Transcription of Cultivating Community #37
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland, Maine and broadcast on 1310AM Portland. Streaming live each week at 11am on WLOBRadio.com. Show summaries are available at doctorlisa.org. Download and become a podcast subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle through iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.
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Dr. Lisa: Hello. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast, Show Number 37, airing for the first time on May 27, 2012. The name of our show is Creating Community. With me creating community today is my co-host and wellness editor from Maine Magazine, Genevieve Morgan.
Genevieve: Hi Lisa, how are you today?
Dr. Lisa: I’m great. I’m very much looking forward to the guests that we are having on with us. Our first guest will be Arlin Smith who’s one of the new owners of Hugo’s, the restaurant that I think you have also been here to down here not too far away from where we’re taping our show.
Genevieve: I have. I have been there, a long time ago.
Dr. Lisa: It’s a great restaurant, so we’re very excited to have Arlin with us. Also, Paul Knoll from Trust Your Spirit and Michelle Goldman, the founder of Sea Change Cooking School. It’s a pretty great line up today.
Genevieve: I’m excited to hear what they have to say. I’m also interested in this topic because community is something that we talk about as it pertains to wellness and I don’t think that’s something that many people think of when they think of being well. They think of it as an individual pursuit. That’s something that you’ve really brought to life in your practice, this idea of the individual moving outwards into the community and how wellness spreads that way. It’s fascinating that we’re doing a show on the topic.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. Then, each have their own way … They are each in the process of creating communities in their own way. I think for me, I think of public health and preventive medicine. This is part of my Western medical background is … I have a background in Family Medicine. I have another fellowship in Preventive Medicine, but I also have a degree in Public Health. I can’t not think about health and wellness without thinking of community.
Genevieve: It’s true. I also know that from my own excursions into the wellness world, that one of the biggest predictors of success when you go on a fitness program or diet or just some lifestyle change is buddies, fellow-minded creatures who are doing it at the same time. It’s why Weight Watchers work so well.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. It’s also one of the biggest predictors of… let’s call it lack of success. There’s actually an infectiousness that they know occurs whether it’s obesity or whether it’s smoking. Even though we don’t think of them as infectious diseases, they truly are. People are more likely to smoke if they have close friends or relatives who, themselves, smoke in the same way …
Genevieve: I am a testimony to that. Can I tell you? My freshman year at Bowdoin, I was vegetarian and then I moved in with two girls and all we did was eat Domino’s Pizza. The entire year, I gained 15 pounds.
Dr. Lisa: You’re the freshman 15, but then subsequent to that?
Genevieve: I did take it off actually later on, maybe by the end of sophomore year.
Dr. Lisa: Is it because you joined a more appropriate community or your community changed in some way?
Genevieve: My community had changed. I was back at Bowdoin. In my day there was still fraternities, and I made new friends and joined a fraternity, and we had a great cook. I mean, a shout out to Vinnie Matson here because he’s in Maine. I started eating three meals a day, healthy meals and stopped snacking in between and certainly no late night Domino’s.
Dr. Lisa: Bowdoin’s a very good example of an institution that has recognized the importance of wellness and community. I’m not sure what the food was like. You were there just slightly before I was.
Genevieve: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Maybe overlapping for a year. Yup. I graduated in ’92 and Bowdoin had great food then. It has great food now. It really emphasizes the importance of local, fresh and sustainable food for their students.
Genevieve: I think it’s important to highlight that period of time because many people look back on their college years as some of the best times of their lives and part of it was because they were having a shared experience in a communal place, and going through the same things. I know for you, probably same thing. You would meet at the Union and have your tea and talk with your friends. We were all really immersed in community. It was a huge bonding experience that goes on for the rest of your life.
Dr. Lisa: That’s right. I think people, they tend to be parts of different communities whether it’s the place that they live in or whether it’s a virtual community, whether it’s community of musicians or artists or other people that they work with, we’re always creating actually what I’ve heard called before, tribes. Not Indian tribes or Native American tribes, but just tribes, groups of people that we resonate with.
Genevieve: They’re crucial to your survival, to one’s survival, I should say.
Dr. Lisa: They absolutely are. It’s interesting because the people that we have coming in today are going to talk about creating community and being parts of tribes in very interesting ways. Arlin Smith from Hugo’s is going to talk about his, what he calls the front of the house experience and also the back of the house experience. Front of the house is sort of the maitre d’ and wait staff, the people who bring the food out there and make it a great place to eat and actually make the food itself more attractive to the people who are eating it. He’ll talk about that.
Paul Knoll from Trust Your Spirit, he’s done this very interesting project out in the Pownal-Durham area where he’s bringing people on to a piece of land and encouraging them to healed by the earth.
Genevieve: I know. I read about it and he sounds incredible.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. He has a good take-off on the Ted Carter Show that we had, the landscape architect that we had come in and talk about sense of place and importance of nature in creating community.
Genevieve: I always think about what you say about the macrocosm of the microcosm.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. Yes.
Genevieve: I think he’s a great example of that.
Dr. Lisa: Absolutely. Then, Michelle Goldman from Sea Change Cooking School and she has such an interesting story. I met Michelle, she’s a friend of one of my good friends, Sarah. I knew her first because I taught a class, a cooking class that Michelle came to and she remembered this and we re-connected with Sarah and I sat down and talked with her. She’s got this interesting Harvard Northwestern MBA, very thoughtful analytical marketing, but then she also had her own personal health issues that she dealt with and she chose to start creating a community around the food that she sought to help heal herself.
