Respect the wisdom of the Earth
Life pushes back against a story that excludes it.
~ Margaret Wheatley
Life pushes back against a story that excludes it.
~ Margaret Wheatley
We live in a culture where loneliness and scarcity is an epidemic. From this lack of connection and trust, and not knowing our deep belonging to each other, this Earth, and this life, we end up extracting and consuming from the Earth. These principles, when practiced by a community in place over time, guide us back to a relationship to the Earth and to a place of remembering our interconnectedness with all life.
Loneliness and Scarcity
When we do not care for ourselves, the trust we have in ourselves dissipates, as does an authentic relationship with who we authentically are. This lack of connection ripples out into our relationships with others, and with the Earth. We end up living in a culture where commitment is a rarity, as is the discipline and sacrifice required to cultivate intimate relationships in the first place.
The ability for many of us in Western culture to consume what we want when we want has led to a throw away culture. In this culture, we seek to meet unmet needs in ways that will never be satiated by over-consumption. When a collective commits (unconsciously and consciously) to this path, we create a consumer culture where the distraction of novelty reigns, creativity and resiliency dwindles, and depth and intimacy becomes very difficult with so many possibilities and quick fixes available at every turn. This lack of connection, starting with ourselves, leads to a collective forgetting that we belong to each other and the Earth, an epidemic of loneliness, and a cultural behavior of extracting and consuming.
Extraction and Consumption
When all of these elements and practices are fostered, we live in disconnection and fear. When the ego is strengthened by seeking security externally; when a shared story of separation is fostered by an individualistic narrative; and when there is a lack of connection, the ethos will be extracting and consuming. We see this in the unsustainable and destructive systems of our dominant culture, that function independent of, or dominate over, the Earth. As human beings we cope with this reality by using unsustainable strategies that are transactional, extractive, and not generative or reciprocal.
When humans learn to nourish themselves and live in a healthy community, we slowly remember the wisdom that the Earth so generously provides. Our cultural ways and systems become more regenerative and interdependent; the human-Earth relationship becomes reciprocal; and the structures of our human culture are in alignment with the living systems we are embedded within.
Commitment in Place Over Time
To change direction culturally, commitment to place and people is needed. One day at a time, we create something life giving together. Without commitment to people and place over time, this is not possible.
Culture is what happens when the seed of vitality-centered development supported by vitality-centered educational design, grows beyond the community itself. When a community commits in place over time, and develops practices to build beloved community, vitality grows. Committing in place over time strengthens a community enough to grow and create culture beyond its own parameters. Strong, open and connected networks are essential to support the outflow of this vitality.
When a community commits in place over time to fostering vitality, not only does the vitality spill out beyond the community, whether we know it or not, we have tilled the ground in ways that allow us to remember the wisdom of the Earth. It is in this remembering that we reclaim a deep sense of belonging to our home on Earth and also to all of life itself. When we commit to ourselves, to each other, and to our place, we come to know this wisdom deeply and know that we are a part of this Earth and this Life. When we know deeply that we belong to this Earth and this Life, we begin to open ourselves to the further mysteries and complexities of life that the Earth can teach us.
The Earth’s Wisdom
Albert Einstein wrote, “Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.” In this design, we turn to wisdom that is billions of years old. We turn to the wisdom of the Earth to inform the design work for how humans live and learn together. There is a lot out there about applying living systems principles to human design particularly in agriculture (permaculture), organizational development, and architecture. The research is scant (and practice even more so) in educational and cultural design.
When we cultivate personhood in ways that support the vitality-centered development of a person; build beloved community starting with a shared generative purpose; and commit to doing these things in place over time, we begin to remember the wisdom of the Earth. Human community merges with the other-than-human community and we remember that we belong to the Earth and to Life itself.
Remembering is not a process to be forced. It is what happens when we have taken care of the life force within and around us, together, over time. When we do this, we realize that this care has been happening all the while in our greatest, oldest teacher: the Earth. We also may painfully remember that because we have collectively forgotten this belonging, there are dire implications for us and for the Earth and its creatures.
When we remember our connection to life itself and to the Earth, there are endless teachings that the Earth offers. These teachings create and sustain life-giving human designs rooted in wholeness and respectful of the uniqueness of the aspects of the whole. Those teachings include:
Martin Luther King Jr. called this deep connection to life, agape love, which means a recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated. A deep sense of belonging, justice, and knowing comes from the understanding that all human life and that of the Earth and beyond, is interconnected and interrelated.
