Let’s mingle and connect over lunch. This is a great space to share community announcements.

Come meet other Regenerators from around the Cascadia Bioregion in this quick series of one-on-one breakout introductions. Want to meet other folks from the Cascadia Bioregion? Then, come join this pollination session where you’ll meet other Regenerators from around the Cascadia Bioregion in this quick series of one-on-one breakout introductions. More about Regeneration Pollination Regeneration Pollination hosts free online networking events each month where folks from around the world connect, share ideas, exchange resources, cross-pollinate, and strengthen each other’s work building toward a regenerative future.  Join their events at www.regenerationpollination.earth https://www.facebook.com/RegenerationPollination/  https://www.linkedin.com/company/regenerationpollination/      

Many of us engage activism through our passion projects. Permaculture farms/gardens, cultural work, housing, social justice and equity issues are examples. Collectively, Paul Hawkins called this “Blessed Unrest” the largest movement in the world. While all of these projects are important and necessary front line activities, siloed projects do not have the power to drive a transformational shift. The bioregional organizing strategy gives us a practical handle for integrative efforts that have the ecological complexity to build new systems. We are challenged to move out of siloed project orientation towards integrated systems design. This workshop will facilitate mapping systems relationships in participants’ projects. This is a step toward mapping regional assets. Permaculture teaches the importance of edges, and systems theory points out the critical location of interstices – spaces between units- for evolution. What are the environmental, economic and social ecologies that your work is embedded in? What projects are adjacent to yours in terms of values or objectives? What resource flows are up stream and down stream? Where are you located in the geography of community? Where are points of complementarity for collaboration? Participants will break out into pairs or small groups to map out the systems interdependent with their project to evaluate how robust their project’s resilience is and where they need to develop relationships. This work is a step toward regional mapping. If time allows we will tease PROUT’s dynamic asset mapping project that is not yet ready for prime time.

Remember Jared Diamond’s book, ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed’, where he describes the collapse of thriving civilizations on Easter Island, the Norse in Greenland, Anasazi, the Maya and others? When I put down the book , I still had no idea why humans are wired for self-destruction, but that question gnawed at me for nearly a decade. I imagine that you’ll find the answer as shocking and as empowering as I did! My presentation answers the question “Now that we know why our psyches evolved to keep us on the proverbial ‘hamster wheel’ how the hell do we safely dismount, and how do we apply this wisdom to saving our asses?”