r3.0 2025 Confluence Dispatch with Balcones Tejas Bioregional Club, Austin, TX

Nearing the second edition this September, we publish "A Truly Magical Confluence" by Bioregional Host Annie Spade written in October 2025 and offered a long with a flipbook version here:

When the moon was full - in her second cycle since Sirius’ return with the late summer sun - just east of the Balcones Escarpment, we made real music together. We did. And I could feel the Blackland Prairie beneath us, as well as the Earth beyond, trembling with joy. 

It was Sunday evening. Over three dreamy days we’d been riding a magic carpet. Even our preparations held such divine guidance, meet ups and appointments - all happening rapidly in response to the planet-wide invitation from r3.0 to host local confluences. I have the icon of Ashleigh‘s ever-smiling face - which I glimpsed again and again over three days - shining forever in my mind and heart.

But I haven't introduced Ashleigh, and first need tell more of the music we made in our closing circle, of the delight we felt as we each chose rhythm instruments once belonging to a group of young children. As it happened, Haley, a trained percussionist, took up the buffalo hide drum of Kiowa origin; while Jay arm-tucked the little djembe. Together, these native drums of American and African peoples gently and harmoniously suggested a beat. Only later did I realize they gave voice to two great rifts of injustice in the human family as peoples of Europe colonized Turtle Island. On this Sunday, hundreds of years later, these drums of original peoples were soulfully played by a woman and a man - each descended from those immigrant peoples. Indeed, most in this circle of about 25, were too. 

At first, we made a cacophonal noise, but very soon the rest of us fell in with the drums on small wooden and metal instruments, and a nurturing vibratory field was made. We each had a part in creating it. And this in itself was healing. We’ve become rather used to passively receiving such healing music, but oh what an experience it was to be involved in its making, its evolution - playing into the vibratory field of life! I found myself striking the fourth, and later, every second beat - all the while gazing at exalted faces around the circle, reveling in the blessed rhythm of the whole.

We’d each picked up an instrument, just after blessing crown, hands and heart with chamomile-flowered fresh water from pressed-glass vessels - which previously held saltwater, representing tears. But that's another story that takes us to the beginning of this journey… to a lovely Friday evening on the Edwards Plateau.

More than 30 people gathered at “The Dome” to open our bioregional confluence on the western side of the Balcones*. Two and a half years before, on the spring equinox that year, an apology ceremony had been offered on this very site as part of a global effort to effect healing of the land and between peoples. The saltwater was poured by colonial descendants down an aged juniper from these glass dishes - which once belonged to a Choctaw great grandmother. “Mary” was daughter of parents who walked The Trail of Tears - from their homeland in gulf coastal forests to the hard scrabble prairies of the southern Great Plains. Her great granddaughter, who knew her well, treasures these little dishes. When one day in coming years, her grand niece bears a child, this Choctaw great granddaughter will know seven generations in her family. Though scars remain, may they be reconciled for that generation!

The Radiance Dome is a circular structure built in 1983 explicitly for meditation. It is the third and smallest of four Maharishi domes (others are in Iowa and the UK), all constructed with the intent of fostering world peace and societal wellbeing through the practice of meditation. Stewardship of the Dome and four surrounding acres was recently transferred to a young mother with a dream. Ashleigh’s organization, “Earth Drifters”, aims to develop this space as a living classroom - a gathering ground and rallying point for a community ready to reconnect with the Earth. At the heart of it all is a simple but powerful commitment to children**. 

Our confluence opening that evening was to be the very first Earth Drifters gathering there. Wondrously, four generations, aged six to 86, attended. Arriving, each was welcomed with a fantastically delicious East Indian vegetarian bowl of chole chawal, served outdoors and homemade for us by one of the octogenarians and her grandson. Having shared such sumptuousness, we paused in circle for introductions outside, then entered The Dome.

Inside, a stage had been set or, more exactly, a spiral. 138 feet of soft golden twine lay on the bare floor under the skylighted dome - each foot representing 100 million years of cosmic history. From a collection, each person selected a small stone as well as a tiny artifact or figure of a plant or animal. When all were seated and hand fans distributed - since the AC was not yet working well in the newly-reopened Dome - the telling of the 13.8 billion year story began. Fantastically, the story only took about  13.8 minutes - but oh what a story it was! 

Had we ever heard it this way or experienced it like this? Together, we remembered the explosion of unfathomable energy we call The Big Bang, followed by the slow emergence of burning stars which brought the light, and the ever shifting balance of dark energy and gravity - both mysteries to us still. 

At long last, nine billion years and 90 feet along the cord: our sun and moon, and the other planets emerged - though the Milky Way Galaxy had been present almost since the beginning. We placed our small stones here. But four billion years, 40 feet more, passed before anaerobic one-celled organisms and Cyanobacteria, along with Earth’s cooling, would allow sufficient water and oxygen for an explosion of oxygen-producing and reliant ancient lifeforms. We were now six feet before the end.

Over this brief span, life diversified again and again, indomitable through five mass extinctions. Finally, with the arrival of a massive asteroid near the Yucatán, 66 million years ago, the sun was clouded for 15 years and photosynthesis ceased for two. This, Earth’s most recent extinction event, decimated the great reptiles - allowing for the rise of mammals and millions of other organisms alive today. In this brief ending space we crowded all our small figures and artifacts to represent them. In amazement, we felt the true miracle that these six and a half inches hold all of modern life!

We had reached the present day. We stood and gathered close around the spiral now, pausing for silence and softly-spoken reflections as night drew near…

Eventually, we returned to our seated circle - not yet ready to leave - and the future arrived, with several voicing dreams and intents that the spiral of life would continue.

Our sacred story both enlivened and refreshed us. Gradually, like replenished springs, we trickled out from the primordial space into the darkness outside. Meanwhile, a long brown paper had been unfurled across the floor next to the spiral. Several had taken up brushes and blue paint and were painting a river. There was no particular plan or instruction or coordination, yet the work commenced in a deeply focused and devoted way.

San Marcos Springs is a complex of more than 200 springs that together release 50 -100 million gallons of water per day. This is Edward’s Aquifer water, surfacing through fissures in the Balcones Escarpment. Until a dam was placed in 1849, this astonishing abundance flowed in river form, with fountains even punctuating the river’s course. Now flooded over, the springs fill Spring Lake, the celebrated centerpiece of The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. 

Humans have lived in this area for more than 11,000 years, and it was here we gathered on the morning of Day Two. At The Dome the night before, we opened the evolutionary story understood by science today. Now we balanced and developed our story further on what is considered by the Coahuitecan people to be their birthplace. 

Just west of here, in the Pecos River drainages of the Edwards Plateau, are the “first books” of Turtle Island (North America). Hundreds of four-color pictographs, some more than 5000 years old and predating the pyramids in Egypt, were painted by peoples in this area. The White Shaman Mural “communicates a narrative about the cycles of time, outlining a creation story of the birth of the Sun… and creates a visualization of the structure of the Cosmos”. Four of the great springs that lie along the Balcones Escarpment are depicted in this fantastic mural. In geographic order from north to south, these are their names since colonization: Barton Springs, San Marcos Springs, Comal Springs and San Antonio Springs. 

• Above quote and image below from Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine, October 2025