Marta Mendonca – Lessons from Wisdom of the Vines
November 13, 2025
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode 64
A Thanksgiving of Appreciation: Resilience Takes Root When We Honor One Another
In this Thanksgiving episode of Resilience Gone Wild, Jessica Morgenthal explores the ancient ecological wisdom of the Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash—and how their centuries-old partnership reveals a living model of regeneration, cooperation, and shared strength. Through immersive storytelling and a powerful conversation with regenerative systems expert Rob Avis, this episode shows how appreciation circulates energy through people, communities, and ecosystems, transforming gratitude into something active, connective, and life-giving.
What if Thanksgiving is really an invitation to let our giving nourish the world that nourishes us?
What You’ll Learn
- How the Three Sisters model interdependence, ecological intelligence, generosity, mutual support, and shared abundance
- How appreciation is more active, expansive, connective, and outward-moving than gratitude
- How energy follows attention, and how what we pay attention to shapes our path
- The difference between the sphere of influence and the sphere of concern, and why it matters
- How regenerative systems allow energy to flow outward, strengthening community
- How regenerative agriculture and Indigenous farming practices reveal long-term resilience
- How sensory awareness, humility, and awe reconnect us to the living world
- How small, intentional actions create large, positive ripples across systems and generations
- How regenerative agriculture echoes the ancient teaching of giving back more than we take
Episode Overview
In this special holiday episode, Jessica guides listeners from a glowing Thanksgiving table into the quiet beauty of a November garden. There, the Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash—become teachers of partnership, reciprocity, and ecological resilience. Their intertwined lives show how appreciation keeps energy flowing through the whole system.
Jessica then speaks with Rob Avis, engineer, regenerative designer, and Co-Founder of Fifth World. Rob’s journey from the oil and gas industry to regenerative land restoration reflects the core message of this episode: appreciation is energy in motion. He shares insights about how attention shapes reality, why our sphere of influence matters more than our sphere of concern, and how regeneration begins with humility and intention.
The result is a Thanksgiving episode rooted in warmth, wisdom, and renewal—an invitation to shift from gratitude to appreciation, and to let our giving nourish the world that nourishes us.
Episode Highlights / Timestamps
[00:00] Act 1 – A Thanksgiving Table and the Meaning of Appreciation
[05:00] Act 2 – The Story of the Three Sisters: Corn, Beans, and Squash
[14:40] Act 3 – The Resilience Lesson: Gratitude vs. Appreciation
[22:00] Act 4 – Interview with Rob Avis: From Extraction to Regeneration
[22:30] Attention as Energy: The Canoe Metaphor
[24:30] Sphere of Influence vs. Sphere of Concern
[28:00] Quorum Sensing, Biodiversity, and Indigenous Farming Wisdom
[33:00] Regenerative Design and Humility
[38:00] Why Small Actions Create Expansive Ripples
[43:00] Sensory Awareness and Reconnecting with the Real World
[48:00] Enlightened Self-Interest and the Win-Win-Win
[54:00] Act 5 – Closing Narrative: Letting Appreciation Circulate
Meet the Guest: Rob Avis
Rob Avis is a regenerative systems engineer, educator, and designer. He began his career in the oil and gas industry and later shifted toward ecological restoration, resilience engineering, and land-based systems design. As Co-Founder and Chief Engineering Officer at Fifth World, Rob helps individuals and communities create regenerative water, food, land, and energy systems that give more than they take. His work blends engineering precision with ecological humility, inviting people to see regeneration as both practical and profoundly human.
Tools, Concepts, and Frameworks Mentioned
- The Three Paradigms: Extraction, Sustainability, Regeneration
- Sphere of Influence vs. Sphere of Concern
- Attention as Energy (The Canoe Metaphor)
- Quorum Sensing and Multispecies Plant Communities
- Regenerative Agriculture and Permaculture Principles
- The Three Sisters Model as Cooperation and Mutual Support
- Seven-Generation Thinking and Indigenous Ecological Knowledge
Practice: Try This Today
A few gentle ways to strengthen your appreciation muscle:
Speak appreciation aloud with specifics.
Name what you see in others that is generous, skillful, wise, or steadying.
Notice and record it.
Keep a brief note of moments when someone lifted the energy in a room or made life easier.
Re-sensitize yourself.
Step outside for two minutes. Feel the air. Listen. Touch the ground. Let awe reopen your channel for appreciation.
Slow down and name the invisible helpers.
The soil, the growers, the pollinators, the microbial worlds, and the human hands behind every meal.
You can find Jessica’s short, guided videos for these practices at ResilienceGoneWild.com and our YouTube channel. Appreciation is energy in motion. When it flows, everyone in the circle grows stronger.
Closing Insight & Call to Action
“Gratitude restores our balance. Appreciation restores the balance of the whole.”
This Thanksgiving episode is an invitation to let appreciation move through you—expansive, outward, and alive.
If this episode resonated, share it with someone who may be ready to shift from gratitude to appreciation and reconnect with the deeper rhythms of giving and receiving.
Resource Links
Learn more about Rob Avis:
https://vergepermaculture.ca/meet-our-team/
Explore Fifth World:
https://vergepermaculture.ca/
Connect with Jessica:
Jessica@resiliencegonewild.com
Listen to more episodes:
https://pod.link/J4yd77
and
ResilienceGoneWild.com
Produced by:
Balancing Life’s Issues (BLI Studios) – https://balancinglifesissues.com/podcast-bli/