What is Regenerative?
“It is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes; we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
I first heard the word “regenerative” said in the Redwoods of Mill Valley, CA by Christian Shearer, Founder of the REGEN Network. When he clearly articulated the difference between degenerative, sustainable, and regenerative agriculture, it was a spine tingling, aha! moment. It was the perfect metaphor for the inner work I had been doing with myself, and coaching hundreds of others in, for over a decade. The conditions required for soil regeneration = soul regeneration. The shift from extractive to regenerative ways of being and doing are one.
Our relatively new habit of treating ourselves, and our planet, as industrial, productivity machines, inevitably results in physical and spiritual burnout. The wisdom of regeneration is all around us, we only have to pay attention to, and value, it. Worms and flowers, plants and grasses, species, and bacteria, humans and animals, this brilliant, complex ecosystem of reciprocal relationships is calling us back home. Like an absentee spouse off a multi-year narcissism bender, we are stumbling back to the real. It is in our nature to regenerate. Now, we just have to remember and prioritize.
I went into a google frenzy and discovered the vast world of regenerative movements and discovered the book, Designing Regenerative Cultures, by Daniel Christian Wahl. By way of Biomimicry Maven Janine Benyus, he defines regenerative culture design as living the question, “How can we create conditions conducive to life?” It is what indigenous tribes call, living in “right relationship” to the Earth and all non-human relations. I know! I know! I wanted to shout to anyone who would listen. We have to heal the illusion that we are separate! From nature, from each other, from anything whatsoever. No big deal. (insert smirk emoji)
The Story So Far
“Humanity as a whole is facing imminent climate chaos and the breakdown of ecosystems functions vital to the survival of our species and many others. We will not find solutions to these problems by continuing to base our thinking on the same erroneous assumptions about the nature of self and world that created them in the first place. We need a new way of thinking, a new consciousness, a new cultural story; only then will we be able to get the questions right, seeing more clearly what underlying needs have to be met. If we jump into action without deeper questioning, we are likely to treat symptoms rather than causes. This will prolong and deepen the crisis rather than solve it.” — Daniel Christian Wahl
Wahl, with a PhD in complexity science, broke down two (of many) essential aspects of cultivating regenerative cultures:
- Living the Questions: It’s ok to admit we do not know. We don’t have to turn everything into a problem to be solved. “By living and loving the questions more deeply we can rediscover the beauty and abundance around us, find deep meaning in belonging to the universe, deep joy in nurturing relationships with all of life, and a deep satisfaction in co-creating a thriving and healthier life for all.”
If everything is a nail, we become the hammer. It is safe to say we have hammered our way into the next sixth great extinction. “Easy,” I whisper to my 9 month old Mini Aussie puppy when her eyes glaze in a crazy trance chasing the ball. “Easy, baby.” I pick up the ball. If I can help soften my mind’s grip on the need to know and control, aka “feel safe”, I get to be present and participate in the unfolding miracle of life. It is in the way of being. Where science meets poetry. Humility is key. Allowing the conditions conducive to life to be revealed to us in our particular place is our practice.
A few questions to live into:
- How can we create economic rules that let us share nature’s abundance collaboratively and incentivize business and communities to continuously regenerate the basic resources we depend upon? — DCW
- How can we best speak of the spiritual in a way that helps us understand how best to live? — DCW
- How can we embody regenerative in our daily lives? Work? Relationships?
- How can we avoid engaging in white supremacist, colonial patterns? And honor the Indigenous and diverse?
- How can we move at the speed of trust and allow for what wants to happen?
“We need to live these questions individually and collectively to co-create a new narrative.” — DCW
2. Three Horizon Thinking: “Widespread, culturally creative behavioural changes and worldview shifts only come about if we involve everybody — those who are invested in maintaining the status quo, those see the entrepreneurial potential of doing things in a different way, and those who can envision fundamental worldview and value changes that would create a more regenerative culture.” (DCW)
As in any personal transformation, we have to include ALL aspects of ourselves. Cultural transformation is the same. I have to thank the extractors of oil, and the oil itself, for allowing me my modern lifestyle and stop wasting time demonizing it. Dualistic thinking, us v. them, is for two year olds. Three Horizon Thinking, developed by the International Futures Forum and Bill Sharpe, is a tool for cultural transformation for adults.
If we lift the lens and expand our time horizon, thinking in seven generations perhaps, we can take a sober look at who we are, how we got here, and where we are going. We can stop bashing Business as Usual (H1), notice what innovations (often imperfect) are disrupting the status quo(H2), and focus on supporting systemic shifting innovations toward an emerging regenerative culture (H3).
As we shift out of problem and solution thinking we recognize this is an ever evolving process. Like happiness, a regenerative culture isn’t an Oz to reach, it is one of many experiences on a spectrum of being and the harder I pursue it, the less of it I get to experience.
What is emerging? A new cultural story.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Buckminster Fuller
Climate inspired urgency invites us to transcend the notion of “sustainability” and dualistic thinking (competition) and come together in nurturing this planet for future generations of ALL life. As we shift from an extractive to regenerative worldview, we enter into deep relationship with the place in which we live; becoming conscious and responsible for our part in the ecosystem of animals, plants, insects, humans, wind, water, fire, and earth. As we ask the question, “How does this particular ecosystem thrive?” we begin to shift the very way in which we relate to life itself.
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