Lately, I’ve been writing about the different forms of transition we find in Nature, and how they can offer frameworks for living through our own transitions—in our lives, our careers, our communities, and our organizations. So far, this series has examined transitions through seasons, migration, and thresholds. Now I’m turning to the space around transitions. This space has a name in ecology: the edge.
The space between
In Nature, places where two ecologies meet form what’s called an edge ecology—a border zone that carries aspects of both. For example, an edge ecology can be found where prairie meets forest.
In Nature, edge ecologies are places of great experimentation and diversity. Life teems as species test which ecology supports them. Over time, most species migrate toward one environment or the other, settling where nutrients sustain their growth.
The time that species and plant life spend in these borderlands is itself a kind of transition. They move through unfamiliar territory, experimenting and living with elements of both ecologies to see which fits best. This transition is a time of learning and discovery, a search for the place that will nourish their roots, their growth, and their community.
Before something takes root, it has to spend time not knowing where it belongs.
Edge ecologies in our own lives
I’ve encountered many edge ecologies throughout my life. As an undergraduate, I experimented with different majors, changing courses a couple of times in my first two years before landing on subjects that fascinated me, appealed to my curiosity and life experience, and felt like a good fit.
I had a version of that in my social life, too, as I learned to make friends with people I hadn’t known before—people who were often very different from me or from what I was used to. This opened up a variety of new, enjoyable experiences.
This isn’t solely an individual phenomenon. Whole communities live in edge ecologies too.
Edge ecologies in community
In human communities, we have spaces between two or more social and economic ecologies. Moving to a new city, or arriving as a new American, often draws people into these edge-ecology spaces. We live there temporarily as we get to know the community and look for a place to call home permanently. We experiment, we learn, we see what’s around us, and then we decide where the nutrients are that will help us and our families thrive. Eventually, we move toward a community or environment that allows us to do that.
Naming your own edge
If we pause to think, we can probably name the times that we moved into a transitional space that gave us more information and the opportunity to experiment with new habits, new patterns, and new ways of thinking.
A new job is often like this. The people we initially meet and connect with represent just a few of the many options within the organizational ecology we’ve entered. As we spend more time in the job and get to know more people, we eventually find the people and places that nourish us, our careers, and our work in that organization.
Nature also teaches us that the edge isn’t a problem to be solved. The edge is the space where real work happens. The experimentation, the trying-on of different fits, the not-yet-knowing: that’s growth. Every edge ecology we’ve lived in, from a college major to a new city to a new job, has been doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
Where are you living in an edge ecology right now, and what is it helping you discover?
