Lake Michigan Islands of Coherence Wolf Moon Jan 3
"When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order."-Ilya Prigogine
Hello Lake Michigan area friends! This month we begin the new year, clearing away the old to make way for what is emerging. Some of the bioregional organizing things I look forward to in 2026 include performing and listening to live music, collecting local stories of regenerative healing on behalf of my friend/muse the Bog Witch, hosting events like walks and Metachrysalis gaming sessions, giving presentations on degrowth, bioregionalism, biodiversity corridors and permaculture, and traveling to visit other bioregionally organizing friends around the Great Lakes, at the Turtle Island Bioregional Congress, and possibly design immersions through the Design School for Regenerating Earth's 2026 learning journey.
Regarding Music:
in December I was gifted a flute, a Native flute, from a member of the Lutheran Church of the Great Spirit here in Milwaukee. I'm practicing, playing and preparing to teach others how to play the instrument. Sharing music and teaching people how to play feels like some of the most important things I can do with my time/talents/energies. How is music related to bioregional organizing? Music has taught me to notice and play with patterns, both of which are permaculture principles, and pattern recognition helps us recognize what is coherent or dissonant, how patterns can fit within other patterns or draw new patterns into being. As our life-places/bioregions experience disorder/disharmonies, we can notice where there are examples of life-affirming patterns in place which can serve as anchors/models for others to replicate. And JOY. There is so much churn, suffering, disruption, fear, and anxiety, yet music and the arts give us meaning, beauty and joy and help us understand ourselves and each other.
Regarding Stories:
Through the MetaChrysalis role-playing game, I've begun developing a storytelling persona, the Bog Witch. Bog Witch collects and shares stories from a bioregional and permacultural perspective--she knows the local waters, plants and animals and lives in right relationship to them. She represents the knowledge of our past ancestors and also represents a person who lives seven generations into the future, our great-great-great (really great!) grandniece/non-binary nibbling who has survived the transition from mechanized modernism back/to a biologically/culturally coherent right relationship with the natural world. As Bog Witch, I have opportunities to interview locals who have been working on Milwaukee River Estuary ecological restoration for decades through a weekly radio show on RiverWest Radio (https://www.riverwestradio.com/), an extremely local radio station. From their website, "As a low-power FM station, Riverwest Radio is legally restricted to broadcasting a signal strength no greater than 100 watts, from a height no greater than 100 feet above ground level, creating a broadcast signal that will reach approximately 5 miles in all directions from our antenna on the roof of the WXRW tower at 824 East Center Street in Milwaukee." I live 5.3 miles from the tower, so I'm not even sure I can get the radio signal from my house, but anyone can listen live via the website or catch the recordings when convenient. The weekly Bog Witch Story (half)Hour begins on Thursday, Jan 15th at 4 pm central.
Very cool student-led project to map Unceded Milwaukee--the places Indigenous people farmed, traded, camped, and settled in the Milwaukee River Estuary: https://uncededmilwaukee.com/#open. Some of these locations are close to walks we did last year! Earlier this year, I was a guest of the Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures summer Field School at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where entering first year college students and community members get to do action research in neighborhoods throughout Milwaukee. In my presentation to them I suggested using the permaculture principles and ethics as a framework for their fieldwork storytelling, which included interviewing neighbors about the community gardens and their stories. Then we walked through different parks and gardens in neighborhoods that we now have evidence were short walks from the present day spaces where neighbors grow their own foods, medicines and community resilience. Lynne Oglesby and Bridgid Normand got to visit some of these places with me when they attended the walk and talk elements of the Immersion in October. Now I'm seeing all the Boggy Soggy Wetlands around the area where I can schedule Walk and Talks in the voice of/with Bog Witch.
