Respect the wisdom of the Earth

Life pushes back against a story that excludes it.
~ Margaret Wheatley
​

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. 

This design focuses are four main living systems principles and the practice of Earth connection. We do not apply these living systems principles to a context, as much as watch them emerge when we put vitality at the center of design.

Those principles include:
  • wholeness,
  • self regulation,
  • emergence and creativity,
  • and context.

We also foster connection to the Earth in vitality-centered design and deeply respect its wisdom. 

Wholeness. 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. Springhouse teen learners are represented at every level of leadership and all voices are valued and invited forth in decision making processes. Wholeness is a deepening and growing web of relationships. 

Self-Regulation. 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. This past spring 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. 


Emergence and creativity. 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. 

Context. Every system is a complete whole in its own right, as well as being a nested part of many surrounding larger systems. This complex network of connection and interdependence is the web of context. Thus Springhouse is 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. It is strengthened both individually and also by the collective. Springhouse fosters this interdependence and this contextual understanding, and experiences the deep sense of belonging that arises from it. 

Earth Connection. 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. 


Foundational ResourcesEducators as Architects of Living Systems: Designing Vibrant Learning Experiences beyond Sustainability and Systems Thinking, Dr. Barbara Widhalm
Further Resources
Living Systems Principles Explored
Living Systems Applied ​
Springhouse examples
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