Our transcendence is in our biology. The glory of our being is that we are connected and part of the great body of Earth. Our radical transformation comes in accepting our place within the body of Life as expressed on this planet Earth. WE can only know our own magnificence when we claim our rightful place within the biological expression of LIFE on this planet. We are one!
 
At its heart, morality is about integrity, but our understanding has been too small. We marvel at the beauty of nature – there is no place where nature has been allowed to do her thing that is not beautiful. That beauty speak of the integrity of the place, of the life that lives there, of the joy in living, being expressed there. That beauty is a big YES, as expressed in the exuberance of life.
 
Our transcendence comes when we, too, are connected to our being within the vast expression of LIFE. We have been told this for eons, in so many ways, but we had the belief that transcendence could happen when we pulled away from life, sitting on a mountain top or gazing at our navels. These techniques are paths to coming back into relationship with all of life. One chops wood and carries water with a new and very joyous perception and gratitude for the LIFE that permeates everything. Then every action takes on new significance, new importance, new meaning, as every action becomes filled with love, both given and received.
 
We are transcending our separation and finally coming home. We need not flee our humanity, our bodies, we need to embrace them, and in embracing we will transcend the smallness we fear and expand into the expansion that is LIFE itself. Greatness comes in understanding the boundaries that make LIFE possible, not in breaking them, and thus eliminating life’s possibilities, as we have been doing for the last few millennia. Our blindness to the wholeness of the planet, has led us to disrespect and dismiss the parts that constitute that wholeness – of which WE are one.
 
In accepting our wholeness, we can begin to luxuriate in the richness of LIFE’s expression. We are already touched and awed by LIFE's expression, but now we can know that we, too, are a part of that expression and just as miraculous! To know that, in our own experience, opens such gratitude and reverence, that the only correct expression of those feelings is to live the Prime Directive – ensuring that ALL our actions create the conditions that support LIFE! Our attention is pulled, and our emotions are enticed by the joy that comes from seeing LIFE thrive. We will find our purpose in our joy.
 
We have so come to identify ourselves with the pain and sadness that comes from denying who we are, that it has become painful to reconnect with ourselves. It hurts to open up to love. We have put SO MUCH of ourselves into that separation, into denying our connection, that opening to connection is both scary, AND bitter. Re-embracing our fullness takes real courage. Our mystery and magnificence is not that we are outside or at top of all other life, but that we are special and different within all other life. WE are special and different, just as every other living being is special and different, we have just never seen ourselves, or our place, within the chorus of life. Our notes are needed within the song of life, but to add them we need to be listening to the melody sung by others. We will only know our gifts when we join the song.
 
A choir does not sound good unless everyone is listening to everyone else. It is the blending that creates joy. There are times when that expression requires a solo, and that, too, is an expression of the whole. The joy in coming home comes from the experience of connection, of finding one’s place in the scheme of things, in knowing that the notes through which we express ourselves are a correct part of the song being sung. Pythagoras spoke of the music of the spheres, and it was this he was speaking of. Our planet cannot sing until all our voices are joined in the music of life.
 
Listening is key. To listen means to slow down, and meditation is certainly a good way to this. There are others. Gandhi used his spinning wheel to slow down, I clean. The simple things of every day, ordinary life are places to listen. If there were messages from plants, trees, animals, life, how would you get them? Would God send a text? It is our consciousness that connects and that happens in two places, our mind, and our bodies. The skill is in using your body in a way that allows your mind to be free and receptive. The stillness and discipline of meditation is how we train our minds to be receptive. Listening to your own chatter, is not really listening.
 
Your essence, your true self is pure. It remains unsullied, no matter what you do or think. However, your identification with your actions and thoughts keeps you from experiencing your true nature, so you think you are unworthy, not capable, etc. Plants and animals don’t play that game, so they seem ‘closer’ to nature than we are, but that is not the truth. WE are just as close, but we must listen as the song is being sung just by humans, as part of the choirs, we only add our specific notes.
 
 

We are in a crisis beyond imaging. Many have chosen to ignore it. That is one way. Denial and continuing on as if nothing is wrong or even resisting seeing anything wrong in the first place, is one way. This kind of pretense is temporary as it doesn’t stop the collapse from coming, though people will be surprised by it when it becomes impossible to deny. These people will be victims.
 
