We all love trees. Forests are wonderful in the abstract, but messy and difficult to engage with or walk in. What, you say, that’s not true, I enjoy walking in the forests around me. I’ll bet you do, but here’s the kicker, those are not forests. What most of us know as forests are really mono cropped tree farms. They were planted to replace the real forest that was there and cut down to build the house you live in. Most of us have never seen an old growth forest. That said some of those semi-forests have been around for 50-100 years. They are not something we really want to lose. No, they don’t make porous soil as well as old growth, and no they don’t make rain as well as old growth, but still they do something and that something is needed. They just need to be managed into diversity.
 
In the paper today was a long article about the devastating cuts to the Forest Service. Any fool can cut, but few can prune for growth. It’s the same with budget cuts. Easy to eliminate, but to eliminate for growth take time and deep knowledge of what’s needed and what’s currently present. The skill and decades of learned information are going out the window, and these will take decades to bring back. The article even mentioned pack animals that need years of training to be really skillful in bearing heavy packs over rough and unknown territory. Helpers who removed 850 trees last year worked with rangers who knew the forest and who could tell them what to do and which trees to take out. All that is gone.
 
The Forest Service does yeoman’s work. But there are few who would not say it could be improved. For decades the Forest Service has been underfunded. In our Western world work happens if you pay for it. As more and more of us are born and live in cities, the hard work of forest management is not understood or attractive, so people can be hard to find. That and relatively poor pay make the job unattractive to many.
 
There’s been a resurgence, lately, of interest in indigenous ways of living and being on the land. Indigenous people are raised to know they are part of the whole system of life and to recognize the reverence and gratitude that comes with that understanding. They are taught to live their lives in ways that are interconnected and interdependent with the rest of the life around them. They understand to leave things and not take it all. They understand how to take in such a way that nature is stronger for the loss. How can you pay to make this happen?
 
Since it takes money to manage the forests, even with the imperfect knowledge we have, we aren’t willing to do even that. “Since 1854, Menominee Tribal Enterprises has harvested more than 2.5 billion board feet of lumber from our sacred land. We have completely cut standing timber over the entire reservation twice. Yet, today we have more than a half billion board feet additional standing timber than when we started. A drive through or fly over our forest would show the results of a forest that looked like it had never been cut.” Adrian Miller, Menominee Tribal member.
 
The truth is that people learn and work harder for love than they do for money. We all know this from our own life experience, yet we designed our society around money and not around love. Love makes the world go round, yet we go around being alive every chance we get. The Earth is calling us, she wants us here, but if we are not doing what brings life and increases love, maybe not.

Please share your thoughts about a forest near you.
 

I’m holding Los Angeles in my heart. May people hold the terror of their experience in the context of change. This destruction offers up opportunities to rebuild anew. To rebuild in harmony with the nature of the place, with the LIFE that wants to live there. May the people’s curiosity and their commitment to LIFE enable them to detect the quiet joy in their heart to finally make it right!
 
May the pain not blind them to the glory of restitution, to the opportunity to bring back the LIFE that is lurking just under the burnt soil. The echoes of the past are calling out in their desire for new life, for new expression, for new validation of their value and a recognition of their gifts. May the people who have lost everything find themselves in the rebuilding of a new world.
 
The Earth is calling, the Earth wants to see her people happy and in harmony with all of her other children. The Earth can no longer bear the heavy burden of disrespect and distain, she needs love, as all of us do. These fires, as terrible as they were, are an opening into a new relationship with the life that loves us, with the life that cares for us, with the life that must be respected, valued, praised, and revered.
 
May a new Los Angeles be born of love and gratitude, not anger and resistance, not will and determination. May the green be reborn through a new appreciation of water.  May patience be reignited from the curiosity and reverence that springs from the new shoots of life that surface when the conditions hold the love that LIFE needs.
 
When things are a mess, then clearing and cleaning are in order. When each space works to hold water Mother Earth will bow her head in gratitude and replenish the abundance that is Los Angeles’ birthright. There was a time when water was abundant, it shall be so again, if the people, now so in hurt, can come to recognize, with gratitude, the opening of a new space, a new world, a new chance to reestablish the relationship with LIFE and joy that was instrumental in the birth of Los Angeles, at the beginning.
 
