I am wintering. For me that’s a process of hibernation and reflection – and editing. Not doing client delivery but working on Really Regenerative CIC. I want to come out of the cave in the next 12 days for 12 moments of recognition and gratitude. They may not be consecutive.
Day 1 – On Wintering and Action Inquiry
I’m hoping this little extract from Places For Life fits on a post.
This is for Anna Birney Daniel Ford Leila Hoballah Louise Armstrong. Thanks to all of you for the time we spent on Boundless Roots. In praise of action inquiry.
“Just before the covid pandemic, I joined a 2 year action inquiry called Boundless Roots. It was an exploration into how we might radically shift the way in which we live, in response to the climate crisis. Hosted and designed by Forum For The Future, it created a temporary field of energy in which a group of people came together to search for the underlying patterns holding back change. We described ourselves as a ‘shape shifting and boundary pushing octopus’ that was navigating a vast landscape.
We identified key themes which were overlooked leverage points for radical change, and sought out enabling qualities that might impact our individual and collective ability to bring about radical change. The key themes included unpicking unhealthy power and generating healthy power; shaping the waves of the cultural landscape (cultural scaffolding) and the importance of making meaning. The enablers included building process capacity, working with polarities and working with trauma.
Whilst the report was powerful, what happened in the process was equally powerful. We gave ourselves time to explore and inquire. Time to experiment and iterate. Time to sense-make and absorb. At the time I was developing my own sense of what kind of new organisation I would try to shape to aid regenerative futures. Really Regenerative CIC was in many ways born out of this inquiry. Much of the work, and many of the learning journeys we offer, are in response to what we discovered in this inquiry process. Although the organisation and its sponsors clearly made use of the report an its outcomes in its distribution and publication – you never know how a collective inquiry will have impact beyond the obvious.
Similarly I have come to understand that in our design of Power of Place, which is a learning journey designed as an action inquiry for its participants, we also never quite know what impact it will have.
Often we learn years later what the people who have flowed through our container have gone on to do. Some have changed career entirely. Others have built learning and community centres from as far afield as Lima, Peru and Isan in Thailand. Yet others have become effective ecosystem acupuncturists, firelighting the way for councils, tourist organisations, national parks, businesses to change. New university courses have appeared. Bioregional initiatives have been birthed. We could never have predicted what would happen when we began.”
Day 2 – On Asking Better Questions
Today’s reflection is for all those people who help us to ask better systemic questions. In the regenerative movement, there is an emergent role – the regenerative resource. More than a coach, never an adviser, regenerative resources have a highly developed ability to bring just the right question to any given situation that prompts a new thought process, altered awareness , understanding, insight – in short, a developmental moment. The ability to bring those questions into often fraught environments, with concurrent non-attachment and deep caring, across the vast tracts of complexity being navigated, is an enabling skill that feels worthy of a nobel award all of its own. In my own learning journey among the most practice and talented people I have encountered are the wonderful, irrepressible, late Carol Sanford; Pamela Mang, Ben Haggard and Beatrice Ungard, Ph.D.
This is also for one person in particular in the regenerative movement whose book should really have been called ‘Living The Questions’ IMHO. There are 250 excellent questions in Daniel Christian Wahl‘ Designing Regenerative Cultures.
One practice to develop a living systems mind is to ask questions about living systems principles in relation to imperatives. Wholeness is a good example. Very edited extract.
“To work with wholeness from a living systems mind we need to look at, understand, and work with imperatives………….
There are different levels of wholeness we can look at to disrupt and deveil our thinking. Wholeness at a planetary level so that rather than thinking of Earth as a barren rock flying through the solar system, we think of it as one whole intact alive entity. When you put planetary wholeness – the imperative being creating the conditions conducive to life on earth – at the forefront of your thinking, sensing and design, it makes it very hard to take decisions or act in a way that negatively affects the future life of the planetary whole. Or it would, if we were taught living systems thinking from a very early age in school.
We can look at wholeness from the perspective of bioregional integrity – an organising fractal of living systems in a biological context but these are very large territories. We can take a more human interpretation of bioregionalism as a way of organising social, cultural, economic and political systems around a distinct and natural set of biological features. Sometimes a watershed, a foodshed or a lifeshed. What are the imperatives for creating the conditions conducive to life here? Soil? Water? Bioiversity? Land use?
