Relearning How to Listen to a Living Earth

Tourism communities and the cultural metamorphosis already underway

Charles Eisenstein’s recent reflections light me up. I invite those working in climate, tourism, or philanthropy, and anyone sensing that something in our entire cultural operating system is ready for a deeper shift, to read “World Renewal and the Indigenous” on Substack.

He names a truth many of us in travel, DEI, conservation, and systems change have felt but struggled to articulate: we cannot simply “include” indigenous voices into the old machine and expect the machine to become something new.

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We need a different story of relationship. A living-earth story. A story that honors cosmology, ceremony, reciprocal stewardship, and the unseen structures and connections that actually hold us, communities, and the world together.

This is exactly why, at The Transformational Travel Council‘s (TTC), Destination Regeneration Program was brought to life. It goes beyond sustainability frameworks, KPIs, and the usual interventions. We are actively integrating Living Systems thinking, inviting communities to remember themselves as purposeful ecological beings, cultural beings, and communal beings, not just visitor economies.

We’ve seen firsthand how this shift transforms what tourism can be when communities lead from essence, story, land, and lineage, not metrics alone.

Our first early adopter of this program, Dawnielle Tehama, CDTP, CAS, former Executive Director of the Willamette Valley Visitors Association and an enrolled Tribal member, helped shape the earliest version of this work. Her leadership grounded this approach in humility, belonging, and conscious relating with others and nature.

And now, we’re opening applications for our next early adopter destination, for those ready to move beyond performative inclusion, beyond extraction models, and toward a genuinely regenerative relationship with place and people.

If this resonates, if you feel the call toward a tourism paradigm aligned with ceremony, reciprocity, and cultural integrity, we’d love to talk.

This is not about adding another program or plan that sits on the shelf. It’s about participating in a cultural metamorphosis already underway and inspiring other DMOs around the planet to follow in these footsteps.

You can DM me or reach out through the TTC to explore becoming the next early adopter of our Destination Regeneration Program.

To learn more, join me, Jillian Dickens 🐢, and some of our caring and innovative DMO partners for a Circle Talk on December 4th at 2 pm PST.

The circle will include Dawnielle, now with the American Indigenous Tourism Association, Christy Garrard of Visit Issaquah, and Simone Novello from the Blue Mountains City Council in Australia.

Let’s help weave the world back together through travel and tourism that remembers.

-Jake and the TTC Team

***Beautiful nature photography by TTC Advisor, Lisa Merrill, of Merrill Images, a resident of Issaquah, Washington, 3rd early adopter of Destination Regeneration.