Interdependence.
Every system is a complete whole in its own right, as well as being a nested part of many surrounding larger systems. For example, Springhouse is made up of people who are whole in their own right, nested within the context of the greater Floyd community, which is in turn nested within the regional ecosystem of rural Appalachia. Each system carries all of its concurrent histories, complexities, and conflicting forces into the web of context. Celebrating the interdependence of this diversity and multiplicity is what weaves strength, resiliency, and sustainability into any community. Interdependence is experienced when the individual is strengthened along with the collective it is a part of. Springhouse fosters this interdependence and this contextual understanding, and experiences the deep sense of belonging that arises from it. We have found committing in place over time to a shared generative purpose is leading to the experience of interdependence within our community and beyond.
Sustainability
Living Systems are open systems (they interact with their environment) that maintain an ever-changing equilibrium through their ability to self-regulate and self-create. Springhouse seeks opportunities to strengthen its own identity while also strengthening our connection to the community we are in reciprocal relationship with. In 2018 we walked 48 miles from Floyd to Roanoke, and interacted with the landscape on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We stayed on people's farms, in daycare centers, and on a high school soccer field. We were fed by neighbors, and visited artists, rangers, and others along the way. We ended the walk stronger and more resilient because of our interactions with each other and our place. On this trip, and in daily life, this learning community attracts what it needs to sustain itself and thrive, in ways that we often find miraculous. Springhouse continues to thrive at every level including financial through a generative economic model that does not situate education as a commodity, therefore does not use a tuition-based model.
Every system, from molecule to ecosystem, is an irreducible whole. We recognize differences and diversity as the components of our wholeness, and we honor diversity rather than assimilation. We do this by honoring all voices in our community, especially those not listened to historically. In 2018, Springhouse was awarded a grant from Learning for Justice to explore racism and privilege in the rural south. The impetus behind this project was the understanding that a community cannot be healthy and whole if it is leaving out some of the people in it. This project supported a project where the Springhouse community partnered with a local Black church to have conversations about racism and privilege and at the end of the project, we all co-created a community event that involved music, dialogue, and food. Another way that Springhouse engages this principle is by creating networks that allow for the various components of the whole to be autonomous, yet connected and responsive to a common purpose. Leadership is shared and networks strengthen the ways in which we serve the Springhouse mission. All voices are valued and invited forth in decision making processes. Wholeness is a deepening and growing web of relationships and it is these relationships that sustain Springhouse allowing it to thrive.
Emergence
Living systems evolve in complexity by responding to feedback. Emergence is one of the hallmarks of life. It has been recognized as the dynamic origin of development, learning, and evolution. Springhouse experiences emergence in learning, community development, and as an essential vehicle for change-making in the world. To this end we value challenges and instabilities within and between individuals and the Springhouse community as opportunities for emergence, and strive to create the fertile conditions and resiliency that invite these forms of generative problem solving. This can be exciting and also challenging. An example of this is a young adult program that emerged at Springhouse called The Well. Within a year of starting the school, young people in their 20s and 30s started coming to the school to learn and be of service. The Well emerged to provide these young adults with a structure to learn more about themselves within a community and also have a clear pathway to be of service to teens. We did not start out with the idea to have an intergenerational learning community but that is what has emerged. We now offer programming for teens and adults.
Creativity is the heart of all that we do. Creativity is vitality. It is how we know it. Everyone is a creator. We are creation. Everyone is an artist. We are born to create as we are created. Tapping into this deep knowing and courageously engaging it is to live a vital life–whether that is a person or a collective. Singing, dancing, writing, acting, building, all of the ways we express ourselves can be a creation from the center of ourselves as people and communities. Magic and spontaneity occur when we align with this and our imaginations strengthen and become an avenue for creating the kind of cultures we want to live in.
Cycles. Experience begins with the body, but without the acknowledgement that our bodies rise and fall back to the Earth, we truly are homeless. With the distractions and comforts of today, it is easy to forget that this planet is our lifeline; we belong to it. John O’Donohue, the late Irish philosopher writes, “The urbanization of modern life has succeeded in exiling us from this fecund kinship with mother Earth. Fashioned from the Earth, we are souls in clay form”. Though human beings might fear its wildness, and might not understand its ways, we are intimately connected with the land. Fostering connection to the Earth reminds us of the wholeness present within its natural cycles. Denying the natural cycles of life cause us to live in an illusion. For example, somehow in Western cultures of limitless growth, we have managed to collectively avoid the reality of dying. When we avoid death, we simply do not live as fully as we can. In a vitality-centered design, all seasons of life are welcomed and explored, including death.
