Women of Regeneration — The Wisdom of Elders
Regeneration, the pathway to reconnection and healing of the story of separation between nature and humans, humans and humans, our analytical vs intuitive brains and the re-fusing of our inner and outer lives, has become the sole focus on the final part of my working life and career.
My personal pathway into this field has been carpeted by the leadership of some very inspirational humans — all of whom have played a pivotal role in the birth of this new horizon. Almost all have been women. As International Women’s Day approaches, this is my personal tribute to all of those wonderful women who have given wings to my own hopes for the future.
Donella Meadows
The original systems thinker. Given the loss of Donella at far too young an age, perhaps she never reached an age where she could be thought of as an elder, but for me she is a giant figure in my mind. Though I never had the privilege of meeting Donella, her vision expressed in Limits to Growth — so many decades before anyone had ever heard of de-growth as a concept, or the planetary boundaries had been documented by The Stockholm Resilience Centre — has shaped the thinking of many agents of systemic change, ecologists, economists and regenerative designers. It was the Balaton paper on bioregional learning centres as a pivotal (and nodal) strategy to design regeneration from place that captured my imagination. That paper set me on a course from global brand strategy to place-sourced work. Donella experimented with many such hubs in her short life: The Sustainability Institute (which eventually became the Academy for Systems Change), the Sustainable Food Lab and the Sustainability Leaders Network. Her paper on 12 leverage points for system change is still foundational to many policy strategies enacted around the world, and the later ‘dancing with systems’ captured the same with soul.
Joanna Macy
Active Hope, written with Chris Johnstone, was one of the first books I picked up after a deep crash of depression in the early 2010s. Every word still rings in my ears. There are three ways to act in the world. Protect and Preserve. Systems Change. The Shift in Consciousness. It was the first time I began to see another role I could aspire to and that helped pull me back from the brink. Her seminal Work That Reconnects first opened a window to ways in which to heal the deep trauma of centuries of separation between humans and nature for me.
Janine Benyus
Janine’s work on biomimicry is celebrated in business, architecture, design for its ability to provide new sources of inspiration from nature that are applied in product innovation all over the world. Biomimicry was one of the first applications of nature’s intelligence I came across in my quest to change my own thinking about how life worked. The simple question ‘what would nature do?’ — coupled with a deep sense of curiosity and observation as the tool of a biologist — has also contributed to our ability to reconnect with awe at nature’s brilliance. Reconnecting with reverence for genius does much to restore the relationship between humans and nature. The way in which Janine described and codified the processes of life into the biomimicry wheel has been adapted and applied by many later regenerative thinkers and designers. She was the first person I encountered who made it accessible and understandable. Life Creates The Conditions Conducive to Life. My journey with biomimicry started with her book and continued through the less well known field of biomimicry for social innovation.
Pamela Mang
Not every brilliant mind you encounter exudes warmth and humanity. Pamela does. Few people I have encountered can bring the rigorous intellect that Pamela has honed during decades of study of regenerative design and development, alongside a deep appreciation of humanity with all its flaws. I have spent the most time in recent years in study with Pamela and Ben Haggard’s Regenesis International because of my deep curiosity about J G Bennett’s systematics frameworks for supporting systemic evolution. The Regenerative Practitioner course they have run for many years now was the first, and certainly the most academically robust, of all programmes on regenerative design. I aspire to Pamela’s endless patience with those of us who stumble around in the dark, her effortless gift to hear and see what foundational dynamic lies beneath anything that you are saying or anything that is happening, and shine a light on it so that you can see it too.
Elinor Ostrom
I have never been very good at conventional economics that was taught in MBAs and business degrees. Elinor brought the kind of economics that most of us can grasp, alive. Elinor is another leader who understood the value of nodes and narratives in creating transformative change. By challenging the prevailing narrative of ‘the tragedy of the common’s, Elinor opened my eyes to the power of collaboration in place as a radically alternative approach to the way in which natural resources were being appropriated and degenerated. The way in which she experimented with ground-up organisational principles to care for living systems according to their unique local properties is a cornerstone of the approach I have learned to take. The design principles for stable and local common pool resource management align to living systems principles in a practical and pragmatic way that always contains deep understanding of the human psyche and need to belong, participate and self-determine.
