Cultural Emergence at Magical Farm on Sunday 18th Jan 2026 is an invitation into a different kind of change-making, one that treats culture as a living system shaped by what we practice repeatedly, not just what we believe or argue about. Blending social permaculture, breathwork, forest therapy, and practical life-design tools, the workshop offers a grounded day of re-patterning attention toward what grows trust, resilience, and real belonging. It’s for anyone feeling the strain of our times and craving a space that can hold complexity without hardening, where ecological intelligence becomes embodied, relational, and replicable, and where hope is practiced into existence together.

This article challenges the dominant narrative of environmental activism by reframing the krill crisis through the deeper lens of food systems, ecological identity and regenerative community practice. It argues that industrial krill extraction is not only an oceanic tragedy, but a symptom of depleted soils, hollow food cultures and lifestyles disconnected from place. Drawing on Tasmanian case studies and place-based scenarios, the piece offers an imaginal pathway where nutrient-dense local foods, herbal traditions, community renewal schemes and land-sea reciprocity dissolve the demand for krill-based supplements altogether.

The article critiques the performative tendencies of modern activism: the adrenaline, spectacle and “thrill to save krill” and calls for a new paradigm grounded in slowness, competence and systemic cultivation. Integrating Freya Matthews’ ecological self theory with the author’s Convivial Self theory, it introduces Ecological Mind Activism: an approach where activists embody the ecological mind while practicing the convivial skills needed to regenerate community systems, redirect public funds toward life-enhancing projects and rebuild local food autonomy.

Through the work of Regen Era Design Studio, the article demonstrates how these principles can be applied in real places, offering practical tools for moving beyond resistance into renewal. Ultimately, it argues that environmental action must evolve from fighting extraction to cultivating the cultural and ecological conditions that render extraction unnecessary, inviting a shift from performance to praxis, from urgency to attunement, and from crisis to regeneration.

In this sharp and grounded essay, Dr. Demeter (Emily Samuels-Ballantyne) turns the common bureaucratic question, “What is your business model?” back on local government itself. Drawing on two decades of lived experience as a community builder, policy designer, and regenerative farmer, she critiques the top-heavy policy pipelines that reduce care to documents and engagement to output metrics. With references to institutional theorists like Guy Debord, Ivan Illich, Henri Lefebvre, and Helena Norberg-Hodge, the essay explores how public funding is often diverted away from tangible outcomes into layers of abstraction and consultancy. Through the lens of her own project, the Huon Valley Food Hub, Demeter offers an alternative approach: the redirection of the brief toward grounded, co-created, and regenerative public work. The piece concludes with a call for a new kind of public service, one rooted in care, participation, and a living systems worldview.

Synopsis:
This article explores why Dr. Emily Samuels Ballantyne (Dr Demeter) writes the Island Almanac as a living design journal, a poetic manifesto, and a tool for transition. Drawing on the wisdom of Rudolf Steiner, Arturo Escobar, and Tyson Yunkaporta, Emily outlines how scenario-based thinking and design-led prototypes can help regenerate our core systems: food, housing, energy, sacred activism, convivial governance, community life, and economics. Writing becomes a spiritual and strategic act rooted in land, rigour, and imagination inviting others to co-create a pluriversal future aligned with life.