Movement Generation Winter 2024-25 Newsletter (TEXT ONLY)

{Cover Image ID: Colorful cover art by Melanie Cervantes of Dignidad Rebelde, featuring illustrations of people tending to land along with some nonhuman beings. One person holds large pruning shears. A white-haired man holds a bunch of grasses. A Black woman motions her hand in the direction of a large, old oak tree. A red-tailed hawk flies in the pink and orange sky in the background, and a coyote and purple needlegrass appear in the foreground. The title reads: Movement Generation Winter 2024-25 Newsletter. Text in the left margin reads: Updates on MG’s Just Transition, Land, and Culture Shift Programs. Text in the bottom right margin reads: December 2024. The top and bottom margins have a border of salmon silhouettes.}

Letter

Dear Family,

As grassroots ecologists dedicated to the liberation of people and the planet, we are grateful that our ancestors and Mother Nature have given us a blueprint for how to live in right relationship with the earth and one another. A central piece of this blueprint is the need to build transformational relationships rooted in the love of diversity, trust, respect, humility, and reciprocity.

A momentous transition is underway. We know that so many in our communities are experiencing deep grief, anger, and fear about what the next several years may hold. Together we will feel, care for one another, strategize, create, and take action.

We’d like to thank you for helping us grow the vision of a Just Transition this year. Your support means everything.

In the following pages, you will learn about the exciting work that nourished our staff collective throughout the second half of 2024. We hosted an amazing 5-day Justice & Ecology Strategy Retreat with a cohort of 30 kick-ass organizers; we are supporting the creation of hubs for disabled community members who are most vulnerable to climate disasters and other threats; we began a collective study series around land-based liberation movements, starting with the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST); we continued growing the strength and impact of the Climate Justice Alliance and many other frontline formations; we cared for land in community and illuminated the stories we’ve absorbed through this practice.

As the year closes out, we hope you find some joy and inspiration in reading about the fruits of our labor. And if it is within your means, please give to MG. Help us strengthen the struggle for Ecological Justice in 2025 and beyond.

With deep respect and love,

Movement Generation

{end of letter}

Table of Contents

“We” by Tré Vasquez

JUST TRANSITION

Reflections on the 2024 Justice & Ecology Retreat

J&E Retreat Testimonials

The Crip Survival Network

Shocks, Slides & Shifts

Building a Land-based Revolution: Lessons from the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil

Climate Justice Alliance Updates

LAND

Bioregionalism: Drawing the Ecological Boundaries of Home, From Indigenous Territory to the Hood

Tending the Land In Community

Invasive Species or Displaced Relatives?

CULTURE SHIFT

Remembering Our Way Forward: A Stop-motion Animated Film by Lily Xie

MG Book Club

Sabbaticals: A Culture Shift Towards Care, Creativity, and Collectivity

If We’re Not Prepared to Govern We’re Not Prepared to Win: A Note on the US Elections

Recipe: One Pan Vegan Tofu Curry

11 Cultural Offerings

{end of table of contents}

{Poem}

{Image ID: A Black woman motions her hand in the direction of the poem}

We

By Tré Vasquez

What will be possible because we remembered?

Even in a world rapidly working to disconnect us from being human

We remembered

That even if someday we can no longer grow what we need from the soil

That We are still the soil

That we are made from the earth, water and air

And so we protect them with our lives the way we protect each other

We are seed savers

Story tellers

Living libraries

Foreseers of the future and portals to the past

The students of pollinators

Organizers

Campesinxs

Yerberas

Sacred clowns

Brown & down computer hackers

Song keepers

We are lovers

Doctors

Birth workers birthing new worlds

Transcending smoking ashes unfurled

Messengers air dropping seeds of resistance

On a world collapsing into herself

WE are a prayer of Remembrance

We learn to move like underground rivers

Hiding to preserve our force and medicine

Emerging as springs to sustain Life

Reminding the people to only use what they need

& So I’m reminding you to Never forget the the ones that are coming

To reciprocate now, while there is time

Make yourselves into waterways

Trusting where you are going

Slowly eroding pathways into the future:

Our molecules in perpetual cycles of life (never death)

Only evaporating to return as monsoons

Flash flooding their borders

their prisons

their wars

their haunting monuments

white houses

capital

and binaries

We are the thunder awakening sleeping giants

Blood red like sequoia

Our roots underground communication systems:

Interconnected- Intelligence-Intergalactic

Beyond Jedi mind tricks: ancestral memory

We are a slight of the hand

Night visioned to sense points of intervention

Manifested by our matriarchs who couldn’t see us

But prayed we would live the day to embody lightning

Striking this beast to its knees

colonialism

capitalism

extractivism

imperialism

This beast

We will bring to its burial

Allowing its bones to compost into building blocks of regeneration

An old way reincarnated

Into the new world we are birthing

We are still here

Because we refused to forget

That we, too,

Are a part of this living breathing world

{end of poem}

{Section: Just Transition}

{Image ID: A diverse group of amazing, lovely, smiling people of many cultural backgrounds, ages, and sizes, posing together outside at Movement Generation’s Justice & Ecology Retreat. Photo by Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer}

Reflections on the 2024 Justice & Ecology Retreat

“What time is it on the clock of the world?” asked our movement ancestor Grace Lee Boggs.

This is a question we posed on day one of this year’s Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Retreat.

It’s time for land liberation and rematriation. It’s a time of multiple genocides and disaster capitalism. It’s time to assert our own solutions. It’s a time of catastrophic wildfires and creative wildfires. It’s a queer time. It’s time to break from binaries. It’s a time of repression and incarceration and time to rise up. It’s time to build governance beyond electoral systems. It’s a time of mass mobilizations. It’s time for trans liberation and disability justice. It’s a time of grief and time to heal.

The MG retreat has long been a sacred space for our collective. Not only do we facilitate political education, movement building, and culture shifting with our allies across diverse social movements, but we also get to refine our analysis and be in practice of collective governance with some of our broader community. 

