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The Good Energy Podcast

The Good Energy Podcast

De: Loo Connor
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A science communicator on a mission to reveal the invisible economic forces that shape our lives and environment. Finding and connecting people across Aotearoa who want to change our economic system for the better.

thegoodenergyproject.substack.comElizabeth Connor Ciencias Sociales Filosofía
Episodios
  • Breaking the middle class bubble

    Breaking the middle class bubble
    Jul 11 2025
    Today is a full moon and also the third year anniversary of my father’s death. It feels apt and honouring to share this conversation with you today.Like my father, David is a big hearted Pākehā man who believes in breaking through social barriers and is courageous in pursuing his vision.David’s background is in youth work. He started his career working for the Methodist Church as their National Youth Director. He spent many years working in Central Government where he led the National Youth Development Strategy Aotearoa under Helen Clark’s Labour government. He then ran his own consultancy before starting his current role at Wesley Community Action.In the last few years his attention has turned from trying to shift the whole system to creating small islands of change - warm spaces where communities feel safe enough to come together and address the issues that affect them most, such as meth addiction, poverty and food security. He understands that people are the experts of their own lives and have the resources to create change if given the chance.The stories that David tells of his work with the Mongrel Mob and local communities around the Wellington region are delightful and inspiring. Like my Dad, David looks for the good in people and doesn’t see social boundaries as barriers. Unlike my Dad, David has embarked on a personal journey to uncover and heal the trauma he’s inherited through his own family history.What strikes me about this conversation is the way David connects the personal and political. He makes the point that Pākehā culture has been founded on a suppression of trauma - a denial which has fuelled colonisation. He dignifies healing as important work and points to how Pākehā need to acknowledge and address our own trauma, to show up as equal treaty partners.We talk about how many of our Pākehā ancestors came to Aotearoa to escape trouble in the British Isles.“If you were doing well in those societies, you didn't really wanna hop on a boat and travel to the other side of the world,” he says. “It was people who were trying to flee something; desperate for a new chance and a new break.”And yet the science of trauma is teaching us that traumatic experiences that go unaddressed and unspoken, live on in our bodies and are passed down from generation to generation. While we deny our own trauma, it shapes the way we see each other and make decisions. David talks about how this suppressed trauma is baked into our political system; it’s in the language of our political processes and policies. ”The biggest barrier to change,” he says, “is the people who've got power and money thinking they don't need to change. And the problems that group over there.”David shares stories of heart-breaking betrayal, suicide and war from his own family history. He reflects on his childhood in the archetypal middle class suburb of Tawa and the culture he grew up with which encouraged academic success and conformity while suppressing anything unpleasant. He was born in 1962, not long after two world wars, a pandemic and a great depression.“Come the 1960s,” David says, “there was this desire to just progress, get ahead and dream, so all of that trouble and trauma was just pushed down. We developed ways to protect ourselves from feeling that. That became our culture.”It feels comforting to reflect on my Dad’s life and our family history in the light of this conversation. My Dad was a deeply sensitive man who never learnt to acknowledge or express his feelings of grief. His mother was an alcoholic and his father suffered from depression. As the oldest, Dad grew up doing his best to hold his family together. Though he was an incredibly cheerful man, he suffered from manic episodes and late in life was diagnosed with manic depression. I can’t help but see these episodes as eruptions of suppressed grief. It comforts me to see a pathway to healing these old wounds by tending to myself and my relationships now.Over the last few years as I’ve been learning about our environmental crises and the economic causes, I’ve found it easy to lose hope. The problems are so massive and large-scale. But I find something incredibly hopeful in David’s work and perspective. It reveals that we are all part of this system we live in and that while we separate ourselves and deny our trauma we remain stuck. But there is much hope in coming together and allowing space to heal and grow.LinksWesley Community Action: https://www.wesleyca.org.nz/Just Change: https://www.wesleyca.org.nz/just-changeTe Hiko: https://www.tehiko.org.nz/ Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe
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    1 h y 2 m
  • Speaking to the spiritual heart of our economic and environmental crises

    Speaking to the spiritual heart of our economic and environmental crises
    Jun 10 2025

    I’ve been exploring the economic forces that shape our world for a few years now and the more I learn, the clearer it becomes that underneath the many layers of economic and environmental crises is a kind of crisis of spirituality and of how we conceive of ourselves as human.

    I feel deeply honoured and excited to share this conversation with Pip Ranby, who is, among many other things, one of my favourite people in the world.

    Pip is both a spiritual teacher and a friend. I first came across her as my partner Rachel’s teacher in creative arts therapy. I got to know her when we asked her to be our marriage celebrant. She was an incredible comfort and guide as we navigated the difficult territory of working out what marriage meant to us as a queer couple and organising our love festival, which was amazing but stressful. Since then I’ve been seeing her regularly for what we call “spiritual accompaniment” sessions. She helps me make sense of life when I lose my way and has been an enormous support through the grief of losing my Dad and accompanying my Mum through her journey with dementia. I’ve attended many of Pip’s workshops, retreats and gatherings, and find them an enormous source of nourishment and peace in my life.

    I first had the idea to invite Pip for this conversation in 2023 at a workshop she facilitated on trauma and spirituality, which I attended straight after the annual conference of Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa. I was struck by how the wisdom and presence Pip was sharing spoke to the heart of the economic problems we’d been circling at the conference.

    I was struck by the way Pip dignified the struggle of trying to live within our economic system. She spoke about “industrial scale forces” that we experience intimately through our bodies. These forces are delivered through pervasive messaging which reduces women’s physicality to appearance, justifies sexual violence and silences voices of emotion and spirit.

