What Is Regenerist Living and Why Bother?
Not the next version of sustainable, or eco-conscious, or green — something more fundamental. A lens for asking whether we are depleting or restoring life in every corner of our lives.
Deshutes River Falls Park, Olympia WA, July 2015 — water finding its way, as it always does.
A couple of years ago, when I was standing at the sink washing cans with kitchen scraps piling up in stinky bins under the sink, and another pile of cardboard boxes to break down for recycling, this little voice whispered … what am I doing this for? Does this even matter? You do the right things — bring your own bag, go for the selection with less packaging, use a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) for farm-to-table freshness and to support your local organic farmer … and yet the world outside your window looks about the same as it did yesterday. At least mine does! The problems are enormous and we are individuals — the math doesn’t add up.
That feeling is not apathy, or laziness … it is more personal than that. It is the exhaustion of caring deeply for a world that is under attack — where the results of our caring are invisible, delayed, or just drips in an ocean.
“Nature is a totally efficient, self-regenerating system. If we discover the laws that govern this system and live synergistically within them, sustainability will follow and humankind will be a success.” — Buckminster Fuller
So what is a Regenerist? A Regenerist is someone who has taken restoration as their orientation — not as a credential, not as a label, but as a daily practice and a way of seeing the world. You do not have to be an expert. You need only the willingness to ask, in each area of your life, a single quiet question.
The GreenLife Project is not here to hand you a checklist or tell you everything you are doing wrong. We are ordinary people, all somewhere along the same road, learning from each other. We are here to offer a lens. Continue reading the full article →
Also in This Issue
What’s It Like to Keep Bees?
A colony has its own personality, and reading it — understanding whether bees are content, agitated, crowded, or queenless — is a skill that takes seasons to develop.
Fermentation Basics: Classic Sauerkraut
Two ingredients. A jar. Time. The oldest preservation method on earth — and one of the most forgiving things you can make in your kitchen.
