Cultural Emergence in Action: Looby Macnamara’s Insights on Resilience and Transformation

INTRODUCTION

Welcome back to Community Resilience, a podcast created in collaboration with the Ecovillage Resilience 2.5 Degree Project, facilitated by the Global Ecovillage Network. I’m your host, Eva Goldfarb, inviting you to gather around the fire as we explore resilience, adaptation, and transformation in our time of deepening polycrisis. 

Today we are joined by one of my personal heroes, Looby Macnamara. Looby is a renowned author, designer, gardener, song leader, mother, and artist. With over 20 years of experience in permaculture, she has pioneered approaches, blending systems, thinking, cultural awareness, design, and nature connection. Her influential books include “People & Permaculture”, “7 Ways to Think Differently”, “Cultural Emergence”, and “Strands of Infinity”.

Looby’s groundbreaking work includes the Design Web, a globally used dynamic design framework. In 2016, she co-created the Cultural Emergence Toolkit with Jon Young, and in 2023, introduced the CEED – Cultural Emergence Empowerment & Design deck. At Applewood Permaculture Centre in Herefordshire, UK, Looby and her partner, Chris Evans, run courses demonstrating both land and people permaculture.

She is also a key figure in the international Mother Nature Project, one of the senior tutors for the Permaculture Diploma in Applied Design, and serves on the expert panel for the Permaculture Design Course. Join us as we explore Looby Macnamara’s innovative work in permaculture and cultural emergence, shaping a more resilient world. 

INTERVIEW 

Eva: Welcome Looby, it is an honour to be sitting here with you today. I’m so grateful that you could make the time to join us. 

Looby: Yeah, thank you for inviting me. It’s lovely to be in conversation with you. 

Eva: I just want to start by letting you introduce yourself a bit, and starting to form some definitions as well. You work a lot with permaculture and cultural emergence. I’m wondering how you became interested in these concepts, and if you can introduce them briefly for us. 

Looby: Yeah, straight in there with some big questions. So, I came across permaculture in 1999, and at that time I wasn’t really land-based, but what really inspired me about the course I did was how it was taught, and how the collaborative learning, and how fun it was. And so it was the fun, and the community spirit, and the creative learning that really inspired me, and made me say, yes, I want to know more, I want to do more, want permaculture to be part of my life. And so I then went on to become a permaculture teacher, and in that process I was really struck by many threads there. One of which was the idea that we already have all the earth care solutions we need on this planet at the moment, and then the big question is, well, why are we not implementing them? And so the answer to that really is people, on many different scales. And the other thread to it was also recognising that permaculture had so much more impact in people’s lives than just what they did in the garden or on the land. It really influenced every relationship, how they saw their purpose in life, their creativity, their health and well-being. All of those things were impacted in a positive way by having permaculture thinking in their lives. And this big question then of like, how do we scale up permaculture? If we think it’s really important, how do we scale it up? So also the limit of that actually, a lot of people in the world don’t have access to land, so earth care is one step removed, but everyone has access to people. We’re all involved in people care, looking after ourselves, interacting with other people. So those were the three threads that made me say, okay, this is really important. I want to explore people care more. Where’s the writing about this? And I was like, okay, I don’t know where the writing is. Maybe we need a book, maybe it’s mine to write. So my first book is People and Permaculture. And that I have the privilege to say has been the first, and there’s been a few others since, but it was the first book globally that really explored the people care ethic of permaculture and translated the principles and the design and all the methodology to people-based systems. And that was my first encounter or first exploration and expansion of permaculture from being a land-based system into people-based systems and how we can then make it relevant for everyone. And then my second book was a much shorter book, and it was looking at this question of what is permaculture? Everyone asks this question, what is permaculture? So my answer is then like seven ways to think differently. It’s like the thinking changes and then what we do on the land changes. And then I was really hoping to kind of bust the myth of permaculture as land-based, didn’t fully do that.