We can look at social systems from the perspective of wholeness as way of starting to reorganise them so that we design systems that deliver and account for their effect on the whole of society. What are the imperatives for education, housing, social and spatial justice to create living system wholeness in these systems rather than benefiting only parts of the system?”
Day 3 In praise of pattern literacy
Another key attribute of regenerative practitioners. Some people have a particular talent for pattern and process but we can all learn to become better pattern trackers. We study pattern literacy because having a contextual understanding of the patterns and processes of People Place and System – and crucially how they change and evolve – is critical in designing systems evolution. Patterns are how we understand movement and process. All life is a process.
All living creatures are creatures of habit. Trackers track animals to notice their habits. So that they can be there waiting for them. Human beings are also creatures of habit. But unlike almost any other species, we can choose to change our habits. We can choose intentionally to work towards a regenerative mindset. When we commit to a practice of observing and tracking our own thinking, we can notice when we are not thinking from a living systems mindset, and disrupt ourselves, until such time as a regenerative mindset becomes and embodied habit.
There are new patterns emerging in local authority management in the UK today which have been growing or some time. The Starmer government is keen on further devolution of power from central to local authorities. Today an announcement of more future clustering of local authorities into larger entities or towards mayoral development authorities was announced.
There are other clusterings and poolings happening. UK tourism has reorganise ditself into larger governing bodies for consolidated regions, or Local Visitor Economy Partnerships (LVEPSs). In Sussex we have a new LVEP which has merged east and west Sussex tourism region.
At the Gatwick Economic conference, Gatwick Airport announced the formation of Gatwick Regional Economic Zone – an attempt to compensate for the fact that the south east has no mayoral authority to attract inward investment, and which will probably foreshadow the formation of one in the future. There was a great deal of discussion about development of industrial clusters which were appropriate for the region. These are not yet being thought about as bio-culturally aligned but at this stage driven by differentiation to be more ‘competitive’ compared to other regions. But it’s still a chink of light because it does recognise regional diversity as important.
What we can see is real potential for greater regional resilience which most regenerative economic shapers propose as essential in the shift to regenerative futures. It holds the door open for a bioregional approach to be introduced and integrated into this future.
It also holds out the possibility that a regenerative cluster of innovative enterprises could be introduced, and centres – as lighthouse demonstrators of regenerative futures could form part of the future.
However, all are subconsciously recognising something important – future resilience lies in ecosystems and community. And in that recognition lies potential and opportunity. The challenge as we step into the years ahead for all regenerative practitioners is whether, and how, we can engage the emergent pooling in a regenerative way forward. How can the regenerative clusters commune with other emergent poolings so that all hold the promise of a different future if we can supercluster together in service of life?
Day 4 – The Power of Frameworks
In celebration of the people and tools who can deveil systems so that we can see more clearly, discern more wisely an act more judiciously. Today in praise of frameworks.
“Are you on automatic pilot? It’s a phrase we hear on days when we’re just ticking along or doing something that’s so much part of our dna that we can do it unthinkingly. But what if we’re on automatic pilot about the systems, narratives and beliefs on which we have designed the society we live in? What if we’re just blindly propping up and unconsciously endorsing constructs that are leading us invisibly towars a cliff edge of collapse?
There is Truth, Truthfulness and Fact. A Truth is very hard to find. A Truth is something universal. Truthfulness is always relative. Yes, my bum looks big in this. But how many of us refrain from truth for fear of hurting those we care about. We tell partial truths. White lies. Fact. Hmm, facts are infinitely ‘spinnable’. Facts can be made to say anything we want them to say if we are quick an clever with words…..
Our information ecology – information coming in from brand marketing, scientific publications, through media, campaigning, governments, lobbyists, what our neighbours and friends tell us – is heavily polluted and compromised. A heavily polluted information ecology means it is almost impossible to make informed, enlightened choices and good decisions.
A key question we have to consider is how do we as regenerative practitioners contribute to a healthy information ecology that regenerates trust? Who do we need to be and how do we need to conduct ourselves?
