Holism and Healing the
Planet – One Soul at a Time
For use with PowerPoint
(click to download)
John M. Gerber; March 2005
SLIDE
ONE; This morning I prayed. In fact I do every morning, (right after I
get my wife and I a cup of coffee). I start the day by asking for help.
I ask to be guided. I ask that I may be useful and that I may participate
in what Joanna Macy calls “the Great Turning,” …
SLIDE
TWO: … that is the inevitable healing of the planet, the transition from an
industrial-growth society to a life-sustaining society. I’m reminded of
one of slogans for the Energy Star campaign, Change a Light, Change the
World. You see, the new compact fluorescent light bulbs are not only
less expensive in the long run but save energy. Seems like a small thing,
but is it? Are there really any small actions?
I
know that if every U.S. household replaced their 5 most frequently used light
fixtures or bulbs with compact fluorescents, we would save more than $60
million a year in energy costs and reduce air pollution equal to taking 8
million cars off the road. Change
a light bulb? Really? Me? One of the voices I hear in the
world is “I can’t do everything, so I won’t do anything.” Perhaps what I
need to focus on in my fair share.
For
many years, my fears coupled with a failure of humility caused me to try to
carry more than my share, in fact more than any one human could do.
SLIDE
THREE: Today, I try to do what I can reasonably do, and leave the rest up
to whomever or whatever it is that is guiding the Great Turning, whether
that be the Goddess of Sustainability, a divine presence, the creative
influence, Tao, Brahman-Atman, the great I AM, Yahweh, God, or just some
unnamed power greater than you and me. I try to do my share to the best
of my ability in the spirit of Arthur Ashe’s reminder to “start where you’re at
– use what you’ve got – do what you can.” When I start my day by asking
for guidance, I generally have a good day. I feel free. This wasn’t
always the case. For many years when I thought about the state of the
world, I was filled with anger and despair. Sustainable Living is
about recover from fear.
SLIDE
FOUR: Today (well most days) I don’t feel that despair – nor the anger, nor the
fear. This is a story of recovery from despair to hope, and from fear to
love. I still feel the pain of an injured planet, an injured society, and
an injured soul. Today my hopeful response to pain is, what Joanna Macy
calls, “the work that reconnects.” Others have called it other
things. Thomas Berry calls it “the Great Work.” Gregory Bateson
called it the discovery of “the pattern that connects.” In 12-step
recovery programs it is simply called “the way out.” Fritjof Capra calls
it “the turning point.” The Tao Te Ching simply calls it “the way.”
It’s all about healing – healing the self – healing the planet.
SLIDE
FIVE: Joanna Macy’s wonderful book written in the early 1980’s called Despair
and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, dealt with the fear that many of us
were feeling during the nuclear arms race. As a kid, I was taught that if
there was a nuclear attack, I was to get under my table in school. This
was in first grade. I remember the fear. Over time, fear turned to
despair. While despair may be a perfectly rational reaction to the state
of the world then and now, it is also a debilitating emotion, one that is
guaranteed to build upon itself. Despair yields more despair, or perhaps
on a good day a short burst of anger. Neither emotion is a sustainable
source of power. This I learned from experience.
SLIDE
SIX: The Great Turning that Macy predicts may be thought of as the transition
from the current “Industrial-growth Society” to a “Life-sustaining
Society.” Participation in this transition is itself healing.
SLIDE
SEVEN: Most days I believe the Great Turning toward a life-sustaining world, is
a certainty. And on bad days, which I have, I try to make the choice to
act as if it is a certainty anyway. Macy believes in choice too. In
“Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World”…
SLIDE
EIGHT: … she offers us a quote from Deuteronomy (30:19); “I have set before
you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you
and your descendants shall live.” This is the choice I try to make
every morning. This is the source of power that gives me the freedom and
the energy to get up every day and to participate in the healing to the best of
my ability.
Once
I have made this choice, I can see evidence of the Great Turning everywhere I
look.
SLIDE
NINE; After all, look at these actions…
There are many students today interested in
sustainable ways of living
Organic farming is booming
A third party Green candidate influenced the 2000 U.S.
presidential election
There are regular WTO protests
Fair Trade products are expanding
Local currencies are being tried again
There is more interest in photovoltaic power and
electric cars
There are somewhere between 3 and 10,000 ecovillages
on the planet experimenting in sustainable ways of living
SLIDE
TEN: And look at the ideas we are talking about….;
Gaia
Deep Ecology
Creation Spirituality
Socially Conscious Investing
Voluntary Simplicity
Engaged Buddhism
Living Systems Theory
and Holism – which I will talk of today.
