Amidst the arrests and its bold demands, Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) core value of “regenerative culture” rarely gets coverage in the media despite it being, as one speaker during a People’s Assembly last Easter weekend put it, “the mycelium holding it all together”.
I arrived in London during XR’s two weeks of rebellion feeling that I had to be there; as a matter of principle and of being – as has been so often repeated in relation to this movement - “on the right side of history”. But what I left with on Monday evening was a sense of having been involved in something that went beyond simply supporting a cause.
There was adrenaline, yes, but there was also a warmth and joy that took me by surprise.