What is regeneration, and what can we learn from nature to build culture? (Part 2)
If you’re just joining us, you can read part 1 here.
Regenerative Collaboration
Regenerative principles are inherent to everything we call ‘nature’. The world incessantly creates, re-creates, dies and is reborn. Everything is part of an ecosystem, is fundamentally linked, and every ecosystem is fundamentally linked to every other. Species collaborate, problem solve, are symbiotic and healthily competitive. The reality is not a survival of the fittest but an intricate web of co-creation which is in constant process and flux.
Most of us know the difference in feeling when we begin to collaborate and work together with others towards a shared mission or vision, even if it’s something small. Having company on the way, working with others and sharing values is empowering and energising. We become more resilient in small groups, especially when we have varied skills and abilities and experience. When these small groups begin to work with other small groups, or people, spaces, methods, we begin to build an ecosystem.
‘…Interdependency replaces dependency, symbiosis and healthy competition replace survival of the fittest.’
Healthy ecosystems require a diversity of elements with different skills, resources and functions. It involves everything and anything which is willing to participate in it, as long as it supports at least one other element of the system - interdependency replaces dependency, symbiosis and healthy competition replace survival of the fittest. We humans, after all, are just another species within the global ecosystem - we have the opportunity to intentionally create and re-create our culture to meet the needs of the ecosystem.
What if…?
What if we manage ourselves, our land and shared resources, our economy (literally meaning the careful management of available resources, or household management) in a way which reflects ecological principles gleaned from nature? What if we realise that we are inextricably linked with the land, our species and other species, through our culture (literally cult - terra, growing and cultivation of the land)? How does this begin to inform our culture?
What happens when we make the shift to realising that we are nature, and are inextricable from our ecosystems - where we live, where our food comes from, our environments, the air we breathe and the things we create?
‘What if we manage ourselves, our land and shared resources, our economy…in a way which reflects ecological principles gleaned from nature?…How does this begin to inform our culture?’
Problems begin to become solutions - regenerative culture turns disused high street space into community kitchens, celebrates shared growing spaces, builds upwards when it can’t build sideways - we come together, share and collaborate to get diverse needs met. As leaves transform sunlight, we transform our emotions - anger, fear, resentment - into creative energy and fire; compassion becomes support and care, frustration an agent for change making - and all on a level beyond the individual.
At Together Culture we want to explore what it means to do culture together. We want to explore ways of being and connecting beyond ourselves as individuals, to build something that is regenerative - an ecosystem which harnesses the energy of the wonderful individuals within it in their diversity and brilliance to meet the needs of many, something that not only self-sustains but thrives. We are a Community Interest Company dedicated to building a truly regenerative model, not only sustaining the organisation and the community initiatives, but also a regenerative - creative, adaptable, resilient, mutually supportive - local economy.
Over the summer, we’re building the beginnings of our community ecosystem in Cambridge. To do so, we’ll need 500 members to join and make it financially possible. Pay it forward contributions will make sure Together Culture is accessible to people who can’t pay for membership.
If you’re curious - learn more and join us here.
