Coalition of Everyone with Willow Berzin and Morag Gamble

In this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World, it is my delight to welcome Willow Berzin - a wonderfully creative designer & thinker, and founder & chief assembler of the Coalition of Everyone. Through this she brings people together to hold conversations that renew trust, disrupt the politics of fear and build a politics of hope. Her key focus is on contributing to regeneration through designing pathways for transition and real systems change - deep democracy which puts people and the planet first.

Willow and I are both part of   Regenerative Songlines Australia and she is a core member of Regen Melbourne inspired by Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics.

You can watch the youtube version here.

Other projects include:

1. THE FUTURENOW PROJECT 
2. REGEN INCUBATOR If you have an idea/s for a regen project that you want to make happen, but are looking for ways to help realise it, please email willow@coalitionofeveryone.com to register your interest to join a new Regen Incubator program, piloting in Melbourne mid year. 

Willow mentioned these references:

• Thomas Campbell: My Big Toe (theory of everything)
• Jeremy Lent: The Patterning Instinct
• OECD: Catching the Deliberative Wave

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• Download this list of 10 of Morag's favourite books.
• Morag's 4 part introduction to permaculture video series.

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TEACHING PERMACULTURE FOR TRANSITION
Permaculture educators share the kinds of skills

Transcript

Morag: 0:00

Welcome to the Sense-making in a Changing World Podcast, where we explore the kind of thinking we need to navigate a positive way forward. I’m your host Morag Gamble.. Permaculture Educator, and Global Ambassador, Filmmaker, Eco villager, Food Forester, Mother, Practivist and all-around lover of thinking, communicating and acting regeneratively. For a long time it's been clear to me that to shift trajectory to a thriving one planet way of life we first need to shift our thinking, the way we perceive ourselves in relation to nature, self, and community is the core. So this is true now more than ever. And even the way change is changing, is changing. Unprecedented changes are happening all around us at a rapid pace. So how do we make sense of this? To know which way to turn, to know what action to focus on? So our efforts are worthwhile and nourishing and are working towards resilience, and reconnection. What better way to make sense than to join together with others in open generative conversation. In this podcast, I'll share conversations with my friends and colleagues, people who inspire and challenge me in their ways of thinking, connecting and acting. These wonderful people are thinkers, doers, activists, scholars, writers, leaders, farmers, educators, people whose work informs permaculture and spark the imagination of what a post-COVID, climate-resilient, socially just future could look like. Their ideas and projects help us to make sense in this changing world to compost and digest the ideas and to nurture the fertile ground for new ideas, connections and actions. Together we'll open up conversations in the world of permaculture design, regenerative thinking community action, earth repair, eco-literacy, and much more. I can't wait to share these conversations with you.

Morag Gamble: 1:49

Over the last three decades of personally making sense of the multiple crises we face I always returned to the practical and positive world of permaculture with its ethics of earth care, people care and fair share. I've seen firsthand how adaptable and responsive it can be in all contexts from urban to rural, from refugee camps to suburbs. It helps people make sense of what's happening around them and to learn accessible design tools, to shape their habitat positively and to contribute to cultural and ecological regeneration. This is why I've created the Permaculture Educators Program to help thousands of people to become permaculture teachers everywhere through an interactive online dual certificate of permaculture design and teaching. We sponsor global Permayouth programs, women's self help groups in the global South and teens in refugee camps. So anyway, this podcast is sponsored by the Permaculture Education Institute and our Permaculture Educators Program. If you'd like to find more about permaculture, I've created a four-part permaculture video series to explain what permaculture is and also how you can make it your livelihood as well as your way of life. We'd love to invite you to join a wonderfully inspiring, friendly and supportive global learning community. So I welcome you to share each of these conversations, and I'd also like to suggest you create a local conversation circle to explore the ideas shared in each show and discuss together how this makes sense in your local community and environment. I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I meet and speak with you today. The Gubbi Gubbi people and pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging.