Regenerative culture is a culture that maintains vitality not only in humans, but in the relationship between human beings and the other-than-human world. Human-nature reciprocity is at the heart of a thriving culture. This model appreciates that the Earth offers much when it comes to creating life-giving human designs. At Springhouse, we have learned about interdependence or knowing the integrity of a community by courageously fostering the unique individual development of all members; how a vital system attracts what it needs and lets go of what it does not need to thrive; the power of emergence and possibilities that arise beyond the parts of the whole; and how accepting change leads to a healthy respect of limits and sustainable growth in all systems, including economic.
Foundational Resources
Further Resources
Living Systems Principles Explored
Living Systems Applied
Springhouse examples
Reflection questions
Loneliness and Scarcity
When we do not care for ourselves, the trust we have in ourselves dissipates, as does an authentic relationship with who we authentically are. This lack of connection ripples out into our relationships with others, and with the Earth. We end up living in a culture where commitment is a rarity, as is the discipline and sacrifice required to cultivate intimate relationships in the first place.
The ability for many of us in Western culture to consume what we want when we want has led to a throw away culture. In this culture, we seek to meet unmet needs in ways that will never be satiated by over-consumption. When a collective commits (unconsciously and consciously) to this path, we create a consumer culture where the distraction of novelty reigns, creativity and resiliency dwindles, and depth and intimacy becomes very difficult with so many possibilities and quick fixes available at every turn. This lack of connection, starting with ourselves, leads to a collective forgetting that we belong to each other and the Earth, an epidemic of loneliness, and a cultural behavior of extracting and consuming.
Extraction and Consumption
When all of these elements and practices are fostered, we live in disconnection and fear. When the ego is strengthened by seeking security externally; when a shared story of separation is fostered by an individualistic narrative; and when there is a lack of connection, the ethos will be extracting and consuming. We see this in the unsustainable and destructive systems of our dominant culture, that function independent of, or dominate over, the Earth. As human beings we cope with this reality by using unsustainable strategies that are transactional, extractive, and not generative or reciprocal.
When humans learn to nourish themselves and live in a healthy community, we slowly remember the wisdom that the Earth so generously provides. Our cultural ways and systems become more regenerative and interdependent; the human-Earth relationship becomes reciprocal; and the structures of our human culture are in alignment with the living systems we are embedded within.
Commitment in Place Over Time
To change direction culturally, commitment to place and people is needed. One day at a time, we create something life giving together. Without commitment to people and place over time, this is not possible.
Culture is what happens when the seed of vitality-centered development supported by vitality-centered educational design, grows beyond the community itself. When a community commits in place over time, and develops practices to build beloved community, vitality grows. Committing in place over time strengthens a community enough to grow and create culture beyond its own parameters. Strong, open and connected networks are essential to support the outflow of this vitality.
When a community commits in place over time to fostering vitality, not only does the vitality spill out beyond the community, whether we know it or not, we have tilled the ground in ways that allow us to remember the wisdom of the Earth. It is in this remembering that we reclaim a deep sense of belonging to our home on Earth and also to all of life itself. When we commit to ourselves, to each other, and to our place, we come to know this wisdom deeply and know that we are a part of this Earth and this Life. When we know deeply that we belong to this Earth and this Life, we begin to open ourselves to the further mysteries and complexities of life that the Earth can teach us.
The Earth’s Wisdom
Albert Einstein wrote, “Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.” In this design, we turn to wisdom that is billions of years old. We turn to the wisdom of the Earth to inform the design work for how humans live and learn together. There is a lot out there about applying living systems principles to human design particularly in agriculture (permaculture), organizational development, and architecture. The research is scant (and practice even more so) in educational and cultural design.
When we cultivate personhood in ways that support the vitality-centered development of a person; build beloved community starting with a shared generative purpose; and commit to doing these things in place over time, we begin to remember the wisdom of the Earth. Human community merges with the other-than-human community and we remember that we belong to the Earth and to Life itself.
Remembering is not a process to be forced. It is what happens when we have taken care of the life force within and around us, together, over time. When we do this, we realize that this care has been happening all the while in our greatest, oldest teacher: the Earth. We also may painfully remember that because we have collectively forgotten this belonging, there are dire implications for us and for the Earth and its creatures.
