One Year of Radically Practical – Grateful & Thankful

A Liminal Threshold in Our Collective Hero’s Journey — Mine, Yours, and Ours

liminal (adj.)

1. Relating to a transitional or threshold state; occupying a position at or on both sides of a boundary or turning point.

2. In my speculative fiction novel Parable of the Rosebush, liminal describes the sacred in-between space — between collapse and emergence, between the old world of Moloch and a new world of cooperation, abundance, and regeneration. It is where transformation becomes possible, and where both the characters and humanity face the question: What now?

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A Year Ago…

I launched this Substack, Radically Practical, while living in the coastal town of Palomino, Colombia. At the time, I was in the midst of a deep personal healing journey — suspended between stories, between lives. I had just published an essay called On Sacred Vulnerability, not fully realizing how it would become the foundation of something much larger: a space of inquiry and emergence, where my inner transformation would begin to intersect with the outer transformation our world so desperately needs. A liminal threshold had opened — and I had stepped through.

While regenerating myself, I was also studying the regenerative movement in Colombia — learning from Indigenous elders, shamans, activists, and everyday people doing extraordinary things. In the midst of that beauty and connection, I met a remarkable Colombian woman — a costume designer in the film industry — and we fell in love. We lived and loved together in Palomino and Bogotá for three powerful months before I returned to the U.S. last summer. She later visited me here in the fall, and in January of this year we officially stepped into sacred union — a shared journey of love, creation, and becoming. She’s now on a film project in Honduras, and I’ll be reuniting with her in Bogotá next month.

While back in the Midwest — near St. Louis, Missouri, where I grew up — I began to see the land and the great rivers of my childhood through new eyes. The convergence of the mighty Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois Rivers revealed itself as an archetypal setting for the story I needed to tell. A story of humanity at a turning point. A tale rooted in the limestone caves and fertile, flood-prone fields of this bioregion, spiraling outward into a global speculative fiction saga of transition and transformation.

And so Parable of the Rosebush: rEvolution Z was born — a story of collapse and emergence, resilience and regeneration. Since then, I’ve published six full chapters from Act One here on Substack, along with expansive Worldbuilding sections: a character list, over thirty regenerative transformation themes, and an evolving glossary of regenerative terms. The story is both intimate and planetary — tracing the young Trim Whitaker’s journey through personal loss, collective awakening, and the possibility of a new human story. It’s a coming-of-age tale set in the emergence of the Geotribal Age, where individual transformation and global transition are deeply intertwined.

Several years ago, I wrote an essay about the Next Evolution of Ecovillages and discussed both the promise and the peril the movement faces. I still believe the ecovillage movement plays a critical role in our collective transition, as it reflects a deep yearning to step outside of our current degenerative systems. But that desire to escape is also part of the challenge. In a global empire shaped by technofeudalism, there is truly no “outside” — no place untouched by the structures we’re trying to transcend.

Even within ecovillages, the forces of Moloch — scarcity, competition, and misaligned incentives — often show up in subtler forms: privilege (often racial or class-based), exclusion, and unconscious power dynamics. Not because people mean harm, but because the systems we’re trying to leave behind still live inside us. These intentional communities, like startups, are notoriously fragile — some say 90% fail within a few years — a reminder of the inherent impermanence of experimental spaces trying to grow something new in the shadow of crumbling systems. Moloch isn’t just out there in markets or institutions. It’s in our minds, our habits, our assumptions, our inherited stories.

That’s why storytelling matters, now more than ever. We need to update our plotline — and with it, the map we’re using to navigate. And no map is complete without a ‘You Are Here’ marker.

So let me place mine first:

I am here…

Currently in the heartland of the U.S. — continuing to write The Geotribal 2030 Anthology full-time. I’ve committed myself to the wildly hopeful — and urgently necessary — task of helping humanity transition beyond capitalism and MMO (money, markets, ownership) into a regenerative, open-access paradigm. I’m doing everything I can to avoid returning to a “bullshit job” — instead focusing solely on meaningful paid work within the regenerative movement, and seeking sponsorship to sustain my work on Parable of the Rosebush: rEvolution Z. I’m passionate about building lifeboats and lighthouses — the guiding structures humanity will need to find its way out of this collapsing system. And I am deeply grateful to those who have helped keep me afloat — financially, emotionally, and spiritually. In April, I’ll return to Colombia to reconnect with my soulmate and the regenerative movement in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta bioregion that continues to inspire this work. I find myself in a liminal space — between places, between stories, between identities (even my name is shifting, from Troy to T. Richard, and perhaps beyond). As I listen more deeply to the inner and outer currents shaping this moment, I sense that something radically new is emerging. I may not yet know its full form, but I trust that I’m here to help midwife the next chapter — for myself, and for the greater human story we are all part of.