Genevieve: Yeah. Restorative foods.
Dr. Lisa: Absolutely. There’s different ways that you can create community, whether it’s within your family, within the people that you go to Bowdoin with or college with, whether it’s people that you cook with or the restaurants you go to. There’s all kinds of communities or tribes that we can be a part of.
Genevieve: I hope that the listeners out here feel that they’re becoming part of our community because I know that that’s important to you and it’s important to me that we’re creating our own community over the airways.
Dr. Lisa: That’s a very good point. It is very important because I don’t think that any of us who are doing this show do it because we think of it as a performance. We think of it as building a group of like-minded individuals who all care deeply about wellness and about the wellness of our planet and our community. I hope that people do continue to listen and be a part of our world.
Dr. Lisa: Each week on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast, we feature a segment we call Wellness Innovations, which is sponsored by a very innovative place, the University of New England. This wellness innovation comes from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, April 2012. The neighborhoods in which children and adolescents live and spend their time play a role on whether or not they eat a healthy diet, get enough exercise or become obese. In the April 2012 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, they examined ways in which computer-based GIS systems can help prevent childhood obesity and might one day enhance understanding of the complex and dynamic connections between people, their health and their physical and social environments.
Rural youth get the largest proportion of their physical activity while at school. Suburban youth are most active when commuting. This findings suggest that the walk to school might be just as important to some children’s health as the physical education they receive as part of the school curriculum. It is also important given that adolescent health behaviors are predictive of behaviors in adults. For more information on this wellness innovation, visit doctorlisa.org. For more information on the University of New England, visit une.edu.
Speaker 1: This portion of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast has been brought to you by the University of New England, UNE, an innovative Health Sciences university grounded in the liberal arts. UNE is the number one educator of health professionals in Maine. Learn more about the University of New England at une.edu.
Dr. Lisa: Today on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast, we are pleased to have with us Arlin Smith, who is one of the new owners of Hugo’s Restaurant, a very well-known and loved Portland restaurant, which I ate at not too long ago, had a fabulous meal, and then soon after that learned that it was going to be changing hands. Congratulations.
Arlin: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Thanks for coming in and talking to us.
Arlin: Yes. It’s a pleasure.
Dr. Lisa: Arlin, you’re 29 years old.
Arlin: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: I mean, because I said, “Arlin, you seem young,” and you said, “Well, what’s young?” I said, “Younger than me,” and you said, “Twenty-nine.” Yup, that’s young.
Arlin: That’s a trick question.
Dr. Lisa: Yes, well, it is. Okay. I’m young at heart. Anyway, but 29 and you own a restaurant. How did this come about?
Arlin: Soon to be two restaurants, but Rob and Nancy who’ve owned Hugo’s for the last 12 years, I came on as a manager with them three years ago, right after Rob won the James Beard Award. It was like a key time. We were really busy. Busy that I didn’t really feel, I didn’t really understand how busy it was because coming from New York, I just moved here, took the job, and then working with them for a while, fell in love. I loved what they do. I loved what Rob does for his community, how we stepped up with Share our Strength. A lot of things happened while we were there and then shortly after I was there, they decided that they wanted to sell the restaurant.
They approached us, I say us as my partners now with Andrew Taylor and Mike Wiley, and we’re like, “That’s great.” He wants to take a step away and they wanted to continue doing DuckFat’s and we were going to be a part of that. Then we’re thinking about it and as time went on, I was like, “Who else better to sell it to than people who’ve been running it to continue it.”
I had no wants of having a restaurant right now. It just kind of fell in place. Then we said, “Well, let’s see if we can raise the money and do this.” That happened fairly quickly and everything just snowballed. The Rabelais space next to it, their lease was up. We cherish Rabelais, Sam and Don. They did so much for this community, so much for us, they represented so much and we feel like we’re passing that on as well because that space is something that is cherished by a lot of food people in this community. We’re opening an oyster bar in that space. Like I said earlier, two restaurants.
Genevieve: Let me just say that Rabelais was a beloved bookstore in downtown Portland for the food and slow food community really brought … Now, they’re in Biddeford.
Arlin: Yeah, they’re down in Biddeford with a huge space and they’re in love and we stay in touch.
Genevieve: Nothing’s ended, it’s just changed.
Arlin: Exactly, yeah.
Dr. Lisa: The area that your restaurant is located in has just experienced this amazing renaissance.
Arlin: Yeah. They’re calling it the food gateway now or I don’t know what it is, just because there’s so many restaurants lined up. I think the knocking down of the old Jordan’s Meat factory played a huge part of that. It was always dark and gloomy. You don’t want to go down there late night. There’s no lights down there, but now that that space has opened up and there’s brick sidewalks, it’s much more inviting.
Dr. Lisa: What it is about food that you think has such a strong impact on building community?
Arlin: It’s the basis essential of what all of us do every single day. I mean, well, hopefully all of us do, sit down with someone whether it’s just two people or a gathering of 20 to 30, everyone’s enjoying the same thing at the same time. One of the biggest things I love to do is opening up large formats of wine or beer like, just the community that that brings to the table, and a big roast, for instance. I think doing that in a community, you start learning things that are right next to you, too. Maybe that you didn’t realized were going on.
Dr. Lisa: Like what?
Arlin: For instance, having dinner with Sam and Don, just regular thing that we as friends. You could be sitting there and they’ll start telling you about, “Well, this person’s in town.”
