for us toget back outside enjoying

(50:49):
ourselves and enjoying ourselveswith other people that are
interested in doing the samething.
And I say, if you're facing ascenario where you believe you
don't have the resources toengage with these types of
communities, I can tell you, asa community organizer myself, if
you're earnest in yourcommunication with community

(51:10):
organizers about where you areand your ability, what your
ability, but also your interestand enthusiasm and being a part
of these things I don't thinkthere's a single community
organizer is going to be like,oh well, actually I still need
that bread.
Like, nah, they're going to.
They're going to invite you in.
I'm telling you they're goingto invite you in.
So communicate earnestly andrealize like that's part of

(51:32):
being a part of a community.
You know we're all going tosupport each other in every
single way, and that goes bothways for the organizers and the
participants.

Yeah, that's great advice.
I hope you see some butterflieson your camping trips to help
with the uh, the exposuretherapy I hope I do.

You know, on one of my last uh group camping
trips it was dope because therewere people that weren't afraid
of frogs.
So they're catching them andthey're holding them, giving me
the ability to kind of just likepet them, get you know kind of
exposure therapy and I'm likebreaking it down and it's great.
It brought me a lot of joy,even though I'm, like you know,

(52:10):
wincing a little bit Like Idon't know, know Winston, a
little bit like I don't know.
But overall I think that takingthese routes is the path to
self-actualization.
We're not going toself-actualize in our home alone
.
We're not going toself-actualize while we're at
work, especially in the workculture that we have now.

(52:31):
That actually says hold on.
Don't build emotionalconnections to the people you
work with.
Actually create a barrierbetween that and all these.
We're not going to reach itthrough those modalities.

Make sure you have your corporate persona.

Yeah, your corporate persona.
We're not going to reachself-actualization through that
and we're not going to recoverour emotional connections
through isolation.

Yeah, that's great advice.
I do want to ask you a littlebit more about your workshops.
So I've seen some of theresults of them, but can you
share, I guess maybe, what wasthe first workshop you did and
I'd love to hear sort of howthey've evolved over time and
what you, what you, really wantto create with this.
Obviously there's a trying tobuild community and build

(53:19):
something beautiful by the endof it, but, um, how did you, how
did you start with workshopsand where do you want to take
them in the future?

I.
I got to give credit to hughhugh augustine.
He's to Hugh Augustine.
He's actually a rapper here inLA.
It's like a huge time rapper.
He's amazing, extremelytalented.
Out of nowhere.
One day he just hit me up andhe said hey, we're throwing this
event.
You want to lead a workshop?
I had never done it before.
This was like in maybe 2018 orso, right after I had just got

(53:54):
into making plant art.
It was right after that and Icreated Black Mouth Gardens.
He might have found me throughBlack Mouth Gardens I don't know
how he found me, but he hit meup and he's like hey, we're
doing this event and there'sgoing to be other artists kind
of leading these things.
Do you want to come in and do aplant workshop?
I said, yeah, I didn't know howto price it.

(54:14):
I didn't know.
I knew where to get thematerial, but I didn't know how
I was going to lead it.
And it ended up being maybe like150 people there or something
like that.
Oh, a nice easy one to startwith, Right it was huge Low
pressure, but I'll never forgethow happy everyone was, how much
people just enjoyed they werecoming and picking their plants,

(54:37):
and I created a station whereit's like the way I do my
workshops now.
It's almost like a buffet ofcreativity, where we have our
plants, we have the mediums youcan use and I, because my art
form has been rooted in myunique interest in specific
things and just okay, what do Ihave around me?
How can I use this and thistogether?

(54:58):
And that unique perspectiveeach individual has, and my
workshop practice has become away of engaging people's ability
to depend on their uniqueperspectives to create value in
their life.
So during that, I just had abuffet of material, flowers,
material that you could use tocreate your own plants here, and

(55:20):
it was incredible to see peoplecome like what plants is all
this?
This sticks out to me, or thislooks out to me.
I'm going to make this.
Oh, I got this idea and it wasincredible to just see people
going through that process.
I had the best freaking time.
It was incredible.
I had the best freaking time.
It was.
It was it was incredible.
I still have friendships fromthat first workshop.

