- Alissa Fleet
Eternal Forest has a mission to establish 1,000 forest sanctuaries that will be protected for the next 1,000 years. As the organization comes into being, Evgenia Emets as the founder would like to nurture and tend to it as one would a forest or a mycelial network. Just as a forest has intelligence, we assume that the organization being formed is a living, animate organism with its own “forest intelligence.” Evgenia is committed to doing what is needed for Eternal Forest to grow in a way that is life-giving and abundant.
About the Systemic Constellations Process
To support this vision, I facilitated a Systemic Constellation process to create a living map of the organization. The process took place as part of the Gathering where a series of workshops, presentations, and visioning sessions for Eternal Forest took place over five days. Colleagues, collaborators, and people attending the Gathering participated by observing, holding space, and volunteering to represent “key players” within the Eternal Forest ecosystem.
Though familiar with the Eternal Forest mission, participants were not required to have any specialized expertise; a brief introduction provided all necessary context.
Deciding on the focus questions
In preparation for the workshop, Evgenia and I met a week beforehand to discuss overall goals and what topics would be most impactful to explore.
We considered a range of questions including team structure; connection with particular tree species and forest sanctuaries; partnerships with sponsor organizations, funding sources, and future scenarios being considered.
On the morning of the workshop we refined the questions, eliminating topics that had already been covered at the Gathering, and considered what would be most meaningful for those present.
We narrowed down to two topics:
- Partnerships: How might Eternal Forest form partnerships with other organizations to support our mission? What qualities contribute to balanced, life-giving relationships with collaborators?
- Money: How might Eternal Forest be supported financially; where could money to support the organization come from?
Setup of the process
To start I gave a brief introduction, including an “opt-out” option, so that everyone had the choice to step back and observe if that was more comfortable.
Next, I asked Evgenia to select two representatives: one for the Eternal Forest project itself and one for the Source of the project. This setup was to start bringing focus and collective awareness to the topic. The representatives were encouraged to find a position in the room based on their own felt sense.
As we begin setting the key players of the living map, we focus on spatial relationships, dynamics between the representatives, and what each participant was aware of in their role. We also pay attention to any resonance or connection they sense with one another, as this begins to reveal flow within the organization.
- Eternal Forest — this representative took a position in the center of the circle, reported feeling elevated, with a sense of operating from beyond their first-person perspective.
- Source — meanwhile the representative for Source of the project chose to lie down on the ground, lengthening her body towards the Eternal Forest representative.
In systemic work, we often explore the layer of linear time and consider the question, “Where did the project begin?” — including what cultures, ecologies, and lineages does the project belong to and where did that first spark of inspiration come from.
The concept of “Source” has been developed by thinkers like Peter Koenig who explore how this concept shows up in organizational contexts. Source represents the seeds of an idea with the potential to grow into something much larger. As the idea matures, others join in to assume responsibility for realizing different parts of the vision, while Source remains the originating essence.
In many founding teams, tension can arise when there’s uncertainty about who is primarily connected to the Source of a project. In this case, it was clear that Evgenia held that connection. Since we were exploring collaboration, having Source represented helped ground the process in the original motivations and the underlying energy driving Eternal Forest’s unfolding.
Exploring partnerships
The next step was to place representatives for potential project partners. For this step, we first placed the representatives “blind.” Each type of partner was written on a piece of paper and handed to seven people without revealing their names. These representatives were then asked to find their position within the circle based on their felt sense and tune into any impressions they experienced in those roles. This approach allowed us to observe dynamics from an unbiased perspective.
- Nature-based Education — stood near the project and became the most talkative of the representatives, embodying a professorial role and offering informational perspectives throughout the process.
- Businesses / Corporate Sponsorships — stood with their back turned to the Eternal Forest representative, but reported a sense of interest and awareness, indicating connection, but one that is not necessarily direct.
- Arts Organizations — This representative reported feeling energized and at one point, “I feel like dancing.”
- Re-forestation Organizations — Stood tall and felt inclined to push vertically through the roof of the tent.
- Wildcard — This represented a partnership type we had not yet foreseen, was very engaged and stood closest to the Eternal Forest representative.
- Local governments — Was engaged and admiring of the initiative.
- NGOs — This representative expressed a sense of disengagement, stating, “I feel like this doesn’t have much to do with me.” Interestingly, after the roles were revealed, the person randomly selected to represent NGOs shared that he had spent most of his career working in the NGO sector.
Exploring the role of Money
The last representative placed in the constellation was for “Money.” This was to observe where financial support might come from and how its presence might influence the dynamics of the organization and potential partnerships.
After a participant from the circle was asked to stand as Money, she immediately felt physically hot and needed to remove her sweater. She reported feeling highly activated and energized. After testing different locations within the circle, she found the most ease and comfort close to the representative for Arts Organizations.
A number of the other representatives had noticeable reactions when Money entered.
The representative for Source, who had previously been calm and at ease, became much more alert, experiencing strong sensations in her feet. It was as if the presence of Money awakened something in Source, giving her a heightened sense of purpose and catalyzing her reason for being.
Other representatives also felt a visceral response to Money’s arrival, with several reporting a sense of affinity or activation:
- Arts Organizations: seemed to harmonize with Money, as if forming an easy, symbiotic connection.
- Re-forestation Organizations was the only representative to express antipathy, saying their instinct was to be cautious towards Money.
Conclusion
This process provided a form of sense-making that was palpable, energizing, and provided some plausible next steps for emerging aspects of the organization. Our intention is to follow up in 2025 and spend more time doing similar constellation processes together as the mission continues to unfold.
If you are interested in seeing how a systemic process applies for your work please join us a free intro on October 29th, Designing with Living Systems; or reach out about holding a Systemic Constellations process virtually for your organization.