Author: Nikki

“As the planet’s ecosystems erode and politicians obsess over growth objectives, what we really need is degrowth, that is, to transform our ways of living, our economies, our polities and our cultures to live within the earths limits”. Vincent Liegey and Anitra Nelson, Preface to Exploring Degrowth, 2020, Pluto Press (See a Central Vic perspective...

We’re finally being forced to recognize that no top-down institution, governmental or otherwise, can fully ensure our safety. That our deepest insurance against disaster is going local—by getting to know our actual neighbors and checking in on one another when we can, participating in our local community and apprenticing with the more-than-human terrain that...

Covid-19 is showing us that when humanity is united in common cause, phenomenally rapid change is possible. None of the world’s problems are technically difficult to solve; they originate in human disagreement. In coherency, humanity’s creative powers are boundless. A few months ago, a proposal to halt commercial air travel would have seemed preposterous....

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the...

The natural world is the maternal source of our being…(it) is the larger sacred community to which we belong. To be alienated from this community is to become destitute in all that makes us human. (Thomas Berry, cited in ỚMurchύ,D: Reclaiming Spirituality , Gill and Macmillan, 1997, p.35) Welcome to Localising Leanganook’s February newsletter....

“It is difficult to relinquish the illusions of power and delusions of exceptionalism that come with privilege. But is it strangely liberating to realise your true status as a single node in a cooperative network. There is honour to be found in this role and a certain dignified agency. You won’t be swallowed up...

Worldwide more than 1 billion people are members of cooperatives. Cooperatives provide 100 million jobs worldwide, 20% more than multinational enterprises. (1) The commons asks us to think about the world in more organic, holistic and long term ways. We see that my personal unfolding depends upon the unfolding of others, and theirs upon mine....

History is instructive. And what it suggests to people is that even if they do little things, if they walk on the picket line, if they join a vigil, if they write a letter to their local newspaper- anything they do, however small, becomes part of a much, much larger sort of flow of...

‘In the stories we tell, we tell ourselves’ (Kwaikutl elder) (1) The universe is made of stories, not atoms. Murial Rukeyser (2) Our August newsletter has information about: Words in Winter– Daylesford, Newstead and Trentham Susan Murphy- Falling Awake in a Global Ecological Crisis Repair Cafe’s- Daylesford and Castlemaine Hepburn Herbal Group– getting started...

This we know: The Earth does not belong to Man; Man belongs to the Earth. All things are connected like the blood which unites one’s family. Whatever befalls the Earth will befall the sons of Earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does...