The S.E.E.D.S.
The School for Ecocentric Evolution & Design Strategies
“Our primary mission to sow seeds of a life-affirming future at the fertile intersection of the individual, communal, and ecological worlds.”
The Vision
SEEDS is a living vision of a more beautiful future, a lens of perceiving and a way of loving that strives to serve life’s continual becoming over time and across scale. It is an emergent response born through the earth as a way of seeing, a strategy for dreaming, and an open invitation for participating in the cultivation of soul rooted personal development, the (re)generative of human culture, and the (re)animation of our more-than-human ecological world. SEEDS strives to integrate and bridge the seeming polarities of our times through inviting playful participation in the vast spectrums between/beyond rigid dualities that limit the full potentiality of a process-relational orientation toward conscious evolution. It is a vision of intentionally digesting, composting and turning over the old, fragile, decrepit, crumbling structures of a shared past that no longer bears fruit. It is a vision of aligning with and further catalyzing the (r)evolutionary emergence of regenesis that is beginning to sprout within the many cracks of our fragmenting world in the form of localized hubs, fertile oases, and educational learning centers where localized communities are taking radical responsibility for their personal thriving, as well as that of their families, communities and ecologies. It is a vision of assisting those place-based educational praxis hubs to actualize themselves and cross-pollinate their wisdom within a globally-networked web of solidarity and feedback exchange that can help synthesis, articulate, and disseminate the experiential learnings necessary for the establishment of an ecocentric planetary home. SEEDS is in service to the continued propagation of this vision and it is also a manifestation of it, exploring ecocentric evolutionary values and design strategies as an evolutionary response arising amidst the polycrisis of our collective moment. As grave as our current planetary conditions are, SEEDS imagines and breathes life into a trajectory in which constellations of modern humans have the potential and capacity to choose, together, to design and practice a new way of organizing ourselves that can serve as a living bridge between the precarity of our current times and the more harmonized, life-sustaining, and integrative future world that is calling so many of us forward in thought and deed.
This vision that we steward is not ours alone, it is instead a vision of the earth for the earth; a vision of life for life; a story for the people that we as people are telling ourselves. This vision is being articulated and practiced in many diverse forms across the globe as an adaptive, emergent, generative response to the nature of our collective times. SEEDS is our unique way of telling and inviting this shared story into its imperfectly organic next iteration of becoming, from our heart-minds to yours.
This vision is based on a rigorous ecocentric philosophy, which posits that in order to improve and evolve a quality of planetary experience that includes human beings, we must intentionally consider and design across 3 foundational and mutually co-arising domains of the individual, communal, and ecological facets of our reality. When we tend to the thriving and evolution of all 3 of these domains, we as humans serve as participatory agents and architects of conscious planetary evolution. We explore these 3 pillars of our work in more detail below. We’re so glad you’re here with us!
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The Three Pillars of The Work
Soul Rooted Individual Development
Soul Rooted Development is a mode of relating to and developing within the domain of the individual subject. Here we focus on supporting the individual in the cultivation of greater meaning, significance and participatory belonging. This is achieved through the cultivation of an awareness of the ecocentric soul, which is understood to be a mysterious process-relational space (niche) that is both the unique convergence of all that affords one’s individual being and the personal images that compel one’s being towards ever greater expressions of their unique becoming. The soul in this context is a kind of sacred weaver of threads, meaningfully coalescing the random into personally significant images that generate a primordial calling towards evolutionary participation. The soul rooted development of the individual out of necessity compels individuals towards psycho-spiritual maturation so that they might meaningfully contribute within the other two domains/pillars of holistic cultural regeneration and the re-animation of the more-than-human ecological world.
Holistic Cultural (Re)Generation
A truly holistic human culture must balance both continuance (stability) and evolution (change) so as to eternally create and re-create the conditions necessary for life and consciousness to not only survive but thrive across deep time. Our current predominant overculture is on a self-terminating path through amplifying fragmentation across human differences, within individual psyches, and across the ecosystems that sustain us. This necessitates the (re)generation of holistic human culture. Healthy culture can be defined as the co-created relational facilitation that promotes the maximization of generative participation, authentic creativity, and quality of experience for the greatest number of humans and more-than-humans across time. Human culture quite literally shapes the consciousness of the individuals grown within that culture, and shapes the landscapes of our ecological communities. Thus, this pillar is in service to consciously evolving the foundational values and practices of our socio-cultural milieu in order to support the other two domains/pillars of soul rooted development of all individuals and the re-animation of our more-than-human ecological world. A human culture that can serve all three intersecting domains/pillars is an ecocentric culture capable of longevity and extraordinary ingenuity.