(55:41):
That's amazing.
Day now, um, that I built, youknow, including Hugh, who I
respect and love for even givingme the opportunity, cause that,
you know, that gave me an ideaof it's hard to be an artist.
I'm telling you it's it's hardto be an artist.
That'm telling you.
It's hard to be an artistthat's building their own form
of work.
I don't clock in and somebodytells me like, hey, this is what
you're going to do today, do ittoday.

(56:02):
I have to figure it out everysingle freaking day.
It's tiring, right, figure itout every day and it's hard to
create something that'ssustainable.
Okay, what can I do on arecurring basis?
Now, you can't buy my art.
Like, right now, at the currentmoment, you can't buy my art.
I don't want to just sustainmyself by selling things to

(56:23):
people.
You know, if I could sustainmyself by providing an
experience that teaches somebodysomething that allows them to
engage with their creativity,that helps them experiment and
discover new parts of themselves, and also make friends with
people in the community that areinterested in the same thing.
Like, sign me up all day long.

(56:45):
You know what I'm saying.
Like I was thinking about itthe other day.
You know people say that beingan artist it's like on the on
the chart of, like you know,most meaningful careers, like
artists is at the bottom.
Like people try to paintartists no pun intended, try to
paint artists as like this, likeuseless to society job, like

(57:10):
it's.
It's this career that, like it,doesn't generate any benefit
for society in some way.
But I'm like you guys say that.
But has your job put a smile onsomebody's spirit?
Has your job really hadsomebody walking away where
they're just excited to be aliveand to do something that brings
them joy?

(57:31):
I've seen that.
I've seen people walk out of myworkshops with new friends.
I've seen people walk out of myworkshop looking at this thing
they just created.
Like I did not know I had thisinside of me and I wonder what
else is inside of me that Icould bring to life and that's
all I need.
That's it, that's the goal, yeah.

I think it really depends on what metrics you're
measuring by Right.

I think it really depends on what metrics
you're measuring by Right?

Yeah, by a capital output yeah, or just
probably aren't very high onthat list.
But I've always thought of howto describe this the, the words
that our language contains, Ifeel like, aren't really well
equipped for describing, like,the vastness and the deepness of

(58:17):
life, um, and they cause, theyalways seem inadequate,
especially if you're not wellequipped to sort of craft the
words in the right way.
But the artists are the closestthat we get to that.
They're the closest atexpressing kind of the truth of
life and the full meaning oflife, um, and like they do the
closest at expressing kind ofthe truth of life and the full
meaning of life, and like theydo their best at capturing that

(58:39):
in a way that we can all connectwith right, whether it's
through music or through floralarrangements or whatever it
might be.
Everyone has their own Avenuethat they're going to connect
with, more so than others.
But yeah, so I think it reallydepends on what metric you're
measuring by.
So you know where you're goingto connect with more so than
others.
But yeah, so I think it reallydepends on what metric you're
measuring by, to where artistsare going to fall on that list.

(59:02):
So, I think it can be very highon the list if you're looking at
a different metric.

Yeah, you know if we're looking at the joint
metric it's interesting, a studywas just released, I believe
this year, that showed thatpeople talk about the cure for
depression and on the scale ofthings you could do to cure
depression medication it didn'teven make top five right, but

(59:29):
the other things that they tellyou to do, like physical
exercise or just go and work out, that wasn't at the very top
either.
You know what was the numberone thing to cure depression
Dancing.

Yeah, I believe that.

Dancing.
So how important is music?
That might be one of the mostimportant things in this world,
you know.
But if we're, if we're justthinking about, you know, money,
then we might not push peopleto create music, we might not
push people to dance.
But if we're thinking abouthaving a well-adjusted society

(01:00:04):
and communities and families andpeople, then like, maybe we
need to prioritize other things.
You know, I going to danceafter this podcast.

Parker Condit (01:00:22):
That's good.
I uh I highly encourage you toum.
You'd mentioned I think youkind of danced around it a few
times in this.
You talked about uh,interaction and exposure, so you
obviously do a very good job oflike being able to change
people's minds and be able toinfluence people, whether
overtly or not.
How did you come to the idea,or the combination of using
interaction and exposure toteach people?

