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Podcast - Planet: Critical - Interview with Microbiologist and regenerative agriculture expert Walter Jehne

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Podcast - Planet: Critical - Interview with Microbiologist and regenerative agriculture expert Walter Jehne

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Creating Resilient Biosystems | Walter Jehne

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Listen to this episode from Planet: Critical on Spotify. What's a resilient biosystem? Healthy soil, healthy water, healthy cycles. They're so key that even defence departments around the world are starting to invest in creating them, as research shows we have just 60 harvests left if we stick to our industrialised system of agriculture.There's hope for us yet, and it lies in the soil.

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Blog post - A message from 10+ Indigenous leaders: Regenerative Agriculture & Permaculture

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Blog post - A message from 10+ Indigenous leaders: Regenerative Agriculture & Permaculture

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Regenerative agriculture and permaculture claim to be the solutions to our ecological crises. While they both borrow practices from Indigenous cultures, critically, they leave out our worldviews and continue the pattern of erasing our history and contributions to the modern world.

While the practices 'sustainable farming' promote are important, they do not encompass the deep cultural and relational changes needed to realize our collective healing.

Regen Ag & Permaculture often talk about what's happening 'in nature': "In nature, soil is always covered." "In nature, there are no monocultures." Nature is viewed as separate, outside, ideal, perfect. Human beings must practice "biomimicry" (the mimicking of life) because we exist outside of the life of Nature.

Indigenous peoples speak of our role AS Nature. (Actually, Indigenous languages often don't have a word for Nature, only a name for Earth and our Universe.) As cells and organs of Earth, we strive to fulfill our roles as her caregivers and caretakers. We often describe ourselves as "weavers", strengthening the bonds between all beings.

Regen Ag & Permaculture often maintain the "dead" worldview of Western culture and science: Rocks, mountains, soil, water, wind, and light all start as "dead". (E.g., "Let's bring life back to the soil!" - implying soil, without microbes, is dead.) This worldview believes that life only happens when these elements are brought together in some specific and special way.

Indigenous cultures view the Earth as a communion of beings and not objects: All matter and energy is alive and conscious. Mountains, stones, water, and air are relatives and ancestors. Earth is a living being whose body we are all a part of. Life does not only occur when these elements are brought together; Life always is. No "thing" is ever dead; Life forms and transforms.

Regen Ag & Permaculture maintain overly simplistic binaries through subscribing to good and bad. Tilling is bad; not tilling is good. Mulch is good; not mulching is bad. We must do only the 'good' things to reach the idealized, 99.9% biomimicked farm/garden, though we will never be as pure or good "as Nature", because we are separate from her.

Indigenous cultures often share the view that there is no good, bad, or ideal-it is not our role to judge. Our role is to tend, care, and weave to maintain relationships of balance. We give ourselves to the land: Our breath and hands uplift her gardens, binding our life force together. No one is tainted by our touch, and we have the ability to heal as much as any other lifeform.

Regen Ag & Permaculture use English as their preferred language no matter the geography or culture: You must first learn English to learn from the godFATHERS of this movement. The English language judges and objectifies, including words most Indigenous languages do not: 'natural, criminal, waste, dead, wild, pure...' English also utilizes language like "things" and "its" when referring to "non-living, subhuman entities".

Among Indigenous cultures, every language emerges from and is therefore intricately tied to place. Inuit people have dozens of words for snow and her movement; Polynesian languages have dozens of words for water's ripples. To know a place, you must speak her language. There is no one-size-fits-all, and no words for non-living or sub-human beings, because all life has equal value.

Regen Ag and Permaculture claim to be holistic in approach. When regenerating a landscape, 'everything' is considered: soil health, water cycles, local 'wildlife', income & profit. 'Everything', however, tends to EXCLUDE history: Why were Indigenous homelands steal-able and why were our peoples & lands rape-able? Why were our cultures erased? Why does our knowledge need to be validated by 'Science'? Why are we still excluded from your 'healing' of our land?