SLIDE
ELEVEN: So, to holism…. Lets begin with Ervin Lazlo, a systems (holistic)
thinker and a member of the Club of Budapest. The Club of Budapest is a
group of people who meet occasionally and worry about the state of the
planet. This group of holistic thinkers has predicted the inevitability
of planetary healing. You see the word holism has the same root as the
old English word for healing. Lazlo sees four major eras of human
existence, which he calls the Mythos, the time when all of nature was
perceived to be alive, the Theos, or the period of strong religious
control of society, the Logos, the era of science and rationality, and
finally the Holos, the era we are entering today. When I look, I see lots
of evidence that the transition to the Holos is underway. But is
it really inevitable?
SLIDE
TWELVE: The inevitability of a transition to a life-sustaining society has been
predicted by 100 European scientists who developed the concept of The
Natural Step. Karl Heinrich Robert, a Swedish oncologist spearheaded
this idea, which has been taken up in the U.S. by Paul Hawkin and others.
According to these 100 scientists, there exist only 4 fundamental and
non-negotiable conditions for sustainable life on earth.
SLIDE
THIRTEEN: These are;
materials from the earth’s crust must not systematically
accumulate to toxic levels
human made persistent materials may not systematically
accumulate to toxic levels
the natural productivity of the earth must not by
systematically used at rates greater than replacement
the basic needs of all humans must be met equitably
That’s
it. Simple, huh? This is not something we can ignore – or actually
we can, but they won’t go away. We can’t hope them away, but we can have
hope that as a species we will wake up and deal with them. Robert and
others believes that we will. The question is when?
SLIDE
FOURTEEN: Here is the model for the healing. The path to a sustainable society
is a steep mountain to climb and the longer we wait, the steeper it will
be. But we will climb this mountain.
SLIDE
FIFTEEN: If we take this upward climb and name it “the race for
sustainability” we might depict it as a simple line, like this….
SLIDE
SIXTEEN: If we then look at the declining productivity of the earths natural
resources and depict it as a line downward…..
SLIDE
SEVENTEEN: And then we draw these two lines as converging forces, which create
a funnel…
SLIDE
EIGHTTEEN: At the end of the funnel is our hope.
SLIDE
NINETEEN: On the sides of the funnel is pain.
The
path to a life-sustaining society is through the funnel. We are moving
there now. Many people and organizations are hitting the wall of the
funnel and disappearing. Some will make it through. The big
question is how many?
The
path toward the center is navigated by making individual and social
decisions. We will make decisions to move us through the funnel or we
will hit the wall. But we are going through to the Holos, because
the source of power for the current industrial-growth society is finite.
This passage, which Joanna Macy calls the Great Turning, is as inevitable as
the non-negotiable conditions for life on the planet.
SLIDE
TWNETY: Lets return to Lazlo, who described the Great Turning as a time of
shifting worldview or mental models, from an age of science and technology to
an age of holism or healing. He puts this current shift in the context
major shifts of the past. Lets look closer at his framework, from the
Mythos, to the Theos, Logos and Holos.
SLIDE
TWENTYONE: The ancients believed all things were alive – that is there were
gods and goddesses in all things – the trees, lakes, and mountains. This
idea is called panenthism (God is in all things). It is different than
pantheism (which states that all things are God). This former time
of the Mythos, ended some 5,000 years ago with the emergence of the One
God. The Hebrew Bible describes the One God, Yahweh, as a distant God, up
in the heavens, separate from us and from earth. Ken Wilber states
that humans perceived themselves separate from the rest of the universe when
Adam was given the power of naming “things” in the Garden of Eden. Naming
then results in separation (or more accurately, the illusion of
separation).
This
was the first epic transition of thinking. The gods and goddesses of nature
were all sent packing – off to heaven. Adam and Eve were banished from
the Garden. This is a story of separation and loss. It is the
dominant creation story of western civilization.
