Agraria Journal Winter 2021

A Welcome Return Agraria is growing! In order to help direct and support that growth, we have hired a new Assistant Director: Megan Bachman. FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT BY SHERYL CUNNINGHAM A job with Community Solutions is what initially brought Megan to Yellow Springs when she was fresh out of college in 2004. Within a few months she was organizing a national conference about peak oil and flying to Cuba to film the documentary The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. “We were talking about oil depletion and sustainable living at a time when the understanding of these issues was growing exponentially.” In 2010, Megan decided it was time for a change and left Community Solutions to pursue her interest in journalism. She served as both a reporter and then editor of the Yellow Springs News , a position she held until she left in August to join Agraria. But why return to Agraria, and why now? Megan sees the most important aspect of sustainability as our ability to cultivate connections with the natural world. She is drawn to Agraria because people need to see a vision for what a regenerative future can look like amidst all the grim prognostications. “For more than 80 years, Community Solutions — now Agraria — has spoken about the need to re-pattern our way of living on this planet and with each other. Now that the organization is rooted on this land, it offers a place to practice solutions we have long discussed so we can serve as a model to other communities. The work is the same, but with an added dimension.” At Agraria Megan is focusing on media and looking for ways to amplify this work and message. “Hope is at the core of what we do here,” she said. Experiences like seeing her own children tend plants as part of the EcoGrowers afterschool program or meeting the farmers in the Regenerative Farmer Fellowship program have allowed her to witness positive change, in other people and herself: “Just being on this land and thus a part of its healing expands people’s consciousness, feeds their spirits, and calms their anxieties about the future.” When asked if she had a theme song to sum up her return she offered up a memory from a previous Pathways to Regeneration conference—the World House Choir’s adaptation of 5th Dimension’s “Age of Aquarius” that was sung a few years ago: “This is the dawning of the Age of Agraria….Age of Agraria...” Age of Agraria, indeed. Welcome back, Megan! AGRARIA JOURNAL 2021 5