Among Indigenous cultures, people belong to land rather than land belonging to people. Healing of land MUST include healing of people and vice versa. Recognizing and processing the emotional traumas held in our bodies as descendants of assaulted, enslaved, and displaced peoples is necessary to the healing of land. Returning our rights to care for, harvest from, and relate to the land that birthed us is part of this recognition.

Regen Ag & Permaculture often share the environmentalist message that the world is dying and we must "save" it. Humans are toxic, but if we try, we can create a "new Nature" of harmony, though one that is not as harmonious as the "old Nature" that existed before humanity. Towards this mission, we must put Nature first and sacrifice ourselves for "the cause".

Indigenous cultures often see Earth as going through cycles of continuous transition. We currently find ourselves in a cycle of great decomposition. Like in any process of composting there is discomfort and a knowing that death always brings us into rebirth. Within this great cycle, we all have a role to play. Recognizing and healing all of our own traumas IS healing Earth's traumas, because we are ONE.

Making up only 6.2% of our global population, Indigenous peoples steward 80% of Earth's biodiversity while managing over 25% of her land. Indigenous worldviews are the bedrocks that our agricultural practices and lifeways arise from. We invite you to ground your daily practices in these ancestral ways, as we jointly work towards collective healing.

Learn whose lands you live on (native-land.ca), their history, and how you can support their causes and cultural revitalization.

Watch @gatherfilm and Aluna documentary.

Amplify the voices and stories of Indigenous peoples and organizations.

Follow, support, donate to, and learn from the contributors to this post.

Contributors

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A message from 10+ Indigenous leaders: Regenerative Agriculture & Permaculture offer narrow solutions to the climate crisis - GREEN DREAMER

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Regenerative agriculture and permaculture claim to be the solutions to our ecological crises. While they both borrow practices from Indigenous cultures, critically, they leave out our worldviews and continue the pattern of erasing our history and contributions to the modern world. We invite proponen

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Article - Carlos Castaneda: Conquering The Four Enemies by Rascal Voyages

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Article - Carlos Castaneda: Conquering The Four Enemies by Rascal Voyages

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Website - Official Source of Tensegrity® Events, Workshops and Training Experiences by Carlos Castaneda

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Website - Official Source of Tensegrity® Events, Workshops and Training Experiences by Carlos Castaneda

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Tensegrity® was developed by American author, anthropologist and shaman, Carlos Castaneda and his cohorts, Carol Tiggs, Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau.

Castaneda, starting with The Teachings of Don Juan, wrote a series of books that describe his training with his shaman-teacher, don Juan Matus, who taught him everything he knew about energy, how to cultivate it within ourselves and then use it in our everyday lives.

Those 12 books have sold more than 28 million copies in 17 languages and have become the source for helping millions of people manifest the life of their dreams, by bringing the once closely held knowledge and wisdom of the Toltec shamans to anyone who desires an extraordinary life.

Cleargreen is the official source of their work and sponsors live and online experiences and certified trainings internationally.

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Tensegrity® was developed by American author, anthropologist and shaman, Carlos Castaneda and his cohorts, Carol Tiggs, Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau. Castaneda, starting with The Teachings of Don Juan, wrote a series of books that describe his training with his shaman-teacher, don Juan Matus, who taught him everything he knew about energy, how to cultivate it within ourselves and then use it in our everyday lives.

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Podcast - Outrage + Optimism with Christiana Figueres

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Podcast - Outrage + Optimism with Christiana Figueres

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149. Presenting: 'The Way Out Is In' with Christiana Figueres

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Listen to this episode from Outrage + Optimism on Spotify. As many around the world turn inward this week, we bring you a special episode featuring Christiana Figueres from 'The Way Out Is In' podcast. Many of us are looking for a way out of the crises we face.