SLIDE
TWENTYTWO: The One God was now up in the sky, far away and less
accessible. The era of the Theos represented a split of mind/body/spirit,
with spirit off in the heavens. Since humans desired to maintain a
relationship with the One God, a priesthood had to be invented to mediate the
conversation between the mind/body of the human and the spirit which now was
“in the clouds.” The Hebrew Temple, the Muslin Mosque, and the Christian
Church organized human society into a stepwise hierarchy of increasing power to
perform this essential function of communicating with a distant God.
The
first record of an organizational hierarchy is described in Exodus 18:17-27. In
this passage Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, gave Moses advice on how to
organize the thousands of Jews that had just escaped Egypt. Jethro tells
Moses to appoint trustworthy officers “… to be rulers of the thousands, and
rulers of the hundreds, rulers of the fifties, and rulers of the tens.”
Hierarchy. The era of the Theos not only resulted in the first
mind/body/spirit split, but also created the first pyramidical hierarchy of
power and control (for the purpose of reaching the promised land).
SLIDE
TWENTYTHREE: The next major transition was to happen in the 16-17th
centuries (although its roots go back to Aristotle). As humans emerged
from the dark ages, survived the black plague, and began an expansionist period
from Europe to the new world, a new mental model was needed to weaken hegemony
of the church and allow creativity to flourish.
Copernicus,
Sir Francis Bacon, Descartes and Sir Isaac Newton, the founding fathers of
modern science provided the inspiration for the next shift from the Theos to
the Logos, or the scientific revolution and the dominance of the rational
mind. Today, science not only claims to be a useful tool for learning, it
claims to be the only legitimate means of discovering truth. Ken
Wilber once again explains this split of the mind/body/spirit, this time by
humans developing the tool of mathematics to predict the movements of bodies in
the heavens. The mind seemed to have the power over the heavens.
Another illusion.
SLIDE
TWENTYFOUR: While this shift created much good (medicine and eye glasses for
example), it also represented a further split of humans as the mind was
“deeded” to science and professional education. Universities evolved into
centers of learning, rational thought and science. The Logos had arrived
and control of human society by the church-centered hierarchy was replaced by
another power-over hierarchy – the university and their partners in business
(corporations) and politics (centralized government).
SLIDE
TWENTYFIVE: The result of these two epic transitions is a fragmented
human. Schools and universities lay claim to our minds and religious lay
claim to our souls. We are left with disconnected bodies, hungry for
belonging. It is no wonder we seek comfort in food, sex, drugs, and
violent sport. These are what remain for mindless, soulless bodies.
SLIDE
TWENTYSIX: So we hunger for something. Something ill defined, yet
contained somehow in the idea of holism. Connections.
Belonging.
SLIDE
TWENTYSEVEN: We yearn to be whole – to be healed. The holos is emerging
now.
SLIDE
TWENTYEIGHT: Most organizations today, from the federal government, to
universities and corporations and the military are constructed on ways of
thinking that developed during the theos and logos. They are all
organizations based on hierarchical use and sometimes abuse of power. But
it is not just any power, they use, but the dominating form of power-over which
is the only source of power they know.
Hierarchical
organizations based on power-over relationships always produce a
fragmentation of the whole self, spirit from mind, mind from body – always
creating a sense that something is missing. This lack of wholeness
generates a pervasive undercurrent of desire, a desire that cannot be fulfilled
in this fragmented state. Desire generates competition and sometimes
abusive behavior in people, corporations and governments. Individual
desire for power is translated into organizational desire for power – sometimes
for good purpose (like Moses wanting to reach the promised land) – but always
based on the fatal flaw of power-over relationships. As organizations
grow in size and power, “top” managers become more distant from workers.
Information fails to flow to decision-makers and decay begins. This
happens in all organizations whether they are IBM or Green Peace. This
happens in families with dominating fathers. Small non-profits that start up
with the best of intentions evolve into this model as soon as there is any
stress (usually financial). Eventually the organization collapses, but in
the unwinding of power – individuals lash out – wars begin – people get hurt.
SLIDE
TWENTYNINE: Dying hierarchies based on power-over thinking can be very
destructive.
SLIDE
THIRTY: As long as human organizations are hierarchical, be they corporate,
military, or religious, humans will remain fragmented. William James
called this condition of humans “zerrissenheit”, a German word meaning “torn to
pieces-hood.” This is the state of individuals, families, communities,
and nation today – torn to pieces-hood. And it will be this way, as long
as our model for organizing work, religions, schooling and government is a
pathological hierarchy with the dominant relationship among people to be
power-over.
