Hi Fellow Earth Regenerators!
For this week’s mindGarden infusion I offer you a bit more on the broader application of the Syntropic approach to Regenerative Practice (whether that is in community land development, your backyard, or your way of relating to the crazy world of man (society) that seems to be just getting more and more of the rails!
Loose Definition of Syntropy:
Syntropy also referred to as neg-entropy (negative entropy) is the life-bearing, life-enhancing, and self-organizing “formula” that nature operates from to sustain itself and all living organisms it is. All living systems have mechanisms working towards syntropy ingrained at their cellular level. The opposite, entropy, is more of a man-made idea. Talking about entropy is basically talking about what Life isn’t.
So when we apply this to our way of thinking it can either be syntropic i.e. life-affirming — as in abundance, peace, collaboration based on trust or entropic — meaning scarcity, lack, competition based on fear. So syntropy and entropy are two opposing principles that have a profound impact on how we relate to life, how life relates to us and how we navigate life with the resources we have.
My take on the Origins of Syntropic Agroforestry:
Syntropic Agroforestry was formulated through many decades of direct observation, direct experience in the forest, on the land, and through indigenous wisdom directly derived from the people that still live with that knowledge today in Central America. There’s so much wisdom there, and they’ve kept that up because they know it is true, and we see it now resurfacing because industrial agriculture is simply not sustainable. The birthplace of this work is in Brazil and yeah it’s beautiful to see how the country with the highest deforestation happening gives rise to the wisest way of reforesting the Earth.
The Status quo of Degenerative Farming Practices: “evanescence”
Our current farming situation is based on an entropic system that is outdated and unsustainable. It is literally degenerative.
The entropic industrialized food paradigm that our supermarkets rely on comes from a dependency-based system that disempowers farmers in their ability to attain natural knowledge of how to grow nutrient-dense food in abundance.
It causes the people involved to operate out of fear because of money and lack thereof, and the need to create profit to retain their mortgage.
All of that is an emotional and mental approach to life-based on scarcity, yet natural knowledge can never be dismissed or eliminated from our own connection to Nature that is the opposite of evanescence; Permanence. Woo!
Navigating with the Natural Order of Life: Forest dynamics inclusion
Natural processes can be altered, and people can be distracted but life is Life.
You can try and mess with it but life processes are going to remain the same.
When I look at innovative food systems such as regenerative agriculture, biodynamics, and successional food forestry, these are the systems that will provide real empowerment for farmers of the future.
If we start feeding life to the soil with bio-fert, with microbe-rich composts, with microbial cultures that are teeming with life, while including forest dynamics in these systems well, we’re going to have soil that is rich in life which is the foundation to all life including ourselves.
The main benefit of forest-dynamics being included lies in the root networks that trees create and that vegetables are not purposed for to formulate. The role of trees is essential in the diversification of nutrient cycling and nutrient distribution. Trees have many functions one of them is creating healthy hydrological cycling and building the humus layer through its leaf droppings.
Trees drastically enhance plant communication throughout the life web in the soil underneath your veggie garden.
Trees are highly efficient communication nodes in the greater soil web of our landscape. They have an interoperability function built-in that annual plants don’t.
The case for Regeneration instead of “Climate Action”
A lot of climate change movements or environmentalists live from a place of fear about running out of resources, or carbon emissions causing global warming I’m not saying that our industrial consumer society is not responsible for pollution and overall degradation of Life on earth. My point is that living in a fear-and-control-based paradigm is not part of the solution because it does not speak about Regeneration, reforestation or even changing our entropic ways of blind consumerism to a conscious regenerative focus and balance with nature. Instead, it promotes “curbing” through promoting the fantasy of yet another taxation on ’emissions’ of carbon.
The last time I checked carbon is a building block of Life, so the whole carbon narrative is really just a hoax, an illusion, and a distraction from taking actual regenerative action.
If you are only responsible for your choices and actions then it benefits to know for yourself whether it is fear that is driving your choices and actions for “climate” or is it love for the potential of regeneration.
Let me ask you this (and please check in with yourself around this)
is fear driving any of your current motivations to take action?
Are fear, lack, despair, and scarcity driving your way of relating to life?
If so, then you’re operating from someone else’s belief system and that system has been systematically engineered to cause you to operate from the same scarcity mentality that it then profits from.
