Agraria Journal Winter 2021

AMY HARPER AGRARIA JOURNAL 2021 15 many opportunities for growth, change, and reorganization. Complex natural systems are balanced between order and chaos—diversity produces robust and interconnected functioning. Redundancy supports stability and regrowth after disturbances. And emergent properties arise from complex systems that can’t be predicted but that produce a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Benyus coined the term biomimicry to describe human design that follows natural principles. This design movement has spiraled beyond her book and organization into multiple engineering, architectural, and design practices. Benyus’ ideas of using nature’s technologies, recipe books, and biological principles have inspired thousands of innovations, including fractal antennas and wind turbines that hold more information and interact with the surrounding environment in more complex ways than the standard models. Permaculture, biodynamic farming, regenerative agriculture—and the indigenous practices on which these systems are based—echo fractal systems in their planting of multiple species and recognition of the patterns and flows of sunlight, seasons, wildlife, and people. Living walls and roofs, geodesic domes, and greywater filtering systems are patterns of building that seek to mimic and enhance the natural systems in which they are nested. We are also coming to understand that there are emergent ways of working and sharing resources that can allow human communities to move like a murmuration of starlings into a different kind of thinking and doing. Rather than pooling talent and other resources into deep siloed wells, fractal ways of working—think creative intellectual commons and cooperative banks and enterprises—help to evolve not just individual partners but also the systems in which they partner. Since our purchase of Agraria in 2017, we have been exploring regenerative practices on land and water—and in our modes of doing. We have transitioned 90 acres of the land out of conventional corn and soy to organic and permaculture plantings. Reforestation areas, perennial crops, and prairie plantings are echoes of the ecosystems that once covered our area. We know from soil studies and our own observation that mycelial networks are regrowing underground, and insect and bird populations are recouping above. The re-meandering of Jacoby creek will likewise be studied for its impact on the regeneration of natural systems and the flora and fauna within and around the riparian zone. Children and adults are engaged in nature-based play and exploration and learning about natural principles in conferences and workshops in ways that restore biophilic connections with the landscape and enhance understanding of how to regenerate it. Our growth strategies are also fractal—exploring and cultivating the fertile land that intersects our main project areas. We are developing learning communities of staff, board, and friends to enhance our understandings. And we strive to develop partnerships that are mutually beneficial and move all of us toward more holistic understandings of our collective work. Examples of these partnerships are The Big Map Out project developed with The Yellow Springs Schools and research and extension partnerships with Central State University. Each of these partnerships draws on the expertise and expands the understandings and capabilities of all partners. What we find emerging at Agraria and quickening in the midst of uncertainty and historic change is a commitment to inhabiting patterns of growth and evolution—a commitment to the shape of things to come. Susan Jennings is executive director of Agraria.