Morag: 3:26

In this episode of sense-making in a changing world, it's my delight to welcome Willow Berson, a wonderfully creative thinker and the founder and chief assembler of the coalition of everyone who were bringing together people to hold conversations that renewed trust, disrupt the politics of fear and build a politics of hope. Her key focus is on contributing to regeneration through designing pathways for transition and real systems change through deep democracy. Then putting people and the planet. First. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did

Morag Gamble: 4:05

Well, thank you so much for joining me on the show today, Willow. I've been watching your work for a long time and we haven't actually met. We've spoken numbers of times we were on various groups together, but, even though you're in my hometown of Melbourne, we've not actually met. I'm so delighted that you're joining me on the show today to talk about the work that you do. It's the work that needs to be done. I mean, essentially what you're trying to do is to create a space for the really challenging conversations to be had so that we can create the conditions for change and disrupting them in a way that enables people to get involved and to shape the kind of future that we want to have. So there's so many different parts of this juicy conversation, and I'm looking forward to having with you today. Maybe we could just start before we get into sort of what it is that you do and why you do it. I'm sorry, what it is and how you do it. What fuels you to get involved in these big conversations about the change we need to see in the world?

Willow Berzin: 5:06

Oh Morag, Thank you. That's a beautiful, warm, welcoming, and thank you for having me That's a really good question. And I think it stems from a deep, personal desire to be useful, actually. It kind of goes way back. I suppose most of us do it in points, but then we get stuck in our systems and just having to survive. And there's a few different ways that sometimes I wonder why I'm compelled to keep doing this work. And I think there's sort of democracy is one thing. And then there's, why do I think I can do anything is I suppose, different competing parts of the story. So for me, good democracy is something that need to, as some kind of an invisible glue to help us figure out how to work together and collaborate together and overcome all the things that keep us divided and separate. And that's not necessarily how somebody else might determine or define democracy, but that to me is what it's becoming and why I'm drawn to it. I think also bad democracy is like bad parenting. Makes me angry. And that disempowered feeling that you can get when decisions are being made about your future that you don't feel that you're a part of that you're not included in making and that somebody else is making for their interests and not the best for your own. And that also makes me angry. So there's kind of a frustration and an anger that goes back to for me, probably childhood stuff too, and some slightly shtty parenting along the way from my father. That's an understatement. It's kind of fueled some sense of,"but that's not right." This is, this is, there's a better way. And I think that's my kind of attraction to being in this space in one hand. Then, yeah, I spent sort of 20 years working as a creative director in a building brands and services and products and lots of digital outcomes and in the startup space for nearly, I think about 10 years, and sort of gathered all of these tools, but was always frustrated with the outcome, I suppose. And I worked for big brands and I worked for big agencies and met amazing people. I got to cut my teeth, doing amazing work with amazing people, but it was never anything that really mattered. And I suppose my personal concern is we are all a growing concern for the trajectory of humanity and our children is terrifying. It's like, hang on, we've got to join this up. Um, somehow. It became like, there's a gap. There's a gap and why aren't we using democracy better to help us through this time to make better decisions together?

Morag Gamble: 8:21

Yeah. Yeah. I can really relate to you when you're saying you can't really define necessarily like why it is that you keep needing to do this thing about feeling useful. I kind of relate to that. Just this inner flame or fire that burns that when you see something or see the injustice of it, that I can't pinpoint a particular moment when I felt that way, but I can't remember not feeling this way. And it's just is a constant design when you see something that is going wrong and really obviously wrong. And that there's another story that's there to be, to share or to be woven anew that the giving voice and space for that to emerge, I think is important. And what you talk about in what you, how you describe what you do is like deep systems change. So what does deep systems change mean to you? Because I love that expression and I think it's what's needed in the world, but what does that mean to you?

