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Jennifer Menke, President and Founder of Regenerative Earth, and Director of the Regenerative Economy Lab, discusses the essential importance of nature immersion, especially for busy corporate executives, institutional investors, and philanthropic leaders. Elected an Emerging Global Leader by the Academy for Systems Change, Jennifer manages a multi-stakeholder conservation and sustainable development project on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula, where she facilitates a multi-stakeholder collaboration with government, local residents, entrepreneurs, investors and philanthropists. “Systems thinking is the key,” she tells us. Her knowledge-dense community resource mapping and collaborative multi-stakeholder facilitation techniques are emerging as a powerful model for easy adoption world-wide.
And, with over 700 days of solo retreat time in wilderness settings, Jennifer curates retreat and immersion experiences in the rain forests of Costa Rica as well as the rugged Rocky Mountains of Colorado – helping busy professionals unwind, unplug, and connect with the awesome natural intelligence of our living planet. Connect today at regenerativeearth.org to sign up for her upcoming retreat experience, May 12-18, 2019.
Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Welcome to the YonEarth Community’s Stewardship and Sustainability podcast series.
Today we have with us Jennifer Menke, hi Jennifer.
Hi.
Great to have you here.
Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me on this podcast.
Absolutely.
Jennifer is the project director of Regenerative Economy Lab and founder and president of Regenerative
Earth, a 501c3 nonprofit corporation.
In 2015, she was nominated as an emerging global leader by the Academy for Systems Change
and resides as a fellow of the organization.
Jennifer has been managing a project in the O’Suffin insula Costa Rica for the past three
years, facilitating local communities and governments to develop and implement a regenerative
rainforest economy in which the community, ecosystem and economy all thrive.
Jennifer’s community resource mapping and facilitation techniques translate to diverse projects
around the world, facilitating the rapid evolution of sustainable economic models.
She also curates nature-based immersion retreat experiences for executives, investors
and leaders in their field.
Welcome Jennifer.
Thank you.
I am so excited to chat with you today and to talk with you about the various threads
that you’ve woven together in your personal life and your professional life and the ways
in which you’re able to bring so much value to executives and investors, others who
are doing their part to help heal our planet and to help create restorative and regenerative
systems.
I want to ask, before we get into some of the technical sides of this, how did this get
started for you?
I know that this is a journey you’ve been on for a number of years, how did that get
rolling?
It worked specifically in the OSAT.
Yeah, yeah.
You look.
Yeah.
Since I was 22, I’ve been studying, being mentored by different indigenous elders and spiritual
leaders and elders in guiding retreats and learning how to guide retreats.
So since I was about 15 years ago, I started on that path and every winter I would do retreats
on in Baja.
The Baja host started getting developed where we would put people out on nature solos and
so we looked for their cells to find a place for the winter time for these retreats.
And Costa Rica was the best option that we saw, so we went down there and discovered
very shortly after that was the peninsula.
And we decided to do the retreats in the peninsula because it has one of the largest or longest
stretches of low-lying rainforests left in the world.
So it’s fairly undeveloped, it’s sort of the wild west of Costa Rica, and so it makes
a really conducive place for these retreats in nature where people can experience that
we’re seeing untouched wilderness and in the case of the OSA, that’s primary rainforest.
So we went down there and started doing retreats there and I just fell in love with the rainforest
and also saw the means that were being expressed by the community around needing help with
supporting people’s livelihoods, sustainable livelihoods, as well as protecting the rainforest
because it was on the map for development just from coming in.
So it’s not that critical during time where people know about the OSA, they’re attracted
to it, and there’s more potential development coming in.
So there needs to be, you know, the plants, the structure in place to really protect
the rainforest, protect the people and the culture, and just nurture it.
Yeah.
So because I understand that that peninsula, which is on the very southwest part of Costa
Rica, is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, and it’s an incredible treasure
in terms of genetic diversity with all those different species there.
So that means on the one hand, it’s a really important place to be protecting, and on the
other hand, it’s an incredibly powerful place to bring executives and professionals to
have this deeper connection with nature and with a primitive old growth rainforest environment.
