Sustainability: How Can Regenerative Farming Heal Us and the Planet? | Emily Paulsen & Natasha Rankin
I spoke with Natasha Rankin because I wanted to understand something I’d only been circling. A feeling that our conversations about wellness often stop at the body. That our conversations about climate rarely begin with soil. And that somewhere in between those two ideas is a relationship we’ve mostly forgotten.
Natasha is building Athena Village, a regenerative community rooted in land stewardship, nature-based hospitality, and daily practices of reconnection. She’s not talking about sustainability as a lifestyle brand, she’s testing what it looks like in practice. Through farming. Through retreats. Through design shaped by the land it’s built on, and by the people who move through it slowly enough to notice.
We talked about soil as a living system, alive with bacteria, fungi, and root networks that communicate in ways we’re only just beginning to understand. We talked about carbon, and how healthy soil can actually store it. We talked about industrialized agriculture and what gets lost when our food is grown for scale and efficiency, rather than relationship.
What stayed with me was something quieter. A sense of recognition I didn’t expect. As Natasha spoke, I began to notice how much of what she described already lived somewhere in me. Not as information, but as a kind of remembering. The way she talked about the land didn’t sound like a new idea, it sounded like something I’d forgotten to pay attention to.
What Opened in the Quiet
Somewhere in the middle of our conversation, Natasha mentioned that many scientists estimate we only have about sixty harvests of topsoil left. Sixty. That number felt more intimate than urgent. I thought about all the times I’ve reached for food without a second thought. All the times I’ve planned a meal, stored a snack, stocked a pantry, never asking what was underneath the convenience.
Since that conversation, I’ve started to pay more attention. Not in a rule-following kind of way. Just noticing. When one ingredient runs out, I’ve begun replacing it with something I can trace more clearly, something from a local farmer, a producer I’ve looked in the eye. The shift hasn’t been dramatic, but it has been grounding. Coffee was the first thing I changed. I drink it every morning. It felt like a good place to begin.
Natasha spoke about relationships as something lived, something you return to through small, consistent acts. A single item. A shift in habit. A moment of care that doesn’t ask to be named. The way she described it made space for slow attention, and for the possibility that connection deepens through repetition more than effort.
On Practicing a Different Kind of Attention
The rhythm of this conversation slowed something in me. It brought me back to the kinds of choices I often move through without noticing, the food I buy, the way I prepare it, the sources I rarely trace. There was no prescription in what Natasha shared. Just a way of being with it that felt close enough to try.
She spoke about asking questions at the farmer’s market. Swapping one item at a time. Paying attention to what’s in reach. Her examples weren’t framed as solutions. They felt like practice, of care, of rhythm, of connection that builds slowly.
Since then, I’ve been paying attention to how I begin the day. What I consume without thinking. What I touch without knowing where it came from. I’m not tracking it. I’m not setting rules. I’m just staying with it a little longer. That feels like enough.
Curious About Friendship in Real Life? Start Here.
Choose one item you use regularly and learn more about where it comes from.
Visit a farmer’s market and ask one question you’ve never asked before.
Find a local coffee roaster or egg supplier whose practices you trust.
Walk or sit outside before a screen enters your morning.
Track one pattern in your consumption, not to judge it, but to notice its rhythm.
Let’s Stay Curious Together
This conversation reminded me that sometimes attention is the most honest form of care. That the systems we rely on aren’t abstract, and they’re not out of reach. And that the soil under our feet has something to teach us, if we’re willing to listen.
You can listen to Episode 54 of Curious Life of a Childfree Woman wherever you get your podcasts, and join the conversation on Instagram @curiouslifeofachildfreewoman.
Let’s stay curious together.
