“Our slower lives are interwoven with the thriving middle reaches of the million year old stream we call the Birrarung, bringing about the well-being our hearts have been yearning for.” — a shared vision from ‘Building the Vision’ events, 2017-18

What’s your vision of the future? Dystopian society, growth at all costs, green consumerism, or a gentler way: slowing down, simplifying, learning skills that previous generations took for granted, rebuilding health and rediscovering happiness through reconnection — with ourselves, each other and our world.

Each of these four stories is a path we could take in response to all the challenges we face — the climate emergency, global resource depletion and economic instability. Only one of them combines reality with hope.¹

As a group, we are building our own local shared vision of the future. We hold small gatherings where we explore the four stories/paths, reflect on the trickiness of creating change and flesh out the details of our positive vision of a sustainable future. Look out for the next ‘Building the Vision: Combining Reality with Hope’ in our Newsletter and Events and bring along your ideas.

We will convert our vision recorded in words into a visual art form to share with the wider community.

Examples of pieces of the vision collected so far:

• you can hear birdsong, not traffic
• people smile when I pass them in the street
• my workplace factory has been converted into a bevy of artisan workshops
• I feel relaxed, everyone else seems relaxed too, content
• trees, I notice the trees; there’s shade for walking
• people are content
• I can’t see any buildings for all the plants
• everything is in colour
• urban farms down the end of every street
• patches of food are growing everywhere
• there are no cars!; people are walking

1. Lean Logic, The story, p. xviii