Willow Berzin: 9:28

That's a good question, too. Wow. So yeah. Look I, that's a good question. I don't know if I could answer it because I feel very much like I'm an apprentice systems thinker, doer person, and just on a massive learning journey. Which also is an unlearning journey to equally. And for me, yeah, I'm not trained, I'm just listening and reading and watching and kind of by the process of going further and deeper into the work, trying to understand more. I think it's some sense of being able to zoom out, beyond ourselves and our immediate needs for survival and love and all of the human things and to zoom out and to understand why we are where we are and how we are, where we are. And then also around where the leverage points are that we can try and help shift. The the complexity of our systems as well. And I think.. I was reading a book by Thomas Campbell, he's a NASA physicist. It's taking me 10 years to read the first part. Absolutely incredible. And he, it's kind of a like a learned knowledge as well. So that's why it's taking me so long. He was talking about our interconnected systems. There's the global ecosystems. They're not eco as in green, but eco as in whole systems that fit within whole of the political, the social, ecological, the, what was that for the technological, and of course the environmental, which is the one that we think of the most, but how these big, huge systems now at sort of global scale are all interconnected. And we can't really break apart one thing without understanding how they all connect to the others. And so when I was at the beginning of the idea of building the Coalition of Everyone, it was sort of looking at this and understanding that well, climate change is a symptom of a greater, deeper systemic issue that we have in our political and our social systems. And the collapse of biodiversity and the climate is because of the fact that we are running in very outmoded, political and social systems that are collapsing. And now it's really, it makes it collapsing even more deeply. Like we're all watching in real time, the fissures of our systems just cracking open. And at the same time it's that, trying to understand how we can rebuild through them while they're collapsing. We're watching it and everybody's pretty freaked out. And so systems thinking, I find I've always enjoyed zooming out. I remember being about 16 or 15 and lying in my bed and having a very strange experience where I did zoom really far out and had a sense of the people on the planet. And it totally freaked me out. And I kind of came back to my body. And I suppose that's sort of a part of it is sort of trying to be able to step away from self into, this is my version. Other people who maybe have more, a more analytical, pragmatic sense version, but having a sense of that, we're all connected in that. We're all one, really, actually, we're just little nodes of difference that what affects one affects all.

Morag Gamble: 13:27

I think that's at the core of system thinking. We're working at the moment with Fritjof Capra with the permayouth. And so we're having these great conversations working through systems thinking core. And then, you know, they're asking questions and I mean, that's at the core of it. The session we just had this last week was, you know, saying if you're a scientist, and you focus down and down and down, what'd you get to, is this, you know, interconnected fabric of life. If you're, if you're meditating, you're coming from a spiritual perspective. You sort of meditate for a long time and you get to the point of recognizing the oneness. And I was thinking, as a gardener as a permaculture gardener. I sit in my garden for long enough, and I recognize the one that's at that whole system. That's applied systems thinking is permaculture. So I think it is. You know, Nora Bateson talks about how everything is relational and it's about how we look at the liminal space, the space in between, it's not focusing on the parts, but how the parts interconnect. And just one of things that Fritjof was talking about the other day was how, you know, he was talking about where life comes from, and basically that all life stems from one common ancestor, which is bacteria. So we are all related. We are not just related the living things. We also have a constant exchange and interchange with, with the nonliving environment. And so all life and the environment on this planet is connected as one whole. And then there's also the things that come in and out of our planetary system. So then my daughter asked, so do we have a sense of the membrane of the universe and Fritjof said, well, that's a very Maia question.[inaudible] answer that through science. You know, that is something that you have to answer from a different way of knowing. So this oneness is kind of at the, at the core of it, whichever way you look in the relationality of everything. And so what you're doing with the Coalition of Everyone. Creating the conditions where people can have those conversations and connect between the different, so stepping out of silos of knowledge, or this group talks just about permaculture, or this group just talks about economy, or this group just talk about health. We need everyone in the room and we need everyone to come into that room with a sense of just openness, let go of your scripts and sort of have this sense of being there for that common purpose, that mentor. Can you tell us a bit more about your Coalition of Everyone and how that works? And I know that it's like a, it's a disruption of democracies you're talking about, but I wonder maybe as you're describing it, to talk about the disruption that COVID has had on your disruption of democracy as well, because it's always, it's been a bit challenging in this last year, hasn't it?