And this is interesting, right?
Because a lot of these executives are spending much of their time in boardrooms and front
of computers with spreadsheets and reports and often office buildings in the middle of
cities is a very authentic experience for them, and I’m curious, what do you observe when
you’re leading these retreats and these sessions with folks who are coming down from that
kind of environment?
Yeah, I mean, it’s a great question, because we definitely get people that come on this
retreat in Costa Rica who have never been camping before in their life, and then they’re
trying to obviously spend the night in the rainforest for a seven-night alone.
Wow.
Some of them, we’ve had people from Wall Street, I mean from all walks of life, really.
I would say one of the things that is common throughout people who are coming from the city
and more of an office environment is that they relax and they open up to the beauty of life
and the beauty of nature.
And so part of the awareness training that we put people through is helping people to deeply
relax and call to be a level of presence and awareness, and when that happens and when
you’re in solitude, practicing that, when naturally unfolds, the heart starts to open up
and connection begins to happen, and it’s not a mental connection.
It’s a very sensory orientation.
It’s through your senses that you’re connecting with the world around you.
And then just this love, you know, well that’s in terms of love and appreciation for life.
So people come out just glowing or either, you know, beaming and they find that joy and happiness
which is the nature of all of us, which is sometimes we step away from that when we’re really in our minds
and stressed out and pushing ourselves to meet deadlines and all of that.
Well, let me just think that for many of us professionals these days who are so busy
and might relate to this metaphor where it sounds almost like a muscle that if we are exercising it,
knows what to do.
And it’s the way you describe this as a sort of natural or innate ability that we each carry,
even if we, many of us have never been to an old growth forest, let alone,
spent a night, solo, sleeping in an old growth forest, and what a powerful experience
whereas probably most of our ancestors had some sort of experience along those lines,
depending on how many generations back we go.
So there’s this piece in our humanity that kind of knows what to do.
And it’s really cool to hear that you experience that when you’re leading people on these retreats.
Yeah, and one other thing I’d like to say too is when you’re in wild nature
that has had very little kind of impact or development,
you know, that nature is really unfolding in flow, you know, with what I recall,
just universal energy.
And when you pull yourself in that environment and relax,
and open up and connect to that environment,
I would say on a cellular level, you start to calibrate to it.
And that’s part of, you know, that’s part of the beauty of just the, you know,
unlocking of tension and really coming into that connection, that flow,
that all life is emerging out of.
Beautiful, that is so beautiful.
Well, you’ve mentioned this solo retreat idea.
And that’s something that might be a bit unusual or foreign to many of us.
And I understand you’ve done quite a number of these solo retreats.
And what is the number?
Yeah, like, Mocle made also more or less about 700 stays collectively, you know,
over the last, actually over the last 17 years.
So this is for you a real practice.
I mean, this is such an integral part of who you are now as a friend with family
but also professionally, so that when you’re bringing folks who maybe haven’t
had this experience before, they’re with a real seasoned expert.
Yeah, yeah, I kind of felt like, well, if I wanted, I mean, a young age,
I wanted to address just the destruction of the environment and look at how to
help that and just saw that one of the root drivers of that was humans
disconnect with the natural world.
And as far as like, well, if I’m going to help humans connect with the natural world,
I need to learn how to do it myself.
And so that’s why, yeah, I’ve just put myself through that,
that those experiences, that training, all of that, so that I could really understand
for myself what that really meant to connect, you know, with the natural world and,
yeah, just be more in harmony, right?
Yeah.
And so now it’s become a personal practice that sort of my touchstone, you know,
when I really get busy and when I’m traveling a lot, when I’m,
I’m up against the lines that I’m more in strapped.
It’s sort of the place where I touch back into going out in nature to really
settle into that deeper support of the earth and really just all life, you know,
the universe and then come back to that relaxed centered place so that I can then move
out into action more effectively and more in harmony with, with all life.
That’s really incredible, really beautiful.
