I am repeatedly asked about how I plan to scale my regeneration work and told how important it is to do so. The combination of this question and comment demonstrates how far off-course people have become with the popularization of Regeneration. The intention is good, but the paradigm is wrong leading to more degeneration. Regeneration does not spread or become internalized well when conceived of from an expansion growth mindset as has been proven by the scaling of commercial farming, mandated public education or ideation of best practices. Scaling is based on a degenerative paradigm and lead to the mess that we are in. And as Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
Regeneration can only be understood, at the level we need to understand, through an oral, developmental, tradition or otherwise it becomes demeaned and banalized, losing the force we hoped for. It is transferred shallowly and frozen through a non-regenerative epistemology, a mechanical authoritative-other sourced knowledge. We give predigested soundbites, thinking it is important to spread to everyone as fast as possible. It is not engaged from the essence of the philosophy and cannot be internalized and regenerated for each place and time. Further, we do so with the assumption that there is a list of practices that are somehow known among some set of experts. Experts, who are mostly self-proclaimed and never experienced the process in their own upbringing. Mostly from the same paradigm that got us into the current mess as Einstein named it. That paradigm is sourced as a Do-Good Humanist or environmental path. Not a Living Systems paradigm. The popularized models are organized around a Western Caucasian worldview. The tendency is to pick up ideas without discernment and amalgamate them into models. A mix and match approach. Then to distribute the models without testing with a cohesive set of principles that have been tested through time by cultures and teachers that have a Lived-Experience of regeneration. The knowledge used is borrowed from the humanist and environmentalist sources (human interpretation of nature’s needs) and not indigenous, wisdom, and quantum science and traditions.
Scaling is associated with the intention to grow the committed adherents whereby the returns, according to accrual accounting, are expected to expand, producing economies of scale for all including, in some cases, Earth. This rarely happens since the drive for expansion, i.e. scaling, undermines the social and physical ecosystem by known Laws of Degeneration that playout in the physical world, the social Institutions and the mentation of individuals and groups.
First, in pursuing growth results, scaling is degenerative because is produces monocultures by definition and necessity. It works from adopting averages as truth, routinized processes as practices, and initiatives that promote disunity of purpose without discernment by seeking to cover all fronts and be inclusive of sensitive parties we want to attract. The push for speed underlying scaling promotes generics from these rushed approaches, templates to replicate, and fragmentation of direction. All of which are the opposite of how regeneration and Living Systems work. Nodal[1], the antidote is regenerative because it requires rejected everything scaling is based in and ensures the Laws of Degeneration are not introduced. The sixth Law of Degeneration is scaling.
7 Laws of Degeneration: We encounter these Laws because we are misinformed by those who have much to gain, fool ourselves with poor capability in reflecting on our lived experience and therefore have no conception of a better, much less ‘the best’, way to create that which is based on how living systems work.
1. Fragmentation by an artificial segmentation of Wholes- ‘Like’ with ‘Like’ (soil, rivers, mammals) is rampant for sorting, and rationalized as necessary for simplicity and decomplexifying, which we soon come to see as reality, not social constructs we unconsciously agreed to- i.e. dissecting, anatomizing, dichotomizing, breaking down into parts, analyzing—soil, flora and fauna—decontexted from their system, at work.
e.g. classrooms by age, subject, ranking; by crop, type of fertilizer.
2. Then we categorize the new formations because when we fragmented life, we are overloaded in our ability to create order; This leads to necessity for creating generic definitions for each category, which are accompanied by ideals from the dominating culture and projected onto members of the non-dominate culture.
e.g. Personality types, Watershed types, learning types, level of achievers, genders, races. And force everything to fit.
3. which leads to fixed ideas of entities by category and rated and ranked by the ideals they represent, e.g. they were born that way, always have been, always will be, unchanging.
e.g. put in special classes by testing, soil practices, IQ testing,
4. which evokes a problem-focus view based on forced generic categories into which everyone and everything much, but doesn’t, fit precisely and therefore seen as needing correction, modification, accommodations..
e.g. what falls short of meeting category standards like grades,
5. Flatland worldview: It we look at why we perpetrate these degenerative practices, we can see that we are ignorant of our nature as nested beings, and don’t experience living in multiple octaves or worlds with different natures of beings. Families are nested in communities, which are nested in ecosystems and then within Earth. We cannot see what is affecting us from the greater whole and we are subjugated to in a system; and what we affect and are the subjecting smaller wholes to unless we are a Jain in India or a farmer who is developed in the way.. The opposite is what is best for the whole as a system.
e.g. care only for what our senses pick up, not effects; prisons where punishment not reorientation or rehabilitation is biblically interpreted. Soil is a misleading name since it is treated in isolation. E.g. soil health. Habitat is more nested in meaning and evokes different images. And practices.
