Bioregionalism: An Alternative to Globalization

Regardless of how challenging things might seem we must remember that we evolved based on our ability to cooperate and build community while strengthening our kinship with nature.

What a beautiful day here at the Wildcraft Forest. As I’m strolling through this forest I'm reminded that fears associated with the “end of days” motivates our need to be saved by something that will rescue us from ourselves. The idea of ascending to a heaven or even traveling to another planet creates a disposable Earth. Why should we save the planet – perhaps we won’t be here? But if the Earth is “heaven” like indigenous cultures suggest, not taking care of her would cause her to die and there would be no other place to go.

And that truly would be the end of days.

These are challenging times and they are demonstrating to us that we are continuing to grow into a violent species – which is not actually natural to humans. We evolved based on our ability to cooperate and build community while strengthening our kinship with nature. When we abandoned our natural connection to the Earth it was because we were forced to follow the path of “civilization” where the fear of demonstrating weakness became an element to MAN-AGE colonialism. This continues to this day where everyone wants to project strength because they believe that demonstrating weakness might mean that they might become prey and be eaten. It’s a behavior based on hormones and ego, which one might call “hormonics” rather than “harmonics” which holds our soul and represents a connection to our true selves, a connection directly linked to the natural world.

In fact, we are human “beings” we’re not machines, nor are we cogs that fit into a machine. We are music and we are independent organic life forms, and we each own our own heartbeat but we also seek to harmonize with others.

We have high notes and low notes and without this range we are incomplete and flat compositions. Even our ability to be “blue” becomes the beginning of our crescendo that allows us to become light – and crescendos are fantastic because they weave an emotional fabric that is so great that it holds the stars together in the sky – if we choose to connect with such beauty.

By our true nature we are sensitive beings and our most precious gift that we give to the cosmos is our compassion and the elements contained in something we call “love”.

Love is what makes us unique.

It’s where our true strength and power resides.

No one is weak.

Weakness is an illusion.

We are music.

We are love.

As ancient humans we had a great understanding about all of this and our role was one of navigating stewardship so that we could regenerate biodiversity within the Earth’s natural systems. We sought to retain high levels of life-force for both local ecosystems and the planet. This natural presence of wild biodiversity provided us with food, shelter and medicine and became the original economy for humans – nature was our kin. Eons later this wild kinship, this biodiversity, still provides critical support for our survival.

History has taught us that during challenging times we often lose our way, we have forgotten that we can find our strength within nature. We can create our meaning and purpose by taking responsibility for nature and this planet. Plant a tree, restore bird or pollinator habitat; help to regenerate the plant and tree Guardian Guilds. These actions will restore one’s soul. As an individual or community we will find ourselves within the greater design of the cosmos – we will each rediscover our child within.

Even though human beings depend on wild biological relationships, our society continues to ignore them and chooses to create industrial practices that will extract whatever it is that we need without considering the great balance that the Earth and her life support systems depend on.

Clearcut logging, open pit mining and others forms of industrial resource extraction continue to plague our Earth. And like many times before, we can now add war to that sinister list. These acts of colonization and extermination of nature have always placed us at war with nature. If we can be at war with nature our life support system, then it’s pretty easy to understand how we might be at war with each other.

This process of creating wealth by destroying nature has us forgetting our role as stewards. We are acting without love. We are acting without responsibility. We are ignoring our ancient soul and by doing so we are placing ourselves and everything else at risk.

It’s odd that we continue to embrace the notion that if we take care of ourselves first and foremost, then we will be ok and that if we all did this, then we would “all” be ok; collectively we would achieve abundance and thrive.

In fact, this belief has been the human principle of “civilization” for 10,000 years, and you would think by now that we would come to understand that it is a deeply flawed and failed notion. You would think that we would understand that by taking care of only ones self leads to the loss or death of another human, being or place.

I have noticed that the people who really advocate “self” first and foremost have largely been disengaged with child rearing, Elder care and the care of the disadvantaged or of wild places. Clean the poop of others who cannot clean themselves and you will truly understand that your “self” is really a fragile notion bordering on delusion.