Still a work in progress. And so I was looking for kind of reframe and an evolution of the work, how to expand it and deepen it. And that was when I came in contact with Jon Young, who has developed the Eight Shields model and deep nature connection practices and village building cultural repair. And we were invited to collaborate together and we were like, okay, well, what do we do? And then it was like, let’s expand beyond what we both normally do. There is overlaps, but let’s see what emerges from this collaboration, what’s new. And that was the beginning of the Cultural Emergence Toolkit, which then has been my next book, then Cultural Emergence, with the mission of creating this profoundly effective toolkit to challenge and awaken, move and invigorate, nourish and empower. Maybe we’ll unpick those three phrases later in the podcast. And so this was a whole toolkit that emerged, that brought together my work with the design web and people in permaculture and his work with Eight Shields, and then a whole new set of principles and practices that came out of that collaboration and that thought and the collective wisdom of the groups and the courses we were running. And then I’ve since made it, my latest project has been to make it into a card deck, the CEED, Cultural Emergence Empowerment and Design Deck. That’s a really, you know, hoping or intending that that will then become even more widespread because it’s got this universal visual language, and it’s really accessible to share with other people and to use it in groups. And what’s happening now, which I feel is really exciting, is it’s kind of gone from, you know, since the book came out, gone from a toolkit into a movement, a global movement of people. And like, that’s like the mission now is how to create networks of people using the toolkit to develop that collective wisdom. So that’s kind of my history of my biography of using my books and the card decks and the other strands I think are relevant to share. I’ve been working with the Mother Nature Project for the last six years, empowering mothers on their journey, on their journey as natural leaders as well. So bringing leadership, mothering together, producing resources and podcasts for that. And then also my big project as well is where I live, which is Applewood Permaculture Centre in Herefordshire. And we’ve got 20 acres of land here, myself and my family, and we run courses here in person. So yeah, I’ve got plenty going on in my life that is really rich and nourishing. And I try and avoid saying I’m busy and glorifying busyness and just say, yes, I’m really feeling full and productive in my life. Yeah, thank you. That’s a nice way to start off. 

Eva: Yes, and thank you so much for your fullness and your productiveness. It has infused my life with a lot of meaning, your work. And just want to mirror back your story a bit and how this affects others. People in Permaculture book was kind of my gateway into community a bit and into the eco village scene. And really using this to, as you say, take permaculture out of this land-based process and really look at it as a tool for addressing everything in your life. I was talking to a friend last week who’s also a permaculturist, and she was sharing that it’s a part in her relationship that she tries to put permaculture on everything. Oh no, this is just this principle, and this is just this principle, which is wonderful. And then also 8 Shields is a big inspiration for my education work. So I hope we can talk about that a bit more later. And I would just like to maybe touch a bit more on the personal and hear about what experiences in your life have shaped your understanding and your approach to permaculture and cultural emergence. 

Looby: I think the experience for me with permaculture was very much started with heart and body, embodying it and feeling it and feeling the connection and the community and the purpose before I felt the words and the theory. And that came after that. So it was an experience of connection and growth and feeling expansive and comfortable. That was the beginning of my journey with permaculture. It didn’t start with the theory and the academic side of it. It didn’t even necessarily start with the hands. With a lot of people, it starts with the hands and the gardening or the doing. But for me, it was, yeah, the heart. And then with cultural emergence, the first cultural emergence course ever in the world was the week after we had moved into Applewood here. It was the first time John and I had met. And with him being deep nature connection specialist, the way he showed all of us how to interact with the land and how connected I was, that was profoundly influencing my whole journey with Applewood and how I relate to being here and how I see being here as being part of the web of community of the species here of the owls and the badger and the deer and the bats and the apple trees and grandmother oak and that I am just Looby walking through that web of life rather than this is my land and I’m in charge here. It’s like, no, I’m part of this and feeling humble in that being part of the land here. Nature connection is one of the strands of cultural emergence. I’d say cultural emergence is woven with nature connection, design, cultural awareness and systems thinking. So those are the main strands then the toolkit enables. And so the awareness of culture was also really significant with moving into a new place and having lots of people come here. And it’s like, what is the culture of here? What are we trying to create? And what’s my personal culture then influences how I run courses. And so that was also part of the weaving that happened. I mean, we’ve been here eight years now and it’s an ongoing story. When I started writing People & Permaculture, one of the things I did was use all the tools to help my process, use the tools to write about the tools. If I was writing about being effective, it’s like, how can I actually really embody that to be more effective? So that’s been one of my guiding principles in creating this. And whenever I do courses and things as it’s not just, don’t just have it as theory, actually use it and embody it and use it to create the next steps, use it to feel connected, use it to enhance my relationship and navigate here with my partner and my family and all of those things to really embody them as I go. So it’s not just theoretical.