Others recognize that collapse is coming, and they are fighting – tooth and nail – to prevent it. These people have picked strategic points, places of leverage where a change could make a difference and they are pushing and fighting to shift that lever. That is the second way. These people are marching, lobbying, writing, and organizing to shift those levers that they see can make a difference. They are warriors.
 
The truth is that nothing has worked. We are toast. Or at least our way of life is toast, so the next questions is, what are we going to do about the end of the world as we know it?
 
Real change is not someone else’s job. Real change starts with us – you & me, becoming different. Some of that difference is easy to see, but most of the iceberg is underwater and invisible, and that’s what must change. Change this deep is a non-linear process.
 
What do I mean by that? Here’s an example: You can stop buying cars, and not buy either gasoline or electric, in an effort to do less damage. That is a linear approach to change. An action is being taken that has a direct impact on the problem and it is clear to see. It is preventing harm, but it is not building a new way. What if instead of wheels we used air, so streets were not needed? Maybe that would begin to bring forth a new world.
 
Non-linear change is change that opens new doors to places we have never been and that we can’t see or predict. Just as being nice to BIPOC folks is a linear change. Dropping any feelings of superiority is a deeper, non-linear change. That shift from helping them to working with them is exactly the shift we need to make as we deal with collapse. We need to move from living on the Earth to living with the Earth. This is the Third Way. We need to shift from the illusion of power over. Even the illusion of helping is often a power over approach, especially when we are the ones with the answer. To achieve success, we need to leave any intention of creating change, and move to discovering the joy in partnership as we co-create together with the Earth. This is not something we can know before hand; it is something that will come into being through relationship. The move from being for, to one of being with is profound. It is a non-linear change. It shifts our energy from resistance to nurturing. WE change as we make change, this is the Third Way. These people are makers, creating a new world as they live.
 
None of us act independently, we act together, we need others to be effective. We listen, we take into account the wisdom and needs of others, and we act accordingly. This is slow change at the beginning, as we learn to know one another. It is predicated on a commitment to relationship – to LIFE – not just the human side of the relationship. It is not human centric – even when humans are involved. It is LIFE centric in every act, no matter who is involved. It requires trust in all the participants – not blind faith. We need to trust the Earth as well as each other. We need to learn to trust ourselves, as well. This is the Third Way.
 
Trust is not easy to come by. It is not only given but created. Trust requires the courage to ask hard questions, hear the answers, and acting accordingly, in ways that nurture the relationship. It is not about winning or losing. Trust is about understanding and knowing, knowledge gain through experience by experiment. Knowledge gained through curiosity and inquiry, learned by asking difficult questions, withholding judgement, and having patience. Nature is the only thing that is truly trustworthy. Every action is designed to support and nurture life. If we want to live, there is no better teacher.
 
In building a mutually nurturing relationship, all parties must thrive – not all at the same time nor in the same way. Judgement changes to discernment as the question of right or wrong changes to life enhancing – or not. Owning the challenges of being able to see clearly require being willing to ask, and ask again, to gain that clarity. Relationship is all about asking/listening – it is all about dialogue. Right relationship works to ensure that all parties in the relationship thrive.
 
How do we learn to listen to each other? How do we listen to the Earth? What is being asked of us? What are we being called to do? In any relationship each party has needs, each party has gifts. The Earth has needs, the Earth has gifts. We have needs and we have gifts. What is the Earth asking of us?
 
Our Earth, what we see all around us, is an expression of LIFE. LIFE loves life! Life is fierce in its commitment to continuing. Earth has been experimenting with how to do that for over 3,900 million years. She’s practiced a lot. Brian Swimm, Thomas Berry, Connie Barlow, Michael Dowd as have so many saints, have been sharing their awe of her wisdom and skill. Fritjof Capra, Andreas Weber, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, among others, have been doing the same. The indigenous voice has only told that story. We are just beginning to listen. We are the youngest species; other life forms have way more experience at it than us. Other life forms keep their agreement with life, the Prime Directive – all actions are to create the conditions that support more life, we do not.
 
I call this listening, gaining Planetary Consciousness. Planetary Consciousness means that the goal of LIFE to thrive, becomes ours. Planetary Consciousness means that we become partners with LIFE, playing the same game by the same rules, becoming giddy as we see LIFE burst out all around us. We have been seeking the answers to Earth’s problems by asking each other. We have refused to ask her, and we have refused to listen – even when she’s yelled at us – as she’s doing now. She is the expert on LIFE – as are so many other life forms on this planet. Life forms that have been here and practicing at living far longer than we have. We are Johnny come lately’s, yet we only listen to our own voice, and we even do that, poorly.
 
Earth’s values are designed for resilience (an intent of Earth’s). Ours have been focused on protection (lack of trust), or on winning (success). Ours are focused on human needs and desires, choosing domination because we don’t trust. Choosing success, defined as bigger and better, over right relationship as we take what we want, using future resources now, and denying their use to other life forms on the planet. In Africa the laying down of roads is destroying migratory patterns and killing wildlife. Our needs appear to be greater than theirs, yet with their death – we die.
 
What is undeniable, is you can’t trust if you are not trustworthy. The indigenous have never understood us – we say one thing and do another, we deny ourselves and blame others, we don’t take responsibility for our own actions. We waste. We know we are fakes, and we cover it up instead of admitting it and changing our ways, so how can we be trusted? We also know this about ourselves, so we don’t trust our own selves. Honesty and self-forgiveness are a big part of the path forward.
 
Everything on this planet is an expression of LIFE. Everything. We acknowledge that when we say, “We are one,” or when we say “God dwells within us a us.” We mean it when we say, “Each of us is a speck of the Divine.” We know the truth! If everything is sacred, because everything has a spark of the Divine, why don’t we treat everything as scared? How can we pollute? Self-deception is one of our biggest challenges.  The collusion we all participate in that we are good people, doing our best, allows us to deceive ourselves and perpetuate that illusion, this is another massive challenge we face, preventing us from making the changes we need to make.
 
The gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands will not get us out of this. The answers are here, the Earth is waiting with open arms, if we will just come home. Our resistance to Earth has made us long for home. We believe in the illusion that ‘home’ is out there, somewhere. But HOME is here, right under out feet. Be curious, be courageous, and ask stupid questions, mull things over and become skilled in self-reflection. Earth Values offer insights into the patterns of LIFE. Patterns we can begin to discern, patterns we can nurture and replicate. Patterns we can emulate and curate.
 
What do I mean by Earth Values? They are not wild and crazy, but they are immutable – they cannot be broken. We are where we are because we broke them. Our sense of safety is a thing we call stability. Nature calls stability death. In the real-world everything changes – all of the time. Instead of designing for similarity and stability we need to design for resilience and diversity, two Earth Values. Instead of NO change, we need to embrace dynamic stability where there are ranges to boundaries, instead of barriers, another Earth Value.
 
Take the Prime Directive (an Earth Value), all actions create the conditions that support life. That provides a path that anyone and everyone can walk. How do YOU create conditions for life? What around you is thriving? Your family? Your garden? Your worms, bees and butterflys? Your soil? All of these are in your control. YOU can make a difference in each one of these. Can you get over being concerned about your image and stop making things ‘look good’ and make them actually thrive instead? Can you shift from feeling powerless and useless to noticing the difference you can make?
 
As we shift into managing the integrity of the process of right relationship (an Earth Value), new opportunities will open that we have been too blind to see. We will begin to realize our own gifts and honor our needs as we recognize the gifts of others and honor their needs. This is the future. We will live in gratitude by recognizing that abundance is not about having it all, or having more, it is in having enough. The Earth knows, listen.

I have a great deal of respect for nature, and I have a great deal of respect for humankind as well, but those forms of respect are different. Nature has practiced making sure life thrives for over 3 BILLION years – she has a track history of making that work. Humankind has a recent history of thinking that being clever is more important than being life affirming, an addiction we are in the middle of, right now.
 
Given that everything we have depended upon seems to be under threat, disorganized, and falling apart, including our weather, it appears to me that actions that are life enhancing might be more important, than even our collective ego. If staying alive, if staying healthy, if thriving, is more important than being clever and even more important than ‘getting my way,’ where should I look for support and inspiration?
 
I’ve spent decades trying to understand nature, trying to learn how she’s ‘done it.‘ Many others have looked into this as well and I’m eternally grateful to them; Janine Benyus (Biomimicry),  Thomas Berry (The Great Work, among others), Brian Swimm ( The Universe is a Green Dragon, among others ), Wendell Berry (Poet), Andreas Weber (Biology of Wonder, among others) Fritjof Capra (Hidden Connections, among others), James Lovelock (Gaia, among others)  and so many more. We continue to learn. It turns out that deep learning is hard because we have stood outside of nature and that distorted our understanding and even the questions we asked, let alone the answers we received.
 