Dr. Lisa: Sam and Don are?
Arlin: Sam and Don are the owner of Rabelais, which is now in Biddeford. They just threw that movie, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, that they hosted at Space Gallery and unless you’re connected to the social pipeline at all times or always connected to these types of happenings, you wouldn’t know it. Sitting with people that you normally won’t be sitting with and learning about all these cools things that are going on. I guess that’s an example that I could give.
Genevieve: I like that idea of shared experience being the basis of community. I think that’s very astute.
Arlin: Yeah. I think the farms have helped us do that, too. We become really close with some farmers. We deal with all farmers; some that are far away, some that are really close to us. We’ve built relationships with some that … that side of it. A lot of restaurants can be disconnected from where their food is coming from. We go to that farm. They come to us. We know they’re family. We know what’s going on in their life. That changes so much when you’re cooking it.
Genevieve: Do you still get a chance to be involved in the food? The preparation of the menus or …
Arlin: Yeah. Everyday. I mean, I’m not coming up with these dishes, I’m not going out and prepping any of this stuff with them, but we’re together everyday. We all have ideas. We all throw them off of each other. Andrew and Mike, both of their backgrounds coming together, they really balance each other out. I like what I can bring to the table. I do get out there. I see what’s happening in the city and what other restaurants are doing. Yeah. I guess that’s what I bring to the table. I wield the knife at home. I don’t do it at work.
Genevieve: You think about your customers, what would please your customers and how you can best take care of them with the ambiance of the room and the food that they’re serving, but I know that working in a restaurant can be very stressful, so how do you and your team take care of yourselves in that environment? Lot of late nights, right?
Arlin: Yeah. Definitely. That’s a tricky question. How do we take care of ourselves? I think the atmosphere that we have at Hugo’s, it opens a door to an open forum. I feel like my staff can come to me at anytime if anything is going on. It’s tight-knit, so we don’t have a lot of turn-over. I don’t have anyone working for us right now that hasn’t been there for over a year. It’s unheard of in this industry.
We’re unique. We’re small. We’re only open five days a week. We still consider it Mom & Pop, it’s not turn them and burn them. We open at 5:30. Our late nights on the weekends will go till 11 or 12. It’s not as bad as like some busier restaurants in big cities. I think just the way that it’s set up, we take care of each other and no one’s really burning out. There’s always wine involved.
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Dr. Lisa: The way that you’ve done this, you described it as turnkey.
Arlin: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: There was Rob Evans and now there’s not Rob Evans.
Arlin: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: How has that been for you?
Arlin: It doesn’t really feel like there’s no Rob Evans.
Dr. Lisa: Rob Evans is the man that got the James Beard recognition as a chef.
Arlin: Yeah. He’s done so much for this community as what we’re talking about right now. I mean, anyone looks at where this food scene has come from, Rob had so much to do with that. Rob, Sam Hayward, Larry from Back Bay Grill, these are chefs that drill themselves deep into this community. Maybe they’re not out there every single day, but they’re creating something that is richer than just a business.
That’s what Rob did for us. I mean, we bought Hugo’s. We didn’t buy tables, chairs, ovens because if you look at some of that stuff, you wouldn’t want to be purchasing it for what we did, but it was bigger than that. It’s the whole, the atmosphere that’s been created, the location, and the brand of Hugo’s. That’s what Rob really wants. Rob and Nancy both wanted to sell that and pay it forward. It’s not gone. It’s just moving on.
Dr. Lisa: They’re now across the street with DuckFat.
Arlin: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: They even physically are still present.
Arlin: Yeah. We’re close.
Dr. Lisa: You’re opening a second restaurant in the Rabelais space, why did you decide to go with an oyster bar theme?
Arlin: I would like to say that that space is the main reason why we wanted to purchase Hugo’s because we do Hugo’s every single day. With Andrew and I have been at the helm for a while, we can do it. We know that we can keep it moving forward. Do we want to commit our lives to or 15, 20 years to doing the same thing every day or slowly changing it? When that space opened up, we realized, “We could do this.” Keep this moving forward and then do something that’s completely ours, but still looking at what Portland needs. An oyster bar, I think, is what Portland needs.
I mean, when you really look at it, I’m not going take anything away from Jay’s Oyster. They’re a staple in this town. They are above an oyster bar in every sense of what they bring to the community is this down home, blue-collared bar where you see office people and fishermen alike hanging out, having a blast. We want to bring something that’s more food-driven. The relationships that we have with oyster farmers, the farmers themselves, we’re going to bring that into the oyster bar. We’re calling it EvenTide Oyster Company, company meaning that it’s not just going to be a bar with oysters, it’s going to be so much more and tight-knit.
Dr. Lisa: In addition to opening, so you bought Hugo’s, you’re opening another restaurant, but you’re also involved in organizations that are helping feed people in a very different way.
Arlin: Yes. Share Our Strength is a big one. Having been that connected to Share our Strength lately, which I think people can understand why, I’m just trying to get my feet on the ground, but working with John Woods the last 2 years and Rob Evans and Sam Hayward, we threw a dinner last year that was a start of a dining series, which is a break-of of the actual SOS events like the big one that we see every year, like the Taste of the Nation.
This a way of bringing money for that with smaller groups. We threw a dinner at Hugo’s where Rob and Sam cooked, and we auctioned off them for dinner. I think at the end of it, we raised 55 grand in one night. That was huge. That really was an eye-opener to what we could bring especially for feeding children.
