If we want a better world, we have to be ready and willing to do the hard work of living it into being, and of withdrawing our consent from the old, destructive and dying world.

If we want peace, we have to be ready and willing to live in peace, to cultivate peace, to reject violence and to dismantle violent systems.

If we want transformation, we have to be ready and willing to transform ourselves, and our own communities, and to recognise that that will mean letting go of some of the old ways.

If we want a better world, we have to believe it’s possible.

Ha! That’s not easy at the moment, is it?

I’m absolutely sure that most of you, like me, have spent a lot of the last few weeks doom-scrolling – absorbing devastating news like a sponge, finding it filling parts of our being we didn’t realise were there, colonising our minds with its mythology that this is all there is.

There is so much reason to believe that a better world is possible. We have to make a conscious decision to stop the doom-scrolling and choose to fill our hearts and minds with ideas of the better world, and with pathways and strategies to get us there.

It’s my great pleasure and privilege to bring you some wonderful materials for you to watch, read and listen to to help you fill up those corners of your being with inspiration.

The City Transformed – video and slides now available

Elissa has finished the mammoth task of processing and uploading all the videos of the plenary sessions at The City Transformed conference! You can now find them all collected here.

You can find and watch fantastic presentations on The Caring City, on Beating the Heat through community action, on Sustainable Materialism and Protest as paths to changing the city, on democratic transformation through crisis, and more.

In addition, the first article of the next edition of Green Agenda, which will publish proceedings from the conference, is Natalie Osborne and Ed Morgan’s write up of the wonderful workshop they ran on visioning futures.

Please explore the ideas, and share them widely with people who’ll be interested and encourage them to sign up to hear from us as we reach out with more inspiration for transformation.

On Living Democracy

And let me remind you that Carlos has curated a wonderful edition of Green Agenda exploring Living Democracy.

Today, let me invite and challenge you to read my dear friend, co-conspirator and fellow anarchist Jew, Ro Phoenix Bersten‘s magnificent piece, The multitudes at the margins.

I don’t actually want to tell you anything about it. Just go read it. Please.