Life loves LIFE! Be alive, be loved, share love, bring love, be love. Water is the staff of life, so create living soil to hold the water that IS life. Recreate the love, and love will love you back. How would a new Los Angeles look if each home was green with the water it held? How this resurrected city look if LIFE was the measure of success and the abundance of water was the proof that love existed?

The vast majority of us are worried. The country we are moving into in 2025 is not, will not be the same country we have lived in for decades. Jeremy Lent, in his article, The Political Cataclysm: Causes, Implications, and a Way Forward, has real insight into the why’s of our political predicament, and his exhortations to be kind and love our fellow human beings, of all stripes, is wise and correct, but the flaw that has gotten us into this mess is still being perpetuated. In this time of stress, we are focusing on ourselves. Understandable, we have to take care of ourselves first before we take care of others. That is true for us and our relation to other humans, but in this case, it will be a disaster and only more of the same old, same old.
 
We have been taken care of for millions and millions of years. The planet is designed to take care of the life that it is composed of, and that includes us. If the planet hadn’t been so successful in doing this, in taking care of us – we would not be here – period. As Robin Wall Kimnerer said, “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy…” WE have made it difficult for her to do feed, not only us, but the more than human life as well. Our path forward, if we choose to take it is to finally express our appreciation and gratitude by taking care of her!
 
We have only just begun to understand how she has created a world of just the right temperature, a world so full of life, so abundant, that birds filled the sky, and the wind sounded with the rustling of their wings. WE removed that abundance, systematically and relentlessly. We removed that abundance, not so that we could eat, but so others could not, for ‘sport,’ for our ‘convenience.’ Now is the time to work to bring that abundance back.
 
Water is life. While that’s true, it is water in the dirt, in the soil, that is life. Water in the air does us not good, and if it stays up there too long, when it comes down, it comes down in such intense torrents that it does more damage than it brings benefit. Our first act, if we wish to replenish the Earth, is to help water stay in the earth as much as possible. Without water in the soil, we will not have rivers and lakes, but only living soil holds water. Soil will not hold water if it is not full of life already. Science is now saying that two thirds of all life on the planet is in the soil. This would suggest that revitalizing our soils, not only saves life, but helps address the shocking loss of biodiversity we keep ignoring. Water and healthy soil are intertwined, they are interdependent, we can’t have one with the other.

The need for food and a cool enough climate to make food possible is a bipartisan issue. It will take all of us to do the work needed to cool the climate by strengthening the natural systems that produce rain, and forests are key to this rain-making process. Because rain needs to stay on the land long enough to sink in, plants are integral to making sure that the soil is porous enough through their root action, to hold water, but the process of photosynthesis creates carbon, and the transevaporation not only moves water back into the air, thus cooling the earth, but they also send up bacteria, Pseudomonas syringae, which allows water molecules to form rain at lower temperatures, and thus rain in more frequent and small amounts. Eurof Uppington, CEO and founder of Amfora, a Switzerland-based importer of virgin olive oils said in a recent article, “No plants, no rain. Water begets water, say hydrologists; soil is the womb, vegetation is the midwife.” This is the point of the “Water for Climate Healing: A New Water Paradigm” paper written for the UN 2023 Water Conference. “Plants are vital in regulating small water cycles and stabilizing local, regional, and global climates.” They recommend two steps; actions we can take to help the planet:

1. As a first step, it is necessary to slow down to stop the decrease in water retention capacity due to changes in its use. New public policies for urban development and agriculture will help.
2. By preparation and implementation of the adaptation (nature-based solutions, new landscape features, new water retention measures, new water holdings, blue and green infrastructure) and management measures (regenerative agriculture, rainwater harvesting in cities, communities, in forest, and agricultural land) we will increase significantly lost water retention capacity.

What is true is that nature heals. When we put our hands in the dirt, our whole mood changes. We find peace and hope in the soil. That suggests, to me, that when we turn to the planet and work to restore the natural ability of the earth to cool itself, then we will also heal ourselves. Working with the Earth will make it easier for us to be kind and caring to one another as we make amends for the damage we’ve done. This is a win, win, win solution, and one we can do, no matter what else is happening around us. We need to use our energy to heal and support life, not to defend and fight.
 
