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| This picture was taken from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch website: http://greatpacificgarbagepatch.info/ Visit the GPGP site for more information about this horrible mess. |
"Instead of honoring nature's principle of no waste, (one species' waste is always another species' food), we decided we could accumulate huge amounts of garbage" (p. 109).If some can see that cooperation is what life's all about, why do other insist on competition?
"Life becomes stronger and more capable through systems of collaboration and partnering, not through competition" (p. 110).
"Life ... is pushing back forcefully right now ... dramatic and frightening climate changes all around the globe, destructive floods, more deserts and barren soil, new diseases and pandemics" (p. 112).
Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?How do you answer Meg Wheatley's question in this chapter of Turning to One Another: "What is the relationship I want with the earth?"
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Words and Music by Pete Seeger (1955)
(c) 1961 (renewed) by Sanga Music Inc.
6 comments:
Have we already destroyed our earth?
I hope not!
From garbage truck to landfill to mountain of trash to sea of garbage in the Pacific gyre. Where can we go from here?
Have we already destroyed our earth?
I think it is too late - materialism, consumerism, selfish plunder, and overpopulation have taken us over the brink.
For me, the key paragraph in this conversation is on the bottom of page 110: "One of the biggest flaws in our approach to life is the Western belief that competition creates strong and healthy systems. Television screens are filled with images of animals locking horns in battle or ripping apart their prey.It is true that in any living system there are predators and prey, death and destruction. But competition among individuals and species is not the dominant way ife works. It is always cooperation that increases over time in a living system. life becomes stronger and more capable through systems of collaboration and partnering, not through competition."
I think along with "the love of money is the root of all evil," can be added, "the obsession with being number one, being the strongest, being the one winner," is the biggest contributor to the destruction of the earth. We destroy our own habitat so we can be best. We do not "do relationship" with the earth or with each other well because of this need to be best.
I agree, Donna. I am dismayed when I read the idiocy that is called "news" these days, things like "does this actress or that one wear the dress best?" (Yes, I'm aware that should be "better." Tell the editors.) Why can't both look good in it? Why must everything be a contest with a winner and a "loser"?
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