I arrived in Boston, and after a week in western Massachusetts with a dear friend, I took the + 600 mile journey to Floyd to attend the sacred dance retreat hosted by Springhouse. Absolutely exhausted, hot and with a stress headache I entered into a space vital, alive, rejuvenating, welcoming and free and my headache and tiredness no longer had power to affect my mood. I danced so free in the container of love and possibility that was created. Thank you Springhouse! And thank you again. The metaphor I use to describe what you do and the magic you create comes from agriculture. I want to compare industrialized agriculture and permaculture and relate this to the typical public school system (industrialized agriculture) and Springhouse (Permaculture).

Industrial agriculture breaks up the life-giving networks within an ecosystem and reduces it to a monoculture that is dependent on expensive and damaging external inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. The life and vitality within the system is broken and the elements (water, sun, wind and earth) are changed from life giving forces into destructive ones. The public schooling system parallels this in some ways and I’m sure you can identify some of the similarities, such as children being trained to become cogs in the capitalist system that they become heavily dependent on.

Life-giving agricultural systems, such as permaculture, are very different. They are about rebuilding the networks within an ecosystem, enabling the incredible richness of resources to be generously shared amongst the different beings making up the system. Each individual within the system is able to carry out their function and be an intact, healthy being. The sun, rain, wind and earth are able to do their incredibly generous work of adding life to life to life. The agricultural system is transformed back into an intact, whole interdependent system that isn’t reliant on external inputs, such as fertilizers and pesticides to be productive.

Springhouse reminds me of such life-giving agricultural systems. Each practice of the school focuses on creating intact, healthy individuals, able to be free and productive in who they are, while being responsible for the well-being of the whole. A vibrant, healthy community is created where there’s a beautiful and generous, unrestricted flow of emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical resources between people. Resources of each individual become useful to and part of the whole. So much life becomes possible in such a space. And this is what I want to align my dreams with and become part of this community of health, generosity and life, “cup spilling over” and positively impacting those around them.

And Jenny being Jenny was so open to welcoming me into the community and exploring possibilities of how our dreams can become shared ones. And now, very excitingly, Jarrah Callister (a student at Springhouse) is coming to South Africa in 2 weeks time to be the first international participant at the Earth Wisdom School, based at Wild Fox Hill in the beautiful village of Hogsback, South Africa (www.wildfoxhill.co.za). Jarrah will get to experience incredible natural beauty with a South African flavor, be immersed in our diverse cultures and meet extraordinary people, gain new earth wisdom skills and help establish the future curriculum, inspired by the culture of learning at Spring House. We can’t wait! And the hope is that his visit will create a bridge where many more students from Spring House will be able to participate in a one month programme at the Earth Wisdom School.

Initially I thought that I could ‘discover’ compelling global narratives that would enable living into that desired future, a future many call regenerative. When I reached the end of that search and had not found the compelling narrative I found myself back within my body, sensing the next best step, taking that moment of freedom to decide, and then reflecting.

At first that was very hard. I was used to creating a communicable narrative with a small group of people and then rolling that out to hundreds or thousands of others, usually to support a defined project with a timeline and a budget. It was very difficult to give up that ‘certainty’ within a dominant social narrative and trust that by taking the next best step based on my perceptions in the moment the appropriate future would emerge.

Seven years into that experiment of sensing the next best step I cannot imagine another way of being. Which is why I believe that vitality centered development, the core of Sourced Design, is so critical for each of us in our time. As we imagine new ways of living, in harmony with ourselves, others, and nature we first need to be in touch with our authentic selves. And focusing on vitality – what brings us alive, what is alluring – is the best measure of our authenticity. Sometimes I cannot explain why I am sensing allurement or vitality but I don’t need to be able to explain it to trust it.

Being in that state of alignment and agency, I am able to engage in authentic dialogue with others, in place, over time which I believe will encourage the emergence of regenerative culture. At the very least, such dialogue allows a generative field to emerge which enables us to imagine creative new approaches to living regeneratively.

In my exchange with fellow teachers, educators and Springhouse staff, I discovered that there were many ways to build beloved community in BEADS schools, ways that ensure every person feels important and appreciated regardless of the diversities. Elements like games (name six game), songs, story-telling, poems and drama have played key roles in giving each student and teacher a voice. As teachers, we have also practiced the value of active and responsive listening as well as empathy in the process. We have made a pleasant discovery that people won’t listen and take you seriously till you show them how much you care. It is worth mentioning is that we have enjoyed peace and harmony in our schools despite the overwhelming unrest in schools around us.

I am so happy that the Education Design Lab did not only make an impact in me as an individual, but also in my students and colleagues. As a father, my discoveries in the Education Design Lab gave me deep insights in how to cultivate creativity in my seven year old daughter – by creating an atmosphere that reminds her that her ideas matter and it is okay to make mistakes. I am grateful to be a part of the Education Design Lab.

Keeping that in mind, my Capstone project, as part of the Sourced Design Lab, revolves around having a deeper understanding of this Vulnerability, its nature, form and presence. The project focuses on observing the intersections of the different Vitality centered principles of Cultivating personhood, loving and serving others, respecting the wisdom of the earth and building beloved community, while taking care of vulnerability drives the process or acts as the primary guide to explore the other processes. Through the study, I aim to understand the implications of vulnerability in an individual’s life and to develop an understanding of how to caress and look after this vulnerability. Having outlined this, in simpler words, it is a study of myself, embracing the woman I have become, respecting myself, implementing the knowledge I have acquired about myself in my life, allowing the earth to shape me and my peers to adapt to me, to feel comfortable in my body and to, just, be present in my own life. In essence to be authentic, embrace it and implement it everyday.