I’ve taken a values-based approach. I learned from Jane Jacobs (Systems of Survival) that values form systems. Bringing my learning about living systems from Capra into play, that was revolutionary. Earth’s values are also a system. All living systems behave the same and have the same attributes – this was critical to my newly awakened understanding of value systems and how they operate. If all of this interests you, please take my course, “Values for the Coming Crisis” where I go into these ideas in more depth.
 
A start to understanding Earth’s Value System, is understanding the intent(s) she has for life. Her first intent is the foundation , the key, the whole point – she intends for life to continue to thrive! Now you may say, duh, to that, but really think about it. She doesn’t want it to thrive, she doesn’t hope that it thrives, she INTENDS it will thrive. Everything she does is to that end, and more importantly all of the parts of which she is comprised intend that life thrives too, or almost all of the parts. The only part that is also a part of her that does not always adhere to that principle, is humanity.
 
Humanity, under the cover of free will, often does things that limit the ability of life to thrive – pollution comes to mind. WE soil our own nest. WE poison the atmosphere; WE poison the oceans and foul them with plastic. WE kill our soil – a living system in its own right, by our manufacturing style of farming. WE do not consider, nor seem to care, if our actions make it impossible for others to also live.
 
The second intent is connected to the first, as are all the rest. These are components of a living system after all. The second intent is continuity – making sure that life, once formed, continues. She has clear ways of being and doing that make sure things flow and move forward. She knows how to make the very best out of what currently exists. Earth is a closed system, except for power, which comes from the sun. What we have is what we got. Everything living system on the planet understands that and lives in ways that support that. Every living system, except one, us. WE burn, pile up, and create inedible stuff all the time. WE act as if there is no tomorrow, as if there is an unending stream of materials for us to use forever – and there isn’t.
 
The third intent is resilience, the ability to adapt and continue on under stress. The ability to dance with changing times in a way that ensures life continues to thrive. Understanding the magic of how that happens is mind-blowing! WE – all living systems that are part of the living system that Mother Earth is, are SO exquisitely designed to do this – It. Is. Amazing! We all actually know how and even do it, but only one living system chooses to not listen, to disbelieve OR to believe impossibilities, and in so doing flies in the face of…nature – yup, us. She destroys to facilitate rebirth, we destroy to eliminate.
 
The fourth, and most fun intent, is evolution. Evolution is how she learns. Each living system continues to learn and, in so doing, makes continual adjustments as it learns to finesse and improve its chances at life. If those adaptations are really successful, then it may choose to keep them and pass them on to its progeny. New life forms happen all the time, and some stay and some don’t make it. Nature experiments in SO many ways, and some of them work! WE are the only living system that intentionally makes changes in other living systems. WE are the only living system that makes changes in our own system – without natures help or encouragement.
 
Each intent has four values that activate it. These intents and values constitute a living system of values by which Earth keeps it all together AND is able to grow in complexity – to thrive. All other living systems play their part. There is only one other living system that actively works to simplify the living systems of which it is a part, and that, of course, is us. We seek to simplify, to limit, to eliminate complexity and diversity, there-by weakening the fabric of nature. WE seek to reduce the number of species, the number of kinds of species, and in so doing we make the whole system much more vulnerable to collapse as we are eliminating a key aspect of resiliency.
 
So here you have four aspects of nature against which you can check your own actions in life, your decisions, the decisions of your local, state and even federal government. How do they stack up? Are the actions you support life enhancing, do they ensure life continues with ease, do they reinforce the adaptability of the life it impacts, and finally does it support an evolution into a more complex and resilient world? Are you engaged with your life through connection, or are you acting on your life from outside, from a point of separation? Each of us is responsible for our own actions. Each of us can only control our own actions. If we all shifted so that we could say YES to supporting each of these intents, then we will get through all these shifts and changes, just fine. WE will become partners with the Earth, with Mother Nature. WE will have learned to listen to nature not in the ‘what should I do,’ conversation, but in the ‘how should I do it’, kind of conversation. And,  that’s one that has been missing for centuries.

The bible got it all wrong. Go forth and multiply, was a misunderstanding of the Prime Directive. That misunderstanding has made a mess out of our world. It has justified all the harm we have done. More of us is NOT the way to ensure life. High birthrates simply add more stress to the planet. More is not better.
 
