An Invitation To Mourn. An Invitation to Give Joyfully.

With Election Day tomorrow, I know many of us in the US and those watching around the world are feeling some disturbing mixture of anger, sadness, fear, confusion, and detached numbness as we stare into a political system and political culture that has become so thoroughly unhinged from reality and appears to be on a runaway trajectory towards… who the hell knows?

No matter how many years or decades ago we may have begun to accept and grieve our loss of faith in our collapsing systems, it still sucks. It still hurts. It’s still terrifying — perhaps more so than it ever has been, given the significance and complexity of the global coordination challenges we face.

First, before we do anything, I invite us to let these feelings actually enter us. I invite us to mourn the violence of these systems on our ourselves, our families, our communities, our ecosystems, our planet, and our global community of life. And, I invite us to mourn the immense gap between this present reality and our heart’s visions of a more beautiful world we know is possible.

Seriously, I invite us to allow the tears to come, to go for a walk, to make art, to tell a tree all about it, to sit still and breathe it through, or my favorite: find a body of water, dunk your head under, ask for permission and for the embrace of the water, and scream that rage out. Come up for air and go again and again until there’s nothing left to give. (A thick pile of pillows can work too — just give your roommates a head’s up first!)

With a little pressure released, we might have the space to now open ourselves to the creative, intelligent, and life-giving power held within this heartbreak. I invite us to listen gently: how might we be able to transmute this rage into growing pathways of possibility for viable, loving, and beautiful futures? What is ours to do, in this moment, in our unique web of relationships and with the resources we have access to?

In asking myself these questions today, I’m beyond grateful to have a clear answer: Give my attention and surplus resources to the people I trust are building the cultures, institutions, and systems for coordination and care that I actually believe in and want to see flourish in this world. Today, I’m celebrating the existence of these relationships and my ability to give “my” resources in ways that feel genuinely joyful and inspiring. And, simultaneously, I’m mourning that there are so many people close to me, and so many more around the world, who don’t see light in any direction.

I want to invite you into these relationships as well, in case they bring light, curiosity, and perhaps even an opportunity to experience the joy of giving freely towards that which inspires you:

In less than 2 days, $55,000 of matching funds will be allocated by additional donors like me via Gitcoin’s Web3 platform to a cohort of 14 “Bioregional Organizing Teams” from around the world who are all working to build cooperation networks, institutions, and economies that are able to govern and flow resources intelligently towards the regeneration their local human and more-than-human life communities. These teams are working in intimate relationship with the unique ecologies, cultures, and Indigenous wisdom of their bioregions (life-places) to design — and practice embodying in their ways of relating — the coordination and resource allocation systems that are contextually appropriate for reversing the ecological and cultural degradation and investing in positive feedback loops of systemic regenerative processes.

If this sounds a little more interesting than our two-party tug of war surreality TV show re-run, I invite you to learn more about these teams and consider allocating your surplus resources towards their work, or simply spreading the word. This might be a real chance for you and your disillusioned family and friends to “vote with your dollars” towards something that you actually believe in — perhaps a future of sane governance and economic systems that orient towards our earth, our shared humanity, and our more-than-human life community as a sacred web of interdependent relationships that deserves our care. By donating for the teams you believe in, you get determine how those matching funds get allocated!

Of course, $55k + some crowdfunding is just a drop in the bucket against the ~$15 billion that will be spent in the US this election cycle. Ready to mourn again?

But I, along with my colleagues at the Biofi Project, and our tremendous collaborators at OpenCivics, Regen-Coordination, The Design School for Regenerating Earth, Ma Earth, and Regen Foundation curated this cohort of teams and launched this fundraising effort as one small baby step to help these stories find their way into our feeds, our attention spans, and maybe even our hearts.

• Listen to these teams share their stories out loud and dialogue with each other on a recent call here.

And, the money will have real impact too, and go even further in the global south.

• For donating via PayPal / Credit / Debit Card: qf.viaprize.org/biofipathfinders
• For donating via Crypto on Gitcoin: https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42220/18

This is just the beginning, and we trust that, especially with a demonstration of strong community support in this inaugural round, larger flows of capital will soon be flowing towards these teams and the many dozens more we were not able to include in this round.

At the BioFi Project, we’re working to support the flourishing of Bioregional Financing Facilities (BFFs)— community-led institutions that can compost capital to invest in halting biodiversity loss, sequestering carbon, and growing truly regenerative thriving economies. To dive deep, you can read the 2024 book I helped edit: Bioregional Financing Facilities: Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet.

To connect with over 350 practitioners from around the world endeavoring to build BFFs, sharing resources, and supporting each other along the journey, join our Community of Practice on Hylo.