Mary-Kate Craig

I care about transformation at all levels from individual to systemic. Very early on, I was attracted to earth-centred activism. I attended agricultural college and canvassed for Greenpeace. I obtained  an environmental science undergraduate and a masters in biology. For years I worked as an environmental consultant doing remediation and land recovery work. I longed to live and cause the solutions we needed to be in balance with the earth.

 

The Transition Network taught me the importance of action and joy in this work.  Back then, what later emerged as Junction Village was just our  backyard and the apartment building across the road. We were trying to create intentional community by living it with what we had. Transition Guelph helped us envision it. We started doing summer potlucks combined with a CSA food delivery in our driveway and we used the backyard as a convening and meeting space. We played with the lines between public and private spaces. 

 

Transition Guelph helped me envision things in a very different way. People could come to the potlucks and weekly working group meetings to imagine what they wanted in a lovely setting, while their kids bounced on a trampoline in the backyard.  

 

At this same time I started working with Laurence Follows and On the Presence which helped to source possibility and ease in community building. Through this work, a community grew of people willing to envision the life they want to create, and then having the tools to get out of their own way and cause it.

 

Later I was part of a small group who co-created an Indigenous owned company, Anwaatin. This work opened my eyes to Indigenous peoples and their deep responsibility to steward the land through relationship and love. Because I had more questions than answers, I was inspired to begin my PhD on Indigenous led nature-based solutions.

 

Although those three processes–my PhD work, the inner transition work of On the Presence, and the community building at the Junction Village–initially felt separate, I now understand them all as parts of the systemic transformation that is needed to create a connected, braided future. I started to wonder how we could decolonize our backyard in Guelph and be part of modelling what’s possible in terms of our own stewardship and relationship to the land we lived on. This realization brought me to the Community Land Trust model as the necessary base to support those efforts.

 

I'm often looking for what’s missing in a situation. That piece, that could enact change at multiple levels very rapidly. Miraculous things become possible because you've put in what was missing. The CLT seems to me like one of those missing pieces. 

 

I am envisioning spaces that are changing living ecosystems based in a context of love. Multi-generational spaces for children and elders to learn from each other. Spaces to be quiet, spaces to be together–where everybody's needs can be met. I know that with a solid foundation built on shared principles, anything is possible.​​

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