Regeneration and Spirituality
Riki Cevallos
9/9/20262 min read
Western Civilization's relationship with Nature goes along a spectrum: on one end sits the reckless, short-sighted corporate destruction of the Earth; on the other sits Sustainability — the recommended way of doing things. The practices endorsed by international standards and by the United Nations as the proper way for humanity to treat the planet.
Einstein used to say that the greatest proof of madness is trying to solve a problem with the same mentality that created it. The main problem I have with sustainability is that it does not recognize the sacredness of life. It uses the reductionist mentality that accompanied the Industrial Revolution, which was born from the Enlightenment in the 17th century.
In the 1970s, academics began to question if Sustainability was enough to solve the global environmental crisis. They began using the term Regeneration to refer to a new way of protecting the environment. Yet, this way was not actually new — it was the way Indigenous peoples across the globe had cared for the Earth for millennia.
The many differences
When it comes to food, organic certifications are rooted in Sustainability thinking, whereas agroecology is driven by Regenerative thinking. And there are many differences between them.
In water management, the Sustainability paradigm aims for universal access to potable water. The goal of Regeneration is that water is never polluted.
Sustainability accepts soil erosion and water pollution as inevitable byproducts of human activity. Regeneration looks deeply at how Indigenous peoples can engage in human activity without eroding the soil or polluting the water.
Sustainability just assumes that forest fires, landslides, floods, and droughts are caused by global warming. Regeneration goes deeply and understands that they occur because humans have not learned how to return water to the land, as Permaculture demonstrated.
Sustainability is based on the arrogance of classical Western science — the pretense that we can do better than nature. Regeneration surrenders to the intelligence of the natural world to solve the environmental crisis.
Regeneration introduces systems thinking, while Sustainability struggles to overcome linear thinking.
The deeper difference
Finally, there is one last difference, which to me is the most important: Sustainability understands the planet as a highly sophisticated and intelligent machine. But regeneration sees everything as a living organism with a soul.
This spiritual component is crucial, because those aligned with Regeneration — just as First Nations peoples do — deeply respect the elements of nature. They see every river, every mountain, and every forest as living entities to whom we are connected, possessing a wisdom to respect and a presence to honor.
The Regenerative paradigm is truly difficult to grasp for a mind with a reductionist understanding of life — a mind that believes only what can be seen, touched or measured truly exists. To really understand Regeneration, the first step is to have transcended the materialist (and religious) mentality. It is to see life as the manifestation of a deeper spiritual realm, where all living things, including us, are connected and share the same essence of Unconditional Love.