Observing Nature's Patterns: Thoughts on Regenerative Design & Development

I've been brainstorming all week about how I wanted to write this particular blog. It would be easy to just write a day to day summary with a few reflections on my latest class, but I do not believe that would do this particular class justice.

When I told Dan, the Curriculum Director, a few weeks ago that I wanted to take Regenerative Design and Development, I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought it would be great to some kind of design course under my belt, and the word regenerative intrigued me. Since I have an interest in ecological restoration work, and regenerative is synonymous with restoration, I thought this course would greatly assist me in this manner. I was right. It did. But this course did so much more for me than show me the value in nature. It helped me see the value of myself in nature.

I know this all sounds ridiculous. I spent a week in a classroom and I come out talking like I have found the deepest meaning in life or something. But it is the nature of the course. I did not just learn about regenerative design, but I partook in the process of regenerative design and in turn something inside me was regenerated. Now this definitely sounds like a blog written by someone who has completely lost their mind. Fret not. I haven't completely lost mind. Yet.

To make this easier on everyone, I'll backtrack to just after dinner on Sunday night when the class met for the first time. Joel Glanzberg introduced himself to the class as the sole instructor and member of a desgin group called Regenesis (http://www.regenesisgroup.com/). Rather than have us go around the table and introduce ourselves like a class normally would, he first made us turn to the person next to us and talk about what really mattered to us. Wait, I was supposed to have a personal conversation with the stranger next to me and tell them what I valued most? Well, okay? I guess I can do that. Following that exercise, he than asked many questions of us and asked us to define, "regenerative," "design," and "development." I can honestly say that from the beginning I was feeling uneasy about what I had gotten myself into. Why was this guy asking questions of us rather than introducing us to some PowerPoint on regenerative design? I didn't understand. And I wouldn't understand until about three days later, but be patient, I'll get there.

We were to meet every morning at 7:30 AM for morning exercises. These exercises were a combination of yoga, tai-chi, and other meditation exercises. I had taken a class in tai-chi during the Fall semester, so I thought it wouldn't be much different. I was of course wrong. These exercises felt more like stretches than the tai-chi I was use to, and many of them involved movements I was unfamiliar with. Every morning I heard different parts of my body crack and creak as I stretched in ways that up until last week I did not think I was capable of. Yet is was strangely relaxing to me. Joel taught us all about proper breathing and movement, and after an hour of twisting, I found myself not needing my usual morning cup of coffee.

He began day two by discussing the five types of capital and the relationships among them. After this talk and the one the day before, I wasn't sure if we were ever going to get to discussing how to to incorporate regenerative design into our work. That was until he began talking of Wendell Berry's work "Solving for Pattern." This was more in line with what I had hoped to learn about in class. I wanted to understand natural systems thinking and how to design for such. That brief moment over Wendell Berry lasted for a split second when he then asked us to, "look for the difference that makes a difference," and that difference will solve all of our dilemmas. Okay. He lost me again. How am I supposed to be able to find "the difference that makes a difference" if I don't actually learn a single thing about regenerative design by the end of this class? I'm embarrassed by my impatience and ignorance now. This all seemed like "fluff" at the time, and all I wanted was meat. What was it that Joel was teaching me that I wasn't seeing? Why was he telling me all these tales of warriors and writers rather than telling me about how to regenerate systems?

That morning, Joel also introduced us to ecological succession. This was a concept I learned briefly about in Botany back in my Freshman year. But rather than giving us a textbook definition of such, he told us about its importance in an ecosystem. According to Joel, this system is successful because of disturbance. A disturbance breaks up the older trees so that new ones can come through. He then related that concept to us, saying that people need to be disturbed so that newness can come from it. Now, we live in a two force world. We have a force that drives us (an activating force) and a force that prevents us from achieving our goals in nearly ever case (a restraining force). These forces constantly push up against one another and are often result in a compromise where no one on either side is happy with the end results. We, as environmentalists, often witness compromises where no one is pleased with the final decision. At this point, we are used to forfeiting or agreeing to something we don't like in order for the outcome to be "less bad." Joel proceeded to introduce us to another type of force, a "reconciling force." In such, everyone would walk away pleased and a system would find its balance. But in order to find this force, we needed to fully understand what each side valued and work from there.

