What if leading with purpose meant listening closely enough to recognize where life is guiding you? Mark Porteous speaks with filmmaker, herbalist, and Pineapple Peace Garden founder Katie Kamala Haley about the unexpected paths that shaped her journey. Katie shares how intuition led her from wellness and filmmaking to creating an edible food forest and living classroom where people can reconnect with nature, grow food and medicinal plants, and build self-reliance. Her story shows the power of starting small, learning through experience, and allowing dreams to unfold differently than expected.

Katie and Mark explore the connection between nature, community, embodiment, and purposeful living through permaculture, organic gardening, local food systems, and native plants. Katie shares her approach to leading with intuition and discernment by creating space for inner guidance, fact-checking before reacting, and choosing intentional action over fear. Her message is simple: everyone can grow something, dreams take time, and the path to purpose may look very different from what we imagined.

Key Takeaways:

• Starting before you feel fully prepared creates opportunities to learn through experience.
• A garden can become a practical teacher of patience, responsibility, gratitude, and reciprocity.
• Supporting local growers can strengthen relationships and resilience within a community.
• Native plants can help create healthier ecosystems by supporting pollinators and beneficial insects.
• Purpose can evolve over time rather than arriving as one clearly defined destination.

About the Guest:

Katie Kamala Haley is a women's wellness practitioner, herbalist, author, educator, with over 25 years experience working with medicinal plants.

She is the founder of Pineapple Peace Garden, a learning garden in Central Florida, where she shares her passion for medicinal plants, organic gardening, herbal wisdom, and sustainable living. Katie is also the author of Messages from the Medicine: Mother Ayahuasca Speaks and A Diamond for India: Myths, Magic, and Medicine.

Through her global work, Katie explores the powerful relationship between people and plants, encouraging others to reconnect with nature, cultivate wellness, and discover the wisdom that grows all around us.

Connect with Katie:

Katie Haley’s Website:

http://www.PineapplePeaceGarden.org

http://www.KatieKamalaWellness.com

Books:

https://www.amazon.com/author/katiekamala1

Social media:

http://www.Instagram.com/katiekamala1

http://www.facebook.com/cosmicflower9

http://www.youtube.com/katiekamalahaley

About Me:

Hi, I’m Mark Porteous; the Soul Connector.

My stand is for ALL people to recognize themselves as Divine Beings who have chosen the human experience for a reason and to live in alignment with that knowing, so they can THRIVE in their purpose of transforming lives.

I help mission driven entrepreneurs to make their Soul Connections so that they can impact and change the world, scale their businesses to six and seven figures, and enjoy thrilling Soul Success in every arena of their lives.

Connect with me at:

https://markporteous.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/markcporteous

https://www.instagram.com/mark.porteous1/

https://www.facebook.com/markcporteous/

Take the Soulful Leadership Assessment here: https://markporteous.com/#tve-jump-184964db927

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Hello, welcome to Leading with Purpose. I'm Mark Porteous, and I'm very excited to have a conversation today with my very good friend of many years, Katie Kamala Haley, who wears many hats: filmmaker, writer, director, and world traveler, and founder of two ventures rooted in wellness and story. Through Katie Kamala Women's wellness. She supports women in their health journeys and through Pineapple Peace Garden, which I'm really excited to talk about. A nonprofit sanctuary in Miniola, Florida, not too far from where I live. She's building a living classroom where people learn to grow their own organic food and herbal medicine with over 50 species of edible and medicinal plants, including 40 tropical fruit trees, the garden is Katie's answer to a simple question: What if healing started in your own backyard? Hi, Katie. Good to see you.

Katie Kamala Haley: Hi, Mark. It's really great to see you and to be here today.

It's been a long time since we've seen each other in person, and it's really been fun. We've known each other for over 30 years-hard to believe-and it's really been fun to watch your own evolution. I think when we first met, you had a you were an esthetician. I was wrapping string in girls' hair.

Katie Kamala Haley: Yeah, we joke about how we've we've come a long way since, but some things are still the same too. You know, with what our our real purpose, I think our purpose manifests maybe differently than we thought. But we we both um you know especially about being writers, and we loved you know poetry and spirituality, and that's been like I think the thread that's gone through it, even though we've done a lot of different ventures,

yeah, I think I really became aware of my spiritual journey when I was 22, and we met when I was 25. So I feel like you were a very key component in the foundation of my my spiritual growth. So that's been really fun, and to watch you grow as one as a filmmaker, you know, I'm excited to see how that came to be because you've made several films now, and your pineapple peace garden right in our own backyard. You're getting ready to have your your fifth anniversary there already. First, looking. Let me just go back a little bit of how this evolved. How long have you had the? You said five years. Yeah. How did that first start? How did you decide to start growing an edible garden or an edible like it's a forest, really?