SLIDE
THIRTYONE: So, we have to wonder - is there another way? Is it always
necessary that organizations of increasing size and complexity must be arranged
as a power-over hierarchy with centralized control, inequity and eventual
decay? Aren’t there other models of organization? Isn’t there
another story?
SLIDE
THIRTYTWO: Well, yes. There is another story and it began not 1000 years ago
with the emergence of universities, nor 2000 years ago with the Church, nor
even 5000 years ago with the Exodus. This story began 15 billion years
ago with the creation of the universe.
Lets
look at a time, when we were all there together – all the people you know that
have lived and died and those yet to be born. All the stuff of the
universe, the cars, the mountains, the empty water bottles, the pyramids, the
re-cycled paper, all there together – on the head of a pin. Prior to what
we call the big bang.
SLIDE
THIRTYTHREE: Something happened 15 billion years ago – things came apart.
Bang. Everything was energy.
SLIDE
THIRTYFOUR: Heady with its own power, the universe billowed out in every direction,
ever expanding and seemingly still doing so today.
SLIDE
THIRTYFIVE: Soon after the explosion however, particles moving at great speed
began to stabilize in the form of atoms – hydrogen, helium and later more
complex atoms – carbon, oxygen. The precursor to life.
Somewhere
between 10-14 billion years ago, the physical and chemical basis of life began
to cluster in galactic clouds - the stuff of the universe.
Some
of the stuff collapsed into stars of burning hydrogen and helium, like our sun
– other components condensed into planets. About five billion years ago
the pre-conditions for life in this solar system were formed and on at least
one planet, the conditions were such that water, two molecules of hydrogen and
one of oxygen, existed in a liquid state. This is so unique that at least
to our knowledge, it appears as a miracle.
SLIDE
THIRTYSIX: The blue planet. Earth.
SLIDE
THIRTYSEVEN: About 2 to 4 billion years ago, the living earth began to
participate in the further creation of the universe by generating the first
cells of life; bacteria bounded by membranes, perhaps the first separate
“self”. It is difficult to imagine these first living cells as separate
from the environment however. If the bacteria could think, they might notice
that their cell membrane was not so much the point where they were divided from
the universe – as where they touched the universe.
SLIDE
THIRTYEIGHT: The bacteria in the “primordial soup” were intimately “included”
in the environment and began to affect the environment as they
lived. This was not a relationship based on power-over, but
power-with.
Organisms
of increasing complexity emerged over time, so that the evolution of life might
be imagined as a 15 billion year process based upon non-hierarchical increase
in complexity and inclusion.
SLIDE
THIRTYNINE: This is holism. This is our heritage – and perhaps our
salvation from the hegemony of the pathological hierarchy that has become the
dominant mental model for humans. There is another way and it has been
around a long time.
SLIDE
FOURTY: The model for non-hierarchical organization is the universe itself,
resulting in the creative force of life. But isn’t the universe organized
in a hierarchy? Just look at it….
The Universe
Ecosystem
Community
Population
Organism
Organ
Cells
Looks
like a hierarchy to me. Ken Wilber says, yes it is a hierarchy of
sort. But it is not a pathological hierarchy based on power-over
relationships.
SLIDE
FOURTYONE: It is a nested hierarchy of relationships of increasing complexity
and inclusion. I don’t know if it was my first ecology teacher, or simply
the power of my own mental models that allowed me to jump to the conclusion
that these levels were similar to the hierarchy of the military. But that
is what I did.
I
didn’t understand that this model did not depict increasing levels of
power-over, but rather increasing levels of complexity and inclusivity.
My social conditioning saw in this model a hierarchy of control. Fritjof
Capra and others teach this is not a power-over hierarchy, but rather something
they call a holarchy.
SLIDE
FOURTYTWO: This is a system of nested groupings of organizational complexity
with each “level” representing a network of relationships. Each level is
called a holon, or a whole system in itself. Each holon is included
within the next level and includes the previous level. T
SLIDE
FOURTYTHREE: he relationship of one holon to the next more inclusive holon is
not one of power-over, but participation.
SLIDE
FOURTYFOUR: In this framework, you look “up” for purpose and “down” for
function. This is an organization not based on “power-over” but rather
“power-with.”