What happened? Nature is not so much concerned with each individual life form, she is concerned about the health of the whole, about how all the various parts fit in ways that ensure that the whole remains healthy and viable. Nature, our planet, wants to make sure that life continues, and she needs all the various parts of her (including us) to help make that happen. There’s the rub. We stopped cooperating. We stopped caring about the whole. We stopped paying attention to the impact of our actions on others. We stopped playing with life and began rationalizing ways that dampened it down. We became human centered, instead of life centered.
 
James Lovelock makes such a fantastic case for why our planet is special. The ability to regulate our atmosphere is unique among all of the terrestrial objects we know about. Here, only here, does life exist.  Only here is there an agreement to keep life going, and here everyone is involved, everyone except us. We stopped playing the game a long time ago.
 
When there were just a few of us, it didn’t matter so much, but now that there are almost 9 billion of us AND we have learned to take with such expertise, it matters a great deal. Yes, we are a wasteful species and our waste products are suffocating life and burying it in plastic, but we are also a prideful species, actively engaged in getting rid of anything we deem as unuseful – to us.
 
By not understanding the fierce interrelatedness of all living things, by not understanding the mutual support each offers to the processes that make life work on this planet, we have been actively dismantling that life giving structure. Now, Earth has a decision to make, she can die, or she can remove the creatures that are causing the problem. She’s maintained a fairly narrow, and quite pleasant, range of temperature for millions of years. This range has allowed many, many different forms of life to thrive. Now, as she heats up, new life forms will be brought forth and many old life forms will disappear. We may be one of those.
 
Many of us have already lowered our body temperatures a degree in an attempt to manage the heat. Will that be enough? What about all the other life forms we know we depend upon, cattle, chickens, corn, wheat, water, soil? Will they adapt fast enough? The loss of ice, millions of years in the making, interrupts the flow of both air and water, flows that have kept some parts cool and some parts warm. This is a whole new ball game that will require a whole new range of adaptive techniques. Our normal pattern of resistance – will it be sufficient; will it be enough?
 
We have been a bit short-sighted, thinking only of humans and what we think is best for us. Instead of the Prime Directive – ensure that all life thrives, ensure that LIFE thrives, we have been focused on ensuring that human life thrives, and we are beginning to see that we do not live alone. We’ve had a good run resisting the planet, now is the time to shift gears and begin to use our knowledge and expertise to work with the planet. Can we, do it?
 
There’s nothing like the human ego. Our belief in our specialness has given us things we have dreamed of for centuries, but at an exceptional cost. How attached are we to our egos? How attached are we to our specialness? In every process of maturation, there comes a time when the needs and desires of the individual must be reorganized in ways that acknowledge and contribute to the greater whole. We have been able to avoid that for quite a while, but no longer.
 
We are hard-wired to connect and cooperate. It is those skills that have made us so successful. Can we bring them out, dust them off, and shift gears? Can we expand our capabilities to include the whole planet, not just our species? Can we use the joy of connection, the bliss of right action as motivators to shift our actions to supporting life? Can we reimagine soil as life giving and not just dirt? Can we learn to clean up after ourselves by focusing on zero waste? Can we follow the termites and build in air-conditioning that doesn’t use energy? It’s all there, it is only our egos that are standing in the way.
 
The Prime Directive is contained in the first two values of the Resilient Values Set;™ All actions create the conditions that support life, and focus on maintaining the integrity of the whole. Simple? It is simply a shift in focus from us to LIFE. We can do this!

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time when alchemists like Newton became enamored with their own egos, and they brought the rest of us along on that journey. The tension between control and understanding was resolved as the intelligentsia, the scientific, doubled down on control. I can only speculate that the anger and frustration felt by those who resented the inability to control nature was released in their desire to pull her apart in their attempt to control by manipulating or disobeying the ‘limits’ they found there.

Most of human history has been conducted in relationship with nature. Meaning was found in understanding how to be a partner, we worked to find and then grow our food. Our religious life was focused around supplicating or placating nature, and that relationship gave us a place in the universe. When we left that universe, we entered the modern world of science and capitalism. A world where people were taught to hate life, even as they feared death.

