Beyond Left and Right: A Life-Systems Politics for Our Time

In this deeply personal and vision-led essay, Dr. Emily Samuels Ballantyne, writing as Dr. Demeter steps beyond the binaries of left and right to offer a politics rooted in care, community, and the living systems of Earth. Drawing from her years of grassroots work, spiritual practice, and institutional rejection, she shares the story of forging a life-systems politics: one that honours the household (OIKOS), values real contribution over performance, and sees regeneration not reform as the task of our time. This is a politics born in gardens, women’s circles, herbal gatherings, and quiet acts of solidarity. It is fierce, gentle, and grounded in love. A call to compost what no longer serves, and tend to the beautiful, emerging future that already lives in our communities, our bodies, and the soil beneath our feet.