Metamorphosis

A process of transformation

Change your ways.

Refocus on a new vision.

Go in a different direction or pivot and try a new approach.

How many times have I heard these instructions bouncing off the emptiness inside my own head? It didn’t work so try again, just tweak it a little. For much of life I agree, there is no point in doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It is a doom loop guaranteed to fail and I mean fail. Failure is the inability to see what went wrong and learn from that. Failure is being stuck in a cycle, trapped in the Truman Show’s dome — there appears to be no way out, inconsequential repetition, every single monotonous day.

Stagnancy creeps in when that doom loop is never broken. There needs to be some divine intervention for humans to “risk” changing their ways.

What if there is another way?

Metamorphosis.

Morphing into a completely new shape and being. It’s been done for eons in the insect world. How do those cells know what form to take once they dissolve into a liquid blueprint? The imaginal discs take this blueprint and create a living portrait within the confines of the chrysalis. There is no guess work, that is crystal clear from the final glory. The exquisite beauty that peeps from behind the changing-room curtain. Metamorphic change is deliberate.

What is stopping mankind from transforming from the old system to the new way, taking on a different form inside our heads? Laws are the caterpillars immune system trying to bring us down. We stand up and overpower them, we are the imaginal cells, taking back control. We keep multiplying and link together to form the new butterfly. We spread our wings and take flight away from the restriction of the old system and into a wild chaotic but self-organising ecosystem. Multi Species flourishing — diversity being at the core of farming.

Change isn’t enough.

Is it the bombardment of tired old information holding us in a headlock? We can see the truth but can’t seem to reach it. Grappling in the dark for the light switch, the switch needs flicking on for shift to happen. Knowledge doesn’t seem to be the key in this recipe. There has to be a lightbulb moment and for some this might be just one farm visit — for others it can take a painful amount of time.

My friend calls it ‘tricked-up degenerative’. It’s the same as “changing” a certain part of your life to become more active and healthy but then at night drinking 2 bottles of wine. The former change doesn’t negate the bad habit that continues to lock that doom loop into place.

No! Transforming life is about understanding why. Then, executing the how and finally being happy and thriving with the final outcome. If the final product doesn’t suit then all that needs tweaking is the how. Because in this transformational process you don’t rob Peter to feed Paul, you take Peter out of the equation to focus on Paul and identify what’s really going on.

Can you see the difference? It’s not change that we need it is an entire transformational process.

Natural cycles don’t stagnate, they move in all directions, upwards, sideways, backwards and every which way. They never stay still. Land is constantly moving, rivers flow and burst their banks, herds trample and flocks flap across this vast continent. In strong contrast… Humans build. We lock ourselves in situ. Build fences and boundaries — close doors — shape our landscape to suit our needs. Restrict the growth of individuals but grow cities and urban sprawl instead. We have segregated ourselves from our farmers and then lay blame at their feet when our landscape shows signs of erosion.

Our entire system has restricted personal growth, the ability to observe what needs to be done. Inhibit certain processes because laws have taken over the Lore of the Land. Mother Nature’s cycles that create abundance and prosperity in uncertain times. Weather patterns dictate profit but we interfere with our ever decreasing knowledge and the influence of people who “know better”.

Why so complicated?

Complexity can be simplified to understand the entire system but complicated stays complicated no matter how much it is broken down.

Nature is complex.

Humans are complicated.

Systems have been built with one complicated layer on top of another. A layered complicated mess. Structure, rules, regulations, laws and a system that dictates without any flexible observation to the destruction of mankind. The rigid tiers serve no purpose in farming.

My definition of farming: Creating food using an entire systems approach in a fully functioning landscape. Incorporating food production into an ever increasing abundance of cycling ecosystems within a boundary called ‘a farm’.

The only word that grates on me in this definition, is ‘production’. The reason this industrial word is placed there is to acknowledge that a small amount of people aka farmers are producing food for the entire population of a country. This definition will be tweaked as time flows into another decade, then century. Metamorphosis of our farming system will regress back to feeding locals, in this transformation it has taken a step back into the old ways our forefathers grew food, but with a futuristic twist. Less land grows more quality food and regenerates our landscape. This will be the colourful way we farm. Using Mother Nature to guide us through the seasons with water and carbon cycles at the tip of our importance scale.

Holistic approaches use the whole to guide the intricate details. Zoom in and focus on specifics but be sure to refocus on the whole to observe the subtle changes.

Know why, show us how and observe the living ecosystem. Prosperity is clear when we are set free to flutter into a new way of being. Take flight into the Lores of Nature and leave the restrictive man-made laws to decompose into the past.

The new pattern already exists deep within — because we belong to Mother Earth.