In my Agricultural Systems Thinking class we were talking about the concept of holarchy. This idea suggests that a farm, a business or a person is a “holon”, that is a unique system in itself.

At the same time, a holon (farm, business or human being) is also part of a larger system (holon) and is composed of smaller systems (holons).

A holarchy is a nested hierarchy of holons, where a holon is both a part and a whole. The key relationship in a holarchy is that “we look out for purpose and in for function.” That is the holon represented by a “word” in the diagram below looks “within” (letter) for its function. And the holon “word” finds its purpose in serving the next holon (the sentence).

Get it?

This also works for biological and social systems. So, the individual human might find purpose at the next larger level (family, community etc.) and function within (heart, liver, lungs etc.).

To help us understand this in another way, Michael Dowd claims that we are all “stories within stories.”

And to further “paint a picture” of the concept of stories within stories, we watched this video….