Finding Hope in Natural Patterns

Thinking about Reconstruction Part 4

Image description: Picture of a previously burned landscape showing charred tree trunks and green regrowth below. Photo by seif eddine kharrachi on Unsplash.

I enjoyed reading What the Bloom after L.A’s Wildfires Reveals About Our Ecological Future in the New York Times a few weeks ago. Nature is so resilient, and many plants and animals are adapted to fire or even require it. Although the Palisades area in Southern California was reduced to ashes in January, now just nine months later, it is full of plant and animal life.

We can learn a lot from the natural world and draw inspiration for the transformation of human patterns of behavior. It also offers us a world that inspires awe and affirms the power and necessity of diversity and interdependence. We grow our faith that these principles are really the natural order and can eventually guide us in creating something better.

Fractals is just one of the many great concepts drawn from the natural world that is presented in Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown’s classic book. I am still deepening my appreciation for this idea—working to believe it wholeheartedly. I think this is because it runs counter to the dominant narrative that things done on a big scale are more important than small efforts. brown defines fractals as “a never-ending pattern…infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop.” Spiral galaxies, the branching fronds of a fern, and the structure of cauliflower are all fractal in nature. She further asserts, “How we are a small scale is how we are at a large scale.” Thus, democracy-building work at the local level reverberates to the national level, and peace-building with our neighbors can ripple out.

If we believe in the power of fractals, of establishing healthy patterns at the micro level that can then grow outward, we can apply ourselves to creating functional, life-affirming organizations with faith that our work is helping to model what works for all involved and will eventually reprogram how we interact on a broader scale.

For more inspiration from nature, learn about biomimicry. Biomimicry invites us to explore how we can model our organizations and our work on resilient natural processes and structures. It also helps us reconnect with joy and awe as we learn about the elegant solutions that have evolved naturally, from the powerful sticking power of burrs (inspiration for Velcro’s design) to the symbiotic relationship of trees and mycelium networks (transporting nutrients and warning signals where needed for the common good of the forest).

If wildfire-ravaged areas can regenerate quickly, I am confident that we can as well. Nature can model some ways to do it that are more life-giving.