Bioregionalism, healing and community

There are times in the regenerative journey where we can feel deeply and personally challenged around where we place our ?focus or direct our energy. During the last few months I’ve been reflecting a lot about what it means for me to engage in a bio-regional, or even just localised approach in relation to where I am living.

A theme of inquiry for the Regenerative Confluence community this season has been around regenerative weaving and organising – how we organise ourselves as Nature, and in harmony with Life. And one of the most obvious ways we can observe Nature’s approach to self-organisation is that living organisms, and their environment, have locality. The Web of Life occupies physical space in dynamic time, expressed via different geologies, river catchment areas, oceans, deserts, mountains, cardinal aspects, cultures and histories, land use, plant, fungal and animal species, weather patterns and many other factors which help to shape a region, the ways in which these different elements uniquely combine to express its ecological personality, which in turn is part of the fabric of a larger bio-region.

The definition of a bio-region may vary, as it is highly trans-contextual, based on so many variables. Occasionally there can be a single element or species that clearly acts as a powerful signifier, patterning the bio-region in distinctive ways that helps to clarify the concept. For example, the bio-region of Cascadia, or Salmon Nation in the Pacific North West of the US and Canada is in large part shaped by the annual return of Pacific salmon to their spawning grounds, where they are eaten by bear and deposited or pooped out higher up in the valleys. The subsequent transfer of nutrients up the elevational gradient (i.e. up into the valleys and mountains from the sea) fertilises the otherwise rather poor soils to support vast tracts of forest, in a way which is virtually unparalleled elsewhere in the world. Not only that, but human cultures across the region are united in their reverence for salmon. Growing up as I did in Hokkaido, in Northern Japan (the other side of the Pacific from Cascadia), we were surrounded by salmon icons and imagery. The salmon culture of Northern Honshu, Hokkaido, the Kuriles and Kamchatka and up into Siberia unites indigenous peoples, even whilst separated by geo-political divides.

And yet, in spite of the compelling logics of how living systems arrange themselves spatially, I don’t think I’m alone in feeling a sense of separation from place. It’s not that I don’t care for the area where I currently live – it’s been deeply sustaining to me. I know the terrain in detail through the lenses that are meaningful to me - where to find a multitude of different medicinal herbs and mushrooms and when to find them in their seasons, down to specific aspects, even on which sides of branches to look. I can read the tracks and trails of wildlife, I know where, if you stand quietly enough in certain woodlands, you can be guaranteed to spy a herd of deer. I can show you some of the few places where you can still find frogspawn and tadpoles in the Spring, and where you can find ammonite fossils up on the hill, remnants of the far ancient past when this whole region used to be under warm, tropical oceans.

It's just…. If I want to make a difference here, such as supporting the small, degraded river that runs near my home to regenerate and flourish, it takes community. And not the virtual, globally distributed communities which I enjoy, however like-minded and enriching as those may be, but connecting with different groups of people who live here, with their many different concerns and interests and world-views and politics.

For myself personally, that brings up all sorts of stories about why connecting to local community feels like such a challenge, in spite of a number of previously successful projects which I’ve initiated. Sometimes its hard to shake off a deep-seated ‘outsider’ narrative– like many people who have moved around a lot throughout their lives, it’s easy to detach, because according to the pattern, sooner or later you will move on anyway.

There are lots of other stories that amplify the sense of separation - about how I have needed to prioritise work and raising my sons since moving here seven years ago, of having crazy challenges with my witness-protection scheme neighbour, the impact COVID lock-downs and the way they completely squashed a burgeoning Transition Town group, exclusion from a nearby centre for regeneration that I might have got involved with because I had openly expressed concerns about the mandating of certain medical procedures. There are still traumas from those years that can make trusting connections difficult for many people. And then there are my own personal judgements about the likelihood of finding shared interests with people locally…

Learning to adjust my own views, do the inner work, and commit to local community has been a rocky journey, but having decided inwardly to commit to finding connection in the last month or so, I’m experiencing an unexpected shift. Just as in soil regeneration, given the right conditions and natural fertilisers, all sorts of micro-organisms and fungi manage to find each other and come into symbiotic relationship and virtuous cycles, in a similar way I am noticing the latent responsiveness within myself and the local ecosystem coming to life. In my healing practice I talk about systems having a deep memory of health and wholeness, which like the salmon swimming back to the rivers where they initially hatched, they might return. A morphic resonance of their own highest potential which we can intuit through our senses, through our collective imagining. And in a similar way, having made an inner choice to connect, I am noticing a flurry of possibilities for people to come together for the sake of the local river in ways I never expected, joining those located near its source to those living near its confluence, fertilised by the richness of wisdom and knowledge that is starting to pour through emerging groups in the UK looking at rights of rivers and bio-regionalism. I’m starting to imagine what place-based approaches might support some of my clients on their own regenerative journeys – rather than trying to address global issues in abstract, conceptual ways, but really leaning into place. Learning ecosystem leadership through local and bio-regional engagement that looks at tangible renewal on the ground…

So much food for thought, for dialogue. I’m so grateful for our little Regenerative Confluence community that is enabling my own learning and development alongside other practitioners from around the world. Reflective practice and sharing spaces where we can show up authentically in our learning and our vulnerability are so precious. And I’m also looking forward to forming caring relationships with local individuals and groups, and seeing how Nature weaves her way through our growing exchanges.

If you are interested in exploring these kinds of questions with others, do feel free to join a Regenerative Confluence session as a guest to see if this kind of learning community might be for you - just DM me and I will send you a link to join us.

And if you'd like to work with me, I offer regeneratively focused 121 coaching and supervision, tailored programmes to support your healing journey, through to whole systems change - if you are interested in exploring any of the above, let's schedule a call! Contact [email protected] / [email protected]