Working with the land to slow and sink water, refreshing the soil with compost, biochar, and biologics, planting forests using the Miyawaki method are all actions that are within the reach of each of us. Not only that, but we will see the results in three short years. Re-greening our planet brings joy to our hearts and water to our rivers. This is doable, but the longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to counteract the warming that is taking place right now. I urge you; I urge everyone to turn to the planet and take action to heal and rebalance it. Fill your mind with thoughts of regenerating life and watch your heartbeat with joy. Knowing that you are working to bring back LIFE, in all its glory, is the very best antidote to despair and anxiety. Watching life come back is real and the perfect antidote to disinformation. Seeing and experiencing the vitality of nature makes the feeling of hope tangible and concrete.
 
Life loves life! YOU are life and you are loved. Nature loves, not in a romantic, tit-for-tat way, but in a way that recognizes the value and importance of every living thing as each entity on the planet contributes to the health and continued success of life on the planet. When we rejoin that merry band, then we will be able to allow ourselves to feel the love that is all around us, we will be worthy.

Many folks, particularly soil scientists, have understood the big mistake we made decades ago in understanding the meta crisis we face. Society got focused on greenhouse gases – an effect of the changes, and completely overlooked the source. This whole situation is a bit like fanning a burning house to reduce the heat, but ignoring putting out the fire.
Walter Jehne's paper, "Regenerate Earth", written in 2019, argues that restoring the planet's natural hydrological processes is crucial for mitigating climate change. Jehne emphasizes the role of water in regulating Earth's temperature for billions of years, particularly through latent heat fluxes, cloud formation, and rainfall. He argues that human activities, especially land degradation, have disrupted these processes, leading to a rise in warming humid hazes and a decrease in cooling rainfall. Jehne proposes that by regenerating the Earth’s soil carbon sponge, which enhances water retention and plant transpiration, we can restore these hydrological cycles. This, he argues, is more effective than focusing solely on CO2 emissions reduction, and is essential for cooling the planet and securing a livable future.
Nature has been cooling the planet for millions of years. With the loss of Arctic ice, we are now quite reliant on the biotic pump Jehne describes above. The IPPC WGI Fifth Assessment Report, published in 2013 states very clearly, “It is certain that Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) has increased since the late 19th century … Each of the past three decades has been warmer than all the previous decades in the instrumental record, and the decade of the 2000’s has been the warmest. The global combined land and ocean temperature data show an increase of about 0.89°C [0.69–1.08]5 over the period 1901–2012 and about 0.72°C [0.49- 0.89] over the period 1951–2012 when described by a linear trend6. “ which suggests that nature's ability to cool has decreased.
Peter Paul Bunyard and Rob deLeat, in their book, Cooling Climate Chaos, “offer effective climate solutions. We have seen climate restoration in smaller areas. If implemented wholesale by people everywhere based on local context, it will resolve most of the climate crises worst effects within decades, while benefitting society in many ways, including the protection of biodiversity, and correcting the gross inequity of our times. It may even open the possibility of slowing down partly inevitable sea-level rise.”
In so many places the realization has begun to dawn, we CAN do this, but we need to work with the planet. Climate change is not beyond our reach, we simply have to understand climate and then apply that understanding to everything we do. Here at Soil Smart – Soil Wise, we use the wonderful model of the biotic pump to clarify a whole system that creates climate, and to showcase simple acts that strengthen it. When we work with the biotic pump, then we are beginning to control our own climate, locally, in ways that enhance our own location, cool our local climate, and bring back the biodiversity that helps to maintain a resilient climate, in the long-term.
We have been focused on removing the carbon that holds in the heat. We have been focused on the results of the heating and not on the cause. We have focused on carbon and not on water. It is water that creates climate as it changes shape and either requires energy or gives it off – as heat. Water’s ability to shape-shift, is the miracle that manages temperature. Plants are the partners that make this shift possible, and even ordinary plants contribute as greening the planet, is cooling the planet. As they say in Cooling Climate Chaos, “Our focus is entirely on nurturing the living planet back to health and saving our societies in the process.” THAT is the key! We need to focus on planet cooling and planet health, and THEN we will find our pathway thought all the myriad changes we are so befuddled with now.