Finding the value of something that opposes you is just as hard as it sounds. We see something in opposition to us as a burden and often overlook its driving force. Why should I care what it values? It limits me! On the other hand, we also devalue our restraining forces. For instance, I could say the only thing coal companies value is financial capital and not look farther that. In this instance, we overlook the other kinds of capital this establishment might value like social, built, or maybe even ecological capital. Or maybe they only really do value money; I honestly don't know. But if you do not take the time to observe what a restraining force values, you will never move beyond compromise. I digress; I'll come back to this more later.

Before lunch on Monday, Joel introduced us to the concept of "a purpose statement." He wrote down  the following purpose statement for the class:

To develop a coherent way of seeing and working
in a way that enables evolving awareness and practice
so that we can be effective and useful in the world.

He then proceeded to say that we would achieve this task by the end of the week. Once again, I was quite confused as to where these words came from and how we were supposed to go about achieving this goal when I didn't even yet understand what regenerative design fully was. Immediately following this, Joel asked us to pick a task for ourselves and develop a personal statement from there. This would become our focus for the remainder of the week. So with a bit direction, he told us to split up into teams of two and discuss our tasks for the remainder of the afternoon. So for an hour or so, I sat down with Shawn, a student I took Constructed Wetlands with, and we discussed our tasks. Shawn and I both had big dreams of improving our respective regions. He wanted to improve the culture of his hometown, and I wanted to revive areas of Appalachia that were plundered by extraction processes. We talked for a long while about our interests, and jotted down a few words for what we believed would be our purpose statements. Easy enough, right? Well, when regrouped, Joel posed more questions for us and we found that our statements needed to be refined. They weren't really tasks, but long term goals and dreams. How hard was it really to write a purpose statement? And what was the significance of doing so?

The class spent a lot of time outdoors. We had many discussions inside the Yestermorrow treehouse.

Tuesday morning, following our morning exercises, Joel told us we were going to be doing a different kind of exercise. After opening up a discussion on how nature works in patterns, he brought us outside and told us we were going to learn a bit about tracking. I like to think of tracking as really immersing yourself in nature. It involves using each of your senses and slowly taking in your surroundings. It's a really neat, calming exercise. I found myself being less distracted and more on point with my thoughts immediately following. Which was ideal because Joel proceeded to question us and add more elements to our tasks at hand. In order to fully develop a statement of purpose, we were to break down our task a bit more to make it more approachable and more so achievable. It had to have a clear process as well  as products. Which forced Shawn and myself to sit down and really rethink our tasks. I brainstorming a few ideas of tasks I could do in Berea and then went through another round of discussing what I valued in each of them. At this point, I was beginning to feel a little unsure of myself and this class. I loved the nature exercises, but I could not see how they related nor could I see how developing a task cycle was useful. This felt like a "personal ecology" class where we had to sit down and analyze our values. I didn't understand why any of this was important until I went to town to get some groceries.

As I was opening the trunk of my car to set my groceries down, my eyes rolled across my GRE prep books. I groaned over their existence, and started to shut the trunk to my car when something Joel had said crossed my mind. Joel had introduced us to the idea of disturbances, which are things that often repel us or shake up our way of thinking. I reached back into my trunk and pulled out my books, and immediately began to ponder what was causing this disturbance inside me. Why did I detest studying for the GRE? Why did the sheer thought of it disgust me? So I sat there on the trunk of my car for a minute and began thinking about everything Joel had been talking about with us this past week, and that's when my eureka moment hit. Suddenly all his talk on disturbances, systems ecology, and tasks clicked. I proceeded to go to my notebook and began to write down a new task for myself.

