No Kings Day 2025: Cascadia Rises in Defense of People and Place

No Kings Day 2025: Cascadia Rises in Defense of People and Place

On June 14, 2025, more than 70,000 people flooded the streets of Seattle to join one of the largest demonstrations in the city’s history. The No Kings Day protest, part of a national day of action in over 80 cities, brought people together in response to the Trump administration’s militarization, ICE raids, attacks on public programs, and deepening disregard for human rights and constitutional limits.

Beginning at Cal Anderson Park and stretching unbroken to the Seattle Center, the march was a powerful expression of collective grief, resistance, and vision. Signs read “No one is illegal on stolen land”, “Abolish ICE”, “No Kings, Just the People”. Flags of place—like the Cascadia flag—flew beside banners calling for Indigenous sovereignty, immigrant justice, reproductive rights, and climate action. The message was clear: we refuse empire, and we remember who we are.

Cascadia at the Crossroads

For those of us who live in the Cascadia bioregion, these moments carry layered meaning. We gather not just in opposition to a president, but in resistance to the ongoing systems of colonization and extraction that have long defined the borders we live within. No Kings Day is not just about rejecting authoritarianism—it’s about reclaiming place-based power.

When we walk through the streets of Seattle, we walk on Duwamish land. We walk through histories of removal and resistance, through neighborhoods reshaped by redlining and displacement. But we also walk alongside ancestors and future generations, remembering that our freedom is intertwined with the freedom of all beings—human and more-than-human.

The Energy in the Streets

Despite the heavy context, the energy on the ground was grounded and clear. Families marched with children. Elders and youth stood side by side. Community organizers, musicians, artists, and healers wove the spirit of the protest into something more than a march—it was a ritual of refusal and renewal.

The call was intersectional: from opposition to immigration raids, to deep concern over Medicare and Social Security cuts, to outrage over environmental destruction and political repression. Yet through it all, there was a thread of unity—a bioregional heartbeat pulsing through the people.

While tensions had escalated earlier in the week, the march itself was remarkably peaceful. No arrests were reported in Seattle. And even the Seattle Police Department’s public statement (oddly poetic in tone) noted the spirit of shared community and nonviolence.

Why We March

We march because the checks and balances are failing.
We march because deportations and detentions are increasing.
We march because militarized power has no place in a just society.
We march because the land is watching—and so are future generations.

But above all, we march because another world is possible, and we’re not waiting for kings to build it. We’re growing it from the ground up—through mutual aid, land back, community governance, and bioregional solidarity.

What You Can Do

• Learn about the original stewards of the land you live on—and support local tribal sovereignty

• Get involved with mutual aid, immigrant justice, and abolitionist groups in your region

• Refuse empire by rooting your identity in place, not politics

• Fly a Cascadia flag or create your own symbol of place-based liberation

• Remember: freedom doesn’t trickle down—it grows in relationship

In resistance and reverence,
Ashley Bonn (she/her)
Communications & Events Coordinator
🌐ashleybonn.com | 📸 @ashley.bonn

Celebrating Cascadia Day 2025: A Living Culture Rooted in Place

Celebrating Cascadia Day 2025: A Living Culture Rooted in Place

Each year on May 18th, people across the Pacific Northwest and beyond gather to honor Cascadia Day—a celebration of bioregional identity, cultural diversity, ecological reverence, and community resilience. For me, this year’s Cascadia Day felt like a homecoming. Not just to a place, but to a purpose.

From the Salish Sea to the Columbia River Basin, from the mossy forests of the Olympic Peninsula to the volcanic slopes of Wy’east, Cascadia is more than a region—it’s a living system. It’s a bioregion defined by watersheds, not borders. It’s a culture woven through relationship, not ideology. And for those of us who live here with open eyes and rooted hearts, it’s also a deep responsibility.

This year, Cascadia Day unfolded during the 2025 Cascadia BioFi Conference at the historic Georgetown Steam Plant in Seattle. After a powerful weekend of teachings, strategy sessions, and place-based ceremony, we gathered on Saturday night to celebrate. Cascadia flags flew high above the rafters. Smoky barbecue filled the air. Paul Chiyokten Wagner opened the night with flute, story, and a call to protect the Salish Sea. Then, the Crowdsource Choir led us in song and sonic co-creation, followed by a Cascadia Poetics Lab reading featuring some of the region’s most soulful writers.

There was no stage too small and no moment too ordinary. From quiet conversations on the grass to full-throated song circles echoing in the atrium, every expression felt sacred. It was a reminder that culture doesn’t come from institutions—it comes from us. From the people who show up, year after year, with flags in our backpacks and soil on our hands, ready to celebrate the land we love.