(Re)Animation of the More-Than-Human
The re-animation of the more-than-human ecological world is the process by which we as humans choose again to see and feel all that is, has been, and will be as a divine living expression of a wildly intelligent process of evolutionary becoming. It is the process by which we come to see ourselves as born out of a complex, dynamic, living field of relationships comprised of unique elements all valuable in their own particular ways. As human beings, we are invited to participate in the ongoing generation of greater harmonized complexity. When we see life as animate and understand ourselves to be present within a living universe, then our participation becomes instilled with greater significance. From this place, we can begin to step into our rightful place with the family circle of life, becoming agents and stewards of our planetary communities. Without this ontological shift to feelings ourselves as inherently entangled within a vast living system, then no truly sustainable future is possible. Only through reciprocal relationship, can a generative ecocentric process-relational future emerge.
Praxis
Praxis is where our theory meets practice, where we get to play with the actualization of ideas into form for the creation of living symbols that point towards the core fundamental values of the ecocentric life-affirming world that beckons us forward. Essentially, we are taking the SEEDS articulated ecocentric cosmology story and applying it into time and place with the intention to experience the theory subjectively through our psycho-somatic responses, while simultaneously reflecting on its objective effectiveness at communicating the story of value in a way that can be clear & replicable to those who interact with it across a diversity of theoretical contexts and cultural understandings. Praxis spaces are ones of engagement, education, innovation, and experimentation in service to the further refinement of our theories of change as well as the continued propagation of tangible representations of ecocentric life-affirming values in action.
Cultural Regenesis Hubs
As a catalyst for collective evolution, SEEDS prioritizes bioregional action toward cultural regeneration. Through the creation of cultural regenesis hubs, we are beginning to root our vast vision into time and place. These praxis hubs offer on-the-ground practice ground for essential learning and development across the three pillars of ecocentric evolution (i.e. self, culture, and ecology). Aimed to be sites where experimentation, collaboration, and innovation are welcomed, these hubs are birthing emergent models of localized resilience. Through taking an experimental yet grounded approach across diverse bioregions, these praxis hubs aim to offer immersive “living classroom” approaches to cross-pollinating ideas, frameworks, and practices that can amplify our collective momentum toward the growing of a life-affirming world.
Initiatives & Enterprise Ecologies
Based on our ecocentric understanding of the interconnection of all things, our vision is one of mutual co-arising. This means that SEEDS is inherently interested in collaborative partnerships and innovative initiatives that support the growing of an ever-more resilient and diverse ecology of exchange. We do this through striving to cultivate enterprise ecologies, in which we intentionally craft partnerships with individuals and groups who are visionary leaders in their respective fields and areas of expertise. We believe this model of collaborative social entrepreneurship is the way of the future because it simultaneously honors the unique ingenuity of the particular individuals and entities involved while celebrating that their co-creative potential is greater than the sum of their parts.
Communitas
Alia Yarrow
Alia is a core founder of SEEDS and a visionary architect of more beautiful worlds. She tends the fertile intersection of individual healing, cultural development, and ecological stewardship. She weaves together the diverse threads of her background as a licensed therapist, restorative justice and anti-oppression cultural facilitator, permaculturalist, rites-of-passage guide, novice energy healer, poet, and cultural visionary. Alia has applied this breadth of experience to offering holistic therapeutic services, facilitating group learning and justice spaces, guiding earth-based rites-of-passage, and helping sprout hubs of place-based human culture.
Hayden Shaw
Hayden is core founder of SEEDS and a wild visionary of collective ecocentric evolution. He is an experienced circle-holder and ceremonial guide. He is trained as a nature-based soul guide and permaculturalist. He is self-taught in ontological design processes, philosophy, primal movement, and evolutionary astrology. Hayden integrates these versatile modalities into his work as an evolutionary catalyst, striving to help root visionary ideas into tangible forms in service to the wellbeing of life and consciousness now and into the future.
Eric Roig
Eric is experienced and passionate about regenerative agriculture, localized food sovereignty, and growing systems of resilience. He brings an educational background in sustainable agriculture and engineering, as well as a passion and commitment for showing up consistently for the day-to-day necessities that keep a vision growing into form. He is a new father, deeply motivated to prepare systems of mutual support and resilience as a solid foundation from which his son can truly thrive. When he’s not tending the community farm, you can likely find him out in the orchard deepening his Qigong practice.