{Image ID: High-angle photo of a group of Black folks Al Brooks, Xavion Freedom, and Adele Watts holding and passing over a long scroll with art. Photo by Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer}

Partly because of Covid-19, MG hadn’t held an in-person retreat since 2017. As we attempt to adapt to a world in which this pandemic is still very real and present, we began to design this retreat earlier this year with the intention to move slowly and deliberately to create a space that is as accessible as possible for all the folks we dreamed of convening. Disability justice has become a central element of MG’s politic, and folks in our movements continue to be in transition and active healing from the cataclysmic times we’ve all endured the last several years. We would leave no one behind.

In our dreaming of what form this retreat should take in this time on the clock of the world, bioregional governance emerged for us as more than a concept, but an essential strategy. In the face of multiple genocides, a tumultuous election year, and climate catastrophes, we must cultivate ecological resilience, social equity, and movement strategy by remaking governance to directly involve people in the decisions that affect their daily lives in the places where they live. Instead of oppressive colonial and political borders, we must actively practice collective governance across interdependent ecological boundaries that encompass, for example, diverse and overlapping watersheds, trade-sheds, and energy-sheds. If we’re not prepared to govern, we’re not prepared to win. 

{Image ID: Orion Camero (a Filipinx person) sings into a microphone while a circle of people pass around a long scroll that shows a vehicle with exhaust pumping into the air as it faces a row of corn in a field. Photo by Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer}

At this year’s Justice & Ecology Retreat, against the backdrop of the Pacific coast and Santa Cruz Mountains of Awaswas and Amah Mutsun land, integrated with the virtual space known as Zoom land, we convened an abundantly loving and brilliant cohort of organizers, artists, activists, educators, healers, land workers, storytellers, and more. 

Together we explored how resilience-based organizing and ecological justice manifest on the ground in different sectors and across communities. There are many rich examples of groups articulating bold visions, restoring their labor to build life-affirming systems, and asserting their rights to self govern—from the Brazil Landless Workers Movement (MST), to Casa Pueblo and the broader community in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, to Poder Emma in Asheville, NC. Inspired by all this work, the principles of ecology, our diverse cosmologies, and the wisdom of our ancestries, we began to explore what it takes to develop bold, innovative, holistic solutions to the ecological crisis across our different sectors of social movement and across our shared bioregion: Salmon Nation, from the Central Valley of California to Alaska.

{Image ID: Cat Petru (a white Sephardic Jewish woman) and nicky gervacio (a Filipinx woman) of We Rise Production sit on the floor with their fists up, with other MG retreat participants in the background, including J’Anna-Mare Rue, Emi Yoko Young, Bernadette Zambrano, Adele Watts, Inés Ixierda, Orion Camero. Photo by Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer}

The Justice & Ecology Retreat ended up being an emergent space composed of a soulful mix of the magic of Movement Generation: ecoliteracy workshops and lectures, and discussions around how to play with strategy. As the MG collective and our retreat cohort grow into the real possibilities of bioregional governance, including studying the ways it has and is already taking place through different political lenses (e.g., municipalism, solidarity economies, intercommunalism, etc.), we are excited to continue to build this movement and shift the popular worldview from consumerism and colonialism to caring and sacredness. We’ll continue to share more about how this work takes shape.

Movement Generation is so grateful to this year’s retreat cohort for riding with us! In between our collective study, we also had many moments of healing, cultural offerings, full moons, poetry, music, and big joy! We are so excited for more future-building with these amazing humans!

Words from some of the 2025 Justice & Ecology Retreat cohort:

{Image ID: Aniya Butler, a young Black woman with braids, speaking into a microphone. Photo by Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer}

“The Justice & Ecology retreat was a deeply profound experience impacting and shifting my work as a youth organizer and cultural worker and as a young Black/New Afrikan woman deepening my understanding of the crises we are experiencing and my commitment to being a part of the solutions that will lead us back to the world we need and deserve. Even through all of the immense violence, loss, and grief we have experienced, especially this past year, being a part of this retreat reaffirmed that love and hope are eternal, and our liberation is inevitable.” –Aniya Butler, Youth Vs. Apocalypse

{Image ID: Crisantema Gallado, a Oaxacan and Guanajuato woman, speaking into a microphone. Photo by Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer.}

“The Justice & Ecology Retreat affirmed my commitment to centering my relationship with Land and defending the sacredness of Lyfe. I am returning to my community feeling connected to spirit and trusting my inherent wisdom to self govern and develop cultural organizing strategies that move us closer to our collective liberation. When I move with purpose and am in deep relationship with others + the land, a new world is being born!” –Crisantema Gallardo, Youth Organize California

{Image ID: Thomas Mariadson, a Jaffna Tamil man, wearing a keffiyeh. Photo by Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer.}

“Being in retreat with our MG comrades to reflect on and study key frameworks of climate justice couldn’t have come at a better time. The question of scale has been a challenging one for the left—particularly when thinking about the urgency of climate catastrophe and the poly-crises of capital. For CPE, deepening our understanding of bioregionalism and just transition with this special cohort of organizers has given us a toehold on how to materially transform our conditions locally, regionally, and globally, and—just as importantly—a loving and committed community with whom we can struggle together for the living world.” –Thomas Mariadson, Center for Political Education

{Image ID: Gina Garibo, a Mexican woman, wearing an N95 mask. Photo by Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer.}

