#11 David Bronner and the All-One Legacy

In spring 2018 I visited the headquarters of the Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap Company in Vista, California, where the Bronner family carries on the legacy of 5 generations of traditional soapmaking and the quirky and passionate All-One vision of Emmanuel Bronner (Dr. Bronner). You are probably familiar with their colorful liquid soap bottles covered with words exuberantly enumerating what Dr. Bronner called the Moral ABC's. The Bronner Family still uses their castillian soap product as a platform for world healing. I met with David Bronner, Emmanuel's grandson, intending to discuss the new Regenerative Organic Certification that they are championing along with Patagonia, The Rodale Institute, and quite a few other companies who are seeking to help create a more harmonious agricultural system. David also invited Mickey Norris and Chris Conrad to join our factory tour and conversation. David described Chris and Mickey as "the godfather and godmother of cannabis" because of their 30 plus years of pioneering advocacy work towards legalizing cannabis. We ended up discussing much more than just regenerative agriculture, but it all fluently flowed together in the All-One story. Legalization of psychedelics and cannabis, regenerative grazing and dietary choices, bison, beaver, David's relationship with his granddad, the history of soapmaking...you can't really draw the line between these threads, for it's All One or None! Exceptions Eternally? Absolute None! All One! All One! ---- You can visit Dr. Bronner's website at www.drbronner.com. Here's the official website for Regenerative Organic Certification: www.regenorganic.org. The silly, swaggery instrumental music used in the intro and outro this episode is instrumental clips from a recording of my song Meter Maid Betty from a few years ago at Dave Clark's (Banjo Dave's) house. Such a pleasure to play with the amazing Ross Plunkett on trumpet and the sweet, sultry sounds of Angelica Pray singing along here and there. Katie was on the flute, but I forgot her last name. Good times. I hope to play with you folks again. Here's that full recording: And again, I want to thank Peia, the angelic Songkeeper who has allowed me to use her song The Old Ways Restored for my Muse Ecology introduction. She writes beautiful Earth songs that soothe the soul and inspire courage, and she carries songs from old cultures around the world, from times when the village was intact and humans were more connected with the greater ecology around them. She has been mostly focusing recently on the music of her own Gaelic ancestry. I highly recommend her music and also performances and workshops if you can make it. You can see what she's up to at peiasong.com