It’s Game Time
Changing the Dream of the Modern World
In an old journal, I found this note:
How are we going to move the masses toward something that seems like a humanitarian vision for all? Create a vision so attractive and desirable that moving toward it is so delightful it tempers the fear and division we are fed. One that rejects all the lies and propaganda we are fed that systems of supremacy are the only thing that works.
That vision is starting to come into focus. The good ideas are coming together like a complicated dot-to-dot or a 3000-piece puzzle.
News flash: the Democrats (or any other mainstream political party or organization) are not going to save us.
We need to stop trying to fix a broken system, stop looking to the “middle ground” or the extremes, and instead look for a different way. There’s a conscious revolution happening with individual people worldwide planting the seeds for our collective liberation.
Last week, I spent three days in auditoriums, funky theatres, and Berkeley classrooms, listening to stories of resistance, regeneration, and reconnection at the 36th annual Bioneers Conference. The speakers were visionary movement leaders, activists, amateurs, and professionals exploring innovative, nature-inspired solutions for today’s pressing environmental and social challenges. The audience included Indigenous people from over 150 tribes worldwide, close to 500 students from middle school up, and, as expected, lots of old hippies.
A friend told me it sounded like “Urban Burning Man.” I’ve never been to Burning Man, so I can’t say, but joyous music and art were a big part of it–without that, an alternative vision can never be attractive enough.
It’s no coincidence that the event occurred at the peak of spring in Northern California in Berekely, where a fusion of immigrants, intellectualism, youth, activism, and racial justice was on full display, as well as the glorious gardens exploding in a beautiful show of diversity. At the same time, our shadow side was also on full display, from the homelessness epidemic in the streets to the screening of Sugarcane, a shocking, unnerving documentary about the investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school in British Columbia that ignited a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve.
The ancestors of the oppressed held hands with the ancestors of the oppressor and made a pact that those with privilege (i.e., a US passport and birth certificate) would come forward and stand at the door to create safe spaces to diffuse the oppressor. Instead of turning on ourselves (which only serves the oppressor), I learned from marginalized communities how to move past my shame and fragility by learning the truth about the history of violence, sitting in my discomfort, apologizing unconditionally, and committing to healing my ancestor’s legacy. There were no calls for revenge, no calls for violence, just calls to come together and honor each other as humans and move beyond the racial and cultural divides created to maintain the white supremacy and extractive environmental practices that hurt us all—calls to REMEMBER.
Sitting at my desk in rural Idaho, I sometimes wonder if I’m the only one reimagining, if it’s worth my time and energy, and if I can even make a slight difference. But that was the heart of all the stories I heard at Bioneers—regular people standing up for something they loved. We can reimagine humanity altogether or base it on hundreds of thousands of years of our species' existence by studying ancient peoples who saw themselves as inseparable parts of a greater whole.
“You can say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.” ~ John Lennon
My favorite story included thrilling video footage of four massive dams exploding. Eco-terrorism? No! The Yurok Tribe and many other tribes in the Klamath Basin spent decades fighting for the removal of the dams and the restoration of the river. In October 2024, fisheries researchers detected the first salmon to travel above the former Iron Gate dam site for over a century. According to fishery researchers, over 6,000 Chinook salmon were observed migrating upstream into newly accessible habitat just over two weeks after the final work was completed.
Upon my return, I came across a similar project proposed by Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock tribes to restore salmon on the Snake River, which our uber-conservative US Senator Mike Simpson supported. Send a letter here
My notebook is packed with pages, quotes, and snippets. I could share them here, but the Bioneers Instagram page did a more inspiring and eye-catching collection. I urge you to check them out. In the coming weeks, they will post videos of the presentations.
The time is nigh. It’s game time.
We don’t have any more time for blame, finger-pointing, and divisiveness. It’s time to step out of our constant busyness, distraction, and misplaced ambition to be “successful.” Or, at the very least, redefine what success means.
I hope you all plan to join your neighbors for the massive rallies this weekend to stand up and step forward for whatever issue(s) you hold dear. I’m excited to be in Boise tomorrow to protest at the State Capitol.
Find a rally near you
What’s next?! I have a press pass for full access to Ted 2025 Vancouver: Humanity Reimagined.
I can’t wait. I’ll let you know what I learn!
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My students just presented on the removal of the dams in the Klamath River Basin. I'll share my book on all the things communities are doing to bring about housing justice with attention to climate and racial justice when it comes out next spring. So many people are reimagining - you are not alone! Will be at a rally this weekend. Thanks for your writing.
How amazing Sue. It’s encouraging to know many exist to preserve the past. Good and bad. I understand how the current administration is clearly bent on removing all of it in the name of dissing DEI. We all know the real reason. And sadly, it’s the reason why Drumpf is potus again. 4/5/25 will be massive I pray.