Willow Berzin: 16:35

Maybe I just step back and.. So the coalition of everyone is an idea that has come in the past couple of years and a bunch of us have been helping develop it. It's an idea name. So it is what it says on the team, but hopefully it's a whole lot more in that, in that we've been developing a framework and spent quite a while, at least maybe the first year in sort of R and D developing, these democracy tools to help us cross the divide and come together and start to make decisions together and collaborate on the things that matter. And the heart of it really is the framework. So at one end, um, we have citizen, community led change and how to have events that bring people together to discuss the things that matter and to make decisions together. And then at the other end of the framework is then more for say, citizens policy-led change and how these work, but then also step out of the closed doors of it being only applicable to government and how these can also work together, I suppose, and the relationship of a top-down and a bottom up, um, approach. Cause we can't do one without the other. One without the other is not going to work. We need the advice and working together in a coordinated sense. Within that framework too actually what came of last year and the disruption of the disruptions was a conversation that I started it with a bunch of amazing people around Australia around how do we continue the narrative? Because there was a quick conversation. And I think from our federal leaders talking about the desire to snap back. It was like, why do we want to snap back? When, what was before was hurting a lot of people in the planet, there's gotta be better ways. And actually that at the heart of this is all storytelling and that that's the stories that we can access that help us understand the world. And there's a way to create a new narrative. What might that look like? So it was a question. And so we had an 18-week conversation that led to a project called The Future Now Project, which is around a set of tools to help people dream and imagine forward. So you can enter into a safe and protected environment by yourself or in groups to feel where and what, and how your design w ill be like. What does it smell like and how does it feel like, and what are people doing and what can you hear? And what's on the news and what does work look like and how people are e ngaging those sorts of questions. And the tools have been developed to help people access that. So we can have a lived experience of what that future might feel like. So we can start to take steps towards that. So t hey've become, t hat's sort of become the heart of the framework actually. It's really about activating imagination and to try and snap out of our consumers n eoliberalist mindset, that sort of really doing terrible things to our imagination b ecause we just t hought, well, no, I just have to be on the rat race and I've just got to go and work. And then I've got to go and shop and then a b it of I'll take my holiday a nd get back on the wheel. And that's not life. That's not what we're here for. C ause there's so much more than that. So this is about trying to help people find that and then to tell t he stories onto the platform.

Morag Gamble: 20:13

I think it's interesting, sorry to interrupt you there because I think it's really interesting that you are, you have this focus on imagination and it's about transition. Talking with Rob Hopkins who started the whole transition movement out of the UK and you know, his latest work is all around imagination and saying that.. We have a lack of imagination now in politics and lack of imagination in education, and we don't cultivate this curiosity in imagination. And that in order to actually step forward, as you're saying into a different reality, we have to have a different concept of what that reality could be like. And so I totally agree. I think imagination is the key and giving ourselves the space to imagine what that might be like and to hear other people's stories and imaginings from all different cultures and places as well. And what I find interesting too, is that when you start to share that imagining across cultures, even across places that you think would be so disparate, there's really interesting common themes and common desires and common concerns that underpin all of that.

Willow Berzin: 21:28

Exactly. That's exactly it. It's on our platform at the moment. There's, I don't know, maybe about 30 different visions. We're looking to publish invite people to hold more of these and publish more, but everybody wants sort of the same things. Now, admittedly, this is one particular niche audience because it's still just a growing, beginning of the project. We're really interested in speaking with more diverse audiences to start to identify what are the commonalities, and if we're all looking for creating common futures, then our politics is saying and doing something else. And I think, again, that's the role of democracy that actually without it, we can't reconnect ourselves with our trajectory.

Morag Gamble: 22:23

Another part of what you've been doing with the Coalition of Everyone, citizen assemblies. Which is also what XR has been using as a way to bring people together. Can you describe a bit about what a citizen assembly is, how it works and what your experience has been working through these events?

Willow Berzin: 22:49

Yeah. So I first heard about them actually through XR. I'd never heard of them before. I was like, what is that sounds really interesting. I think it's about a decade, for the past sort of decade or more. There's been a whole lot of different citizens assemblies have been held around the world. And as Chris Reidy says, I think we're in about the third generation of what this democratic renewal processes look like. And citizens' assemblies are a very powerful tool when they are designed and facilitated well. They can be used in different forms and at the highest level, for example, some of the most successful ones was in Ireland. They had the citizens assembly on abortion and for a very religious company and country, they actually came to a decision where they were giving rights for abortion. So it's a deliberative process. For a citizen's assembly to be effective, it needs to be by government or the people who are going to be checking the policy that the assembly deliberates and decides upon. That's probably the hardest part for people to, I think appreciate because without it being[inaudible] that the findings will be adhered, too. It's just, unfortunately it can be just another talk. So they need to be well held to maintain legitimacy, this needs to be a very kind of protected, quite serious, institutionalized piece. So there's amazing people doing these really well around the world. So in Sydney, there's new democracy foundation doing amazing citizens assemblies here and abroad as well. I completely respect that work. We think that these can be done at a more local level as well in a complimentary sense that it doesn't need to be just at state or federal level. And my co-founder Sonia Randhawa, who held a small citizens assembly with a community house in Moreland in November last year about build back better. And it's the same process as a larger one that might have a couple of hundred people, but, it doesn't need to be just at state and federal level. So these can be done in any kind of point to make better decisions. So long as the people who are making the decisions are there and abiding into the outcomes that the people there are deliberating and deciding upon[inaudible] of problem statement that they might choose to hear.

