"“When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.” Quote by Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize-winning chemist. From March 15 to 17, 2023, a group of about 80 leaders gathered at the Garrison Institute for a Pathways to Planetary Health Symposium focused on the commons. Systems change was a recurrent theme at this meeting. One participant mentioned Ilya Prigogine’s quote above about “islands of coherence” as a way to think about shifting social systems.