Yes, we need fresh water, but the soil will cleanse our water if we keep the water we get by stopping, slowing and sinking it where it falls. Removing and storing carbon dioxide is one of nature’s basic skills. Plants and soil are wonderful carbon sinks, they have been effective for millions of years. They may not act as fast in removing carbon as we are at adding it, but that’s our worry, so yes, the biotic pump removes and stores carbon. Air pollution is addressed subtly, as plants create oxygen and utilize CO2. Yes the air is improved, however, biodiversity loss IS a strength of the bionic pump and there are few other options. As mini-forests are planted, they, ‘create the conditions that support life’ and we see and can measure the return of animals and insects that have disappeared for years, as they return.
Effective strengthening of the bionic pump means that less fertilizer will be used, and land is designed to hold the water it gets. These changes will impact land use positively as healthy soil hold water so groundwater, creeks, rivers and springs are brought back to healthy states. There is nothing else, that I know of, that will impact all of these areas of overshoot as effectively as strengthening the biotic pump.
Land design is a hidden and neglected part of the equation. Beavers are the consummate land designers.  Erica Gies, in her book Water Always Wins, has a whole chapter on Beavers. There are several other books that she mentions as beavers gain in importance: Once They Were Hats: In Search of the mighty beaver by Frances Backhouse, and Eager: The surprising secret life of the Beaver by Ben Goldfarb, are two. Erica states, “Their ponds covered more than three hundred thousand square miles, turning one-tenth of the continent into rich ecologically diverse wetlands…” For me, this implies just how much land nature dedicated to holding water. It  also implies just how much land needs to be dedicated to holding water, if we want to refill the aquifers’ and underground streams that are necessary for a healthy ecosystem.
Given the current state, one thing we can do is to ensure that all new development is designed to hold water, first, before building. What we know from examples like Village Homes in Davis California, is that not only does such design prevent flooding, it is also cheaper to build and cheaper to maintain. Homes built to take advantage of nature can save up to 50% on their energy use, From an affordable housing perspective, these are very good numbers!
Addressing climate change is not a one-off, one time thing, but a shift in how we are living on the planet, so that everyday decisions are aligned with what nature and all the other living things need. Because the planet is alive, things change, and we, like beavers, need to circle back and readjust to take into account the decisions of myriad of other livings beings who share the planet with us. We have become accustomed to one and done, moving on to other things. We see our engagement with the planet as sporadic and as the background for the ‘real’ stuff. Our engagement with the planet has to become the REAL stuff, something that becomes central to all of our actions, not a backdrop. Our thirsty, burning planet needs water, and WE need to help her keep the water she gets!
Cities are in a good position to make this happen. We do not have rain if there is no water in the soil. Erica Gies makes this point over, and over. The soil must hold water and the soil must be green with plants, and designed to slow and sink water, for forests and plants to pump it up into the air to fall again. By becoming a sponge city, by ensuring that all land is planted correctly, and designed well, cities can ensure they become sources of cooling, rather than heating. Right now, most cities are heat islands, may degrees warmer than the countryside. This needs to change as cities recognize the various ways they can become cooler. By paying attention to keeping the water they get, they can actively utilize public parks, and golf courses as water sinks. As they make healthy soil a prerogative, composting and biochar become normal ways of doing business, reducing chemical use and water use, as healthy wet, soil doesn’t need watering, so plants and trees can put their roots down far enough that the water table rises, so that additional water is rarely needed.
I can’t put Greta’s words out of my head – “our house is on fire!” We need to be putting that fire out. We do not need to rearrange our furniture, or sort through our belongings, we need to put the fire OUT! The problem is that there is a disconnect between what we do and the experience of success. That problem is called non-linear cause and effect. I believe that having our hands in the dirt, working with the biotic pump, seeing the resilience we can create with our ore own hands, watching life return as the forest grows brings a kind of satisfaction and feeling of relevance that few things can match. That is my hope and my prayer – join us in making YOUR city resilient, green and cool.

Check out our 4-week course on Rethinking Climate Change to understand this more deeply: https://soilsmart-soilwise.org/events

Water, that most magical of substances! It has no shape of its own, yet it is instantly identifiable. It is everywhere life is. We know of no life without water; it is necessary for life to exist and for it to continue to exist. It was a major step in evolution when life discovered how to take water with it, so it could move onto land.