Eva: Can you share what the culture that you defined at Applewood was? You said through cultural emergence, you were really kind of figuring out what your personal culture was and what the culture of the place was. And I understand that culture is always changing, but this is one piece that is so interesting for me. And I’m wondering if you were able to define a culture through this practice.

Looby: Yeah, so my working definition of culture is that it is a complex web of seen and unseen patterns of thinking, feeling, behaving, interacting. And when you realise that, it’s like, okay, this complex web, and you think, okay, there’s like, there’s different macro, micro climates. So we’re, you know, we’re both in Europe, but actually are in a big macro climate of Europe, but actually, where you are in Spain, you’re saying it’s so hot, you can’t sit outside. And I’m saying it’s too wet to sit outside here. So, you know, that’s the different, very different micro climates. And even, you know, you can scale that down and down and down into like a different micro climate here from here to a few miles away, or even then on the farm from here to the pond at the bottom of the land, it’s different micro climates. And in the same way, you can take cultures in that way of like, we’re, you know, we’re part of the same macro culture of Western industrial civilisation, or we’re part of the macro culture of being women or being adults. So we have this complex web of seen and unseen patterns. But then we also are part of, we’re part of many macro cultures, and then many micro cultures as well of the micro cultures of our school or our local town, or it could be anything from our dietary choices to our life stages to like our families. And then you can bring it down and down and down. And then you realise that actually, my complex web of seen and unseen patterns is entirely different to the complex web of seen and unseen patterns of each of my family members. And I’m living with them, you know, we have a family culture, but then each of us have our own separate complex web, our own separate personal culture. And that comes from all this mosaic from all these different places, these different cultures, we’re part of that some of this is really conscious choice. I choose to have these values or choose this dietary choice, or I choose to start with gratitude, or there’s can be choices, but then there’s a lot of unseen patterns, a lot of things that we haven’t consciously chosen, but are in there. And that’s where it becomes quite interesting to realise that we have this personal culture to be able to say, Oh, yeah, what are my unseen patterns? And that is a lifetime exploration to really dig down and discover them. But the more we do that, the more the more we can consciously choose and say, yes, that’s what I believe or no, we don’t. And coming back to book seven ways to think differently. And the first way of thinking differently is abundance thinking. And that shift from that scarcity mindset of not enough, I’m not enough, I don’t have enough, there’s not enough time, I haven’t got enough skills, I haven’t got enough community, I haven’t got enough, you know, enough, enough, enough, what into there is enough, you know, that actually there is enough on the planet for us all there is enough time, I, you know, it can be so many layers of that. And we’re constantly bombarded with the not enough messages, absolutely constantly bombarded with it, you will only be happy when you buy this, this product. But that’s not enough either by two and get one free, you know, it’s constant bombardment. So it, you know, that it that’s why it’s a lifetime’s work, because it’s, you know, we’ve, we’ve have so much that we need to clear, and it’s constantly coming in as well that cultural conditioning. So it’s, yeah, it’s about making choices about seeing the unseen. So we, you know, when we start realising, oh, there’s all these not enough messages, then we can start questioning ourselves. When we say that, when we get up in the morning, and we say, Oh, I’ve not, you know, and the first thing we say is, Oh, God, I’ve not had enough sleep. And I’ve got not not got enough time to do the things I want to do today. And you know, how many of us wake up with those messages, those two immediate not enough messages that then ripple out through our day, and but we can, we’re aware of it, we can catch ourselves and and start reframing it and start saying to ourselves, I’ve had enough sleep, there’s enough energy in the world for me to do what I need to do today. And seeing those unseen messages, but then enables us to reframe and at first, first, it might seem a bit like we’re almost lying to ourselves. And it’s like, no, we really haven’t had enough sleep. But after a while, you can see how it almost doesn’t matter the hours you’ve had as to how much energy you feel. And how much you can feel excited about the day is more relevant than how many hours sleep you’ve had. 

