Creating Conditions Conducive to Life: Biomimicry for Systems Thinkers
A workshop for Donella Meadows Fellows and key partners to gather in the rainforest of Costa Rica to immerse ourselves in the wisdom of nature and teachings of Biomimicry’s Life Principles. We will engage with the Life's Principles of Biomimicry to reveal the deep patterns in Nature that lead to successful and sustainable existence on this planet. We aim to reconnect, rejuvenate, learn, and listen to what is being called from us, individually and collectively, as we go forth back into our blessed, beautiful and aching world.
Our 6 days together will include deep check-ins, opportunities for updates of participant’s work, coaching, an immersion into Life’s Principles, and time being in and learning from the Costa Rican rainforest. Sessions will be held in the classroom and outside in a diversity of ecosystems. Brave Earth offers tours in the area, some of which we will incorporate into the curriculum, and others that everyone can choose as you like during free time.
Biomimicry teaches us that life creates conditions to life by evolving to survive; adapting to changing conditions; being locally attuned and responsive; using life-friendly chemistry; being resource efficient; and by integrating development with growth. Life’s Principles are design lessons from nature. Based on the recognition that Life on Earth is interconnected and interdependent, and subject to the same set of operating conditions, Life has evolved a set of strategies that have sustained over 3.8 billion years. Life’s Principles represent these overarching patterns found amongst the species surviving and thriving on Earth. Life integrates and optimizes these strategies to create conditions conducive to life. By learning from these deep design lessons, we can model innovative strategies, measure our designs against these sustainable benchmarks, and allow ourselves to be mentored by nature’s genius using Life’s Principles as our aspirational ideals.
ABOUT BRAVE EARTH
Brave Earth, Center for Applied Cultural Transition, is a living laboratory rooted in principles of regeneration, resiliency and reciprocity. We provide immersive experiences in the Nature that share alternative ways of living and being that are suitable for modernity and contextually relevant for the rapidly changing world we live in.
Immerse yourself in the majesty and mystery of the rainforest. Brave Earth is located between San Ramon and La Fortuna, nestled in between Arenal Volcano and the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, the largest reserve of protected wildlife in Costa Rica.
As a living lab, we have experimented with different building modalities using AirCrete and materials sourced on the land including bamboo and adobe. We have implemented biophilic design, closed-loop systems and permaculture design principles. Ornamental, food, and medicinal gardens surround the center as well as hiking trials to a nearby river, and a natural swimming pond.
Dayna Baumeister
With a devotion to applied natural history and a passion for sharing the genius of nature, Dr. Dayna Baumeister has worked in the field of biomimicry with business partner Janine Benyus since 1998, traveling the world as a biomimicry thought-leader, business consultant, and professor. Together they founded the Biomimicry Guild consulting practice, The Biomimicry Institute 501c3, and in 2012, Biomimicry 3.8, a B-Corp social enterprise that helps clients find innovation inspired by nature and offers the highest level of biomimicry training to professionals worldwide.
Dayna’s foundational work has been critical to the biomimicry movement, establishing it as a fresh and innovative practice, as well as a philosophy to meet the world’s sustainability challenges. As an educator, researcher, and design consultant, Dayna has helped more than 100 companies consult the natural world for elegant and sustainable design solutions, as diverse as Nike, Interface, General Mills, Boeing, Google, Natura, Herman-Miller, Kohler, Seventh Generation and Procter & Gamble. Dayna is a natural systems thinker, trained as a Dana Meadows Fellow, and brings a unique perspective to her work to help others see nature as model, measure, and mentor. She designed and teaches the world’s first MS in Biomimicry as a Professor of Practice at ASU, co-founded, and now directs The Biomimicry Center at ASU, and compiled more than 20 years of experience in the practice of biomimicry into the Biomimicry Resource Handbook: A Seed Bank of Knowledge and Best Practices (2013).
Edie Farwell
Thrilled to convene the Dana Meadows Fellows in the rainforests of Costa Rica! Our gathering will be especially meaningful after the long Covid journey, and with the impacts of a warming climate increasingly on our doorsteps. Deploying a whole-systems approach to address the climate crisis, Edie leverages decades of experience building close-knit international networks for environment, sustainability, and social justice. She coaches sustainability champions in advancing high impact climate and social justice initiatives, and in personal sustainability and wellness. Edie co-founded the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program of the Sustainability Institute where she designed transformative leadership skills through a focus on systems thinking, reflective conversation, the discipline of vision, and coaching. To expand this work, she founded the Sustainability Leaders Network, and taught courses in Biomimicry and Systems Thinking. She currently serves on the advisory board of the Multisolving Institute and of Climate Interactive.
Early in her career Edie was the executive director of the Association for Progressive Communications, where facilitated the early adoption of information and communications technologies through a global network of civil society organizations. This included leading international teams to provide the newly created internet services at several United Nations world conferences, including the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit in Brazil, the 1993 U.N. Human Rights Conference in Austria, and the 1995 U.N. Women’s Conference in China — for which she was profiled in the 2020 book They Didn't See Us Coming: The Hidden History of Feminism in the Nineties.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN REGISTRATION
PLEASE REACH OUT DIRECTLY TO edie.farwell@gmail.com
CONTRIBUTION
All prices include 6 Nights Room and Food (3 meals per day).
There are different accommodation options available:
Gaia Dome (4 units available)
Private room with sink, private shower, shared facilities
$1355 pp (shared occupancy), $1835 pp (single occupancy)
Garden Cabina (3 units available)
Private room with Private Bathroom and Air Conditioning
$1355 pp (shared occupancy), $1835 (single occupancy)
Earth Tambo (2 units available)
Private room with sink/shared facilities
$1325 pp (shared occupancy), $1770 (single occupancy)
Jungle Hut (4 units available)
Private room with sink, either 1 king bed or 2 single beds.
$1325 pp (shared occupancy), $1770 pp (single occupancy)
Family Jungle Hut (2 units available)
Private room with sink, either 1 king bed or 2 single beds.
$1260 pp (shared occupancy), $1645 pp (single occupancy)
Farm Loft Double (2 singles available)
Double bed in private room. Shared space/shared facilities
$1070 pp (shared occupancy), $1260 (single occupancy)
Farm Loft Single (4 singles available)
Single bed in shared space/shared facilities
$1135 pp
**Airfare is not included**
CANCELATION POLICY:
IF YOU CANCEL BEFORE 30 DAYS OF YOUR RESERVATION, YOUR DEPOSIT WILL BECOME A CREDIT THAT YOU CAN USE AT A LATER DATE OR TRANSFER AS A GIFT. WITHIN 30 DAYS OF YOUR RESERVATION, YOUR DEPOSIT WILL BE NON-REFUNDABLE.