Metachrysalis

Metachrysalis is a living framework, community process, and real-world game that helps people and organizations collaborate toward regenerative futures.

It bridges play, purpose, and praxis — transforming the metacrisis into a metachrysalis, the stage of collective metamorphosis where new systems can emerge.

A gameful approach reframes the complexity of regeneration and collective action from an overwhelming challenge into a playful opportunity for learning, connection, and impact.

Participants (“players”) use game mechanics to discover allies, align around shared purpose, and take tangible actions that strengthen their bioregions — the places they inhabit and depend on. It combines storytelling, systems thinking, and open-source tools to make collaboration visible, joyful, and effective.

Metachrysalis also innovates on BioFi (Bioregional Financing) — going beyond financial capital to engage all eight permaculture capitals in community and project development.

Purpose

To connect people, projects, and places into a distributed ecosystem of learning and action — from the neighborhood scale to the bioregional and beyond.

Metachrysalis supports:

• Bioregional regeneration — restoring relationships between communities and ecosystems.
• Collective sensemaking — understanding complex problems together.
• Mutual empowerment — connecting individuals and organizations through shared quests and capacities.
• Playful transformation — turning the serious work of change into meaningful play.

How It Works

Each session (in-person or online) moves through four stages:

1. Gathering Players & Setting the Stage — orienting around shared purpose, place, and potential.
2. Character & Party Creation — Creating and sharing changemaker “characters” representing each player’s gifts, passions, roles, and resources.
3. Exploring the “Gameboard” — A detailed and localized card deck of how the Metacrisis and Metachrysalis are playing out in the players’ bioregion (defined at whatever scale they’ve chosen).
4. Collective Quests & Flourishing Moves — Creating and preparing for real-world projects designed to be “right size bites” linked to social, ecological and cultural transformation. Past moves are shared and celebrated.