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Mini documentary - And the Music Played the Band by Ben Stewart (Charles Eisenstein mini-doc)

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Mini documentary - And the Music Played the Band by Ben Stewart (Charles Eisenstein mini-doc)

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And the Music Played the Band (Charles Eisenstein mini-doc)

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Podcast - The Origin of the Wrongness in the World with Charles Eisenstein

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Podcast - The Origin of the Wrongness in the World with Charles Eisenstein

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Charles Eisenstein: The Origin of the Wrongness in the World

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Listen to this episode from Commune with Jeff Krasno on Spotify. This audio workshop is an extended excerpt of Charles Eisenstein's Commune course, Political Hope. Our politics run on a mentality of war, and war mentality rests on the story of separation.

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Book - Net Positive by Andrew S. Winston & Paul Polman

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Book - Net Positive by Andrew S. Winston & Paul Polman

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Product Description

Runaway climate change and rampant inequality are ravaging the world and costing a fortune. Who will help lead us to a better future? Business. These massive dual challenges--and other profound shifts, such as pandemics, resource pressures, and shrinking biodiversity--threaten our very existence. Other megatrends, such as the push for a clean economy and the unprecedented focus on diversity and inclusion, offer exciting new opportunities to heal the world, and prosper by doing so. Government cannot do this alone. Business must step up. In this seminal book, former Unilever CEO Paul Polman and sustainable business guru Andrew Winston explode fifty years of corporate dogma. They reveal, for the first time, key lessons from Unilever and other pioneering companies around the world about how you can profit by fixing the world's problems instead of creating them. To thrive today and tomorrow, they argue, companies must become "net positive"--giving more to the world than they take. A net positive company: Improves the lives of everyone it touches, from customers and suppliers to employees and communities, greatly increasing long-term shareholder returns in the process; Takes ownership of all the social and environmental impacts its business model creates. This in turn provides opportunities for innovation, savings, and building a more humane, connected, and purpose-driven culture; Partners with competitors, civil society, and governments to drive transformative change that no single group or enterprise could deliver alone. This is no utopian fantasy. Courageous leaders are already making it real--and the stakes couldn't be higher. With bold vision and compelling stories, "Net Positive" sets out the principles and practices that will deliver the scale of change and transformation the world so desperately needs.

By Harvard Business Review, Peter F. Drucker, Clayton M. Christensen, Daniel Goleman, Michael E. Porter,

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Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take ^ 10496

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Runaway climate change and rampant inequality are ravaging the world and costing a fortune. Who will help lead us to a better future? Business. These massive dual challenges--and other profound shifts, such as pandemics, resource pressures, and shrinking biodiversity--threaten our very existence.

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Website - Innovate to Regenerate Challenge

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Website - Innovate to Regenerate Challenge

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Impactio enables global collaboration to curate, support, and deliver high-quality impactful solutions to social & environmental problems.

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Short Film - Chasing Water by Peter McBride & Anson Fogel

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Short Film - Chasing Water by Peter McBride & Anson Fogel

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We are a collective of storytellers who make films on behalf of our home planet. Watch our trailers and full-length films here.

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Online course -  Introduction to Regenerative Economics by Capital Institute

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Online course -  Introduction to Regenerative Economics by Capital Institute

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Course: Introduction to Regenerative Economics - CAPITAL INSTITUTE

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New Ways of Seeing, Thinking, Being and Managing for the 21st Century | First Cohort Begins 2022

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Online course - The Systems View of Life by Fritjof Capra

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Online course - The Systems View of Life by Fritjof Capra

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All students will be able to fully interact both with Fritjof and other participants, posting comments and questions, and sharing materials via the course forums. The number of participants will be strictly limited to 250, to allow high-quality interactions in our discussions.

New! We now offer an opening and a closing circle with Fritjof

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Join Fritjof Capra and explore the new systemic conception of life at the forefront of science and its application in economics, management, politics, design, medicine, and law. Here's Fritjof Capra with an Introduction to the Capra Course Please visit the Capra Course Vimeo page if you wish to view additional videos featuring Fritjof Capra.