Genevieve: You’re bringing a lot of people into Hugo’s and into this new restaurant, but you also go out into the community to do many different things, what are some of the events coming up?
Arlin: In September, we’re doing an event with Outstanding in the Field, I believe that’s the website name as well. They travel the world, mostly America, but they have gone over to Europe and they put together dinners that are in the field in huge tables. They have this designer, sculptor that actually sculpts all these tables in different ways to fit in the field whether it’s really long or spiral, where they put them in barns, and they highlight a chef and a farm.
It’s that direct connection. We talked about farm to table. That’s really exactly what it is. You’re in the field, they give you a kitchen like a kitchen on a trailer, they pull that up, they give you … They set up all the parking and they organize all these. It’s like a concert thing. This is the way I’ve been seeing it. They asked us if we wanted to do it and we’re thrilled.
Genevieve: You pair up with a farmer and you cook a meal in the field? Okay.
Arlin: We’re doing it at Green Spark Farm.
Dr. Lisa: Where is that?
Arlin: Cape Elizabeth.
Dr. Lisa: You’re also involved in the Kennebunkport Festival?
Arlin: Yes. Hugo’s was already involved with that. Rob is doing a dinner at the beginning of the week of that whole line of dinners that they have set up. As soon at Kevin Thomas found out that we were buying the place, he had an opening at the end of the week and he approached us. We graciously accepted and we’re happy to be a part of it.
Dr. Lisa: Kevin Thomas is the publisher of Maine Magazine, Maine Home+Design, and he’s the one who’s organizing the Kennebunkport Festival, which is happening the first week in June.
Arlin: Yes.
Genevieve: Arlin, you clearly have a lot going on and you’ve been very brave and bold and taking on this new restaurant, taking over Hugo’s. If you could go back and tell your 10-year old self something, what would it be?
Arlin: I don’t think that I would change anything because I feel like I am who I am because of who I was then, but I think one of the things that has helped me get to where I am right now is being passionate about whatever I am doing and being able to work well with people. I think that’s what took me away from being in the kitchen. Going to school to be a chef is very closed-off and I was able to step away from that and open into the front of the house, as we call it, which is the dining room. That is a skill that I try to hone every day. I learn from other people, Danny Meyer included, who is a great restaurateur in New York, just has a great way of bringing the emotion side to something instead of just the technical side.
Genevieve: When is your oyster bar going to open?
Arlin: Hopefully June. We need to take advantage of our tourist season.
Genevieve: How can people find out when they can attend, when Hugo’s is open, what your events are going to be?
Arlin: Hugo’s is open Tuesday through Saturday for dinner. We recommend reservations but you can stop in. Weekends, I don’t recommend doing that. We’re going to open Hugo’s up one more day, as soon as we get grounded. We’re thinking Mondays. That’s another step that we’ve taken so that we’re reaching out to the community.
We have an industry, a food industry here, a lot of them are closed Sundays and Mondays, and we’re a party of that. Anyone who is off those days, you’re limited to where you can go. I think by opening that door, we’re going to see a lot more of the people who are in our industry, so reaching out. Definitely have some specials happening for that. EvenTide is going to be open seven days a week, all day long, late night. Yeah, plenty of eating and drinking going on.
Dr. Lisa: Do you have a website?
Arlin: Hugo’s has a website right now. We are working with our brand designer right now for Even Tide. That’s all in the works.
Dr. Lisa: Tell us what your website is for Hugo’s?
Arlin: Hugos.net.
Dr. Lisa: Do you also have a Facebook presence?
Arlin: Yeah, definitely Facebook, that’s getting bigger for us. We’re realizing that social media is huge. People are taking pictures at the bar and it’s crazy.
Dr. Lisa: I’m feeling energized just sitting here talking to you. I can’t wait to go back to Hugo’s and have another great meal, like the one that I had recently. I’m sure Genevieve feels the same. Thank you for coming in and talking to us about all of the work that you’ve been doing to create community in so many different ways with Hugo’s right here in Portland and we hope you’ll come join us again in the future.
Arlin: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
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Dr. Lisa: Today’s show is all about creating community, which we’re doing in various ways with various guests that are coming in to speak with us. Our two other guests are going to talk about creating a community with regard to a food theme. Paul Knoll is here. He is the founder of Trust Your Spirit and he is in the process of creating a very different community, which is centered around the idea of space, and specifically outside space. Not outer space, but outside space. Hi, Paul. Good to have you here today.
Paul: I’m very humbled to be here. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Lisa: Paul, Trust Your Spirit … I know a little bit about you. I know that this was an important piece of a significant change you made in your life; you had to trust in your own spirit. Now, you’re trying to get people to connect back to their own spirits and you’re trying to connect a community out in the Pownal-Durham area?
Paul: Right. The property is right on the Durham-Pownal line.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me a little bit about what you’re doing out there? That’s near at Bradbury Mountain for people who are Mainers and go and out about and like to do some hiking, right?
Paul: Yeah, about three miles from Bradbury Mountain.
Dr. Lisa: You’re initially from Yarmouth, which is how I met you. You were going through a life-changing thing, which we’ll talk about in a minute. What are doing out there on this Durham-Pownal line?
Paul: That’s a really good question. The best summary is for the last 10 years of being on somewhat of a spiritual quest, many of the folks that have been healers for me and guides for me, working the holistic and alternative field. Along the way, I got involved in dowsing, which is using tools to assess unseen energy on lands. As I got involved in that, I realized that there’s a lot more to this.
I became very sensitive to many things that are unseen and realizing that Western civilization has really allowed us or told us to shut down our intuition and because of what happened 10 years ago for me, I’ve really come full circle back to the intuition I was born with. So Trust Your Spirit is really different ways of saying, learning to trust your intuition and live by what’s in your heart and by what your intuition knows is best for you.
What I’m doing is where I’m at is I feel I’m just a steward of this land, even though I have to pay the tax bills and the property taxes and all that. I just feel that I’m a steward out there and I’ve been led there by my spirit guides through my shaman training, through my background, to take the seven acres where I live and allow people to share in that seven acres and to come visit it as they want to and walk the different, sacred spaces that are there for whatever kind of healing and meditation that they may need.
I think it would be ideal to just build all this and say, “Calm now. It’s built.” I’m doing something a little bit different. I’m asking people that may want to be involved in the building to come help build this. It’s really a community effort. Even though the name of the land is under my name, I don’t really see it that way. I see this as community land and I’m just a steward, which is a really a reflection of my respect for how the natives lived here.
Dr. Lisa: Are you willing to tell us what happened to you 10 years ago? Because I think it’s a significant twist of fate that brought you to what you’re doing.
Paul: Sure. I was an administrator in a middle school in South Portland. First, I’m assistant principal and then a principal. For the last couple of years in that school, we had a pretty significant mold issue. At that time, when I was the assistant principal, I was in charge of the effort to find out where the mold was that was making people sick and documenting all of the different situations involved in the mold. Filing workman comp paperwork for all the different staff members who were getting sick.
One of the things unfortunately I did in hindsight was I would actually go look for the mold and I would literally sniff the carpet and climb into different crawl spaces; in the insulation and the books. Basically, what I was doing was ingesting the mold. I was a very healthy person prior to this, but it really compromised my immune system. I was also diagnosed with a head injury, toxic encephalitis or brain poisoning from the mold.
I did about three months of speech therapy and occupational therapy because I really had a hard time talking, I would not remember what I was doing, I had a hard time going for walks because I could get lost in my own neighborhood and I also spent about a year in counseling around this. Unfortunately, I really turned my world upside-down initially and I spent a few years trying to crawl out from under this, but the benefit to all this is it reawakened all the intuitive gifts I had as a child that I learned to quiet over time. I really think I started to quiet those gifts in my mid-20s once I got done at grad school and I started buying into the American way of life, instead of really listening to what was in my heart.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve gone from being an administrator in a place that poisoned you, so it was a dangerous and a toxic place, to now living in a place that’s nurturing you and you believe this is going to nurture other people who are going to be drawn there to help you build this community?
Paul: Yeah. I think that when you really think about it, at least when I think about it, earth is what sustains us. It’s what we’re on right now. It’s the land, it’s the animals, it’s the plants that sustain us, and we’ve lost sight of that. In fact, we’ve gone into the opposite and we’ve started to destroy a lot of this. Just in a small way, trying to be a part of an effort that many of us are involved in, and that’s reconnecting with the earth that does sustain us. I do believe that if we help heal the earth, it will also help heal us.
Dr. Lisa: Paul, can you tell us a little bit more about Trust Your Spirit, the idea of trusting your instinct? Is that the same as trusting your gut?
Paul: That’s a good question. The words that I use are, “Your heart.” One of my favorite movies is called “I Am.” It’s about a director of some really well-known movies, including the Ace Ventura Pet Detective series. He was living on top of the world, he had a 7,000 square foot mansion and he had a head injury and he almost died from it. As part of his healing, he realized he wasn’t living life the right way.
He sold all of his belongings and he moved into a very modest home and just changed his whole lifestyle and traveled for two years to interview these different religious and spiritual leaders in the world. A couple of his main messages are that he could show, as if we’re all connected by heart. Our hearts are what connect all of us.
It’s not much about trusting your gut, because to me that reflects your stomach. It’s really about trusting in your heart because that is what unites all of us and that’s what unites us to the earth. If we actually pause every day, even five minutes every day, to figure out and listen to what’s in your heart, and if you do what you’re really passionate about, then I think that’s what brings us joy and fulfillment in our lives.
Speaker 1: We’ll return to our interview after acknowledging the following generous sponsors: Akari, an urban sanctuary of beauty, wellness and style located on Middle Street in Portland, Maine’s Old Port. Follow them on Facebook and learn more about their new boutique and medi-spa at akaribeauty.com; and by Dr. John Herzog, of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine; makers of Dr. John’s Brain-ola cereal. Find them on the web at orthopedicspecialistsme.com.
Dr. Lisa: How is your space going to help them learn more about what you’re saying, to trust their heart? I mean, for those people out there that are just going along doing their jobs and they come to your space, what do you hope happens there?
Paul: I don’t know if this a good time to jump in here on this piece, but let me just say that, I’m using the word “I” a lot but it’s really not about me. It’s about the messages that I feel that come being given through my spirit guides and I journey daily through my shamanic practices. I just feel that these are messages are coming through me.
Some of the messages that have emerged over the last couple of months, that there are many sacred spots in the land and they reflect different aspects of our life. Maybe if you’re dealing with a lot of grief, you can go stand or meditate where there’s a granite ledge, and the granite can absorb that grief. Or maybe you’re looking for strength and there’s all these oak trees, so you go grab an oak tree. We’ll have signs to tell you what that oak tree can bring to you. We actually will have an example of what a meditation is around that oak tree and what it can bring to you in your life. We have all these different types of trees. It’s actually very interesting on just seven acres, the different variety of trees are there.
Dr. Lisa: You’re saying you actually can go to your space with just a feeling; you’re upset, you’re sad, you’re anxious? It doesn’t really have to be any kind of calling, it’s just a feeling.
Paul: Right, right. The encouragement is to just take time to just be. That’s, I think, an answer to a lot of what we’re dealing with, is just to take time. Whether it’s on the seven acres or in your home through meditation or yoga or a walk, it’s just taking the time to listen to what’s inside your heart and what is it that your heart is seeking.
Dr. Lisa: I love this idea of living your passion, trusting your spirit and trusting your heart. I don’t think it’s an idea that’s necessarily embraced by many people in our culture. What have you encountered as you’ve attempted to create this community out where you live?
Paul: I can get emotional on this one. A lot of aloneness, some of which I’ve created through my own mistakes, not really listening to my intuition all the time. A friend of mine, he’s a gentleman that’s going to teach a workshop in May on my land about communicating with trees, and he sent me a poster. Hanging out with all the sheep, where you have company can be a little boring. Being a wolf and standing alone and daring to be different can be lonely. The biggest feeling that I struggle with and I have for the last few months is really feeling vulnerable with this.
On my website, a friend of mine sent me a 20-minute video, Ted Talk by Brene Brown and it was about vulnerability. It was spot on because vulnerability is about sharing what’s in your heart and it’s about being willing to share that with other people. Again, the heart is what ties us all together. If you’re willing to share what’s in your heart, then what can be wrong with that? I feel vulnerable, I feel alone sometimes but I also know that there’s a lot of support in this.
I’ve got colleagues that are teaching the workshops in May. I’m teaching one and there’s other people that want to do some work out there. When I can get the basement done, someone wants to start teaching Tai Chi out there. There’s people willing to come and I’m just waiting for that, I guess.
Dr. Lisa: It’s open for anyone to come help you, correct? People listening today, they could …
Paul: Right. The workdays are open to anybody. The workshops are open but it’s registration through Leapin’ Lizards, who’s co-marketing this with me. I teach classes at Leapin’ Lizards out of Freeport. I teach classes on dowsing. This is a little bit different than that.
Dr. Lisa: Tell us about dowsing?
Paul: A dowsing is another way to connect with your intuition, but you’re using a tool, the dowsing rods, to assess the unseen energies that are on land. That’s a hobby I had I started eight years ago, because someone came to my house to do some dowsing. I look for energy lays, water veins, portals or vortexes, power centers and other unseen energies that can be influencing your health. Many of us are sensitive to that unseen energy. If your bed is right over an energy layer or water vein, you might want to know that and that could be impacting your sleep.
Dr. Lisa: After your illness, did you begin to sense energy differently?
Paul: Yeah, I did. Every day, every minute, I feel things differently. I see things differently. I hear things differently.
Dr. Lisa: Yet you also described the fact that you were very sensitive for a long time when you were a child, and that it’s almost as if you just went underground, like water underground, then it’s reemerged since you had this epiphany or this illness.
Paul: Right, yeah.
Dr. Lisa: It’s always been with you.
Paul: I think we’re all born with this gift of intuition. I think Western civilization unfortunately does a good job of encouraging many of us to shut it down and not live with it. I do think I’m very excited about the new generation. My children are extremely gifted. Many children have these gifts and it’s really exciting to see them start to fight for the earth and start to fight for what they believe in and not buying into a lot of the ego that’s making the decisions out there.
Dr. Lisa: Are your children helping you with this project?
Paul: They’re helping with the animal piece and they’re helping with the name. I had an animal totem workshop out on my land a couple of weeks ago for children, and they came and they’re encouraging, they’re supportive.
Dr. Lisa: When this is all finished, what would it look like?
Paul: I don’t know, because it’s a process. I think it’s really important not to make it my image but the image that people help co-create the whole thing, community. That’s a co-creation. Again, my job is just to be a facilitator and a steward and to bring in the people I think can help and to invite people that want to help, and allow them to create the vision that they think is appropriate for the space. Of course, I want to have some input there because it’s my home, too.
We don’t want the labyrinths right outside my bedroom window or the Sacred Gardens want to be in a certain place relative to the kitchen, maybe, but on the other hand, maybe not. It’s decisions like that that I want to have some say in but it’s really about co-creating with the other people that show up and also with the spirit of the land and being led by the spirit and whatever they communicate when they do the journey and when we do the journey.
Dr. Lisa: How can people find you and help you create this physical and non-physical community?
Paul: The best thing to do is to go to the website, which is trustyourspirit.org, not .com but .org. Someone already took the .com once.
Dr. Lisa: It’s good that lots of people are trying to trust their spirits, right?
Paul: Right, exactly.
Dr. Lisa: Trustyourspirit.org.
Paul: There, you’ll find some different pages. One is about the farm itself and the vision for the farm. There’s directions of course. Then there’s information about the different classes that I offer either on the land or through Leapin’ Lizards or different organizations that I present for. There’s registration information for the workshops if people want to come to the workshops.
What’s different about the workshops, and I think I’ve said this before, but I could have you show up and say, “Here’s a labyrinth. Now, go build one.” It’s different. It’s going to be, “Where do you think the labyrinth should go? What do you think should be in it?” We have a teacher that’s going to guide that process and help people check in with their intuition and their spirit, and everyone gets a little input there so that they learn hands on. Then they can go back to their home or their office or to the beach or to a mountain and create either a temporary labyrinth or something permanent on their home.