SLIDE
FOURTYFIVE: The holarchy is the primary structure and process relationship of
nature. These nested holons are relationships that serve not power, but
purpose. The holarchy is not a system based on domination but
communion. A holon at one level relies upon the next more inclusive holon
“above”, while it nurtures the next less inclusive holon “below”. Each
level represents a network of interdependent relationships.
SLIDE
FOURTYSIX: Does it exist in nature? Just have a look. What about
humans? In the human system, the heart looks to the body for purpose and
the body looks to the heart for function. Neither is more
important. The body dosen’t oppress or dominate the heart. The
heart and the whole body have evolved together.
SLIDE
FOURTYSEVEN: What about ecosystems? Yes, the relationship among
individuals, populations of individuals, and communities of populations, is
that of participation and inclusion. When Darwin spoke of “survival of
the fittest” he didn’t mean survival of the strongest, but survival of the
organism that “fits” best into a complex ecological niche. This is about
cooperation. And this is our legacy over the past 15 billion years.
SLIDE
FOURTYEIGHT: When you put these glasses on you can see evolution in an entirely
different light.
SLIDE
FOURTYNINE: Our primary experience with levels of power is the human hierarchy,
so we project this onto nature. Believing is seeing, and when we looked
at nature, we saw a hierarchy similar to the one created by Jethro and
Moses. But, what if we simply drew this diagram differently?
SLIDE
FIFTY: What if we draw this model such that each “higher” level included
and nurtured the “lower” level. This is the relationship a heart has with
the body. This is the relationship living creatures have with the
environment.
SLIDE
FIFTYONE And, this is the basis of my belief in spirals of change and cycles of
hope. This understanding of the world has a 15 billion year
history. This is the source of my belief that changing mental models can
have an enormous influence on our own future.
SLIDE
FIFTYTWO: Mental models are powerful. The way we think, influences
our experience of the world. Seeing ourselves as part of the same
holarchy that formed the universe is a powerful source of sustainable energy
for change – just as powerful as the mental models and personal action that
brought us to where we are today.
SLIDE
FIFTYTHREE: Wonder and awe – changes everything. Mental models can
actually be a choice! And it is a choice based on an understanding of how
the world works. Even though 5000 years of a particular organizational
mental model is powerful, it is not absolute. There is another way to
organize – natures way.
SLIDE
FIFTYFOUR: It’s called holarchy. It’s the basis for my trust in spirals
of hope. Reinforcing feedback loops have extraordinary power to change
the world. Look how fast these same forces have caused destruction.
In just 200 years, humans have unraveled the integrity of ecosystems that were
15 billion years in the making. While sad and scary, that same power when
couched in a different mental model will begin to rebuild a life sustaining
society. It is happening now. It is the Great Turning. And it
is based in the mental model that Lazlo calls the Holos. And are mental
models powerful. You bet.
SLIDE
FIFTYFIVE: Mental models, or worldviews including beliefs, assumptions, and
most important, the stories we tell are the foundation upon which the
structures of society are built. Structures like organizations, laws,
policies, physical infrastructures like roads, airports, classrooms set up with
chairs that face a stage and can’t be moved, all create the conditions for
patterns of behavior, which influence individual action. Lets have a
closer look at how this works.
SLIDE
FIFTYSIX: Lets take a clearly non-sustainable action like buying a bottle of
drinking water, using it once and tossing it out. This is a
non-sustainable action.
SLIDE
FIFTYSEVEN: In systems language, non-sustainable actions done over time create
non-sustainable patterns of behavior. This is the beginning of a causal
loop diagram that shows how the system works. The little “s” on the line
shows that these two variables move in the same direction. Increasing
actions, increase certain patterns and vice versa.
SLIDE
FIFTYEIGHT: Actions create patterns. And of course patterns
describe what is “normal”, so actions consistent with patterns of behavior
become easier and increase.
SLIDE
FIFTYNINE: Over time, society creates organizations and structures to support
so-called “normal” patterns of behavior.
SLIDE
SIXTY: Like distribution systems for water bottles.
SLIDE
SIXTYONE: Certain patterns and structures become the norm and reinforce certain
mental models that “make sense.” Anyone who questions these powerful
mental models is looked upon as a bit deranged.
SLIDE
SIXTYTWO: These feedback loops are powerful. Mental models result
in behaviors and then reinforce those same mental models. It can be very
dangerous.