6. Scaling: It is always about expansion and seeking ‘more’ as the way of change: more money, assets, power, approval, respect, results, on a bigger platform, in greater arena, with more scope of impact. The opposite of scaling is “nodal” in philosophy and practice. It is based on what is needed for evolution for a system. with each entity being specific to a system and context of timing. e.g. “capitalism only works with a developmental culture,” is a nodal idea. “The IRS’s deep purpose is to ensure equity of income;” Scaling is assessed by accrual accounting” that measuring only compounding. It is the way of thinking that leads to ‘more is never enough.’ Plus is it a misunderstanding of how change happens. Nodal happens faster, deeper and more systemically because it is an acupuncture intervention in practice and philosophy rather than layering of more interventions with ideas made assessable but not internalizable. E.g. You can take a test on limited ideas, but not teach the class or evolve the course; it leads to more prescriptions to counter the side effects of previous other cures. It even treats regeneration as a thing that is the same everywhere and timing. It is like allopathic philosophy (same for all beings, in all situations) rather than naturopathic (specific to a system and matches the constitution of a being and reconciles a missing nature process (versus competing with it and most often adds substances no compatible with working of the system as a whole) Regeneration is best an developmental educational process, so a system discovers its own working and follows its own direction with a better understanding of the whole. Nodal is self-guided based on the working of the whole it is nested in.
7. Transactional: All scaling is a transactional effort by its nature. We have to sell the idea and get it adopted. And it is accepted or rejected based on internal considering. (how it affects me as the buyer; sometimes the seller also). Measurements and metrics are used as a way to calculate against a hoped for leveraged[2] outcomes. We seek to get more than we give or put into something; an ROI that demands net positive returns.
The opposite of transactional is generating conscious Energy Fields in which whole systems are affected, simultaneously. Newtonian mechanics invites us to see all engagements as trade-offs or zero-sum gain and dependent on external action to move anything. Convincing and influencing are transactional also.
Whereas Quantum sciences demonstrates a systemic reciprocity that produces more than is needed for the system from synergies of all doing their work for the benefit of the whole. Everything moves when one aspect is affected. Transactional is also an objectified view life. We see the world as things for use to affect or benefit from. E.g. nature and the Earth are both terms from an objectifying perspective because they are abstractions and the-other separated from a whole which, in reality, it is imbedded.[3] Regenerative is about Living Systems in which we are embedded (we are not the same as or a part of nature, a concept used to try to solve the problem. But it further fragments and makes an object of an idea, Nature, in order to do so). Earth is the name of an entity in Living Systems. We do not say ‘The Carol’ (Try it—substitute your spouse’s name,). We say their name, no ‘the’ added, unless we tend to objectify our spouse. Earth is embedded in Living Systems and Nature is a term best dropped from our vocabulary in favor of Living Systems which evokes a nested system at work.
What is the meaning of nodal? A strategic point for a targeted disruptive intervention (e.g.an acupuncture needle for pain or new idea about how something can work) for a system’s development that disrupts, propagates and radiates non-linearly in resetting the whole of the system, by producing an entangled effect toward an evolutionary change, vs. an expansion sequential form of growth. Ableness to target effectively is a result of understanding the working of a systems as a whole. E.g. in Acupuncture, meridians conduct energy across a system. It is not by growing the amount of a subject, by replicating form or method but rather by revealing essence arising distinctively in each specific place and time. This is the nature of growth called evolutionary growth that avoids social monoculture which is the death of any Living System.
Nodal thinking has a particular ableness that must be developed. It is something some professionals develop this ableness and some are called to do this nature of work. To be able to see the essence of a particular market, or buyer, or customer. It is the opposite of brainstorming and choosing something from the mix. It uses essence thinking. If we are used to thinking of the world in terms of things it is very different. It is imaging, not imagining or visioning, a system at work and what it is contribute of value to a dynamic and changing value-adding process. Understanding how it works is the purpose BEFORE we try to intervene. Then ask, what needs tending from a human to carry out its work effectively.
Side Effects of Monocultures and Scaling (of any subject or process):
1. Declining biodiversity in favor of generic standardized products and processes
which leads to…
2. Habitat degradation- (in living places and mentation laziness and automation) in favor of productivity and yield focus
which leads to..
3. Input (Water) demanding habitats-therefore the importation of hydrological manipulation; (External input from other sources and experts) in favor of ease of management.
which leads to…
4. Artificial feeding (of fertilizers and training) – proscribed by fragmentation sciences. The habitat is increasingly dependent because of fragmentation and system deterioration. ) in favor of ease of labor costs and inputs from above efforts.
Which leads to?
5. Lower yields because of less nutrient dense habitat and response to system loss
Which leads to
6. Danger for all life forms (e.g. bees and ultimately the food supply of all life forms) in favor of control of elements of farming being synchronized and standardized.
