Rebuilding After Devastation: The Shared Field of Human and Environmental Recovery

Mox (my husband and co-founder of The Field of Possibility) and I first met on a five-day training course run by RedR-Engineers For Disaster Relief on the Foundations in Humanitarian Relief work in February 1998.

Throughout the 25 years we’ve been together, his work in disaster and conflict waste and debris management has taken him to most places in the world affected by conflict and disaster — often in the immediate aftermath of devastation.

Yesterday, before he left to go to Gaza, we reflected on how crushing and challenging this one feels. The genocide has made a mockery of international humanitarianism — something we both (like many others) once deeply believed in.

As we talked, what struck us both is how deeply the themes of our work overlap — even though we operate in such different sectors.

Mox’s work is about the physical realities of recovery: how communities manage what’s left behind after catastrophe. It’s the work of turning rubble, debris, and waste into pathways for renewal.

My work, through The Field of Possibility, looks at the internal landscape — how people and relationships recover their bearings when everything familiar has been shaken or destroyed.

Both begin from the same place: standing amid what’s ruined, and recognising that the capacity for renewal is still present. Nature shows us this over and over — regeneration is not something we make happen from the outside-in; it’s something we can support and align with from the inside-out.

When Mox travels to places like Gaza, or when I sit with someone recovering from burnout or loss, the questions we hold are surprisingly similar:
What enables adaptation and growth?

How can we harness resilience?

And what can we learn from the intelligence that moves through all living systems?

Over the coming weeks, as Mox works in Gaza and I continue my coaching and training work here, we hope to share reflections from both sides of that same enquiry — the human and the ecological, the inner and the outer.

Because whether we are talking about cities or souls, it seems the field of possibility is always there — waiting to be rediscovered.

— Kirstien & Mox Bjerregaard
Co-founders, The Field of Possibility
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