“¡MG Justice and Ecology Retreat 2024 fue un espacio inspirador, cuidado, visionario y al mismo tiempo liberador! Me ayudó a profundizar sobre la Transición Justa y la Organización con Base en la Resiliencia. Reconocí y reafirmé la forma en que los uso en el trabajo organizativo de Justicia de la Tierra con NBOP: conectado con los elementos y lo ceremonial, poniendo en el centro la vida y siendo visionaries. Esto me inspiró a seguir haciendo y seguir soñando el mundo que busco vivir. La apuesta por la Gobernanza Biorregional hizo latir fuerte mi espíritu porque es retadora y reclama los propios flujos de los ecosistemas. Al poner la Justicia de la Discapacidad como prioridad, MG Justice and Ecology Retreat 2024 me dejó aprendizajes positivos: ¡la modalidad híbrida de forma cálida y cuidada es posible!” –Gina Garibo, North Bay Organizing Project

“The Justice & Ecology Retreat fostered a greater respect for my home and everything within it, from the microorganisms to the dams, enriching my understanding of the environmental justice work I’m engaged in. It has truly motivated me to continue learning and advocating for the environment in a more informed and passionate way.” –Esther Goolsby, Communities for a Better Environment

“The Justice and Ecology Retreat affirmed my faith that the world and relations we need to build are possible and practical. MG and so many orgs connected to it are developing and realizing visions that are backed by not just radical curiosity and theory but also real world experience, science, deeply-held principles, and love that I felt almost as soon as I entered spaces with them. The retreat dramatically exceeded my expectations and I am extremely grateful to be part of the MG family and excited for what’s to come.” –Al Brooks, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

“The Movement Generation retreat was a profound reconnection with land, people, and the living systems that sustain us. It created a space to transcend our daily perspectives on the economy and societal structures, centering disability justice and bioregional governance. This experience deeply impacts the work we do at Frontline Catalysts, reinforcing our commitment to building a just future where our communities lead transformative climate action. It brought together diverse fields and experiences, allowing us to collectively reimagine our relationship with the land while building the powerful change needed for future generations.” –Xochitl Cortez, Frontline Catalysts

{Image ID: Kimi Lee, a Chinese/Burmese woman, wearing an N95 mask and speaking into a microphone. Photo by Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer.}

“MG’s Justice & Ecology Retreat really deepened my own connections to land. I never established deep roots because my first-generation family was displaced by a military coup. I never considered that trauma and loss, and I see that healing is needed. In terms of my work as ED of Bay Rising, I now have a large frame for our regional work. We use city/county lines, and I see now that we need to think about bioregions. I’m thinking about how to expand our network to think long-term and expand our worldview in the next few years.” –Kimi Lee, Bay Rising

{Image ID: Selena Feliciano, a Puerto Rican/El Salvadorean/Spanish woman, speaking into a microphone. Photo by Brooke Anderson @movementphotographer.}

“Attending Movement Generation’s Justice and Ecology retreat was a treat; in a time of immense grief and overwhelm, to gather with other organizers spread across the Salmon Nation bioregion in a shared commitment to our collective liberation was to ground in the necessities of this moment. I feel moved to consider how to scale a multiracial, cross-class, and cross-disciplinary movement with intention in deepening relationships—with each other as organizers, and with non-human beings as kin. And I feel renewed knowing that there are other people on this journey with me, considering a sense of place in new ways…across the bioregions, sheds, and migration patterns that connect us all.” –Selena Feliciano, Energy Democracy Project

{end of story}

Shocks, Slides, and Shifts

Instability has become a defining feature of our times—the new landscape of social struggle. We classify the economic and ecological disruptions that make up this “new normal” of instability into two categories: shocks and slides.

One of our key roles as social movements is to harness the shocks and direct the slides—all towards achieving the systemic, cultural, and psychic shifts we need to navigate the changes with the greatest equity, resilience, and ecological restoration possible.

SHOCKS present themselves as acute moments of disruption. For example: fascists winning elections, extreme wildfires or hurricanes, uprisings.

SLIDES, on the other hand, are incremental by nature. They can be catastrophic, but they are not experienced as acute. For example: sea level rise, the increasing costs of food and energy, the acceleration of AI technology.

SHIFTS are social, political, economic and/or cultural transformations. We want shifts in the direction of ecological resilience and social equity as an imperative.

Shifts can emerge from collective “aha” moments when social movements awaken the popular imagination to new possibilities and spark social action. For example, when apartheid is exposed and opposed by the masses. The coming shocks and slides—if we anticipate and prepare for them properly—can be key opportunities to spark these “aha” moments.

Shifts also result from well-organized communities creating new institutions that meet peoples’ needs as responses to the shocks and slides better than the dominant systems can—such as food sovereignty projects, collectivized housing systems, and cooperative economics.

Systems change will be the defining feature of our century. If we stay on our current course, that change will manifest as collapse. This change, however, could be our opportunity to bring about an intentional transition—a Great Turning as Joanna Macy calls it—towards a healthy, fair, and ecologically resilient world.

Our task at hand: An organized, visionary, and strategically aligned push by thousands of social movements across the globe. Yet, most of our social movements have not connected the dots in a way that provides clarity and compels people from all walks of life into action. And the clock is ticking. We need to make new meaning out of this pivotal moment in planetary history. We need to expose the ecological crisis for what it is and generate profound proactive transformation. We can no longer tinker around the edges of an intensifying crisis.

The nature of the coming economic and social reorganization required by this era of tremendous transition will depend entirely on who is positioned to lead and guide it. We cannot assume that the next world system will inherently be “better” in terms of social conditions or ecological stability. Only collaborative, transformative action that values sharing over hoarding and restoration over exploitation—led by the communities most impacted by the crisis—will get us there.

If we’re not prepared to govern, we’re not prepared to win.

To spring into action, social movements must first anticipate the coming shocks and proactively prepare for them. Shocks are, in a sense, easy to predict, but they are hard to organize around. Despite the dominant framing of shocks as unpredictable, anomalous, or “out of our control,” they are actually inevitable consequences of the political economy. There is no drilling without spilling. There is no empire without blowback. There are no economic bubbles that do not burst.

