Episode 21 - A Web of Relationships
We live as part of a wondrous planet, an intricate web of interconnections and relationships. We have been taught, though, to think not in wholes and connections, but rather to break everything into simple, easy-to-digest pieces. What is often lost is our knowledge that we are whole, and that we belong here. Fortunately, systems thinking helps us to see interconnections and complexities, and learn from whole systems, like a body, ecosystem, economy, community, or planet. Drawing on this way of thinking, multisolving helps us solve complex problems by taking actions that result in many interconnected benefits. This conversation looks at systems thinking and multisolving - starting with a decades-long experience of cultivating an intentional community.
Reseed guest Dr. Elizabeth Sawin brings decades of experience as a systems thinker who leans into complexity to help small seeds grow into big changes. She is a wise systems thinking expert, and she is leading the forefront of multisolving. as the Founder of the Multisolving Institute. A biologist with a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Beth co-founded Climate Interactive in 2010 and served as Co-Director from 2010 until 2021. While at Climate Interactive, she led the scientific team that offered the first assessment of the sufficiency of country pledges to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2008.
Elizabeth helped create Cobb Hill, an intentional community of people who want to explore the challenge of living in ways that are materially sufficient and socially and ecologically responsible, with 23 households managing 270 acres in Vermont. She raised her family in this community that is now home to community-supported agriculture, beekeepers, and more, built on the three pillars of community, sustainability, and land and farm. Elizabeth digs into the experience of cultivating an intentional community in this conversation.
A systems view encourages us all to look beyond the false boundaries and lines that have been drawn, and calls on us instead to see how many parts interconnect as a whole. This is a conversation about changing how we see the Earth - and our place within her.