Dr. Lisa: You hope that people will create a community, create a space, and then continue to go out and create community and create space when they leave?
Paul: Exactly. I feel that’s why I was led to this land. That’s the biggest thing my girls have done. I was a little resident with this land because it was really pushing things for me in terms of my financial resources. It was actually beyond where I wanted to go and I think I had the top three houses or four houses on my realtor, Tammy, who’s the one teaching the labyrinth workshop. We took the girls to the different houses and when we showed up in this land, they’re like, “This is it, dad.” I go, “But the carpets, look at the carpets.” They’re like, “Dad, you can get rid of that. You can do this, you can do that.” They’re the ones, along with Tammy and the spirit guides that led me there.
Dr. Lisa: We wish you all the best and we know that you’ve already started to create a community, you’ve become part of our community. We really appreciate you coming in and speaking with us today.
Paul: Again, I’m very thankful and appreciative for you having me on the show. I think the work you’re doing is wonderful as well. Thank you for allowing me to be part of your community.
Speaker 1: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home. With RE/MAX Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at rheritage.com; and Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, with offices in Yarmouth, Maine. The Shepard Financial Team is there to help you evolve with your money. For more information on Shepard Financial’s refreshing perspective on investing, please email [email protected].
Dr. Lisa: Today, as part of our Creating Community Show, we are speaking with Michelle Goldman, who is in the process of, and has been for a few months, creating a very unique and interesting community here in the State of Maine. Thanks for coming in, Michelle.
Michelle: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Lisa: I have with me, Genevieve Morgan, who’s very interesting in what you’re doing because she is the Wellness Editor for Maine Magazine.
Genevieve: I am. I’m interested to know that you got started with this after a chronic illness.
Michelle: Yes. Actually, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2004, and it was something that I kept very private for a long time because I was afraid it would be detrimental to my health, and it was. I had to take steroids and a series of medications, and I consulted many doctors. I really was concerned about their advice because they wanted me to take pretty severe medications and I was concerned about my fertility and health of my unborn children.
I started to research what I could do myself to improve my own health condition and I found that nutrition really had a pretty big impact on how I felt and on my condition. Through nutrition, I was able to reduce my medication and feel better and really improve my quality of life. I wanted to bring that kind of information to other people.
Dr. Lisa: Which is interesting because you have an alter ego. Tell us where you graduated from, because you it’s sort’ve an esteemed institution.
Michelle: I do have an alter ego. I graduated from Northwestern and I have an MBA from Harvard. The very interesting thing for me is that coming from that background, it was always a very scientific and a very critically-oriented background. The idea of bringing in a healing tradition, where you listen to your intuition and understand how people feel has been a very different experience.
I’ve also attended the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City and studied with Annmarie Colbin and I worked with more healers and chefs who come from a very different perspective. It’s actually been really refreshing and enlightening for me to see a whole different world.
Dr. Lisa: You also worked at Unum?
Michelle: Yes, I’ve worked there for a while. I worked in marketing. This has really allowed me to pursue an interest that’s close to my heart and to use the skills and knowledge that I’ve gained through the business world.
Dr. Lisa: Where do you do your Sea Change Cooking School? Because you are creating a community but it’s a virtual community.
Michelle: Yes. In many ways, we want to meet people where they are and we want to see different audiences and be really available. We teach private and public classes. We hold tastings and events in different locations around the Casco Bay region. We are in the Danforth Inn, we have classes at SMCC, Southern Maine Community College. We’re also at Cellar Door Vineyard. We have a wide array of options for people to attend our classes and tastings.
Genevieve: People who come in and attend the tastings, do they leave with recipes or what does it look like?
Michelle: We’ve tried many different kinds of events in order to understand how we can help people. The tastings are actually an interesting way to come in and taste what does Vegan Latin food taste like, what does a Paleo Diet taste like. We really give people exposure without needing to make an engagement. You can come in for a brief time, have a tasting, understand how we prepared the food, leave with the recipes and really get a sense for, “What would this food be like if I took a class or a more detailed series?” Then you can come in also for a class and you can do a hands on. You actually prepare your own food. We of course help you. You also leave with recipes, but you get more that hands on instruction and coaching.
Dr. Lisa: Paleo Diet, can you define that for me?
Michelle: I’m always a student of new diets, because I find that very interesting myself and I’ve tried many of them. One of the ones I’ve been really interested in is the Paleo Diet, which really has come about, as people examine what made people healthy when they were hunter-gatherers of course, many generations ago, 333 generations ago.
Really, what has changed and what have we introduced to our environment that really may not have belonged in our environment? When you look back at the hunter-gatherer population, those people were actually very healthy. People have been looking at how they ate to try to understand how can we bring that back into our diet. It’s really a matter of fresh seafood, fresh, locally raised, humanely raised meats and lots of vegetables and fruit. That’s really the basis for that diet.
Genevieve: Let’s talk about how you meet people where they’re at. Even in this one room, John, our audio engineer, is a meat eater. Lisa is not a meat eater, I’m somewhere in between. There are three of us just in one small room. If we come to one of your classes, what would you do for us?
Michelle: I think it’s a great question, and that’s actually one of the ways that I’ve discovered different diets, is being in a class of chefs, I will notice that many different holistic nutrition-oriented chefs eat very different diets. Someone will come in and say, “I eat the Paleo Diet.” I’ll say, “What’s that?” They’ll explain to me what they do it. Someone else will come in and say, “I’m very Ayurvedically oriented. That’s my diet.”
