In 2010 I had my first dark night of the soul. 

I was in an environmental sustainability fellowship program & one of the required classes taught about climate science (shocker).

The instructor showed us a graphic of a bathtub with a faucet, a drain & a maximum fill line, called the “Carbon Bathtub.”

He told us that this bathtub represented the ability for the earth’s atmosphere to hold Carbon before it negatively impacts us —

— when those Greenhouse Gases start causing sea level rising, wildfires, droughts, famines…

The faucet at the top was us humans adding more Carbon to our atmosphere, and the drain represents Nature’s natural processes integrating and using the Carbon.

If we put in more Carbon than the drain can take out, the bathtub rises.

He said that if we go over the “maximum fill line” then what happens is essentially a “point of no return” where one devastation triggers another and another.

He then told us we were already at the maximum fill line.

In 2010. 15 years ago.

My dark night of the soul was really around the hopelessness of being alive on earth right now. 

I’ve always been a problem solver that loves to bleed for the projects I’m working on, but in this case there wasn’t really anything to do? We’re fucked.

(Don’t worry, this isn’t ultimately a story of “well we’re totally fucked so do what you want  bc we’re screwed anyways…”)

It took me a couple years after this point, but thank the gods, I found permaculture and regenerative farming. These food-growing systems are inspired by Nature, and are essentially the past and current day practices of indigenous people who have lived in co-creative relationship with the lands they’re on.

These systems looked to Nature and not only found that it produced better tasting, more nutrient-dense food, but it also naturally creates a better quality of life, more fertile soil, and SEQUESTERS CARBON – aka it pulls carbon out of the atmosphere and holds it in the earth.

… essentially making that Carbon Bathtub drain much much bigger.

Let’s look a little deeper. (I promise this relates to your business, indulge me)

Now imagine a forest. Any forest.

Maybe it’s a rainforest in the Amazon or a tiny forested area by your house that you walk your dog through.

That forest has a few different tree species. It has birds and squirrels (or monkeys, if we’re talking Amazon). It probably has some berry bushes and grass or vining ground cover.

If you left that forest for a week, what would happen to it? For a month? A year?

Nothing.

Well, actually, a ton of things would happen in it. But all those things would lead to its continued life.

Our human-designed garden would shrivel and die, while the Earth-designed garden (a forest) thrives and lives on.

Then on the much-larger scale – with standard, conventional agriculture, you have a plot of land. You plant it with seeds and add chemical fertilizer so the plants have the nutrients they need to grow. You add chemical pesticides to kill all the insects that want to eat the salad bar you planted for them. The plants grow and pull nutrients from the soil and the air in the process. (That is, if the soil hasn’t already been depleted, in which case, you just throw on more chemical nutrients.) You then harvest the plant’s leaves or fruits, and pull out the rest of the plant because you’re done with that shit. You till the soil to prepare it for the next planting to start the process over again.

Standard, conventional agriculture is quite obviously all about the take, take, take. Production and efficiency over all else.

In sustainable, organic agriculture, you do the same as above, but you sub in organic chemicals for your fertilizer and pesticides. And perhaps you rotate what you grow with beans and cover crops to fix nitrogen into the soil. (In older times, they left a field fallow to rest between plantings and harvests.)

Here you sustain. You’re just keeping things as they are. It’s good enough to get by year after year. Unless you’re trying to keep up with a growing population.

With regenerative agriculture, we’re flipping agriculture on its head. Instead of trying to grow food, we’re aiming to grow fertile soil. With the focus on fertility at the root, the most delicious and nutrient-dense food on the planet is the natural byproduct. It’s the afterthought that just happens, almost like magic.

Really sit with the reality that focusing on the wrong results (more yield, faster growth, profits over everything) can actually bring about less delicious and nutritious food, and a less fulfilling and sexy life.

In terms of your business, you can think of conventional agriculture like sweatshops. They’re creating shitty-quality items that people don’t really care about and abusing their workers in the process.

The result of sustainable/organic agriculture is organic produce, so you could think of the result of a sustainable business as a comfortable lifestyle and a job you enjoy. Lovely!

But there’s something better. 

With regenerative agriculture, the result is soil and fertility. And with regenerative business, the result is a ripple effect of clients who are similarly trying to grow a world that’s better. 

Regenerative business creates fertile ground within you so you can unearth and express your soul purpose. It stewards a version of you that’s fully in bloom. It’s creative, healing, and intentional, and it births a better world for future generations.

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