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Aug 31, 2014
"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." --John Muir
Of Webs, Boxes and Boundaries
Margaret Wheatley shares: "When my children were small, I had a slogan on my refrigerator that read: 'If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.' Perhaps that was my children's first lesson in systems thinking. We adults learn this, too. If others are struggling, we experience the consequences of their struggle. If others don't feel safe, we aren't safe. Great teachers have been trying to teach us this for thousands of years. Buddhism teaches that any one thing is here because of everything else. The great American naturalist John Muir said that if we tug on any one part of the web of life, we get the whole web. But we've been very slow to learn the lesson." Read on to learn how to see beyond the boxes and into the interconnected web of life, and how doing so can contribute to the well-being of all.
BE THE CHANGE
What box do you usually identify yourself with: Your nationality? Your ethnicity? Your gender? Take a moment to consider how your well-being depends on the actions of those outside your box, and how their well-being depends on your actions. How can you honor this interconnection?