A conversation about facing collapse with Anne Billen and Neil Davidson, And Now What

A new learning journey of the Design School for Regenerating Earth, on "Regenerating the Earth Through Collapse", begins on March 17. StoryMoss held our second conversation with Anne and Neil (our first took place in September 2025, watch it here) to explore their work and involvement in the upcoming learning journey. This is the first in a series of short talks we will share as the learning journey runs between March and September, 2026.

Anne and Neil are the wonderful duo of And Now What, working closely to nurture a collapse acceptant local community in Leuven, Belgium where they live, as they also offer their work online. Throughout the learning journey, they will provide integral support for our collective wayfinding with collapse through regular gatherings in the And Now What space in the Design School.

So, how do we (as collapse acceptants building community with one another, both place-based and online) face reality and live the questions?
How do we walk the path of collapse acceptance, integrating painful truths?
How do we forge friendships and navigate the terrains of grief and collective liberation as collapse accelerates?
Where can we walk together that we can't walk alone?
What can we do together that we can't do alone?
What is it that's mine to do in our companionship and friendship?

These are some of the questions of And Now What, introduced to our conversation by Neil through his poem entitled "If you have come to me... then". It's a play on the famous words of Australian Aboriginal elder Lilla Watson: "If you've come here to help me, you're wasting your time. But if you've come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

Anne and Neil do the deep work of holding collective space to live the questions with the humility of not having answers. Many of us see the same multi-level systemic patterns of entangled, cumulative and compounding collapse and inertia in the world. We can feel the Great Unravelling, as Joanna Macy termed it, but how do we respond? How do we find courage to move forward with the individual and collective actions our hearts know must be taken? How do we hold each other in the grief and not-knowing? How do we tap our inner wellsprings so we can act in service of our deepest calling?

As Neil previously said, "collapse acceptance becomes the soil for what wants to grow next." As seeds germinating in the soil of collapse acceptance, we must prepare ourselves for the moment our heads poke up through the soil and into the world of collapse, without the palliatives of denial or despair.

Anne and Neil both spoke to the inherent difficulty of going deep enough in a group process to get beyond the levels of comfort we habitually seek in each other, so that it becomes possible to get real about the magnitude of our planetary predicament, and start to face this together. This Leuven Loving duo brings the finely tuned skillfulness of knowing where and how to find and challenge these inner and outer edges, with great compassion, so that individuals and collectives can begin to meet the true depths of collapse together, with greater maturity and sobriety.

Taking time for important conversations and nurturing visions, friendships and trust, a delicate ember is forged that needs careful tending if it is to grow into an enduring flame of future bioregional resilience.

You can still take part in the learning journey by joining the Design School for Regenerating Earth for as little as $5 US a month. Anne and Neil will be holding integration sessions with the learning journey every other Tuesday, and Thursday Courageous Conversation circles in the And Now What space in the Design School.

Here is Neil's poem in full: https://andnowwhat.be/2022/poetry/if-you-have-come-to-me-then/