SLIDE
SIXTYTHREE: That is why we call it a vicious cycle. But even with
the most powerful feedback loops……
SLIDE
SIXTYFOUR: … something always happens!
SLIDE
SIXTYFIVE: We can call it a crisis if we want, or we can call it
“something to learn”.
SLIDE
SIXTYSIX: It usually hurts. But remember, we can always choose
wonder and awe.
SLIDE
SIXTYSEVEN: Wonder and awe quite often cause us to re-consider our mental
models. Pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth. And finally,
all of these little “s” arrows have found a balancing loop.
SLIDE
SIXTYEIGHT: We find balance in our lives eventually. The mystics tell us we can find it in this life time, or we may
take as many lifetimes as we want. But
we will find balance. In this model, as
wonder and awe increase, non-sustainable mental models decrease. At which
point, as non-sustainable mental models decrease, non-sustainable practices
decrease and the power of the reinforcing feedback loop changes behavior and
structures and on and on.
SLIDE
SIXTYNINE: But we don’t have to wait for the pain to motivate us to
change. We have a choice. We can reverse this cycle from a place of
pain, OR, we can choose….
SLIDE
SEVENTY: … small acts of courage
SLIDE
SEVENTYONE: Spirals of change, begin with small acts.
SLIDE
SEVENTYTWO: That is why changing a light can save the world. That is why
small actions can result in ….
SLIDE
SEVENTYTHREE: big shifts in consciousness. Changes happen both because a
critical mass of people have an awakening to new mental models, AND because
seemingly crazy people make the necessary small changes anyway.
SLIDE
SEVENTYFOUR: So, where do we begin? Either with small actions and
with changes in consciousness.
SLIDE
SEVENTYFIVE: We start at both ends of the model. For years I focused at
the wrong place in this model. Many of us tried to change social behavior
with protest marches or education. We tried to change structures by
either burning them down in the 60’s, or becoming part of them in the 90’s.
And nothing changed.
SLIDE
SEVENTY SIX; Today I work here. Cycles of change that influence thoughts
and actions.
SLIDE
SEVENTYSEVEN: …result in shifts in patterns and structures. We are at the
tipping point between what we have and what we want. And the balance is
shifting toward the life-sustaining world.
SLIDE
SEVENTYEIGHT: For analysis of the power of epidemic social change, read Malcolm
Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point.” He gives us many examples of social
changes that have become “contagious”, where small changes have enormous
effects, and where change is rapid. Look at the unraveling of the Soviet
Union, or Pet Rocks and Beanie Babies.
SLIDE
SEVENTYNINE: We cannot force others to make changes in their life styles, but
we can make our own choices. And these choices are becoming part of a
social epidemic of change.
SLIDE
EIGHTY: I have spent a career trying to change patterns and structures
and I’m tired of being washed down stream. It is like trying to stop the
Colorado because I don’t like to see erosion.
SLIDE
EIGHTYONE: Paul Krafel reminds me in his book Seeing Nature that the leverage
for change is upstream. Where small changes add up to major forces.
By slowing the water movement on the hillside with a bit of vegetation, water
no longer carries away soil but allows plants to grow. And nature is a
powerful force once she is given a chance. About five years ago, I
resigned my job as dean and director here at UMass, took my tie off, let my
hair grow and began working upstream. With you. And it saved my
life.
SLIDE
EIGHTYTWO: is this spiritual?
SLIDE
EIGHTYTHREE: … sure.
SLIDE
EIGHTYFOUR: Is it practical?
SLIDE
EIGHTYFIVE: …sure.
SLIDE
EIGHTYSIX: In fact, it is a choice.
SLIDE
EIGHTYSEVEN: In fact, it’s a choice we have always had.
SLIDE
EIGHTYEIGHT: … and it is as inevitable …
SLIDE
EIGHTYNINE: as change.
SLIDE
NINETY: As the Theos transcended and included the Mythos, and the Logos
transcended and included the Theos, the Holos must transcend and include (not destroy)
the Logos. One way to think about these epic transitions is to think
about our relationship with a universal spirit, a God. Using this lens;
SLIDE
NINETYONE:
the Mythos is described as God in all things
the Theos is described as God above and separate
the Logos is described as science as God, and…
the Holos is described as all things in God.
That
is God, or the universal spirit, the Tao, some power greater than you and me,
or whatever you choose tocall it. This creative influence itself is the
most transcendent and inclusive holon of them all.