The next morning, the class gathered to discuss regenerative design on a wider scale. In order to understand the importance of regenerative design and how to apply it, you have to understand how the system is working. Nature functions in a self-organizing, systematic way. In order to see how nature engages and exchanges information, you must be able to view its patterns. The whole of nature works in patterns of forces working off one another and growing together to form a successful living system. No one part of nature is in dominance, and all disturbances created by its functioning parts lead to the development of the system. There is value found in each part of system, and the other functioning parts recognize this, and develop accordingly. It's miraculous, really. The ecological system doesn't make compromises because its a system of reconciling forces, and it meets the needs of every organism living in it.

Here in lies the human problem. Our society has set itself apart from the natural world. Our system tries to exist outside the realm of nature, and this is where it often fails. Conventional design makes up most of the system, and it is just one step above the law from being uninhabitable. LEED, or green building, initially started off with a great mission, but has since become a standard that is "less bad" but still not great. And sustainability is just scratching the surface. We are not going to make this Earth habitable if we are all living sustainably. We will just slow down the our degradation. No; this is why we must aim for regenerative design, which calls for us to live as nature, and co-evolve with the rest of the ecological system. Mostly because our current system rots, and we cannot live in a system that has set a course for degradation. In terms of ecological succession, conventional infrastructure has climaxed. Since its initiation, it has slowly began to fall apart while natural systems continue to grow and thrive just as they always have. So after accepting these realizations, you might ask yourself, "how do I become a part of this natural system?"

We must "find the difference that makes the difference, and act." This requires us to create a task, find the forces that drive and restrain it, discover the values in those forces, and then come up with a reconciling force that makes a difference in that system. It turns out, all the exercises we were doing, were actually foundational to the process of regenerative design. We were learning about regenerative design all along, we just didn't understand all of its different processes and parts. I say "we" because all of us taking the course felt quite lost to begin with, but the more we began discovering the values of the tasks we assigned for ourselves, the more we began to see value in ourselves, in the course, and in its purpose statement

"To develop a coherent way of seeing and working
in a way that enables evolving awareness and practice
so that we can be effective and useful in the world."

The final day of the class, Joel had us present our task and own personal statement to the class. I stood up, and presented my own task:

To take the GRE
In a way that my anxiety does not hinder my perception of my capabilities
So that I can apply for graduate programs that will allow for a continued education in ecosystem development.

The other day when I pulled my textbooks out of my car, I realized the disturbance was mainly caused by my anxiety. I've found over the years that my anxiety issues are my greatest restraint. It has adverse effects on my test taking skills, social skills, and development skills. I find my anxiety attacks often leave me emotionally and physically drained to the point where I am left incapable of completing some of the simplest of tasks. And a full college load has not helped lower my load any. Thus, I began to not only analyze the value of the GRE, but the value of myself and the system I functioned in. My anxiety does limit me, but even it has its values, but if I cannot be a functioning member of the system I wish to be a member of than I am not performing my ecological niche. The system I chose to be a part of cannot reach its fullest potential without me. So I decided I needed to start somewhere. Choose a small task that was manageable and wouldn't overwhelm me to the point of me being ineffective. So I chose to sign up for and begin studying for the GRE. And in order to successfully to accomplish this task, I had to understand that my perceptions of this exam would overall affect how I would perform. I could study for hours on end, but if I didn't believe in the value of my studying and myself; I would not be serving myself to the best of my abilities. Being able to study for the GRE and relearn some of these concepts again is a privilege. It can only help me become a better version of myself. With this in mind, when it comes time to take the actually test at the end of August, I will be ready to take it no matter what. My perceptions are the difference that makes a difference, and I'm pleased to report that since laying out my task, I have successfully studied for the GRE each and every day since. I find myself learning more and more by the day, and I have a completely positive perception of myself and the work I'm doing. It sounds almost too good to be true, but by partaking in the regenerative process, something inside of my was regenerated. Only growth can come from what I took away from this week.

