An Invitation into Bioregional Imagination, Belonging and Care
My dearest hope is for us to welcome CWNE as an invitation to deepen our relationship with each other, with this life place, and the living systems that sustain it. When we embrace a bioregional perspective with our minds and our hearts, it is truly not something new that we are taking on. It is simply seeing what we are already doing through new bioregional eyes. And at the same time it is remembering that these new ways of seeing are at root the ancient lifeways of our ancestors and reflect their deep attunement to place.
The rivers, the beaches, the forests, the farms, the more-than-human beings, and each of our own human communities are asking us to deepen our relationship with them. If we and this life place we call home are to thrive into the future, accepting this invitation is a vital and life-affirming choice.
So let’s step together into bioregional imagination. How might the spirit of this bioregion inspire and infuse the events we are creating together?
If you are planning a walk or a beach clean, how can you invite the voice of the moors, of the sea, of the river? How can you immerse your participants in the experience of being in the landscape with all of their senses fully alive and awake? How can small acts of care in the present moment become sustained actions for future moments?
If you are planning for people to visit your farm or community garden how can you invite the local soils and the seasons to enter the conversations? How can even the pollinators and soil microbes that are critical to growing food be acknowledged with love and gratitude? How can food resilience, support for local farmers, and healthy eating be re-imagined?
If you are planning an event that will inform or educate, can the voices of the land and the waters, and of all the Earth beings including the plants and the fungi speak too? Can the participants be encouraged to listen to the stories and signals of the living world around them? Can care and connection become threads in the weave of your event?
These are not questions I have conclusive answers to. The answers are in fact emergent. But they are questions I am living into every day. I have been learning to activate my own bioregional imagination as a member of the Design School for Regenerating Earth https://www.bioregionalearth.org/pathway/design-school.
I am participating in my second six-month learning journey with the School. It began on the spring equinox, but you can still join at any time. And through the School I am connecting to a global community of bioregionalists.
Members of this hub are currently from four different countries and we are supporting each other as we explore how to create healthy ecosystems in our nested bioregions. We would love more members! https://riversofthenorthsea.com.
In addition, a visionary global common good charity r3.0, which promotes Redesign for Resilience and Regeneration https://www.r3-0.org/about-us/#about3, is hosting its annual conference in September https://conference2026.r3-0.org/. The conference is designed to encourage local bioregional groups or confluences to meet at the same time and explore the conference themes together. Confluences will be meeting on every continent. I, along with Jo Masraff, another Scottish member of the Design School, will be hosting an online confluence of all interested folks in Scotland. If you are interested in joining a bioregioning conversation ahead of time and/or participating in the confluence during the conference please email Jo at Jo@piratejo.co.uk.
In closing, as we plan to celebrate our bioregion during CWNE, how might our rivers and glens, our mountains and beaches, our music and stories, our ancestors and future generations become living presences in what we create together during the festival and beyond? How can we deepen our belonging to this beautiful life place?
Let us imagine together what becomes possible when the bioregion itself becomes a participant in our celebrations, our learning, and our care.