The Greater Reset in Morelia

                                       Morelia, Michoacan. Closing circle at The Greater Reset conference.

I recently (Jan. 17-22, 2024) attended The Greater Reset conference in Morelia. Morelia is the capital of the state of Michoacan in Mexico. While at a previous conference, I gathered photos and wrote about the town. Now I want to tell more about the event itself.

About The Greater Reset

The Greater Reset is an annual event that was initiated five years ago as an offset to the annual conference of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, happening at the same time. The WEF meets to further the plan outlined by Klaus Schwab called The Great Reset. This is an international meeting of government officials, top corporate people, and non-profits moving towards globalization and centralization of world power.

The Greater Reset fosters the creation of community based alternatives. The motto is "exit and build," meaning leaving mainstream society and creating viable and sustainable local alternatives. Its founders, John Bush and Derrick Broze, originally from the US, set up an international network of local branches in 2015, called The Freedom Cell Network.

My Participation.

A friend who attended the first Greater Reset, in 2019, told me about it and about Freedom Cells. He suggested we start a local branch. I put Tepoztlán on the world map on the network's site.

After we had a couple of meetings with a few interested people, I met a young traveling couple who stayed with me for a week. They were very organizationally savvy, creating a slide show explaining Freedom Cells, and then promoting a local introductory event. To publicize it, they created a page on Telegram, a social site I'd never heard of.

Over time, I hosted many potlucks and had several meetings at my apartment, with up to a dozen people or more. It grew so large we moved it to an outdoor restaurant. Forty people were attending at that time, and we broke it down into special interest groups: community gardening, permaculture, and food acquisition; self-defense and other forms of preparedness for disasters; creation of intentional communities; local financial alternatives; alternative education; alternative open source internet and use of devices, etc.

The organization grew as more and more foreigners from all over the world immigrated to Mexico, one of the few countries with no entry restrictions during Covid. I personally helped many of these people settle in Tepoztlán. Eventually, as Covid ended, interest in the organization lessened until it only existed as some of those special interest groups. But people still contacted me, wanting to meet and learn more about how to live in Mexico.

My friend, who had encouraged and helped me form the original local group, had a good idea: why not start a business to guide people who were serious about moving to Mexico in a month-long residential program in Tepoztlán . We created a web page to promote the idea and thought that this year's Greater Reset would be a great place to launch it.

I rented a table at the conference and presented a workshop that lasted an hour and a half. Here is the video I used:

((COMING SOON))

And these items were on my table:

Morelia, Michoacan. My table at The Greater Reset: left, laptop with a loop of the video I mentioned above; middle, handouts about my workshop and business cards; right, my memoirs, ebook, and description of                                                                                           our experience month.

The Main Conference Activities

                                                             Morelia, Michoacan. Entry to the events center.

                          Morelia, Michoacan. The Teatro is where The Greater Reset was held in 2023.

Morelia, Michoacan. The "Green Space," a wide grassy area between buildings, is where many workshops                          were held, and a great place to meet people, have conversations, or do some yoga.

                            Morelia, Michoacan. The "Green Space:" l., a workshop; r., conversation.

Morelia, Michoacan. Registration table with Derrick Broze and Miriam Gomez, two of the conference                                                                                                  organizers, on the left.

The Greater Reset had mostly live speakers, and was available online as well. All of the presenters were recorded, and you can see them online from the past five years of conferences.

Other Activities

There were many workshops happening simultaneously at different locations. These were scheduled in the morning, before the conference speakers, during the lunch break, and in the afternoons, after the presentations. Some were before the date the conference began, or after it. There were also many excursions offered by locals.

Here is a video sampling of short attendee interviews, with a Tai Chi workshop at the end:

I enjoyed several night activities: a food ceremony, song circle, potluck with open mike, and a hip hop/ reggae event at a local nightclub.

Yoshi and Pola are a beautiful young couple from Ecuador who are at the cutting edge of "regenerative culture." They provided much of the spiritual underpinning of The Greater Reset. I attended their cacao ceremony during a song circle, an open mike potluck they hosted at their place, and a food ceremony on The Green Space. After the Morelia conference, they hosted a five-day retreat in Tepoztlán.

                           Morelia, Michoacan. Yoshi and Pola were major leaders at the conference.

Another exciting night was at a local club in Morelia, featuring Derrick Broze and other exceptional talent.

                                                 These video clips feature performers at the Afterparty.

Derrick Broze

Derrick is a co-founder and co-producer of The Greater Reset. He is also the co-founder of Freedom Cells. He ran for mayor of Houston, Texas, in 2019 and 2023. I enjoyed his book, How to Opt Out of the Technocratic State. He published many other books, and his journalism is here, and on Substack. His series of short documentaries is outstanding. He showed them to our group in Tepoztlán a few years ago. He is on Facebook. As a rap artist, he calls himself "33," and you can find his work here.

                         Morelia, Michoacan. Derrick Broze was rapping at the Afterparty at Club Amate.

Final Thoughts

The 2024 Greater Reset was our kick-off for Outrageous Life: A Mexico Experience Month in Tepoztlán. This is a guided month, exploring what it's like to live in Mexico. Don't miss this opportunity. Learn more at our page, and contact me to schedule a free exploratory video call. Spaces are filling up.

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