“Stories are for people what water is for plants” Linda Hogan, “Power”

Stories hold the ability to validate and perpetuate certain ways of understanding and navigating the world, while negating others. Our present social and cultural reality is undeniably shaped by narratives that are dictated by corporate media and other structures of domination. These narratives are set up to undermine both our personal and collective power and our embeddedness within a sacred web of life while glorifying commodity, celebrity and disposable culture. The impact of these stories on our world can not be underestimated, from large-scale agricultural and environmental practices to our personal dynamics with community, food, medicine and spirit.

However, many of us have awoken to the realization that we are empowered to over grow these systems. People around the world have begun to critically examine these narratives that shape our reality because we recognize that they have the power either to infuse meaning and sustenance into our world or eliminate it. From here, we decide which narratives no longer serve, and which ones we feel compelled to carry forward.

It is these stories that Over Grow the System has set out tell through video, photography and the written word.
Over the last 3 years of creating Over Grow The System, my full energy and focus has went into creating this network to tell the stories of those who are growing the change that many of us know the world needs.  It has been an amazing journey, seeing me live on farms all over the west coast of North America, and sharing the stories of those who are creating and living the change in the world that myself and many others see as needed if we are to live in a healthy, symbiotic relation to the natural world around us.

In addition to raising funds to development of new media campaigns, short films, radio, photography,
and written content, one third these funds we raise will go directly back to grassroots projects that are creating positive change in their communities and the Earth. Our One Third Growth Fund will sponsor these positive impact organizations for three months at a time once monthly donations to Over Grow The System reach certain quantities.

Here’s how it works.
Once monthly Patreon donations reach $3,000, Over Grow the System will give to its first selected project, Schoolyard Farms, $1,000 per month for three months, in addition to continually promoting the project through our media outlets. The One Third Growth Fund will proportionally increase the amount given to selected projects each time monthly donations to Over Grow The System reach the next increment of $3,000. For example, at $6,000 in monthly pledges through Patreon, selected projects will then receive $2,000 per month for three months, and so forth.

Over Grow The System is excited to launch this initiative as an alternative way to support community resiliency beyond that which our stories and media campaigns achieve.



Some Of Our Projects:

Free Range Child - Raising Children Connected To The Earth & Their Food

Over Grow the System & Films For Action presents Free Range Child: A documentary and media project that examines the connection between a child's development and her or his connection to the natural world and to food production. It celebrates the lives of families and their support networks, both rural and urban, who are engaged in linking children with nature, and savours the bounty of precious moments of discovery, magic and growth that spring forth from these connections.
Partnering with children, parents, farmers, and professionals, we seek to better understand the contemporary circumstances that create alienation between children and the natural environment and the effects of this disconnect on their development. Conversely we'll also examine the discourse and examples surrounding the raising of our children with access and engagement to natural and agricultural environments and how they are affected. We hope to learn how technology interacts or interferes with these connections and most significantly, what children, themselves, can teach us about the natural world and their place in it.

"Our Children no longer learn how to read the great book of Nature from their own direct experience, or how to interact creatively with the seasonal transformations of the planet. They seldom learn where their water come from or where it goes. We no longer coordinate our human celebration with the great liturgy of the heavens."

SEA TO SEED : A Sailboat Tour Of Farming, Music and Regenerative Culture

In the spring of 2014, a group of musicians, farmers, filmmakers, writers and photographers w set off on the Sea to Seed Tour, a month long sailing trip up through the Islands of British Columbia. On a experimental mission to collect and share the stories of the farming communities sown along the coast. While exploring the importance of localizing food systems, homesteading, organic farming, community building and permaculture, they also looked into the role that art and culture can play in supporting these ways, evolving educational forums and creating positive change. Find out more at http://overgrowthesystem.com/sea-to-seed