Chapter 2 – Way of Whole Growth

In this time of separation, where livelihood is disconnected from life, people becoming isolated, countries disintegrating, technologies disjoining our heart and body from mind and machine, and religions dividing people, nature shows us how to live integrated, connected and whole.

In the increasing and disastrous division of nature and humankind, only respect and living with nature can restore the balance. Earth is not at risk, we are, unless we live by her rules. Nature does bat last.

In unity with nature through an ecological model of life, we create an ecology of business, an ecology of relationships, an ecology of being that insures sustainability.

Eco-management of life is growthful, for nature survives through growth. Growing our lives, our economies and populations in the natural way is not about becoming bigger, but about the sustainable perpetuation of a better quality of life. There is no conflict between the environment and human development if we remember to grow as nature does.

The green way of life is not separative but wholistic and balanced. Nature shows us how to re-balance, how to move from division to unity, hierarchy to holoarchy, single task to multi-functional, linear to circular, rejection to recycling, new to reuse, consumption to reduction, economic to ecologic, managed to self-manager, department to team, systems to people, borders to interdependence, exclusion to inclusion.

Our new world demands a new vocabulary that heals the imbalance and rift between head and heart, worker and boss, men and women, nation and nation, people and earth. As Thomas Berry writes, “The new prosperity requires a new language. This new language is primarily the language of the earth, a language of living relationships that extend throughout the universe.”

The language of the earth reflects the imperative to wholeness. Nature is a universal language of universal truths and symbols that communicates beyond boundaries and transcends the separation of place and time.

When we look at nature, we see wholeness. In viewing our earth from afar, we see a oneness of interdependent parts working together to form a dynamic unity – a complete sphere able to sustain itself by recreating and procreating. Wholeness is not just a new worldview, it is literally the worldview.

Our green life of earth is the model for the ages and before our very eyes, but we are blinded by the light our own bright ideas and inventions. We do not see the forest for the trees. The truth is a Thornton Wilder exclaimed, “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize who you are and what you are.”

“What is the way?

Lovely flowers open by the mossy roadside;

The green willows dance in the spring breezes.”

– Rakan

The modern tragedy is that we have forgotten our natural roots and become ungrounded by the arrogance of human hubris and artificial living. But when balmy airs touch our face, light warms our body, and the song of the trees reach our ears, we are reminded that nature is calling us to remember. And when we push forward like the spring and go winter inwards under cover, nature is showing us that we are no different than her. Every day and night in every way, nature re-calls us. Let there be no question, we reflect her greatness. We are her child.

As we embrace nature’s pathway to a life of whole growth, we have what it takes to sustain and succeed. It begins by simply acknowledging that we belong to the universe and the earth as one of its natural offspring. Knowing our inherent, undeniable and inescapable naturalness, we can receive the gifts nature has bestowed upon us and trust her lead.

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