Water has memory. The wonderful work of Masaru Emoto (Messages from Water) showing how water changes when infused with spoken words, and the idea of Homeopathy that water can hold the memory of various pathogens are other ways that we recognize that water has memory.

Water has three, maybe four forms; liquid, solid, vapor, and the ‘fourth phase,’ sometimes called ‘structured/ describes water's ability to form a layer along water loving (hydrophilic) surface. No other substance has this variety of properties. What IS water?

In the work I’ve done on Earth’s Values, and the Global ethic that LIFE uses, I was encouraged by a friend, Ani Ahavah, to look at water through the lens of values. What can water teach us about living the values of nature?

Of the sixteen values I distilled from my research the first, and most important is the one first articulated by Jannie Benyus, All actions create the conditions that support life. Now think about water for a moment. Isn’t that all it does? That seems to be what water just does. When water is polluted – it didn’t do that, it is carrying the toxins to remove them, as best it can. When it’s raging, it is often because of our disruption of the balances the rest of life has created for it. Water holds memories of our pain and ugliness to each other, but cheerfully releases them when we re-infuse it with love.

I’m feeling a resistance to saying ‘it.’ Water is kin, water is more than kin, water is us. Our language makes it hard to speak of this closeness without generating the distance of separation. Water always has the greater good in mind, so water always manages the health and integrity of the whole, the second principle or value of Earth. Permaculture speaks best to this aspect of water, slow, spread, sink. From a leadership perspective this changes the act of leadership from one of aggressively forcing action to the Confucius approach best capitalized in the paraphrasing of the  saying “Effective leadership is achieved when participants say, we did it ourselves.” The slow spreading of understanding seeps into consciousness and becomes, simply, the way we do things.

Basic to the understanding of authentic effectiveness is the undercurrent of right-relationship, a third value of nature. Win, win, win is the metric of right-relationship, where all parties are benefited versus the old concept of compromise which suggests shared loss. Where life is concerned, all parties need to be better off for being in relationship, and that sometimes takes patience. There is no contest, but a desire to ensure the long-term benefits which may take time to see, understand and integrate. Patience is a virtue.

This also speaks t0 reciprocity and interdependence, two other Earth values as aspects inherent in right-relationship. For me, reciprocity speaks to the heart urge that forms naturally when a benefit is received, as the natural response to balance that gift arises for expression. Water certainly models these as well. An open reception to water is responded to by the gift of life and the giving of that gift requires the reception of that gift as an integral part. I think the welcoming reception is often overlooked and is corrupted by the shift in consciousness of taking. The humbleness of receiving is very different from taking, and that difference is the difference between being in relationship and being interdependent and a top-down control context. It is all in the attitude. That is why reverence is a key aspect of right-relationship. Water is incredibly generous, but at the same time, can be ferocious when denied.

The many forms of water speak to water's ability to manage energy economically, without waste. The generation of heat or the removal of heat are all done in ways that balance the climate atmosphere. There is zero waste. The structural changes are done to ensure balance, and disruption through storms and disasters come when that balance has been tampered with. Water's right-relationship with plants and soil ensure the balanced shift in structure, but when soil is killed to become dirt and plant life is replaced with asphalt and concrete and that balance is removed, then the excess energy must be expressed in ways that are often detrimental. This is at the heart of the bionic pump. The bionic pump is a description of the ways in which water finds balance and in which the natural cooling of the Earth takes place. Life needs water, and life – as we know it – needs a certain temperature range, as well. The bionic pump is the way nature and water created to maintain that special temperature range. We humans have tampered with that, and now we are seeing the results.

Dynamic stability, another value, is one that water does best. Waters need to shift from fast to slow, from narrow to wide, and from surface to underground all speak to the need for temporary changes without actually changing anything. The expansion of the riverbed prevents flooding. That temporary change must be included in an understanding of ‘normal’ to allow for the needed flexibility. Another way of saying this is that boundaries are not walls or fences, but ranges of acceptance. Working with that range save time, money and aggravation. The range is dictated by the entity needing the expansion, not by some outside entity. This is where respect and trust come in, from a leadership perspective. Listening to what’s needed and not second guessing or overriding are key.