My sense is that as more and more of us seek that kind of experience out,
especially those of us who are working in the realms of finance and some of these
other professional disciplines that are having tremendous impacts worldwide,
as more and more of us get these connecting experiences, my sense is that might
help us as a society evolve in the direction of being better stewards of taking
better care of these important places all over the planet.
And I’m struck when you’re talking about that direct connection.
I’ve heard it said that we probably can’t care for that which we don’t love.
And we probably can’t love that which we don’t know.
And so there’s sort of this invitation, right, to get to know this living planet
in a different way.
Right, it’s really well put.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, because that’s, I mean, that’s where I think a lot of destruction happens
and resource extraction and all of that is because there isn’t that,
just that empathy for how that is impacting other species.
So deforestation, when we don’t have that connection ourselves,
then we don’t feel the impact of cutting down trees and destroying a whole
habitat because it becomes more of a transaction, you know, for the financial
profit and benefit rather than, yeah, just understanding, you know, not only
what it’s doing to those species, but then even for ourselves down the road,
how that’s impacting our own lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren.
Absolutely.
Yeah, it’s not just so many thousand board feet of December on a spreadsheet.
Right. Right. Right.
So yeah, we have that direct connection through the census.
You know, and that love well up and there’s a deeper carrying its relationship.
I mean, it’s all about relationships.
So when you intern to a relationship with anything, you know, whether it’s in
other human or a tree or a place, you know, there’s much more care that goes
into making, you know, to carry for it.
And then when you understand the mutual benefit, you know, that that relationship
is providing that other being is providing, then there’s an incentive to take
care of it because it’s actually doing a service to you.
But that’s where, yeah, I think in our economic system, it kind of wasn’t designed
taking that into consideration.
Right.
Well, I’m so struck and inspired by the fact that you are working with an amazing
array of people.
And down on the other peninsula, one of the projects you’re engaged in is sustainable
economic development for that region with the local communities included in that
process.
And with great attention and care given to ways in which those people and their
families can make sustainable livelihoods going forward in such a way that
it isn’t extracting and degrading that incredible ecosystem that exists there.
And I know you’re doing some collaboration with some of the government entities down
there and some others.
It’s just remarkable.
I’ve seen some of the maps that you use to basically visualize some of these
relationships and interdependencies and connectedness.
And I’m curious, what might you share from that?
Well, obviously a lot of expertise there.
And there’s also an incredible wealth of experience you’ve had working with a
variety of people in that place.
Yeah, I would say.
So the reason why I started getting involved in more of this, what I would call
external system changes, because with the retreats, I was seeing people go through
these deep, intertransformative processes.
And then definitely some of them would go back to their lives and create
significant change in their lives and in their workplace.
But a lot of times you would go back and they go back to the same structures that they
left.
And so it was really hard for them to allow the seeds that were planted to germinate
and grow and blossom.
And so what I really started seeing is that there has to be the intertransformation
that happens, but also the external systems need to change, because
unless those are really changed, then people will operate in the same pattern,
the same structures that are creating the disharmony, you know, on the planet.
So with the OSAT, you know, the people are really, I would say, very
tired up around wanting to have the region be a model for regenerative
economy, for, you know, to single practices, all of that.
So we’re really supporting them and their vision.
And one of the things that we initially did was to really understand what that vision
is.
And so we did an interview process for about a year and a half with all the different
stakeholders in the region to simplify and understand what is that core vision
that is shared amongst all stakeholder groups.
And then what are the key challenges that, you know, that we have to, like,
what are the key challenges that you see in the region and what are the opportunities?
And so with all that information, we just analyzed it, put it into a fancy
system, not the cobaloo from all of that, and then validated it with the different
stakeholders to see, okay, this is what you’re communicating to us.
And they basically, most of them had a lot of that information that they had,
but it would help, I think, to have it just on a piece of paper to, you know,
to visually look at it and to be able to communicate with it.
So it was really used as a tool for communication, for understanding, okay,
the use of the dynamics happening and how do we, how do we shift those,
those vicious cycles of negative dynamics to that, so that they’re actually
supporting this core vision. And the core vision was thriving, or is
thriving communities, the thriving ecosystem and the thriving economy.