SLIDE
NINETYTWO: This is the ultimate source of power…. power from within.
This
completely inclusive vision of interconnectedness values the individual as well
as the whole. It is unity in diversity. According to Ken Wilber, it
is unity consciousness. It is a vision of wholeness or healing of
the body/mind/spirit. This is the healing of zerrissenheit.
While
we have 15 billion years of evolution through transcendence and inclusion in
the model of holarchy, most of us have forgotten our legacy. We do not
know how to act out this holistic understanding. We need practice.
We need each other to learn together – how to be and how to act….
SLIDE
NINETYTHREE: So we return to Joanna Macy one last time for a blueprint on how
the Great Turning is happening, right now. She says it includes three
dimensions… 1) actions to slow the damage to the earth and its beings, 2)
analysis of systemic causes and creation of new structures, and 3) a shift in
consciousness. I guess we need all levels of the pyramid after all.
SLIDE
NINETYFOUR: I believe the healing of the planet will begin with the healing of
the “self”, by understanding the holistic nature of the universe and then
modeling individual and organizational behavior on this understanding. This
will happen when I begin to see;
Myself
Family self
Eco-self
Universal-self
Creative-self
…..
as holons on inclusively. They are all “myself”. The unhealthy, fragmented
self is a place of insanity for me. I’ve been insane.
Mine
is a personal story of “becoming whole” – of healing.
I
grew up loving the salt water and spent almost every day of my summer on boats
on the Long Island Sound. Planning on making a career of studying marine
life, I went to the University of Rhode Island to study botany in preparation
for a graduate degree in marine sciences. I became intellectually
interested in the science of how plants grew, but there was no passion for the
work.
SLIDE
NINETYFIVE: So this morning when I woke up, I prayed. I asked
for guidance to help me stay on the path of holism and healing. The
prayer was an act of faith – or perhaps trust. Today I choose to trust
the universe. Today, I choose life.
The next part of this presentation does not include
PowerPoint’s…
A STORY OF HEALING
In
the early 1970’s, there were two “hot” issues in biology and ecological
sciences; the Green Revolution and Silent Spring. The Green Revolution
was to be the grand success of plant genetics, in which increases in food
production would eliminate hunger worldwide. And Rachel Carson’s epic
book, Silent Spring, reminded us that all was not well - as biological
toxins meant to kill insects within agricultural ecosystems were showing up in
places they didn’t belong. In both cases, science was “in the news” and I
wanted to be part of it. Two events; Earth Day 1970 and the music from
the Beatles 1971 Concert for Bangladesh influenced my social consciousness at
that time. I began to feel a personal passion for work related to the
land, environment, food and hunger.
But
that was not all. I was dating a girl whose mother was an avid gardener
and knowing I was studying plants, she asked me about organic gardening.
I didn’t know anything about organic gardening, but I knew she read Organic
Gardening magazine. So I got a subscription to this magazine to impress
the girl’s mom.
I
guess the “stars lined up” for me - I got an assistantship to do graduate work
at Cornell University teaching a class in Organic Gardening. I had found
the passion that was missing from my intellectual interest in plant
biology. I would “save the planet” by working on issues relating to land,
environment, food and hunger.
So
here I am today – teaching courses relating to land, environment, food and
hunger, and married for the past 30 years to “the girl whose mom read Organic
Gardening magazine.” This is a story with a happy ending – but it wasn’t
exactly a straight path. You see at Cornell I not only taught Organic
Gardening, but also taught and studied crop physiology and more traditional
agricultural sciences. I began to learn how to control environmental
factors in order to grow food. I learned how to “name” insects, diseases,
plant growth processes and ecological principles. Adam’s power to name,
separate and then control was seductive.
The
value system of professional advancement within the university hierarchy,
coupled with the objective of increasing food production using modern technology
became my “god.” I was successful – rewarded and encouraged. Over
the next 15 years of climbing an academic ladder through dedication and hard
work, I became a “success” story. All I had to give up was my
passion.
Over
time I gained a national reputation. I was invited to conferences to give
keynote addresses. I served on “important” committees and boards. I
flew in corporate jets and received gifts and grants from agricultural industry
to test their new products. By 1987, I had become an integral part of the
industrial agriculture system, successful on the outside but angry and confused
on the inside. And I didn’t know what was wrong.
