The Parallel Impossible

Imagine a world where across the entire Colorado River Basin, humans are mobilizing to regenerate landscapes and waterways. Where they’re listening to the Colorado River itself along with its many tributaries to tell them how. Where big dams are being replaced with small and intimate ways of slowing, spreading, and sinking waters. Where water tables are being raised and deserts are taking on various shades of green. Where beavers are repopulating and soaking valleys, introducing life regenerating habitat along the way. Where birds and insects are returning in mass. Where growing food forests and increasing food sovereignty in places like the Sonoran and Mojave deserts doesn’t seem like such a sun baked idea.

In the past few days I’ve been a participant in an effort and experiment to awaken this dream.

Before we even began we were aware that this is audacious, ridiculous, maybe impossible. In the few days we’ve been sharing our journey I’ve seen more incredulous facial expressions than I’m used to. But those subtle responses have been completely eclipsed by something potent, something much bigger. In the midst of impossibility, I’ve seen something that leaves me encouraged, that gives me and likely others energy to keep moving forward…

This is a calling and many are hearing the call.

And something about the call makes people perfectly comfortable sitting in the impossibility of it all. It almost doesn’t seem to matter. The recognition that this is exactly what needs to happen is present everywhere we go. After one of Joe’s talks in Grand Junction, we heard an elder woman say that she’s not going to go out without fighting for the future. The dream of regenerating the Colorado River wants to awaken, it wants to be shared, it wants to be explored, it wants to come to life.

And there is plenty of physical space for a parallel story to emerge. Where people are coming together to learn on the land and about their place. Where local and regional ecological health is becoming highly visible and more people are relating to it deeply. Where we’re settling into a deep understanding that it’s multiple scales of human cooperation that enable humans to steward the multiple scales of Earth. Where the impossibility once felt begins to change its shape, it starts to look more possible.

In parallel worlds we’re discovering the art of creating possibility. The bioregional dream is awakening. The river is showing us how.

If you feel moved, if you feel inspired, if you feel that you’d like to give energy into bringing these stories to life, you can help us pay for our rental car or buy us a meal along the way by going here, our donation page.

See you downriver…