Green Sheet

The Nature of Change

The holistic health and environmental communities seek to inspire balance and sustainability in individuals, the community, and the planet. John Lennon asked us to imagine a world that can live as one, but in a time of war, bi-partisan politics, over-scheduled hurried lives, and the proliferation of consumerism, that desire can seem like a pipe dream. How can we help empower change in our communities or the world, when we live our own lives with hurry, stress, and fear? Hope lies in our ability to pattern our lives after the natural world.

Nature brings constant hope because it has amazing resiliency. While individual species have flourished and diminished, the system as a whole—the planet—has always found ways to restore harmony and balance through a new equilibrium.

Often as we experience the dying of aspects of our lives, it evokes fear and confusion. We constrict ourselves physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We become concerned that stepping out of our comfort zones into the unknown is too risky. We might perceive we are confined by large institutions or constructs that seem non-pliable and immovable such as culture, government, large corporations, or perhaps our own self-imposed limitations.

Believing that positive change is possible requires a greater understanding of how the natural world creates and destroys to ultimately achieve sustainability. While we, as humans, often separate ourselves from the primal energy of the earth, we are indeed intrinsically a part of this organic balance of chaos and structure that comes with evolution.

In the book A Simpler Way, Margaret Wheately and Myron Kellner-Rogers advocate, "There is a simpler way to organize human endeavor. It requires a new way of being in the world. It requires being in the world without fear. Being willing to learn and to be surprised. This simpler way to organize human endeavor requires a belief that the world is inherently orderly. The world seeks organization. It does not need us humans to organize it."

These authors, who work as consultants for organizations and corporations, claim nature innately seeks organization and structure once sufficient experimentation has occurred. At the same time, nature never clutches to a structure or organization that has lived its role and will destroy, sometimes violently, structure that has outlived its purpose. This destruction turns the wheel of change and allows for experimentation to occur until a new form emerges, once again bringing chaos into equilibrium with organization. An example of nature’s great equalizer, lightning solves an imbalance of atmospheric atomic charges in an instant. In a society where we seem trapped in patterns and systems, individuals are finding new approaches to living.

Accepting the balance of both the creative and destructive cycles of nature requires us to release attachment to form, shape, structure, and fear of death. It means having faith in the evolutionary power of every moment. It means holding a vision for the world but being willing to allow the forces of nature to shape and transform that vision in a way that may surprise us. This faith requires our curiosity, patience, commitment, acceptance of imperfection, and willingness to relinquish control. Research is demonstrating that all of these characteristics are influential to longevity and stress resiliency in humans. Wheately and Kellner-Rogers inquire, "If we can be in the world in the fullness of our humanity, what are we capable of? If we are free to play, to experiment and discover, if we are free to fail, what might we create?...Who could we be if we found a simpler way?" Spend time in nature. Observe it. Experience it. You’re likely to find wisdom as ancient as the universe that has been at your fingertips all the time. Learn from it.

Eric Davies provides program support to organizations working for healthier communities. He is president of Earthtouch, a land preservation organization, and a member of Capital City Transit Coalition and 1000 Friends of Central Ohio.

Donna Sigl-Davies, M.A., P.C.C. helps teens, adults, couples, and families navigate the uncertainty of life transitions. She provides holistic counseling, women’s circles, and retreats at Worthington Center for the Healing Arts. Both are members of Simply Living.