Marjorie Kelly
Until I read her book Owning Our Future, I hadn’t realised that Marjorie had also been at Schumacher College in the UK on the Economics for Transition programme too. Her echo of Stephan Harding’s question to students “What kind of economy is consistent with living inside a living being?” clearly struck a similar chord with Marjorie as it did with me. It was a deep contributor to my own journey away from the corporate to place. As Marjorie recognised — a lot faster than me — the only way to answer that question is not to start with what exists — corporations — and try to change them — but to start with life, with human life and the life of the planet and ask, how do we generate the conditions conducive to life to continue? Her exploration of ownership as a critical pillar for change in the way in which we design our regenerative futures has been another profound influence.
Carol Sanford
No list of elders in the regenerative field would be complete without the woman Tyson Yunkaporta calls Aunty. Carol’s intellect is phenomenal. Her rigorous pursuit of the technology, ontology, cosmology and epistomology of the regenerative field has produced a stream of books, articles, videos and a school of individuals and organisations she has changed forever in her lifetime. All her various modes of communication are inspirational guides for anyone wanting to pursue a shift to regenerative thinking. A self-confessed contrarian with a fierce will, I’ve never spent a minute in her company where I didn’t learn something of deep value. Her acerbic wit and insight is often hard to sit with, but however I reacted to what she had to say, she was inevitably always on point!
Carol’s grasp of frameworks as the clothing of the regenerative pilgrim can never be undervalued. No one has shown me more about frameworks as universal truths that can guide our steps, behaviour and ability to make the leap to a new way of seeing the world. Although many developmental psychologists have named the journey of human development, one of Carol’s great gifts to us is her way of describing the journey. Value Return, Arrest Disorder, Do More Good, Regenerate Life — and all the supporting frameworks that help you see communication, decision-making, building, design and so many other things, through the lens of those levels. In a way it’s like being given the secrets to the magician’s circle. A bit like the story of separation, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. If I had discovered her changemakers community and the Carol Sanford Institute earlier than I did, I might even have maintained my own interest in business, which has been Carol’s field of deep impact. More than anyone else in the regenerative field, Carol’s legacy will be the many regenerative businesses and leaders she helped to shape as the latest ‘third horizon’ comes into being. Her seventh book No More Gold Stars is due out soon.
Robin Wall Kimmerer
This shortlist seems incomplete with someone more mythic, whose attentiveness to life’s beauty and process brought a different dimension to my own experience of reconnecting to life and to nature. In reading Braiding Sweetgrass I first dived into the ability for us all to become indigenous to place. This place Earth. Our place wherever that may be. Following in the footsteps of Nanabozho, honoring the wisdom in the land, caring for its keepers, we all start to become indigenous to place and reconnect with the flow of evolution. Braiding Sweetgrass was the book which gave me a continuing fascination of how we blend the knowledge of elders of indigenous communities with the technology, science and religions other humans have made.
If only there were only 8! There have been many other wonderful elders who have contributed to my journey. Clarissa Pinkola Estes gave me a much deeper understanding of feminine psychology and the part it plays in healing the story of separation. Margaret Heffernan’s clarity about future business design is always close by. Margaret Wheatley’s words of wisdom on the patterns of human development over millennia have always been a source of inspiration. Lani Morris and Marjolein Lips-Wiersma’s Map of Meaning has been useful. Dr Anna Poelina’s work as an indigenous community leader, human and earth rights advocate, film-maker and academic researcher. And in recent years I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Anna Pollock who has done so much to bring regeneration to tourism. And so many more.
I hope to a squeeze in a second blog later this week that recognises The Youngers — those women who are following in the footsteps of these ground-breaking thinkers, doers, connectors and who continue to break new ground in the service of life on earth.
