Episode #30 :: The Red Shoes + Talyn Martin

Today I’m chatting with Talyn Martin an organic farmer on Vancouver Island, Canada.

Talyn grows vegetables, but to be an organic farmer, she’s learned it also means that she’s a small business owner; a marketing guru; a political activist; an eternal optimist; a multi-tasker; an exceptional organizer of time and activities; a sales woman; a consultant; a liaison; a creative genius; a – well, you get the picture – it’s a demanding job.

She’s also got a small organic skin-care company called TEASE and in her spare time she volunteers at the Cowichan Hospice society.

Talyn’s also my friend, and she devotes her love and creative energy towards baking pies and making fresh pasta with her 6-year-old buddy Mila, reading, dancing and riding her bike on the beach, and traveling (when she’s not farming).

She’s a truly soulful talented writer of poetry and creative non-fiction, she has 4 cats and she lives in a tiny home with her amazing life partner Mike.

I really love Talyn’s straightforward and charming approach to life, and I know you’ll love it too.

I hope you join us in our ramble through the fairytale of The Red Shoes as well as through Talyn’s relationship with her body and creativity.

Resources from this episode:

Connecting with Talyn:

Connecting with Janelle:

Reciprocity & Appreciation

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Things we chatted about in this episode:

  • the fairytale The Red Shoes
  • On being an only child
  • the surprise of realizing the fairytale was different than what she thought as a child
  • on our desires and expectations in life and how we think a ‘thing’ is going to fulfill that
  • on trying not to have expectations, especially around people, because of disappointments
  • on Westernized happy endings and how we’re not doing a real service to children and people by creating all these happy endings
  • Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ version of The Red Shoes in Women Who Run With The Wolves, and her take on the themes in the fairytale
  • on cutting self off from people and becoming more of a hermit
  • how meditation helps with everything
  • relationship with creativity
  • on things coming easily to her as a young person
  • became a creative person in her 20s – expected that it would come that easily as well – started giving up when it didn’t happen so easily right away
  • cooking feels very creative, and it comes easily to her
  • wants to start teaching people how to cook well
  • was a freelance writer for a while and discovering that 90% of her time had to be devoted to finding the next job
  • the tension between paying the bills, value, and creative projects
  • on how Mexico funds it’s arts compared to Canada
  • how the decisions we make collectively as a culture have such an impact
  • on how no one lives a culture free life, even when they say they don’t value the arts
  • how organic farming is a political act, but also a very creative act, and is as much of a hustle
  • relationship with body
  • On not having had a good relationship with her body most of her life
  • how being a larger person and having a tiny mother was hard
  • how having her father’s physical stature and being raised mostly by her mother highlighted those differences
  • became very self-conscious about being overweight, wore clothes that were too big, didn’t feel good about herself
  • how getting active and eating healthy creates a feeling of comfort in her body
  • how with aging you start accepting yourself as you are and stop buying clothes that you might one day fit into
  • on not having mirrors and surprising herself checking someone out in a store and really liking her – realizing it was herself in the mirror
  • on expectations and her body – some mornings her body doesn’t do what she wants it to do and farming is very hard work – pushes her body to extremes
  • farming has given her a deeper connection to her body – constantly checking in and having to take epsom salts and stretching and so on
  • has always counted on her body to get her around
  • how lying on the ground and soaking up the connection to the earth is so powerful (courtesy of her naturopath)
  • notices especially since starting farming, how disconnected so many people are from their bodies and the earth
  • her body doesn’t respond and bounce back in her 40s they way it has even 10 years ago
  • learns a lot about her body by watching her 70-something father push himself too far physically
  • learning how to slow down in her body