Approaches to Regenerative Organising

Since launching the Regenerative Confluence series of inquiries last September, we've been exploring emergent thinking and practice and from each others’ experiences around three broad areas across these past 12 months - Regenerative Relationship, Regenerative Purpose and Regenerative Approaches. And this autumn we launch a new series of inquiries (September to December) which will deep dive into approaches to weaving, growing community and self-organising in nature-inspired ways.

The need to explore ways of organising through genuine relationship and reciprocity across difference feels greater than ever. We are collectively experiencing a time where legacy systems for organising society are barely coping with the complexity, pressures and pace of change faced today. As I’m writing this, each day reveals a new fracturing, a new fragmention in our human social fabric that begs us to evaluate core principles, values, and expectations of each other. Typically reactions fall either towards greater isolationism and separation as a more regressive position, or towards increased 'globalitarianism' - leveraging AI and mass surveillance to achieve behavioural conformity.

Neither of these positions is truly mirrored by what we see in the rest of Nature, however. Regarding a separatist position, anything that is genuinely isolated will die. Whilst all cells, or species, or communities exhibit some form of protective margin, as seen in 'crown shyness' (see picture below), that boundary is permeable - in the case of trees, they are still communicating via root systems and pheromones, whilst collectively allowing light to the forest floor, rather than dominating each other for resources. So the margins mediate co-operation, not isolation. And at a greater scale of system, ecotones, the intermediate spaces between two different habitats, are invariably richly bio-diverse - whether that be a field and forest margin, or a whale's skin, or a tidal zone - the margins facilitate even greater diversity, not less.

Likewise, there is no equivalent to globalism within the natural world. Highly centralised and ordered communities such as those seen in bee and ant colonies organise themselves within the scale of their own nest or hive, and they are constantly held in balance within tensions and flows of other dynamics, e.g. availability of habitat, interactions with other species. Scout bees constantly explore the changing environment and share information with the hive. Yet globalism acts from a deeply flawed pattern of assumptions and interests that assumes that highly complex systems (climate, healthcare, food and finance systems etc) can all be governed centrally and uniformly, ignoring or suppressing disconfirming data emerging by trial and error from the margins. It suffers, paradoxically, from the same blind-spot as isolationism, which is that in Nature, in every living cell, it is the margins which are the places of busiest exchange and the locus of adaptive and evolutionary change.

So what are the different ways that organising as Nature look like? How might we draw inspiration from indigenous examples and ancestry? What does thoughtful integration of technology and AI bring to the mix? What legacy concepts might still be useful, e.g. subsidiarity, community banking? What can newer developments offer (self-organising teams, wirearchy, sociocracy, distributed autonomous organisations, Nature on the Board and other emerging aspects of governance, circularity, bio-regional approaches etc)? What does it mean to weave across different organising principles, to be an Edge-walker that can navigate multiple worlds? What can we learn from different approaches to community development? What are the enabling conditions for complex adaptive systems to enhance their capacity for self-organisation, autopoeisis? What is needed to tend to the soil conditions for rich and diverse expressions of regenerative practice?

Like the living root bridge, how do we learn to co-create systems that are alive, that are self-sustaining, that are completely circular, that bring value, that embody seven-generations thinking?

If these are the kinds of questions that kindle and inspire you in your life and work, do consider joining us. Membership to Regenerative Confluence is just ￡22.00 per month, for which you can join fortnightly calls. Our conversations alternate between more content focused (first session of the month) and more practice oriented (second session), and are emergent in terms of flow, so the topics below are indicative of where we will be exploring:

Dates for this next season of inquiry are:

September 9th and 26th

Tuning into patterns of organisation - understanding underpinning patterns of the current human paradigm compared to how the rest of Nature organises

October 7th and 24th

Bio-mimicry and ancestral patterns for human organisation - what are the emerging approaches, what can we learn from 'successes and failures'?

November 4th and 21st

Networks as Nature - nurturing flows and structures of relationships, value exchanges and communication

December 2nd and 19th

Being an Edgewalker - navigating and weaving different pathways and patterns of organisation, being a regenerative disruptor

Each session runs twice on each date so you can access what works best for your time-zone - either 8.00 - 9.30 am UK, or 5.00 - 6.30pm UK

Enrol for this next season here: https://regenerativeconfluence.mn.co/plans/330979?bundle_token=3f891b6a35bae9dbc2d21b18dbcd8f06&utm_source=manual

And feel free to get in touch via DM or [email protected]