We ended the class with an exercise we had been doing every single morning. Joel referred to it as "the snake," and it involved us weaving in and out of one another in a line. The beauty of this exercise is that it fully tied together everything we had learned in regenerative design. Each person in this line used the others force to push the other along in the line. We were a line, or a system, of reconciling forces that used the others force to push and move forward. Just like in our ecological system, we were moving parts that required the strength of others to grow and develop.

This was a phenomenal group of people.

 In sum, I would say the lessons from this week were some of the most rewarding. I dove into something completely different than what I had anticipated, and found myself with more rewards than I expected. These lessons will stick with me, and now that I have an understanding of the regenerative process, I'll be able to apply it to more aspects of my life. The beauty of this process is that it can apply to just about anything. Any process can be regenerative; thus, the final products can also be regenerative. And we can all afford to learn and grow throughout ever step of the process.
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I'm sad to say that my time at Yestermorrow is coming to a close. This being my last full week, I've started working on my final design/build project. I really feel like I just got here. I haven't even left and I'm already trying to think up ways in which I can make my way back here in the near future. I love everything about this place. The people are fantastic, the environment is rejuvenating, and the learning experiences are invaluable. I couldn't imagine a better way to spend my summer than here at Yestermorrow. I know these next seven work days will be some of my most informative, but I cannot help but be a bit saddened over them. But at the same time, I'm already aware that leaving Yestermorrow doesn't mean that the things I learned will be left behind. These experiences are going to stick with me wherever I may go. And I only hope to repay them someday in the time they invested in me.

Have a regenerative week! I'll update again soon!

Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment

I am writing this blog a bit later than I had originally planned. Last past week has pushed me to my limits both physically and mentally. They were not understating how much work went into classes. I'll give a semi-quick breakdown of the class to help both myself process it all and to help you easily follow my last week.

Sunday

This class was the second class in a series on water held at Yestermorrow. Due to funds and timing, I was only able to take the Constructed Wetlands class, which turned out to be a more detail oriented class than the other two offered.

We spent Sunday reviewing some of the concepts covered in the previous class, Redesigning Wastewater, which was helpful for me seeing as I was the only one in the class that had not taken it. Much of the review was on basic water chemistry, so I felt pretty at home with the stuff we were covering. After the review, we went into a discussion over the history of wetlands followed by a discussion on nitrification and denitrificaiton.

 The two hours I spent in the classroom were very information heavy.

Monday

I ended up reviewing my notes again Monday morning before class to make sure that I had completely followed everything that was thrown at me. This ended up being to my benefit because we dove into more information on wasterwater the following morning. I learned about the different types of wasterwater, its components (chemical, energy, pathogens, etc.), and basic wetland construction all before lunch.

Immediately after lunch, we took a tour of the Yestermorrow septic system to better understand it and understand what needed to be set in place to make it better. Seeing as Yestermorrow's main building is a repurposed motel, there are many design difficulties. One of these design difficulties is the septic system, which was not designed for its current purpose and there are several different drainage problems existing with it. This and many other reasons are the reasoning as to why Yestermorrow is currently developing a new campus plan.

Tuesday

Yestermorrow is currently working on a twenty-five-year design and development plan for their new campus. While the current campus is charming and still inhabitable, the current design of the building prevents it from functioning at the level it could work at. There is limited classroom studio space, sleeping space, and working space for the students. Yestermorrow also wishes to open its doors to more students, and they cannot do that at this moment due to these limits.

Several of the most recent classes have been involved with working on this master plan. Yestermorrow would like for its students, who are the main users of this facility, to be an integral part in the design and function of its future campus; hence, the intense amount of focus on it in the classes.

Our class spent a great deal of time developing the wastewater treatment for the campus. We started off sizing the system based on the estimate of people that would be using it. This involved a quick introduction to Excel and a late-night calculus lesson that helped us size for the different water quality parameters.

We spent the late afternoon portion of Tuesday learning how to survey a site. It was quite a unique and informative experience. I have a whole new appreciation for the people who did the original surveying of this area.

This photo is just a glimpse of one of our late night site planning session.

