Evan Marks' Five Rules for an Abundant Life

"All of it is inviting participation. Participation in the magic around us.” - Evan Marks If you haven’t already, please make sure to subscribe and give Five Rules for the Good Life on Spotify & Apple Podcasts. Evan Marks Evan Marks, founder and executive director of The Ecology Center, joins me to share his Five Rules for an Abundant Life. We talk about finding gratitude in the miraculous, growing your own food, taking nourishment seriously, making things with your hands, and sharing whatever you have in surplus. Together, his rules offer a thoughtful invitation to reconnect with nature, contribute to your community, and build a richer life by becoming an active participant in it. What Evan and his community have built in San Juan Capistrano is more than a regenerative organic farm. It is a living example of what becomes possible when people come together around food, nature, and a shared sense of purpose. The Ecology Center reminds us that life is not something we are meant to simply observe or consume. We have to participate—to plant something, make something, share something, and give a little of ourselves to the world around us. The more we take part in life, the more abundant it becomes. Introduction Hello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with Evan Marks, the founder and executive director of The Ecology Center, a truly awe-inspiring, regenerative, organic farm, cafe, and education center located in Southern California. He’s here to share his five rules for an abundant life. He talks about the importance of participating, that making something yourself leads to a much richer life, and that the more you share with others, the more the world shares with you. This conversation offers incredible insights on a different approach to living and how, by redefining your relationship with nature, you will be able to live a much richer life. So let’s get into the rules here on HRN. The Ecology Center Evan, so nice to meet you. I’m so excited to be talking to you today about The Ecology Center. You’ve built such a beautiful space. Welcome to the show. Thank you, brother. Honored to be here. For those who might be unfamiliar with The Ecology Center, truly a unique place, can you explain its mission and its approach to food? Its mission is to shift culture. How we’ve done that so far is we’ve built an environment, an ecotopia. It’s a 28-acre ecosystem that inspires us to think and be in a different state, and that connects back to food, reminding people of the basic tenets of knowing where your food comes from and being deeply nourished, mind-body-spirit, in those endeavors of food or otherwise. As the founder, how did you take your life studies and adventures and turn it into something tangible? The Sum of a Life I like to say that we’re just all individually a sum of the parts that we’ve been paying attention to. I guess I was lucky to have good mentors, and I attuned my awareness to mostly traditional people, Indigenous cultures, and tropical environments. I just became fascinated with how humans have lived on this planet for centuries in harmony. That’s really been the design challenge: How do we take those pieces of civilization and culture and integrate them into the present and future tenets in a place unlikely like Orange County? The Principle of Participation There are a lot of tenets that make up what you’ve put together. One of the ones that really stuck out to me was this fundamental principle of participation. How do you weave this through the Center’s farm, garden, cafe, and all of its endeavors? We’re a village, so we’ve got a lot of different expressions. All of it is inviting participation. Participation in the magic around us. Participation in our food system. Participation in the joy of being on this beautiful planet. We do that through a whole myriad of programs, from farm dinners to music festivals, to yoga classes, to field trips, to cooking classes, to shopping at the cafe and eating in the farm stand. It’s a real wide aperture of offerings here, but all of it is an invitation to jump on board. I love that you’ve opened up your life in this space, showing people who are looking for a different type of living and being so generous with that, which is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules of an abundant life. Rule One: Find Gratitude in the Miraculous In setting the foundation for this approach to living, it really comes with finding this right mindset and searching for this one thing. What’s your rule number one? So much of the magic that we’re trying to inspire is the state of being. My first rule is in the context of peace and finding gratitude in the miraculous. I love that. There’s magic everywhere, and life is precious and planet Earth is sacred. The path that I’ve found is finding deep relationship and reverence to nature. When we can do that, we learn how to fill our tanks and inspire purpose, and that motivates us to be the best version of ourselves. Rule Two: Grow Your Own and Start Small As people have experienced life and lived in our current society, there has been a real separation from understanding where food or things that come from the Earth really come from. Your second rule talks about getting back to this practice and figuring out how to make something of your own. What’s your rule number two? Yeah, my rule number two is grow your own and start small. Small-scale solutions are the path forward. That means getting good at planting a container garden of herbs and tomatoes, having potted plants in your apartment, or a lemon tree out the back door of your kitchen. These are all just simple invitations to participate in adding that magic element to every meal. Moving out to California from New York, I remember the first time I picked a lime from the tree in my backyard and the absolute beauty and magic that came from putting it in my drink. Living here now for the last 10 years, I’ve really adjusted the way that I think about the food that I cook and what I put into my body, which makes up your rule number three. Rule Three: Health Is Wealth Health is wealth. Take nourishment seriously. The path to that is knowing your farmers and getting excited about making those meaningful investments in your health and the health of your ecosystem. Go to the source: the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. The farmer’s market is your number one stop. Rule Four: Do It Yourself Beyond just buying locally or growing your own food, there is a way that a lot of people consume now that is one and done. If it’s broke, just buy something new, or really be intimidated to practice this DIY lifestyle. Your rule number four talks about the importance of understanding how to make something for yourself. What’s your rule number four? Rule number four is do it yourself. Use your hands. Make something. That, in my context, could be making a worm bin, building raised beds in your backyard, or building a picnic table to celebrate the harvest with your children. The core of it is put your hands to work, get them away from any of the digital toxins, and move them back into planet Earth. Rule Five: Share the Surplus I know, as people look at the life in front of them, think about what they can make, what they can cook, what they can grow, and what money they have to spend, there is this concern about either not having enough or wasting things. Your fifth and final rule talks about planning for a life of abundance while considering what you can give to other people. What’s your rule number five? Rule number five is to share the surplus. That is really in the consciousness more than anything, which is the more you give, the more you get. We all want to line up to those age-old principles of leaving it better than we found it and giving more than we take. That can be volunteering a little bit of time to a meaningful cause. That could be sharing an extra lemon from your tree or donating some extra resources to an organization that you care about in your community. All of these are participatory ways of getting on board with the shift in the culture that is necessary for an abundant future for all of us. Closing Evan, congratulations on everything that you built. If people want to visit the farm, stop by the cafe, or check out the dinners you’re throwing, where can they go? How can they sign up to keep informed? Check us out online at theecologycenter.org. Most importantly, come on down. We’re in San Juan Capistrano. That’s between Los Angeles and San Diego. It’s a worthy field trip, and it’s a full day of fun here on the farm. That’s the best way to do it, is just to dive in. I can’t wait to swing down with my family someday soon. Evan, appreciate the time, and can’t wait to dine with you around your shared table. Thanks, brother. Appreciate the opportunity to share. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.