Optimization, co-creation and agency are other Earth values that Water can be a model for leadership. Agency has two aspects, directive and responsive. When water takes its own agency, it is such a friend and supporter. It is the life giving support that is at the heart of water’s purpose. When water is being reactive in response to actions by others that are out of water’s control, then we shudder at the power and force of those responses. How often is this true of leadership? When the leader's hand is soft and gentle, then the receptivity of the followers is often spontaneous and seemingly invisible, but when the leader's had is harsh the reactions are often equally dramatic, even when hidden and behind closed doors. The dynamic, interdependent dance between leadership and the rank and file is very often overlooked. Leaderships agency is tightly coupled with the agency of the followers. It is the regenerative leader's job to release the follower's agency by making them leaders in their own right. It is by making everyone a leader that the organization is optimized. Optimization speaks to the health of the whole, and we are back to where we started.

Life is not about parts and pieces. Life is about ensuring that the life, through the love of life, continues. Life is about loving life, so keeping, engendering that joy is a key leadership role, one that few understand or accept. Leaders so often get caught up in the achievement thing that they forget about the journey to get there. Life is about the journey, not the result. This is another lesson from water. Waters ‘achievement’ is not getting to the ocean, because that is only one stop on its journey. Water’s achievement is the LIFE it brings forth on its journey from one form to another. This is a regenerative leader's achievement, as well.

 

 
I’ve put that documentary up here so you, too, can experience Michael’s life. Given our situation, it is time to think about what would, could, should human life look like as we work to weather (ha) the changes now upon us. The separateness stance would have us striving to protect our selves from the changing climate, and from each other as things get challenging. There are many among us who will do that.
 
Michael chose to move away from others to be free to interact with his environment in his own way. Being authentic with your environment is a slow process. It takes time to get to know it, to understand how it lives, and then to bend your needs around what needs to happen, in the place where you are. It is a slow, respectful, process.
 
His place was beautiful. It did not speak of difficulty or hardship, yet, he was not connected to the traditional electricity, water, sewer system so these taken for granted comforts were managed in an unusual way, a way that did not pollute his environment, or disturb it in a way that would impact its health and vitality.
 
There was no talk of food, but we know he managed. He had a garden and the ocean. His environment allowed him to be able to gather all year around, so I suspect that storage was not an issue. As we move into warmer times, how will we address that? Food will become a more consistent area of attention. Will we have the bandwidth to keep animals? Will we be able to provide for them as well as us? Will the need for food require us to live in community?
 
One of the stories that so sticks in the mind, is his five years playing with a pod of dolphins. His comment that their culture was about being polite, is worthy of some reflection. How will we learn to be together in a way that supports OUR survival? Will we splinter in protective groups, groups intent upon robbing from others what we can’t do for ourselves, or will we discover the joys of sharing and working together? I suspect there will be both groups, at least for a time. Robbing of others is a luxury, one that presupposes that someone else is able to survive well enough that they can ‘afford’ that kind of parasitic behavior. How long will that be tolerated?
 
The story also speaks to the role of play in our lives. That is a big part of the life of a dolphin, and Michael seemed to have enough time, free from life needs (shelter and food) to be able to join them, for at least a good part of the time. That too, is a luxury, on that all successful peoples have found ways of incorporating, play and art are fundamental ways of spending time. Maybe that is even part of the definition of success, having time for play and art. How have we been doing in that department?
 
He has a strong spiritual practice. His mind has a natural turn to both the abstract and the beautiful. Both are conducive to the spiritual. Still, he found that guidance from another person, and from an established tradition, provided strength and support. Will we, in this new challenging situation, be able to bring forward those traditions that have supported us for thousands of years? Will we lose all of that? Will we develop new ways of understanding the deeper meaning of life instead? There is a lot of conversation, now, about how to rethink a global ethic, and certainly I’m a part of that conversation. Will we look to nature, or remain stuck in trying to figure out how and why we are different from nature? Will we keep that illusion or seek another way of being?
 