And how do you, how do you have a virtue of feedback clues that really supports all three?
And so yeah, now it’s now basically the community leaders that are identifying
projects, and so we’re looking at that structure for the community to identify
those projects, and then to be able to leave those projects and to fix that.
And then to help match up investors with those projects and support the
regions, so that there is that environmental protection, cultural protection,
and sustainable livelihoods.
So it sounds like it’s mobilizing now. There’s some action that is getting
underway and it’s so exciting to hear. What is one of the projects or the
ideas, or one of the outcomes with the community that you’re most excited
about, you know, a specific example that our audience might enjoy hearing
about and sort of visualizing.
Yeah, so the projects range right now from agricultural project to educational
projects, conservation projects, let’s say even hospitality,
eco hospitality and eco tourism. One of the, so there’s one exciting project
where there’s a cooperative of farmers who are wanting beach have their own
parcels of land, and they’ve been growing palm oil, they’re palm farmers,
and they’re wanting to transition out of palm and bring in these other
sustainable crops, you know, and that creates more resilience for them,
so that they’re not dependent on one commodity and cash crop, and then they can
also begin to, yeah, I’m dealing with a crop like a cow and coconuts and
turmeric and all these different ones.
Like my favorite thing.
So they’re wanting to purchase a pot of land to where they can basically start
growing these different crops and learning which ones to well in the region,
and instead of having it as a community owned and governed parcel of land
to really start to transition off the palm, which is exciting and yeah,
and then there’s another group of women, women farmers that have a collective
cooperative, and they’re really working towards no classified use, combating climate
change, you know, being using sustainable practices as possible,
and they’re amazing.
So they’ve created a council to really advocate for this and bring the best
sustainable practices into their farming practice.
So, yeah.
So beautiful.
So excited.
Yeah.
I love thinking about two, obviously there are many ways that people can
get involved and support this work that you’re doing, and as some of these
sustainable enterprises get underway, one of those ways down the road,
will be buying the sustainably produced turmeric or chocolate or what have you.
And I love it because things like turmeric are bringing great health and healing
to people all over with the anti-inflammatory properties and more and more people
are becoming aware of how wonderful turmeric can be for us in relieving aches and pains
and all that kind of thing.
So there’s virtuous cycling emerging here that goes well beyond the geography
of the OSA, and it seems that it’s that kind of deep pattern for sustainable
development that by dolly, if we can do this well in OSA, if we can do this well
in other places around the world, we might just end up where we want to go over time.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Yeah, so excited.
Well, I want to ask you also, I know that we talked a little about these
solo retreats and coming up in a few months, it sounds like you’re going to be
hosting a retreat down there on the OSA peninsula, and it sounds like there are
still some spaces open, at least as of the time that we’re recording this.
What is that program going to look like?
And can you tell us when that is and what that will be like for people to experience?
Yeah, so that program will be a May 12th through the 18th.
And basically the intention of the program is to begin to link up the
inter-transformation process, and this is some exchange work that we’re doing.
So basically, this retreat will have a combo of both, so there will be some
awareness practices that will be taught, and then we’ll do a little bit of
nature solo time, and then we’ll teach about some thinking and really share
the process that we went through in the field in the OSA and look at how
systems thinking can be applied in the field.
And then we’ll have an experiential journey of meeting some of the project
leaders and seeing some of the change that’s happening on the ground.
And our target audience is really investors and donors,
and that’s primarily because we also want to look at how do we start moving
our financial resources or many towards projects of impact,
and how do we assess what is a project with impact that can have environmental
and social impact.
And so at the end of it, we will allocate some of the money from the retreat
towards a project that’s collectively decided on or a collection of projects.
Wow, that really, you know, it would be interwork and then the learning
with the experiential learning, but then action.
So that’s something that I’m really wanting to bring forward is,
how do we do retreats, but then take action together.
You know, so that you just don’t, people don’t leave and then nothing happens.
Right.
Wow, it’s really sort of elevating what we refer to as eco tourism on a certain
level.