Katie Kamala Haley: Well, my interest in plants goes way back. So I would say of all the things I do, I mean, my biggest passion is the plants. It's something that I never tire of. I learn from every day, and I have studied as an interest. You know, well, I've been a certified herbalist. I had an aromatherapy company for 18 years, where I was going to different countries and learning from farmers and getting distilled essential oils and selling them as part of my you know healing massage practice, but when I took courses on permaculture, I didn't have any land. And then I went and I moved down to South Florida, where I was living in high-rise apartment buildings. But I got into the community garden, and I really loved that renting a plot at the community garden. And and even when I lived in Orlando, I had a small garden, but I was was more of a hobby. I didn't take it as seriously, you know. And also back then, you know, YouTube and all the information being at your fingertips really wasn't there like it is now. So I had studied it, and I didn't have any land. And then after the pandemic, when so many people's lives changed, I came up to Central Florida, where my parents have a property, and they have a little under a half an acre, and I just was looking at all the grass and the weeds, and I felt compelled to leave. It was really intuition to leave South Florida, and I saw my parents could really use my help. And I had a lot of friends, and my sister and my nieces and nephews were in the Orlando area, and I just I felt like I needed to come back, and then I had this project. I asked my dad if he would help me, and he said yes. So I built this little cottage in the garden that I'm in, and over time I built a greenhouse and yoga deck, and we developed about a quarter acre of the property, and so that's where I am now.

That's amazing developing a quarter acre because in the quarter acre again, it there's a lot there. Feels like you're in your own little paradise in that half acre backyard.

Katie Kamala Haley: Yeah, it is to me, and the the template really or the garden really serves as a template of what people can do. And what I get so excited about is so many things now are you know generic, and everyone's following the same trends, but everyone's backyard is different. Every everyone likes to eat something different. Everyone has a different sense of style, and everyone has a different budget. And I've done this on a big budget. I think that inspires people because you know we see things on Instagram like Pamela Anderson, who I I love and I follow her stuff, but she. You know her. She's got a huge garden in her backyard in Vancouver, but you know she's got a lot more money to spend on that. Or we see over the years, people have liked people like Martha Stewart. Well, she's got millions of dollars, but most of us don't. So I think I can inspire people how to do things, whether they have a lot of money or whether they have a little bit of money, and that not to let money really be the object of it, because we all need to start small and learn and grow. And people think they have to know everything before they begin, but that's the wrong philosophy. We have to begin, and then we start knowing things and building on our knowledge. And it gives you a lot of sense of accomplishment.

And you have a book that you just published. Tell us the the full name of the book and and how this relates to the work that you're doing.

Katie Kamala Haley: Oh, it definitely relates. So my book is Messages from the Medicine. Mother Ayahuasca Speaks. I think people are getting more familiar now with what ayahuasca is. When I started on the journey with the ayahuasca plant medicine from the Amazon, not too many people knew about it. There really wasn't things on YouTube about it, but I had met. Well, I had a friend who was one of my first yoga teachers, and she married a shaman down in Miami, and she invited me to come and do a ceremony. And I knew very little about it, but I trusted her, and I went, and it was a beautiful experience. And I never thought it would really be a path. Now that's lasted 17 years. So after about six years in taking the medicine, I was guided to go to Peru. I ended up doing a writing residency there in the jungle, and that was a whole new world. I took a six month sabbatical, and I I wanted to give people a glimpse of these plants that a lot of times you know we take for granted, whether it's coffee or chocolate or you know many types of healing plants that are there, and also the Amazon itself because that's the lungs of the planet. So I started out writing about the plants there, which I have another book from my two years of being in India, and that was all about the plants and kind of the culture and the the magic of the plants because they are quite magical, I believe. And then, of course, the ayahuasca is a visionary plant medicine, and it's very misunderstood. So I wanted to write a book not just about my experience because I feel like people learn best about things in a story, so it's it's my story in the beginning. But then the medicine over seven years was giving me these downloads that I was writing down. That was messages really for humanity, not just for myself. And so my story is maybe the context, but then really it relates to everybody and and what our journey is right now at this time on our planet. I wouldn't say it's prescriptive. You know, you

need to do this or you should do that, but it makes people think, and I think that's important. I think any work of art, a film, a book, a you know, it has to provoke some sort of question in us, you know. Oh, how does this relate to me? And could I, you know, could I learn from this? And and could I, you know, if I understand this, what is it going to do for me? Because you know, it has to have something in it for you to want to read it or want to watch it, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I love your journey and your sabbatical into the jungle. I remember also learning a lot about coca cow, fencing, and or the organic cacao, and we we forget that this is medicine that has been used in a very very different way, perhaps abused by the our culture, but it it came from their culture, and it can have a lot of different medicinal values that we're not even often aware of.