Yet, knowing about and even feeling the intensity of shocks does not automatically spark social action. Rather, our social movements need to strategize on questions like:

• What kinds of leadership, organizing, infrastructure, skills, and planning are required to prepare for and utilize these shock moments as key opportunities to articulate both the nature and scale of the crisis, as well as our solutions?
• What are the material and cultural shifts needed to address the root cause of the problem?

Networking communities to identify and proactively build the infrastructure to mount a peoples’ response to the shocks is needed, including rapid-response infrastructure.

For the dominant forces, the pretense of stability and the refrain of “there is no alternative” are key to enabling large numbers of people to accommodate the disruptions we experience. In addition to this maneuvering in the cultural and public discourse, dominant forces are looking for structural ways to take advantage of the changes.

So our challenge is to clearly name the shifts we want and work towards achieving them, while also anticipating and exposing the false solutions being promoted by corporate profiteers and their political allies.

For ecological resilience, social equity, and movement strategy, we need to:

1. Remake governance to maximize direct participation by people in the decisions that affect their daily lives in the places where they live.
2. Remap the geography of governance by rejecting arbitrary, rigid, political borders and embracing ecologically informed, permeable, fluid, and interdependent boundaries relevant to the particular arena to be governed.
3. Innovate on our existing movement strategies to more effectively respond to shocks and slides while simultaneously implementing a Just Transition out of the extractive economy.

Future shocks will likely get more frequent and intense, and the slides will get steeper. Given this, we must move quickly to develop shared goals, narratives, and strategies to help us make sense of, respond to, and be resilient in the face of change. We must be grounded in a common vision while also exposing the minefield of well-resourced false solutions that currently predominate the popular imagination.

If all we do is fight against what we don’t want, we learn to love the fight and have nothing left for our vision but longing. Longing isn’t good enough. We must live into our vision by creating it and defending it. We must “Build the New” as a way to “Stop the Bad.” We must be both visionary and oppositional. As we resist, we have to organize ourselves into applying our labor to meet our needs, rooted in our cultures and visions.

{end of story}

The Crip Survival Network

The Crip Survival Network (CSN) is a climate-, disability-, and language justice-centered project that unites organizations led by BIPOC and queer/trans/non-binary disabled people in the communities where we live and work. Led by Sins Invalid, The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies, and Movement Generation, the CSN Steering Committee comprises 17 organizations across the United States.

Currently, the CSN is working with its network members to build community hubs across regional and/or theme-based groups that are supporting each other and their communities in our survival during climate disasters and volatile political conditions.

Over the next 18 months, CSN Hubs will be working to identify each community’s risks and needs, co-create and enact disaster plans, and coordinate appropriate community education to support the survival of BIPOC disabled kin. This practice of mutual aid and collective governance rooted disability justice principles is deeply critical in a time of rapidly increasing attacks on our communities, in addition to the ongoing ecological crises we are navigating. Resilient and radical care systems keep us alive!

{end of story}

{Image ID: A multicultural group of people pose together with their solidarity fists up, holding a flag of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra. Photo by Dana Viloria.}

Building a Land-based Revolution: Lessons from the Landless Workers Movement of Brazil

This year, Movement Generation was invited to join a delegation at the 40th anniversary Congreso for the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)—a mass movement of more than two million landless workers in Brazil who are struggling for land reform by occupying land and tilling it. We were honored by the invitation and humbly asked ourselves: How are we truly showing up in solidarity with the MST? Watching and learning from this incredible movement from afar for years, the invitation galvanized us into deeper study of their struggle.

{Image ID: Art by Natália Gregorini, an intergenerational group of three people from the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra holding an abundance of harvested foods in front of a tree.}

Incidentally, major floods hit southern Brazil this past summer, decimating small family farms and postponing the Congreso. This heartbreaking climate disaster further called us to action to amplify the ecological crises faced by the workers and families of the MST, as well as their mutual aid efforts. We opened up MG’s collective study sessions so that our broader community could both learn how to take action in solidarity with the MST and learn strategies from Brazilian rural workers’ land-based revolution.

This fall, we gathered 30 of our close homies to study this movement together in person, and we held a larger online session for a broader public. Each session began the way the MST opens all gatherings: with a mistica, essentially a grounding or cultural/spiritual offering. Neeka Salmasi of Gill Tract Farm sang an Iranian song, which to her is one about yearning for homeland, justice, sovereignty, and solidarity. Nils McCune of La Via Campesina and Sandra Procopio of the MST movement school shared their knowledge of the MST’s history, struggles, governance structures, and organizing models. 

{Image ID: A group of people holding harvested foods at a farm, with one person holding the flag of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra}

When asked about what motivates MST members to risk occupying land under repressive regimes, Sandra offered this reflection: 

“We know that we are here now, but we are heirs to the socialist traditions and to those who fought before us. Right now in history, we’re here struggling, and we are making our own path, and others will come after us to go on with the struggle. Our training, our formation is permeated by that history. We’re always reflecting on our history and the future we want to reach. We have many dreams and believe in the creation of a new man, of a new woman, of new kinds of human relationships.”

Watch the recording of the online session here. This collective study session was the first in a series. In 2025, MG will be studying and building a shared understanding of international land-based movements, and the lessons we can learn from our comrades across the globe who have scaled and sustained movements over decades in the face of violent state repression and climate chaos.

{end of story}

Climate Justice Alliance Updates

Movement Generation was honored to play a leadership role in Climate Justice Alliance’s delegation to New York City’s Frontline Climate Week, held in late September 2024. MG’s Mateo Nube moderated a panel titled Grassroots Power: Perspectives on the Impact & Scale of Community-led Climate Solutions, where presenters outlined frontline expressions of innovative climate solutions, rooted in democracy and a trans-local organizing approach.

CJA organized a series of panels and workshops under the title Realizing the Just Transition: Weaving Public, Private and Community Capital for a Just Transition, where we also made multiple leadership interventions, all towards supporting the democratization of capital, a key component towards achieving full repair and ecological justice in our society.

