Stop the music! Let the year 2025 wait...
*NOTE: This article was written in Portuguese originally. You'll be able to read it soon here - we're working to fix some technical issues with the translations app. Thanks for your understanding.
The year 2025 began without me having reached the end of the previous year. 2024 was intense in terms of personal projects. I say ‘personal’ (and not ‘individual’, mind you!) because they were projects that didn't emerge from the context of my paid work, even though they are systemically and intimately linked to the same collective work of contributing to societal change, of ‘transition’, that I do at Transition Network international.
I keep hearing that these projects are so fruitful and inspiring that they deserve to be written about to share with you. I failed. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't close the year having fulfilled what I had committed to myself. If the year was filled with beautiful stories, they were followed by extreme tiredness, physical and emotional fragility and, often, despair – everything has to have time and space to be lived and the year 2024 wasn't long enough for me to live it all properly and sit down to write after everything had been processed.
I now sit in front of my computer, pause to watch the white winter light coming in through the window on the sloped ceiling of my living room, tuck the crochet blanket under my legs, and think:
Let 2025 wait!
I feel that what I have to tell you is like a tangle of things connected in a common context. All this stems from the fact that I've never found balance in exclusive international work - I need to connect the various scales. Rooting what I gather in my professional experience locally feeds me - rooting it in my homeland, where my culture and mother tongue live. These are stories of experimentation and contribution to social transformative innovation in Portugal in the context of an emerging group of change agents, still informal - the Micélio network. But even more importantly, they are stories of Love - of the power of love for this kind of work and the love between those who do it, in the co-creation of a new human, collaborative, regenerative culture. This part tends to be left out of project reports and I think that transition project reports should always include a part about what can't be measured with numbers: love, connection, integrity, inspiration, sadness, mourning...
2024, in short:
The world is in crisis - we already know that. It's a world in search of meaning and facing considerable challenges on all scales. The lack of perspective, the uncertainty of tomorrow, the succession of multiple crises (ecological, economic, social and spiritual) and the fear of the unknown can push us all into defensive reflexes that are selfish, delusional and even toxic.
I recognise these signs everywhere, but it hurts me to see the effects on the Portuguese community of changemakers, at a time when cohesion, resilience and a collective vision are fundamental. It was with the aim of experimenting with a different way of doing things that the Micélio network came into being.
The intervention approach within the Micélio network was based on 3 main points: Imagination, Collective Intelligence and new Transition Narratives, which make up a triangle around a community of initiatives: the aim was to empower a community of change in Portugal - expanding the critical mass for a healthy human culture.
During 2024, we organised various training courses on Collective Intelligence tools, a meeting of the Micélio network, an experience of the Tao Game and a training course for Tao facilitators. The biggest project (the craziest, I'd say) was the whole process of publishing Rob Hopkins' latest book in Portuguese - “E Se... Libertássemos a nossa imaginação para criar o futuro que desejamos?” (original title “From What is to What if”) and the tour that Rob and I took from the north to the south of Portugal in October. This process involved many people, so many! - and so many connections were made between them.
And that's it.
Of all the things that have happened this year, there are a few things to share with you. Let's do this in parts: I'll list what I write down below, OK? I'd love to know what your thoughts and questions are - don't hesitate to ask me if you have any.
- The Game of Tao
- ‘What If...’ Tour - Rob Hopkins and Filipa Pimentel in Portugal (forthcoming)
- Language justice - reflections (forthcoming)