Unaware of the moral imperative to ensure life continues, we maintained the corrupted version of ‘go forth and procreate’ as being sufficient, embracing instead, entropy, which has resulted in the obvious result of a destruction of life’s ability to sustain life — at least as we have known it. Morris Berman, in his book, The Reenchantment of the World, makes the case for a re-enchantment that puts the Earth back into her rightful place. He argues, as do the indigenous folks, that we can and must reseat ourselves back into right relationship with life, and that we can do that, even using science, through appreciation and gratitude.

Perhaps just getting in touch with the amazing creativity and cleverness of nature allows us to marvel at the world and then to marvel at us, how amazing WE are, and maybe we can discover our own ‘fit’ with the rest of life. The loneliness and angst we feel, the lack of satisfaction and meaning, can be regained as we stand in wonder at the beauty of it all. The beauty of dance and the pair's competition in ice-skating is not just at the graceful and technically skillful moves, but at the fact they are done together. Perhaps we can find purpose and meaning if we choose to dance with life, instead of resisting her at every step?

We have been so seduced by parts we have lost sight of the whole, of context, of culture, of the water we swim in. Our worldview has blinded us to the tone and hue created by that world-view, which colors everything thing we see, distorting our vision. Instead of life, we have substituted survival, instead of life we grasp for success. Neither of these offers satisfying and meaningful experiences, once past the initial rush, they are not sustaining, but they are seductive.

The re-enchantment of the world is not a ‘going back’ but a reawakening to the miracle that life is. A recognition of the amazing sophistication and elegance of nature, as evidenced by sea slugs and dragon fish. It is a deep appreciation of the magic created by following her principles and dynamics and watching life thrive. Few things are more thrilling than watching the miracle of life happen, as any parent knows. If we hang on to that thrill, and turn our faces to life, who knows what wonders we might not only discover, but be an integral part of making happen?

For many of us, our values are the water we swim in. They are the mycelium that live between us and that carry the information we pay attention to. They signal us to notice this, or notice that, making the rest of the information we live in, invisible. Our penchant for parts means that all of our values are equally important and when the results we expect aren’t forth coming we blame ourselves, or others, not seeing the water we are swimming in.

The Earth is a living system — a whole, composed of parts. Our focus on the parts has blinded us to the patterns and processes that hold the parts together and that make everything work. It is not the parts that are the cause, they are in relationship to each other in certain ways, and it is that relationship that makes all the difference. Our values are the same. It is the relationship between them that create a whole worldview, and it is this that makes all the difference.
The seduction of culture is that when we look around for guidance and validation we see ‘everyone else’ doing the same thing, and even though it isn’t working for us, we double down because ‘that’s how it’s done.’ We believe what the mycelium are telling us. What we don’t understand is that we have choice and options. All we see is the culture we are in, one that is caught in survival or one that is caught in ‘success’ defined as stuff and status. The sliver of truth contained in each of these is corrupted by the fear of life and the self-hatred that generates, because we are life. Both of these belief systems put us at war with ourselves as we dismiss, shut down or ignore all of our internal signals that tell us we have it all wrong.

The re-enchantment of the world begins when we stand in amazement at life and at ourselves, seeing us as the mystical and magical beings that we are. Then, maybe we will have the courage to lift each other up, instead of denying who we are. Maryanne Williams said we are afraid of our own brilliance. We develop machines to be better than we are instead of doing the work to be what they do. We have lost respect for ourselves because we have ceased to take our rightful place in the gift called life. We hide behind our need for life in our fear of death, and we hide our need to be seen in our drive for success. Both of those are placeholders for reality.

It feels good to be true to ourselves, to tell the truth, to address reality squarely, but our cultures will tell us otherwise. The angst we feel is reflected in our teenagers’ suicides, in our vast addictions to drugs, television, technology and social media. All methods designed to distract us from engaging in the real world, the world of soil and water, wind and rain, plants, and animals — and us. We justify our agony by repeating the whispers of our culture that we will die if we care, that we need others to approve of us so that we become real.

