One of the commonest forms of seed propagation is wind dispersal. You’ll know it best from dandelions but many plants use this method. I love the beauty of such seed heads. They look so soft and delicate.
When you look closely you see just how abundant they are. I’m sure someone has probably counted the average number of seeds on one stem like this but without taking the time to do that it’s pretty obvious there is an exceptionally large number.
Nature likes abundance. Whether it’s on one seed head or in a forest, a meadow, or in the sea.
I’ve read in several places that this Earth has an abundance of resources available to sustain life, no, not just sustain it, but to enable life to flourish. Yet we humans have created an economic system which seeks to convince us that what we need is scarce. Scarcity is a fundamental tenet of capitalism. And this same economic system encourages ever greater consumption, ever greater production of waste, and calls that “growth”.
We’re going to have to change tack if we want a sustainable way of life. We’re going to have to invent a different economic system. Not one which encourages grabbing and hoarding. Not one which measures success by the amount of resources gobbled up and destroyed.
Can we do that? I believe we can.
There are plenty of economists, scientists, creatives, and thinkers who have got practical ideas to take us forward but we still need more stories based on a vision of a different way of living together on this one little planet.
Have you read any stories, or come across any ideas, which have enabled to, not just to see reality differently, but which have inspired you to see other possible ways of living….personally and/or collectively?
Like this seed head, the more we can develop our potential and spread it far and wide, the more successful we will be at both surviving and flourishing.
Heroes Not Zombies 
Strangely enough, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, or rather a theologian called Sallie McFague and her particular take on the story and the rule that we should love our neighbour as we love ourselves. According to her, loving ourselves means wishing such things for ourselves as food, water, shelter, friendship, family, nurture, love and life, so if we wish these things for ourselves, we need to wish them for our neighbours too. And taking Jesus’ example of a Samaritan in the story – a people whom Jesus’ listeners would ordinarily have despised – Sallie McFague suggests everyone with whom we share our world is our neighbour. Not only that, but future generations as well.
I came across Sallie McFague about 15 years ago when doing a distance learning theology course in Glasgow. Many of the theologians I encountered were pretty boring, to be honest, but when I read what she had to say about the Good Samaritan, it hit me really hard, and really changed the way I look at things.
Sounds a wise woman Martin. I agree completely. In fact every living creature is our neighbour!