Funny enough, one of the instructors, Barton Kirk, told me on day one that he was involved in the planning of the Ecovillage living machine. He had heard it had been switched over to an aquaculture facility, but had wanted to hear more up-to-date information on the program. This led to an impromptu presentation on our aquaponics facility complete with pictures, diagrams, and a system history since its switchover from a wastewater treatment facility.

Wednesday

We dedicated all of Wednesday morning and afternoon to field trips of wetland treatment systems. I got a firsthand look at how these systems functioned in working environments. Both systems had been put into place by the instructors of the class, so they were able to give us a full report on how each system functioned as well as some of the design challenges they faced during construction.

We did have a brief late night session that focused more on sizing for chemical parameters since we were not able to cover all of that information the night before. At this point, we were all beginning to feel the mental stress and made the executive session to remove designing individual wastewater treatment systems from our list of things to do. While it was hard to cut out that portion of our syllabus, we all felt it necessary because keeping our focus and sanity was more important to our overall goals of understanding these systems.

Thursday

We began the morning with a lecture on rethinking wastewater. This lecture covered many of the projects that one of our instructors, Pete Munoz, had worked on. He has worked on well-known wastewater treatment systems at the Omega Institure, Chahtam University, Sidwell Friends Middle School, Baltimore Healthy Harbor Initiative, and many more institutions. This led into a discussion on the individual components of a wastewater treatment system, which led to us developing the ideal treatment system for Yestermorrow's new campus.

(Note: I'll have more photos of the field trip, the design processes, and our system design soon. I'm waiting on my instructor to send them to me.)

Friday

Our final day of class took place almost entirely outside of the  classroom. Here we put all of our theory and knowledge into practice by building a small model of a constructed wetland. Previous Constructed Wetland classes had the opportunity to build an actual functioning system, but there were not any construction projects set up, so we built a demonstration model.

First we cleaned up some different sized media. Our media consisted of pea gravel, gravel, and light-weight clay pellets mixed with a different type of pea gravel.

Gravel needed to be washed three times over before it could be put in the wetland.

After that, we worked on lining our "wetland." Our "wetland" was a box that had three wooden sides and one glass viewing side. We worked the lining so that it would allow for visibility on the clear side, and we sealed the glass side with silicone and bolts to prevent it from leaking.

Lining this wetland wasn't much different from lining a hydroponic unit.

After the construction of our base, we assembled a level control that would allow us to control the level of water in the wetland at any given time. After we had all of our pieces and parts glued and put in place, we were then able to fill the wetland with rocks, plants, and water.

The final product!

We finished the construction of the demonstration model just as the class finished. We celebrated our victory and then we all went off to rest after a hard week of work. This system is pretty low-maintenance, but it does need a few more days of observation before we can call it usable. It has been left to my care for the next few days to make sure its roots establish and to make sure it does not leak all over its new home in the Yestermorrow library.

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After a long week of work, I spent the weekend with Finn and his family up at their farm. It was a nice break, and I was able to rest up plenty before entering another week of classes. I started Regenerative Design and Development on Sunday night. I'll be writing another blog to cover all of the happenings in that class. After one day, I know I'll have plenty to talk about then!

In other news, it seems Yestermorrow has taken a break from its rainy summer. The past few days have been full of sunshine, swimming, ice cream eating, and late night gatherings under the stars. It feels weird to think that I just started my sixth week here. Time is ticking away on my internship, but I know that I can still expect to learn a lot with the 17 days I have left.

Lessons in Humility

As of today, I am now halfway through my Yestermorrow internship. I can hardly believe it has been four weeks since my arrival on campus; I feel like I have only been here for such a short time. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how I'm going to be able to do all that I want to do with such little time left.

Last week, we said farewell to 5 out of the 6 interns. Even though I had only met these people three weeks prior, I still couldn't help but feel some sort of sadness at their departure. They were a tough, yet loveable, group of people who knew how to leave a strong impression. I learned quite a bit from them, and their dedication to their work was inspiring. But not more than 48-hours later, two vehicles pulled up with two new interns, Owen and Steve. And not more than 24 hours after that did OJ show up from Louisiana.The other two interns, Bonnie-Kate and Charlotte, are set to arrive in the next day or two. All of these interns come from such diverse backgrounds, I cannot help but get excited over getting to know and learn from them during my remaining weeks!

