THE REGENESIS PROJECT

Since 2022 I have been working with my community of creatives in the Greater Blue Mountains to run the yearly Regenesis Project. In 2024 we wound up GBMCAN (Greater Blue Mountains Creative Arts Network) and created a new group, the Enlivenment Network, which continues to host the Regenesis Project as part of its mission to spread the seeds of an ENLIVENED way of living. A new/ancient way of being, thinking and doing.

EXPLORING REGENESIS

In 2022, our theme was exploring the idea of “regenesis” itself
In 2023, our theme was “regenesis – water”
In 2024, our theme was “regenesis – connections’
In 2025, our theme was “regenesis – living sustainably”
In 2026, our theme is “regenesis – our kinshp with nature”

The Enlivenment Network are Community Weavers. We are dedicated to cultivating a vibrant, interconnected arts and culture community that champions and spreads the seeds of ENLIVENED ways of being, thinking and doing, whereby we live in kinship and communion with our fellow EARTHLINGS, in the spirit of REGENESIS, a resonance with Earth as a living, breathing presence.

This project reaches out to the community to engage them with the various dimensions of REGENESIS—reimagining our relationship with the more than human world as fellow Earthlings, rather than as a resource for human benefit. It invites creatives to express their creative insights through submitting poetry, short stories, and visual images. In 2026 we are extending our creative reach into the singer-songwriter community, with a call for original lyrics, and into the filmmaking community with a call for 2-4 minute video submissions.

We have a 12-18 yr category for our teenagers, and 18 and over category for everyone else. For video only, we have a 15-25 yr olds. Submissions close June 2026.

Please spread the word among your fellow creatives to send us their submissions—whether as poetry, short stories, visual images, original lyrics with music or a 2-4 minute video.

This competition is open to everyone living between Lapstone and Lithgow. To find out more and get involved go HERE   OR  HERE

REIMAGINING OUR SENSE OF REALITY

Engaging with the idea of REGENESIS is one way we can stay grounded during this period of major, unsettling shifts in our sense of what’s normal. We can shift our focus from how we wish the world would be, to how we can courageously engage with a rapidly changing world, full of unexpected challenges, and those we have been warned about for some time:

• Global warming is radically changing our climate with more extreme weather events across our vast continent
• The rules-based order under Pax Americana since WWII is collapsing
• Digital technology, via social media and now AI is a major disrupter to how our community hangs together, our job prospects, our sense of personal identity and security, our exposure to hate and bullying
• Neo liberal economic policies of privatisation of public services and goods and the financialisation of housing has created a world where a significant proportion of people can’t afford a secure roof over their head, somewhere to call home, while others get rich on capital gains discounts and negative gearing.

We modern people have grown up thinking the world was “our oyster”. That we humans were so clever there was a tech fix for every problem. That we could find meaning and purpose through consumerism—stylish house renovations, new cars, fashionable clothes, wellbeing holidays and products, affordable overseas travel for everyone, supported by rising incomes. Continuous prosperity was the golden promise. Now all that is evaporating.

The Minority Report suggests: When the dominant worldview of a society begins to crack, the crisis is not only political or economic. It is existential. It is cultural. It is emotional. It is, in a very real sense, a collapse in reality itself.

Ever wanted to throw a brick at the experts telling us how the world works? The gap between what mainstream institutions (business, politics, government, experts) talk about in daily news bulletins and commentary, with their talk of stock markets, profits, productivity, economic growth, labour participation, and crisis of living relief—and what people are actually experiencing in their lives—this gap is politically and culturally dangerous. It is now playing out in Australia’s own domestic politics with the rise and rise of support for One Nation, the party of grievance and division.

Many now realise that the old story of investing in education and training, hard work, and playing by the rules would deliver a good and prosperous life for us and our family, no longer holds true.

We feel betrayed. Many of us our angry. Many of us are confused and frustrated. We long for open, honest and inclusive leadership that drills down to us. That is not lost in abstractions like ‘productivity’ and ‘labour force participation’, mouthed by people on hundred of dollars secure income. Some even on millions.

THE POWER OF SHARED BELIEF

Societies function and hold together through shared belief, a sort of social compact between the ruling elite in business, government, experts and civil society, and the general public—those who earn their living through their labour and skills, their families, the small business owners and tradies, the farmers who grow the food, the transport and utility  workers who keep the whole system functioning, the police and courts who guard the agreed moral order of rules and responsibilities, the health workers who look after us when we are sick, the teachers who educate our children. The care workers who look after the aged, disabled, and small children when their parents are at work.

Multicultural Australia, embraced by Australia in the 1970s, is the great project for creating this sense of shared belief in an ‘Australian Way’ that is inclusive of our First Nations peoples (holding a 65,000+ year legacy), our first wave immigrants – British & Irish convicts and adventurers (a 250 year legacy) followed by the ‘One Pound Poms’ and the post War immigrants from Europe (the White Australia legacy); and then from the Middle East; the post war immigrants from Vietnam; the waves of refugees from war torn corners of the world, plus the economic migrants bringing us the skilled workers we need from countries far and wide (the multicultural legacy).

