How we talk and what we see determines how we act The Data The climate has been changing since the Earth coalesced. It will continue to do so until it’s subsumed by the sun billions of years from now. The recent concern is that human beings have accelerated the rate of change—10 to 100 times […]
All forms of life have value in themselves; equal right to grow and flourish Cultural historian and ecotheologian Thomas Berry distinguished between “shallow” and “deep” ecology. He said the former is based on the belief that big ecological problems can be resolved within an industrial, capitalist society by fighting pollution and resource depletion in order […]
Perceptions that make a planetary house a home This begins an 11-part appreciation of Earth as a living system. The word “ecology,” comes from the Greek oikos “household.” Ecology then is the study of the “Earth Household.” In The System’s View of Life: A Unifying Vision, Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luise define an eco-system […]
At this time in American history, in addition to a treatment and a vaccine to effectively manage the Covid-19 pandemic, I would argue that what we need most is courageous and moral leadership in the government, corporations, mass media and institutions. My daughter, Jennifer Smith Miller, is a leader in the field of Social and […]
When I began using a camera creatively, I approached trees and forests mainly as objects to facilitate the development of my aesthetic eye. Recently, Peter Wohllenben’s book The Hidden Life Of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate expanded my appreciation by describing their acute sensory and communication processes. After reading that book I discovered […]
This is the eighth in a series of postings on whole systems thinking. SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT I invite you to check out my new blog on the ancient Maya. A description follows at the end of this posting. ______________________________________________________________________________ Life is an emergent property—a property that is not present in the parts and originates only when […]
Patterns are pervasive. Visually, through repetition, they set up a rhythm that suggests order. We see them in the most fundamental energy fields within the atom, in the immensity of the cosmos, and the way we function, behave and spend our time. Machines, computers, and time itself reveal patterns in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, […]
In nature and in the world of man-made objects, geometric order evidences the interrelatedness of all things. Using the above image as a model, humanity may be said to consist of a single string within the spacetime continuum. Rather than forming a straight line—the way we experience time—the process of human evolution has been […]
Contemplative Photography 