Morag Gamble: 25:45

What kind of questions are asked at citizens assembly? Like what were the questions you asked at that one?

Willow Berzin: 25:51

I actually wasn't there, so I can't tell you, but I know for in France they recently held one on the climate. I think there's been some interesting outcomes. And of course then the bigger problems are that maybe the government doesn't want to actually adhere to the findings of the assembly. So that's where there's a lot of tensions and people were saying, well, they don't work well, they do work, but actually look, it's an evolving piece where there's constant learning and improvement in the iterations been happening on these. There's a standing assembly, which is very interesting. That's happening in B elgium, Brussels, on the border of Belgium a nd Germany. I can't remember exactly. In a small place. Maybe it c ould be that. There's a standing assembly happening in a small, smaller country in Europe. That means then that t here w ill be representation from citizens being invited to deliberate upon whatever o ther biggest issues of the day. So another kind of mechanism, that helps c itizens assemblies b e legitimate, is using s ortition as a way to. It's a random selection process to ensure that y ou're actually inviting a broad demographic or a representative demographic to then deliberate upon a question. So for example, in Australia, i f we're heading towards 2 5 million, it w ould be very hard to engage 25 million people. But if you were to hold the c itizens assembly at a national level h ere, you might end up with maybe 1 50 or 200 people who are representative of, y ou k now, different genders, socioeconomic backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, all of the different things that make up our population w ould be split i n percentiles. So then you have a representative cohort who are the people that can then come together in a very non-biased deliberative process where people are, participants a re asked to use their critical thinking and t aken through exercises. And it's all taken through expert facilitators to make sure that everybody's voice is heard as well. It's not just the loudest people in the room, to come together to make decisions together. And so I suppose our framework is sort of taking the principles of that at the highest level for policy change, and then all the way down to j ust community level for community groups, for anyone. And it might be a mix of people coming together on an issue that includes business, government, community, whatever it may be to follow a similar process, but perhaps effective policy.

Morag Gamble: 28:45

And it's interesting, I think it's an interesting thing too just as you're speaking, it's like not necessarily all the time, everything needs to be about policy change either. Like if you're doing an event like this and it's affecting change in how groups form and collaborate at a by regional level, for example, and then those collaborations then form new initiatives and partnerships and actions. Change is happening, anyway. We don't have to wait for the government to change. A really great conversation with Stuart Andrews from forage farms the other day. And he was talking about how, you know, he spent a lot of time talking with government to try and get policy changed. But what he's realized is what's creating the greatest change in the food system is actually the farmers and the consumers talking together and making change. And so the conversations can happen at different places. And assuming that the power always happens at the government and then it's feeding everything into that might actually be dissipating the effect of it because, you know, while that needs to happen, the change needs to happen at a much broader level first, before that will even become a reality. So these are creating the conditions, these conversations, these broader conversations, whether they're the, I guess, like people imagining or people coming together in these sorts of events are creating the conditions for changing the conditions for creating change somewhere else, because it's not just a straight linear process, isn't it. It's kind of creating this complex soup of deep systems change in our own cells. And then, you know, like if you participate in one of these events, you are changed by the very nature of being a participant in that. Something will shift in how you perceive things. You hear someone else's idea that sits in, rattles around, and then it kind of becomes you. And then you might go and talk differently at the next meeting that you have to make decisions about what's happening in your organization and your company or your family. And so these things do changes at very deep levels, whether we notice it or not simply by coming together and having these really important conversations. And so sometimes it can feel a little bit disempowering that we're not getting policy change, but we are getting changed. And I think really valuing that deep change that's happening in our perceptions in our relationships in local actions is I think often where some of them, the main part happens. And it's kind of like this myceliac network as well. Like it's just happening underground everywhere, and it's just every now and then it pops up and you'll see, you'll see it here and you'll see it here, but it's everywhere around the world. And that's what kind of gives me a sense of strength. Like if you compost areas enough socially, you will get these flowers and we'll feed that mycelium network. And the change will just be so strong that the policy shift will have to happen. But the thing that's really struggling, that we all struggle with at the moment is, is that fast enough? Is that what we need? You know, we are facing really catastrophic events. I was talking with Rosemary Morrow the other day and she reminded me that we've already pushed past a number of threshold, ecological thresholds? You know, we really can't push past anymore. And there was a report that came out from Cornell university the other day saying that because of climate change, we've had 21% reduction in food farming productivity. So we have to start doing things really, really differently. And these conversations are so critical. So I wonder whether you could tell us a little bit about how you're addressing these through your regeneration. Is it regeneration Melbourne, regenerative, Melbourne?