Another point of rumination, for me, is gender. We have few, if any, stories about women who have gone off into the wilderness to live. In thinking about Michael’s story, I’m not sure if I could have done what he did, even in my youth. The simple physical needs of such a life feel overwhelming, to me. Separation comes naturally to men, (this is another whole essay) and it is a path to connection, as Michael so clearly shows. In my experience, women find a joy in connection, that is natural to us. We do not need separation in the same way. This brings to mind several thoughts. In nature there are certain animals who live solitary lives, not many, most living things live in groups. I wonder if that is an expression of how food is obtained. For the human species, I have heard of an experiment by a tribe in Africa, where children were left on their own at five. That tribe was not successful. The ability to feed children, is a mark of success for any species, and that often requires, for humans, community, of some kind.
 
So, this film, and our situation, makes me wonder what lessons will we bring forward that will help us, not only survive, but replenish? What understanding  do we need to carry forward, so we will not repeat this? Will we know enough to manage our numbers? They say that the story of Atlantis was the story of power run a muck. What will they say about this time?

I’d like you suspend belief for a few minutes and go with here. I want to offer a thought experiment and get your response. Most people in this country, and everyone with a Christian background of any sort, knows the story about the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve and the apple. This story has been told and retold for centuries. For me that suggests that it is important, it carries a message that has had meaning and relevance for hundreds of thousands of people. That said, there have been hundreds of books written about what it means.  I would dare to say that our Western culture has been created in response to how some people understand this story.
 
Most of the time this is seen as a gender story, the innocent Adam seduced by his tempted ‘wife’ Eve. Much has been made about the ‘fate’ of humanity, based on the actions of one woman. I’ve been more concerned about the ‘tree.’ The tree of knowledge? The tree of????? The apple is said to have given the knowledge of good and evil, hummmm. I’ve pondered that for years. Good and evil have been philosophical hot beds of controversy for centuries. What is good and what is bad? I get the jist, but the words were far from clear, and that ambiguity gives folks lots of room for propaganda.
 
There’s another story that comes from this one, the gift of ‘free will.’ Humans, they say, have the ability to ‘freely’ decide what they do. We have choice. We call this free will. Some brain science suggests otherwise, but most people feel that they are free to decide. So, what did ‘Adam’ decide? What was the choice made by these ‘first people’ that has had such a devastating effect on our world, ever since? Remember, this story was written thousands of years ago.
 
So, imagine with me for a moment that the choice was to ‘just take care of ourselves’ that we are separate and independent, so we can look after ourselves and we don’t need to think about others, or other living things, we have the ‘right?” the ability, to handle it ourselves. When I look at the root cause of all our troubles, they seem to stem from our illusion that we are separate, and therefore condemned to care for ourselves AND not obligated to care for others AND others are not obligated to for us. The ‘apple’ Adam ate was the apple of separation. Perhaps it was under the frame of ‘freedom’ or ‘independence,’ but no matter the rationalization, the effect was the same. We shifted our focus from LIFE to HUMANS, and we have sacrificed other living being to our needs and desires ever since. Taking care of ourselves is a scary proposition, and fear seems to be almost foundational. Separation runs deep!
 
Part of this thinking comes from my understanding of how our planet has been for thousands and thousands of years. Indigenous folks have always tended the plant life around them and worked with nature, and in so doing created a garden that flourished and thrived. I do not believe that much of our planet has been untended. Just because WE don’t tend it, doesn’t mean it has always been that way. Take our continent, the USA. When Columbus came, what did they see? Huge trees, rich soil, incredible natural riches, riches that had been stewarded by the indigenous folks who lived here that we called Indians. He was so blind that he could not imagine these ‘savages’ had the knowledge and skills to create such wealth, but they did.
 
Now science is telling us just how connected we are. Dr. Zack Morton Bush, an endocrinologist focusing on the microbiome, says that we have over 30,000 individual species living in us, doing their own thing, but in doing so they give us life. We cannot live without them. The mitochondria, which we once thought were a part of our cells, we now know are separate entities. They have the gift of being able to convert sunlight into energy. That is where our energy comes from. They are in every living cell in our bodies. They came from the soil, and they need the soil to thrive.
 
Putting your hands in the soil is a great mood enhancer, this is even backed by science. The Earth needs us, and we need it! There is no such thing as separation, that is an illusion! That need is what is called reciprocity. Back to the garden again. What would your life look like if you lived in reciprocity with your family? How about with your neighbors? Then, think a bit more deeply and think about being in reciprocity with the non-humans in your environment. Noticing the gifts, you are being given, and giving back in appreciation…what a wonderful way to live. How rich those relationships become, and how wonderful to know you are never alone. Welcome back to the garden.

