WHAT REGENERATION REALLY MEANS
The reconciliatory factor
Our closest companions
Human bodies are under constant regeneration — the average age of all the cells in an adult body may turn out to be as young as 7 to 10 years.
This means that our body cells replace themselves every seven years.
However, studies have shown that neocortical neurons — the cells involved in cognition processes — accompany us for our entire lifespan. This is probably because they embody the essence of what can be described as our true self, and their permanence is needed to act as a counterbalance to our constant regeneration.
It has been often pointed out that cells, whether regenerative or permanent, are not our only constant companions. We are not alone inside our bodies — we have 30 trillion human cells that interact with around 40 trillion microbial cells.
This microbiome is essential for sustaining our lives — it enables digestion, the synthesis of essential nutrients and vitamins, and our defense against disease-causing bacteria. Humans have developed a symbiotic, mutualistic partnership with our non-human living system. Through this partnership, we create a living systemic network, and it is because of this interdependent relationship that our lives regenerate in a continuous emergent process.
Thus, we need to start thinking about regeneration and its greater relational role in our current human plight.
A vital, life-sustaining flow
Regeneration, which only takes place in living systems, can be defined as a relational, co-evolutive vital flow.
It is relational because it dwells at the frontier between syntropy and entropy, bringing life out of entropic fields.
Life itself is a dance between two complementary laws: the law of entropy and the law of syntropy.
Entropy, as we know, is the tendency towards energy dissipation, as described in the famous second law of thermodynamics.
Syntropy, on the other hand, is the tendency towards energy concentration, emergence, and aliveness (the word comes from the combination of two Greek words: syn, which means “converging”, and tropos, which means “tendency”).
As Ulisse di Corpo powerfully states in his book, An Introduction to Syntropy, this dual energy field suggests the presence of a visible reality (causal and entropic) and an invisible one (retrocausal and syntrophic).
In every form of life, these two realities complement each other. The regenerative flow of life takes place between the two components — one of them visible and the other one invisible, one entropic and the other syntrophic.
In the dynamic terrain that lies between entropy and syntropy, regeneration moves between life and death and can be recognized by the presence of certain patterns.
The first one is intention — the intention of evolving into aliveness. The intention of creating livingness and carrying into its full expression.
Regeneration is also intuitive. It is a flow of experiential, playful and even curious evolution, driven by intention as its underlying vital force.
But regeneration can only evolve through relationships — through the co-evolution of the interactive, interdependent mutualism that develops between complex systems. Life is the emergent property of regenerative processes.
The reconciliation factor
A mutualistic relationship sounds very nice — but how does it happen and just how does it manage to stay afloat? Here is where the idea of reconciliation comes into play. Because regeneration is, above all, reconciliatory.
Regeneration is a dynamic, co-evolving interplay of syntrophic flows — built upon the notion of interbeing, coined by Thích Nhất Hạnh, regeneration is the living process of inter-becoming.
As mentioned above, the precondition for this living process to happen is reconciliation — as a continuous syntrophic process, regeneration relies on constant reconciliation.
In every complex partnership aiming for aliveness, reconciliation plays a fundamental role. As syntrophic energy, reconciliation is inextricably related to loving, embracing, and co-constructing. It is the foundation for the kind of all-encompassing and all-enabling love that ignites every form of life into being.
It is the reconciliation of the masculine and feminine that brings humans and other species into light. It is the reconciliatory symbiosis between human cells and bacteria that maintains human life.
Feeding into and from the soil
Of all the sugars that plants produce through photosynthesis, up to 40% are deliberately pumped into the soil to feed the complex community known as the microbiome — what Paul Stamets has called “a guild of microbes”. A dense network of fungi called mycelium, composed of fine filaments, is created to maintain and nourish this microbiome.
It is the reconciliation of plant roots, mycelium, fungi, and microbiome bacteria that sustain vegetable life regeneration.
It is this symbiotic mutualistic partnership — a life-creating relationship — that arouses the soil into activity. Through photosynthesis, the plants feed the fungi with carbohydrates and lipids. In return, the fungi feed the plant with nitrogen, phosphorus, and other elements they get from the soil. The fungi mycelium network even transfers sugars from the roots of strong, healthy trees to the roots of weak or diseased trees.
Regeneration thus reveals itself as a beautiful collective dance of mutualistic relationships, leading to empowered, participative, and robust circulation.
As described by Chinese cosmology, Yin and Yang, the opposite but interconnected forces, constantly move in a state of flux.
When one changes, so too does the other. They are interdependent, as one cannot exist without the other — just like you cannot have a shadow without light. Life coexists with death.
Regeneration is this gorgeous syntrophic pageant at the edge of the adjacent possible, on the cusp of all creativity and abundance.
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