Additionally, I plan to use these gleaned stories to prepare a monthly recurring themed story through the Milwaukee Area Story Tellers group, which meets the third Friday of each month. By the end of 2026 I will have shared a dozen stories. Dan Lococo from the group gave me this advice on using the Story Spine (a la Pixar) template to organize the stories: https://www.storyprompt.com/blog/the-story-spine-also-known-as-pixars-story-structure
More story stuff: I met Andrew Boyd about 2 decades ago when I joined a [performance art?] group called Billionaires for Bush; a group of us dressed up as conspicuously wealthy people (tuxedos, gowns/tiaras) to show up at campaign events during the 2004 election. We held up signs of support for George W Bush saying things like "It's a Class War, and We're Winning". Andrew Boyd's work crossed my path this week when I learned about his book/project/flow chart logic walkthrough for how to achieve better catastrophes: https://flowchart.bettercatastrophe.com/.
More Lutheran Church of the Great Spirit stuff: The church is planning a mural(s) depicting the 7 Grandfather Teachings, traditional teachings of Great Lakes Native peoples on the themes of Wisdom, Love, Respect, Bravery, Honesty, Humility and Truth. Fellow Toronto-based bioregional organizer David Burman shared with me this article about a church in Toronto with a beautiful Indigenous Mural https://broadview.org/philip-cote-mural-roncesvalles-united/
This is a funding opportunity from the Healing Our Waters - Great Lakes Coalition (the Coalition) to support organizations working to restore and protect the Great Lakes, due Jan 15th: https://airtable.com/appOrXng8064xTasq/pagDVJbBnOLdiljgg/form
Regarding events:
Consider joining your local League of Women Voters --membership open to ALL GENDERS! :)
The League of Women Voters not only supports grassroots democracy efforts like voter registration drives and civics education, but also creates advocacy positions on member-initiated topics. The Lake Michigan League of Women Voters has been protecting local waters for over a century. Within our Lake Michigan conversations, Data Centers are an emerging issue which I plan to follow, summarize and share with this audience as well as in the newsletters sent to League members.
Milwaukee County League of Women Voters: https://lwvmilwaukee.org/
Lake Michigan Region League of Women Voters: https://www.lwvlmr.org/
Save the Date: February 19, 6pm at Cedarburg Library--Protecting and Preserving our Great Lakes, hosted by our LWVOzWa (League of Women Voters of Ozaukee and Washington counties) Youth Vote Group. Keynote speaker is Tom Stolp, Executive Director of Restoring Lands (formerly Ozaukee Washington Land Trust.) :https://lwvozaukee.org/content.aspx?page_id=722&club_id=986869&emtid=298893217311&mtid=912265088295&ht=0
Chicagoland Donut Economics Coalition--I am hoping to host a MetaChrysalis game session with them in the new year: https://chidec.notion.site/ChiDEC-Chicagoland-Donut-Economics-Coalition-23387fa9439780d19da6dad33ab15c1b
Jan 11: BOG FEST at Volo Bog State Natural Area (northern Illinois): https://www.friendsofvolobog.org/
Regarding presentations:
The Midwest Climate Summit 2026 is in Cleveland, OH, March 30th -April 1st, and I am involved with 3 presentations there. I and others from the Design School for Regenerating Earth will be giving a presentation on Bioregional projects in the Great Lakes. Dylan Carson and I will host a lunch and learn about Degrowth. At last year's conference a group of people met up to discuss biodiversity credits. We have continued to meet and have developed a Badgerland Biodiversity Corridors Initiative, which we will present at the conference as well.
I'm also meeting with a homeschooling group to walk and talk about permaculture. This month we will meet at Havenwoods State Forest to explore the permaculture principles in play as we walk around the forest and wetlands there.
Other links I want you to know about:
There are seven multination corporations suppressing democracy: https://www.commondreams.org/news/7-corporations-undermining-democracy
National Emergency Briefing Great Britain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPKtdmDxxNM
https://salazarcenter.colostate.edu/nature-states-the-rise-and-fall-of-bioregions/
Right to Food legal frameworks: https://www.righttofoodus.org/become-a-member
Webinar on data centers: check it out at this link.
CURE series link:
Intentional Community in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee (can probably receive the radio signal from Riverwest Radio?): https://hawksnestcommunity.com
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| The tired Bog Witches invite us to scream at the Bog every half moon at 3 am. The next full moon is Jan 3rd. |
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