Eva: I completely agree. I am a little embarrassed to say I started my day with a few of these thoughts. And yeah, very, very grateful that it has transformed. I miraculously had an abundance of time and got to take a longer lunch than usual and enjoy the sun. And yeah, thank you for sharing. I’m very curious what the most creative or original place you’ve gotten to apply some of these principles and key concepts that you’ve worked with in your life. We talked at the about how permaculture doesn’t have to be land based, it can apply to multiple areas of your life. And just hearing a bit on that.

Looby: Yeah, great question. One of the ways I did it was a design I did. So in People & Permaculture, I created the design web, which is this nonlinear, holistic, dynamic design framework, which thousands of people have used for many different designs. One of the designs I did was around my arm, I got repetitive strain injury from fighting too much. And it was this ongoing problem that was quite debilitating at times. And I thought, okay, let’s try and apply some design to this. What can I do? So the first thing I did was like, okay, let’s rename it. I don’t want to call this the repetitive strain injury design, you know, repeated over and over again. So I called it the regenerative arm movement design. And one of the key things with this was the solutions thinking and believing it was solvable, and that it wasn’t just something I had to live with. It’s like, no, okay, I can, I can make a difference here, I can be empowered. And even that shift was profound, from like, Oh, God, here it is again, you know, how terrible, poor me, to like, okay, well, I can feel it coming on, what can I do differently in this moment? How can I break this pattern intercepted, so it doesn’t get as bad? And how can I strengthen myself so that it doesn’t happen in the first place? What can I do differently? Yeah, I went through the design process. And like, even things like having micro pauses, and just really observing my own body, taking steps, and just feeling how it is, yes, stretching. And I’ve got a sit stand desk, which I love, which enabled me to write cultural emergence without getting repetitive strain injury. So and it’s an ongoing thing, I can still feel it sometimes now I’m like writing, it’s like, ah, okay, stop. And so it’s an active design. And luckily, since I did it, which has been quite a few years, I mean, I had so just to put it in some context, I had RSI for maybe six, seven years, and then I haven’t had it for six or seven years. But it’s been very much I can feel it on the horizon, or I can feel it in my arm. And I’m able to stop it and nip it in the bud. Whereas before I wouldn’t say so again, that personal patterns and that thinking about, you know, before, I would just kind of be like, I’ll push through and you know, you can do it and carry on and, and just re-patterning that thinking and that work ethic to actually self care is really important. Stop, you can be more productive over time, if you stop now and pace yourself and all of that. And then I’ve done other designs for like being becoming a song leader, and manifesting Applewood, we did a collective design, myself and my partner, for, you know, actually making the commitment. And I think that’s part of the design process. When you step into design, you’re saying, yes, this is what I want. And I’m willing to do the work to get there. And that can be really profound in whatever you do. So I’d use it to create projects, create the card deck, I did multiple designs at different times during the process of like, how to do regular artwork. And then I did a Kickstarter. And yes, so many different designs through the process. I really use it in everyday life. So I’ll design my week or I’m having a staycation, let’s design that. And let’s think about, for example, what do I want to limit in my staycation? So looking at the limits, and actually thinking, where are the limits I want to put in, rather than what were the ones I want to take out? It’s like, okay, what do I want to put in? And okay, let’s limit my time on emails. And let’s spend more time reading. So yeah, really, every day, so many design opportunities. And I think that’s one of the key things when I’ve done the design web course, and people wake up, and they’re just like, wow, I could just design everything around me and have this kind of overwhelming, like, everywhere’s a design. And it’s more a case of what can’t you design? And what don’t you want to design rather than what can you design? 

Eva: Exactly. And I think you’ve already a bit started to connect the dots. My next question is around how these designs and tools help you build resilience in your life. So I can see regenerative art movement, this is one form of physical resilience, but you have other examples to help bridge our subjects.

Looby: Yes, thanks. I think just the whole concept of emergence, and when emergence moves from a concept into an embodied experience of emergence, that builds resilience. Because we’re pattern creatures, we like our patterns. We’re often fed the belief that people don’t like change. And I think I heard this, someone say this, and I thought, gosh, I’ve heard this so many times before, but maybe this isn’t actually true. Maybe we do like change, because we do change a lot, don’t we? As human beings, we like to change our clothes, we like to change our places, relationships, our jobs, friendships, our eating, you know, so there are lots of things that we do change.

