Last night in a letter to a new acquaintance who had asked what regenerative agriculture was and how it varied from sustainable, I made this incredibly reductive statement:

Sustainable is “we can continue this as-is indefinitely.”

Regenerative is “we are making this better over the long term.”

This of course doesn’t cover all of it, but I think it’s a pretty good entry point.

Regenerative is healing everything, or at least as many things as can be healed during the process of whatever you’re doing. It’s both nurturing and ferocious. Regenerative shakes stuck things apart and brings isolated things together.

Regenerative is nurturing the Gift — that ephemeral sense of both gratitude and generosity that I’m pretty sure is directly connected to the heart of everything.

Anyhoo. I was just thinking about that, and felt like sharing.