We need de-veiling skills and tools. As de-veiling tools, frameworks are our best friends. Some people love frameworks, others not so much. They have revealed to me who I am and how I work which for decades was instinctive and un-explainable to others. They have helped me generate ‘aha’ moments for others, revealing new perspectives that create a momentary window of opportunity for change.
A good framework captures a universal truth. It is an embodiment of some sacred natural law and energy that plays out in any situation you can apply it to. Frameworks helps us navigate complexity and uncertainty. They are tools for sense-making. They helps us see the processes of living systems that may be invisible to our naked eye. They help us understand the complexity and significance of relationality between people, beliefs, actions, tensions an between the parts of systems that make them whole. They reveal surprising perspectives that can be the bedrock of change.
“Frameworks enable us to create designs that are consistent with the dynamism, evolutionary tendencies, and interdependence characteristic of living systems. It makes our thinking intentional rather than accidental. It also provides a common language that enables cross-discipline communication and collaboration. “ Mang.
Day 5 – Centres For Life
Today’s recognition wouldn’t fit in a post so I’ve taken an extract from Places for Life and popped it into an article on Linkedin.
Centres for Life is a critical part of the book. If finding evolutionary purpose for a project in a place is the starting point for transformation, then centres are the vehicles which hold the field of energy together that convenes to support that transformational process. They are vital social, cultural and economic instruments.
When I designed Power of Place in late 2020 early 21, I felt 3 particular modules were needed. Understanding Place from a living systems perspective, alongside a process to discover a regenerative role for any project and place within the interdependent systems in which it sat. How to be in Right Relationship with Self, Others an System – a regenerative process of self development and stakeholder engagement if you like. And Systems Evolution, how you implement a process of transformative change. They needed a theory of change to hold them together which took a lot of time, and support of Ben Haggard, I eventually arrived at one I have been researching and experimenting with.
It still has Understanding Place and developing Evolutionary Potential at its base. But it has Centres are the social movements and physical places that serve as the containers within which systems evolution an human transformation is held and supported. Some of these centres already exist. IN many different forms. So in celebration of just some.
Atelier LUMA Arles, France which has existed as a centre of experimentation into biomaterials economy, design and architecture for almost 12 years now.
SCOOP, The Sustainable Cooperative in Jersey which has held the aspiration to transform the island’s food system founded by India Hamilton and Kaspar Wimberley which has since been augmented by the formation of systems agency HYPHA Ltdwhich yesterday announced a new food resilience strategy for Jersey.
Centres for regenerative ecology Sussex Kelp Recovery Project Sussex Dolphin Project Sussex Bay®
Centres for regenerative enterprise Regen Labs.
Civic Square in Birmingham led by the wonderful Imandeep Kaur
FLOAT, the wild ecology of art practice in East Gippsland, Aus led by Andrea Lane
Centres of regenerative learning and development such as former Schumacher College, Findhorn, Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales, online practitioners – our own Really Regenerative CIC, Regenesis Institute for Regenerative Practice, Capital Institute, Carol Sanford‘s CAD programme, Tobias Luthe‘s ETH learning journeys, Laura Storm‘s Regenerators.
All emergent bioregional projects from Joe Brewer in Barichara, to @Cascadia in the west coast of USA/Canada, Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective , Regen Places Network, Bioregional Learning Centre in Devon, and so many more
Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) communities.
Bright philanthropists like Thousand Currents led by Rajiv K. investing all their funds into social movements (centres).
Other Centres for Life: Onion Collective, Dark Matter Labs, NEBA: New European Bauhaus Initiative, Drinkable Rivers Inner Development Goals – there are lots of fields of energy across the world centring change. They are worth mapping as Willow Berzin did for all the ‘place-based centres in Australia https://kumu.io/RegenPlaces/regen-places-network-ecosystem
Day 6 – The role of Storytelling
Humans are storytellers. Our earliest forms of belonging were engendered through narratives of the entangled day being shared around the evening fire. Storytellers document – and often rewrite – our histories so that we can understand our trajectory of evolution. Among the recognised sciences of nobel laureates is also literature. We value storytellers who can entertain us. Disney. Hollywood. Netflix. Amongst my favourite books as a child were stories of different worlds, of futures an pasts imagined by minds more creative than my own who wrapped them up so well I could taste and see and feel my way through Middle Earth or Narnia.