Nelson ZêPequéno (01:00:57):
when it comes to, like, sit down, read this
book, take instruction, memorizeand repeat it on this thing,
it's like that's not the bestway of learning for me
specifically, and, um, thatmight be the case for a lot of
other people in this world.
That's, and everybody, but likeeverybody, learns differently.
So I think that my practicepractice in and of itself is to
teach people that maybe learnlike me.
But I think, maybe at the coreI believe that it is the core of

(01:01:22):
learning in and of itself isthat it has to be interactive,
it has to be experiential and ithas to be through stories.
Because, again, we're justdealing with what these systems,
these structures that were setin place during the Industrial
Revolution, but the way thatpeople learned up until that

(01:01:45):
point was through storytelling.
Indigenous culture across theworld passes lessons, morals,
ethics, everything's throughstories, first and foremost, um,
and then it's through theexperiential, is through
learning where apprenticeship,uh, was the biggest way, that

(01:02:09):
was the biggest mechanism forlearning a trade, a skill, a
subject, all the way up until,again, the factory-style
schooling system that wedeveloped so that Henry Ford
could have more people in hisfactories.
Literally, it comesspecifically from that Like, hey

(01:02:29):
, I need more people in myfactories.
We need to develop this systemthat gets more people into them
and that fires in the face ofwho we are as humans.
And I'm just trying to connectwith who we are.
I'm trying to connect withnature.

So, when it comes to climate and sustainability,
given the idea of interactionand exposure sustainability,
given the idea of likeinteraction and exposure, it's
hard to imagine the amount ofpeople who are still not kind of
on board to the level that Ithink should be.
Um, but okay, like, try towithhold judgment there, but

(01:03:09):
especially in the us, you canreally isolate yourself from the
effects of this.
Right, we're largelydisconnected, so we don't have
that interaction, exposurenecessarily right how?
because, like, if people canjust go to the places where it's
being, they're being affectedso significantly it's impossible

(01:03:29):
to deny it but without flyingpeople there, like, do you have
any approach towards changingminds in that perspective, when
people are like it's not gettingany warmer where I live and
they're not seeing the directeffects of it?

I think it's, instead of trying to force
individuals to really take onthe brunt of the work that needs
to be done to mitigate climatechange and other issues, we had
to really strip away at thestructures, the systems in place
that have been overwhelmingcontributors to the negative

(01:04:05):
effects that we're facing.
You know the idea of, like, theindividual carbon footprint and
all those things were meant tothrow all that burden back onto
our shoulders, and each of usdecided, as we're at a point in
time, like I'm not going to usea plastic straw anymore,
california, you have to payextra for plastic bags, which is

(01:04:26):
reduced plastic, all that stuff, but like there's still people
building, you know, oilrefineries on the Gulf Coast.
If we're doing this work andthese systems that are actually
having the worst impact aren'tdoing anything, then it doesn't
matter what I can get theindividual to do.
So I think that the fight iswith the system in general.

(01:04:50):
It's with the corporations thatbenefit from destroying our
environments, and if we keep thefocus there, while we embolden
people's creativity and exposureto nature in general, then I
think it's a fight that we willwin.

(01:05:12):
It's interesting that surfers,freedivers, people that live
near or work in the ocean.
They are stewards of thatenvironment by default.
They love the reef, they lovethe coral reef.
So when they witness bleachingof their favorite reef, that
they used to love diving downand seeing all the diverse

(01:05:35):
marine life, they are enraged byit.
So, again, if we get people outin nature and we get people
appreciating nature in general,they're going to, by default,
become stewards.
They're going to, by default,become advocates when they start
to see the negative effectsthat these industries are having
on their favorite environments.

You know yeah, that comes back to kind of the
exposure piece of it.
I I was in the same camp for along time where I was like I
know that 70 of carbon emittedcomes from like 50 companies or
something like that.
Um, so I was like why am Igoing to change my behavior?
But I've since realized I'mlike it's not an all or nothing

(01:06:18):
proposition and the more I do itmy individually, the more my
financial decisions areinfluenced as well.
So that's kind of why I wasasking where I was like the more
conscious I become of this andp clear is not my doing it was
my partner shoving lots ofinformation in my face

(01:06:39):
repeatedly, being like you needto take this seriously.
Um, I could be very bullheaded,um, so kudos to her for finally
getting through to me.
Um, but the more I paidattention to it, now I'm
shifting my financial decisionsaway from those companies and
those organizations that aredoing most of the polluting, and
without being a deeplypolitical person not in that I

(01:07:02):
don't care, not it's just that Idon't really know how to
influence it in a meaningful way.
The most influence I feel likeI can have is that, um, using my
, using my, my wallet,essentially by not pushing
dollars towards thoseorganizations anymore.
So that's the only reason Istill think educating and
changing minds at the individuallevel is still very important.