Willow Berzin: 32:47

Regen Melbourne.

Morag Gamble: 32:47

Regen Melbourne. There you go. I had too many letters. Thank you. And so how has Regen Melbourne facing this and it's different again, what you're doing.

Willow Berzin: 32:57

Yeah! There are many things there and it's all, it's all so true. So yeah, I think Regen Melbourne has come about, after Kate Raworth, who's a[inaudible] like a 21st century economist, and developed the doughnut economics framework. She did a talk at this academy in the middle of last year. A bunch of us all put our hands up and said, how do we do that here? I was one of those people, because again, our economic systems is actually one of the fundamental reasons why we're in this situation as well. And it would seem to be a very pragmatic kind of way that anyone, people like me who is, who is not an economist and not good with numbers can understand economic systems and how to do economics better, just like you're trying to do politics or actually not politics, try to do democracy, better, two very different ideas. Kaj from Small Giants Academy and Sean from the Cirrcular Economy Victoria, who had been actually having these conversations with the city of Melbourne and our, my team[inaudible] the beginning of last year we got together and formed Regen Melbourne, which is really about exploring a regenerative future for Melbourne and particularly through the lockdown that we had last year, which was one of the longest in the worlds it's really kind of crippled the city is trying to come back, but there is a very strong desire to go back to what was familiar and to snap back to the old ways. And so it feels like we're in this unique time to do things better and to reset some health systems. So this group is formed and we're exploring doughnut economics as our first project. However, as actually Bank Anderson helped me understand that it is a great piece, but it's still only a small piece within a greater whole. And I suppose back to that systems thinking sense it's a fantastic diagnostic tool, it's a really accessible way to understand how the out of hassled management and how we need to be living within our ecological boundaries and within our social boundaries for a safe and just space for humanity and how you can downscale it to the city. It's amazing but it's not everything in a regenerative future, we think bigger idea to move towards. So we officially started the project at the end of last year, and it's been really about building the movement and then building the network, which is now about 600 people. We held some workshops, we held five workshops in February. Community workshops with the network. And the network is quite a diverse range of movers and shakers, and really great people in that network came to the events to help us explore and play with the doughnut, to gather information and insights, to create an insight support, which we'll be publishing at the end of April. This is sort of a very bottom up led approach. Other cities around the world have been fortunate or, well, it's just a different approach to be doing that to more of a top down approach. Amsterdam is the most ahead of the cities. It started the soonest Kate Raworth and friends with, I think[ inaudible]. So she had had a very different approach. So Melbourne has working with the city of Melbourne. Um, but at this point we are a bottom up driven approach and really looking for an inclusive and accessible way that everybody can understand how doughnut economics might be a better model to reboot to, and how we can start to work together for a regenerative future and reboot our economic systems. And for me, it's the political, sorry, keep saying politics. It's the democratic renewal piece, which is that we can do the work through. So what's been interesting so far, actually fascinating is from the main sites that we've collected that empowering people is the key to unlock all of the other things that we want. And all of those other things, it's really up to people to decide, but without empowered people, we can't do anything we're just stuck and trapped and we continue as we are it's sort of game over. So we don't want that.