Katie Kamala Haley: It does. I met a cacao shaman. I never even knew such things existed. A woman who had been working with the medicine set. She was a young girl, and you know they have a different people that have not been exposed to the modern world have a completely different relationship with nature. And I saw that, and I loved that. I mean, little children that we were going on a trek in the forest, and they were talking about the trees, talking to them, and this tree told them this. And you know, it's uh, it's hard for people that have always lived in a modern culture to understand that, but the communication, you know, is is different. Whether it's a tribe in you know Africa or people in India, how they relate to the plants, and and I love that. I love working with people and understanding and learning from people that haven't been completely engulfed in the matrix, which is what we're living, right? When I think of the matrix, everything that nature didn't make came from the mind of man, and sometimes that's good, and sometimes it's not, depending on how it's integrated into the rest of the world. You know, when I came to live here on this property, you know, Claremont's known for its hills, and it's it's really beautiful. That's why a lot of people are wanting to live now the hills of Niniola. But my parents have been here 26 years. It was just a huge. Forest, and someone said to me, "Oh wow, what is that that body of lake that lake over there? And I never noticed it. I said, "That's because there used to be a forest there, and we're on the hill, and we can see, and that forest has been, you know, cut down. So I, you know, get sad about that. Florida's dealing with, I think, one of the biggest problems right now is overdevelopment, and what's happening to the environment. So you know that's that's a problem. And when the when the forest is gone and when all these trees are gone, people have really lost a connection to nature. When

everything is highways and strip malls and you know big buildings. So having a sanctuary in your backyard, you don't have to go anywhere to get close to nature again. I mean, I have so many butterflies in here. The other day, my sister was here, and she's like, "Where is that? I'm like, "It's a hummingbird. And she's like, "Yeah, she lives in Winter Park. There's hummingbirds. And well, if you feed them and if you have plants that attract them, yeah, you can have hummingbirds in your backyard, and that to me is quite magical.

Oh, it absolutely is, and the butterflies, and yeah, all the rest of it. Like I said, even the the energy of it. What do people experience when they come to your pineapple peace garden? Because you actually have like training classes, and you're going to actually have a an event for your your celebration of your five year, correct?

Katie Kamala Haley: I do, and over the years, I've been having quite a few events. You know, the events are smaller. I mean, I can have. Well, my events are smaller usually for teaching, but I did the garden. I was really proud of it. Just even a few years ago, when I wasn't as far along as I have been, the Claremont Garden Club chose my garden as part of their tour. So, kind of like when they do the celebration of homes. Well, this is like a celebration of gardens. It's their biggest event, and mine was the very first edible garden ever. It's usually they just pick you know fancy, beautiful homes that have really fancy gardens that probably have gardeners that take care of it. Or let's

talk about that for a minute because I mentioned edible garden. Like when I think of a garden, I think of my mom's garden, which is all edible. It's it's literally a garden for cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, but most people have gardens here in Florida, especially that are botanical gardens. Is that what you're saying? Like this is a, or what? What other kind of gardens are they showing in the garden show?

Katie Kamala Haley: Well, in the garden show, yeah, it's usually just really you know beautiful flowers, like more ornamental or horticulture. Whereas the well, permaculture is a whole other subject, but basically, it's a seven-layer garden, and you have to have like these big canopy trees, which I have. Let's say the mulberry tree, which grows quite big, that provides shade. Then you're going to have smaller trees, then bushes, then low-level plants, all the way to the root vegetables or ground cover, like sweet potatoes and you know ginger things like that. So I planted it in in that way with the principles of permaculture. But I have a lot of fruit trees, so fruit trees is a is a big thing for an edible garden because you plant that and then that produces a lot of other things with shade for plants to grow and on and on. But but when they chose me, I was really excited because my house. We say about the property what people would expect. It just looks like an ordinary house. But luckily, we have a corner lot, and I finally talked my dad into letting me do a food forest in the front yard. He said it took me a couple years to convince him. He said, "You're not gonna make a jungle in the front of my yard like you did the back of my yard, but he let me. It looks a little bit jungly, but not too bad. But you also had to be careful. The other big thing is if you live in a gated community, you're not really going to be able to do this. So we live on what was called Turkey Farm Road, which I'm sure had a turkey farm at one point. But in Florida, if you live in an over 55 community or a gated community-that just to me is a lot of regulation. So it's not this this property. We don't have that. We do have a homeowners association, but it's basically just simple things like don't paint your house a crazy color, don't have garbage out front. But they don't-you know-it's not gated. They don't monitor things like that. And and what I have is nice, and actually most of