We can begin the re-enchantment by noticing how the world works and be amazed by it. We can reawaken respect as we notice the incredible effort everything makes to fit, and we can regain our self-respect as we strive to do the same and then witness the benefits of doing so. The book, Darwin’s Finches by David Lack shows so clearly how each individual is willing to change itself in order to find its own niche and so fit into the world with the least resistance. We do this too, but we are now working to ‘fit’ into a life hating world and so are bringing about our own demise.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We simply have to turn our faces into life. As we begin to seek the thrill of bringing forth life, we will create the path we have to walk. We will begin to actually SEE and experience the interbeing Thich Nhat Hanh talks about. Fit is not easy, but it is a wonderful driver for learning, creativity and reverence. Appreciating the skill and caring that goes into making ‘fit’ happen opens up a brand-new appreciation for life. As we see and acknowledge our own skill and creativity in creating our own fit we will also gain a new appreciation for ourselves and our own creative abilities. The world is waiting to welcome us back — we just have to say yes.
 

Ah, what a strange value, don’t you think? When the earth functions with this framework, it is the long view, the grandness of being, that springs to mind. Yet I’d like to suggest that since we are little wholes inside bigger wholes, that creating that resonance, that alignment, and coherence, is our key contribution to the integrity of the whole.
 
As little wholes, each of our actions brings into being more and stronger resonance or not. If we choose dissonance then the ripples are small and almost unnoticed, they go flailing out disturbing the resonant whole and dissipate. If we choose harmony, then those tiny ripples spread out and join the others, and we ride a gentle wave, almost unnoticed. Each of our actions seem so tiny, so unimportant, so unnoticed.
 
In my studies of ethics, these insignificant actions don’t ever seem to rise. Most discussions of ethics want to speak to the bigger actions, the ones we see and the ones that create very big ripples, yet life, LIFE is composed of many, many smaller ripples, the ones that we do every day and most often don’t even see.
 
For me, the ethical life is composed of context. It is context that informs us of the larger whole. It is context that can be misleading, and it is context that offers the mirror to see if our tiny ripples support LIFE or flies in the face of it, dampening that possibility. The example I’ll use is the teaching of distrust. We have whole industries dedicated to this, take marketing, for example.
 
“Let the buyer beware” suggests that only fools believe what they are told. If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t. This is the institutionalizing of the corruption of innocence. It’s a way to ‘protect’ from and ’teach’ about the ugly facts of disappointment and misunderstandings we rationalize, but without developing the skills of discernment.
 
We teach distrust by not keeping our word, by making promises we don’t keep, by rewarding impossible promises and punishing truth tellers – politics is the fertile ground for this practice. We teach distrust when we laugh at humor that showcases the ‘fool’ being shown the results of her misplaced trust as the chair is being pulled out from under her.
 
Nature never lies. She always tells us what works, we have learned not to listen, and we have believed that we could ignore her, which we have done, ignoring Dynamic Stability, but that’s the subject for another time. We have gotten so good at believing our own cynicism that we don’t even notice what we are doing.
 
Harryette Mullen, in her poem, We Are Not Responsible, showcases this so very well when she says in her first two verses:
We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives. 
We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions. 
We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts. 
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. 
 
Your ticket does not guarantee that we will honor your reservations. 
In order to facilitate our procedures, please limit your carrying on. 
Before taking off, please extinguish all smoldering resentments. 
 
Here she shows just how deeply we work to make sure people understand the ‘appropriate’ level of trust, so, we rationalize, we are not responsible…. And how foolish you are for trusting.
 
Steven R. Covey, in his book The Speed of Trust, shows the damage and the ineffectiveness not trusting creates in the workplace. Our lives are built on trust – those lines on the highway – we trust other drivers to obey them, and so many other instances where trust makes things work, yet we want to defy it – to what end? Every time we teach distrust, we tear at the fabric of the whole – destroying its integrity.
 
We have been taught in the past few decades that people are NOT of good will. Our entire form of government is based on trusting that people are of good intent, that is why differences of opinion are so important. We need other eyes to see the whole – IF – the intent is to strengthen the whole to deepen the alignment with LIFE. Now we are being taught that there is only ONE way, but that is not how nature works. It is having many ways that gives nature her resilience, so that we can trust that she will keep her balance even if things change.
 
We are so inured to noticing how we teach distrust; we desperately need each other to begin to sharpen our discernment. We must hone that skill of seeing when trust is being destroyed and develop the social scaffolding to support each other in acting on that discernment. We do this much better and faster when we engage with others in a commitment to develop and build trust, than when we go it alone.
 
Begin to open your own eyes by actively noticing when our culture is teaching distrust. Find someone or someones who are willing to join you in this discovery, and then seek, together, to build countermeasures. This is such a crucial action to take at this time! This is a hero’s journey.