Tending the Garden Episode 8 – “Praxial Symbiosis”

In this episode, the AI hosts explore Chapter Seven: Praxial Symbiosis from J. Daniel Alejos’ Tending the Garden, a turning point in the book where formation moves from personal to relational. After learning how Story, Game, Instruction, and Philosophy shape us in Chapter Six, Alejos now shows how those same structures flow outward — through us into others.

The hosts unpack Alejos’ striking claim that “there’s no version of you that is not forming someone.” Every mood, silence, reaction, or pattern of attention carries moral weight, shaping those around us whether we mean to or not. Even absence or withdrawal, Alejos argues, forms others by teaching them what is off-limits or unsafe. Formation is not just internal; it’s ecological.

Through the lens of the four modalities, the hosts explore how Story transmits identity, Game transmits incentive, Instruction transmits competence, and Philosophy transmits worldview. Each becomes a channel through which our own alignment or fracture is broadcast into our environments — homes, workplaces, and cultures.

The episode introduces Alejos’ concept of praxial ecosystems — the moral atmospheres that emerge through repeated interactions and patterns of presence. Influence, he insists, is stewardship: every person is cultivating an ecosystem, consciously or not.

As the hosts conclude, they point forward to the next chapter, The Role of Art and Symbol, where Alejos expands this ecosystemic vision even further — showing how the world, in turn, forms us through the power of aesthetics, culture, and meaning.