Yeah, definitely.
And you mentioned that youworked in marketing and the sole
and I work in experientialmarketing.
The sole and I work inexperiential marketing.
The sole purpose for marketingwas to get us to buy the stuff
that they were producing.
Right, that's how our wholeindustry came about.
They started producing thestuff that was having really

(01:07:45):
harmful effects on ourenvironment and then they came
up with marketers to be like now, sell it to them, so all we can
do is unravel that.
To be like now sell it to them,so all we can do is unravel
that.
All we can do is okay, well, atan individual level, we're not
buying this stuff anymore.
On a marketing level, you can'tmarket it to us anymore.
It's not bringing you a return.
And then, on a corporate level,it's like oh, this isn't

(01:08:07):
bringing a return, we have topivot.
We have to pivot to somethingmore sustainable or we have to
make whole changes to ourproduction processes, and it's
something that we can allinfluence.
Again, and it's dope becausepeople are going to advocate for
it.
Just like you said, yourpartner is getting you to think

(01:08:29):
about it.
We have a bunch of climatecommunicators now on social
media across so many differentindustries that are getting
people to think about it.
I'm getting producers and, uh,tv, film and events to think
about it.
It's like it's it's happeningnaturally and it again, it sucks
that it's the worstcatastrophes that are going to
get everybody on board.
You know where it's like.

(01:08:50):
Well, it's undeniable now thetornadoes are here, the the ice
age is here, whatever it is.
But at that point that thathappens, all that will be left
with is how we can creativelynavigate that.
It comes down to plasticity howyou can take new information

(01:09:19):
and use new frameworks to reacha new result.
That is what intelligence isand that's what set us apart as
humans.
And it sucks that that's reallydriven by necessity, uh, but
I'm also happy to see thatthere's a lot of people that are
doing the work to that it'sgoing to take before it becomes

(01:09:40):
an absolute necessity.
You know, uh, it's also stillmoving at a really slow pace,
because every single year theysay, hey, we're getting closer
and closer and, um, I don'tthink that we're seeing the
efforts ramp up at the samespeed, but the efforts've had
plenty of conversations withpeople who are like, oh, there's

(01:10:01):
just going to be sometechnology to come along and
it'll just fix it.

Um, I don't think this is going to be a
technological solution.
Um, I think it's going to beindividual by individual, one
conversation at a time.
Um, even as slow as that is is,I think that's the only way.

Um but we'll see on a global scale isn't
sustainable in and of itself.
So any technology that could bedeveloped to handle a global
issue in and of itself isn'tgoing to be sustainable, you
know right it's not, it's justnot possible.
It's like, you know, it's likethe um, the laws of entropy.
At that point it's just notpossible.

Can you share?
Um, you were on a paneldiscussion up in San Francisco,
uh for earth day.
Um, you had an interaction withsomebody, uh on stage
afterwards after you made acomment about Palestine.
Can you share about that,because I think it kind of ties
into where this conversation isgoing?

Yeah, definitely.
We live in a polarizing worldnow where, like what you
mentioned, if I say, oh, theclimate's changing, there's
always going to be somebodythat's like, oh, it's not,
that's what I did.
Somebody's going to be offendedby it.
And in this case I was at theCalifornia Academy of Sciences

(01:11:39):
on a panel where we werespeaking about environmental
issues, how to encourage theyounger generation to even
participate in mitigation, andtowards the end there was a Q&A
where a guest asked becauseduring the conversation we were

(01:12:01):
talking a lot about allow theindigenous communities that are
part or that grew and that comefrom the land to have
stewardship of the land, and howdeviating from that led us to a
lot of the problems that wehave now, like with California