By learning from different people and they’re experience, I think we can take different pieces that benefit us. We often have this experience when someone comes in to our class and says, “I eat gluten-free.” At the Vegan Latin tasting, we had a sampling of foods that are gluten-free. We had other foods that were not gluten-free. We just let people know, “This is how the sampling and tasting is set up, and these are some of the benefits of eating gluten-free. You don’t need to but see how you feel. You might want to try it.”
That’s how we’ve worked to people’s different tastes. Because when you use dogma and you say you have to eat a certain way, it’s very hard for someone to persists with that unless they feel good. The real question is, “Do you feel good?” If you feel good, then it’s working for you.
Dr. Lisa: What types of events do you have coming up that people might be interested in? The show is airing in May and do you have things going on in May and throughout the summer?
Michelle: We’re really excited about our spring line up. One of the things that we’re really trying to do is collaborate with many experts, because what I find is there are many people who have different perspectives on food and I’m always interested in bringing them to our community. In May, we actually have a Mediterranean series coming up with a friend of mine named Chinzio Roscazo. So Chinzio Roscazo has a cooking school in Puglia, Italy and that’s focused on the Mediterranean lifestyle. We’re really excited to bring her here.
We’ll be at a series of locations including Cellar Door Vineyard, SMCC and we’ll also be having some private events as well. Then through the summer, we’ll be having a Farm to Table Series, so really helping people to get ready to use their farm share. How do you use daikon and what do you do with it. You don’t want those things to go bad in the back of your fridge. You can actually enjoy them. We’re going to have a series at SMCC to help people every month with here’s what’s coming in your harvest and how do you use it.
Dr. Lisa: For those who are listening who don’t know what daikon is, it is an enormous, typically enormous white radish that is used a lot in Asian cooking. Yes, I actually prescribe it to my patients a lot but it is puzzling sometimes as to exactly how to use it.
Genevieve: What does it do?
Dr. Lisa: It’s somewhat pungent and it’s radish and I use it … I “prescribe it” for phlegm-iness, people who have sinus-y things, people who need to clear congestion and it’s a very healing food. Radish is very healing.
Michelle: Yes. You can slice it thin and put it in salads and use them stir fries, as you said. It does look scary when it shows up and it’s almost like horse radish. I mean, you don’t need a lot of it but it comes in a large quantity.
Dr. Lisa: It also has a very interesting smell. When you cook it or when you reheat it, not everybody is cottons in that.
Michelle: Right. It’s like cilantro, one of my favorite foods but as someone said to me, it might be soap. You have to acquire a taste. The thing about your farm shares, it shows up and you should try it. If you don’t like it, it’s okay. It’s sad to see 80% of your farm share go to the back of your fridge because you’re thinking, “What do I do with that?” That’s the fun of a farm share. It introduces you to new things.
Genevieve: I really like this idea of thinking about how food makes you feel. Try something and if you feel good after it, go with that. If you don’t, put it away.
Michelle: Exactly.
Dr. Lisa: I like the idea of coming back to the hunter-gatherer stage that we once were in. Instead of going to the grocery store and having the grocery stores tell us what we should be eating, instead, we see what’s locally grown, what’s locally available at different times of the year. Even in Maine, there’s a lot of things going on from an agricultural standpoint so I really appreciate the work that you’re doing in that area.
Michelle: Thank you. I think it really simplifies things. You don’t need manual. You just need to think instinctively.
Dr. Lisa: Anything else? Any words of wisdom that you might offer to people who are listening today, Michelle?
Michelle: I think if you’re not feeling great or if you’re feeling mediocre, I think it’s just introducing the idea that there’s a whole opportunity out there to really experience the options. There are many ways to eat and many of them can really help you feel good. I think it’s just a matter of taking that step to understand how could I feel better and don’t accept feeling mediocre. You should feel great and we should empower people to have a good life.
Dr. Lisa: Michelle, thank you for helping create this community around food and thank you for talking with us today.
Michelle: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Lisa: You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, Show Number 37. Airing for the first time on May 27th, 2012. The show’s title and theme was Creating Community. As part of our show, we visited Arlin Smith, one of the new owners of Hugo’s Restaurant; Paul Knoll of Trust Your Spirit and Michelle Goldman of the Sea Change Cooking School; each of whom described the ways in which they are creating community in their worlds.
As we mentioned in our Deep Dish earlier today, Genevieve Morgan and I believe strongly that what we are doing with the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is indeed creating a community. We know that you as a listener are part of our community and indeed part of our world. We hope that you will continue to listen to our shows weekly on WLOB Radio at 11:00 on Sundays. We also hope that you will listen to our podcast, become a subscriber, like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page and let us know how you think we’re doing. As part of our community, your viewpoints are very important to us.
We thank you so much for joining us every week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for being a part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at RE/MAX Heritage, Robin Hodgskin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, BOOTH, UNE, the University of New England, and Akari.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour & Podcast is recorded in downtown Portland at the Offices of Maine Magazine on 75 Market Street. It is produced by Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Editorial content produced by Genevieve Morgan. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our assistant producer is Jane Pate. For more information on our hosts, production team, Maine Magazine or any of the guests featured here today, visit us at doctorlisa.org and tune in every Sunday at 11am for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour on WLOB Portland, Maine 1310 AM or streaming wlobradio.com. Show summaries are available at doctorlisa.org. Download and become a podcast subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle through iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.