So going back to your question about resilience, I think one of the practices of cultural emergence is pattern disruption. And we can’t have change without pattern disruption. You know, I feel like they’re almost synonymous terms there, that change is pattern disruption. And with the practice of pattern disruption, we get to do that regularly, and in small ways. So it’s like, you know, how can you change the speed at which you walk, be quicker? Or how can you speak more slowly? What happens when you speak more slowly? You know, eat more slowly? So you can start doing that pattern disruption on small scales, which then just makes you realize the patterns you do have, don’t need to be fixed. They’re not necessarily true. They’re not necessarily the best way of doing things, or the most healthy, or the way you even prefer. They’re just the ways you’ve been doing things. And with so much change on the horizon, that we can’t control where it’s coming from, or what to do about it. I think it’s really good resilience to know that we can be okay with change, that we can invite it in, that we can, on an individual level, we can give up coffee or we can wake up earlier or we can speak slower, we can, you know, whatever it is, that we can make these changes just enables us to be a bit more resilient in the face of all this change that might be coming our way that we don’t know how to deal with. It’s like, okay, actually thinking, well, I know that I can deal with change when it comes and I can embrace it and I can find ways to enjoy it and to see what emerges in that process. Because going back to this complex web that is culture, if you change one piece of that web, one pattern, everything else changes. So you wake up an hour early and that influences your family patterns, that influences your eating patterns, your work patterns, your energy levels, all of those like have ripples in the web when you change one part of it. And what’s happening now is that there is lots of ripples in the web of patterns in the bigger webs that we’re part of. That I think is really what helps us build resilience is knowing that we can adapt to change. And then just going back to the word emergence, though, and feeling the embodiment of that of like, when we do embrace that change, then maybe some creativity emerges in that new hour that we have in the morning, or maybe there’s stillness or some purpose or something that emerges, relationship or friendship that merges with our neighbours that we weren’t necessarily designing for, but comes out of that change. And so we start to have this embodiment of recognising that change emerges new things within us. And that embodiment of emergence allows us to think there’s possibility within that change, and there’s possibility within the collective change that we’re facing. That can be really empowering and help us to face that change head on and hearts open and collectively together with others rather than in fear or in fear or chaos or denial, which is often some of the responses that are happening. 

Eva: Thank you so much for taking us into the word emergence. I think this is a very grounding practice. Okay, so now I can touch a bit upon on that emergence. I am a newly expecting mother and fully resonate with these things of okay, now you can give up coffee. Now you can not have a full night’s sleep because your bathroom habits have changed very bluntly. And really what can emerge in the space and also this touches for me again on self care and really the importance of that slowing down and leaning into the emergence. 

Looby: I was doing the Mother Nature project and I remember asking a group of women there, what are the patterns in your life that have changed since you’ve become a mother? And the list was just endless from like how we drive to how we clean the house to our own how often we shower, you know, it was just every single corner of our life. Every single pattern changed when we became a mother and we have to reweave that whole web. And that can be part of that like, oh my god, what is happening on the mothering journey, you are then entering this macro culture of mothers around around the world and through history and all the patterns we have and the cultures of care and connection and love and possibly the cultures of overwhelm as well. And we explored cultures in relationship to being mothers and, you know, being that macro culture, but then also the micro cultures of how that is in different countries or whether you’re a rural mum or a mum of twins or a mother of teenagers and all those different macro cultures within that for being a mother and in the same way there are for us on other different paths in life. 

Eva: We’re kind of continuing with that weaving. You’ve already brought a lot of intersections into our conversation, but leaning into that a bit more and talking about where your work meets itself between people in permaculture, cultural emergence and your work with mothers as natural leaders. What are some of the patterns or synergies between these approaches and how do you see these synergies really enhancing our resilience?