During our time in New York, frontline leaders of CJA participated in a multitude of spaces and shared real-world examples of how frontline solutions build power, drive towards systems change, all the while addressing climate change threats. There’s No Just Transition Without Us was our unifying stance. We made our presence felt!

MG is also thrilled to welcome and congratulate KD Chavez, who was recently named as CJA’s new permanent Executive Director. As the Climate Justice Alliance continues to grow our power, lead innovative campaigns, and amplify effective movement strategy towards winning a Just Transition, we believe KD is the perfect fit for CJA’s ambitious objectives in the coming years. Please help us welcome KD into this new role!

{Image ID: A multicultural group of youth smiling and holding signs at a demonstration with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. Photo by Rae Breaux.}

{end of story}

{Section: Land}

{Image ID: Art by Micah Bazant showing a map of the watersheds throughout Salmon Nation (from down South along California all the way north to Alaska), with gradient paint strokes of the Pacific Ocean moving from west to northeast and orange kelp in the foreground.}

Bioregionalism: Drawing the ecological boundaries of home, from Indigenous territory to the hood

When we speak of what interrupted the harmonious balance between human communities and the earth, we don’t often see the disruption of bioregional governance named as one of the linchpins that led to the collapse of ecological harmony. But we should.

Bioregions are defined in many ways. We offer this definition (adapted from Lawrence F. London, Jr.’s What is a Bioregion?):

A bioregion is a land and water territory whose limits are defined not by political borders, but by the geographical limits of human communities and ecological systems. This area must be large enough to maintain the integrity of the region’s biological communities, habitats, and ecosystems; to support important ecological processes, such as nutrient and waste cycling, migration, and stream flow; and to meet the habitat requirements of keystone and indicator species.

A bioregion is also defined by its people. In pre-colonial times, its inhabitants were related tribal or linguistic groups, which gave it a unique cultural identity. The livelihoods, claims, and interests of local communities were and should be both the starting point and the criteria for bioregional development and governance.

While bioregionalism may be a new way of representing and identifying with a place and its culture of living within ecological boundaries, the concept is not new. The essence of bioregionalism, often referred to as Indigenous Territory, has been a common notion for Native people since time immemorial. Every human culture was conceived in a bioregion. For millennia, bioregional governance was the scale of collaborative stewardship that emerged from the wisdom and people in the Web of Life. Within this scale of governance, ecological justice—balance between human communities and thriving ecosystems based on mutually beneficial relationships and participatory governance—was possible.

It’s not likely possible to return to the wild-tending life of our distant ancestors. Wild-tending societies existed when there were never more than five million people on the planet. We are now going on 10 billion. So, we are in the position of manifesting a new way of being that is unique to this time on the clock of the world, informed by our ancestral guidance and the wisdom of recent generations.

With all of this in mind, we can imagine an emerging world of linked bioregions, where in each one, local collective determination results in organization that is socially and ecologically regenerative. For example:

• Facing one’s own accumulated waste inevitably leads to a waste management system that looks like zero waste.
• When the primary sources of food and goods come from one’s own bioregion, food systems that enhance or synergize with local ecological regeneration are supported and ensure an ongoing supply of sufficient healthy food.
• The local ecological checks and balances would keep threatening viruses like COVID-19 from becoming a human epidemic.
• When we’re working with a much more limited scale at which to harvest and use lifesources*, collaborating and sharing would naturally be more strategic than competing with each other for material needs.

In a bioregional context, people know their watershed, food shed, plant and animal sheds, and pathogen-shed. With this hyper-localized knowledge of place, and knowledge of how these systems are mutually impacted by the people there, communities can protect their place for generations to come. You cannot protect what you don’t understand. This evolved knowledge of place is a key component of ecological health and restoration; it’s a key component of ecological justice.

So how do we get back to bioregionalism—to this way of relating to place and people? While it may be hard to imagine a full-scale conversion of society towards a set of interrelated and interdependent bioregions, many communities already have a notion of neighborhood-scale relationships that resemble bioregionalism and place-based governance. We don’t have to know how the whole country or continent would reorganize itself towards bioregionalism to begin re-orienting ourselves to the bioregion as a scale of relationship, culture, belonging, and governance. 

Here are some ways we can begin or continue this reorientation process through communities and places we are already in relationship with:

• Spend time identifying the markers or milestones and create the natural boundaries of what you consider your hood (creeks, freeways, parks, etc.).
• Organize lifesources collectively with your neighbors, such as fire wood, rainwater, and plant-based foods.
• Get to know your local foraging grounds, identify local native plants, and start foraging/cooking/making remedies with your local flora.
• Most importantly, experiment with small-scale collective governance—for example, within your household or on your block.

What you feed grows. By practicing neighborhood-scale bioregionalism, we heal and evolve our attachment to rigid political borders and the individualization that we are told we need to “get by” and “get ahead.” With this energetic and material practice in reorienting to bioregions, we can prepare to support and develop bioregional governance at the larger scale and support a shift to the regenerative, ecologically just future we need!

*“Lifesources” is a term we use to represent what is typically referred to as “resources” or “natural resources,” such as water, minerals, wood, plant- and animal-based foods, fertile soil, etc. Calling these lifesources allows us to acknowledge that these earthen materials are what makes all life on Earth possible, and thus, is an expression of reverence for them.

{end of story}

Tending the Land In Community

{Image ID: A group of people clearing leaf litter from a ditch along a dirt road. Photo by Abbas Khalid.}

Amidst the continued climate chaos and global resistance to death-dependent forces, the land continues to need tending and care as we prepare for the winter elements.  

MG’s Fall work party on liberated land was a sweet and sweaty day full of pulling poison hemlock; trimming back thick and thorny Himalayan blackberry, removing brush that formed fire ladders on our forested slope; clearing ditches of leaves and debris to allow the water to flow safely down to the creek; and stacking firewood that came from several felled trees on the land.  

