Typhoons were sweeping through The Philippines, and Myanmar continues to experience military crackdown, as we were celebrating “GIFTS from the HEART” last Saturday, 18 Dec, 2021.
How can we celebrate when there are all these disasters happening, manmade and ecological?
But celebrate, we must.
It may seem counterintuitive, but it is precisely with the full awareness that what we cherish and find meaningful can be gone any moment; in spite of that, we choose to live our best, as evident in all the incessant rescue efforts that continue to spring up after every hit — efforts that calls for agile leadership skills in times of complexity, experience in community-building and tools for collaborations — all of which is why we feel so called to share REGEN-Nations, a 6-month whole systems regenerative design programme with speakers and facilitators who are practitioners on the ground, sharing insights and knowledge from their lived experiences.
During the celebration, we received news that Sarah Queblatin, one of the co-creators of REGEN-Nations, could not join us as intended because of coordinating rescue efforts in The Philippines. We took some moments to call in these forces of nature that is undeniable and present, into our circle, and harnessed a collective blessing to those facing it head-on, trusting that what we are doing here in this same moment, of celebrating regenerative ways of living, is part of the equation of a balancing force to hold the world together with our open hearts. Rescue and recovery are all essential aspects of our ecosystems, so are resting and nourishing our hearts in community.
Towards the end of the gathering, Karla Delgardo from Kai Farms joined us briefly, sharing why she was unable to join in earlier, with some first-hand stories of the situation in The Philippines where she lives. Although we are not physically there, hearing stories from the ground directly from members of the GENOA network brings what we might otherwise read from the news media so much closer to home – to our individual hearts and collective pulse – and to feel the interconnection of how we are all in this together.
Our small team at REGEN-Nations really wants to bring these leadership skills to more people, where we can be held in community as we continue to build capacity for co-creating a more regenerative and therefore more resilient world. What is unique about this multi-dimensional programme is also that it is based in our region, a culturally and ecologically diverse region that is also very climate-vulnerable.
For this programme to run, we need your help. You can check out our learning platform for more information about this programme, and donate on Indiegogo to enjoy the perks we are so eager to share with you too!
And of course, please do share with your friends and those who might resonate with co-creating a more beautiful world that our hearts know is possible.
Let us plant these seeds for a new Earth together.
p/s: these are the seeds that we collectively planted for the New Earth in 2022 at the end of Gifts from the Heart gathering.
