A Reflection on the ASÈ Spring Equinox Camp 2025: A Weekend of Balance, Renewal and Connection
In September 2025, Project Biome travelled to the beautiful coastline of Cintsa, a seaside village in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, for the Agency for Solidarity Economy (ASÈ) Spring Equinox Camp. Hosted at Buccaneers Lodge, the retreat unfolded in a place with deep ancestral resonance. The Eastern Cape is a bioregion shaped by rich ancestral heritage, vibrant biodiversity and a history of resistance to colonialism, industrialisation and extraction. Yet it is also a landscape deeply affected by the crises that shape life across South Africa and the world, including ecological degradation, poverty, youth unemployment, gender inequality and high rural-to-urban migration.
Our decision to attend the camp was guided by Project Biome’s IKSS Working Group and its commitment to embedding Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Sciences (IKSS) into our work, alongside our intention to build partnerships with organisations dedicated to reconnecting people with their bioregional economies. For Project Biome, the ASÈ Spring Equinox Camp offered a meaningful opportunity to ground our bioregional focus in a region central to the Bioregional Accelerator (BA). It also aligned with the Biome Constellation’s Micro-Convenings Strategy, a framework that encourages intimate yet impactful gatherings to nurture bioregional leadership and bring IKSS into practice. We were delighted to be represented by our Youth Activator, Keamogetswe Rakgoadi, and our Executive Assistant, Nomshado Masango, who carried the spirit and intentions of our IKSS work into the space.
The programme moved with an unhurried rhythm that mirrored the Spring Equinox itself. Mornings began in silence with yoga and meditation, followed by sound baths that eased even the deepest layers of tension. Days were spent walking coastal paths, sharing stories and reconnecting with the land, while evenings unfolded through music, drums, warmth and long conversation. Each plant-based meal felt grounding, as though the land was offering every participant exactly what they needed.
On the final day, Keamogetswe held a reflective storytelling session that invited participants to turn inward and gently return to the collective with renewed insight. Together, the group created a collaborative poem titled Balance in Bloom, capturing themes of forgiveness, grounding and renewal. It was a moment where creativity, memory and ancestral teaching met with warmth and clarity.
The camp also created space for new relationships to unfurl. Conversations with local partners, including Buccaneers Lodge and Traveloma Tours, sparked possibilities for future youth camps, retreats and bioregional gatherings in the Eastern Cape. Facilitators such as Sisanda Mvana, Asanda Kaka, Xhanti Nokwali and Qhawe Giyose held the space with a blend of emotional, physical and cultural grounding that made the weekend feel deeply anchored.
We were equally grateful to share space with Meisha Lerato Robinson from I Am We Are (IAWA), whose work with young people across South Africa and the United States added a powerful cross-continental dimension.
After the camp, ASÈ and Project Biome met again to reflect on what unfolded and which seeds should be carried forward. What stayed with us most was the sense of coherence in Cintsa, where land, season, people and intention felt naturally aligned. The Spring Equinox reminded us to pause long enough to notice what is ready to grow, what needs releasing and what becomes possible when we gather in rhythm with nature.
The camp deepened the connection between ASÈ and Project Biome and showed us that community-rooted gatherings can be restful, nourishing, brave, creative and rooted in IKSS. Systems change is a vast undertaking that often asks more of us than we realise. Many participants shared how this work, while meaningful and aligned with their values and vision for a better world, can leave them feeling depleted, lost or isolated.
Yet it is in these spaces of vulnerability and honesty that we remember that we don’t have to walk this path alone. There is an abundance of communities—some we know, some we’ve yet to meet—ready to share the weight of this profound responsibility. Transforming extractive systems isn’t tidy or linear. When we embrace uncertainty, we make room for solutions shaped by the beauty, fierceness and tenderness of our shared humanity. Those qualities don’t just inspire a new world, they guide how we build it.
The ASÈ Spring Equinox Camp reminded us that regeneration is more than a strategy. It is a practice that lives in our bodies, minds and spirits, and in our relationships with the places that hold the interconnected story of humanity and nature.