Our beautiful homies came through with love, care, and work gloves to throw down and build community during a time when we are really feeling the need for connection over isolation. The space was truly intergenerational, from our youngest volunteer, baby Kaisa, to our elders representing and reminding us that the work of the living world includes joyous laughter, warm hugs, and the beating of our hearts. 

Our Fall work party helped us winterize the land and people by reminding us that preparing and doing something together is how we build the worlds we need. Shout out to all our volunteers, kiddo-care team, and MG collective members who hosted and fed the crew!

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Invasive Species or Displaced Relatives?

By: Quinton Sankofa

Last Spring, our land team had the pleasure of taking a walk through the majestic hills surrounding our liberated land site. The walk was led by Joe Joe Clark, a knowledgeable and enthusiastic naturalist. During the walk, Joe Joe casually pointed out various plants and grasses and what their presence might indicate. 

As we walked, I noticed a particular plant that grew abundantly on our site. It was a tall weed with a purple/pink flower and hairy bristles along its stem. It seemed to be everywhere. I brought it to Joe Joe’s attention, and he explained that it was Italian thistle. Many people consider it to be a non-native, “invasive” species. 

“Invasive” species are often hard to control and spread easily over large areas. They have been brought into an ecosystem from a different one, usually as a result of human activity. In this case, the Italian thistle was introduced to our land hundreds of years ago by Europeans during the colonization of California. Due to this association with colonization, when I come across a non-native, invasive species, it irks me and triggers angry thoughts. 

My thinking was subtly challenged by Joe Joe when he shared with me that he was trying to stop using the term “invasive.” He preferred the term displaced plant relatives. This resonated with me. Sure, it makes sense to feel angry about colonization and the terrible destruction Europeans brought to this part of the world. However, why be upset or demonize the Italian thistle? Like some of our ancestors, it didn’t ask to be brought to this land. It was taken from its home and transported to a foreign land where it eventually found a place to thrive. Given the history of my people, I can relate to the experience of our displaced plant relatives.

{end of story}

{Section: Culture Shift}

{Image ID: Still shot from an animated film showing silhouettes: a person holding a baby, children playing on the ground, a person carrying a bundle of wood on their shoulders, and simple home structures surrounding a fire. Strips of images of leaves, fire, and water are in the background.}

Remembering Our Way Forward: A Stop-motion Animated Film by Lily Xie

What does it mean to restore reciprocal human relationships with land? 

This past summer we got to explore this question with artist and animator Lily Xie as we co-created a magical short film for the Center for Cultural Power’s Climate Woke campaign. As a member of MG’s most recent Creative Wildfire cohort, Lily was compelled to help us tell a story about land rematriation as a necessary and healing path to climate justice, with our own liberated land site in the East Bay hills as the backdrop.

The Center for Cultural Power awarded Lily a grant to practice and play with her whimsical and tactile craft of stop-motion animation, fully immersed in the elements of the foggy woodlands and sun-kissed grasslands of the Bay Area. Together with Ashley Salaz from Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and MG collective member Dana Viloria, Lily made shadows of summer lupine sprout from dry earth and tumbled rocks down to give way to the waters of Lisjan Creek.  

{Image ID: Lupine with its shadows on the ground.}

Written and narrated by MG collective members Angela Aguilar, Quinton Sankofa, and Dana Viloria, Lily’s film Remembering Our Way Forward tells the tale of how colonization disrupted some of our land relations—and how we are returning to those relations and remembering who we are as humans building new worlds that will be resilient to climate change.

In October, MG and the Center for Cultural Power held a special screening of Remembering Our Way Forward, along with the gorgeous short film hija de Florinda by Shenny De Los Angeles and Iiritu. 

Watch Remembering Our Way Forward here. Stay tuned for a podcast that highlights the beautiful sounds and discussions from the film screening, coming soon.

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MG Book Club

{Image ID: Book cover for “Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072” by M.E. O’Brien & Eman Abdelhadi. The graphic shows a map of silhouettes of the New York City boroughs with connecting transportation lines overlaid on top.}

We started a book club, y’all! This fall, we’ve been reading Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi. Michelle Mascarenhas put us on to this brilliant speculative fiction book (thanks to Matt Clarke, who stumbled upon an advanced copy at a thrift store—what a lucky find!). 

The book imagines what it could look and feel like to liberate and govern our peoples and our lands in a time of state repression, economic collapse, and ecological crisis. From sex workers and dance party organizers in the Bronx to Arab activists in the Levant, their oral histories encompass community care, guerilla ops, trauma healing, and more.

Michelle, along with MG collective members Angela Aguilar and Dana Viloria, co-hosted our two virtual gatherings in the fall and an in-person gathering this winter. In this not-your-typical book club, we looked at pods as a strategy to begin organizing and self-governing with the people closest to us in our homes, hoods, and bioregions. We discussed the organizing models laid out in the book, as well as seeds we want to water for the future we’re growing together.

The final book club gathering will be virtual on January 15, 2025—if you’d like to join, reach out to us at info@movementgeneration.org. The print book and ebook are available at Common Notions, as well as library-based apps. The audiobook is available at Libro.fm.

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Sabbaticals: A Culture Shift Towards Care, Creativity, and Collectivity

{Image ID: Illustration of a red-tailed hawk}

A core element of the regenerative economies that Movement Generation is building to achieve ecological justice is honoring our work and labor through cooperation rooted in sacredness and caring. One way we represent that in our organizational structure is through our leave policies. In various sectors of society, leave policies range from the nominal federally required length to very generous lengths (the latter is rare).

In this interview, Angela Aguilar, who will be taking her first sabbatical as an MG collective member, and Ellen Choy, who just returned from her second combined sabbatical and parental leave, share their experiences, how preparing for sabbatical is a practice of collective governance, and the larger culture shift implications of having time away from the “job.”