To me, bioregionalism isn’t just about politics or sustainability—it’s about belonging. It’s about knowing the name of your river. Honoring the original stewards of your land. Supporting local food systems, mutual aid efforts, and community organizing. It’s about remembering that we are not separate from the places we live—we are the places we live.

How I Celebrated

This year, I celebrated Cascadia Day by supporting the behind-the-scenes flow of the BioFi Conference—helping with event logistics, coordinating the setup, and contributing to the energy that held the celebration together. It was a joy to help bring the vision to life alongside so many dedicated community members and culture-shapers.

For me, celebration isn’t always about performance or spotlight—it’s about presence. It’s about showing up with care, tending the details, and helping create spaces where belonging can take root. In holding the container, I witnessed the spirit of Cascadia come alive through shared intention, beauty, and deep connection to place.

But most of all, I celebrated by feeling grateful. Grateful to live in a place where mountains and rivers still guide us. Grateful for the elders who held the flame of this movement long before us. And grateful to be part of a community that is rising—slowly, steadily, and beautifully—from the ground up.

Want to Celebrate Year-Round?

You don’t have to wait for May 18th to celebrate Cascadia. You can live it every day by rooting into place and showing up in small, meaningful ways:

• Take a walk along your watershed

• Learn the Indigenous names of the land you call home

• Support local farmers, artists, healers, and mutual aid groups

• Fly a Cascadia flag or hang it in your window

• Host a gathering or potluck with your neighbors

• Sing to the forest, write a poem to the land, go hiking

• Cook with friends and share food from your bioregion

• Remember your roots—and the deep time of this land

Because Cascadia is not just a place on the map—it’s a living culture. And you are part of it.

In deep reverence for people and place,
Ashley Bonn (she/her)
Communications & Events Coodinator
🌐 ashleybonn.com | 📸 @ashley.bonn

Highlights from the 2025 BioFi Conference

Highlights from the 2025 BioFi Conference

From May 16–18, 2025, over 250 visionaries, organizers, artists, funders, and culture-shapers gathered at the historic Georgetown Steam Plant in Seattle for the inaugural Cascadia BioFi Conference—a gathering rooted in the question: How do we regenerate an entire bioregion?

The setting was symbolic: a 100+ year-old decommissioned power plant turned public cultural space, located in the heart of the Duwamish River Valley, a Superfund site and living testimony to both industrial extraction and community resilience. Just across the water sits tohl-AHL-too (“herring house”), an ancestral Duwamish village that has been inhabited for over 1,400 years. The weekend began in ceremony there, at the Duwamish Longhouse, grounding us in Indigenous wisdom and the responsibility to walk in right relationship with land and water.

Grounding Indigenous Support & Systems Reimagined

On Friday evening, we gathered at the Duwamish Longhouse for a communal dinner hosted by the Duwamish Tribe. We shared a nourishing meal prepared by Native hands, gathered around long tables to deepen conversations, and listened to stories that reminded us why we do this work. It was a sacred and grounding evening—offering a felt sense of continuity, care, and cultural resilience. The evening reaffirmed our collective responsibility to move at the speed of trust and to honor the original stewards of this land in every step forward.

From Vision to Practice: Bioregional Teachings

Saturday’s programming opened with teachings from Brandy Gallagher, Hiinahcit, Terry Dorward, and Isabel Simons, who spoke about rematriation, land-based learning, and bioregional stewardship. These voices set the tone for the day, calling us to move from abstraction to embodiment, from concept to connection. From there, we explored the possibilities of regenerative finance. Martin Kirk of the NoVo Foundation offered a global perspective on systemic funding, while Michelle Lee introduced BioFi as a living framework for resourcing change from the ground up. The day unfolded through panels, workshops, and participatory sessions where attendees engaged with themes of equity, decentralization, and cultural repair. It was a space of courageous inquiry—alive, messy, and deeply necessary.

Cascadia Day Celebration: Culture is the Heartbeat

On Saturday evening, the Georgetown Steam Plant transformed into a cultural celebration. Cascadia flags flew from the rafters. Smoky barbecue filled the air. Paul Chiyokten Wagner opened the night with flute, story, and a call to protect the Salish Sea. Then, the Crowdsource Choir led us in song and sonic co-creation, followed by a Cascadia Poetics Lab reading featuring some of the region’s most soulful writers. It was a reminder that movements don’t grow from spreadsheets—they grow from song, food, firelight, and shared breath.