it is behind a big, you know, gate anyway. But everything also had to go by the rules, like this cottage here is, you know, all permitted, and things like that, you know, through the city. But but other than that, you know, I can grow whatever I want. So when people would expect, they open up the back doors and like, wow, there's like a whole living ecosystem back here, I would have never, you know, figured on that, and that's what I want people to see. Like I said, it's a template, so I do have traditional, although organic, garden beds going. I have, you know, all the trees. I have more of like a shade garden. Then I have what grows in the sun, and when people come, especially the food forest workshops, they get a template, so they're gonna like a blueprint. They're gonna go in their backyard. Okay, where is where's east? Where is west? Where's north? Where's south? Even something that simple, a lot of people don't think about. Like I had a neighbor that wanted me to help her, and she didn't even think about that. And she said, "Well, can you come over and see what I've done? But she planted all her. Vegetables like in the shade. I'm like, well, it's not gonna grow, and she she wasn't too happy about that because she'd already done the work. But you know, you have to have certain principles. You have to know, you know, how much you know rain is falling, and you know, there's there's a lot of things. I wouldn't say it's complicated, but it's it's complex. And the fact that you have to, you know, you have to have some knowledge if you want to be successful, like any endeavor, right?

Yeah, yes. And simple instructions. You you talked about a template, and the template refers back to the permaculture. Yeah, permaculture is like you said the different layers, meaning from like high up to provide shade, down to smaller plants, down to vegetation.

Katie Kamala Haley: Yeah, that's kind of like the seven layer forest garden because we're trying. We don't have a forest, but we're trying to replicate what a forest does. And if you go in a forest, you don't see what we call a monoculture of one plant, right? You see, oh, there's pine trees, and oh, there's you know things in the bush, and there's you know things on the ground growing, and all kinds of things. So, but permaculture is a whole system for living. Think of permanent agriculture. So it's things that would be close to your home. So we could use an example that if you're going to have a garden, things that you could pick to use every day, like in your cooking or to make daily tea, you would want to have it close in. So things that are based on a parameter. So things like that would be you know close. Whereas maybe the the bigger trees and things would be more outside that take a while to grow. They're seasonal, but things that grow like I can eat something out of my garden, you know, every day. That doesn't mean I'm going to feed myself every day. Like it's whole foods. Like my mom is really cute. She'll I'll have some blueberries. Oh, are these two our garden? But it's like in December. I go no, mom. That would be you know in March or I'm sorry. Like in May and you know June, we get the blueberries. So things are seasonal. I like to teach the kids too to the appreciation, like the pineapples I have growing. I named it Pineapple Peace Garden because that's the only plant I brought with me from my apartment. I had a pineapple growing on my balcony, and a pineapple also is a symbol, you know, of of welcome for everyone. You know, it was a big symbol of hospitality a couple 100 years ago, and people could barely afford a pineapple. It was for the you know the rich, and now we just take it for granted through importing that we can have that. But it takes sometimes you know over two years to get a pineapple. One pineapple, you you appreciate the

pace of of nature. You know we're used to just ordering things on Amazon and getting it the same day. Well, you don't get a pineapple on the same day, nor do you get cherries or peaches or you know what have you, and get an appreciation for that.

And you were talking about your mom, who I adore, and thinking about her, like thinking of like Whole Foods, of just having food on demand. How useful is your garden? Like, how much sustenance do you use? Like you use to make your salads, and you also talk about medicine. Like, what are the different types of things that you grow?

Katie Kamala Haley: Okay, well, you know, when I wanted when I started this, I really wanted the concept to be, you know, people they have a you know food forest in their backyard, but I realized over time it can be overwhelming for certain people, so just that don't have land. I mean, the group I'm in, Lake County Permaculture, a lot of people have land, so we meet once a month, and you know, we talk about these bigger concepts of being sustainable. Like, you know, I'm growing things to. I have a compost to growing things to make my own fertilizer, even if someday the fertilizer was off the shelf. But for people to start small, I'm really getting into helping people, particularly women, start an apothecary garden. So that would be your herbs for cooking and your herbs for making tea, and even you know tinctures and making medicine, which I teach people how to do. And that's really fulfilling. It feels good to be able to take care of yourself and your family to know a few basic things. Or I grow trees like moringa, and if you live in Florida, you can grow moringa, which is like the miracle superfood tree, indigenous to India and in Africa. And it has every kind of nutritious, every kind of vitamin. You can you know take the leaves and the pods. You can cook the seeds, kind of like edamame, or you can powder the leaves and make it into put it in your smoothies and make capsules. And you know, people know.

I've never heard of moringa.

Katie Kamala Haley: Yeah,

oh, it's called moringa.