In fact, we are all responsible for each other. And then there is Darwin and his observation that, “Only the strongest survive”. Well…what is strength?

If I care only for myself and emerge as the strongest then I may in fact be alone at the end and death will become imminent. But if strength is defined by how well I care for others, then they will keep me alive forever….because they will love me and will want to have me around and their gratefulness will be my abundance.

When you get close to nature, when you touch it – it gets close to you. It touches you. Then everything changes. As a wildcrafter I suppose I look at the world very differently – through a different lens a bit farther away from civilization. I am expected to harvest wisdom gained from having a close connection with nature and then to share that wisdom with others.

We will never be able to define a better future unless we can develop and embrace new ideas and philosophies that can help us reconstruct humanity as stewards within a living and creative cosmos.

For quite some time we have been challenged to create ideas and actions that break us away from globalization and move us closer to localization. For over a century now, capitalism has become the new “god” and governments its new “church”; and then corporations and their institutions have become the new “priesthood”. All of this economic religion has failed us and we are due for a reformation of sorts but for now great change is still an incomplete canvas.

Indeed change is self-evident and it emerges in small trends and movements. The pandemic caused a global social and economic lockdown which created a historical event that shifted existing trends. More people are now moving out of cities which is fueling a “counter urbanization” movement. The need for becoming more locally independent is gaining interest and there is a search for information and opportunities to change lifestyle, shelter and place of work.

There is a renewed and expanded interest in being closer to nature, closer to healthy food and clean air and water. There is also an expanded interest to find one’s “tribe”. All of this is generating new thought in philosophical circles – one area that discussions are migrating towards is “bioregionalism”

Bioregionalism asserts "that a bioregion's environmental components (geography, climate, plant life, animal life, etc.) directly influence ways for human communities to act and interact with each other which are, in turn, optimal for those communities to thrive in their environment.

It’s a counter-weight to globalization and one that the Wildcraft Forest School has been engaged with for many years. Our program involves leadership training in regenerative strategies that link economics, community development, natural systems local watersheds and ecosystems. As a Bioregional Specialist you would be consulting with individuals, NGO’s, businesses, communities and governments in order to help them deliver tangible long-term actions that support the regenerative stewardship of local watersheds. You will also be explaining how bioregionalism is different than globalization and that it picks up where environmentalism leaves off, challenging everyone to emphasize not just sustainability but regenerative systems that will define “community” to include all living species and a sense of place in the local environment.

When we teach Bioregionalism within five lessons and we begin with the First Circle: Present and Future Trends - Bioregionalism and the Non-State World. This first circle introduces bioregionalism as a specialized skill and as a means of design that includes an understanding of incentive systems and Buddhist Economics. This first section includes an analysis of present and future trends that will engage participants in how the world is changing, and how to prepare for the “long view”. This section links participants with tangible tools and confidence that will help individuals, businesses, organizations and communities succeed in making a bioregional shift; and also shares examples of seeding new healthy relationships and working partnerships, it also explains the importance of propagating a new narrative for “community” within a regenerative story.

The other sections that follow are: The Second Circle: Regenerative Systems; The Third Circle: The Future of Water, Food and Medicine; The Fourth Circle: An Off-the-Grid Future; and The Fifth Circle: The Future of Action and Leadership.

We need to rediscover local forms of community leadership and we must understand that we are in a transition where the future of humans and this planet will reside on what happens locally. Some places will be prepared, others will not – this difference will be the result of local leadership and the culture that it resides within.

Regardless how challenging things might seem we must remember that we evolved based on our ability to cooperate and build community with others.

We evolved within a kinship with nature.

Join us for Bioregional Specialist Certification

Leadership training in regenerative strategies that link economics, community development, natural systems local watersheds and ecosystems. 

http://www.wildcraftforest.com/School/Camps/9-BioregionalSpecialistCertification.html