Flowing Funds Differently: Tools & Tensions

Sunday’s focus was tangible and pragmatic: how do we move resources differently? Speakers offered tools, stories, and tensions around shifting capital flows. Cheryl Chen of the Salmon Returns Fund shared approaches to financing cultural and ecological continuity. Jamaica Stevens and Sushant Shrestha of the Open Future Coalition spoke about decentralized giving models and digital infrastructure for shared resource flow. Kinship Earth offered insight into participatory grantmaking and emergent "flow funding" networks, while Mike Seo explored cooperative lending strategies through community development financial institutions. Breakout sessions invited participants to pitch project ideas, prototype funding models, and dream together about a distributed BioFi network spanning the bioregion. Concepts like OMNI mapping, living covenants, tokenized mutual aid, and donut economics were explored through the lens of place-based regeneration.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The BioFi Conference was an invitation. An invitation to listen more deeply, to fund more relationally, and to root ourselves in a different kind of economy—one that centers care, reciprocity, and interdependence. As we left the Georgetown Steam Plant, many of us carried the same question in our hearts: What does it look like to live in right relationship with place—and to finance the future for generations to come?

We don’t have all the answers. But we are building the mycelial networks to find them together.

With deep gratitude to our hosts, collaborators, and the many hands and hearts who made this gathering possible. In partnership with Regenerate Cascadia, the Georgetown Steam Plant CDA, and dozens of bioregional co-conspirators.

🌐 Learn more at cascadiabiofi.org

In service to people and place,
Ashley Bonn, M.S.Ed. (she/her)
Cascadia Community Organizer
Portland, OR (Chinook land)

What is Bioregionalism? Great webcards using the DOB by the Alliance for a Viable Future

The Department of Bioregion is proud to be included in this post by Alliance for a Viable Future which also cites our executive director Brandon Letsinger. Check out more about their organization and learn more at: https://www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/

and give them a follow @allianceforaviablefuture

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We were honored to be included in this post by Alliance for a Viable Future. Check out more about their organization and learn more at: https://www.allianceforaviablefuture.org/

and give them a follow @allianceforaviablefuture

The Cascadia DOB is excited to present at this years Bioregional Regeneration Summit: Oct 24-Nov 4th 2022

It is the time for Bioregional Regeneration!

BIOREGIONAL REGENERATION SUMMIT
Oct 24- Nov 4, 2022
English & Español

Radical Collaboration between people and places.
Ways to share resources.
Peer to peer exchange of know-how and knowledge.
Regeneration of ourselves through a deep and authentic connection with Mother Earth.

REGISTER

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The Cascadia Department of Bioregion will be excited to present “Why Bioregionalism Matters”. The time and day is still being confirmed, but stay tuned.

Why a Summit

In recent years, many networks, organizations, coalitions, and collaborations have emerged to support regeneration at a bioregional and “landscape” scale. We believe we are at a moment when there is a need for and widespread interest in possibilities for “radical collaboration” so that these diverse initiatives can begin to function as a global ecosystem--one that can navigate the complexity of working across scales, across the private, public, and grassroots domains, and across the many interconnected systems where regenerative work is being imagined and enacted. The Summit offers an open and flexible invitation for participants to explore four connected contexts for this radical collaboration: How global networks can support one another How bioregions can support one another How funding innovation can support bioregional scale regeneration How we can support our emotional, physical and spiritual resilience as individuals grappling with the existential threats of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, economic and social injustice, political fragmentation, and other dimensions of Collapse.

How to join

This scale of working maps itself onto existing places and landscapes in order to provide a meaningful and effective infrastructure for human-scale organising. Bioregions are an age-old organising principle that is being upgraded for the present age by many experiments taking place across the world. Out of that ferment of activity are emerging initiatives for environmental, social and economic regeneration that are place-appropriate.

Registration

The Summit will happen in the Qiqochat platform. After registration you will receive an email with the access.

Register

Agenda

The main agenda is a base to hold multiple conversations and connections. It can change during the event, go here often.

Agenda

Donations

They are seeking an additional $15,000 to fully cover our time and expenses. Consider a donation of $25, $50, and $125.

Donate now

Opportunity explorations

Invite people to engage throughout the Summit on a topic or activity you care about. Frame your exploration with background information, questions and/or activities, and a way to share outcomes. Your invitation will show up on the Summit network map where participants can indicate their interest and self-organize their engagement, with support from the Summit hosts and a team of “weavers.”

Contact the Organizers

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About the conveners

The Regenerative Communities Network is a global practitioner collaborative of bioregional networks along with individuals and organizations who share a commitment to place-based initiatives for environmental, social, and economic regeneration. Originally founded by the Capital Institute in 2018, the Network has been independent and managed by its members since the beginning of 2021. After a period of inwardly focused planning and organizing, this Summit represents the beginning of a new phase of outward-facing work in service to the broader movement of which RCN is a part, along with a plan to grow RCN’s membership and surface new possibilities for it to generate value for its network.

Your RCN hosts for this Summit are Melina Angel (Colombia Regenerativa); Isabel Carlisle (Bioregional Learning Centre UK) and Ben Roberts (Connecticut River Valley Bioregional Collaborative).