From: Pamela Mang and the Regenesis crew

To: the good folks organizing the Expanding Our Approach conference

Among those who have thought deeply and long into the issue of generating “sustainable sustainability”, there is pretty much consensus that true change will require a fundamental culture change. Our question or, more accurately, the direction of our continuing inquiry at Regenesis falls within this realm rather than the technology of design and building.

The question we find ourselves pursuing at Regenesis is shaped by premises we hold in common. These include:

• That the ultimate or superordinate aim of our work is to enable living in harmony with place and planet in a way that fosters the development of human potential and sustains the health generating capacity of the planet.

• That the primary barrier to accomplishing this aim is not lack of technological expertise or knowledge, but rather a failure of spirit and thinking capability.

• That the capacity to design and engage in processes that develop the necessary thinking capability, the appropriate state of being, and the nature and level of will toward this aim already exist. For the most part, however, they are seen as outside the purview of the design and development profession.

Our question, which has two dimensions and which obviously has many rings of secondary and tertiary questions moving out and up from it, is:

How can we, as design/development professionals utilize the work process: * to develop and employ the capacity to touch the spirit-–in clients, community, fellow professionals, in a way that ignites such a hunger to build, work, live and eat in harmony with our place and our planet that, in order to satisfy that hunger, we are continuously called to move beyond our own limits? And

• to develop and employ the thinking capability (distinctive from our normal patterns) required to work with increasing effect and effectiveness.