So when I wrote The Milkwood Permaculture Living Handbook, I wrote about small, positive, everyday changes and habits – that you can consider, try out, and add to your daily life if they suit you.

We do not expect you to take on all the habits suggested, or turn your life upside down in 7 days.

Choosing and then taking on one new habit, one new tweaked way of being that leans towards life and towards the futures that we need to co-create, would be a fine start.

Because each one of these habits will change the world.

That feels like a very big thing to say. In an age of such urgency, of so many over-lapping crises, and living within a decade where if We Don’t Get This Right, Now, all may be lost.

Which is all so very true. That urgency is overwhelming, and necessary, and starkly apparent – to more and more of us.

And while we hold these truths in our hands, and act upon them collectively to progress liveable futures for all – there is also this day. And the next one.

Another breakfast, another work day, another toilet break, another ‘what to make for dinner’ moment.

Another day of individual actions, habits. Conscious and unconscious. Voluntary and involuntary. Ideal and non-ideal. Considered and idgaf moments, and choices to be made.

The overwhelm of the everyday, to go along with the system-level urgency. Great!

We live under multiple harmful systems – including white supremacy, and capitalism. Many, many aspects of our lives are set up in a way that does not enhance biodiversity, or happiness, or lean towards rest, or community care, or justice.

It is not easy, or even sometimes possible, to untangle ourselves entirely from these systems, in our current lives.

And yet. We still get to make choices, each and every day. And we can choose small changes to our ways of living, that can help co-create the worlds we want.

Doing any of these actions on your own won’t save the world.

But movements are made up of many individuals – making better choices and taking action, together.

Some of these choices are made apparent when we fill the streets.

Some of these choices are made apparent when we close down the company / win the court case / stop the fossil fuel project / vote through new legislation that protects communities, ecosystems.

Some of these choices and actions are done at the the breakfast table, and in the mundane and ordinary places of our day.

These quieter aspects, actions and habits are also part of the revolution of change that we need to live within.

They ripple slowly outwards, like a tide of quietly unstoppable force – that cannot be halted, anymore than a tsunami or a waterfall –  as we each choose to change our everyday for the better.

Droplet by droplet, these everyday actions and choices are an essential part of how we create unstoppable tides and rivers of change.

Collective action comes in many forms. Individual actions can and do change the world, when done collectively. Your choices do matter.

Individual people, each making choices on what next to do, is the only thing that has ever changed anything. Movements are made up of exactly this.

Its not that doing these everyday actions will ‘save’ the world – it’s that considering your daily habits gives you multiple, precious opportunities to edge towards a deeper relationship with your ecosystem, and your community, and your self.

Yes, even as we each live within unjust and hugely destructive systems. Even now.

And the more we can practice living in relationship to these living systems, the more we can cultivate the capacity to co-create the futures we all need and deserve, starting with this day. This one, right here. The day you thought didn’t matter.

It’s said in the transformative justice movement that ‘transformation only occurs in relationship’.

That is, accountability and healing can only truly occur when there’s dialogue between the parties concerned. When we are entirely seperate and closed off from each other, there is no dialogue possible. And therefore no relational movement forward. No true release from the pain, or the harm. Being in relationship makes everything possible.

Ask any functional ecosystem, and it will show you exactly that.

The same capacity of transformation can be said regarding your relationship with the earth beneath your feet, and the people in your kitchen. The relationship between you and the plants that grow through the cracks in the pavement outside your apartment.

How often are you aware of your inner biome/ecosystem, or your ongoing relationship with your local waterways, or your local food system? How are those relationships going, for you? How often do you check in? How do you seek to contribute to their health, as they do to yours?

How much does your awareness of these eco-systemic relationships around you, which infuse your daily life at every level, contribute to your decisions on how to live?

Meaningful relationships require regular care, and noticing, and tending. They require consideration. They require us to think beyond ourselves, in our actions and choices. The results of a healthy relationship can be nourishing – and change your mind, and your life for the better. Because transformation can occur only in relationship.

Your relationship with your ecosystem is a life-long one, even if it’s largely unnoticed. Your choices matter, and affect things all around you, each and every day.

And you have a daily opportunity to consider how to shift these relationships, little by little, with how you eat, play, work, rest, love and generally spend your days on earth – in a way that leans towards life, and away from the harmful systems we need to out-grow.

This doesn’t mean that the big actions aren’t also critical. Quite the opposite. But to stay alive, at this time on earth, it’s worth considering how you can hold and participate in that urgency, while also finding small ways to reclaim your place as a helpful, happier, and more aware part of nature.

As a being who is slowly learning how to live in right relationship to my local ecosystem, this is all part of it – in amongst all the urgency, and all the grief, and all the possibilities that our world holds.

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Because if transformation occurs only in relationship, we cannot help transform a world that does not know us.

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forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet, and the winds long to play with your hair ~ Kahlil Gibran

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Oh and also, this book was born out of our Permaculture Living course, a mentored, online class we run 4 times a year. Here’s the course details.

The first image is a raw linocut by the amazing Dalee Ella, from our forthcoming book | Image 2 is the amazing verge gardens of Wilga Ave in Dulwich Hill | Image 3 is Annie & Genevieve’s wash up (from when they lived in the Love Shack / tinyhouse) | Image 3 is me in our garden, taken by Sam Shelley | image 4 is leek flowers in our garden, also taken by Sam.

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About The Milkwood Permaculture Living Handbook – Habits for Hope in a changing world – this is a handbook of good ideas and habits for your every day. Each one of these habits is small, and not revolutionary in and of themselves. And they also are, each of them, fundamentally world-shifting.

Each one separates us a little bit more from the systems and structures that have been so toxic to life on earth – each habit opens up space for us to create new futures.

Because the change that we need, the worlds that we need, begin now. Each day. They’re not an arrival point in the future.

We are co-creating the future every day of our lives, and we can do that in a way that creates more equity, more justice, more deliciousness, and which leans towards life. While just doing our daily stuff. But with meaning, and purpose. This is a handbook for living like it matters.