Ripple

Re-tribing and Transition are bumpy. Melissa and I have sometimes found it hard to escape our Western conditioning into efficiency and individualism. Local Samaipata friends have often come to our aid. An example of this, which I adapt from my book about Samaipata, Dispatches from the Sweet Life, is something that happened during Carnival seven years ago, when we were gifted ten new tree saplings.

Carnival in rural Bolivia in many ways celebrates inter-connection. It involves festival — a key element of community — with a nod to the natural, a celebration of the harvest. In Samaipata, parade floats with comparsa queens and ambulant brass bands stroll down Calle Bolívar in a multigenerational extravaganza, as children, parents, and grandparents dance together in matching smocks and hats. Some of the floats are themed around the harvest or Pachamama (the indigenous Bolivian word for Mother Earth). As the February corn matures on hundreds of small plots around the town, so too do carnival groups flourish with their maize-themed ensembles. Six years back, a friend, Pedro, passed me a bottle of the corn-based, home-brewed alcohol called chicha, which I swigged and handed back into his dancing group as they passed by. His float was decked out in blossoming carnival-tree branches, and on a pedestal, the queen wore a crown of the buttery yellow flowers. Later Pedro, in the festive spirit, gave us the gift of ten treelets in little black bags — five palms and five carnivals.

The following morning, a warm one with the sound of brass bands playing below in town, I macheted through an area near our creek and dug holes. For weeks I’d been studying our go-to handbook, Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual. The book’s pages were frayed, and I’d double-underlined this sentence: “Every element must have multiple functions, and every major function must be served by multiple elements.” The sentence felt liberating. Nature will work for us! Do you remember my excitement to get out on the land and plant trees? That’s what I felt the day I, while laboring, envisioned the single “element” of the gifted tree saplings as one day serving three functions: a windbreak, a pleasant view, and a source of palm nuts. I’d been sweating for two hours to attain the Manual’s element-to-function ideal when a friend, a thirty-something Bolivian horse-tamer with little formal education, named Kusi, stopped by.

She watched me. I waved but kept grunting away in combat with the underbrush. When I glanced up again, I noticed a slight smirk creeping up one side of my friend’s mouth...

Click Here to Read the Rest of the Excerpt (3-Minute Read, 673 Words)

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About the Author: William Powers is an author, activist, and leading expert in deep ecology. He is a Senior Fellow at World Policy Institute, and he founded the Living Well Collaborative, supporting a new paradigm for healing the planet and nourishing community and economy at the local level. Powers has published five nonfiction books within the sustainability space, including Dispatches from the Sweet Life (New World Library, 2018) and Twelve by Twelve (New World Library, 2010), and his essays and commentaries on global issues have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, the Atlantic, and "Fresh Air."

The Warp — Ideas and Inspiration

|| 1 || I waffled back and forth between sharing the Ripple writing above, or another excerpt related to localizing work as an enjoyable yet often non-linear experiment. The section I ultimately didn’t share told a tale of a frenzied Coca-Cola giveaway (multinational marketing effort) that exploited villagers' fears of missing out. Just after I chose the other excerpt, I stumbled across words from someone else, oddly enough, on the same subject—a free Coca-Cola offering. Here's a snippet:

I was thinking about natural burial today at work and was reminded of an encounter I had one day, many years ago: I was walking down a sidewalk along the bay in Corpus Christi, TX. I passed by a guy who was giving out free coca-cola. He asked me, “Do you know where you will go when you die?” I knew what he was getting at, and I actually do believe in the resurrection of the dead, but I wouldn’t answer his question because I was annoyed that he was trying to sell me salvation with a coke.

|| 2 || The thread between natural burial and Coca-Cola is teased out in the rest of the context from Jeremy (whose words were also in Whole Field Vol. 4, No. 8). The occasion of his note was a promo for a gathering geared towards raising funds and awareness for Jeremiah Commons’ Pin Oak Preserve project. That happened on Friday over in Jackson, MI, featuring music by Billy King, Elizabeth Pixley-Fink (who lit up The Alluvion a week ago), and Little Spoon River. That's a top-notch gathering that shouldn't be missed (though, unfortunately, that's precisely what I did.)

Fortunately, suppose something pangs positively within you when considering the work of Pin Oak Preserve, which means land in Southeast Michigan set aside for natural burial and ecological stewardship. In that case, take heart. It's an ongoing project you can follow along with here. I take this from William and Jeremy's thoughts—we will make mistakes, but hope still looms ahead. Perhaps it hangs like mist amidst stewarded Oak barrens.

|| 3 || Care, both rural and urban. Katrina shared a podcast with me on an intriguing subject—the honesty boxes of Scotland. These are bastions of the informal economy, held together by a shared understanding of trust and necessity. The little market stands dot the rural Scottish landscape, offering everything from produce and cakes to honesty payment slots for unmanned golf courses.