When we remember our connection to life itself and to the Earth, there are endless teachings that the Earth offers. These teachings create and sustain life-giving human designs rooted in wholeness and respectful of the uniqueness of the aspects of the whole. Those teachings include:
- Interdependence: Knowing how the strength and integrity of a community and place comes from deeply honoring and fostering the individual development of all members;
- Sustainability: Life creates conditions for life. What is vital attracts what it needs and lets go of what it doesn’t need to thrive;
- Emergence: Recognizing that when life is at the center things, and commitment to place and vision is strong, creativity and possibilities emerge beyond the parts of the whole; and
- Cycles: Supporting development honors change as a constant and leads to a healthy respect of limits, sustainable growth, and regeneration.
Martin Luther King Jr. called this deep connection to life, agape love, which means a recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated. A deep sense of belonging, justice, and knowing comes from the understanding that all human life and that of the Earth and beyond, is interconnected and interrelated.
Interdependence.
Every system is a complete whole in its own right, as well as being a nested part of many surrounding larger systems. For example, Springhouse is made up of people who are whole in their own right, nested within the context of the greater Floyd community, which is in turn nested within the regional ecosystem of rural Appalachia. Each system carries all of its concurrent histories, complexities, and conflicting forces into the web of context. Celebrating the interdependence of this diversity and multiplicity is what weaves strength, resiliency, and sustainability into any community. Interdependence is experienced when the individual is strengthened along with the collective it is a part of. Springhouse fosters this interdependence and this contextual understanding, and experiences the deep sense of belonging that arises from it. We have found committing in place over time to a shared generative purpose is leading to the experience of interdependence within our community and beyond.
Sustainability
Living Systems are open systems (they interact with their environment) that maintain an ever-changing equilibrium through their ability to self-regulate and self-create. Springhouse seeks opportunities to strengthen its own identity while also strengthening our connection to the community we are in reciprocal relationship with. In 2018 we walked 48 miles from Floyd to Roanoke, and interacted with the landscape on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We stayed on people's farms, in daycare centers, and on a high school soccer field. We were fed by neighbors, and visited artists, rangers, and others along the way. We ended the walk stronger and more resilient because of our interactions with each other and our place. On this trip, and in daily life, this learning community attracts what it needs to sustain itself and thrive, in ways that we often find miraculous. Springhouse continues to thrive at every level including financial through a generative economic model that does not situate education as a commodity, therefore does not use a tuition-based model.
Every system, from molecule to ecosystem, is an irreducible whole. We recognize differences and diversity as the components of our wholeness, and we honor diversity rather than assimilation. We do this by honoring all voices in our community, especially those not listened to historically. In 2018, Springhouse was awarded a grant from Learning for Justice to explore racism and privilege in the rural south. The impetus behind this project was the understanding that a community cannot be healthy and whole if it is leaving out some of the people in it. This project supported a project where the Springhouse community partnered with a local Black church to have conversations about racism and privilege and at the end of the project, we all co-created a community event that involved music, dialogue, and food. Another way that Springhouse engages this principle is by creating networks that allow for the various components of the whole to be autonomous, yet connected and responsive to a common purpose. Leadership is shared and networks strengthen the ways in which we serve the Springhouse mission. All voices are valued and invited forth in decision making processes. Wholeness is a deepening and growing web of relationships and it is these relationships that sustain Springhouse allowing it to thrive.
Emergence
Living systems evolve in complexity by responding to feedback. Emergence is one of the hallmarks of life. It has been recognized as the dynamic origin of development, learning, and evolution. Springhouse experiences emergence in learning, community development, and as an essential vehicle for change-making in the world. To this end we value challenges and instabilities within and between individuals and the Springhouse community as opportunities for emergence, and strive to create the fertile conditions and resiliency that invite these forms of generative problem solving. This can be exciting and also challenging. An example of this is a young adult program that emerged at Springhouse called The Well. Within a year of starting the school, young people in their 20s and 30s started coming to the school to learn and be of service. The Well emerged to provide these young adults with a structure to learn more about themselves within a community and also have a clear pathway to be of service to teens. We did not start out with the idea to have an intergenerational learning community but that is what has emerged. We now offer programming for teens and adults.
Creativity is the heart of all that we do. Creativity is vitality. It is how we know it. Everyone is a creator. We are creation. Everyone is an artist. We are born to create as we are created. Tapping into this deep knowing and courageously engaging it is to live a vital life–whether that is a person or a collective. Singing, dancing, writing, acting, building, all of the ways we express ourselves can be a creation from the center of ourselves as people and communities. Magic and spontaneity occur when we align with this and our imaginations strengthen and become an avenue for creating the kind of cultures we want to live in.