In the work of transition from one paradigm to another, storytelling’s role is illumination. Another chapter of the de-veiling technologies we need to comprehend the magnitude of the leap; to generate the courage, will and fortitude to imagine and believe another world is possible. Some are storytellers of systems and data; mapping out the entangled planet so that we can glimpse the interconnections we have woven to be the first planetary civilisation. Others are storytellers of active hope and moral imagination. Yet more are dot-joiners of community and peace, weaving stories of the potential of collaboration into minds that are closing against change through fear of the future and locked into competition.
All those creating at the edges of the old paradigm to birth the new need illumination. To see that change is happening. To believe it can continue. To see and connect with each other so that they do not feel so alone.
Here’s to the storytellers of the emerging future. The authors, activists, speakers, writers, lab designers – yes an even the powerpoint presenters (because we all still have to from time to time!). Some of my favourites, but please add your own below.
Indy Johar and Dark Matter Labs for their tireless efforts to laboratise a new economy and their boundless and amazing graphics that tell those stories of the possible.
Phoebe Tickell and Moral Imaginations helping organisations activate their own imagination.
Joanna Macy and the Work That Reconnects Network for helping people to connect to the world, their grief and active hope.
Charles Eisenstein, from whom I first heard the ‘story of separation’
Merlin Sheldrake, whose Entangled World still entrances.
Dr. Lyla June Johnston for her evocative stories of indigenous wisdom, everyone should watch her TED talk
Tyson Yunkaporta‘s wonderful writings, yarns and every podcast appearance
The film makers, podcasters, weavers: Damon Gameau and The Regenerators, Kiss The Ground, Regeneration Rising hosted by Philipa Duthie Josie Warden Daniel Christian Wahl; Tijn Tjoelker a weaver of regenerative content.
The hosts who make conversation and storytelling possible in person: HYPHA Ltd Regen Gathering in Jersey; Regens Unite and Regen Village in Brussels; The Gathering of Tribes; Nicole Bosky‘s Primal Gathering
Day 7 – For the regenerative generalists
Trying to edit 400k words is a deep reminder of the vastly different fields of learning I have encountered and studied on the way. I’ve always been a generalist but this torturous process reminds me how many flows are converging in the leap towards regenerative futures. We should all be grateful for the experts who developed these bodies of work for generalists regenerators to skate across.
Developmental psychology: looking at the different areas of knowledge in this wide area of study. Integral theory. Cognitive development. Spiral dynamics. Human systems dynamics. Theosophy. Barrett Values System. Jungian analysis (brutal experience!). Psychosynthesis. To phenomenology. I put this work first because in the end, almost all the other work you can do is dependent on your ability to actualise and develop right relationship with living systems.
The Systems work: from biomimicry to Donella Meadow’s systems thinking to The Natural Step to complexity, living systems and chaos theories.
Cultural anthropology, evolutionary biology and ecology; very different but both ologies so putting them on the same line. From the work of Franz Boas and Margaret Mead to Gregory Bateson, Carson, Haeckel, Von Humboldt, Macy, Vandana Shiva, so many…From Darwin, Crick, Dawkins, Kauffman, to Weinstein and Heymann.
Pattern language and process literacy: from the architectural world of Christopher Alexander to the permaculturists patterns of nature. Urban acupuncture with the wonderful Jaime Lerner. Impossible to work in place without the work of these two geniuses but even more powerful when coupled with the process design. So many approaches to urban design: 15 Minute Cities, DEAL cities, smart, net-zero, learning cities….
Framework Thinking: from Gurdjieff, to J G Bennett, to the Enneagram , to wonderful Regenesis Institute, to International Futures Forum and Carol Sanford. One of our most powerful tools.
The study of convening, hosting & harvesting. From the amazing community work of Peter Block and Adrienne Maree Brown to the work of the Art of Hosting community, the work of Liberating Structures. Participatory process. Citizens assembly process. Deep Democracy. Non violent communication.
Design Thinking, combined with pedagogy and theories of learning. Process design. Theories of change. Change management processes (none of which worked). Theory U.
