The act of generativity is centred in the act of creation. Creation arises when any two or more elements are brought together to reveal something new – something that distinguishes it from the source resources.

The act of regenerativity indicates that generation happens more than once. It is an act that repeats itself to produce dependably the same results.

At Findhorn Ecovillage, where I live in Scotland, our community has generated a symbol of the myth of Regeneration. We have created a mosaic of a grand Phoenix. The act of creating the art, regenerated a community spirit. The completion of the project regenerated our belief that we could work together to complete a worthy goal. And the contemplation of this mythical bird arising from the ashes of despair in the pandemic year, reminds us that regeneration is an act that involves all of us – body, mind, heart and soul. Only through the act of regeneration do we gain the capacity of regenerativity.

In the wider world of Nature, regenerativity may happen on a cycle or season – like the dandelion that regenerates as soon as its bloom turns into a seedpod.

Regenerativity may happen in a vessel of regeneration – like an egg, a womb, a hive. In all these cases regenerativity is supported by the life conditions that secure the energy necessary to regenerate.

Regeneration is the act – while regenerativity is the capacity to regenerate. While life conditions are stable regenerativity can result in sustainability. The act of regeneration is the third quality – the feedback capacity – of all living systems – which by definition must be able to survive, connect with their environment and regenerate.

Our Earth system provides a meta-environment to contain all the other environments wherein living systems survive and regenerate. As such it has natural limits to its matter, energy and information cycles where regenerativity must realize its natural constraints. Any living system that surpasses the capacity for its environment to sustain itself, will find a natural response that contracts the capacity to regenerate.

The regenerativity of humans in our Human Hives is fast reaching a series of tipping points where our disrespect of planetary boundaries will render our connections to our environment (aka life conditions) mis-matched to our species’ capacity to sustain itself. The fears of climate experts are that when more than a cluster of critical tipping points are passed, life as we know it on Earth will not be sustainable and runaway, intersecting, interacting tipping points will disable healthy regeneration.

Many believe that the pandemic of 2020 has been gifted to humans as a particularly visible, virulent transgression of the relationship between humans and other species, thus releasing the covid virus as an unforeseen consequence. This viral consequence has impacted every Human Hive and forces us to re-value and respect the life conditions that make regeneration possible and regenerativity a capacity we must deeply respect in order to restore and recalibrate.

This blog series explores Regenerativity as: