Chapter 1 – The Ecologic Vision

We all desire security and success, and though we have experienced many social and technological advances, our life is more challenging than ever. And because we have progressed, we want more and expect more. We have raised the bar for a better “quality of life.” Success has been redefined as not only material wealth, security and status, but genuine happiness and joy, enduring good health, and a sacred life of meaning and service. We seek it all. We call it wholeness. And we want to peacefully sustain it for a long, long time.

However, with the speeding, unpredictable change of mushrooming populations, mind-boggling complexities, confrontational politics and inter-relationships, new pathologies, and heightened expectations, we are more uncertain, anxious, and stressed; we work harder; and we have less sense of community and connection.

And as we deplete and pollute the earth in our quest for “more” of everything, we threaten the very foundation on which we live. All of our personal concerns and ambitions may one day soon be irrelevant if we continue to destroy our mother planet which has birthed, fed and supported us.

The issue before us is how can we sustain both our life of wholeness and our earth? Do we have a vision for succeeding and sustaining ourselves?

Without a plan and vision, we forsake nature’s gift to us, our unique and wondrous talent to foresee. In the mind’s eye of our forebrain lives the inspiration and genius of the human species to survive and thrive. Without a picture of hope and heart, we become lost. Proverbs reminds us: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

Like a seed that bears the imprint of promise and potential, sustainable living starts inside of us with a picture, a concept, a model. In business, we might have a vision of a thriving company or entrepreneur. In relationships, an example of a successful union. In life, having personal heroes.

However, our traditional models of successful living have broken down. Great companies have gone bankrupt, personal heroes have fallen, marriage and family structures have become dysfunctional, and we see environmental degradation.

Our success and salvation is found below our feet, above our head, and within every fiber of our very being – nature. The ways of the earth offer a solution for humanity that has worked in the past and will work in the future. The principles of nature offer a model that can inspire and empower us, that we can actually follow, and is sustainable.

These “green” principles can apply across the board to every person, every relationship, every social institution, and every culture. This ecologic vision is so simple, universal and natural that anyone at anytime and anywhere can be guided by it.

This is not about a return to nature, but to our nature. Born of the earth, we are its inheritance. Out of the dust of stars, we have evolved from the genius of the earliest cell to embody the power of the primordial elements, and become like the beauty of a rose with the protective intelligence of a thorn, the wisdom of the animals, the cycles of the seasons, the wholeness of earth, the chaos of creation, and the growth of it all.

True to our nature as nature, we can live, develop and prosper in joy. Following the universal truths of nature. that we call “green wisdom,” guarantees abundant sustainability and success, for nothing in our experience has functioned like nature as the model for personal growth, relationships, commerce, and perpetual survival.

The green wisdom of nature is not a theory of sustainability but a fact. It’s a real life, real time system that works in all ways. Like a commercial enterprise in the production and exchange of products and services, which is what business is all about, nature has manifested and prospered for untold eons. As a model of relationships, nature is without equal in its web of life of reciprocity and interdependence. We have only to look at the genius of ecological systems to see how earth creates community. As a guide for physical health, nature is the ultimate teacher of longevity, source of energy, and healer.

To be a viable guide in our changing new world, a vision must provide a set of evolutionary principles. For personal, social and economic growth, nature is the quintessential mentor in the way it changes and evolves. The natural world is the one constant foundation for life-on-the-move that we can consult with assurance time and time again. Nature shows us the way of eternal change. Nothing, nothing has successfully sustained itself like nature.

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