What you’re offering, folks, is this incredibly rich and profound immersion
and experience of the systems thinking, as well as what’s going on in the community.
And the group will be essentially investing in great work that’s being done
right there in that location.
My gosh, that’s incredible.
What a cool experience.
I really look forward to hearing how that goes for everybody.
It sounds like it’s going to be an amazing talk.
So that’s May 12 to 18 in the year 2019.
And folks can go to regenerativeerf.org to get more information and to connect with you.
Is that right?
And regenerativeerf.org is spelled basically as those two words,
no punctuation between them.
And if you want a little help with spelling, you can look
to the show notes and it’ll be listed there.
And I want to also mention in addition to going to regenerativeerf.org to check out
the amazing work that Jennifer is doing and to learn more about this retreat
opportunity in May.
If any of you would like to go to yonearth.org, you can also check out some of
our ebook and audio book resources and use the code podcast, the word podcast.
And you’ll get discounts on those.
We are excited for you to check those out and hear a little more about stewardship
and sustainability through that lens.
So I, Jennifer, I’m so in awe of the work that you’re doing on the OSA.
And I know that there are some really special creatures living there.
Jaguar and others.
I’m just curious, you’ve shared with me a couple stories in the past of some
really magical encounters and experiences.
And I’m just curious if one might come to mind that you would want to share with folks.
Yes.
I’ve had so many just, we had just experiences with the wildlife down there.
I mean, that’s one of the things that I love about being down there.
So there’s just such as abundance of wildlife.
I would say the one that sticks off the moats right now is I was hiking with one of my colleagues
in the Korkovata National Park.
And we crossed the river and then about maybe 10 feet after that.
There was a puma that was just laying on the ground about five feet away from us.
And she was so calm and just batting her eyes and wasn’t scared at all.
We weren’t scared at all of her either.
And so we just sat there.
And our guide ran and got some other people that were hiking on the trail to come and see.
But we had about five minutes just standing there with her, you know, kind of moving her head,
batting her eyes, feeling very relaxed.
And then the rest of the people came up.
And she got a little food, got off and walked away.
It was such a powerful experience, you know, to have that type of an encounter that was very,
we just felt very safe and very, yeah, like there was just the connection.
That sounds like what some of my friends and colleagues would call good medicine.
And I know that part of your practice and part of your journey has involved working with Indigenous wisdom keepers
and working with different types of spiritual medicine, maybe, is one way to describe it.
I’m wondering if you might like to share with our audience a little bit about that aspect of who you are and what you’re doing.
Yeah, so those studies are really, again, it’s deeply in that relationship with the natural world and beyond, you know.
It’s really cultivating the practice of cultivating those relationships with the individual species in the ecosystem and then the whole ecosystem collectively.
And then cultivating intuitive capacity.
So, you know, really learning how to access one’s intuition or how to, you have to interpret, I would say, the sensory information coming in and then clear away.
And then, yeah, just just learning how to communicate with nature, you know, in the different species of nature.
So, part of those studies are really with the underlying intent of being a good environmental guardian and a good environmental steward, you know, to really walk in a way that is ideally as altruistic as possible.
So, you know, my practice is really to have my actions be in alignment with all life, to support all life.
And, of course, I’m completely not perfect in that regard.
But I try, I try for that.
But that’s kind of the point.
It’s just keeping those relationships really, you know, having your actions be aligned with that altruism, that great altruism for the benefit of the planet.
And to support the planet.
And we do, and yeah, there’s a lot of prayer, there’s a lot of that type of stuff.
Yeah, I understand that although solo experiences and solo practices are a big part of how you live, you’re also doing a lot of this work not alone, right?
You have a teacher and you’re working very specifically in certain traditions and lineages.
And is that something you’d like to speak to?
I find it really interesting and something I think a lot of our audience would find interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
So, I actually first started working with the Talplablo native when I was about 19 years old.
And she started opening me up to, I would say, the solo experience in nature and connecting to, I would say, much more, just to the subtle round.
And also introducing me to healing, you know, and that depth of work.
