Why I Write in the Island almanac
I write to remember the possible.
In the quiet hours, on this heart-shaped island of imagination, I write this Island Almanac
Sometimes I write from creative inspiration, other times from despair…
but in the end, I always find joy in transmuting ideas into alchemy, here.
Mostly, I write to name a challenge and simultaneously, to weave scenarios and solutions of how we might live differently.
I write visions of villages where food is grown in every yard and shared at long tables, where housing is gentle on the land and shaped by many hands, where energy flows from sun and wind and song. I write to prototype new patterns of community: circles of sacred activism, convivial forms of governance under old trees, economies that regenerate the earth.
For me, writing is a practice of hope and a commitment to life. It is how I call forth futures in which the fundamentals of food, housing, energy, sacred activism, convivial governance, community life, and regenerative economics are transformed and healed in unison.
Each scenario I sketch and each design prototype I craft is rooted in these seven themes, the interwoven foundations of a thriving world and guided by heart, head and hands.
Spirit in Action: Sacred Activism and Rhythms of the Earth
I love to draw on rigorous research, spiritually grounded perspectives and praxis that transforms worlds through concious hands; a blend of head, hands and heart. In this, I follow the guidance of visionary thinker Rudolf Steiner. Over a century ago, Steiner urged us to develop a “spiritual science” of life, warning that if we sever the spiritual world from the material, we risk destroying both ourselves and the Earth. His insight resonates deeply with me: activism, to be effective, must be sacred, it must draw on inner wisdom and attend to the unseen rhythms of nature.
When I write about food and farming, I invoke Steiner’s biodynamic rhythms, the sames ones I practice on my farm. He taught that a farm is a living organism attuned to cosmic and earthly. Planting by lunar phases, saving seeds with ritual care, honoring the seasons, these are not quaint traditions but acts of sacred activism, aligning human effort with the broader dance of life. I carry this sensibility into my scenario planning. In imagining future food systems, I picture community gardens and farms alive with co-creative relationships between humans and the soil, farmers working with the land’s vitality rather than against it. The Biodynamic Association founded on Steiner’s ideas speaks of “awakening co-creative relationships between humans and the earth” to renew the vitality of the soil, the integrity of our food, and the wholeness of our communities. I too write to awaken such relationships, to show that growing food can heal the planet and ourselves, that it can be a revolution from the ground up. A similar message to my mentor and guide the phenomonal Helena Norberg-Hodge.
Steiner’s influence extends beyond agriculture into how we shape community economics. In the 1980s, biodynamic farmers inspired by his ideas pioneered Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a model where people directly support local farms and share in the harvest. This simple innovation where neighbours investing in a farm’s season, is regenerative economics in action. It closes the gap between eater and grower, weaving economic life back into community and ecology. I write about such models because they exemplify what I believe: that our economy can be sacred, rooted in care for land and neighbour rather than in exploitation. Whether it’s cooperative housing initiatives or community-owned energy projects, I see these endeavours as the economic counterpart to biodynamic farming because they nurture living systems of exchange that honour both people and earth. Steiner’s legacy empowers me to treat these practical designs (like a solar energy cooperative or a land trust for affordable housing) as more than utilitarian fixes. They are spiritual practices of stewardship, every bit as important as meditation or prayer. In my writing, thus, spirit becomes action: the lofty ideals of compassion and connection find form in gardens, homes, and community banks. This is why I write with Steiner’s insight at my back to ground every visionary sketch in a dedication to sacred, life-affirming action.
