During a recent team gathering, something became clear to me about what it means to see an organisation — or even ourselves — as a living system.

We often use the image of a forest. And it works: growth, interconnection, cycles of life and death. Yet a true living system is not defined by how much action is taken, or by visible outcomes. It is shaped by how the whole evolves — through patterns that are inherent, honest, and non-negotiable.

In a rainforest — tropical or temperate — life is abundant and endlessly diverse. Beneath the soil, in the canopy, between the trees, countless relationships unfold every second. Roots and fungi weave together, trees send signals, animals carry seeds, the soil renews itself. None of this happens through debate or hierarchy. There is no negotiation table, no power game. Life expresses itself directly, out of necessity: to live.

How different this is from the production forests we humans plant — neat rows, controlled growth, efficiency over diversity. Many of our organisations look more like these plantations than like rainforests: structured, uniform, dependent on control. A shadow of life.

Even in forests “given back to nature” — rewilding projects, restoration areas, even permaculture food forests — it is still humans who set the frame. Sometimes with the intention to step back, sometimes inspired by nature’s design, yet always with a guiding hand. They bring us closer, but remind us that as long as we decide the boundaries, they are not the same as a rainforest — where life organises itself into what it needs to be.

The rainforest humbles me because it shows another way. What thrives there grows from its core — in tune with everything around it, with balance arising naturally because everything simply knows its order.

And yet, when I imagine myself in the middle of such a rainforest, I also feel fear. Fear of what I cannot see, of what I cannot control. The sheer abundance, the closeness of life in every form. The rainforest doesn’t let you keep your distance — it draws you into its rhythm. The intensity of that life is almost unbearable, and I wonder whether I truly dare to meet it. And I know that for those whose lives are inseparable from the rainforest, this same intensity is not something to fear but to belong to; they are the forest — held, nourished, and, when needed, protected by it.

For most of us humans, this is difficult. To step into or lead an organisation as a true living system means surrendering control, letting go of the neat lines and managed outcomes — as if everything could be endlessly shaped, under the illusion that it should always follow my way. In a rainforest there is no my way — there is only the way.

The idea of my way suggests we stand outside the whole, clinging to the same illusion of endless makeability. In doing so, we lose touch with the most basic condition of life: to feel — and when we truly feel, we know we are inseparably part of the whole. Perhaps what we call “feeling” these days is often nothing more than the body’s signals — stress, pain, fatigue — urging us back into presence, down from our head and into our body again.

For me, this is the deeper question — one that connects back to the whole. Perhaps Mother Earth is calling us to feel again, to remember what we once knew and have long forgotten.

Because a living system can only thrive when its different parts are attuned. For us humans, that harmony requires the unity of mind, soul, and body. Not as abstract ideas, but as lived experience. Otherwise we remain fragmented, and fragmentation unsettles the balance of the whole. Too often we believe such imbalance can be fixed from the outside, or that its cause lies somewhere else — when in truth it begins within each of us.

The rainforest shows us it can be different. Life does not need to be forced or dominated. When each part grows from its own essence and responds truthfully to what is needed, balance emerges. Diversity flourishes. Growth arises not from control, but from the quiet coherence of all things.

I am still learning what this means for me. The closer my actions are to what I truly feel — infused by the colour of my soul, the intention of this life, and the clarity of my mind — the more natural it becomes to act in harmony, almost effortlessly, as if life itself moves through me.

Maybe our work — in organisations, in communities, in our own lives — is to remember this. To return to the simplicity of being alive. To root head and heart in the body, and from there to act. Not thinking our way out of the system, but feeling our way back in.

Because ultimately, we are nature too.
And perhaps our fear is not a warning to stay away, but an invitation to embrace what is truly alive.