Bioregional Interweaving makes Bioregional Friendship
Emmanuelle Chiche and Marcus Petz hosting and reporting
Practical Action with an Offers And Needs Market Practice * Bring our planetary bioregions together * Spirit-to-Spirit from the Spiritual and Ancestral Land lineages * Connections Relations Connections
These were the results of two bioregionally aware, informed, quite passionate, resourceful and curious humans, Emmanuelle and Marcus. Both volunteered to create an event and facilitate the 4th seasonal offering of the TransBioregional Coordination Circle Series which was initiated last Summer by Tyler Wakefield at The BioFi Project. Bill Baue at r3-0 passed on the baton to us. With his guidance and Tyler’s freedom to curate and host the most creative event we were off. That event should (we hoped) help to grow the intention and resolve for more of us individuals and communities to make the bioregional movement transbioregional, which may be the creative transformation needed to accelerate our shift towards a much more welcoming healthy sound and just world protecting and encouraging all living beings to thrive in harmony. Wow! Read that again!
How can we together express our people’s power and creative transformative healing of the our degraded and burnout Earth and our hurt collective nervous system?
Imagine if our rivers and world trees were connecting with the guidance of the birds, the care of the mycelium, the cross pollination of the bees. Imagine if we were to offer every day 24 hours of wild (or wilderness) dreams to feed our collective imagination for a better world for all of us in all kinships, for all living beings without any distinction, discrimination nor privilege. From sunrise to moonrise we want to weave these kind of thoughts with practical actions people can take and be supported in. Sounds like harmony. How can it be?
The weaving was in the making. StoryMoss Magazine partnering with the energy of connecting started with the two bioregions we adopted: Emmanuelle with the African Peace Village, a living lab co-created by Konkankoh and Heide Maria in Burgau, South West Portugal; and Marcus with the Great Nordics Pohjola Hyperborea Finnish Forest Bioregion hosted by Finnish bioregional practionner Muhamad Ali. By the way, the two bioregional contexts are located 2,700 miles from one another, from almost the South West end of the European land masse close to the Arctic Pole, within the Finnish and Russian taiga forest inviting the bioregional dreaming. Yet bioregional serendipity that natural comes along with bioregional interweaving; the two spirits of the two places were always connected through the cosmos - the Spirit of Ndanifor, Konkankoh's legacy brought from Cameroon to coastal Portugal and the Spirit of Pohjola in the Finnish taiga.
Emmanuelle offered the idea of bioregional interweaving and planetary collaboration between groups of peoples, watersheds, rivers and trees around the world who were hard at work to regain direction, drive and resolve to help restore all kinships and relations that have suffered from excessive capitalist overbearing, neglect and abuse. Marcus happily conferred and brought in the force of awareness and the practical structure of the Offers and Needs Market (OANM). In the Post Growth Institute’s OANM we can transform capitalism and finance to people-centred community economics.
The magic of weaving was definitely on. It delivers intuitive organic gifts and connects for the trained and curious eyes to see as a playful treasury quest. A close friend and colleague of Emmanuelle’s and co-weaver at the African Peace Village that he founded, was Konkankoh. He is a 2025 alumni of the Post Growth Institute. He kindly helped us invite Dani Leonardo from the PGI's OANM team to share insights on the practice that the Institute has taken upon themselves to revive in the last years with over 400 facilitators trained and certified under their care. Our Coordination Circle had set for two hours, the invites went out. The first hour was a short OANM presentation, you will see in the recording and simple slides that Dani had created for our group as her team was seduced with the idea of the practice helping planetary bioregional interweaving, and the second hour was on two bioregional projects from the opposite sides of the pond (the Atlantic pond). Weaving together we all shared our offers and needs with open mind and open hart, sensing and co-sensing very U Theory like. We put them in context for more magic to happen for all, in the forms of collaboration, new relations, support, share of knowledge, of skills, of time and creativity, of toolkits and resources and so much more… Our small group decided to continue to build on simple strong offering and re-convene early Fall for a full OANM two hour-practice hosted by trained and beautiful facilitator Dani Lenonardo from Post Growth Institute. Please join the wait list at StoryMoss Weaving Agency by writing to us at storymossmagazine@gmail.com.
On the African Peace Village, Konkankoh offered a short description and two photos with just very simple stories (watch our recording here if you are curious: https://youtu.be/2UVSxDruk9M.) The stories came from the baobab tree and from our sacred land team photo in the make-shift studio on the farm with the unstable roof that needs to be repaired before the fall and more rain.
Konkankoh shared a message after our call: “I came away from the call feeling more trusting that TransBioregionalism is the sure tool and discipline of cross boundary cooperation. I am grateful to Emmanuelle for inviting me into this exciting, forward-stepping process of recovering our relations and deepening the planetary practice of care through the Needs and Offers approach of the Post Growth Institute. Thank you Dani for brilliantly holding the space. I am happy to continue contributing from the indigenous lens of the African Peace Village and learning from our different contexts of the world.“
Dani sent us a very nice message the day after: Hi Emmanuelle, Marcus and all,Thank you for inviting me to speak yesterday, and much gratitude to you Konkankoh, for making the connection (that leads to more connection)
"OANM as a marvelous versatile toolkit for planetary bioregional interweaving and the growth of our movement." What a lovely vision I am here to support, and i share in the excitement for the possibilities Emmanuelle named. i would also welcome folks with interest in becoming OANM facilitators to fill out our interest form or reach out to us at oanm@postgrowth.org.i look forward to being in touch, and seeing how things unfold!
The Great Nordics bioregion's host presenter Muhamma Ali shared some beautiful slides and the following encouraging words: "I really like bringing together different persepctives on bioregional regeneration from different parts of the world. The Offers and Needs Market represents an alternative economic model, and we really need those as the monetary fiat system seems increasingly unsustainable. The twinning of the two "bioregional spirits" (Ndanifor and Pohjola), or "biospiritual regions", is indeed an exciting prospect , although I am not sure how it works in practice - especially since the two regions are of different scales. But it's definitely worth finding out!".
Webinar Attendee Magdalena Urioste, a dear bioregional friend from the Uruguyan Pampas bioregion and cofounder of the Pampeaneas Regenerativas Orientales (https://pampeanas.org/) wrote us this beautiful note after her experience in our TransBioregional Coordination Circle episode. Magdalena felt very touched by the testimonies and comments of the people who attended, she wrote: “Sometimes folks tells stories and one listens and that’s it. However, yesterday, the story of Konkankoh, the humility with which he expressed his lack of land, lack of a roof, lack of resources brought tears to my heart. What most impressed me was that he was not seeking pity, all the contrary, he was telling a hard reality he was experiencing in the most dignifying way; only people who have lived hardships know how to express without showing any resentment.”
Thank you attendee Michael Lennon, host of the Potomac Watershed (Chesapeake) r3.O Confluence (September 8,9, 10, 2026 online and on land at : https://www.r3-0.org/ for bringing a beautiful query in the second hour of our gathering that led to a rich and warm campfire. Watch at: https://youtu.be/2UVSxDruk9M.
Both The Great Nordics in the Finnish Hyperborea forest and the African Peace Village are r3.O 2026 confluences too. There are about 75 around the world who will watching conferencce sessions and discussing them together. Join at: https://www.r3-0.org/
Bill Baue from r3.O told us that “I very much appreciated the Offers And Needs Market presentation — great job!” We are pleased there are efforts to develop OANM social technology to apply globally and at an organizational rather than an individual level. On going conversations should see this happen over the next few months, so watch out in StoryMoss Magazine for updates and a full Offers and Needs Market Practice this fall that you can all join in.