A World of Many Worlds: Designing for the Pluriverse
Writing, for me, is also a form of design. Each scenario I compose is like a prototype of a different world, a deliberately imagined fragment of the pluriverse. I am inspired here by the work of Arturo Escobar, who challenges us to see design as the making of worlds. Escobar speaks of a pluriverse: “a world in which many worlds can fit,” where no single system or culture. His call is to reclaim design’s power to open up new ways of being and doing that are deeply attuned to justice, to the Earth, and to the radical interdependence of all beings. I take this to heart when I write. It means that my scenarios should never be one-size-fits-all utopias handed down from above; they must be place-based, participatory, and open-ended. They arise from listening to specific communities and ecologies, and they remain humble drafts of what could be, inviting others to reshape them. Each place needs to develop their own scenarios, so what I present is not prescriptive, rather ‘brish strokes’ to inspire people into their own sacred action.
In practice, this pluriversal approach is a quiet resistance to dominant systems. Today, much of design and planning is tied to a single worldview – often a technocratic, capitalist one, that treats people as users and land as property. Escobar urges us to eschew those modernising, commercial aims in favor of designs created with communities rather than for them. I see my role as a scenario writer and design facilitator not as an expert touting solutions, but as a partner holding space for “autonomous design”, as Escobar puts it. This means community workshops where elders, children, farmers, and dreamers all have a say in envisioning their food system or energy cooperative. It means prototyping small changes a seed library, a tool-sharing shed, a micro-grid, that fit the local context and culture. Each prototype in my writing is an invitation to experiment in real life, not a blueprint to impose.
Crucially, Escobar ties this design philosophy to the movements of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America who are already defending their ways of life against colonial, extractive systems. He shows that decolonising design by empowering communities to design on their own terms, can lead to more just and sustainable social orders. This truth echoes in my heart. When I write about convivial governance or community life, I often draw wisdom from such grassroots movements. For example, envisioning a village council that governs by consensus and ceremony, I am informed by the real assemblies of Zapatista communities or the council circles of First Nations. Envisioning a community energy grid, I recall how some remote villages co-created solar networks suited to their place, outside the logic of big utilities. In all these cases, the design emerges from the community’s own world, their values, their place, their idea of prosperity. To write for the pluriverse is to remind my readers (and myself) that there are many futures, not just one, and that the most vibrant futures are born from the dreams of the marginalised and the wisdom of the local.
In the Island Alcemac, we tell stories of these possible worlds to spark transition: to prove that beyond the dominant story of separation and scarcity, another world is not only possible, but already taking shape in the cracks of the old.
Learning to Listen: First Nations Wisdom in Practice
Underpinning all my writing is a practice of listening, listening deeply to the land, to community, to the more-than-human voices that guide us. Here I find profound guidance in the knowledge systems of First Nations peoples, as illuminated by thinkers like Tyson Yunkaporta. Yunkaporta teaches that true wisdom is relational. It lives in the space between all things, between people, land, animals, stories, and time. In his words, a “Right Story” arises only when people are embedded in a landscape, when their culture and governance grow from an intimate engagement with the living land over deep time. I take this as both inspiration and instruction. It means that any scenario for community regeneration I write must start with place and relationship. Before I imagine what could be, I must first listen to what is: the lay of the rivers and roads, the memories held in soil and song, the struggles and aspirations of those who call that place home.
Yunkaporta’s perspective also brings a long timeline into view. He speaks of looking seven generations back and forward a “deep time rigour” that brings ancestors and descendants into every decision. When I write about community governance or designing a new economic model, I ask: How would this serve our ancestors’ dreams and protect our grandchildren’s grandchildren? This time-spanning consciousness turns design from a short-term fix into a sacred responsibility. It humbles me, yet strengthens my resolve to craft stories that honour those who came before and those yet to come. For example, if I’m writing about regenerating a watershed’s economy, I imagine the old people who knew every bend of the river, and I imagine children unborn who might fish in that river a century from now. Good governance, in this First Nations view, is custodial, meaning it caretakes the land and story so that life continues. Thus, in my scenarios of convivial governance, I incorporate ceremonies of gratitude, elders’ councils, and youth mentorship, reflecting how Indigenous governance systems keep the community accountable to both past and future.