(01:12:24):
fire season and themismanagement of the forest,
stuff like that.
So we were talking about thattype of stuff.
So somebody brought up at theend they said, well, are our
efforts at land reclamationending only here in the US or do
we ever see any of ourselvesdoing work outside of the US to

(01:12:44):
help in reclamation efforts?
And they specifically said acouple of places in Palestine.
And there was kind of anawkward moment on stage where
nobody really wanted to addressit.
I didn't have a microphone inmy hand.
I know I saw the video.
So I kind of just looked at eachother again, because it's a hot

(01:13:05):
topic.
There's a hundred plus peoplethere in this planetarium that
we're speaking in and um, and soI reached for the microphone
and I just had to start off bysaying, firstly, free Palestine.
Right, because that just needsto be said in every room, across

(01:13:25):
every platform, because it'snot just a humanitarian crisis,
but at the root of it is thatsame, let's say, colonization

(01:13:48):
and removal of indigenouscultures from land that we find
ourselves here now dealing with,and we're trying to find these
ways to come back from itgenerations later, while there's
people currently dealing withit happening to them right now,
you know.
So, yeah, I brought all thisstuff up and it seemed like it
was well-received by theaudience, but at the end of it
we encouraged the audiencemembers to come to the stage,

(01:14:11):
you know, say hello, ask anyfurther questions, and this
gentleman just rushed the stageand I was looking over.
You know, it's like a happymoment.
It was great.
Everybody's like clapping.
I'm like, hey, we know that itwas a really great talk.
I learned so much from theother panelists.
I'm just like looking over andnext thing, I know I have this
guy in between my legs pointinghis finger at my face, like you

(01:14:38):
don't know what the F you'retalking about.
You need to watch what you'resaying.
And it just caught me off guard.
It completely, completelycaught me off guard.
I just wasn't expecting it.
I didn't know what he wastalking about at first and I was
like what are you talking about?
I was like you need to take astep back.
What are you said about?
Let's have a conversation.
He said free Palestine.

(01:14:59):
You don't even know what thatmeans.
I'm like I don't know what itmeans.
I'm talking about the genocidethat's occurring there.
What do you think it means?
And he's like, automatically hejust starts going into Hamas,
starts talking about Hamas.
I'm like hold on, let's talkabout the people there right now

(01:15:20):
that are being killed, theoverwhelming majority being
women and children.
What do you think about that?
And he's like you know.
He's like you don't know Backwhen Hamas put this in their
charter and all this stuff.
And I'm like yo, if we can'teven have a conversation that
centers human beings that arebeing killed and removed from
their land, then we can't evenhave a conversation that centers
human beings that are beingkilled and removed from their
land, then we can't have aconversation.

(01:15:42):
Then I know that this is so farpast the conversation if we
can't agree on even the basichuman rights at this point.
And he was becoming agitated,his wife was starting to argue
with some of the other peoplearound and the Cal Academy team
fortunately came and was superprotective of me and, like you

(01:16:05):
know, were ushering him out ofthe space Again, like once he
was removed, like theoverwhelming majority of people
that came down to stage were,you know, supportive, protective
and were, you know,congratulating all of us on an

(01:16:33):
incredible talk throughout thewhole entire night, which was
great.
And, you know, the chiefofficer of philanthropy at Cal
Academy reached out to me.
Officer of philanthropy at CalAcademy reached out to me.
A lot of the directors emailedme and were talking about the
incident, saying like, oh, weappreciate how much grace you
showed her.
I'm like, at the end of the day,it's not even about me.
It's about maybe using myplatform to say this thing about
these people that are goingthrough something right now,

(01:16:55):
because their experience is sodeeply connected to my
experience and my experience thebulk of the things that I deal
with on a daily basis now whenit comes to mental, even
physical, health and stuff likethat.
It's because at a certain point, me and my community were

(01:17:16):
completely disconnected andremoved from our land.
I mean, I'm immigrating here,but removed and disconnected
from our land and from ourbirthright, from our connection
to nature and to connection tothe natural spaces that we
belonged in, and it put throughhorrible systems that stripped
away our humanity.
That stripped away our humanityand I'm not going to sit by and

(01:17:37):
be silent while othercommunities face that, thinking
like oh well, we have our ownproblems here, or you know,
there's other issues, or I don'twant to upset the donors, Like
we're going to talk about it andwe're going to stream that from
every rooftop that we canbecause free Palestine.

