Thank you for this article. When I presented this idea in 2019 at the Climate Change and Consciousness Conference at Findhorn, Scotland, the encouraging feedback I received inspired me to enrol into a PhD in this area. My work (and my life’s mission) is essentially an embodiment of relational systems thinking. I would love to explore opportunities to collaborate.
Feel free to communicate as you wish here, Namrata. It’s a useful topic to be sure. linkedin.com/groups/68785.
There’s a good systems thinking group on LinkedIn. If you can’t find it, I’ll send its URL to you. I’m at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Thank you for contributing to the broader conversation about the central role diverse relationships play in enabling emergence and transformational change. This view is consistent with those held by diverse cultures, wisdom traditions, and forward-looking leaders - many of whom drawn essential lessons about change from Nature, of which we are an inherent part.
Many people trace the origins of injustice and the need for transformational change back to colonization. The term colonization comes from the Latin words colere, meaning "to till," and colonia, "the soil." Looking at the root of this term can illuminate new healing pathways. The Western imagination tends to associate tilling by mechanical plows as the hallmark of industrial progress and evidence of cultural superiority. However, Indigenous land stewards and a growing movement of natural farming advocates know that tilling soil destroys the very source of its power and regenerative capacity by severing the diverse web of relationships responsible for maintaining its fertility and ability to support emergence. Tilling disrupts life-supporting processes by tearing soil’s social fabric, causing vital resources to become concentrated, creating disparities of power, wealth, and wellbeing. As a result, a destructive spiral of dependency is set into motion.
By tilling the soil of communities, colonization has had an equally damaging effect, severing intimate relationships between people and place, cultural knowledge, and each other, contributing to durable inequities. The resulting concentration of wealth disrupts life-supporting processes and generates an unnatural dependency on external inputs, such as philanthropy. Thankfully, we know how to heal soil and restore its capacity to support emergence, which presents an incredibly compelling opportunity to apply the same lessons to our efforts to advance transformational change in other domains.
The Cultural Strategies Council applies the same restorative practices used to heal soil and restore its capacity to support emergence to a diverse range of systemic change initiatives. Framed as ecosystem stewardship, this new/old approach is already bearing fruit for several foundations and nonprofit entities we partner with. If you’re keen to learn more, please feel free to reach out. You may also enjoy reading recent works such as this one, How to be a Soil Keeper: Regenerative Justice and Whole Systems Care, recently published by Oxford’s Lively Worlds. https://www.livelyworlds.org/Journal-of-Regenerative-Theory-and-Practice_Lively-Worlds.pdf
COMMENTS
BY Namrata (Nnaumrata) Arora
ON January 18, 2022 10:16 PM
Thank you for this article. When I presented this idea in 2019 at the Climate Change and Consciousness Conference at Findhorn, Scotland, the encouraging feedback I received inspired me to enrol into a PhD in this area. My work (and my life’s mission) is essentially an embodiment of relational systems thinking. I would love to explore opportunities to collaborate.
BY Ron Krate, PhD
ON January 21, 2022 04:53 AM
Feel free to communicate as you wish here, Namrata. It’s a useful topic to be sure. linkedin.com/groups/68785.
There’s a good systems thinking group on LinkedIn. If you can’t find it, I’ll send its URL to you. I’m at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Our International Professors Project is an all volunteer-driven global group http://www.internationalprofs.org
We will be checking out John’s timely Collective Change Lab.
BY Kiley Arroyo
ON March 3, 2022 07:10 AM
Thank you for contributing to the broader conversation about the central role diverse relationships play in enabling emergence and transformational change. This view is consistent with those held by diverse cultures, wisdom traditions, and forward-looking leaders - many of whom drawn essential lessons about change from Nature, of which we are an inherent part.
Many people trace the origins of injustice and the need for transformational change back to colonization. The term colonization comes from the Latin words colere, meaning "to till," and colonia, "the soil." Looking at the root of this term can illuminate new healing pathways. The Western imagination tends to associate tilling by mechanical plows as the hallmark of industrial progress and evidence of cultural superiority. However, Indigenous land stewards and a growing movement of natural farming advocates know that tilling soil destroys the very source of its power and regenerative capacity by severing the diverse web of relationships responsible for maintaining its fertility and ability to support emergence. Tilling disrupts life-supporting processes by tearing soil’s social fabric, causing vital resources to become concentrated, creating disparities of power, wealth, and wellbeing. As a result, a destructive spiral of dependency is set into motion.
By tilling the soil of communities, colonization has had an equally damaging effect, severing intimate relationships between people and place, cultural knowledge, and each other, contributing to durable inequities. The resulting concentration of wealth disrupts life-supporting processes and generates an unnatural dependency on external inputs, such as philanthropy. Thankfully, we know how to heal soil and restore its capacity to support emergence, which presents an incredibly compelling opportunity to apply the same lessons to our efforts to advance transformational change in other domains.
The Cultural Strategies Council applies the same restorative practices used to heal soil and restore its capacity to support emergence to a diverse range of systemic change initiatives. Framed as ecosystem stewardship, this new/old approach is already bearing fruit for several foundations and nonprofit entities we partner with. If you’re keen to learn more, please feel free to reach out. You may also enjoy reading recent works such as this one, How to be a Soil Keeper: Regenerative Justice and Whole Systems Care, recently published by Oxford’s Lively Worlds. https://www.livelyworlds.org/Journal-of-Regenerative-Theory-and-Practice_Lively-Worlds.pdf