Above all, Tyson Yunkaporta reminds me to pay attention. “Mostly, it’s about attention and observation,” he notes, about how we live our lives so that our very patterns of living do good for the land. This insight has transformed how I approach prototype design. Whether I’m describing a community meeting process or a cooperative business, I focus on the relationships involved: Are we listening to the birds and the wind as we plan our forestry cooperative? Are we noticing the subtle changes in soil moisture as we test new crops, or the stories elders share as we redesign our governance? In the scenarios I write, solutions are never purely technical; they are relational practices, where significant insights occur - always much more valuable than any data in my experience.
A housing project becomes not just about buildings, but about the bonds formed through collective build days and the way the homes embrace communal space for neighbours to gather. An energy project becomes not just kilowatts, but an opportunity for people to reconnect with sun, fire, water… the elemental relatives providing power. In short, every prototype is a conversation: with the land, with community, with history. My role as a writer-designer is to facilitate that conversation…First Nations knowledge systems emphasise humility and listening, and so I strive to write with humility, knowing that the land is the ultimate author of the stories of renewal. I am simply one voice translating what I hear into a shared narrative of possibility.
A Living Invitation
Everything I write in the Island Alcemac is meant to invite you, the reader, the community member, the fellow traveller… into a shared act of imagination. The scenarios, visions, and prototypes I offer are not finished utopias; they are seeds. Like any seed, they need your touch, your labor, and your love to grow. Consider this article itself a convivial gathering, where ideas from spiritual science, pluriversal design, and First Nations wisdom are brought together around the fire. These ideas embolden my writing with rigor and depth: Steiner grounds it in spiritual-ethical clarity, Escobar expands it with radical diversity of thought, Yunkaporta roots it in the living earth and ancient wisdom. Together they help ensure that what I imagine is a tapestry being woven from real and timeless threads.
Yet the tone remains poetic and visionary because facts alone do not stir the soul to action. We need resonance; we need to feel the invitation in our bones. I write in a language of possibility and care so that you might feel the invitation as I feel it: the pull to join in sacred activism, to design and dream for the pluriverse, to listen deeply and reconnect with the living world. We are, all of us, authors of the future. By writing, I am simply initiating a dialogue about what that future could be. My hope is that you will respond, in your own writing, in your community meetings, in your garden or classroom or council and that together we will compose a new story of community life and regeneration.
This is why I write: to share a vision and a path, to marry the rigorous mind with the wild spirit, and to call forth the better worlds our hearts know are possible. The Island Alcemac is a space of alchemy: a place where imagination meets action. I write here to transform heavy despair into actionable hope, abstract ideals into embodied prototypes. In doing so, I extend an open invitation. Come imagine with me. Come prototype with me. Let us listen, design, and act together…so that future generations, when they sift through the soil of time, will find that we left them a story worth living.
References:
Arturo Escobar, Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds (2018): for pluriversal design, community autonomy, and resisting dominant systems through locally rooted prototypes.
Tyson Yunkaporta, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (2019): for relational governance, deep time thinking, and Indigenous approaches to story, knowledge, and accountability.
Rudolf Steiner, The Agriculture Course (1924) and writings on spiritual science, biodynamic rhythms, and social threefolding: for spiritual ecology, seasonal living, and the sacred in food, education, and governance.
Dr. Emily Samuels Ballantyne (Dr Demeter) is an eco-philosopher, regenerative designer, and founder of Magical Farm Tasmania and Regenera Commons. With over 20 years' experience in community-led policy, ecological systems design, and spiritual-cultural renewal, she weaves together biodynamic practice, civic imagination, and First Nations-informed methodologies. Her work spans from local food and energy systems to reimagining governance and education. Emily holds a PhD in regenerative food systems (Con Viv), and is currently developing The Spiral Shelves her 7 books in the making, a living library rooted in place, spirit, and transformation. The Island Alcemac is her design journal, invitation, and poetic reckoning with the times we’re in.