Morag Gamble: 37:46

I guess, you know, it's like empowered people, but also, caring. I think we were on this path before COVID happened, where there was a mass. I felt like, to me, it felt like a massive awakening. You know, when you've been working in this kind of world for decades, all of a sudden there was this great big door open to this is what's happening in the world. This is why we need to focus on this thing. And then we just went.. closed back up again. Oh no, we can't go out. Can't have gatherings. Can't do that. Can't do that. And everything just kind of stopped. And all the news stopped about climate. All the news stopped about regen or the news stopped about anything except for COVID. And I wonder, there is that opening that still exists, we just sort of have a little bit of a layer on it at the moment. And it's finding that again, because there is this deep concern that underlies, I think pretty much most people that I've ever speak to that we do need something different. And it's finding ways to sort of crack open different conversations all over the place. It means that people can engage and people can become active citizens because often we sort of feel like, yeah, it's a closed down deal. The decisions get made somewhere else. We're very obedient here in Australia. I mean, you look how we responded when COVID happened. We did what we were told but I think there's also this point where we need to also get, okay, well we're responsive. And, and we were interested in the common goal and I think like we were really interested in the wellbeing of our society. So how can we translate that sense of global oneness of response to our response of what's going on now and start to bring these global conversations back into the front center of where we are. Like, it feels like it just kind of fell away.

Willow Berzin: 40:00

I think as well the further we dig in and try and uncover what's going on beneath the structures and facades that we call our society. You know, what's happened in parliament recently and the whole kind of me too movement that sort of shaking that up here. The gender representation and abuse of, and then social justice and the debts in custody. It's like at the heart of all of this is that we're living in a very colonized mindset and we actually have to decolonize our minds. And that's what I think is this sort of unlearning process, as we try and learn new ways, it's actually letting go of what we thought we knew because all of this is not who we are. And for me, it's sort of the further I go this path of connecting with others and sort of talking about this work and, and trying to figure out how to be useful and where to make good decisions that will actually affect change. It really, it starts with ourselves and our relationships and that kind of thing that we get when we start to use our vulnerability as a superpower and get more human and to just go back to care, forget about all the other bulsht, excuse me, which is just structures and based on fear. I think I have these conversations with my mom. It's a fear of the other and actually we're all the same. Everybody wants the same things. I think then within our systems, we're kind of we have a chance to evolve tasks, old ways, and it maybe it's the evolution of consciousness. Maybe it's something else, whatever we want to call it. We have some psychopaths in power and it's a very vested interests who are just holding onto money and really holding back a lot of our systems, the chance for life to keep, continue in at least the way that we knew it, then we should for our planet and ourselves and going through that, I think it's just, it's got to be this bottom up thing where we're just sort of trying to say, here's when you participate in your life, and you're given there's pathways that are clear and accessible, that you can access and make decisions for yourself and your community, and we can celebrate and nurture ourselves. And the best of us, which is really why we've survived this far is actually, there's a debate I'm reading about in the patterning instinct, this amazing book, about how we have survived so far has actually been through collaboration. It hasn't been survival of the fittest, so there's different mythologies in what the human race is about. And our system at the moment, we're quite stuck in some ways, because we do have power that is just holding on for the wrong reasons. And I think the only way that's going to change is by helping ignite participation everywhere and deliberation everywhere. And I think it is called, the deliberative wave. It's like, people are recognizing that this is how we can make change and celebrate everything that's good about being human. And we can regenerate our world and ourselves along the way at the same time.

Morag Gamble: 43:34

Beautiful. I love that. And what I'm hearing in that is put your hand up. Step in. You don't have to know everything. It's that sort of courage to care and courage to be part of the change of re-imagining what it is that that future is. Because like you're saying that now is that moment. Like, if not now, then when. We have have the doors open for systems change now. Everything's disrupted, we can create new patterns and we might not know what that is. We may just go, I have no idea, but I want to be part of it. I want to be useful. I want to contribute to shaping something that's for my kids, for my family, for my community, for the planet. We know what's, what's looming. We see it around us sometimes it's easy to kind of just put the blinkers on, but it just keeps coming back. We can't ignore it anymore. And so, yeah, putting your hand up just simply saying yes, and being part of it and finding a way to join with other people in your local area. Join people in the programs like what you're organizing. So how would you encourage people to put their hands u[? What way would you encourage people to put their hand up, to be, to help unstick where we are now?