Looby: Yeah, so for me, sort of sitting in the centre of all those weavings, it’s hard to kind of say this is one thing and this is another thing because as I’ve just shared, the cultural emergence work sort of influenced the mother nature work and then the mother nature leadership work is coming in and so I see them as they’re very much, they’re distinct in themselves, but they overlap so much that it’s hard to kind of pull them apart, but they do feed each other. I think that’s also really important that there is flows and of nutrients and wisdom between all of them and people that discover mother nature and then they’re like, oh, now I want to know more about cultural emergence or people that are involved in permaculture and they’re like, well, I want to know more about the people side. So there’s a flow of people as well that are moving between the toolkits. So yeah, it’s an exciting time and we’ll see how it grows and develops and what emerges with that. Yeah, I would just love there to be more people involved. I think one of the things that I was feeling and aiming for with the cultural emergence toolkit is that it would become this mycelium that connected lots of other networks so that it could connect up the permaculture network and the eight shields network and the transition and gen and the reconnects and could become this common language that would work between them all and that there would be then different groups would have different specialities within the toolkit. So some groups might be more focused on the nature connection part, some more on the systems or the design or the listening or all these different aspects, the creativity or the self-care or the work that reconnects is the supporting emotions to flow. And GEN is very much about collaboration and co-creation. So each network would have its own way of interacting with the toolkit depending and able to also contribute. So not just here’s the toolkit, that’s how you’ll benefit, but also a two-way exchange of like, here’s the toolkit, here’s how we use it and how this is what we’ve learned and pour that into the toolkit as well and into the mycelium. So that’s the kind of big vision for cultural emergence is that it becomes this mycelium connecting up all these networks of changemakers. So as well as connecting up changemakers as individuals that would connect up networks of changemakers and allow that emergence between networks that really will enable us to have the presence on the planet that really has that emergent properties that we were talking about that has this like quantum leap of collective wisdom that can hold humanity through the next stages. And this is one of our premises of mothers as natural leaders as well is that mothers through the ages have held individuals through developmental stages. You know, we hold our babies and then we encourage our babies to become toddlers, obviously they do that naturally, but they’re being held by us in that process and that process through all the way into being hopefully responsible adults in the world and that we can do that collectively for humanity, that humanity needs to go through a collective leap of consciousness or a collective leap of how we function in the world, the developmental leap that we are kind of stuck in egocentric, species-centric way of seeing and being in the world that is akin to like a toddler or a teenage stage that we’re not yet in that responsible adult stage. Obviously there are some individuals but collectively we’re not in that responsible adult stage and definitely not in the elder, reflective elder stage and that we so we’re needing that collective developmental shift. So that is one of our premises of mothers as natural leaders is that mothers have the unique set of skills to enable that to happen, to support that to happen, because that is part of our DNA, part of our skill sets as mothers to support that developmental process, which does involve some letting go of old patterns and letting go of conditioning and letting go of limiting beliefs of like, no I can’t, you know, going from I can’t brush my teeth to myself, by myself, to I can brush my teeth to myself, to you need to remember to do it by yourself, you know, it’s simple things but it’s, you know, when you add them all up it’s huge and that how can we do that collectively for humanity. So that’s part of, you know, where the weaving is between Mother Nature project and between a cultural emergence is this, again, this idea of developmental shifts for humanity, this quantum leaps, this way of being that will have emergent properties that enable further growth and development.

Eva: Absolutely, I am so intrigued by this mycelium concept that you were talking about, I’m resisting the urge to dive all the way in there and spend the rest of our time together exploring that, but you’ve also really already begun touching on another theme that I noticed in a lot of your work which is leadership and how you really are able to hold people through this process of, okay, how do we become leaders within the scope of permaculture, how do we do this within the scope of culture, within the scope of motherhood, and I’m also wondering how we collectively can, yes, step into this leadership position and help this collective developmental shift, as you called it. Do you have any more insights in here, the role of leadership and how this can really play a role in the transition to a resilient human presence on earth? 