Katie Kamala Haley: I'm gonna have to give you some for your house. M O r i n g a. It's like a miracle tree. So you know, all kinds of things to you know to be useful and and I help people with you know well especially for Florida people that come locally you know what grows here you know to know what your growing zone is you know because some things okay I love lavender but lavender doesn't love Florida you know lavender can grow really well in California if you see lavender farms it's going to be in a different type of you know lavenders indigenous to France has very different very climate than than we have here. The soil is different. The climate is different. So to you know to know that and to know you know what your parameters are. So that's helpful.

Yeah, I know one of the the flowers that I love a lot is hibiscus, and they they. Grow very well here, but we also now live near deer, and deer love to eat hibiscus.

Katie Kamala Haley: Yeah, you're out in nature now. I love your place. Pictures I've seen. I'd like to come visit sometime. I'll bring you some plants.

Oh, that sounds good for sure. So I am curious again. The films. I'm curious how you started first making your first film, then that led into a second. It's just an interesting part of your journey, and I'm just curious how that happened.

Katie Kamala Haley: Oh, thank you. Well, you know, I talk about that in the book, and the film thing was really like a happy accident. I really just wanted to learn how to make videos for my business. I had a yoga massage studio in South Florida, and everything had really turned from you know. Remember, in the beginning of Instagram, was really just pictures. You know, it was to be artistic. You put a picture and followed other people and saw nice pictures, and then everything turned into video. Well, I'm you know from also having a background in massage, I'm a real hands-on learner. So to try to learn video editing just by a tutorial was really difficult for me. I'm like, well, I just want to find a class. I'm sure there's some class that can teach me do video editing, but when I did a search, there really wasn't. And there was, you know, Palm Beach State, which was you know now the state college used to call them a community college. And I thought, well, I can just go maybe take like a night class. I already had a college degree. I didn't want to go back to college, but as it turned out, I had to sign up for the whole college again. But what was strange was I just felt really compelled, like even like intuitively, like why am I doing this? Like this is such a hassle. Like just to go learn this, but I felt compelled, like I needed to do it. And then I get signed up for the whole thing, and it's like, oh well, now the editing class isn't till like the next semester. I'm like, you got to be Ken Rem, like a cinematography. So I ended up signing up for the cinematography program, and once I got in it, the professor who was my age, all of the students were very young, and he's like, you know, why don't you take this and take this? And I got financial aid, and I just when I got a grant, and I was like, you know what? This just seems kind of fun, something different for me. And then I found out I really had a talent for it, and I really enjoyed it. And you know, we

had to do projects, of course. So that's how the first couple of films were, you know, projects.

And then I entered them into film festivals with the the you know encouragement of my professors and I you know I I got some accolades and I said wow this is really you know interesting so yeah I I never you know it was just really a basic idea I didn't I didn't think but then I thought wow you know everyone's consuming things now video you know video and people not having the time to, you know, or the want the want to read a book. Even now, a lot of people listen to books on audio, and people like people like their content in a different way. So as far as now, it's been good because I have those skills, and I can, you know, film things in the garden, and I know how to do video editing, and I have a lot of fun with it now.

Yeah, and tell me, it's Spanish lesson. Is that the first one that started getting?

Katie Kamala Haley: That was yeah. That was on my spring break. I went to visit my friend in Colombia, who he was just Israeli friend of mine who had gotten involved with this really lovely Colombian woman, and they invited me. He invited me, and then I had never met her. And then I just was like, I took all my equipment and I said, you know, I'd really like to make a short film while I'm here. And they were all, you know, they were all good with that, and we had a great time. And it was it was awesome. It was right before the pandemic. I came back to Florida the week of the pandemic. I'm in the in the airport in Colombia. I was seeing people with masks on their face. I'm like, "What's going on? Because you know, I really didn't pay a lot of. I kind of was in my own world as far as you know, school and working with clients as a therapist, and I didn't pay a lot of attention. I didn't have a TV or anything like that, so that just kind of shifted. You know, shifted everything, of course.

And for anybody who's interested in checking out your films, do you have a special page just for that? What is your website?

Katie Kamala Haley: Oh yeah, well I do have a website, Katie Kamala Films, and I have a YouTube channel, and and it's fun. It's it's nice to support you know filmmakers and see something different. But I am putting together a documentary about the permaculture movement just here in Lake County, and now I do have someone I worked with that he's been producing a lot of short films, and I really believe that probably next year that we're going to start on that. Actually, we're going to be filming some things at the Garden in October. I have a a filmmaker he teaches, and he's a really good cinematographer, and he's going to come and do that with me. So, I I do that is a passion of mine, but I have I have a lot of passions, and now I'm really an interest, really trying to think of what is my main thing, and and that is you know promoting the garden because I feel like our our food system is really contaminated right now, for lack of a better word, and I don't think I mean it's my opinion that it's all an accident. That all of a sudden, oh, all of this is contaminated. All these blueberries are contaminated. All you know, what is going on? I mean, food is essential, right? Our food, our water, our air is essential, and it's a big importance to me. The little bit I can do, which really is forming community. That's actually just like you. This is community. I think is the most important thing right now, and to find people that we trust, and people that we can help each other, learn from each other, and in the days to come, I mean that's really going to be important. I have a friend, not to digress, but my a friend who I knew from Orlando has been living on the Big Island in Hawaii, and she's been off grid and doing some really cool things. And right now, you know, I've been seeing what she's posted about these hurricanes and things that have come, or these storms in Hawaii that have knocked a lot of things out. And you know what? There's no one really there

