Legends from Growing Radicles — The 3 day Syntropic Agroforestry and Social Systems event
Syntropic Agroforestry is a unique expression of a natural system involving conscious, intentional human interventions, from a place where humans recognise themselves as part of, not apart from nature.
“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”
— Masanobu Fukuoka (One Straw Revolution)
Legends are the stories a community chooses consciously, in order to build matrix for change. This is my telling of the legends of this event, to celebrate the changes I notice, in a way you can pick up and share.
On Friday last week, 30 people gathered at a beautiful location in Golden Bay (NZ), for Growing Radicles, a three day exchange of ideas, knowledge, experience and wisdom on the topic of Syntropic food and social systems.
A radicle, is the embryonic stage of a plant root. The first organ to appear and anchor the plant so it can absorb water and nutrients from the soil, and in this event people came together to put down roots for a different way of sourcing food.
Village Happening
This event was made possible by the contributions of many people!
Firstly, Gabriel Millinger coached me and held space artfully for all my feelings, and over many months, so I could discover the gameworld I want to co-create with others. He helped me re-find what I care about: Embracing diversity and ways of sourcing food so nature (including humans) can flourish.
Reggie Luedtke is Kaitiaki (guardian) of the land, and had a big yes for hosting this training on this land. It would be the first event there, and how appropriate.
Janet Redmond, reminded me of the passion I have held for this life work, and supported me at every step, by holding space as fear, anger, sadness and joy would bubble up along the way. The human social systems spaces that were woven through the event, carried the growing radicles village to another place.
I found an email address for Byron (Grows) Birss, and sent a message with the subject: Syntropic Food and Social Systems — Are you in? and the poster (but no other words) in the body of the message. His yes! came within hours, even though we’d had no previous contact. His space holding and landing of the principles of Syntropic Agroforestry was combined with gently holding back those of us, including me, who were itching from the start to get tools in hand and begin the physical work.
“Fast gets all our attention, but slow has all the power” — Stewart Brand
Joel Briffault from Crafted Earth brought so much to this event. The abundance of plants was astounding, and his propagation and soil knowledge and experience shared with passion, humour and humility, was pure gold. After some apprehension about presenting to a larger group, Joel realised “I’m made for this!”. Many people expressed looking forward to learning more from this community treasure.
“I was taken back by just how fast we were able to plant out the food forest with all these beauties! And with a community who had only been brought together days earlier. Sharing resources skills and knowledge, together we achieved so much in so little time. I can only imagine how much a community could achieve if they were able to do this every weekend.” — Duncan Mackintosh
Saci Reilly-Jasper showed up unexpectedly to the first face to face meeting, like an angel from heaven. She had recently returned from Brazil, where she’d been learning about Syntropic Agroforestry. Her persistence in the planning and sourcing of fruit and support species trees was crucial. She will be key in the ongoing maintenance of this experimental installation.
The wider village stepped up and had a yes for helping with food to sustain us, for promoting the event to their networks, and to providing plants, seeds, equipment and tools we would need. In the closing days before the event, the sadness often leaked from my eyes as I opened to receive the abundance of support.
Irene Hubers’ steady and unwavering attention to keeping the food flowing, out of a makeshift camp kitchen, belied her fears of being able to cater for such a group, and resulted in her discovering joy for this role.
Process based vs input based
While it took several hours of discovery, when the principle landed it was not about to be forgotten. Without machinery, fertilisers, pesticides, insecticides, water, and more, most of the conventional or industrial agriculture would simply grind to a halt. These inputs are required to counter nature’s inherent impulse to return (albeit slowly) to a diverse forest ecosystem.
In contrast Syntropic Agroforestry’s primary input is human, that support natural processes. By applying conscious interventions, we can fast track and support nature’s ability to heal, through succession, and create a diverse and abundant ecosystem.
The Drama Triangle
Saturday night, following the late afternoon physical work and dinner, Janet delivered an exploration into the drama triangle, or how we get into the swamp and how to get out of it. There was much laughter as people recognised how it went in their lives, and then respect and stillness as one person after another let their vulnerability be present. When we broke into groups, eight year old Sylvanis articulated very clearly how he moves from victim to persecutor to rescuer.
Establishing the radicle
Finally on the last day, we got down and dirty.
Some mulched material that kept getting cut from around the edges of the area we had defined. Others started to clear away the grass. A lot of chainsaw work resulted in volumes of logs that were subsequently buried under mulch that formed the paths.
The plants were put in and the wood and mulch applied all in the last three hours!
A radicle for Syntropic Agroforestry in Golden Bay is now established.
It is in the ground, it has a place, people can come and see it, can watch it grow, and go away and make their own experiments to Syntropic Agroforestry can scale from here through replication, tapping into the experience and knowledge, and by propagating plant material from this one to feed the next.
