Your Gut Mirrors the Soil: Kelsey Crane on Fertility, Permaculture, and Climate Grief

What does it mean to heal your body by healing the soil? Storyteller and permaculturist Kelsey Crane joins Vanessa for a conversation about regenerative gardening, climate grief, and the wild courage of becoming a beginner again. Kelsey Crane is a storyteller, gardener, and certified permaculturist — and an ambassador for the Rodale Institute who learns from teachers, growers, and Indigenous leaders quietly building the future. Her debut novel, The Vanishing (Book One of The Exiles trilogy), imagines a group of teenagers who break from a collapsing society to build a new one in relationship with the earth. In this conversation, Kelsey and Vanessa trace her path from unexplained infertility to permaculture school to self-published author, and talk honestly about climate anxiety, the cost of externalizing our responsibility to the earth, and what it looks like to build a life, a garden, and a story in the moments in between. WHAT WE COVER: • Kelsey’s path from unexplained infertility to permaculture and soil health • Why the fertility of your gut mirrors the fertility of soil • Writing in “stolen moments” as a mother — and working with your creative cycle instead of against it • Self-publishing The Vanishing after publishers weren’t sure where a climate-fiction (“cli-fi”) book about teenagers belonged • Climate anxiety, hopelessness, and Kelsey’s mantra: “If you wait to be an expert, it’ll be too late” • Regenerative agriculture 101 — what “regenerative” actually means, and why bare ground is broken ground • Practical, low-barrier ways to act: farmers markets, the Dirty Dozen, straw-bale and adobe building • Reclaiming food and land as an act of resistance, not just survival REFLECTION QUESTIONS: • Where in your life are you waiting to feel like an “expert” before you let yourself begin? • What’s one relationship — to your body, your food, your land — you’ve handed over to someone else’s authority? • What would it look like to bring the same care you give your creative work to the ground beneath your feet? THE VANISHING — BOOK ONE OF THE EXILES: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-Book... Goodreads:   / the-vanishing   GUEST LINKS: The Exiles Series: http://www.theexilesseries.com/ Shop: https://the-exiles-series.myshopify.c... Instagram — @artforartssake:   / artforartssake   TikTok — @thewildwriter:   / thewildwriter   Plant A Revolution on Substack: https://substack.com/@plantarevolution For educational purposes only. This isn’t therapy. If you want to go deeper, check out the written companion on Substack and explore community + training at https://www.vanessaBennett.com. Additional Resources Explore: https://vanessabennett.com/ Book: https://www.vanessabennett.com/the-mo... Community: https://www.vanessabennett.com/inner-... Training: https://www.vanessabennett.com/inner-... Connect with Inner Compass Follow on   / inner_compass_co   Connect with Vanessa Bennett: Follow on   / vanessasbennett   Follow on   / itsvanessabennett   Learn more on https://substack.com/@itsvanessabennett Connect with Vanessa Bennett on   / itsvanessabennett