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Online course - Worldviews - From Sustainability to Regeneration by ETHx

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Online course - Worldviews - From Sustainability to Regeneration by ETHx

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Worldviews - Moving from Sustainability to Regeneration

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To deal with sets of environmental and social crises, we need a cultural and mental transformation. This MOOC is the first part of an interconnected series of four MOOCS which bring together science, design and transformative praxis as a fluid, intervention-based and synergistic process for addressi…

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Webinar - Introduction to Regenerative Organizations by nRhythm

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Webinar - Introduction to Regenerative Organizations by nRhythm

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How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. For many of us, a large portion of our day is spent at work. Yet work has become something that we have to do, something that we may even want to escape. When over 65% of people are disengaged at work in the U.S. alone, let's face it, how we currently approach work is simply not serving us.
So, what's the alternative?
At nRhythm, we're on a mission to transform how we manage and design organizations in order to create workplaces with more soul and purpose, and ultimately more impact. We see organizations as full of potential waiting to be released. Managing requires a very different approach than how we currently design and manage our organizations.
Regenerative Organizations embrace this new, evolutionary approach.

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How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. For many of us, a large portion of our day is spent at work. Yet work has become something that we have to do, something that we may even want to escape. When over 65% of people are disengaged at work in the U.S.

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Documentary - The Seeds of Vandana Shiva by Camilla Becket & James Becket

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Documentary - The Seeds of Vandana Shiva by Camilla Becket & James Becket

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Documentary - The Biggest Little Farm by John Chester

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Documentary - The Biggest Little Farm by John Chester

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The Biggest Little Farm Movie. Coming to theaters Spring 2019

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A testament to the immense complexity of nature, The Biggest Little Farm follows two dreamers and a dog on an odyssey to bring harmony to both their lives and the land. Search for screenings and book tickets on the official website brought to you by NEON

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Audiobook - Shaman by Ya'Acov Darling Khan

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Audiobook - Shaman by Ya'Acov Darling Khan

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A shamanic journey of self-discovery, healing and empowerment through your relationships with yourself, others, your community, the imaginal world and the Great Spirit. Ya’Acov Darling Khan, bestselling author of Jaguar in the Body, Butterfly in the Heart, has travelled the world for over 3 decade…

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Book - The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra

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Book - The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra

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Here is the book that brought the mystical implications of subatomic physics to popular consciousness for the very first time-way back in 1975. This special edition celebrates the thirty-fifth anniversary of this early Shambhala best seller that has gone on to become a classic.

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Book - The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi

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Book - The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi

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Over the past thirty years, a new systemic conception of life has emerged at the forefront of science. New emphasis has been given to complexity, networks, and patterns of organisation, leading to a novel kind of 'systemic' thinking. This volume integrates the ideas, models, and theories underlying the systems view of life into a single coherent framework. Taking a broad sweep through history and across scientific disciplines, the authors examine the appearance of key concepts such as autopoiesis, dissipative structures, social networks, and a systemic understanding of evolution. The implications of the systems view of life for health care, management, and our global ecological and economic crises are also discussed. Written primarily for undergraduates, it is also essential reading for graduate students and researchers interested in understanding the new systemic conception of life and its implications for a broad range of professions - from economics and politics to medicine, psychology and law.

'Partly an enjoyable survey of exciting new developments in systems biology, valuable to any student of biology or science, and partly a bold blueprint for how we might preserve our future on Earth.'

Source: New Scientist

'A magisterial study of the scientific basis for an integrated worldview grounded in the wholeness that generations of one-eyed reductionists could not see. The authors succeed brilliantly!'

