Join Us In Creating a Regenerative Ecosystem, One Building at a Time

The title of this article may sound like a familiar invitation, often followed by a familiar response, ‘Yes, that sounds wonderful, but how am I, how are we, supposed to do that just that?’ Let’s start with a vision inspired by Bill Plotkin, author of Soulcraft:

“When a sufficient number of contemporary people have reentered nature’s soulstream and become conscious contributors to the unfolding story of the world, domination culture might mature into gylanic*, ecocentric, and soulcentric communities, inhabited by people who are wildly caring, playful, trusting, mutualistic members of the more-than-human world.”

*gylanic — a social system based on equality of women and men

A few of us, associated with the Regenerative Living Institute, SEEDS regenerative ecosystem, and DHO leadership communities, are developing a regenerative ecosystem pilot, one building at a time, as the Regen Living Ecosystem as a collective impact initiative.

Its purpose is to develop and fund ecosystem prototypes and place-based pilot projects that set the bar significantly higher for what regenerative development is.

That’s your TL;DR :) What follows details what that means.

“Regenerative” is nature’s inherent process of manifesting continually higher states of health, wellbeing, and vitality for all life. It is thrivability in perpetuity. For humans, “regenerative” entails aligning our thinking and actions with nature’s principles. This is not a pipe dream. This is the birthright of every human being, of every living system on Earth.

Thousands of communities, projects, initiatives, organizations, and individuals are working toward this way of living and being. The will is here. Initial technologies and ancient wisdom are here. Small, disconnected pieces of the puzzle are here. We see two main needs to unlock the potential of existing, developing, emerging, and yet to emerge initiatives: 1. an overarching guiding, coordinating, and networking collective impact* initiative, and 2. a mobilization of financial capital into other forms of capital (e.g., natural, human, social, spiritual, built) that will catalyze more life, greater health and wellbeing for all.

*collective impact — an intentional way of working together and sharing information for the purpose of solving a complex problem

An initiative is nothing without its foundational principles and culture. The Regen Living Ecosystem is founded on the principles of the Regenerative Living Institute (ReLI) and the Center for Partnership Systems. ReLI is a nonprofit whose purpose is to define what ‘regenerative’ means, and what its implementation actually looks like. The Center for Partnership Systems is committed to supporting a ‘gylanic’ society that is based on equality of women and men, founded by Riane Eisler, author of the seminal book, Chalice and the Blade.

Our immediate focus is on developing a regenerative-certified blueprint and network of practitioners to provide cost-effective implementation support for any local community to develop places regeneratively. Just as important is developing a donor-assisted fund (DAF) to finance it, the Regenerative Living Fund.

Our focus is on supporting the development of regenerative catalyst hubs, one building at a time. Catalyst hubs are community-serving places that serve as catalysts for a regenerative culture and economy in the neighborhood, region. Not only are these catalyst hubs designed, governed and owned by local communities, but they develop their own local currency as well, through a local currency platform system we are piloting. Learn more about catalyst hubs here.

The objective is to establish a living example, a fractal, with one building that can then inspire and regenerate other buildings as catalyst hubs. First buildings, then blocks (e.g. Cool Block program), and eventually neighborhoods and (eco)villages (e.g. Regen Civics Alliance). These are all networked together through a rich diversity of local and regional currencies that eventually manifests a global caring, gylanic, regenerative culture, economy and society.

We are assembling a collective impact community of individuals and organizations covering legal, financial, economic and tokenomic frameworks to bring caring, gylany, Web3 and DeFi into the tangible built reality of our neighborhoods. Would you join us? Please send us a note at regenlivingfund@gmail.com or join the Regen Living Ecosystem Discord server.