Things around Yestermorrow have been pretty scrambled during the intern turnover. I found myself doing all sorts of odd jobs while the new interns were getting oriented. For one thing, the entire campus needed to be tidied up, and I found myself doing a lot of sweeping. Facilities manager, Dave, made sure I became well acquainted with my breathing mask while cleaning up the entire woodshop. Part of which included me using a chop saw for about three hours to make up kindling wood out of whatever excess lumber we could find.

But I feel like I spent a lot more of this week tiding up the Yestermorrow treehouse. This happens to also be one of my favorite places at Yestermorrow, so I wasn't completely upset; even if the work I was doing involved me cleaning out organic material and grime from various areas. I was covered from head to toe with mud afterwards, but it proved to be worthwhile.

This photo does not give proper justice as to how much better it looks inside and out.

As tiring and diligent as some of the work might be, I'm learning a lot from my workings. It has taught me a considerable amount of humility and pride in my work. In truth, a lot of my maintenance work will go unnoticed by most of the visitors to Yestermorrow. But the work I've done will help keep the facilities and its structures from future problems. Preventative maintenance is a necessity, even if it does feel a little superfluous at times.

Now, I haven't been spending all my time this week doing dirty work. I made some time for some Vermont adventures. For instance, I met  this really cool organic farmer last weekend.

He says he's even heard of Berea!

He showed me around the farm, and I got to do everything from harvesting asparagus to milking cows to collecting chicken eggs. He was even gracious enough to let me have dinner with him and his family. In all seriousness, it was great to see Finn and his family again. We shared stories, talked about where we were headed in life, and even made a road trip out to this really amazing glacial lake.

Vermont isn't lacking in sites, that's for sure.

I expect there shall be more outings in my next few weeks with him and Celeste alike.

On another note, yesterday was the 4th of July, so all the staff took off work, and the interns made time to join in on the town festivities. Wednesday night and Thursday morning, we spent a lot of time assisting a local architect in building a float for the Warren 4th of July Parade. Now, as I learned, this is not your usual 4th of July celebration. Every year, this 1700 person town grows 5x - 10x in population for this festival. People come from far and wide to see the floats, eat the organic ice cream, and dance in the streets.

I was fortunate enough to not only help build the float, but be a part of the choreographed dance that walked alongside that followed the float. The theme of each year's float is based on the current trends in the town and happenings. This year the group built a giant storm cloud complete with moving sun, windblown raindrops, and a pop-up rainbow.

And here's our lovely float! Unfortunately, I was unable to get a picture of the choreographed dance with umbrellas.

The reason we chose a storm cloud was because it has rained for about 38 consecutive days in Vermont. I believe that's a new record for this area. It's starting to make residents rather uneasy, because the Mad River is starting to rise above its banks in several locations. Rivers look more like rapids than calm streams. I'm just fortunate that I haven't had to reinforce my tent for flooding...yet.

Besides the upcoming rain forecast, things here are looking bright. This evening, I am assisting with class preparations for Redesigning Wastewater this weekend, and on Monday I start my very first class in Constructed Wetlands! The following week I will have another class, and during the remaining I will be working on a special project for Yestermorrow. On Wednesday, Dave and I sat down and generated some possible project ideas. We decided that I should focus my efforts on designing and building a small garden to surround the septic holes. This area is kind of an eyesore, which is unfortunate because it happens to provide a nice view of the pond right in front of the facilities. I'll be spending the next few days developing a site plan and consulting with Dave as to what we can do with this particular area, but still provide access to the septic area because it needs to be drained every few months. Hopefully, we'll come up with a plan in the next two weeks so that come the following week, I can start on construction of this area.

That's all for now. Wish me luck on my first class!