David W. Orr - Oberlin College

'... gives us a sound synthesis of the best science and theory on the connectedness of all living things, the dynamics of emergence and self-organization as conceived by Francisco Varela. This volume offers a profound framework for understanding our place on the planet, for better or worse. And if we apply the insights offered by Capra and Luisi, it will be for the better ... should be required reading for today's young, tomorrow's leaders, and anyone who cares about life on this planet.'

Daniel Goleman - author of Emotional Intelligence and Ecological Intelligence

'What is life? What is a human being? How can new discoveries about nature and ourselves keep us from becoming the first self-endangered species? Capra and Luisi's dazzling synthesis explains how moving beyond mechanistic, linear, reductionist habits is revealing startling new answers to perennial questions of philosophy and practice. Sir Francis Bacon's goal of 'the enlargement of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible' has put humanity in serious trouble. But today, rebuilding our thinking, language, and actions around Darwin, not Descartes, and around modern biology, not outmoded physics, creates rich new options. Driven by the co-evolution of business with civil society, these can build a fairer, healthier, cooler, safer world. The Systems View of Life is a lucid, wide-ranging guide to living maturely, kindly, and durably with each other and with other beings on the only home we have.'

Amory B. Lovins - Rocky Mountain Institute

'... this book feels like a Rosetta stone for me, unlocking connections and roots of a panoply of different ideas and concepts. It starts walking us through the history of science - and how scientific models influenced most aspect of cultures ... This book pulls the big changes together and integrates them, across disciplines into a glorious big picture, for each field ... As I was reading the portion of the book covering the history of systems thinking ... I realized that I was suddenly feeling very excited, like I was in a movie, sitting on the edge of my seat ... This is what a great writer and a great book are supposed to do ... It has had a huge impact on my way of thinking about so many things. It doesn't matter what your area of work or interest is. This book is essential reading to face the future with eyes wide open.'

Rob Kall Source: OpEdNews.com

'... a valuable overview of the discipline.'

Stephen Lewis Source: The Biologist

'What a fine, erudite, synoptic, lovely book!'

Stuart Kauffman - University of Pennsylvania and the Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle

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Over the past thirty years, a new systemic conception of life has emerged at the forefront of science. New emphasis has been given to complexity, networks, and patterns of organisation, leading to a novel kind of 'systemic' thinking. This volume integrates the ideas, models, and theories underlying the systems view of life into a single coherent framework.

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Book - The Dreaming Path by Paul Callaghan

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Book - The Dreaming Path by Paul Callaghan

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‘Beautiful storytelling. Every Australian needs to read this book.’ – Hugh van Cuylenburg, author of The Resilience Project ’This book is a must for every family home, with so many tips, tools and stories that will relate to everyone who reads. It’s a peek inside the life of the “old ways”, which ha…

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Article - Six Regen Documentaries Soil Lovers Globally Should See by Regen 'Ray' Milidoni

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Article - Six Regen Documentaries Soil Lovers Globally Should See by Regen 'Ray' Milidoni

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Farming Secret's very own Regen Ray has put together a list of 6 regenerative documentaries curated with love for soil lovers and soil people worldwide, who enjoy learning about the natural world that is beyond our feet.

Kiss The Ground

In Kiss the Ground, there is a story waiting just under our feet. This film shows that our soils may be almost completely depleted of microbes as a result of chemical conventional agriculture, but with BIO SEQUESTRATION, which is the process of bringing CO2 down into a living plant and back into the soil and where it is needed, then global warming can be reversed.

The Biggest Little Farm

The Biggest Little Farm is about a couple named John and Molly Chester who made a promise to build a life in perfect harmony with nature. Their vision of a farm with different plants, wildlife and livestock all working together is something they knew is possible - they wanted to believe that everything has a purpose.

A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement, David Attenborough

In this film, David shares how he lived a most fantastic life, with a vision for the future - and that even when man has made the greatest mistake in human history, we as humans can still undo the damage and do something about it.

To Which We Belong

To Which We Belong depicts how climate change has been aggravated by modern agriculture. Our ability to make the most of life below the surface is now obvious. The condition of the earth's surface is worse than it has ever been.