that's helping them out. I mean, except themselves. There's not some big FEMA that's there fixing everything. There's going to be, I mean, with things with disasters and the way the world is changing, whether people want to say it's natural climate change, it's being you know perpetrated on us by the government, whatever the the the point is the same is that no one really is going to be there to save you, but your community. That's all who you're going to be able to count on. My good friends, where I used to live in Asheville, that I go every year, and Marshall, my girlfriend, one of my best friends that lives there. I mean, it happened there just two years ago with Helene, a hurricane in Asheville. Who would have thought? And really, I mean, they did get some help, but it's mostly the community. So we really have to pull together and get off of our screens and get into our community. I mean, I love the computer too. I I'm on it quite a bit, but I also attend things at my local community, and I I'm really stress the importance of that for all of us.

Well, let's talk a little bit more about community and gardens because I love the fact that you're helping people really create sovereignty by by being able to have access to these things. But even a half acre of land, some people may not have. But the idea of having buying local-that's another important thing for many, many different reasons. Tell us a little bit about that and organic for people who may not understand. It's not about a health benefit that there's not greater nutrition as much as you're not getting toxins because you're eating organic, and when you grow your own, that's how you get organic.

Katie Kamala Haley: Absolutely, and I mean, I used to just be so distraught over the fact that we have to pay all this extra money just to not be poisoned. However, I mean, growing organically is a whole other thing, and I see how hard it is. For example, I just had some peppers, and if you grow in the summer when it's hot, there's a lot more bugs. And I wasn't on it every day, or even spraying something natural because I don't spray anything on anything here. And really, the bugs just ate it. I did get all my jalapenos, but my regular peppers, no. Or you know, when you grow this, you understand. So when I had a crop of peppers, and they were small, and I'm like, oh, like, oh, what did I do wrong? Well, someone that knows a lot more said, yeah, Katie, you're comparing this to things that grow in a hot house in California with lots of fertilizer and things that make it get you know big. And when you grow it naturally, it's not a lot of things too. When you grow naturally, like mulberries, you pick them and you have to eat them right away. They they perish very quickly. When you grow your own, you also see, wow, this is going bad. And like two days after I pick it, how can this be that things are on the shelf in the grocery store like they are? So it's a complex subject, but it's really important that we're going to have to find new ways for our food systems coming up. And you know, I don't think the GMO is the the way to go. But it's also you know difficult to grow organic, and it's just what you said. We really need to still support farmers do this because if not, we're going to be relying on a completely corporatized system to grow our food for

us, right? And I remember when Renee and I used to go to the little food market and or the little garden markets, like literally on the corner, and different farmers would bring them there. What are some of the ways that people can support their local farmer, like how do you find places to buy vegetables outside of the grocery store?

Katie Kamala Haley: Yeah, and you know, even the farmers market in Claremont, there's someone that comes out there, but they're like a broker, so they're just getting stuff and not necessarily organic, but it is local. You know, a lot of things you don't have to have that way because to me, if it's local, it's fresher. You know, you get some good wash. You can there's a lot of waste: baking soda, white vinegar, or just a little spray, which you get at the grocery store, and spray and clean your your food, and you know buy local. So you just go online, and there's all kinds of now there's different you know websites to find local, but there's something called. CSA community supported agriculture, and you pay the farmer for that season, and then you get like a box of everything. So it helps the farmer know and have an income to grow the food. So they're basically growing their food for their membership, their subscription, and that's a good way. I'm doing. I'm not providing. I'm. I'm getting it from other, you know, other people, because with my what I'm doing here, I'm not just specifically, you know, growing vegetables. I'm creating a living ecosystem and showing people, you know, how to do that. So I'm not focused on one particular thing. Like I'm. I'm not growing enough. Like people have the wrong idea. Like there was someone who said to me, "Like, oh, you know, you're feeding your whole family now. I'm like, "Well, not exactly. I mean, that's very hard to do. That's why if more people do it, we can trade. Like I just had a banana harvest, so I like 40 bananas, but I have to freeze them. I mean, not going to be able to eat 40 bananas before they they perish. But I could trade some of those bananas with some neighbors, and you know, again, that's creating community. Or people that come here usually will bring me a plan, or when I go to someone's house, I bring them something or help them grow something. So it's really that kind of idea and that kind of

