Member-only story
Find Balance By Following The Flow Of Four
“In nature’s economy,” Vandana Shiva reminds us in Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace, “ the currency is not money, it is life.”
E.F. Schumacher echoed that sentiment when he said, “There is incredible generosity in the potentialities of Nature. We only have to discover how to utilize them.”
Ultimately, we not only need to develop practices that are not as environmentally destructive as the rampant consumerism we’ve been programmed to embrace, but to also learn from Nature, which has been developing sustainably since long before our species even came into the picture and invented garbage. By fully realizing the value in all facets of creation, Nature has never known of waste, has always sought equilibrium through diversity over domination, and throughout all of its various cycles and phases, continues to maintain balance through synergy. With as much as we think we know, we still have a lot to learn.
“In nature,” says Charles Eisenstein in Sacred Economics, “headlong growth and all out competition are features of immature ecosystems, followed by complex interdependence, symbiosis, cooperation, and the cycling of resources. The next stage of human economy will parallel what we are beginning to understand about nature. It will call forth the gifts of each of us; it will emphasize cooperation over…