Alternative economics. Of ownership, property, governance, finance. Doughnut Economics. New Economics.
Embodied work: systems constellations, somatic practice, meditation, mindfulness, the Alexander Technique.
All these fields of knowledge contribute to the work of an effective regenerative practitioner. They can also scramble your brain considerably! One should never stop learning. The journey to trying to integrate my cognitive, emotional and spiritual self across these fields of learning is a work in progress. 🤣
Day 8 – The injustice of insurance
For anyone who doesn’t think we are in the middle of a systemic collapse, I invite you to take a look at insurance – if you haven’t already either because of rising prices or the recent assassination of a CEO in the USA. Insurance is soon going to become a system that is unafforable for people in lower earning brackets. We are already seeing small incidences of people in those groups still wanting their warm summer holiday but cutting the corners to afford it by not taking out travel insurance. We will soon start to see people skimping on house insurance because often when you make a claim you come up against exclusions that cause some people to think it isn’t ‘worth it’. Today I received my car insurance quote for 2025. With no accidents for decades, no shiny new car my insurance quote has gone from £323 to £508. The provider suggests I may like to move to other providers who are cheaper an provide less deep cover. I could. I don’t use it often, I try to drive as little as possible but I live in a very rural area with no trains and few buses so a car is a periodic essential. It’s cheaper to live in a place with poor communications because land value on which your house is built is partially driven by accessible human systems like trains, schools, employment which is one of the reasons I live here (I also love the rurality of it) etc. I don’t want to drive feeling ‘under-insured’. Insurance was once a social safety net, built into the system of social trust and compact. It, like many others, cannot keep up with the increased demand that other collapsing systems put on it, not least the loss of predictable weather patterns. There are also plenty of insurers making tonnes of profit. Insurance is one social justice issue that is going to push more people into risk and poverty if we are not mindful now of addressing these systemic issues holistically for a resilient future.
Day 9 – Nuggets of Hope for the Future
Another calendar year passes and on goes planet earth revolving in the midst of our sparkling galaxy on its celestial journey. There’s been a gap in my 12 days of recognitions due to too much. Just too much of things. Christmas. Stress. Darkness. Complexity. Confusion. In amongst that, some nuggets of hope for the future.
🐬 The growing interest from family offices in systemic evolution and transformation, particularly the young women inheritors of the great wealth transfer who want to live differently and do differently. The efforts by some philanthropic organisations and wealthy individuals to turn the tide of growth an profit.
🐬 The connections and ecosystems that have unfolded over the years of Power of Place that are unseen but that a 4 year review gave me a chance to track and see that criss cross the planet. Not an intention we set but an unfolding that happened.
🐬 the bioregional movement that has many different forms but is slowly being understood and generating hope thanks to the indefatigable efforts of many
🐬 the successful seeding of new language into common parlance in key fora such as the New European Bauhaus (congrats team Desire an Irresistible Circular Society), and the opening up of the EU to regenerative design and development (congrats Leen Gorissen an pIEt Haerens). New language preceeds new thinking and paradigm shift.
🐬 the sheer numbers of projects that continue to arise to restore and regenerate all different forms of ecology – rivers, oceans, forests, wetlands, peat, habitat. Everything we do counts. The release of tiny snails back onto a remote island in the Atlantic counts. But also note what non-human nature does without our prodding. We recored the longest ever recorded journey by a whale. We intervene. Non-human nature adapts.
🐬 The planet is intelligently adapting to human impact. It is co-evolving with us. We talk about extreme weather as an outcome of climate change. We talk about covid as a virus that emanated from human failures. Over a decade ago when I stood in the middle of the dark on Christmas Eve and watched a wall of water come across my land and engulf me and my horses as the river broke its banks, in my terror it felt like the wild scream of nature trying to force me to pay attention. With the years of rebuilding, launching a CIC and just life, sometimes that feeling has faded. But when I zoom out in multiplicity I can look differently at what the planetary system is doing. Moment by moment it is finding ways to adapt to human designs. James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis Gaia theory of the self-regulating biosphere is becoming more visible to us – if we look. If we can see the systemic adaptations, we can learn from it. If a whole planetary system can adapt and evolve. A whole human system can adapt and evolve.