practice that I see we don't have, you know, here in in our culture and how we can bring that back. Maybe you know we're never going to go back to the old days, but how? What can we do today to make things better for all of

us? I love it. One of the things I was thinking about, especially you work a lot with kids and teaching them about plants. And I remember in fifth grade, my son bringing home a Monstera deliciosa that just water two leaves, very small, and then having them water it every day and watching it grow in our kitchen until it was this giant. Now it's out on our our patio with six giant leaves, and if we put it in the ground, it would grow even more. And I just think about the importance of caring for something, about keeping something alive. We we don't have pets, and those who do have pets, the responsibility of of taking them out and cleaning up after them and everything else is important, but I think the idea of for me I enjoy just literally watering my plants, make sure they get enough sun and not too much sun. All of those things,

Katie Kamala Haley: yeah, it's a sense of wonder, you know, with the kids and a lot of people that are in the kind of field that I am, and maybe they probably work more with kids than I do. I don't work a lot with kids. I'm mostly, you know, teaching adults. Oh, and a lot of women. I mean, my other business is women too. And really, it's mostly the women that you know tend to the garden. And I'm saying guys don't do it too, but the sense of wonder and and and people always say like that kids don't know. You know, or you talk about these like school gardens, and I'd have friends that have done school gardens, and that a lot of the kids, especially like if they live in cities, have no idea that carrot grows underground. They're like, "Wow, really? And you know, just the the idea of of knowing that because they will get a different sense of the world, and and if everything becomes so completely corporatized that we lose that sacred connection with the earth, and food is a is a big, you know, a connection, and it should be a a sacred way. But when people just order food from a drive-through and eat it in their car, there's there's nothing you know sacred or you know, feeling a sense of really gratitude for it, like when you grow it and when you share it and when you sit down and make a beautiful meal.

I love that. I love that again. The whole community aspect of it and bringing people together. For anybody that's in our community, anybody in Orlando, if they want to find out more about your your fifth anniversary or anything that's happening at Pineapple Peace Garden. Where where do we learn more about?

Katie Kamala Haley: Oh, the the website pineapplepeacarden.org, and I am on you know social media. I have yeah, I post things, you know, two little quick little tutorials about you know growing things. And if if people take away anything from this, I would really hope that they would want to grow something, or even to have a few house plants. It's really sad. I did a I did a book fair at Groveland Exchange here locally, and I I mean it was like a lot of women that maybe like a dozen that said, "Oh, I can't grow anything. You know, I don't have a green thumb, and and I just, you know, politely say that's not true. That's a lie you've told yourself. You know, maybe you ignored a few house plants and they died, and you say I can't grow anything. Everyone can grow something, even if we go back a couple of, you know, generations. You know, maybe now it would have to be our, you know, grandparents. Both my grandparents on both sides had gardens, and then it kind of went away like it wasn't cool or it wasn't necessary, maybe. And that's that's not true. No one is like inept to grow something. It's just you don't make it a priority to want to. So it's it's just it's not true. So if you. Think you kill things, you know. Try again because of that. True.

And then again, the value of the the growing of the food. I mentioned sovereignty before. You were talking about like this isn't about being able to live off the land. You don't have to be able to live off of your garden. There's all kinds of medicinal values for the apothecary, as you said before. I love the apothecary garden, but even if it's just house plants, one having house plants in your house provides better oxygen, all kinds of other health benefits. But

Katie Kamala Haley: exactly, exactly, and it just makes things beautiful. You think about it. Look at even just for the sake of curb appeal, what would even a million dollar home look like if there wasn't beautiful trees and and plants? And that's another thing, you know, native plants, right? All my plants here are native, meaning a lot of people don't know this. If you go to Home Depot and you just buy some pretty flowers there that aren't native, it doesn't feed any of the beneficial insects. You won't get butterflies, just certainly not get hummingbirds, or even just the regular insects that help pollinate or make your ground more fertile. That if they're not native plants, it's not feeding any of the bees or any of the insects.

I has no idea.

Katie Kamala Haley: Me either. That's a whole new thing I learned is the natives. And there's a place I go. So when people come here too, I give them a list of all the local businesses to get you know local nurseries and things like that to get native plants from, you know, it's it's a lot. It sounds like a lot, and and the sovereignty is just to have some basic knowledge that if you had to grow some food, you know, we think that'll never happen. But I think that we we shouldn't be that, you know, have that much. So we're hubris, right? To think, oh, that'll never happen here. A lot of people have thought that and and been really shocked because if you think, well, you know, maybe like I've got rain barrels for water, I've got I've got some solar. I'm learning a little bit about everything that I'm not going to feel powerless if something happens.

