Making Connections
Mar. 19th, 2026 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
claire_58
This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world. I hope to provide some possibilities based on our universal human strengths and the strategies that have allowed us to thrive in the past.
If you care about this planet; the future; and your own ability to make your way in these crazy times this blog is for you.
Building a worthwhile future for ourselves is well within our capabilities. However, As Albert Einstein famously said “We can't solve today's problems with the mentality that created them.” Unfortunately, our culture and training… well, let’s just say that western science and western culture tends to rely on linear thinking and values the “objective.” Understanding ecosystems and learning to work with ecological processes requires a different approach.
Linear thinking is concerned with content. It breaks things up into components. It looks for simple causal relations and tries to address the superficial presenting symptoms. Systems thinking in contrast is concerned with the whole. It look for processes and underlying dynamics. It tries to identify patterns.
Linear thinking can be powerful. Western scientists and engineers have created many amazingly useful technologies. Unfortunately our attempts to use linear thinking and linear models to “control” and manipulate biological systems have been stunningly disastrous.
If we hope to shift from destructive systems of production to regenerative systems, we need to let go of any idea about control and learn to interact as thoughtful respectful members of our ecological communities. That means focussing on patterns, connections, and relationships rather than objects and control. Fortunately pattern recognition, and building and maintaining relationships based on those patterns is one of our superpowers.
In Catching Fire: how cooking made us human Richard Wrangham tells a compelling story about how learning to cook and eating cooked food allowed us to develop larger brains specifically to keep track of our social connections. According to Wrangham, keeping track of relationships was so important that the extra calories provided by easily digested hot food were used, not to make us faster to better escape predators; not to make us stronger to be better hunters, but to expand our pattern recognition abilities and increase our capacity to remember faces and the interactions we had with the people around us.
Facial recognition is pattern recognition. It is this same capacity that makes literacy possible. It not only makes learning to read something almost anyone can do but also allows us to read text in numerous different fonts. Identifying patterns is a key skill in thinking ecologically. The other important skills are identifying connections and forming relationships. All these things are a good match for our natural abilities.
We are so good at making connections that we’ve extend our relationship building skills to include making alliances with other species. In The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction Pat Shipman shows how the alliance between early humans and the wolf-dogs ancestors of modern dogs created an unstoppable dynamic duo that allowed us to become an apex predators. (The idea that we drove Neanderthals to extinction is largely speculative and simplistic. Critics have pointed out that many factors contributed to their decline.)
Shipman makes a convincing case that this early relationship was an alliance based on mutual benefits. That 40,000+ year old connection started a long history of coevolution that is best described as mutual domestication. Over the centuries both humans and dogs have developed traits that facilitate bonding, communication, and collaboration.
Moreover, our with success with dogs expanded our range of adaptive possibilities. Over the centuries we have persuaded many, many other kinds of creatures from horses and elephants to microorganisms to work for or with us. Sadly, most of these relationships have been more exploitative than collaborative. However, a new story about how we can lean in to collaboration with our animal friends has been quietly developing for several decades.
Contrast using “animal power” (draft horses or oxen), to pull a plow with using a “pig tractor” to prepare the land. A pig tractor is a biological system in which the pigs being raised are enclosed in the area to be “plowed” and provided with food, water, and shelter. They are then left to do what pigs do: root around with their strong snouts and churn up the land with their sharp hoofs.
Contrast this again with the lives pigs lead in the horrendous conditions of industrial animal husbandry. Pork production is brutal for the animals and the concentrated waste is an ecological disaster for the surrounding area. Pigs raised in a “pig tractor” not only “plow” the land but also fertilize it and churn the “fertilizer” into the soil. They will do this happily all day everyday and will be ecstatic when you move them to a fresh spot.
Biological systems can be used to produce food; purify water; and process waste. They can be small scale systems or they can be scaled up meet the needs of larger communities
Using regenerative systems to meet our needs requires developing our abilities to observe and imitate natural systems. It requires practicing systems thinking and honing our eco-literacy. Ecosystems are about connections and relationships. Keeping track of relationships is one of our superpowers.
Next: Ecology: the basics
Thoughts
Date: 2026-03-19 11:09 pm (UTC)We may not have accomplished all that we wanted, but imagine how much worse it would be without the environmental movement. Never give up.
>>Unfortunately, our culture and training… well, let’s just say that western science and western culture tends to rely on linear thinking and values the “objective.”<<
Fortunately there are lots of other options. I like permaculture precisely because it deals in networks and cycles. And my detritus food web is 3 days to apex.
>>Pigs raised in a “pig tractor” not only “plow” the land but also fertilize it and churn the “fertilizer” into the soil. They will do this happily all day everyday and will be ecstatic when you move them to a fresh spot.<<
Also works with chickens, where the idea started. You can do it with rabbits, guinea pigs, etc. too.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2026-03-20 04:02 am (UTC)Thanks for sharing your thoughts. This post is the 4 or 5 in what is likely to be a long series. You may want to read some of the earlier ones and I do hope you keep reading and commenting on future posts.
1) I'm more than ready to give up on tactics that haven't worked for more than 40 years. That's why I'm exploring alternatives.
2) Yes, there are many other options. There's only so much you can get into a 3-5 min read. I'm a permaculture designer myself and my goal is to get people thinking about the possibilities.
3)I chose to use pigs because, like humans, pigs are seen as inherently damaging to the ecosystem. I'll be building on that in future posts.
Thanks again and all the best,
E.
Hmm
Date: 2026-03-22 02:13 pm (UTC)As for the "pig tractor" there is a chicken tractor option too where the mobile coop is moved.
Re: Hmm
Date: 2026-03-22 06:32 pm (UTC)But there are lots of options. There are so many proven biological systems of production. We don't embrace them readily. I think we are still mesmerized by all our shiny technology.
Right now I'm trying to convince people that we are capable of making good decisions and taking on the task of real participation in the ecosystems we share. Once that's done I will devote a post (or 2 or 3 or 4) to biological systems. Regenerative agriculture is only part of it. There are amazing "living machines" for waste water management and many other types of appropriate technologies too.
I still haven't got a handle on the image technology here but I'm certainly going to be posting pictures when I get to that part.
Oink!
Date: 2026-03-23 09:18 pm (UTC)I don't want to paint the good old fashioned family farm as an ecological utopia, but it sure was a lot better at establishing and maintaining relationships with a wide variety of species and with the land itself than the industrial-scale farm or cash cropping. One of my brothers-in-law grew up on a family farm in Quebec and, along with my eldest sister, ran a good diverse family farm in Ontario for decades. I learned a heck of a lot from him! Their farm made good use of pig tractors as well as ducks (an organic pesticide with webbed feet!).
I have taken things a lot further than my sister with my organic year-round gardening in my suburban backyard (and sometimes community gardens) but the lack of animals to "husband" is a drawback despite my considerable success with composting, crop rotation and companion gardening.
Looking forward to your ecology post!
Ron M
Re: Oink!
Date: 2026-03-24 07:01 pm (UTC)A good old fashioned mixed farm is a great starting point. Lot's of regenerative practices are showing up on family farms. They make sense and they work. Most farmers are pretty pragmatic.
It is really difficult to get a good set up without animals. I'd love to have ducks.
My husband keeps chickens but he is resistant to setting them up to be useful in the garden. The social and educational aspects of having the chickens right out where people, especially children, walking by can see them are much more important to him.