And then I met John Milton and started signing with him in the way of nature when I was 22, so it was about 15 years ago.
And fell in love with his whole process because I felt it was a really nice and effective structure to help people cultivate those awareness practices and learn those tools and to also establish a deep connection to all of nature, to all of life.
And then seven years ago, I started studying with a patchy folder and really learning about that process of environmental guardianship.
And yeah, so she’s a primary teacher for me now.
And yeah, I learned so much.
I mean, the Unbroken Lineages, the depth of knowledge that they carry is beyond explanation.
I mean, they’re kind of like these walking libraries that hold so much wisdom and so much knowledge.
And they have so much integrity around how they share that wisdom and knowledge and how they use it, you know, and their integrity is really around utilizing that wisdom for the benefit of all beings and for the benefit of this planet.
To me, it’s such an important aspect of our human experience in these times in particular.
You know, there are so many of us who have, through the forces of modern industrial culture, become disconnected from the incredible spiritual wisdom, spiritual technology that our ancestors held and cultivated and practiced.
And looking back through an anthropological lens, we might say that we are all from peoples, from places all around the planet that have possessed these incredibly rich and essential forms of wisdom and knowledge as to how to live well on this planet, on this planet Earth that we all share the best spaceship ever that we’ve come across and that we share and that is hurting so much now.
And part of the indigenous wisdom I’ve had experiences with over the years makes very clear that a big component of that knowledge is ecological awareness is how to be good stewards and that is in some traditions the function, the reason why human beings exist on this Earth, right, to be good stewards of it.
And I just, I know that when you’re working with executives, when you’re working with teams that are doing the kind of regenerative work like that team you helped on the Baja Peninsula to go deeper into this reconnection with this wisdom and knowledge is so important to the work we’re doing.
And you know, my hope is more and more of our friends and colleagues executives and otherwise will take that step into experiencing this kind of incredible wisdom and magic that you’re offering.
And so I’ll encourage our audience again to check out regenerative earth dot org and connect with the work Jennifer is doing.
But you know what what you’re helping to bridge is a lot of different world views, a lot of different versions of what’s true and I’m curious if does that ever is that hard.
Yeah, it is sometimes it is I try to meet people where they’re at sort of my philosophy and I think a lot of what would be considered spiritual work is also very grounded and very very rational as well.
I mean, for instance, you know, as you’re well, so with some of these programs we’re teaching awareness cultivation tools and practices.
So how does that translate to utilize the how has that been official to, you know, a business or something.
And very practically, I mean, if you’re more aware, if you’re more aware of of yourself in the room with others, if you’re more aware of, you know, the environment around you, then you’ll you’ll hands out you a better listener, you’ll be able to pick up more information that that’s arising.
If you’re relaxed and aware, there’s much more access to creativity and creative intelligence that arises.
And if you have done your inner work around your triggers and yeah, just some of the things that might trigger you because of whatever it is possible in your experience, you’ve done your inner work around that, then you won’t be as triggered, you know, in conversations or in experiences with other colleagues and you’ll be able to instead of react to situation, respond effectively.
So it actually allows you to become better at what you do by cultivating awareness. So it’s not just about cultivating awareness, you can have some spiritual experience.
It’s actually doing that so that you can you can just be more effective in your life and and happy while doing it.
Sounds great, right. What’s not to like we become more effective and it sounds like we enjoy a better quality of life in our in our day-to-day experiences as well.
Well Jennifer, I want to thank you so much for joining us today and before we sign off, is there is there anything else you’d like to share or mention to our audience?
I think that that was pretty good. Yeah, I mean just I encourage, I always encourage people, you know, if they have an opportunity just to go out, find in the morning or just at some point in the day and and feel the air with your, you know, just for your senses, feel that sun on your skin.
I mean just have a moment where you’re connecting to some element, you can be in a city anywhere. I mean it makes such a huge difference to relax, to feel and to be grateful, you know, for for the lives that we have.
Wonderful. Well thank you Jennifer, I am grateful for the work you’re doing and grateful that you could join us today.
Thank you so much, thanks for having me. Okay, thanks there.
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