The Future is a Garden We Co-Create, Not a Spectator Sport

This Time, We Know: Crisis and Regeneracy

Mar 19, 2025

There is a hum beneath the surface of history, a pulse of change beating through the bones of the world. We can feel it now, in the unraveling of what once seemed immovable, in the friction between collapse and renewal, in the electric knowing that something new is trying to break through. We are living in a time of turning—a moment when the old world stumbles and the seeds of the next take root.

This Saturday, in my neighborhood, we will put our hands in the soil together. In a garden bed that our beloved neighbors have been preparing for years— forming the boundaries, laying down mulch, building the soil, tending it, yet never yet planting—we will transplant the squash seedlings that have exploded from my compost since February. It is a perfect metaphor for this moment in time . The bed and soil has been prepared by our elders with care, and now a multigenerational group will joyfully sow a future of greater food security together. The conditions for growth are here. And now, together, we plant.

The future is not a spectator sport. It is a garden we co-create.

So many people look at the uncertainty around us and ask: What’s going to happen? But the future is not something that happens to us. It is something we co-create. It is shaped by the choices we make, the energy we bring, the relationships we build, and the commitments we hold. Every action, every conversation, every moment of courage or care ripples outward.

Today, in this essay, I’m going to weave together some of the different meta-theories of change and transition that I have been holding for a long time—and others that I am just now opening to. These frameworks have helped me make sense of the patterns unfolding around us, and my hope is that by sharing them, they may offer you a deeper way of seeing as well. The more clearly we can recognize the cycles we are living through, the more intentionally we can participate in shaping what comes next

The Fourth Turning in the Age of Metacognition

The Fourth Turning, as described by Strauss and Howe, marks the final season of a societal cycle—a time of unraveling and crisis, but also of renewal and regeneration.

They call the social emergence that arises after the first catalysts of crisis, the regeneracy— a pattern of engaged civic mobilization that emerges as the fragmentation of crisis gives way to a new collective coherence, when the old ways crumble and cannibalize themselves, while the seeds of the new quietly begin to take hold.

I feel exhilarated by the fact that Strauss and Howe, who developed their theories in the late 80s and 90s, used the very word regeneracy to describe this pattern of collective emergence. When they first articulated this cycle, much of what we now call the regenerative movement had not yet gained momentum—though pioneering work, like the efforts of Regenesis and Carol Sanford were already laying the groundwork. But in the years since, especially in the wake of the 2008 financial crash and the activation of many through movements like Occupy Wall Street, something profound has been growing steadily through the soil of our collective.

When I tell people that I have been engaged in regenerative work for a decade, they are often amazed, because for many, this worldview has only come into their field in recent years. Yet so many of the wayfinders who have shaped my own journey were stirred into regeneration in the early years of this Fourth Turning—right at the onset of the crisis era. This is why I believe it is fair to say: the regeneracy of this particular Fourth Turning is the regenerative movements emerging all around the planet right now.

And the more we recognize this, name it, and storytell it clearly, the more we can awaken others to it. This moment is not just about surviving collapse—it is about weaving the fabric of the world to come. It is about aligning this regeneracy with the Great Turning, amplifying the momentum, and remembering that we do not need everyone to awaken for this to succeed. History shows us that just 3.5% of a population deeply committing to a new way of being is enough to tip the balance.

This is the first time in history that a Fourth Turning is occurring with the level of metacognition, second-order awareness, and integral thinking that we have access to today. While previous cycles of crisis and rebirth have played out unconsciously, bound to the tides of history, we now have the capacity to see the cycle as it happens—to recognize patterns, anticipate transitions, and consciously shape the transformation.

This aligns with the integral levels of Spiral Dynamics, where the evolution of consciousness moves from linear, reactive problem-solving to systemic, adaptive understanding. Rather than simply reacting to crisis, we have the opportunity to design the regeneracy that follows. The more we recognize ourselves as participants in a living, evolving system rather than passive observers, the more we can act with intention to guide this transition toward something life-affirming.

The Great Turning & The Fourth Turning:
Two Patterns of Change

Joanna Macy speaks of the Great Turning, a shift from an industrial growth society to a life-sustaining society. This is not merely a crisis-response cycle but an evolutionary shift in consciousness. If the regenerative movement becomes the dominant force emerging from this Fourth Turning, we might see this crisis not just as another historical restructuring but as part of a much larger transformation—the Great Turning itself.

Every past Fourth Turning has been marked by destruction, suffering, and loss. Yet, in retrospect, these moments are also remembered for how people came together, how communities formed, how new ways of life emerged from the ashes of the old. The defining factor is not the collapse itself but how people choose to engage with it. This time, we are aware of the cycle as it is happening, and with that awareness comes an opportunity and responsibility: we can shape the regeneracy with every choice we make, every single day.

The 3.5% Rule & the Power of Us

Social movements throughout history have shown that transformation does not require the majority—it requires a small but committed group to act decisively. Research by Erica Chenoweth found that when just 3.5% of a population fully commits to a new way of being, that shift becomes inevitable.