Yeah, I'd watched one of your stories after that
and it was one point in specificthat you made that you brought
up again, which is like if wecan't focus the conversation on
the humanity of the peopleinvolved in this, then I don't
know what we're doing and it'sbizarre how disconnected so much
of the conversation around thatis where there's a lot of

(01:18:21):
political talking points.
I was at a pro-Palestineprotest last night down in Tempe
, you know, mostly to stand insolidarity with the Palestinians
, but also just because it waskind of the start of the
invasion of Rafah.
The start of the invasion ofRafa, and it was just kind of
bizarre to see we're on the sideof the street.
It was completely peaceful,police didn't bother us, it was

(01:18:45):
fine.
It's not what would be portrayedin the news, probably, but like
the cars driving by, you know,probably an equal amount of
people honking and support,another equal amount giving us
the finger as they went by andthen the majority of people not
acknowledging it, which I thinkis very representative of kind

(01:19:06):
of everything that's happeningright now, where some people are
very vocal for and against, alot of people aren't saying
anything and it's just strangethat you can't have a
conversation around the factthat there's a lot of people
dying, most of which like toconsider this like a war

(01:19:28):
scenario, is not accurateanymore.
Right, it's.
It's just so many women andchildren dying, aid workers,
people in hospitals.
It's just a really bizarrescenario where people can't
acknowledge the humanity of thesituation, which is why I wanted
to ask you about that.

(01:19:48):
I think you had a very succinctresponse when you were kind of
recapping what had happened withwhat happened in San Francisco,
kind of recapping what hadhappened with what happened in
San Francisco.

Yeah, it's definitely enough to strip away
at the hope that we all havethat we can move towards a
fulfilling, thriving, safe world.
That again, it's the doctrineof certain systems to dehumanize

(01:20:33):
people in an attempt tohumanize other people.
And it's kind of like what Iwas saying earlier about Black
Monmouth Gardens and the workthere to create a
three-dimensional image of whowe are, Because, again, there
were people that needed tocreate a one-dimensional image
of who we are to validate whatthey were doing to who we are.
The same thing is occurring inPalestine.

(01:20:54):
They're up against the samesystem that has us all depressed
and down and isolated right nowand disconnected.
And the only way that we fightback is to get reconnected.
And that's not just the nature,it's to each other, it's to

(01:21:18):
understand.
And because now everything is ona global scale, we also have to
look at ourselves as a globalcommunity and be able to
navigate on a much larger scale.
So I afford my neighbors onthat global community scale the
same basic humanity that Iafford my neighbor downstairs

(01:21:40):
who's this old man that I got tohelp him figure out how to deal
with internet providers andstuff like that.
Once we start extending thatbasic humanity to our neighbors
on a global scale, we'll startto see better results in general
.
And I, I, I question anybodythat can't do that, or

(01:22:03):
especially people that are likeI can't do that because of, uh,
retaliation in the name ofretaliation.

I feel like uh, kind of like with your story
earlier about that old lady andjust so many of these things.
Exposure kind of seems to be acommon theme, I guess through
this conversation, where itfeels like so much of this is
due to a lack of exposure, andwhere you're not exposed to
something, you generally havefear around it.
And a lot of that's deliberate,like you've mentioned, and a

(01:22:35):
lot of that's deliberate likeyou've mentioned.
But I just wish there was a wayto kind of expose people to
more parts of the world and tomore people to understand, like,
these people aren't your enemy,they're not coming for you,
they're not going to come tosubjugate you.
That's largely a big fear oflike, oh, if we don't, if we

(01:22:59):
don't hold these people down, um, they're going to take over and
and subjugate us.
I'm like that's just kind of a.
That's largely something that'sbeen a European and a white
thing, um, an American thing, um, I guess, to start wrapping up,
do you even ask for thelisteners?
Today We've kind of covered alot and I think a lot of this

(01:23:21):
has been probably outside thenormal theme of what my show has
been about, but I've reallyappreciated the conversation so
far, do you even ask for peoplelistening?