Fantastic Fungi

The mission is to unearth the language of nature. Most of the organism is made up of mycelium, which is a lengthy thread of tissue that grows underground.

When we approach life from a holistic perspective, we begin to see that mushrooms- through their vital connection to soils and the natural world - have an impact on larger communities of organisms.

2040: Join the Regeneration

What this story illustrates is the depth and breadth of our powerful human capacity as creators. In each person. There is an innate awareness that we have a role to play in making something great for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.

Check out Ray's full take on each film here!

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Six Regen Documentaries Soil Lovers Globally Should See | Regen Farming News

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Farming Secret's very own Regen Ray has put together a list of 6 regenerative documentaries curated with love for soil lovers and soil people worldwide, who enjoy learning about the natural world that is beyond our feet. Kiss The Ground In Kiss the Ground, there is a story waiting just under our feet.

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Article - The Fertile Future of Organizational Development by Michelle Holliday

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Article - The Fertile Future of Organizational Development by Michelle Holliday

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If we're honest - if we really take in what science is telling us - the situation humanity faces is so dire that we need every industry, every sector to lay down their tools, turn to the world and say: these are our skills and resources; how can we help?

This was my appeal in a recent article written for the tourism sector.

Last week's OD for Life Inquiry Circle was a search for answers to that question for the field of Organizational Development. How can we help?

It was clear that we wouldn't be able to come up with a complete and final answer for the entire field during our two-hour Zoom call. But our insights would feed into an in-person gathering to craft a manifesto next month, and to continuing conversations beyond. And as it turned out, we generated quite a powerful vision of the future in our short time together.

WHAT WAS YOUR ORIGINAL CALLING TO THIS WORK?

Our starting point was to reconnect with what had first drawn each of us to this field. What was the original spark of love and urge to serve? The original hope to make a change in the world? We wanted to see if our profession's highest calling is already baked into our own calling to the work.

And indeed, the answers inspired. We were drawn to help "individuals, organizations and cultures thrive" and to "unlock the potential between humans to connect in how they see the world" so that they can "have life and love at their core." We recognized that "knowledge is relational, active and alive" and that "institutional knowledge needs to be storied [and] shared so it is alive and can be embodied." We wanted to "support leaders to be authentic - heart and soul and all there is." We noted that this language of love, aliveness and authenticity wasn't available to most of us in our early days in the profession. But there has been an important shift in recent years, and there is a helpful new sense of urgency with it.

A woman named Ramona Fricke shared a particularly striking description of her own calling. In her work, she is guided by the metaphor of a lush, green forest in the moments after a strong rain shower, when all the dust has been wiped off of the leaves. The smell of rich, fertile soil fills the air, and the forest can breathe. Everything comes to life, refreshed and renewed. Now, everything can grow and thrive and reach for the sun. Now, the potential that is there can be unleashed. This is the effect she strives to have in her work.

We might not need much more of a manifesto than that!

WHERE IS ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT NOW?

From there, we looked at the current state of the field and observed that much of the work is still held within the mechanistic, reductionist paradigm that shapes so much of our world. But there are also signs of movement and progress.

Din shared two recent frameworks that point the way forward. Each shows a progression from transactional, individualistic approaches to the more systemic, transformational and life-aligned.

In the first (to the right), Otto Scharmer calls for a deepening and broadening of the work, moving away from the conventional approach that positions us as a simple, neutral instrument of technical change. Instead, he points to the potential of learning and change as a process of co-creation, seeking to serve the health of all levels of the ecosystem.

The second model (to the left) seems to depict the same progression in a different way. It presents a spectrum of principles on one axis and of purpose on the other. In the upper righthand corner, the ideal is what the authors call "positive-impact value," what I would call "thrivability" and many call regeneration. It is to be guided by principles of caring, wholeness and connection in pursuit of the purpose of flourishing. The challenge, the authors point out, is that there is a "Big Divide" that must be crossed if we are to progress from our near-exclusive focus on efficiency, effectiveness and profit maximization. On the call, I shared my view that this Big Divide is the outer limits of the mechanistic, reductionist worldview, which tells us that those further points on the spectrum don't exist, that they're not feasible or reasonable.