Willow Berzin: 45:10

I think there's two parts of this and one is, what can we do within our spheres of influence? And it's not up to me or you to change the world, it's up to us to do what we can. As we are prepared to take more courageous leaps into doing things outside of what the system is to keep us tracking and to have some confidence that the more you connect with more people, the more you can do, actually. The different ways that I think we can get involved, and it's really important, actually, that it's bringing everybody along for this journey, because if we leave people behind, then we'll just collapse into other forms of authoritarianism and we'll make terrible decisions. Like what happened with Brexit was because people were being left behind. So I think what's really important is as well is to, um, for us to start to be better and inviting all of the unheard voices that don't get a chance to be thinking like this. I'm aware that I'm in a bit of a state of privilege to be able to spend time doing this. I shouldn't be doing other work, because I passionately I'm involved in this. But as far as actual things that we can do. Look, the REGEN Melbourne network is growing, and I invite anybody who's in Melbourne, or even not in Melbourne to join into that. The website is regen.melbourne. There are other cities I'm aware of just starting to light up around Australia, too. And I'm happy to connect anybody to those. That's, I think a really good way to sort of start as an access point to sort of start to meet other people, doing things. And there'll be more and more events as these develop. And as we start to gear the next steps towards creating projects, too, that we can collaborate upon. So you might be somebody who thinks that they don't have any skills, but actually you do, you have energy and you have yourself to bring to these, and it might be doing something that you forgot, you knew how, or something that you want to learn, how to do. It doesn't matter. It's just being involved. And I think that sort of sense of momentum is how it will just keep building. That we do have a chance for a really bottom up driven kind of pathway. So the regen approach exploring doughnut economics is all sort of very exciting and just starting. I think that's awesome. Actually it thrills me to no end. It tickles me pink. And then there's also the visiting assemblies that we've just b een, we just held a v isiting event at the N GV design week. And that is for the Future Now project with Regen Melbourne and with the Coalition of Everyone.

Morag Gamble: 47:59

So for non Melbournites, that's NGV is the National Gallery of Victoria.

Willow Berzin: 48:05

Yes. Thank you. That is how you might want to sort of, if you feel blocked or trapped, or that you don't know what this might look like and feel like it's an invitation to experience what your ideal future might be. So it can start to step towards it. We're actually going to pilot a regenerative incubator program in the middle of the year to invite people with ideas that need help to get their ideas off the ground and how it can connect those ideas into the greater network and unlock capital eventually as well, so that we can start to turbocharge all of this. So there's amazing people doing amazing stuff. We've just got to get everybody connected up and finding their role. I think actually, cause we all have a role to play in the great transition. It's finding it and not being paralyzed by the fear or the narrative that is really trying to hold us back and default to what was the old way let's call it pre-COVID because there's a better way. We've just got to find it together and make it. Yeah.

Morag Gamble: 49:07

Oh that's a beautiful way to wrap up our conversation. An invitation to participate in and everyone can and has something to offer. However big or small and whether you skilled or it's something that you wanting to do. I think that's just brilliant. It's a we thing, isn't it, it's not a you or me, it's a we. It's the future that we want to help create because you know, you're a mother, I'm a m other, we're a ll beings in this planet that we love de arly a nd want to see continue long into the future. I think it hurts a lot that we're in such peril and positive programs and connections like this are essential not just for the planet, but for our own self as well, to o.

Willow Berzin: 50:04

Yeah. We need to build hope and for our children and for our friend's children, if we don't have children or families and all of the nonliving world as well, sorry, non-human world, this is for all of us. In service to life. Everything else is kind of madness.

Morag Gamble: 50:25

Well, thank you so much Willow. I'll make sure that all of the different links and also the really interesting books that you mentioned along the way, too. I'll pop those all in the show notes. Are you open for people contacting you to find out more information. We'll put contact details down below as well. Thanks so much for your time today. And I look forward to ongoing conversations in Regen Melbourne and another group that we're part of, which we didn't even talk about, which is the Regenerative Songlines project. So, I had a chat with Michelle Malone and the other day about that. So that's good. Alright thank you again. I hope we get a chance to talk again soon.

Willow Berzin: 51:05

Thank you for having me, Morag.

Morag Gamble: 51:08

So that's all for today. Thanks so much for joining us. Head on over to my YouTube channel, the link's below, and then you'll be able to watch this conversation. Also make sure that you subscribe, because that way we notified of all new films that come out and also you'll get notified of all the new interviews and conversations that come out. So thanks again for joining us, have a great week and I'll see you next time.