Storytelling and Birthing a New Narrative

Sustainable Herbs Initiative Working Groups

It can be hard to see how the day to day work at the Sustainable Herb Initiative matters in any real and enduring way given what is unfolding in the world right now. And so, as always, I was grateful for Otto Scharmer’s framing of this moment in time in “Presencing Series 2025: Sensing and Actualizing the Future that is in need of us,” a six-part series which just began.

Otto talked about how there are two narratives in the world right now: One is of destruction and is about all that is ending. The second is about what is being born.

The narrative of destruction is getting all the attention, he said. The narrative about what is being born is far more powerful than we understand. And it is the least well told story at this time.

In the SHI working groups on wild harvesters, sourcing risks, quality and sustainability, we are asking how to do this work in ways that arise from a world view that sees the world as alive, that treats plants and people from source to shelf as living entities with which to have a relationship, not as resources to extract for a finished product that will bring a profit.

Otto’s framing helped me remember that this work is part of the new narrative of what is being born.

Otto then talked about the necessity of tending the social soil. The quality of the harvest, the quality of what we see in our communities and the world around us, is a function of the quality of the social soil, of what goes on beneath the surface. The quality of that social soil is directly related to the quality of the awareness we bring to our relationships, he said. Change happens, we create “islands of coherence,” by paying deeper attention to that social soil. We do this through practices like awareness, listening, dialogue, imagination, and presencing.

These practices also are at the heart of the work SHI is doing.

This past week a new SHI working group on storytelling and marketing met for the second time. Sixteen individuals from SHI member companies like WishGarden Herbs, evanhealy, Pure Synergy, Traditional Medicinals, Gaia Herbs, Motherlove, Harmonic Arts, and many more to reflect on how to better tell the story of the deeper purpose of our work, individually and collectively.

The companies in this circle depend on, work within, a capitalist system where to survive they must sell products. Many of the companies in this meeting compete with each other for those customers who are willing and able to pay a higher price for herbal products produced by purpose driven companies. And so, the fact that they were here seeking ways to collaborate was an important first step.

Herbal supply chains are complex, more complex than most consumers standing in front of a sea of products each calling to be bought have the time or the energy or the resources to grasp. Sustainability stories typically don’t do as well as stories about how plants can be used. And so I thought we perhaps needed to begin with values and the vision that brought us all together.

I began the meeting with a brief journaling practice, inviting everyone to do a free write on these words: consumer, citizen, healing, sustainability. I read this passage by Joseph Keifer and Martin Kemple from Rosemary Gladstar’s gorgeous new book, The Generosity of Plants: Shared Wisdom from the Community of Herb Lovers:

“Perhaps the future does not lie in more

And more complex methods of information transmission,

But in the simple understanding that this planet is our home, and that we live here

Thanks to a miraculous and complex web of life.”

I asked everyone to reflect on what resonated from the words and then opened it up for discussion.

David Gordon commented on how what he wrote had been informed by the passage. That was encouraging, he said, because it reminded him that what we read, what we hear, matters, that the context can inform what we see and what we value. And so, by telling stories of other ways of taking care, perhaps, we can contribute to strengthening this second narrative and that by strengthening the narrative, we can help bring it into being.

Tracy can Hoven commented that now more than ever people are listening to what is going on in the world. People are thinking about where their products are from. Ed Fletcher added that people are paying attention in a different way. He said we have been trying to talk about the livelihoods of the collectors and growers for years, but suddenly now people are aware that where things come from matters. That supply chains matter. They realize that maybe we all need to be paying better attention.

The story we are trying to tell is so big, Simla Somturk added. And that complexity can pave the way for simplicity. All of her responses held this natural tension, she added. And, as an example, she read here response to the word consumers:

“Take, take, take. More, more. Want it all for free if possible. Too busy to think, too overwhelmed to feel or even hope.

And yet, what’s really there is craving and crying out for connection, for meaning, for substance, for mattering, for trust, for ease and simplicity to live, to care, to connect.”

She then talked about the tension between how so much of our consumerism heavy economy feeds things that are so superficial. And yet, that economy creates complexity. That complexity drives the need for ‘easy’ for prepared meals and microwaves. We don’t have time to recycle.

“And yet deep down,” she continued, “I don’t think anyone feels good about that. Deep down, it’s that tap root of the common things we all want. How do we come back to addressing that real craving and that real need? How do we act as conduits and messengers to go deeper, recognizing what’s going on on the surface, but being brave and also figuring out how to dig deep.”

Tracy commented on the tensions of these stories and also the fear as a brand of being tone deaf, of talking about products with everything else that is going on. And yet, as I listened to what everyone shared, I felt that what we were sharing is part of that new narrative that Otto mentioned. That each of us is trying to share a story about the new world we are trying to bring into being, where companies are not just extracting and exploiting, but where they are part of building a larger system that is about taking care.

Others also spoke about the tensions in each of the words. As those in marketing, they perhaps live in that tension more than others in their companies, holding the balance of the pressure to sell and the awareness of the complexity beneath the stories created to sell. Acknowledging that complexity isn’t easy. If one company steps forward and say things are more complex, we don’t have it all figured out, then they risk losing customers to companies that don’t acknowledge that complexity.

Part of what SHI is trying to do is to create a context in which we can tell the truth about what is working along with what isn’t yet working. It is to help create a context where we hold that tap root that Simla spoke about, the tap root of what we all want, to forge deeper connections with ourselves, with each other, with the planet. Which can, in turn, be part of the new narrative that is being birthed.