Surrounded by Kin

I read a story recently about how big firms who had not considered it important to improve their environmental record were having trouble hiring top graduates, because those bright, awake young people didn’t want to work in such places.

This is the cohort that were at school during the 90s, the time when (in Britain at least) the mainstream suddenly “got” environmentalism. Even Margaret Thatcher was talking about it. Schools started teaching it. I remember at the time having the cynical thought, “yeah! We can’t change industry, so we put all our zeal into education, but that doesn’t really change anything.”

But now, firms who didn’t think it mattered to clean up their act are having trouble hiring. And in another 20 years, those same children will be the CEOs.

Education matters, the stories we tell our children matter. This is how we create cultural change: by asserting that things could be different and then seeing those assertions move into action: ours and those of coming generations.

However, I happen not to think that we’ll create a sustainable culture only by developing smarter technology, as if the biosphere is a big machine that needs fixing. No, what’s needed is a reawakening to this truth: that we are all part of the awesomely beautiful Web of Life. Heart, mind and body, we are threaded into the weave of the fabric of creation. No-one is seperate. Everyone deeply belongs by simple virtue of being alive.

That consciousness will lead us to create ways of living that are physically sustainable. But more than that, it will allow us to re-enchant the Earth – to create a new culture in which we honour and celebrate our partnership with nature, and with all life. That will nourish our hearts and minds in ways we can only now dream of.

I’ve created several stories for children that speak about this. Here’s one of my favourites, A Message for Kingly Eyes, in which a King and his son rediscover their interconnection with all life.