Michael Muyot

recently wrote about this here.

This means we do not need to wait for full-scale collapse or for everyone to “wake up.” The institutions of the old world are already not only unraveling, they are under active attack and destructive dismantling. What is increasingly clear as we live through what Rebecca Solnit aptly refers to as “The Stupid Coup“ is that the people wrecking destruction are wholly incapable of building something real, something, good, something that will last. They are conmen who only know how to lie, cheat, and create chaos.

So the real question is who will step forward now to build the new? If even a fraction of us dedicate ourselves to regenerative civic engagement, to mutual aid, to reweaving the fabric of our communities, the course of history shifts. The tipping point is closer than we think, and the work is actively being done.

I personally belong to multiple networks of thousands of people around the world who are actively practicing and creating from a regenerative paradigm, and I know I’ve barely scratched the surface. Indigenous people around the world have been doing so for millenia. Folks are remembering this way of being without needing an academic frame or a particular guidebook– and the academic frames and guidebooks are emerging and being developed with beautiful collaboration and joy!

So much is happening that can create so much good in this world, and I welcome everyone to find their place within this movement and know that you belong to it, because you are alive. Regeneration is a birthright, a promise from our ancestors, a property of all living systems to which we belong.

The Wisdom of the Living World

Before a forest canopy changes, transformation begins underground. Fungal networks redistribute nutrients, trees signal distress or adaptation, and seeds wait in dormancy for the right conditions. The regenerative movement we see emerging—bioregionalism, mutual aid, bioregional financing facilities—have been germinating beneath the surface for decades, linking up like mycelial threads, preparing for the moment when the decay of old structures will create an opening for new life.

Source: getty images, learn more here: https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/mycorrhizal-networks-wood-wide-web

In the living world, waste is never wasted, nothing is ever lost, only transformed. Decay is generative. The fallen leaves enrich the soil. The bodies of the dead nourish the roots of the living. Even disturbances—fires, floods, storms—become catalysts for renewal. What if we saw our collapsing institutions not as pure destruction, but as a nutrient pulse, releasing stored energy to feed emergent systems? What if regeneracy is not about salvaging what is broken, but about composting it into something richer?

A field does not leap from bare soil to ancient forest overnight. It moves through succession—pioneer species stabilizing the land, shrubs and young trees establishing themselves, and eventually a thriving, self-sustaining ecosystem taking hold. Our society is in the early stages of this cycle. We are in the phase where disruption makes way for adaptive growth. The regenerative movement is not a sudden revolution; it is a long, patient process of successional transformation.

Water never disappears; it changes form—ocean to vapor to cloud to rain to river to ocean. Power, like water, moves through cycles. At times, it solidifies in institutions; at others, it evaporates into decentralized movements, or crashes down in storms of upheaval. Where are we now? Perhaps the rigid structures of the old paradigm are melting, turning into mist, waiting for the next cycle of condensation and flow.

Birth, Death & the Great Pulse of Life

Life pulses. Inhales and exhales. Entropy and Syntropy. Expansions and contractions. Every ecosystem, every species, every civilization moves in waves of gathering, intensifying, dissolving, and reforming. The Fourth Turning is not an ending, nor is it simply a beginning. It is a breath in the greater respiration of human civilization.

What makes this Turning different is that, for the first time, we are conscious of it. We can see the cycle. We can study it. We can choose to participate in it wisely. The regenerative movement—what some call the Regenaissance—is humanity waking up to itself as a living system rather than a machine.

This is the shift. The move from first-order reaction to second-order awareness. From being caught in history to recognizing history as a pattern we can engage with. From seeing collapse as failure to understanding it as transformation. From clinging to old structures to nourishing the soil of the future.

The institutions of the old world are on a trajectory beyond our control for the most part (though do please still call your reps and stay informed about the state of and opportunities for democracy). But what is within our control is how we choose to engage with this moment. The quality of the regeneracy that follows depends on the energy, commitment, and civic engagement we cultivate now.

We do not have to wait for collapse to deepen before we step into participation. We are the body of civic engagement. We are the body of regeneracy. What happens within us, and between us, in these times of transition will shape the climax of this crisis and the world that follows.

The old world is decaying. The forest floor is thick with compost. The air is dense with possibility. The new roots are reaching, the mycelium is linking, the next cycle is already stirring beneath our feet.

The question is not whether regeneracy will come. The question is: how and when will you step into it?

As we gather this weekend to plant, to break bread, to weave our relationships more deeply into the fabric of this place, we are enacting in miniature what must happen at scale. The Regeneracy is not an abstract theory—it is in the hands that meet the earth, the voices that join in laughter under a mulberry tree, the neighbors who, after years of preparing the soil, are finally ready to plant together.

This is how we shape the future. Not by waiting for collapse to finish its course, but by stepping into the work of regeneration now. The garden is ready. The time is now. And we—those who choose to put our hands in the soil, both literal and metaphorical—are the ones who will bring it to life.