About Us
Navigating Change Through Collaboration & Creativity
Great Transition Stories is a living commons where we navigate this threshold moment together by illuminating the archetypal patterns of change we’re all living through.
Right now, people are either paralyzed by crisis narratives or clinging to stories that no longer work. We offer orientation: patterns for recognizing where we are, understanding this isn’t chaos but transformation, and seeing the viable futures already being built by people working with living systems principles.
When we recognize the patterns at play and connect our experience to larger evolutionary currents, we can act with greater coherence and courage—participating consciously in the emergence of wholeness, well-being, justice, beauty, and regenerative culture.
Our Purpose
Like the pilgrim peering through the firmament to glimpse what lies beyond, we illuminate archetypal patterns of change to help people navigate this threshold moment with clarity and agency. When people recognize where they are, understand this isn’t chaos but transformation, and see the viable futures already being built, they can participate consciously in what’s emerging—building wholeness, well-being, justice, beauty, and regenerative culture together.
Our Story
Great Transition Stories began in 2011 when Lynnaea Lumbard, Duane Elgin, and Jeff Vander Clute launched a wiki with Michele Stern’s support—gathering stories that could help people recognize the archetypal patterns of transformation shaping our world.
The vision then, as now, was orientation: helping people understand that what feels like chaos is actually transition, that their personal passages mirror larger evolutionary movements, and that viable futures are already being built by those working with partnership principles and living systems wisdom.
As the work has grown, so has the need for a platform that could hold the depth and breadth of what we’re discovering. In April 2026, we relaunched as a living commons—bringing together an intergenerational team dedicated to illuminating what’s emerging, not just what’s breaking down.
We translate paradigm-shifting insights from complexity science to Indigenous wisdom, making them accessible to anyone navigating this threshold moment. We show the regeneration already underway across science, health, justice, economics, education, and governance. We help people recognize where they are and participate consciously in building wholeness, well-being, justice, beauty, and regenerative culture.
We’re so glad you’re here.
Our Organization
Great Transition Stories is part of the NewStories ecosystem, a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit based in Washington State.
NewStories supports communities, organizations, and leaders in navigating disaster, transition, and transformation through the practice of Re-Storying—helping people find their way into new narratives and possibilities when old stories no longer serve.
Within this ecosystem, Great Transition Stories serves as illumination practice. We make visible the larger patterns and contexts within which all of NewStories’ work unfolds—from Re-Storying Disaster to Re-Storying Philanthropy to Cultivating Regenerative Action.
We illuminate the bridge between what’s dying and being born, showing regeneration already underway across science, health, justice, economics, education, and governance. Together, NewStories and Great Transition Stories help people move from reaction to conscious participation, from isolation to recognition of larger patterns, from waiting for collapse to building viable futures now.
Our Partners
We work alongside a growing network of organizations around the world already embodying partnership principles and building regenerative futures. The mycelial quality of this network matters—each organization doing distinct work, all strengthening the whole.
When we connect what’s happening across science, health, justice, economics, education, and governance, patterns emerge. We see we’re not working in isolation but as part of a larger evolutionary movement. We learn from each other’s experiments. We amplify what’s working. We build coherence across what might otherwise remain fragmented efforts.
Great Transition Stories illuminates this work—making visible the patterns connecting diverse efforts and helping more people recognize the bridge already being built. Our partners aren’t just featured in our stories; they’re co-creating the commons with us, contributing insights, practices, and living examples of what becomes possible when we work with partnership rather than domination.
Together, we’re demonstrating that viable futures don’t require waiting for collapse. They’re already underway.
How This Work Was Created
We developed the content on Great Transition Stories through deep collaboration with our brilliant team, including partnerships with tools such as Claude (Anthropic’s AI) and ChatGPT, which served as thought partners, editors, and co-creators in refining voice, structure, and the accessibility of complex ideas.
These collaborations allowed us to bridge ancient wisdom and contemporary insight with unusual depth—refining language, testing clarity, and ensuring every piece honors both intellectual rigor and emotional resonance. The result is content that keeps the power of original voices and turns paradigm-shifting insights into stories anyone can enter.