Cycles. Experience begins with the body, but without the acknowledgement that our bodies rise and fall back to the Earth, we truly are homeless. With the distractions and comforts of today, it is easy to forget that this planet is our lifeline; we belong to it. John O’Donohue, the late Irish philosopher writes, “The urbanization of modern life has succeeded in exiling us from this fecund kinship with mother Earth. Fashioned from the Earth, we are souls in clay form”. Though human beings might fear its wildness, and might not understand its ways, we are intimately connected with the land. Fostering connection to the Earth reminds us of the wholeness present within its natural cycles. Denying the natural cycles of life cause us to live in an illusion. For example, somehow in Western cultures of limitless growth, we have managed to collectively avoid the reality of dying. When we avoid death, we simply do not live as fully as we can. In a vitality-centered design, all seasons of life are welcomed and explored, including death.
Regenerative culture is a culture that maintains vitality not only in humans, but in the relationship between human beings and the other-than-human world. Human-nature reciprocity is at the heart of a thriving culture. This model appreciates that the Earth offers much when it comes to creating life-giving human designs. At Springhouse, we have learned about interdependence or knowing the integrity of a community by courageously fostering the unique individual development of all members; how a vital system attracts what it needs and lets go of what it does not need to thrive; the power of emergence and possibilities that arise beyond the parts of the whole; and how accepting change leads to a healthy respect of limits and sustainable growth in all systems, including economic.
Foundational Resources
- Educators as Architects of Living Systems: Designing Vibrant Learning Experiences beyond Sustainability and Systems Thinking, Dr. Barbara Widhalm
- Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education, Dr. Greg Cajete
- Living Systems Principles and their Relevance to Design, Terry Irwin
Further Resources
Living Systems Principles Explored
- The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems, Fritjof Capra
- The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision, Fritjof Capra
- Origin of Humanness in the Biology of Love, Humberto Maturana andGerda Verden-Zoller, and Pille Bunnell
Living Systems Applied
- Nature's Design Principles, Sam Chaltain
- Education as a system or an organism?, Vivek Kumar
- Organizations as Living Systems, Manoj Puwar
- Living Systems and High School Dropout Rates
- Social justice leadership in living systems, Max Klau at TEDx
- Ecoliteracy: Learning from living systems, Daniel Christian Wahl
- From Tree to Shining Tree | Radiolab
- GaiaEducation.org – Design for Sustainability
- Next Level Transformation: Inventing Community-Based, Learner-Centered Ecosystems - Education Reimagined
- Seed and Spark, Sam Chaltain
- Flow The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- Leading living systems, Kathleen E. Allen | TEDxEdina
- The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Peter Senge
- Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, Meg Wheatley
Springhouse examples
- Roanoke Times: Project Based Learning and Building a Banjo
- Springhouse Community Gathers to Bless New Space
- Teen Perspective on Climate Change
- Beth Macy leads community dialogue on opioid epidemic with Springhouse learners
- Springhouse Gets Stronger
- Floyd Virginia Publication: Springhouse Community School Has Moved to a New Building
- 'Who Are the Local People?' Native Leaders Want Ancestral Ownership Acknowledged
Reflection questions
- What would a curricular or pedagogical structure that protects and cultivates curiosity, creativity, and emergence look like?
- What are living systems principles and how do they show up in an educational or cultural or community design?
- How does your current personal and community design honor and foster wholeness? Self regulation or self-creation?
- Where do you see evidence of emergence in your life and community?
- How are you in interdependent relationship with the community you are a part of?
- What is your personal connection to the Earth? Do you have practices that connect you to your place? Does your community?
- What are you learning from the way the Earth works?
- What does this quote mean to you from Margaret Wheatley: "Life pushes back against a story that excludes it"? Have you experienced this?
- What is your relationship with death? Is it important to address in an educational or community design? If so why or why not?
- Which resources on the resource list did you study? Do you have questions?
- What questions do you have about how Springhouse experience living systems principles in its vitality-centered educational and community design?
Quick Links
Regenerative Culture
Vitality-Centered Education
Take care of vulnerability
Cultivate personhood
Build beloved community
Love and serve others
Regenerative Culture
Vitality-Centered Education
Take care of vulnerability
Cultivate personhood
Build beloved community
Love and serve others