Primarily, I believe that authenticity emerges when one starts to explore the process of cultivating personhood. I personally, have been working on, cultivating personhood which is an important process to find the authentic self and embrace this authenticity. In this context, I would like to define authenticity to be the true and real self, keeping aside the gross or physical body, the subtle body, the ego, the mind, the intellect and just being the self for who or what it really is. However, to practice this in everyday life one must allow themselves to be vulnerable. In my opinion, this is how vulnerability takes the primary position to drive other principles. Once this becomes an ongoing process, the authentic self starts to derive wisdom from the earth and through building beloved community allows authentic, unconditional love for others.

In conclusion, I find that Vulnerability is just the first step towards consistent authenticity. One that cannot be envisioned, heard, described but only felt, when realisation is deepened, when one is awakened about the true self and when one is exposed to truths that sometimes may be harsh realities. Lastly, it is vulnerability that guides the direction of how one can be at peace, not only with the self but also with the reality of the world for what it is and people around them for who they are. It is through the process of embracing vulnerability that one can deepen their exploration to cultivate personhood, derive wisdom from the earth, love and serve others authentically and lastly, build a beloved community to strengthen and support those working through this process, hand in hand.

I’ve practice in 21-day structures to change habits,

I’ve practiced dance routines for competitions,

I’ve even practiced reciting and memorizing a poem.

I continue to practice listening, authentic communicating, and showing up on time.

I have yet to practice the essence of practicing together until now. Until my participation in the Source Design Practice Group hosted by Springhouse. While many practices (as those mentioned above) provide spaces where others gather to practice together, it has been a rare experience (maybe never, as far as my conscious knowing goes) for me to practice being in a practice together, as I now come to know it. A practice that entails vulnerability and expansion through the experience to another level all together.

Two months ago, I joined a group of 13 individuals dispersed across the globe to practice bringing Source Design Principles into my life. And from the beginning it was evident to me that this group would be a support of my ups and downs along the journey. With safe holding and courageous mending, I would find my place amongst others who were facing similar experiences in their unique shades.

What I did not expect was a new practice all together — the practice of practicing together. This experience has been exclusively embedded in peer-mentorship — a building block of Source Design for cultivating regenerative culture, where personhood is at its core.

To date my impression of peer mentorship was blurred by a disdain and limited image. A bilateral exchange around encountered experiences, faced challenges and reiteration of practices amongst the peers distinctive lives. Included would be a subliminal feeling that one peer would be an object of lesser experience and in need of expertise and/or knowledge of the other. These roles ideally interchanging through the course of time.

The plot twist, however, comes here with the specific story of my peer-mentorship with Paul.

Our peer-mentorship created no distinctive elevation of our knowledge and experiences — we drew the knowing from the very moment in questions. And what is now a regular practice, we come into a dedicated space to practice together being at the height of our own experiences.

Without a descriptive framework and assignment, we created the space for this practice, beginning with laying out the perimeters of what we wanted in the practicing relationship and so what would it need to entail to make that happen.

In place over time: For us that meant coming together via a weekly call beyond the practice group timeframe. Instead defining a timeframe that felt good to us, with room to shift and modify, as we did 2 months in and extended our calls to “…for as long as we feel the conversation is being nourishing and felicitous.”

A spiritual practice: Each conversation became a spiritual practice, with an open space between us to flow in with what is present. In many (if not all) cases, bringing forth topics of depth, importance and closely linked to matters of our place in the world as beings, as contributors to the shaping of our environment, of our relationships and the grief of our own relation with ourselves.

Aligned community: we built alignment amongst us and practiced an understanding that I am in practice in this relation : I do not need to know the answers nor am I expected to

My peer mentor is also in practice, it does not mean he will know. It does not mean he will not know or understand my experience of practice and could (not) provide valuable insights and new perspective through attentive questions.

Questions are more important than answers, drawing on deeper and deeper layers of our ourselves and our practice of being in and with ourselves.

Critical judgment does not have a place in the relationship. However, thoughtful reflections are invited.

The way we have been and are continuing to show up is a whole new practice in itself. It asks us to practice in our sharing space, being in practice with each other. Many of the conversations and thoughts shared are for the first time, that give experience to go out and practice further and ripple out to other relations. Most significantly and radically to the traditional spaces of practice, I’ve seen the space bring forth our most unseen and undernourished parts of yourself. As a result, the practice space is where we get to practice together letting these parts of ourselves be seen, witnessed and practiced in their expanding fullness.

The practice to show up in the personhood, to practice showing up in the practice together is continual. And I am grateful for being able to do it with another and be encouraged to be in practice with others.

With my focus and attention adjusted, I got connected to Jenny Finn and Springhouse, and I got an amazing birthday gift: join the Fall 2022, Sourced Design Lab and Practice Group. In those, I’ve been connected to people who are also seeking to increase their own, and their community, vitality levels. I’ve learned how to cultivate vulnerability, and how it is important to stay true to myself and others, how to make commitments and think about them to strengthen my practices.

I’ve learned that there are some practices already systematized that can help me and anyone else who wants to go on this journey, we need to think, decide, and do the practices we want to do that take care of life, an aligned community, a place to practice it over time and trusted mentorship. With the space provided by Springhouse, I could explore all these and now see myself as part of this beautiful community. One of my commitments was to write about what I was feeling and thinking, what a fantastic opportunity this practice group has given me!