This is who we are—a multi ethnic, multi-faith community of communities, learning how to live together, make compromises and subscribe to shared values.

As we see in today’s fractious political environment. If the public story falls apart, people go looking for a replacement. Some replacements are generous, bringing the community together to find common purpose.

Others are dangerous, sowing rage and discord that divides the community, setting neighbour against neighbour, community against community, one ethnic group against another, one set of religious beliefs against another.

We have seen how that has played out—in Ireland between Protestants and Catholics; in the Balkans between Serbs, Croatians and Bosnians; in Israel between Jews and Muslim Arabs; in India between Hindus and Muslims. We all know how this story ends as we watch the devastation playing out in the Middle East today. In an economically and environmentally interdependent world, it is threatening to bring the whole global ‘house of cards’ collapsing around us. There are many losers. Wars are not video games. Those who win from wars – the financial market and arms dealer racketeers find themselves in a hollow and soulless world.

In such times we need to recalibrate. We need to reimagine our sense of reality. We need to find new ways of finding meaning and purpose. We need to find ways of weaving our communities together in the spirit of social, economic and spiritual resilience and alternative ways of thriving.

THE PRACTICE OF GENEROSITY

The Regenesis Project is a volunteer-based collaborative project that relies on the dedication of a volunteer project team, the contributions of our creative community, and our financial sponsors. Volunteering is the great Australian tradition of generosity, which keeps our civic life alive and thriving.

Between 2022-2024, the Regenesis Project team was supported by Rosey Ravelston Books and Bendigo Community Bank. In 2025 the Project team, now rebranded as the Enlivenment Network, reached out to Resilient Blue Mountains joining Rosey Ravelston Books with continued support from Bendigo Community Bank. For Regenesis 2026, Resilient Blue Mountains is again working with the Enlivenment Network, who are also taking over the role of publisher from Rosey Ravelston Books.

We look forward to continuing support from Bendigo Community Bank and our prize sponsors.

CREATING THE CONTAINER FOR CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT

Many creatives just want to create – write their poetry or short story, create their visual imagery. But without those who create the container, there is no vessel to gather the fruits of this creativity. These container creators are the real heroes of our community—in the cultural arts sector, in community services, and in church groups.

These create the glue that holds our community together through good times and bad times. This is the Australia we love – in times of floods and times of fires. Now we must find it in times of economic and cultural upheaval.

THE DEEPER QUESTION BENEATH THE CRISIS

As the Minority Report reminds us:

Perhaps the deepest issue raised by this worldview collapse is not economic at all. It is moral. If merit no longer guarantees dignity, if markets no longer reflect well-being, if institutions no longer reliably embody justice, then societies are forced to confront a question they have long tried to avoid: What is a person worth, beyond productivity?

That is the question lurking beneath the anxiety around AI, labour, and status. If machines can do more of what once made humans economically distinct, then we cannot keep grounding human value primarily in market usefulness.

We need a richer foundation.

Care. Reciprocity. Interdependence. Democratic participation. The ability to contribute to a shared world. The dignity of being human, full stop. This does not mean expertise no longer matters. It does. It means expertise alone can no longer serve as the moral architecture of belonging. And perhaps that is not only a loss. Perhaps it is also an invitation.

THE REGENESIS PROJECT TEAM

This is our act of creative engagement and community building. For Regenesis 2026, our team comprises Barbara Lepani and Brad Diedrich from the Enlivenment Network, David Christie from Resilient Blue Mountains, and Linda Blagg, a local filmmaker who has stepped up to organise the video competition.

DESIGN, ENGAGEMENT AND PROMOTION

We organise the project, promote a callout for submissions, and gather the submissions—allowing time (at least 3 months) for people to create the work they wish to submit. The wonderful and ever helpful Brad Diedrich does all our graphics and social media promotion, as well as looking after the submissions in the lyrics category. We have already held one information session in Katoomba, and will hold another session at the Gang Gang Gallery in Lithgow in April for anyone who wishes to explore what the competition has to offer them and how to get involved.

MANAGING SUBMISSIONS

After we gather the submissions through the online form or emailed form, we organise them into categories, establish volunteer panels of experts in each category to assess them, short list them for publication and choose a winning entry in each category.

The assessors then submit their findings to the project team, who then organise publication of the poetry, short stories and visual imagery into a printed anthology. This year we will also produce a CD with lyrics for the music entries and a YouTube channel for the video entries. As a result, all the entrants get to see their work become publicly available to share with their family, friends and community.

RAISING FUNDS

Meanwhile the Project Team have spent the months raising funds to pay for promotion and marketing, publication costs, graphic work, and prize money for each of the categories.

ORGANISING EVENTS

Finally, the Project Team organises a celebratory public event, where winners are announced, receive their cash prize from the prize sponsor and are invited to perform/discuss their work with the audience, and published anthologies are available for sale. Usually at cost-price for all the entrants.

Please join us for Regenesis 2026. As a creative making a submission. As someone who wants to get involved with the Project Team. As someone or group who’d like to sponsor a prize. All sponsors get the opportunity to present their prize and talk about their own work. Our final celebratory event will be on 18 October 2026.

To find out more and how to get involved contact Barbara (info@enlivenment.network)