Which leads to…
7. Mechanical Management with physical and mental machines because of assumed categories in forms in favor of standardized knowledge transfer because we don’t see distinctiveness at work or people. Results are reduced creativity, less flexibility/resilience, less ableness to innovate because of a mechanically pattern following tendency to routinize, and if development a way of thinking and being is not the keystone driver. This degrades human capacity (and that of anything alive) to play its core role of consciousness. We cannot scale mentation ableness to be conscious and mechanical scaling is always unconscious. We tend to use knowledge-transfer of generic, standardized (e.g. monoculture) practices.
Which leads to
8. Externalized dependency (non-renewable Fossil fuels, robotic machines, Investments in Advance Agricultural Technology. Agriculture is a labor-intensive industry that can be increasingly strenuous on the human body. They look for shortcuts. When farmers plant their crops on a monoculture farm, they do so uniformly by planting and harvesting crops at the same distance between rows and plants across any given field so they can till to aerate and irrigate. The pesticides and fertilizers don't stay within legal and political boundaries designated on the ground by survey marks, survey monuments, or geodetic marks. Without development of a regenerative mind and the inner work needed to access it, humans need expert advice forever and never see how living systems work.
9. Harm to ecosystems- soil is habitat for half of world species1 which die from farming with monoculture practice of scaling. The same happens with standardizing of so-called Regenerative farming practices. All homogenizing is degenerative. Scaling for the sake of growth is particularly deadly.
One must have the understanding that growth is not just expanding to encompass more, but there is another form of growth; evolutionary growth that is specific to Place and supplants degenerative practices faster, more precisely, and produces systemically better outcomes and effects than expansion growth. Evolution growth is slow and steady and changes by critical mass[4] which is not amount of growth but what tips things as a system; the nodal acupuncture that moves everything at once when you understand the working of a Whole. All else is degeneration in regenerative “sheep’s clothing.”
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Shortfalls in Examining Reality
Many people drop out Nodal when they think of regenerative principles. Primarily because they don’t understand it, it is unfamiliar, they don't see it connection to the degenerative practice of scaling, and so they decide it is not important. They don’t put in the effort to learn to see the systems at work in life, working nodally in their process, and so they don’t put in the development effort to build the mind that can see it. So, they just drop it out of consideration, with some justification of “it is not needed.”
This mental laziness is among a couple of sources keeping us blind to the core working if degeneration. For example, why we don’t find a way out of degenerative climate approaches, economic inequity, and racial biases crises. The missions and movements designed to eradicate these are incomplete and based on false premise of how systems work and how change is leveraged. We tend to move the social constructs to fit our current world, (like our definition of regeneration and principles of Living Systems) What we come up is moved into, or toward what we can currently understand or grok, what our current capability can manage, rather than move ourselves and our discerning capacities toward a greater ableness to image the working of reality and life. Then nodal would become urgent. It is a loss to the person’s life who is dropping out the key principle; what is not understood, but also because they pass along the aborted version to others. And they most often switch epistemology in the process which requires nodal thinking of a resource and become an authority telling people what to believe and what to ignore based on their authority. And the potential for others to wake up is lost, often forever.
Another shortfall that captures our hearts and minds is the need to be included with particular group we belong to or want to be accepted but there is no discernment of what will really matters for planetary and social systems in which we are nested. We fall short of imaging living systems at work in favor of belonging and connected, the “so-called” sensitive energy mind. We default to a limiting mental model we hold of regeneration or living systems, which cries out to us to call on a framework and Self-observing of our mentation to be more whole and essence sourcing.
My rule of thumb when I come across an idea I don’t understand (if I can see that in myself), I go to a deeper source than myself. Like threads across indigenous communities, wisdom traditions that have been tested for millennia and ‘wake myself up’ and ‘do the work.’ It is part of what I call a ‘long-thought’ thinking process. Otherwise, I am always limited by my narrower understanding and ableness. Then, and only then, am I allowed to reframe or drop out something from ancient traditions. It rarely needs to be changed by my hubristic efforts.
Nodal at Works
Acupuncture is an example of a nodal process. [5] In western terms, it stimulates the central nervous system. This, in turn, releases chemicals into the muscles, spinal cord, and brain. These biochemical changes may stimulate the body's natural healing abilities and promote physical and of how the part of the body work. It is nodal at a physical level.
Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners believe the human body has acupuncture points connected by pathways or meridians. These pathways create an energy flow (Qi, pronounced "Chee") through the body that is responsible for overall health. Disruption of the energy flow can cause disease. And interventions by practitioners with knowledge of the meridian system can reset a system enabling healing by the entire whole with one or a few acupuncture points strategically placed.