A
sabbatical year in Australia allowed me to reconnect with the passion of my
early days in science, and rekindle the love of the land, concern for the
environment and commitment to work on issues of food and hunger. When I
returned to the States, I shifted my work from working on industrial to
sustainable agriculture. The healing of the zerrissenheit had begun.
While now in an area which allowed my personal passions to be expressed in my
work, I was still deeply entrenched in the university hierarchy. Over
time, successful leadership in the area of sustainable agriculture opened up
administrative opportunities, which eventually led to another period of
confusion followed by another “awakening.”
As
a university administrator, I thought I could change the agricultural research
and extension system “from the top.” But being part of the hierarchy, I
was still invested in a power-over way of thinking and acting which reinforced
the fragmentation of self. More years of frustration, some success,
but continued personal disconnection from any spiritual center followed.
By the late 1990’s, something needed to change. Still angry and
frustrated, I hit an emotional bottom that turned into the best thing that has
ever happened to me. It sent me all the way back to the beginning – back
to my first love of teaching and sharing my passion for the land, environment,
food and hunger. Stepping away from university leadership and focusing on
a discovery of a spiritual source of strength allowed further healing of the
mind, body and spirit. I am happier today in my work than I have been in
30 years of “academic success.”
In
1987, I changed my professional work from focusing on industrial agriculture to
working on a more sustainable agriculture. And in 1997, I discovered a
spiritual center that allowed me to give up the title, the salary, and the “power”
that was part of my former administrative position at UMass. I took off
my tie and let my hair grow. These two transitions were about
healing. The first was about reconnection of the mind and body. The
second was about the reconnection of body, mind and spirit. I had become
a holon within a holarchy rather than a tool of a pathological hierarchy.
The healing of my soul allows me to work for healing of the planet. At 53
years old, it is not too late to begin again teaching that which I love. And
three children and a loving spouse have become primary in my life. I
learned that the work that reconnects begins at home.
Bach,
Richard. 1977. Illusions: the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah.
Dell Publishing.
Bateson,
Gregory. 1979. Mind and Nature: a Necessary Unity. Doubleday
Dell.
Berry,
Thomas. 1999. The Great Work: Our Way into the Future.
Random House.
Capra,
Fritjof. 1996. The Web of Life. Random House.
Gladwell,
Malcolm. 2000. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big
Difference. Little, Brown and Co.
Krafel,
Paul. 1999. Seeing Nature. Chelsea Green Publishing.
Lao
Tzu. Written a long long time ago. Tao Te Ching.
Laszlo,
Ervin. 2001. Macroshift: Navigating the Transformation to a
Sustainable World. Berrett-Koehler.
McDonough,
William & Michael Braungart. 2002. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the
Way We Make Things. Northpoint Press.
Macy,
Joanna. 1998. Coming Back to Life: practices to Reconnect Our Lives,
Our World. New Society Publishers. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada.
Many
Authors. Really Old. The Hebrew and Christian Bible.
Meadows,
Donella et.al. 2004. The Limits to Growth: The Thirty Year
Update. Chelsea Green.
Merton,
Thomas. 1961. New Seeds of Contemplation. New Directions
Pub. Co.
Quinn,
Daniel. 1992. Ishmael. DoubledayDell.
Senge,
Peter. 1990. The Fifth Discipline. DoubledayDell.
Schumacher,
E.F. 1979. Good Work. HarperCollins.
Swimme,
Brian & Thomas Berry. 1992. The Universe Story: A
Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos. HarperCollins.
Wheatley, Margaret & Myron Kellner-Rogers. 1999. A Simpler Way.
Berrett-Koehler.
Wilber,
Ken. 1979. No Boundary. Shambhala Press.
Wilber,
Ken. 1997. The Eye of the Spirit: An Integral Vision for a World
Gone Slightly Mad. Random House.
A
shorter version of this talk was presented to the PLNTSOIL 290S, Sustainable Living.
You may view the powerpoint presentation that goes with this essay at…. http://www.umass.edu/umext/jgerber/holism.ppt.
Feedback is welcomed.
Also,
please see other essays on my web page at… http://www.umass.edu/umext/jgerber/
(go to the “articles, speeches and more” button) Please send me your thoughts
at jgerber@psis.umass.edu.
Thank you.
Revised February 15, 2005