Life seen through the Lens of Syntropy is actually very lush, very loving, very supportive, and very nurturing, and I see that the future of food is really, really prosperous.
Through the Lens of Syntropic Farming and beyond:
Syntropic farming is actually much more than a farming system, you can actually expand this into a way of thinking and your approach to life!
Studying nature, life and the syntropy within can give us beautiful insights as to how we can grow and feel enriched in our own lives.
By observing how nature operates from grasslands to complex rainforests, nature can show us where we need to change. But that’s also where the hard parts come up — as we humans have been gifted with emotions and memories based on impressive experiences.
What I realized through adopting syntropic thinking was that I was seeing and processing life through a pre-programmed set of entropic beliefs.
For instance, believing that weeds are bad is a very entropic fear-based, control-based, and lack-based idea that life or nature would do something against itself or that it would do something to harm life, it just doesn’t work that way.
The label weeds is already a judgment, it’s a human-created noun that actually doesn’t exist because it’s actually a plant and the plant has a plant species name, and the plant species has a function in that system.
For example, one of comfreys functions is that it has a really deep taproot to bring up minerals that are much further down into the sub stratus of the soil that other plants can’t get to and it brings it up and when you chop and drop it makes that bio available.
What I’ve learned from Syntropy; is that every element in life has a function, and when we discover what the function is in relation to the larger organism, we’ll know how to work with it.
When this clicks for anyone, it can be like Wow!
The bottom line of this is that life only collaborates.
It only works to create more life, more abundance, more support species, more water, more oxygen, more carbon into the soil, more carbon storage, more nitrogen-fixing, more mineral releasing, more everything more…
Hijacked Mindsets of perception
“If we changed our perception and recognized nature as a great ally, a great inspiration, we would really change the way we behave towards the planet.”
– Pedro Diniz, CEO Fazenda da Toca
Humanity has been substantially hijacked to believe that operating from fear and living in the sense of needing to be in control is the way to feel safe. The origins of these global issues are man-made and man-induced entropic ways of thinking and therefore only a major paradigm shift in human mindset and behavior could solve these global issues we face today.
“if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change”
– Michael Jackson
What we all need to become willing to do:
Are you willing to have a real look? I know that this can be confronting for a lot of people but if we don’t get real with ourselves, then we’re not going to be free, we’re not going to thrive and we’re certainly not going to offer the next generation something better than what we’ve received.
Humans, Life and the Patterns of Nature
We are part of life and if a tree doesn’t get certain nutrients in the beginning stages of its development, we call it nutrient deficient.
As humans we have multiple needs beyond nutrition, we have emotional needs, we have spiritual needs, and I see that if we don’t get certain natural frequencies as a child, we’re still going to be looking for it as adults, especially if we got the opposite of what we anticipated.
This is where it really hits home; it’s about resolving something within. If the root is in deficiency, then the deficiency is going to remain until you actively go there.
The world doesn’t need to change because life on earth can actually be really good without us.
What we really need to do is change ourselves internally, and then the rest is not just going to be “sustainable”; no it is going to be regenerative, it is going to be next level, it’s actually going to be restorative.
Syntropic Agroforestry – Love Agriculture vs. the status quo
Nature is more than just the visible elements; it is a network of relationships, dynamics, processes, and constant changes and exchanges which are also central to Syntropic Farming.
We are part of an intelligent system and if we can see ourselves within that, and as part of it then we don’t have to dominate and control and deflect and reject and protect, no we can just navigate with Life, and Life will respond in our favor.
The old-world way of unconscious navigation and participation in systems that don’t nurture our local farmers back so they can nurture their soils is just one element we can each reflect on.
What “food chain” model are you fostering?
Closing thoughts
The current entropic emotional state where humanity is operating from (which is fear lack, control, scarcity, rush, rush, hurry, hurry) is stifling our natural ability to love, to care, and to take regenerative action. When we choose to turn down the noise of the world going crazy and disintegrating and we step into our power to become Earth Regenerators we get to nurture others through our inspired action-taking.
In all realness though: Change always takes effort. Our willingness to adapt to change and orientate ourselves towards regenerative practices throughout our life, however, also always brings us back into the flow of Life, with Life, with Nature and that is Life in Syntropy.
I hope you found inspiration for your cells in this article! Leave a comment. Send me a PM here. or send me an email one of these days!
In the spirit of Regeneration!
Sjoerd (Souvereign)
Syntropic Wisdom 