Participatory Consciousness: Walking with Nature, Not Against It

Recently, I listened to an episode of Accidental Gods featuring architect and biomimicry pioneer Michael Pawlyn. Titled “Of Beetles’ Wings and Brittlestars: Using Biomimicry to Co-Create a Flourishing Future,” it felt like a gentle nudge from the universe—an invitation to weave his ideas into the tapestry I’m currently creating, one threaded with ancestral wisdom and the rhythms of Earth Medicine.

The episode resonated so deeply that I printed the podcast notes as a PDF just to sit with them longer. I also ordered his book, Biomimicry in Architecture, to dive deeper.

As I walked through the woods near my home in Helsingør—training for the 42 km Mammutmarch in Berlin this November—I found myself reflecting on Pawlyn’s ideas. His work reminds us that we can learn from nature’s designs and, more than that, we can build new systems and structures that nature itself hasn’t yet imagined.

And that brings me to a question I’ve been carrying for a while, inspired by conversations and courses:

What are humans for?

If we can understand the design principles of nature and use them to create new, life-affirming systems, perhaps that is our evolutionary calling. Maybe this is the next iteration of humanity: not as separate from nature, but as conscious participants in its unfolding.

This is where Michael introduces the concept of participatory consciousness—a shift from dominating nature to caring for it, from separation to kinship. As he writes in his book:
“We need to shift from a relationship of domination to one of care for all of the other species with which we share our planetary home.”

Participatory Consciousness

One of the most powerful ideas from the episode was this notion of participatory consciousness. Pawlyn describes it as moving beyond seeing ourselves as separate from nature, toward becoming active co-creators in its ongoing story.

Imagine if our activism, our architecture, our digital spaces were all designed with this awareness. What if we saw ourselves not as consumers or controllers, but as collaborators in a living, breathing web of life? A living, breathing land. A living, breathing nature.

Designing for Regeneration, Not Just Sustainability

Pawlyn also challenges the conventional idea of sustainability as merely “doing less harm.” Instead, he invites us to design for regeneration—for flourishing, abundance, beauty, and reciprocity. This is a radical act of hope. And for those of us working at the intersection of culture, ecology, and democracy, it’s a powerful call to action.

We are not separate from nature.
We are nature becoming conscious of itself.

This truth is both ancient and urgent. As we stand at the crossroads of ecological and cultural transformation, let us turn to the beetles, the brittlestars, and the forests. Let us listen. Let us learn. And let us co-create a future rooted in kinship, ritual, and regenerative imagination.