Western medicine intervenes at the point of symptoms and can create more disruption by not understand the nodal points that stimulate self-directed healing of a whole. Instead, they get side effects that are not understood and continue to be treated in a fragmented way. Understanding the working of the whole of a system and system of system is the wisdom behind working nodally. It provided the sourcing of regeneration in living systems based on evolutionary (growth by shifting one point to change a whole system) and overcomes the degenerative practice of growth by scaling.
Nodal understanding is important to bringing change in social systems. One example I love is such an approach called Blue Zones Living. It engages a community is creating a healthy lifestyle, one Place at a time. The focus is on very few cities or small nations and educating them via a development process based on understanding of “who the longest lived and healthiest people are in the world,” by studying their lifestyle as a system of behavior in a small local place. Over 30 of such places are recognized at this point. They use the principles that these entire communities use which are offered to a whole new community (city council, health and education dept along with core group of citizens) who adopts and commits to all members understanding the working of the principles they will use. It is primarily an education and self-determining process as they live their lives (a value adding process of the system) not a program, nor an attempt to sell or scale. Working with the whole community toward being a Blue Zone Community- healthy city or nation. It is a multiple year process. The city/nation tells their stories to one another and those interested, since they see everyone as all in it together.
The stories spread to neighboring spatial communities and other ways into the world. The process is picking up steam but without the Laws of degeneration from scaling. No fragmentation of one family at a time, no categorizing and typing, no problem solving etc. They use principles more in tune with the 7 First Principles of Living Systems. Their success rate (tracked by health, education, wealth generating) is extraordinarily high since it is embedded in how they live, not one segment like farming, education or a subject like regeneration. It is for the creation a developmental, and developing, whole. The System of 7 First Principles of Living Systems are:
1. Work with Wholes, whole systems at work as a value adding process.
2. Work with Essence of each Place in its time that is never duplicated or from a list of unique attributes.
3. Work from the potential that arises from that Essence and enables innovation and creativity
4. Development people to understand the working of themselves and their community as a whole,
5. Experience themselves as nested in a system of systems
6. Learn to intervene nodally to foster a systemic reset for self-determining that prevents the side effects of the Laws of Degeneration most interventions create.
7. Generate Field of energy for conscious decision-making and discernment of actions and their results, outcomes and effects on the whole.
I leaned about regeneration and living systems-at-work, from my part Mohawk grandfather starting when I was six years old. So, 75 years of my 81 years have been thinking about this. And I learn more every year. I began applying the 7 First Principles in 1977 to business and communities; first, one’s of my own founding and then with those owned and guided by others.
As a global culture, we are at a danger point of losing the potential of a transformative worldview; where Regeneration, a powerful paradigm, has hit the mainstream. Many entrepreneurs are creating their own version and failing to heed Einstein’s caveat of avoiding using the old mind to create the next evolution. They most often fail to even see what others have discovered in indigenous, wisdom, and quantum sciences and traditions. Scaling is one such borrowed idea from the last approaches that have us in a mess. But not the only one. Explore the other 6 Laws of Degeneration. And read the business and community case stories in my 7 books and multiple podcasts that illustrate working with the 7 first principles of Regeneration and Laws of Degeneration.
[1] Targeted precise intervention that produces a systemic beneficial effect for a whole system. Based on understanding the working of the School as a whole.
[2] Being strategic in best choices to count-weight the outcomes in favor of advantageous return. Targets precise intervention that produces a systemic effect for a whole system.
[3] Webster on Nature—the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations. This is what is evoked in imaging. It has no being or will of its own. Test it for yourself.
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critical mass: the size or number that something needs to reach before a particular change or development can happen.. Nodal further refines critical mass This enables deep and focused development of precision and accuracy of the base from which a comprehensive leap can happens, not fragmented or piece meal.
[5] Ibid.
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/892-soil-is-a-habitat
Ron and I thoroughly enjoyed this read. A good deepening as we plan an anti-pesticide campaign, the political system and the nodes, and the fallacy of 'scaling'. We have seen that people are ready for change, do not want toxic food and farming anymore. The system has to be enough numbers or voices telling the state agencies and lawmakers to change the rules and stop enabling the systemic conflicts of interest. We are finding a lot of people waiting for our leadership and we have to learn as we go, not wait for our evolution.
It’s been my experience in business that leaders want to ‘roll’ programs and processes out to achieve maximum economies of scale. One stop shopping, copy-pasting the same one-size-fits-all thing. Sure, I understand in global companies, they want one consistent technology platform for example, but we often neglect the distinct aspects of the different cultures, regions and people in that process. So everyone gets sheep-dipped in the same program regardless of their unique situation or state. I’ve been in organizations where every manager had to have Situational Leadership training. That was it. A fragmented, piecemeal approach at scale. ... So thanks so very much for explaining the pitfalls and a better way- a Development approach based on unique Living Systems !