Day 10 – From Bargaining with Transformation to Communing in Context
Today’s reflection is about the complexity of communication in a complex system. The simplicity of asking the wrong question. The frustration of not knowing who gets to decide. The speed of wanting quick sharp staccato. Solutions. It’s of those who really have the patience and fortitude to sit in the complexity of unknowing. It had to be an article because I exceeded the max characters. No surprises there. It’s about the way in which we ‘bargain’ with transformation. Its about public consultation. And about communing together around complex questions to create place-based community-led resilience. Actually it’s just a stream of consciousness which arose from remembering that this time last year I was diving into Nora Bateson‘s book Communing. And a reflection on one of last year’s last conversations with a public authority.
Read the whole article on Linkedin
Day 11 – For the Challengers and the Healers
Living with joy in pain and grief. I was supposed to spend 30 days editing over the winter period. I tried. And instead I ending up adding more chapters. One of which was about the relational space of learning with live with joy in pain and grief that accompanies a world in turbulence and a civilisation in the midst of transformation and collapse. I started my long new learning journey 20 years ago this year with a diagnoses of advanced lymphoma and took the opportunity to stop work and study developmental psychology and therapy.
There is something vitally important about the acknowledgement of the sickness of our institutions being a mirror of the sickness of our minds an souls. That the healing of our extractive, divisive, destructive economic and social cultures cannot be done without developing the ability to sit within the sickness, pain and grief in regenerative disturbance rather than rush to take away and rid ourselves of the profound unwellness. And to sit within the discomfort of recognising that the ‘normal’ in which we have lived in western cultures is based on an set of ideals that grew our of an industrial colonial epistemology aimed at getting control of the wild possibility of evolutionary potential. A process of psychological violence perpetrated through structures of economy.
Today recognising past and present challengers and healers of the underpinning epistemological assumptions that got us where we are today. The lyricists who paint pictures of wholeness and healing, who create new language about the interconnected nested relationality of the world for an emerging future, who are the the evolutionary catalysts and the wholeness re-coders. The people who bring insights you can dive into with both the sense of being enveloped in pool of melted chocolate in which is the sting of the trickster who brings into vision the very thing you don’t really want to look at. The exploration of the strange path unknown third way into the future through generative incapacitation. The bringing together of a whole field of climate psychologists in regenerative disturbance.Of embracing grief and yet living in joy through reconnecting to deep caring and active hope. those who navigate trauma healing of intergenerational and cultural wounds, who decolonise our futures from the straightjacket of our industrialised minds and souls.
To the philosophers who bring the transformative edge effect ideas into the centre domain of dialogue. There are many whose work I have not found. Here are some whose work I have found profound. To Joanna Macy. To Nora Bateson. To Bayo Akomolafe. To Thomas Hübl, PhD. To Steffi Bednarek (FRSA) (who I met just yesterday, thank you Etienne) To Tyson Yunkaporta. To Dr. Anneloes Smitsman. To the irrepressible Satish Kumar. and to all those others who are out there speaking, being, sensing a different truth, a non-normal diversity of wholeness that offers the possibility beauty.
Day 12 – Gratitude for the PoP’ers
I missed the deadline for the final 12 days of recognition/reflection which was apparently yesterday. But never mind. We are imperfect beings. The final reflection and recognition has to be for every single person in the last four years that has journeyed with us on our signature learning journey, Power of Place. For all the community leaders, the social entrepreneurs, the place-based businesses and brands, the councils and municipalities, the national parks, the private estates, the tourism bodies and practitioners, the academics, the regenerative village and home builders, the urban planners and development directors, the construction companies and the architects, the ecological regenerators, the economic shapers, the future narrators, the dreamers and systems evolutionists – you are my favourite work of all the things I do. I have never once tired of the rich and varied live sessions, your courage and commitment in the experimental ‘doing’, ‘being’, ‘sensing’ and the sitting with deep uncomfortability that personal and systemic transformation takes, it has brought me much joy and a family I didn’t have. I could try to tag you all but I will run out of space, and so many of you (wisely) are not on Linked In anyway! So thank you for journeying with me for the past four years. You are amazing.
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