It is true of the human condition that sometimes we grow by discovering something new.

But as often perhaps we grow by grasping something that we've known forever if only in our bodies and know it for the first time with consciousness.

Nothing thrills me more for the future of our species than the learning that is underway about the deep nature of vitality in the natural

world. How original vitality functions. It is strikingly antithetical to the ways we've organized our lives and societies and institutions

forms that now are failing us.

And ever since I interviewed the biomimicry pioneer Janine Benjus for the first time in

2023, I've seen her way of seeing and designing as a key to the radical healing and remaking of the world that our generation in time is called to.

Bio-Memmimicry, simply put, takes the natural world as teacher and mentor, emulating the genius with which it

solves problems and performs what look like miracles in every second all around. Running on sunlight, fitting form to function,

recycling everything, relentlessly creating conditions conducive to life.

What follows here is a deeper delve from that first conversation,

seeking precise guidance and wisdom for the intimate and

civilizational challenges of this age. What does the natural world, for

example, have to teach us about healing from trauma. And how might those of us who are

striving to lead lives of healing and generativity in our places of life and work,

how might we start to feel like an ecosystem

rather than a collection of siloed projects.

We are, like every living being being in kinship. How to make that real and in making it real make it more of an offering to the whole wide world.

I'm Krista Tippett, and this is on being.

I brought Janine Benjus together in conversation with Azita Ardicani Walton, who's been a student of biomimicry and an innovative practitioner of it.

The three of us spoke at a gathering of

visionaries, activists, and creatives in January

...