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Winter is really upon us in Cape Town, with the solstice just around the corner. Somehow that is always a psychological shift for me, even though it’s cold, the sun doesn’t dip behind the mountain quite so early as it is doing at the moment. We have had some good rainfall, the rivers are flowing, the wetlands filling and aquifers recharging, human settlements flooding, potholes appearing in the roads. Working on water related projects has given me a much deeper understanding of where and how and why water and waste flows around our city, as well as the government bodies, city departments, academic institutions and organisations who are involved with managing, maintaining and understanding these flows. In theory this should happen in a way that is least damaging to environmental and human wellbeing, but it’s a very complex balancing act, enmeshed in legislation, politics, economics and wicked problems that seem insurmountable.

As we merge into a new season in Cape Town, (as I’m sure is happening in other parts of the world too) I feel the energy shift. More quiet autumn days, less light, a bite in the air…. When the seasons change like this, it makes me think of the writing of Joanna Macy when she speaks of ‘the Great Turning.’ A time of change. She describes this as a societal shift away from an industrial growth society to a more sustainable society which is life-sustaining and committed the recovery of our world. Macy’s work draws from deep ecology, spiritual traditions such as Buddhism and living systems theory and her work acts as a compass or map that gives us the courage in the face of great change and breakdown that we are currently experiencing in the world. I find her writing very helpful, when I feel a bit lost in the magnitude of what is to come.

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.