Looby: Oh yes, I was part of a collaborative writing project for the Mother Nature project and there were five of us that wrote a book, Mothers as Natural Leaders, and it’s available as a free download from our website mothernatureproject.org, so do go and join our newsletter and get that book. So yeah, I have a lot to say about it. I think one of the things is about reframing what do we mean by leadership and the limiting beliefs we have about leadership, about leaders are bossy, leaders have to be perfect, leaders will become targets for people, only one person can be a leader, you know, all of these limiting beliefs that we have about leadership make us shy away from it, make us go, well either that’s not me or I don’t want that to be me, and so that’s part of the process of embodying leadership and stepping into it is to let go of those limiting beliefs. You know, the word leadership is quite sticky with people because we’re used to our political leaders or CEOs of big corporations that are really greedy in their leadership and it’s like, well no, actually how can we reclaim that word leadership and acknowledge that it can be distributed leadership and shared leadership and regenerative feminine leadership that is collaborative, that actually supports the gifts in other people, them to shine and take responsibility. How can you as a community take leadership that means that each person is using their strengths, is growing their weaknesses, is part of the new framing of leadership that then makes it feel more exciting, more accessible, more part of what we all want to do.

Eva: Okay, we’ll transition a bit into looking at the role of diversity in ecosystems and really drawing on this permaculture principle and seeing how this can leverage cultural emergence and the permaculture principles to cultivate not just ecological but also cultural and social diversity within our world, how the role of diversity and ecosystems helps build resilience. 

Looby: Thinking about that as you were talking, I was thinking you can’t really have emergence if you’re just putting the same thing together or the same people together, you know, like if you’re just putting flour and flour together, you’re not making a cake, you need flour and you need eggs, well you can have vegan cakes but you know you need the flour, you need the sugar, you need all the different ingredients and it’s the different ingredients that create the emergence. We have a principle of emergence happens in relationship and it’s the relationship of different things that bring that emergence there, that it’s how it’s the differences that bring out the newness, that bring out more differences. It’s part of what we like to do with cultural emergence is create fields of encouragement so that when you are in a cultural emergence group or course or an event you’re just feeling encouraged by being there, you’re feeling in your heart space, there’s encouragement happening in many different directions, you’re giving and you’re receiving encouragement so it creates this like this energetic field that you’re part of and that is part of the process of emergence that happens, that process is about celebrating the diversity, celebrating the unique gifts of each person and acknowledging them as unique and valuing the different ways people see things and their different perceptions and their different patterns as well and so it breaking away from there is one right way to actually collectively we can discover many different ways of doing things. 

Eva: Do you have any examples from your life how embracing this diversity and ecosystem and people has really given you resilience or given a situation more ability to adapt to change? 

Looby: Well I think just on a very personal level it supports my family life to celebrate diversity and to really learn and value particularly like my children’s point of views because I think from my generation there was more of a cultural paradigm of kind of learn from your elders and your parents are right and that kind of thinking whereas I try and I’m still you know again it’s a lifelong process to let go of that cultural thinking but I try and embody more of a like an interest in the perspectives of my children and in what they have to to share with me and the new ways of thinking that they invite from me so trying to come from a place of listening and witnessing rather than a place of enforcing or saying this is right this is how we see things or you know this is how it’s done to be like okay that’s okay if you want to question it yeah celebrating just even on the basic level celebrating the diversity of the people around me you know I hold my hands up to saying it’s not always an easy process or where I don’t always get right by any means it’s a process and it’s a an ambition and an intention rather than a skill I always have because I’m perfectly imperfect you know this was part of my process for when I was right wanting to write People and Permaculture and I was like how can I write a book on people care when I still have arguments when I still find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning or when I can’t do this or that and I was just like okay hold on you can’t wait to be a perfect person to do this the world needs this book before you’re going to be it before you’re a perfect person which is never but you’ll learn more in the process so I’m constantly using the tools that I’m talking about to develop myself and my family life and Applewood and you know my creative process and things constantly using them and seeing how they work for me absolutely and it’s so easy to get stuck in I’m not ready so I thank you for bringing that it is absolutely a constant evolution a constant emergence constant learning and one I think key element to building resilience is getting out of your own way so thank you for bringing that yeah absolutely like we could really always say we’re not ready to be a mum or we’re not ready to get land or to move into a community or to write a book or to become a teacher but all of those things you learn on the job that there’s kind of almost no way around it you’ll never know enough to do it without having done it and that you have to do it to learn how to do it if you’re waiting to be ready you’ll never be ready step into it and that’s what you’ll learn and it’s it’s this idea of emergence as an adventure that we’re stepping into something new and this is this is my new book that I’m writing which is design adventures about the design web and how we need to step into these adventures before we maybe feel we’re ready, before we feel like we’ve got the skills to just embark on it and learn in the process and enjoy the process of discovery.