EC: In MG’s policy, the purpose of the sabbatical for the individual is to provide a period of relaxation and replenishment, to reward long-term tenure, and to offer space and time to boost creativity and stamina. The organizational purpose is that the sabbatical is to experience the absence as an opening for others to learn that person’s role, create redundancy in skills and relationships, and support conditions for eventual succession.

AA: That’s really thoughtful, and I’m glad that’s written down! I appreciate that taking a sabbatical at MG is different. I spent many years in academia, and when folks there take sabbatical, they have to write a detailed proposal about what they are going to do and argue why the sabbatical will benefit them. In the nonprofit world, I’ve noticed when people take sabbatical they are near burn out and there’s an urgent need for rest and recovery. So I feel like my experience going into sabbatical is starkly different because of who MG is, how we work, and how I feel energized by my work as I prepare to take leave.

EC: For my sabbatical/parental leave, I pushed myself to consider that this is my moment to think about my role in everything—in my family, at MG, and in the world. No one person has to be the only person who knows how to do something in the collective. Anyone has to be able to go on leave at any time, and we have to be OK. This is one of those ecological principles that’s incorporated around planned redundancy, how ecosystems need that to survive.

Do you want to say more about how you’re approaching your sabbatical?

AA: Yeah, I’ve  been thinking about my sabbatical for a year. I talked to people who have taken one, asking them about their experience. Several folks shared that something intense happened at the start. They got sick, or something, so I’m intentionally talking to myself and my body about it so I can prepare for what I need. 

I’ve been doing more ceramics work and embroidery now, which is what I plan to do during sabbatical, to help make the transition seamless. I feel like there’s such an energetically abrupt transition from working day in and out, to just completely disconnecting from work. The times that I’m not doing family things, I’ll be taking classes, spending more time in the studio, working on clay, pottery stuff, and just deepening into art and creative work.

EC: Why does creative work feel important for you to do during sabbatical?

AA: This will be the first opportunity in my life for me explore my artistic side more deeply. I’m an artist in different ways, but also have never been able to or given myself permission to dedicate myself to a practice. When I was younger, it was discouraged cause I wasn’t gonna make money. So I just worked and went to school, grinding.

I really want to take this time and space where I can develop my creativity more at my age. I’m taking these pottery classes, and I feel like a newbie, and that’s good because I’m 43, and it’s amazing to be in a space where I don’t know anything, and younger people are teaching me and are really supportive and loving. I want to take this time to do what my heart wants to do.  

EC: I’m so glad you’re gonna do that. I think I’ve also heard from people that they will dive deep into a political project that’s outside of MG during their sabbatical. I’m of the mind that all of us should be engaged politically outside of MG because it sharpens us, brings us politically deeper as a collective. And I’m just so excited for people who do that on their sabbatical, too.

AA: Yeah, you’re right, the time can help bring us towards our purpose. What gives me life is being in creative and organizing space with other people as part of a community. So I’ll be continuing the project that I’ve been doing with a compa, working with survivors of childhood sexual abuse. We facilitated a five-month healing circle last spring and our next steps will include talking about power building in the movement and the role of survivors.

I haven’t actually had an opportunity to sit down and just have thought partners who are also survivors to talk about what our role is in the current political landscape. You know, it’s complex as survivors because no one is trying to get deeply political when they are just coming to terms with the impact of their experience, but now we’re finding this group of group of folks who have been on the healing road for a while and are ready to take it to the next level. We are survival strategists, and we are needed right now more than ever.

EC: I can imagine that is work that is so much better done when you’re not worried about your 9-to-5 task list.

My sabbatical made me a better collective member, I think, given mine was such a deep mix with parental stuff.  Babies will teach you boundaries. Even though I’m at home and I have the laundry to do and dishes, and baby is like, “Nah, homie, you’re here with me.” And I had to surrender to that. It was so uncomfortable. I had fallen into looser boundaries with work. Tasks, checklists, getting stuff done serves me, for better or for worse. But the baby just regrounded me in having tighter boundaries so that we are taken care of, and I’m taken care of. So that was a gift that the sabbatical gave me, that I think benefits the organization. And I hope that happens for everyone else.

AA: Yeah, I’m wishing that for myself. But yeah, I think when it comes to MG work, I’m actually kinda sad to go on sabbatical!

EC: Yeah, yeah. I felt that way too. People didn’t believe me when I was saying that!

AA: Yeah. I do feel like, if I could extend my work time—speaking of boundaries—I would probably attempt it! I’m gonna miss everyone because I like this work, I love all of it. And this is good, because I wouldn’t want to wait until I’m like, “God, please, I need to stop working!” It doesn’t seem beneficial for anybody.

The five years that I’ve been at MG has not been a normal five years! It’s been a pandemic five years. So, yeah, I’m ready because I have this thing waiting for me, my artistic exploration. Who knows what’s gonna open for me, for us.  I imagine it will also be very healing and I feel excited about that.

EC: That’s sounds healthy!

AA: Yeah! Right? Healthy behaviors! We can do it!

EC: I do generally feel like in this country, parental leave is just not supported in the way it needs to be. We have the worst in all of the developed countries, if not the world. The parent and the baby need at least a year to be together, physiologically, emotionally, spiritually.

MG parental leave is six months, and it felt like a good amount of time for me. I think we could push for  a one-year parental policy. But I’m not sure if the collective could hold that yet. And I don’t know if I want to be away from the work for that long! But I think that if we just look at what the parent and baby need, the leave should be longer.

AA: There are many things that need to change about how we hold children and parents. How are we raising kids? Right now, the responsibility is on the parents, and less on the whole community. So obviously things gotta change.

EC: But yeah, what we are doing at MG is getting us closer. All these policies are not made in isolation. A better parental leave policy would not be possible without all the foundational collective work we’re doing to build trust, build our systems of collectivity and governance. Because all that work we did makes this six-month parental leave possible, it makes the flexibility that we have within our policies possible to meet people’s needs. You know, not all organizations can do this because they don’t have those foundations and the political values alignment and the struggles that we have to go through to get there.

