Written by Kay, (several weeks ago)

Join The Regenerative Revolution!

The Winter Solstice is upon us, and I’m preparing food for a feast here at Kotare Village. My part of the feast is venison ‘Bourginon’ ie with red wine, herbs garlic and onions and carrots all from the land, including the deer who gave it’s life. I also rose to the challenge of a plum pudding competition, and as usual I’m making mulled wine….. I feel very very lucky to be here in this wonderful place with wonderful people and to have such wonderful food.

Whilst I’m preparing this food I have a huge feeling rising in me… ……

Winter solstice is a time for change.. a time to reflect and a time to give oneself the space to allow healing and change, it’s about new beginnings. It is essentially about rebirth.

The Winter Solstice is the time gifted to us to go into ourselves and feel the feelings we all hold, and align our heads and our hearts … to act as one…. in pursuit of new beginnings.

The seed carriers Hikoi 13 years ago was in response to a feeling of hopelessness, at Winter Solstice gathering at Kohatu Toa Ecovillage where we were then, when it felt as though our government was about to take  away our ability to be able to save our own seeds and know they would be free of genetically engineered material……..and continue to pass them on down.

We have been aware for some time now that the Seeds are only the ‘canary in the coal mine’, their loss and vulnerability  and their precariousness is no different to that of all of us or any other element in the wheel of life… The Industrial world we live in degenerates life …as we know it.. .. top soil, species diversity, human health…ecologies …and we have now reached the time where we have lost so many species..so much top soil,. …. And so many of the ecosystems that ‘life’ (as we know it) depends upon,  have been weakened so much they are struggling to maintain their integrity, and we are now at a very very critical tipping point .. a point at which things will become far harder to turn around, and the cost to all life including human life will be far greater. Each time we reach such a tipping point and there have been many already passed, turning things around and finding ways to create regenerative systems will get exponentially harder.

This winter everywhere I look I am reminded that the earth is hurting… as carbon dioxide levels go over 400 ppm for the first time ever since humans have been on the planet, first time for 4 million years…. ….. and as the Siberian Taiga disintegrates/explodes/implodes.. along with all the enormous implications of that for ALL OF US!!!!……. we are all connected,…

The Industrial world we live in has managed to separate us from Mother Earth, so successfully that many of us do not even realize the serious implications of such things.

How do you propose you will eat when the supermarkets run out of food (they only stock 2 days of food) because the climate and weather in areas of current food production make it too hard or too expensive to grow any more. Do you realise that it will be up to you, to us… not only will we have to grow our own food in local areas, or Bio-regions, but we will have to know how to do it in a climate very different to that of our ancestors and our own experience. As well as that we have to begin with poisoned and degenerated soil.. which is not capable of growing food fit to nourish humans, and will not nourish us.

In this land we are mostly still in complete denial.