Yesterday Willow and I had a beautiful session together, putting our Mangrove Ventures hats back on, to run Regen Places Network through our regenerative business incubator frameworks again
Willow is looking at writing the network’s manifesto, and I actually started by saying “I don’t think RPN is a true reflection of your essence, so let’s just start with why you created it in the first place, and we’ll track the story through time and project into the future”… I couldn’t have been more wrong
Before working on discovering the true spirit of who RPN’s is, we started on Willow’s own just to get into the flow of things and then lost 2 hours of our lives in an incredible and inspiring discovery/design session
I love the discovery of who a person is, it's actually always where I start with everyone I meet, so if you haven’t met me already, don’t be surprised being asked 101 questions that gradually get deeper and deeper as they go… I’m looking for deeper ways to love you
As we rarely do the same thing twice in regen, I’m always looking for new ways to discover the beauty and genius of a person, and this time, I stumbled on a little gem of fun that allowed us to separate the nature from the nurture, who Willow is underneath all the layers she became through experience in life
Through our lineage of regenerative development, we start with the premise that life is a process, and every process has a purpose, and every purpose has a value, and this essence has a higher order of unique contribution that it is here to contribute to the world… You are here to grow and unfold and bloom like a flower yourself and contribute to the beauty of this world, and we are all at a loss if we don’t collectively create a safe and nourishing environment for you to do so
Because life is hard and none of us get out of it alive, we naturally grow layers and layers of patterns and behaviours to shield us from the onslaught of the elements. So to cut through them to understand the true spirit of a person, I like to play a little game of imagination, and yesterday, we nailed it
“Ok, instead of the universe materialising into ‘The Willow’ as a human, imagine the universal energy materialised into a fairy in an enchanted grotto in the woods. This fairy is full of magic from the universal energy that she materialised from. What is that fairy's magic power? When she waves her magic wand, what does she produce or create? How does she interact with the other fairies in the magic grotto?” -Michael the Genius
This may sound silly to you, and now typing it may be a little to me as well, though the proof is always in the pudding and Willow was able to see her own unique beauty and essence in a separate entity to herself without any bias. We were then able to run simulations of her spirit in action through scenarios, which was not only fun but endearing for me to experience her experiencing herself with new eyes and imagination
Turns out…. RPN is so close a manifestation of Willow’s own essential nature that after we ran through an Essence Triad, which helps you understand the true character of a living Being (person, community, place, bioregion, watershed), we went through a Regenerative Tetrad which helps you relate that living being into a process of doing in the world, and the only difference in the end between her own essence and RPN’s was at the instrument point, which is basically like what tools or considerations you need to hold to walk the path that emerges
Mangrove Ventures, as a regen business nursery, materialized itself out of us designing the Bioregional Institute and mapping all our partners into the ecosystem we have created to evolve the potential of the human species. While we were trying to find ourselves, it found us, and came alive in its own way to walk with us on this journey
With Willow’s extensive skills and experience as a design director, Tyler’s experience in the startup world across regen, tech, education, and complex system innovation, and mine in business, finance, and the built environment, we have a solid core team that is able to help any team grow themselves and their business into the unique contribution they are here to serve through
Mangrove website, case studies, and business services coming soon as one of the many contributions Regen Places Network is supporting communities and businesses with across the network
Congrats on 400! Here is to the next 400 and more!