Eva: Absolutely, Looby. You also work with a lot of different people helping to bring your learnings by doings into more hands and I would love to ask you about your views on education and in general more or less and if you have any ideas on how we can effectively integrate this cultural emergence permaculture principles the notion of leadership and emergence into our education systems and and how we can start to regenerate education in a way.

Looby: oh wow I think we need a year-long training on this well I did write a chapter in people in permaculture using the design web of how we would reimagine our education system so I feel like I’ve done the design for reimagining our education systems we just need a lot of policy and a lot of educators to take that forward which there are I think it’s probably the policy that is the thing that’s lacking rather than the the educators it’s about you know learner-centered education so rather than this like prescriptive this is what you need to learn to really learn through the doing learning through where people’s where their passions are how to collaboratively learn as well because this is such a shift from our mainstream education which is very much competition-based and exam-based and you know individual-based rather than actually how can we all develop the skills so how would you know how would a class operate differently if instead of each individual getting a grade if there was a an average grade for the whole class you know just imagine that so just that one shift of like okay you’ve got 20 people in the class and you’ve got to you’re going to get the average how can each learner then support each other learner to do a bit better because then it’s contributing to the whole you know I mean that just one idea there is just such would just absolutely radically reframe our entire education system from rather than the you know the first pass the post and just you know do well for your individual gain. 

Eva: Just this one idea that you’ve just shared around collective grades gives me so much creativity already to start to think about this on a neighborhood scale if in your neighborhood everyone had a collective income for example this one creative idea I think opens up a lot of opportunity for us to rethink our culture and our society so thank you very much for bringing that. 

Looby: Yeah I think there’s so many different possibilities aren’t there and it’s like we kind of get stuck in that this is the only way but actually there’s many different ways and I think this is really important when we think about what are the solutions where they’re coming from is like well what are the the values and the ethics that are driving those solutions so when we’re like saying okay you know technology might save us or politics might save us actually culture influences politics and politics influences culture and technology influences culture and culture influences technology and the same with language if we really feed the culture it’s like feeding the soil it’s like then the things will grow healthy and strong the technology will grow healthy and in service to humanity and to the planet if we’ve got the cultural values that feed that. 

Eva: Thank you so much for all of your wisdom we’re going to have very rich show notes and I look forward to to linking to how people can get in touch with you and find your work and before we part ways I’m wondering if you have any parting words of wisdom or maybe we can pull one of your cards. 

Looby: Yeah I’d love to just pull a card and see what what comes with for people that are listening and just thinking about yeah what’s going forward. Well out of my cards I have picked building resilience. Oh that’s wonderful. It says be adaptive to changes, recover from adversity, allow challenges to inform you and spread strategies for practical and emotional resilience. So yeah perfect card for this podcast and yeah it’s been a delight to talk to you and I think parting words of wisdom then is for people to just just to begin and to to allow themselves to just loosen that complex web to just just you know wiggle it free a little bit just to do something a little bit different to just question their thinking or their internal dialogue to just try something new just to see how it feels and just to embark on that journey of emergence and shifting cultures and embracing our personal cultures. I’d really like to invite everyone to get involved I’ve got a cultural emergence principles coloring book which is really good fun really good to use in groups as a way of easing people into their creativity and that’s free for when you sign up to our newsletter at cultural-emergence.com free taster course and the mother’s natural leaders free books and I do lots of online and in-person courses so yeah there’s many rich resources for people to tap into and embark on their pathway because we all have a life pathway and at any time it can take a turn into exciting new adventures so yeah embrace it. embrace the opportunity. 

Eva: Thank you so much Looby for your wisdom and your time it’s been a pleasure to talk with you today.

Looby: Thank you it’s been a joy to talk with you as well. 

OUTRODUCTION

Join us again next week as we continue the conversation over what it means to be resilient in our time of deepening public crisis. While you wait for the next episode of Community Resilience we invite you to explore more about the Ecovillage Resilience 2.5 Degree Project by visiting us online at ecovillage.org/resilience.