Yeah, touch grass, get outside, touch grass.
But, um, more importantly, uh,engage with your community.
Uh, especially if you can dothat creatively, if you can do
that in playful ways, um,realize that you're part of a
larger community and by being anactive participant, you not

(01:23:54):
only heal yourself, reconnect,but you might actually help
somebody else heal and reconnect.
And I think that's part of thelargest work that we can all be
doing as individuals.
It's de-emphasizing theindividual, coming back to
community, coming back to eachother, realizing that humanity

(01:24:17):
in general it's a largecommunity.
And if we support each otherand question the systems that
seek to disempower us, then Ithink that we'll start to head
in the direction that we can allreally just enjoy.
We live on a beautiful planetthat literally grows the food we

(01:24:38):
need to eat, it provides thingsfor us to drink, it's freaking
beautiful out there, and we'veallowed some people to create
systems that have us check in orcreate a score every day.
So again, it's like we canbuild like a better, beautiful

(01:24:59):
world that brings us fulfillmentand joy on this plane of
existence that we all findourselves on, can start to lean

(01:25:20):
on the systems in place to makethose changes as well, because
we'll just stop engaging withthem on every level financially,
through communication, whateverit is and we'll reclaim our
power that way.

Yeah, I think it's even an identity point, too
right, where people identifywith these systems.
As you know, largely in Americaand I I certainly suffered from
this of like, so identifyingwith what I did, like that was,
that was so much of who I amRight, and I'm still trying to
like kind of unpack that, um, so, yeah it's.
I think there's something aboutthoughts become actions,

(01:25:54):
actions become habits, habitsbecome identity, something along
those lines.
So, um, yeah, I think alsoanother thing I wanted to bring
up um from previous conversationis the idea of influencing
change.
Um, I'm always like what's theaction to take?
What do we do from here?
And again, this was circlingaround social determinants of
health, where I'm like so oftenlike what can I do to help drive

(01:26:17):
this forward?
And this is a woman who worksin the healthcare system in this
space, and she was saying,mostly where we are right now,
unfortunately, is from a stageof moving people from pre
contemplation to contemplation.
It's like still at the point ofgetting people aware of the
problem before we can even startaddressing actions to solve the

(01:26:40):
problem.
So I think a lot of what wetalked about today I think not
for everyone.
Hopefully a lot of peoplelistening aren't aren't in the
stage where a lot of this wasnew to them, but for anyone who
is, hopefully this may havehelped move people from
pre-contemplation tocontemplation and exposing them
to some new thoughts and ideas.

(01:27:02):
Um, but yeah, I just wanted tokind of bring that up.

I feel like it might be a nice way to round
things out that's a huge one andthat there's a third piece that
comes after that.
It's it's the action, becauseit's only be seen doing the
thing.
That in and of itself it's it'senough to inspire other people.
When other people see you doingthis thing, that's bringing you
joy, that's bringing youconnection, that's bringing it

(01:27:27):
inspires them to also go out anddo it and then, ultimately,
somebody else sees them doing itand it's just this beautiful
ripple effect, this beautifuldomino effect of being seen
again, like.
It's like what I said with theblack men, with gardens.
Once people start, once otherblack men starts to see black
men working with flowers,working with plants, doing these
things, they're like I knowwhat I'm doing this weekend.

(01:27:50):
I'm going to go and buy somenew plants, like, oh, I'm going
to do this and that we have torealize the power that we have
and and the small actions thatwe take on a daily basis.
And, uh, there's people thatare going to see you taking
those actions and they're goingto be inspired.
You're, you're inspiring peoplethat you have no idea are

(01:28:12):
inspired by.

Well, nelson, I think you're a very inspiring
figure, um, and I reallyappreciate you kind of coming on
and spending 90 minutes with meand kind of sharing everything
you did today.
I seriously I really appreciateeverything you've had to say
and sharing this time with me,so thank you.

(01:28:49):
Thank you for having me.
It's been an honor.
Thank you for the platform tojust speak my mind Speak my mind
website, which isexploringhealthpodcastcom.
That website will also belinked in the description, as
always.
Likes, shares, comments are ahuge help to me and to this
channel and to the show.
So any of that you can do Iwould really appreciate.

(01:29:09):
And again, thank you so muchfor watching.
I'll see you next time.

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