Our Logo

The logo for the Center for Regenerative Society is inspired by the tallgrass prairie of the upper Midwest whose extensive root systems and rich biomass account for the deep soils and original fertility of this region. Growing 12-feet high in places, it is yet more remarkable that some two-thirds of the prairie lies underground and hidden from view except on closer inspection.

In our logo, the human is looking down into this subterranean vitality, this all-nourishing abyss, and contemplating this incredible depth of roots and its parallel meaning within the depth of human soul. We hope those involved in the Center for Regenerative Society will see a link between soil, soul, and society that we are all trying to reconnect. The presence of the human in this particular posture, with gaze downward, points to something inward also worth noticing and cultivating. Yet the hand is outstretched, for we are all getting in touch with this reality and helping shape it for the common good.

Good leadership, and leadership renewal, comes from living and leading from within. We can hardly hope to sustain a regenerative society or restore the world around us if we aren’t also cultivating this regenerative capacity inside ourselves. Even when the prairie has been burned off and everything above ground has been reduced to ashes, soon through this seeming desolation arise the green shoots of a new prairie culture from below! That is hopeful stuff in the world we live in, suggesting an analogy within us and within society. The Center’s leadership renewal programs will incorporate various elements and practices that are themselves regenerative, at the heart of which is this, “If we want good shoots we need to tend the roots, whether in soil, soul or society.”

GOD’S GRANDEUR

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed.  Why do men then now reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918)

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