Din also pointed to the latest issue of Organization Development Review, with a collection of scholarly articles about the more life-aligned, "net positive" future of the field. We are clearly not alone in sensing that something more is needed - and possible.

WHAT IS THE CALLING WE ARE SENSING WITHIN THE FIELD OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT?

To offer an example of sensing emergent calling, I described my work with regional and national tourism organizations, who are coming to see their work less as "managing the tourist destination" and more as "cultivating the hosting community." Communities will continue to welcome visitors, but that activity will fall within a larger intention of healing people and place, in what is coming to be called "regenerative tourism." That shift in intention is likely to have profound effect, transforming roles, relationships, skills, activities and outcomes.

Carrying that example forward, we playfully imagined the front-page headlines we'd love to see in the future that would let us know the field of OD had heeded its own call.

Of course, there were new tools, methods and activities in our imagined future scenarios.

But we were also clear: "it's not about the tools." Most of all, it's about a shift in mindset, which might look something like this:

The majority of CEOs are "driven to regenerate for the future," and to care for the "health and energy" of people within the organization.

The work of Organizational Development is to "speak the voice of the possible." It is to cultivate meaning - "the meaning of life," even.

The "fundamental relationships organizations rely on" have been reconceived - "from customers to members," for example, or even "co-healers."

Our organizations - even our factories - are "breathing life into communities."

Nature is our explicit guide. We work "in nature, as nature."

Play is recognized as "the highest form of work," as the most powerful "evolutionary process." Awash with "creative and participatory" methods, businesses are seen as "playgrounds" for purpose-driven work, as "practice grounds for a more thrivable world." Here's how one headline put it:

Purposeful Businesses: The Playgrounds of the World. How Mission-Driven Businesses Are Catalysing Cultural Change for Life

The result we foresaw was significant, sweeping changes in the world. Yet at the same time, there was such a shift towards practice, learning and emergence - a shift from doing to being, as some said - that our imagined future headlines were less focused on concrete outcomes and more focused on process, progress and flow, in an unfolding celebration.

In all, we imagined that our profession would be characterized by "a feeling of alignment, of being on the path." Of the murmuration of starlings, dancing joyfully across the sky.

At the end, though, we felt a craving for action. Shared separately as report-backs from breakout groups and snippets in the chat box, these snapshots of the future felt humble. "Is that really all we have to do?" asked one person. "Is there something more?"

But gathered together here in one image, the contrast with current reality becomes clear and stark. This is revolution we're talking about, in a bold charge across the Big Divide that Din had pointed to. All of this - embracing regeneration as primary purpose, giving voice to what is truly meaningful, reconceiving fundamental relationships, breathing life into community, surrendering to play and process - all of it will require trust in life. In self-organization. In ourselves and each other. And that will require methods to support us all in learning and moving into that trust. It may be that this is at the heart of what our field is called to do.

If this future calls to you, too, please consider joining us May 5 & 6 in the Netherlands, where we will assemble the insights we've been discovering in this series of conversations, along with the collective wisdom that emerges from the experiences and intuitions of those who have gathered with us. Together, we will sketch out a bridge across that Big Divide.

Previous posts:
OD for Life: Early Observations of a Movement Glimpse of the Future #1: Principles are more powerful than policies and practices Glimpse of the Future #2: Relationships are the soil from which everything good grows Aligning with Life in our OD Practice

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The Fertile Future of Organizational Development

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If we're honest - if we really take in what science is telling us - the situation humanity faces is so dire that we need every industry, every sector to lay down their tools, turn to the world and say: these are our skills and resources; how can we help?