That's amazing. I'm

Katie Kamala Haley: I'm working on it. I'm a work in progress, like everybody else.

But again, it's about putting focus on it. This is something that that you're passionate about, not only for yourself, but helping to educate other people about it. You've been leading in many ways over many years. The name of our podcast is "Leading with Purpose, and I'm curious, what does leading with purpose mean to you, Katie?

Katie Kamala Haley: I thought about this because I've listened to some of your podcasts that were, and to me, leading with purpose is for me personally is my intuition, and to really hone a level of discernment. And there's a lot of ways that you can go about getting to that space, but if you're very a fragmented person and you're reacting to everything instead of really being able to find that center inside yourself that has silence and quiet, this is why every culture that's a spiritual culture promotes you meditation, and it doesn't have to be like you know all in Zen in the yoga studio. But you need to find some silence within yourself, and you need to become a discerning person, because if not, your choices are not going to be good for you, and probably not good for other people too if it's not coming from that place. So I really lead with intuition and being able to discern. And nowadays, it's important to fact check, not to jump to conclusions. That we need to really become aware and aware and proactive instead of reacting. Because if we react to just everything every day, it'll be like putting out a million fires, right?

I love that. I love that you're focused on intuition and discernment.

Katie Kamala Haley: Yeah,

really, really beautiful.

Katie Kamala Haley: Never led me astray. And the other thing, this is just my process. But when I was looking at your questions, and my process too is that my yeses really come right away, and that's an intuitive. If I have to think about something too much and deliberate something too much for me, it's usually a no. So to have your own process of how you're making these choices, like you know, feeling it in the body that your body, and the other thing with the garden, it connects you more to your your body and your senses, and to nature and to getting getting these downloads from nature. So we can be more effective, and we can be more productive, but in a right way. That through productivity through calmness instead of productivity through a very frenetic kind of energy. That's important.

Absolutely, the word embodiment kept coming up, and I feel like that's something that has been a throughline for you as well. When we talk about spirituality, a lot of people talk about enlightenment and. Ah, going up, but it really is about grounding down, and like the plants with the roots, and the touching of the soil, and the being in our bodies, not just all up here.

Katie Kamala Haley: You get it, you get it, you do. Yeah, the garden will bring you so many more benefits than just you know having the food and the medicine, because the land and nature is the medicine, and you are the receiver. But you're also, if you if you care for it, and you have reverence for it, and you have appreciation for it, you're going to be in a reciprocal relationship, and that that is what's going to help us be be as healthy as possible. So it's not any one thing. It's it's everything is everything.

Yeah, it's a lot about intentionality, and and if we can be intentional about growing a plant and the the care of that, it's like self care for us as well. Is all a part of the self care, and self care actually helps to fill our cup, so we can give from the overflow.

Katie Kamala Haley: Yeah, you understand it, and that's nice to talk about that. And I'm sure people that listen to this podcast are also on that same same alignment and vibration that we're all trying to be the best we can be, but also to help other people because we're not just what's the old saying about being an island, right? You're not an island unto yourself. That we everything we do, everything we think, it's all radiating. And we're if we want the best from life, we have to give life something in return.

It's so nice that you get to share this message online, virtually, and that we can connect here. And I'm looking forward to seeing you in person and getting a physical hug.

Katie Kamala Haley: It's been too long, but

because I know this is one of the things that you talk about is community and bringing people together in in person. And so I think that's a really important piece of it. So for anybody that wants to, we'll have information below about where they can find your garden, come out and visit it in person. I'm curious for everybody that's listening today: is there any last bit of advice that you'd like to leave our listeners with?

Katie Kamala Haley: Thank you. That's a good question. I I want people to know that dreams can come in a lot of different forms. You know, I had a dream of having land and doing all the things I'm doing, but I didn't see it in this form. And I would have never thought in a million years I would be here living on my parents' property. But the fact that I'm helping them and they're helping me, like I know this is where I need to be, and I I would have never thought that. Or you know the things about the films is that I did want to tell stories, and I wanted to get certain messages out there, and I I never thought I would have that opportunity. And then it came in a different way. So hold on to your dreams, but don't be upset when they don't come in the form that you would think, and also like nature. Don't feel like it's over just because it hasn't happened yet, because things take time.

Ah, beautiful, beautiful message. Thank you so much, Katie. I appreciate that, and everybody listening. If you have any questions for Katie or comments you want to share, please share those down below. We will respond to all of your questions and comments.

Katie Kamala Haley: Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Thank you, Kitty. Namaste.

Katie Kamala Haley: Namaste.