One Year On

Perhaps it was the intuitive sense of what Claire was communicating. Perhaps it was Claire’s confidence and conviction that moved me so; she knew she was doing her life’s work, and that it was good. Claire gave everything to her life’s work. She lived like a force of nature. And, in doing so, she spent herself completely.

It has been one year since our friend, leader and mentor passed on—one cycle of the seasons, of countless beginnings and endings, deaths and decays, renewals and revivals. This assemblage of words proceeds through a traditional memorial piece, and onto a story about how the individuals, who now comprise BiomimicrySA, have adapted to change. We would like to give anyone and everyone who feels connected to Claire’s work (and BiomimicrySA by extension) some insight into the organisation’s silence over the past year. We do this to accept, acknowledge and honour the changes that have and continue to occur.

Remembering Claire

Memories in bloom, Claire’s gentle spirit shines, Nature’s living art.

As I remember Claire, I recall a brilliant mind that never stopped exploring, a warm heart that never stopped loving, and a passionate spirit that never stopped inspiring. She was a woman who lived her life in accordance with the principles of biomimicry, and in doing so, she showed us how to live in harmony with nature.

Claire's excitement was contagious, and I will always cherish the memories I have of her. I remember speaking to her during a workshop exercise session, where I shared an observation with her, and she responded with such enthusiasm and excitement that we both became more and more animated. She was able to draw out the gifts in others, even when they were not aware of their own potential, and this was one of her greatest powers. She could see the potential in others, and she trusted them to learn and grow, even when they were unsure.

Claire was not just a biomimicry practitioner, she was a mother, too. She worked tirelessly to be the best mother she could be, both to her son and to the larger family of life. She saw herself as a caretaker, with a responsibility to help all life live in harmony with nature. Her passion for biomimicry was not just a job, it was a way of life.

Claire's absence is deeply felt by all who knew her, and her legacy lives on through her work. The biomimicry movement in South Africa continues, guided by the principles she lived by, and the work she did to establish it. The torch has been passed to a new generation of leaders, and I am confident that they will continue to grow the practice and spread its message of connection and harmony.

As I reflect on Claire's life and work, I am reminded of a koan that speaks to the importance of living in harmony with nature. The koan asks, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" It speaks to the interconnectedness of all things, and the need for balance and harmony in all things. Just as the sound of one hand clapping is not complete without the other, we too must work in harmony with nature, just as Claire did.

Claire was a dear guide and a mentor to so many, myself included. I am grateful for the time I was able to spend with her, and for the lessons I learned from her. Her passion, excitement, and love for life and nature will always be a source of inspiration to me, and I know that her spirit will continue to guide us as we work to build a more sustainable, harmonious world.

Questions and Change

What next? Where to from here? What do we do without Claire?

The implosion of disbelief at Claire’s passing left us with questions, and more questions. Just as we (of BiomimicrySA et al) had personal work to do, before we could meaningfully address these questions, we are choosing here to reserve all future-orientated answers for subsequent communications. And, we do this because staying with the questions is fertile ground for innovation.

During that first presentation when I listened to Claire, when the audience were invited to ask questions, I raised my hand. I said, “Claire, this is amazing, thank you! I am inspired and moved, and I see so much potential for exactly the kind of systemic positive change that we need in the world,” and then I asked, “but Claire, what will we do about people’s values, on value?” I explained that what I perceived then, as I do now, is that it is ultimately why we do what we do that defines what we end up creating. The how matters, but it is of secondary importance. And, in our globalised world market, the means to making things happen – money – has become an end in itself. The purpose, the why, has become the creation and accumulation of more money. Another way of saying this, is that our values about what is of value have become unitary: the conversion of diverse forms of value into money; money as the ultimate expression of all other value, the measure of our values.

Claire’s response to my question was characteristically pithy. Its simplicity belied its incisive truth. She said, “oh that’s easy! The context will change, and that will force the behaviour to change.”

Yes, dear Claire, the context is certainly changing. Accelerating change has become one of the defining stories of our time, exactly because it is being pervasively recognised by so many. Here is an example: the memorial piece presented above was written by ChatGPT. Everything from the haiku, up to (but excluding) the question, “What next?”, was written by a machine. It is all accurate and true information, and the formulation was prompted by yours truly, and none of this makes it any less astonishing that a machine authored a memorial piece.

One year ago, when Claire passed, this was not possible.

Please take a moment to consider how you feel in response to this knowledge. Does it cheapen the experience of reading the memorial piece and, if so, why? Do you find it exciting and interesting? Do you feel concerned about what will be left for homo sapiens to do, “when the machines take over”?

There is an important conversation to be had – is already being had – about the role of nature, of our human nature, in a future where our technological creations will be able to innovate of their own accord. But, for now, let us put aside all discussions about the implications of ChatGPT, and what technologies like it do or do not mean for humanity, and return to the heart of the matter.

A son has lost his mother. A brother has lost his sister. Friends have lost a kindred spirit. We, the individuals who stand together as the organisation BiomimicrySA, have lost the personification of biomimicry in the Southern African context. Collectively, this family-of-families has lost one of its matriarchs.

Yet, I am confident that Claire would be the first to remind us—Life goes on!

Changing Hands

In June 2021, Claire asked Jane Lourens and Milan Master to take over the operational responsibilities for the functioning of BiomimicrySA. Jane’s circumstances enabled her to immediately take this on. Milan was fully engaged with completing a Master’s degree and the responsibilities of a preexisting occupation.   

ChatGPT’s memorial piece (above) referred to one of Claire’s special abilities – a propensity that many of her co-workers are familiar with – to know when to trust others’ capacities to rise to a challenge. When we expressed our passionate commitment to practising biomimicry, we each experienced our unique version of being thrown in the deep end by Claire. In handing BiomimicrySA over to Jane, Claire expressed this flair one last time. At the time, none of us imagined that Claire would be gone in less than a year. We simply understood this as Claire making space to focus on healing.