    In this conversation Pip tells her personal story of trauma, loss and healing with incredible vividness and generosity. She shares her experiences of disordered eating, sexual violence and being helped out of the CTV building when it collapsed in the Christchurch earthquake. She speaks to the way these experiences of wounding and trauma opened her to the healing power of spirit and greater perception. Her story tenderly points to a pathway of healing that I believe lies at the heart of our economic regeneration. It reveals a more noble and generous idea of what it could mean to be human and the possibility of rebuilding practices, culture and economies from this more generous interconnected point of view.

    I hope you enjoy it.

    Links

    To find out more about Pip’s offerings visit her website: https://www.philipparanby.co.nz/

    She also mentioned the following people who have been inspirations and guides:

    * Cynthia Bourgeault: https://www.cynthiabourgeault.org/

    * Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms dance: https://www.5rhythms.com/gabrielle-roths-5rhythms/

    Music

    The music I’ve used in the interview is a glimpse of a song written by my wife Rachel (with a little contribution from me) and performed by the two of us. We haven’t shared the verses here, just the chorus. It’s called “Rising and Falling”. It feels special to share it in the context of this conversation with someone we both love and admire.



    Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe
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  • An audio zine of blessings from Gathering at the Gate

    An audio zine of blessings from Gathering at the Gate
    May 27 2025
    Kia ora friends,I’m delighted to share with you this audio-zine of poems, incantations, prayers and blessings written by participants and conveners of the Gathering at the Gate course. The zine has been lovingly edited and voiced by Sylvie McCreanor.You may remember me interviewing Gathering at the Gate conveners, Elli and Wren, last year. I had just taken part in the course myself and it had a big impact on me. We explored the difficult territory of how our Pākehā ancestors contributed to colonising Aotearoa. We were encouraged to research our family history and to reach back to our ancient earth honouring ancestors in Europe, Britain, Scandinavia and other parts of the world to discover their rituals and practices.Lots of beautiful things came out of these explorations. This zine is a small collection of creative outpourings from the course. The hope is that it can be a resource to help us find own lifeways, words, practices and rituals that connect us with something wider and deeper that we can draw strength from now. You can view the zine or purchase a paper copy on the Gathering at the Gate website. To help you navigate the audio zine, here are some time My introduction 00:00:00Title: 01:43:70Acknowledgements: 01:55:43Introduction by Wren Maben: 05:01:23Part 1: Opening: 08:17:26* Untitled, Anonymous: 08:51:28* Acknowledgement as Tauiwi - Kay Benseman: 10:01:24* An invitation to gather in collective care - Áine Kelly-Costello: 10:58:64* A one-minute blessing - Beau Child: 12:37:24* Elli's mihi - Elli Yates: 13:06:66* Acknowledgement of country and opening dedication - Gambhīrachittā/ Lisa Kelly: 13:52:34* Untitled - Bec (Rebecca Pearson): 15:44:40* Blessing to open learning environment from Pukeahuto- Milly Taylor: 16:06:66* Chloe's opening for hui - Chloe Bisley-Wright: 17:25:30* Brosnachadh - Dani Pickering: 18:12:40* To open a space - Zoe Higgins: 19:05:53* To open a space - Key Benseman: 20:28:16* A blessing for a fine arts class I teach at Massey - Holly Walker: 21:37:26Part Two - Incantations: 23:09:53* An incantatory opening for mahi by Pākehā committed to decolonisation - Rachel Jane Liebert: 23:42:61* blessed: to consecrate in blood, hallow with blood, mark with blood - Helena Leon Mayer: 24:44:32* A contemplation on non-violence - Kay Benseman: 26:05:38* May we be like trees - Loo Connor: 28:29:67* Prayer for Tangata Tiriti - Elli Yates: 29:26:43* A Tangata Tiriti remembrance spell for the earth, the past, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi - Sylvie McCreanor: 30:31:27* May we all find more Patience - Mim Sherratt: 34:22:05* An incantation for ancestral reconnection and belonging - Claire Gibb: 35:23:16* Unsettling ourselves - Sylvan Spring: 36:29:59* Saining - Sylvan Spring: 37:48:67* Prayer for the hearth - Author unknown: 44:20:44* August-baum - Helena Leon Mayer: 45:17:10* Lied/song/waiata - Tess Dalgety-Evans: 47:53:54* Patience - Helen Lyttelton: 50:19:71Part Three - Kai: 51:14:42* Lillian's blessing for kai - Lillian Murray: 51:41:28* A blessing for food - Zoe Higgins: 52:07:26* A short, rhythmic blessing (in English) - Anonymous: 52:44:23* Six kai blessings - Anonymous: 53:14:11* Wren’s food blessing - Wren Mabin: 56:36:64* A toast to nourishment - Miriam Sherratt: 56:59:32* An invocation for kai, written at/for Samhain - Rachel Jane Liebert: 57:46:10* To share food - Milly Taylor: 58:31:48Part Four - Closing: 59:27:72* To close space - Milly Taylor: 59:52:18* Leasanan na tire (lessons of the land) - Dani Pickering: 60:55:27* To close a space - Zoe Higgins: 61:49:59* Wren's two-minute poem for opening or closing a space - Wren MabinBlessings! If you’d like to find out more about Gathering at the Gate or sign up for one of their courses, check out their website at https://www.gathering-at-the-gate.org/ Get full access to The Good Energy Project at thegoodenergyproject.substack.com/subscribe
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