AA: That part, damn. You’re gonna have to write a whole book on that: the liberatory possibilities of collective governance.

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If We’re Not Prepared to Govern, We’re Not Prepared to Win

“People are aware that they cannot continue in the same old way but are immobilized because they cannot imagine an alternative. We need a vision that recognizes that we are at one of the great turning points in human history when the survival of our planet and the restoration of our humanity require a great sea change in our ecological, economic, political, and spiritual values.” –Grace Lee Boggs

No matter who presides over the empire, only our peoples can build truly democratic governance systems that are rooted in our collective safety and well being, our inherent rights, and the rights of Mother Earth. 

As we remember our way forward together with courage and hope, it is time to engage in the daily practice of self-governance. Rather than just governing under the existing structures, we must remake the shape of governance to be more democratic and ecologically responsive. This is how, when we organize to scale, we can perform civil disobedience at the scale of governance. 

To assert true democracy, we must make the rules we need and break the rules that serve the rulers. We must demonstrate that our ability to self-govern is better at meeting our needs than the corporations’ or state’s supposed mandate to govern.

Humans are a keystone species of the biosphere. Our role now is not to shrink. We cannot resign ourselves to having a smaller footprint. We have missed the opportunity for such an easy out. We must now have a greater impact on the planet in the next 100 years than we have had over the past 500 or more, but towards a completely different purpose.

In humble cooperation with the rest of the living world, we must rip out concrete and build soil. We must undam rivers and cap oil wells. We must restore our relationships and care for home and one another as though our lives depend on it—because our lives depend on it.

To our community, we echo three simple, profound, and true words spoken and written across our movement ecosystem many times over the years and especially now: We got us.

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Recipe: One Pan Vegan Tofu Curry

{Image ID: Yellow curry with tofu and peas in a pan with a spatula.}

Here’s a vegan curry recipe to keep you warm this winter (adapted from Nora Cooks).

Ingredients 

• 14.5-ounce block extra-firm tofu
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger
• 13.5-ounce can full fat coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons curry powder
• ½ to 1 teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup frozen peas
• chopped fresh cilantro

Instructions 

1. Remove the tofu from the packaging and press dry with a cheesecloth or a clean kitchen towel. If you have extra-firm tofu, there is no need to press it.
2. Break the tofu into 1-inch chunks and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle on the cornstarch and gently stir to coat the pieces.
3. Heat a large nonstick skillet and add the oil. Once hot, add the tofu in a single layer if possible (do this in batches if your pan is too small).
4. Let the tofu brown on all sides. When you first place the tofu in the pan, try not to move it for a few minutes. Once a crust forms, it will be easier to flip without ripping.
5. Once the tofu is golden and crisp, add the garlic and ginger to the pan. If the pan is dry, add another tablespoon of oil. Sauté for about 1 minute, then stir in the coconut milk, curry powder, and salt.
6. Stir everything together and bring to a boil. Lower heat and let the mixture simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes.
7. Add the peas, and cook for a few more minutes, then taste. Add more salt if desired.
8. Serve with chopped fresh cilantro, over rice, noodles, or steamed vegetables.

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11 Cultural Offerings

Here are some cultural offerings that the MG collective is listening to, reading, watching, and nerding out on.

{Image ID: Text reads: Free the World}

Free the World: A hella good and flowy hip hop EP by Youth Vs. Apocalypse!

{Image ID: Text reads: African Campfire Stories History Podcast}

African Camp Fire Stories: A podcast dedicated to telling African history “in an engaging, interesting, and fun manner; while ensuring all the stories are well researched and grounded in facts.”

{Image ID: Angela Davis, an elderly Black woman, sitting in a chair and speaking into a microphone}

Love, Power, and Liberation: A deeply inspiring conversation with Angela Davis and Lama Rod Owens about what we need in this political moment.

{Image ID: Cartoon image of a Black child with their hair in space buns in a playroom}

Gracie’s Corner: An awesome YouTube channel for kids that “provides a combination of educational, fun, and encouraging songs for children from diverse backgrounds.”

{Image ID: Book cover of Naomi Klein’s Doppleganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World, featuring a close-up of Klein’s eyes with a static filter on the image}

Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein: This chilling book explores “psychic landscapes” and “the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises.”

{Image ID: Two Native men sitting at a table speaking into microphones}

Patrick Is a Navajo: The YouTube channel of Patrick Willie, a Navajo Hoop Dancer from Utah, “dedicated to spreading humor and good feelings.”

{Image ID: Book cover of Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder, featuring illustrations of people with different types of bodies}

Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder: A picture book that celebrates all the different human bodies that exist in the world.

{Image ID: Text reads: Radio Ambulante}

Radio Ambulante: “A Spanish-language podcast that uses longform audio journalism to tell neglected and under-reported Latin American and Latino stories.”

{Image ID: Esoterica Tropical, Puerto Rican singer and musician, wearing colorful clothing and dancing by the ocean}

Esotérica Tropical: A gorgeous and magical album by Esotérica Tropical, a queer Boricua bruja artist and healer.

{Image ID: A black-and-white photo of a skateboarder and a color photo of trans skateboarder Cher Strauberry}

Unity Through Skateboarding: A radical exhibit at SF Museum of Modern Art that “celebrates the dreams and realities of queer, trans, BIPOC, and women skaters,” curated by Jeffrey Cheung and Gabriel Ramirez.

{Image ID: Text reads: Homegrown}

Homegrown: A film by Michael Premo that documents a growing right-wing movement pushing American democracy to the brink.

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{Back Cover}

Movement Generation End-of-Year Fundraiser

Goal: $75,000 by December 31, 2024

Donate: movementgeneration.org/donate