If you look further into the golf courses, for example, there’s a clue to how the honesty boxes work. Each hole of the golf course has a family from the village committed to maintaining it. Which is to say, there’s community buy-in that’s tuned to a shared understanding of mutual caretaking. Profits aren’t the main motive, and the scale of the varying honesty box initiatives is small enough to keep things relatively simple, which makes the boxes “little embroidered edges” to rural Scottish life.

I caught word from Ypsilanti’s Growing Hope that spoke to similar tenets of care and neighborliness, although here in Michigan and in an urban setting: “MESS is rewriting what urban agriculture can look like: neighbors feeding neighbors and seeds traded like secrets. This is mutual aid in its purest form — farming as an act of love.” The write-up shares a bit about the work of MESS (the Mutual Aid Network of Ypsilanti Eco Survival Support), a new program geared towards practical action today despite difficult conditions seemingly beyond control. MESS's work is taking shape, focused on what had been an abandoned lot and the work brigades that move out from it. As of last week, they've fired up their cob-oven, and their native plant nursery is growing.

The Weft — News and Events

We’re heartened by a wide-range of expressions of resilient communities and gatherings. Here’s a smattering of regional events and happenings that reflect that diversity, collected for your consideration. Choose your own adventure!

|| 1 || Crosshatch's Seeding Farm Collaboration and Support, hosted at Wagbo Farm and Education Center (East Jordan.) Monday, September 29th, 9am-12:30pm. Join fellow farmers and land stewards for a powerful conversation about supporting each other now and preparing for seasons ahead. Through a guided discussion and planning process, we’ll share our needs and strengths, and explore practical ways to work together—for the well-being of ourselves, our families, our communities, and the land we care for. Find more information and registration here.

|| 2 || Michigan Good Food Fund SEED Award Applications due tonight (Sept. 21st)—The Michigan Good Food Fund (MGFF) is excited to announce the launch of its Fall 2025 Seed Awards for Michigan Retail Grocery Stores, Markets, Incubator Kitchens and Food Co-Manufacturers, offering grants from $5,000 to $20,000 to help food and farm businesses grow and strengthen their impact. Learn more about eligibility and complete your application here. Application window closes tonight (Sept. 21st) at 11:59pm ET.

|| 3 || Real Organic Project: Antitrust & Food—Saturday, Sept. 27th. Churchtown Dairy, Hudson, NY/Livestream available. "Short, intimate talks from voices of the organic movement." A daylong gathering featuring talks, breakout sessions, food, and more. Check out the speakers, including folks like Eliot Coleman, JM Fortier, Linley Dixon, and other event details here.

|| 4 || The Ruby Ellen Farm’s Fall Social & Fundraiser will be held on Sunday, October 5, from 12pm - 4pm. Gather the whole family for an afternoon rich in heritage and community. Enjoy a roast-pig lunch and spirited pie auction, alongside live demonstrations—cider pressing, wood-turning, rope-making, spinning, and more—plus plenty of fun kids’ activities. More information can be found here.

|| 5 || The Tip of the Mitt New Hunters Guild—If you are interested in self-reliance skills, sourcing your own meat, and/or gaining a better connection to nature, consider checking out this flyer for information on gatherings, events, and how to get involved with the guild.

|| 6 || NextCycle Michigan Accelerator Program Opportunity—Applications are now open. NextCycle is seeking projects that are developing new recycling technologies and processes, as well as those developing or expanding organic material solutions. Public, private and nonprofit organizations are eligible to apply. The free six-month accelerator provides coaching and mentoring to advance projects toward implementation, filling gaps and strengthening Michigan’s circular economy. Projects must focus on material reuse, repair, recycling, recovery, or the use of recycled content in new products. Deadline for applications is October 29, 2025. Learn more about the program here and/or check out details on the upcoming October 7th regional workshop in Gaylord.

|| 7 || The Northeast Michigan Regional Food Summit. Tuesday, Oct. 21st, 9:30am-4:30pm, in Hale, MI. A gathering aimed towards working together to strengthen and envision NE-MI's food system. Free and in-person, with keynote speakers, breakout sessions, networking, and hands-on learning. More information and registration here.

|| 8 || Happenings at The Alluvion Between Now and the Next Whole Field include: Big Fun, Pride Week 2025 Queer:Say Storytelling, The Jeff Haas Trio featuring Laurie Sears + Lisa Flahive, Sugar Bomb & Na Bonsai, Funky Uncle, Expand Storytelling #9, in Partnership with TC Design Week, Michigan Songwriters In The Round: Elizabeth Landry, Sierra Cassidy, Zach Peterson & Josh Rose, and Hilary James & Kevin DiSimone.

Find more information at www.thealluvion.org.

The Whole Field • Volume 4 • No. 17 • New Moon • September 21, 2025

Ripple

The Warp — Ideas and Inspiration

The Weft — News and Events

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