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We are here…

At a collective threshold — not just in the story, but in real life. In Parable of the Rosebush: rEvolution Z, we’re nearing the end of Act One: the close of the “Ordinary World” and the first steps into the unknown. Trim has crossed the river and entered a new way of being at an ecovillage outside Elsah, Illinois. Her mother, Tina, lingers at the edge — embodying the “within-the-system” voice, caught between the false comfort of the old world and the quiet pull of something radically different. She hears the whisper of TINA — There Is No Alternative — the myth that insists the current system is the only option. But that myth is beginning to crumble.

And Tina, like so many of us, now finds herself in the liminal space between worlds — between collapse and emergence, between storylines, between paradigms. This is the terrain of Act Two. The messy middle. The uncertain path where old maps fail and new possibilities are still half-formed. It’s where fear rises — and where transformation begins.

This is the collective hero’s journey — not driven by a lone protagonist, but by all of us choosing to awaken, to listen, and to act. A mythic arc for an age that demands mythic courage.

In the next chapter, we’ll begin naming the myths. The alter-egos of Moloch. The internalized voices that whisper we need presidents, borders, markets, jobs, money, ownership, and control. But a question is coming — one that cracks those voices open and sets the stage for a paradigm-expanding Act Two.

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Are you here?

Take a moment to ask yourself: Where are you in this collective hero’s journey? Are you clinging to the familiar, questioning the myths, or stepping toward the unknown?

Are you in a liminal space — no longer fully inside the old story, but not yet rooted in the new one?

These thresholds are uncomfortable, but they are also sacred. This is where transformation happens. Where the spiral upward begins.

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Marking a Liminal Threshold on Substack

Over the past two months, this Substack has grown from 100 subscribers to almost 1,300. That’s beautiful, and humbling. But let me be blunt: I can’t do this without support. If you believe this work matters — if you believe stories can shift paradigms — I need your help.

I know: asking for money while imagining a post-monetary world may seem contradictory. But the truth is, we still live inside this paradigm. And until we create new systems of care and exchange, those of us building lifeboats need help gathering the wood. It takes real resources — time, space, presence, community — to write the stories that help us imagine and manifest something better. If we want to move toward a post-capitalist, post-monetary world, we have to start redirecting resources now — not someday. That doesn’t just mean money. It means access. It means care. It means collaboration. That’s how we begin to build what comes next…an open access, resource-based economy.

That means supporting — or becoming — the creators, the doers and thinkers, the storytellers and regenerative changemakers who are working to build the new story.

If you’ve found value in what I’m creating here — if you believe this work is timely, urgent, and important — please consider becoming a paid subscriber or sponsor.

$6/month might not seem like much, but it’s a revolutionary act in a system that would prefer we all stay distracted, divided, and dependent on outdated systems. If you can give more, wonderful. If you have land, housing, or other resources to share with other projects within the regenerative network, like the many “liminal villages” around the world, please reach out. Regenerative storytelling requires regenerative resourcing. And that means redefining ROI (Return on Investment). This goes beyond traditional notions of ROI based on percentages and spreadsheets. A Regenerative Return on Investment (RROI) is simply a better world — for ourselves in the here and now, and for future generations, including the more-than-human world we share it with.

In the next phase, I’ll be releasing audio chapters of Parable of the Rosebush for paid subscribers, while keeping written chapters free for everyone. My hope is that more of you will join this movement as co-creators, patrons, and allies.

We are in a rEvolution. Not one of guns and flags (hopefully) — but of imagination, relationship, and design.

Let’s stop pretending someone else is going to save us.

Let’s stop waiting for permission.

Let’s write the story we want to live in.

Let’s move from ‘You Are Here’ to ‘We Are Here’ — and begin to shape where we’re going, together.

It is from this sacred liminal space — between stories, between worlds — that the spiral must continue… and we continue it together.

Thank you for your meaningful attention and subscription to my work this past year — your presence and support are part of the sacred unfolding of this journey we are walking together, toward something truer, deeper, and more beautiful.

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