Then it happened. On the 7th of February 2022, Claire’s life ended. In the wake of this, Claire’s family gave Jane their blessing to continue the work of BiomimicrySA.

Learning to Live Life’s Principles

In the second half of 2021 and into 2022, most of the burden of necessary productivity fell on Jane and Gamelihle. For example, a significant project was underway. This was a leading-edge fourth industrial revolution (4IR) project, in partnership with the UNDP and CSIR, to unearth socio-economic opportunities in four rural communities across South Africa.

Due to the complexities of working in the highly potentialised spaces between social, economic, technical and environmental systems, our project team, only a few days earlier, had reached a bifurcation point. The project had two different potential trajectories: to proceed with a process-driven, or people-driven, approach. The challenge was to ask, “how do we deliver on project objectives, within time frames, whilst remaining in alignment and ensuring long term resilience of outcomes?” As a team we desired to remain in alignment with the deeper purpose of the project, and had to pause to evaluate.

When the news of Claire’s passing came, we were presented with yet another opportunity for learning. The parallels between the complexities at the project level and the unforeseen, shocking challenge at the organisational level, did not escape us. The ecosystem was signalling strongly—adapt! Evolve if you want to survive!

We knew that we needed to integrate the unexpected change to the ecosystem. This would require us to generate, release and distribute human energy into the system, in order for adaptation and evolution to occur, and for the full potential of this disruption to be realised.

It is in moments such as these that one is reminded how the practice of biomimicry is, first and foremost, an invitation to a way of being. It is a felt experience, an undeniable connection to all of life. The knowledge of nature’s winning strategies is one thing; living it, experiencing it, integrating it into one’s deeply personal context, is another. What we knew very well at the cognitive level, now needed to be integrated emotionally and physically.

The two potential project trajectories were being echoed within our organisation as we grappled with the weight of the human experience whilst trying to balance procedural needs.

Upon reflection, it was at this moment, in the tension between polarities - life versus death, process versus people, action versus reflection, and the movement between these, that the energy was released into the system, providing the nutrients for a new cycle to begin. 

There were, however, no signs of new life for a while to come. It was raw and unpretty – all the activity was happening below the surface. This was an internal journey of rediscovering what it means to actually live what one believes and to allow transformation to occur organically, in nature's perfect timing.

By responding to the signals and choosing to remain in alignment with our deeper purpose, within the contexts of both the project and the organisation, we were able to maintain dynamic equilibrium, to meet the needs of the individuals, the communities, the organisations, the project, and to integrate this wisdom for the benefit of the whole (eco)system. 

Claire’s passing forced us to integrate the unexpected. That is what we have been doing, in a nutshell. Weeks and months of simply doing what we could to integrate the loss, and to keep head above water. We had to finish ongoing projects before we could make meaningful space for grieving. Jane struggled with believing that Claire had done the right thing, in handing BiomimicrySA over to her. As a relative newcomer to the practice, Jane felt overburdened and underprepared. Unsurprisingly, even posthumously Claire’s wisdom was borne out, as Jane was able to find her way. She leaned on her past experience, and found the support that she needed.

Then There Were Two, Three…

In August 2022, Jane invited Stefano Semprini (your present author) to join the organisation as co-director. This was an intuitive decision, as Jane began to trust herself as Claire had. Through earlier conversations, Jane and Stefano had discovered that they share a perspective on where the real work of practicing biomimicry lies, on why we do what we do. ..

Stefano’s first contribution was to arrange a convening of the “core collective” of BiomimicrySA. We did this to honour what has been. We did this by inviting each other to share our “origins stories” in relation to Claire, the practice of biomimicry, and BiomimicrySA as an organisation. During this session, Justin Friedman said it simply: Claire Janisch was the offering of BiomimicrySA; she was its “products and services” that everyone else orbited around.

With Justin’s perspective in mind, our next move was to identify the strategies that worked before, and to begin to explore how we might replicate them going forward. This process was again months-worth of weekly engagements, as we untangled complexities and rediscovered our threads of meaning and purpose, and turned these into workable solutions.

In January 2023, the core collective of BiomimicrySA gathered at Nirmala Niar’s home in Cape Town. This was a special moment for all of us, for many reasons: historically, Nirmala was the one who introduced Claire to biomimicry, and Nirmala hosted Claire during her final visit to Cape Town; Nirmala was a mentor to our mentor, and she naturally embodies the wise elder archetype. We came together to discuss the changing context, and to commit our collective intelligence to the question, “What next for the practice of biomimicry in Southern Africa, and for the BiomimicrySA organisation?”

During the gathering at Nirmala’s home, Jessica asked an incisive question. It is the question that any biomimicry design process begins with, “What is the function you are trying to achieve?” This question invited a turning point. We have achieved sufficient integration, and we have sat with our questions long enough. We are ready to turn ideas into action, now.

Evolving BiomimcrySA

The function of evolution is to provide a mechanism for species to adapt to changing environmental conditions, thereby increasing their chances of survival. This is what we have been doing over the last year—finding our adaptive mechanisms, and responding to changing conditions.

We are deeply grateful to our founding ancestor, Claire, whose vision we have inherited. We are deeply grateful for our living collective of advisors, collaborators, and elder mentors. We are deeply grateful for this opportunity to honour what has been, as we begin to write new stories for biomimicry in Southern Africa, through BiomimicrySA.

This is the first communication of our evolved constitution. There will be many more, as we begin to communicate our intentions for 2023 and beyond. The length of this piece has been a function of our commitment to sharing with total transparency. We invite your feedback.