How are you Naturing?

New language, new frame, new ways of seeing

Whenever there's a new movement, there's always a change in use of language. And with that change in language, we start to change the frame, and in changing the frame, we start observing differently. We are certainly seeing this shift in the regenerative movement, and I'm enjoying the playful and creative ways in which this is emerging, and the new patterns that arise in response.

In this update, I share some reflections on how the question 'How are you naturing?' has been helping us in the Regenerative Confluence learning community to reflect differently on what it means to weave and organise as nature, in harmony with all of life. The question has a very different feel to 'How are you doing?', or even, as you might ask when facilitating a coaching or group session 'How are you arriving today?'.

So it can help to take a moment to uncouple from the head chatter that might come up for us about what the question means, or how best to answer it, and just pause to sense into the body, our most immediate and intimate relationship to Nature, with all its intuition and wisdom.

Take a moment to drop into the breath, drop into the body. Notice how your body might want to make some adjustments in posture in order to settle. Soften your gaze, or close your eyes, and imagine your bare feet in contact with naked soil. Through that contact with the Earth, take time to experience your relationship to the family of Life, and to deep ancestral knowing. Breathe it all in, and notice what arises. In closing, take a moment to appreciate what has unfolded, and harvest it by gently welcoming it to your heart centre.

Tuning into our shared field

Exploring this question of naturing in our group, I noticed how it evoked the more human-nature aspects of our lives - our responses to the changing seasons, the cherishing of the last days of summer. The way that the shortening days enables seeing the sunrise more easily. Our responses to reduced daylight, hours the feeling of hibernation creeping in, adjusting to different rhythms and patterns. The need to attend to physical and mental wellbeing at this time. The satisfaction of having tended a piece of land and seeing it yield its fruit. The savouring of the last ripe peaches, the last ripe figs, and the choicefulness to wait to appreciate them once more when they are back in season next year. Noticing how the seasons themselves appear to be changing, the unpredictability of weather patterns across the world. Enacting the rituals of our ancestors as they prepared for the season ahead as a way of staying grounded.

And so the weaving of our responses to how are we naturing brought us into a shared landscape of connection and communing together, feeling ourselves as a microcosm, a web of sensing and experiencing.

Widening the context

From our own immediate sensing, we can then extend the same inquiry towards different levels of system - projects or organisations we may be engaged in, and the communities related to that, all the way through to aspects of the wider world that evoke our care and curiosity.

What is naturing there? How is it naturing? What might be needed? Or not needed?

In asking 'What is naturing?' for different contexts, we become curious about what's happening - noticing the green shoots, however small they may be. Or periods of rest. And naturing is also an expression of the decay, death and renewal process, and how that is attended to. I noticed with interest at a recent immersion in nature day which I facilitated for a global organisation how, when tuning into elements within the environment that spoke to the questions they were exploring, that many of the leadership team wandered off towards the compost heap to absorb its wisdom! It is telling that in so many organisations, there is no equivalent to the compost heap - a place to process what is no longer needed or wanted, but which when dis-integrated can be re-integrated and provide nourishment and further health and growth in a circular, no-waste way - whether as learning, skills, resources, opportunities for others. What could change in the world if we composting became a normal aspect of organisational life?

When we notice what is naturing, and how it is naturing, we can take our cues as to where and how we might participate. What feels right? Where might we wish to co-create and with whom? Or what might we be able to support in terms of releasing and endings for healthy composting?

Inviting resonance as a practice for co-sensing

One way to lend our energies to what is naturing is to bring in resonance for each others stories, a powerful practice for sensing more deeply and collectively into what is arising, and to amplify its frequencies. Resonance is the opportunity to share the energetic and emotional qualities that listening to someone's inquiry evokes within ourselves. It reminds us that we are physical, spiritual and emotional bodies listening to other physical, spiritual and emotional bodies, with our own energetic and intuitive language that so often gets missed out in ordinary communication. Offering what resonates within ourselves in response to another exercises our capacity to echo the vibrational and textural qualities of each others' sharing, and also to co-sense ways forward when focusing on shared challenges.

For example, in our recent session we variously experienced each other's inquiries as joyful, springy, or where there was a kind of mature owning of the sadness and releasing of endings. Tapping into the felt sense qualities brought in an ever richer appreciation for the shared tapestry of how our lives are woven, our inter-being and the naturing that is happening through our relationship.

Experimenting in community

Where could you apply these kinds of questions and practices in your own contexts? What shifts might they enable?

What I deeply love about the regenerative community is that the adoption of living systems principles can colonise all sectors and disciplines, all aspects of life, and that as an evolving discourse there is so much to learn from each others' practices and experimentation. I am grateful to so many other practitioners who are out there posing different kinds of questions - its partly in response to a recent post by Benjamin Freud that prompted us to ask 'How are you naturing?'. I would love to hear what happens if you bring this into your own context.

And if you are drawn to learning and sharing with others around these kinds of questions, do feel free to join a Regenerative Confluence session as a guest - just DM me and I will send you a link to join us.

I also host monthly healing circles which are available for all to attend, and particularly of interest to those who are interested in experiencing living systems and regenerative approaches to healing. The next session on October 2nd focuses on cultivating conditions for peace as a key enabler for the healing process - for ourselves, and in holding space for others, amplifying peace for the Earth.

?? Dropping into stillness

?? Softening expectations to give way to emergence

?? Making way for heart-expanded consciousness

?? Deepening into the I-Thou

?? Opening into an expanded sense of time and place

To register your place, use one of the following links to book the time that works best for you:

• Weds 2nd October 8.00 - 9.00 am UK: https://lnkd.in/g46HTR4j
• Weds 2nd October 17.00 - 18.00pm UK: https://lnkd.in/gJ9hJmkP

And for all remaining dates for 2024 and booking links, please go to: https://lnkd.in/etxDEw6u

Hope to see you there!

How might we work together? From 121 coaching and supervision, tailored programmes to support your healing journey, through to whole systems change - if you are interested in exploring any of the above, let's schedule a call. Contact [email protected]