When you look closely at almost every challenge we face today, whether it’s climate change or poverty or our deepening sense of isolation from one another, you’ll see the economy (as we know it) having some bearing.

Issue 55 of Dumbo Feather—a very special issue with more pages, more conversations, more love than ever—is an attempt to address just that. It seeks to dismantle the economic systems we’ve grown accustomed to and illuminate the responsibility we have to write the next chapter so that all life can flourish.

We hear from some of the wisest, most perceptive hearts and minds of our time who are shepherding us out of a culture of competing self interests and vacuous growth and into one that fosters generosity to each other and deeper connection to the planet.

• Professor Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur who founded Grameen, one of the first microfinance banks which makes loans to the poor without requiring collateral.
• Kate Raworth is a self-described “renegade economist” from Oxford whose Doughnut economic model shows us how we can meet the needs of all within the needs of the planet.
• Charles Eisenstein is an author, speaker and thought leader illuminating the journey we are on from a story of separation to a new (yet ancient) story of reunion: ecology and interdependence.
• Professor Dan Ariely is an Israeli psychologist and behavioural economist. He founded the Centre for Advanced Hindsight, which studies how and why people make suboptimal and irrational decisions—particularly around health, finance and morality.
• Konda Mason is co-founder of Impact Hub Oakland and a former Grammy-award nominee. She is also a yoga teacher and is currently studying the dharma with Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock.
• Don Shaffer is the former CEO of Rudolf Steiner Finance, an investment firm that serves borrowers who are committed to sustainable practices and investors who value community impact as well as profit.
• Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder of Local Futures, a non-profit dedicated to strengthening local communities and economies worldwide. Her book, Ancient Futures, is about tradition and development in the Himalayan region of Ladakh.
• Michelle Long is the former CEO of BALLE (business alliance for local economies) and co-founder of Jubilee, a pioneering investment platform for people wanting to protect what is sacred with their financial capital.

This issue of DF may feel a bit hard to access for some, with words like economy, finance and interest rates. Fear not! They are just words. If you are an artist, a student, a mother, a father, a farmer, please include yourself in the conversation. We desperately need you. Let the words you don’t connect with become soft again. Let the language feel new and available to you.

Whatever feels exclusive, check-in with those feelings and then challenge them. We must ALL sit at the table of this powerful conversation. It is asking us to re-create our systems and re-imagine our interaction with one another and the earth.

Enjoy the issue, and enjoy all the content we share with you over the coming months around our economy, how we work and how we value success.

With love,

Berry, Nathan and the Dumbo Feather crew

For more wisdom, conversations and practical ideas about building a more inclusive economy, purchase the magazine or subscribe here.