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.
 
 

Please join me in a thought experiment. Kindness and consideration seem to go hand-in-hand. We wring our hands and bemoan the current conditions of our culture, the hatred and animosity that seems so prevalent. The coarseness and vindictiveness that seem to be everywhere as people express their angst and frustration. Yet, even in that atmosphere, it is possible to experience acts of kindness. The smile, a hand outstretched, time taken out of a busy schedule to chat, all these exist within the cacophony of frustration and anger.
 
Kindness is experienced when someone takes the time to notice the need for connection and support in another human being. Kindness comes when one human shares the space of being human with another. The quiet communion of souls, as one human touches another, can make all the difference. Extending kindness tells the receiver that they are valued and important. The recognition of humanity in another is one of the deepest forms of recognition.
 
Consideration is expressed in manners, the simple act of holding a door open. The recognition of a need in the other and then acting on that perception and sharing the mutual joy in that situation, makes the world brighter. Consideration is a wonderful equalizer, eliminating a situational difference in status with the assurance that our humanity trumps any such illusion.
 
Kindness is often seen as a spontaneous act between individual people, but what would a kind family look like? What would the daily habits and experience look like? We might expect to see examples of consideration, a sensitivity to one another’s feelings and moods coupled with a caring concern. We would anticipate a skill in gentle inquiry and spontaneous offers of support. We might expect discussions filled with deep listening so everyone’s experience is understood.
 
Consideration suggests not only the ability to see a need, but to be able to project into the future a bit and act to forestall a situation that might be unpleasant. It provides a bit of ease in trying and difficult situations. Choosing not to do something that might create discomfort in another, or taking an action that might prevent discomfort or pain to another, are both examples of consideration in family situations.
 
What might a kind organization look like? How would a company provide the experience of being valued to its employees? How might an organization be considerate? Perhaps having a focus on the experience of employees as they interact with the company by creating processes that are client and employee focused, instead of internally focused, might be a good start. Employers could help by trusting employees to take care of their own business AND the company's business at the same time, with a focus on accomplishments instead of time. Consideration runs both ways as employees strive to meet the employer's needs, discovered through discussion and mutual planning. Perhaps a shift from competition to service might help? Perhaps a move from efficiency to effectiveness would provide the context for kindness and consideration to flourish?
 
Kindness and consideration both speak of a form of reciprocity that is actually found in nature, as each life form seeks to create the conditions in which it can thrive. The inherent interdependence requires a certain consideration of the other. The high energy cost of competition is saved for occasional and extraordinary circumstances. Adaptability and even tolerance are much more economical energetically, and both foster innovation. By minimizing resistance and recognizing value in the other, new opportunities arise that would be missed in the passion of competition.
 
In a way, both kindness and consideration recognize and facilitate change. By embracing flexibility and acknowledging the distress change causes, consideration and kindness create an experience of grace for the difficult parts of life. Can organizations embrace flexibility? Can organizations wean themselves off the irrational drive for stability and sameness that is a path to death? In nature, stability and lack of change only happen in death. All life change and in fact life might even be defined by its inherent cap, for change. How could it be otherwise? Each life form has a say and as each one adjusts and responds to all the others change in foundational to that engagement with self-expression. Learning to hold reality lightly and with curiosity provides the space for kindness and consideration to happen.
 
Organizations focus on the process, in the mistake belief that process generates the result, when, in fact, the desired impact should inform the process. Living systems are metabolizing systems, and one of the things they digest is information. Many of our systems are suffering indigestion as the information stored in homelessness, in mental illness, and crime is not being digested. Kindness and consideration offer paths through these mazes of confusion and pain if we allow ourselves to feel our way through.
 
Kindness and consideration speak of connection, of the ability to feel and share the experience of the other. In that connection the right action arises, without that connection confusion and irritation block that knowing. When we experience kindness and consideration, we are so grateful, and we desire to share that experience with another. When we experience disdain and disregard, then we, in anger, wish to share that too.  We create the world we live in, one decision at a time. Those decisions start with our own selves as we internalize our external experience. Kindness and self-care are not “nice to haves,” they are necessary to a thriving life.

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.