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If you leave your veg cuttings in the tupperware on your kitchen counter for too long, you land up with a mouldy mess. Yet when they quickly make their way to the compost heap in your garden, they turn into wonderful, rich humus, full of microbes. Microbes are a whole world unto themselves … there are millions of bodies at work, but we can’t see them with our naked eye, we can only see the outcomes of what occurred.

It feels as if life is getting faster with the advent of more and more technological fixes (see our stories on AI and gaming for farming success) and more and more interventions to try and stave off ecological collapse (carbon credit markets and grass proteins). Sometimes in that fastness, we can forget the importance of slow things – encouraging the emergence of community voices, creating equitable and safe spaces for discussions about our common future and remembering that sustainability will only come about through living with the natural systems that surround us, not despite them.

Happy new year to all our readers. As we enter 2023, I’ve been thinking a lot about what constitutes excellent leadership for the multiple environmental and social crises of our times. Many of us continue to ruminate on the quality of global and continental guidance shown last month at the COPs 27 and 15, whose implications for Africa are a focus of this newsletter. Then, it was dismaying to watch as former President Bolsonaro prompted his extremist supporters to refuse to accept the return to the Brazilian Presidency of Lula, whose re-election, including on a promise of far greater protections for the Amazon, was greeted with relief by regenerative thinkers across the globe. What a strong contrast between Bolsonaro’s departure and the surprise resignation of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, who announced that she won’t run for a second term because she recognizes how exhausted she is after leading her country through the aftermath of a massacre and a pandemic. Now that is a high-quality leader!

November has been an exciting month in the Mycelium web. Our network has expanded with wonderful new members in the regenerative and multimedia space, and with that new opportunities are emerging for collaboration. Jacqueline attended COP27 and Culture COP in Egypt, while following two characters in her documentary HotSpot which features activists from 5 Southern African countries. They are now filming in Madagascar, where a young activist is opposing a sand mine that could destroy the livelihoods of communities who live nearby. Other members of the Mycelium team then took a trip to join me in celebrating my Picnic Wedding, and what a magical day it was. I’ve never seen the appeal of a big white wedding organised by someone else…. and instead thought we’d do something creative, organic and natural. What unfolded was more amazing than anything I could have imagined, with beautiful input and energy from family and friends. It felt a gift to experience the coming together of community in the celebration of love.

As Spring comes to an end and Summer starts to take hold, we see flowers, fruits and seeds revealing themselves in abundance. Cape Point’s white carpet of everlastings are spreading over the gentle hills and vibrant orange and yellow nasturtiums are on every pavement and crack. For a while now, us at Mycelium Media Colab, have been hatching up a scheme to grow our mushrooms. Our tendrils have always been reaching, connecting and spider webbing. We have been blown away at the organic flow of our co-op but finally we have made it official and our network is evolving. Finally we have new members from all over Africa whom we welcome into this space with open arms. Ready for what they bring, the challenges, solutions and most importantly growth and change.

Spring is in the air and as I write it is the Equinox where day and night are in balance. Flowers are popping up everywhere, the air smells fragrant and there is something different about the quality of the light that comes with the return of the sun. I am currently in Johannesburg where everyone is waiting with bated breath for the return of the rains, and the amazing smell that comes from the earth as it soaks up the drops; whilst in Cape Town we have been watching the levels of the dams wondering if there has been enough to see us through the hot, dry summer months.