Take a moment to look around at your immediate environment. Where are you reading this? In your bed? In a library? On a train? In the lobby of your dentist’s office? On a hammock in the Caribbean? Wherever you are, you’re in relationship with local exterior surroundings such as other nearby organisms, buildings, and geographical landforms (such as mountains, rivers, forests).
Now take a look at your clothing. Where did it come from? Who made it? What material was used? What financial system allowed you to purchase it? How was it transported to a store near you? Or did you buy it over the phone or the Internet? What laws were in place to make sure you weren’t cheated? What political system governs the laborers who manufactured the clothing? What pollution escaped into the ecosystem during its production? All these questions point to the many different systems in which we’re enmeshed—and that’s just tracing some of the systems surrounding the clothes on your back.
Try this visualization: zoom out from your immediate family system to your neighborhood to your city to your country to your planetary hemisphere to the whole Earth to the solar system to the Milky Way galaxy to the entire universe. Now reverse: start with the universe then zoom in to the Milky Way to the solar system to the Earth to your planetary hemisphere to your country to your city to your neighborhood to your family system. As you visualize the great web of life, feel your connection with the many physical ecosystems in your “Its” space.
A feeling of interconnectedness is natural once a person can comprehend his or her participation in the world’s countless intertwining systems. Examples of shared exteriors include political systems, legal systems, and economic systems. Institutions (for example, educational, governmental), businesses (such as Google), and nonprofit organizations (like the Red Cross) mesh together to form society’s infrastructure. The intersecting meshwork of social systems profoundly affects our lives and development in countless ways.
These intersections include, perhaps most interestingly, extensive systems and networks of communication that link us all together. An increasingly wired society connects us through new ways of exchanging information. The exterior of communication refers to the distribution mechanisms through which information travels, such as mass media, book publishers, cell phone networks, direct TV satellite systems, and, of course, the Internet. Sound familiar?
Now take a look at your clothing. Where did it come from? Who made it? What material was used? What financial system allowed you to purchase it? How was it transported to a store near you? Or did you buy it over the phone or the Internet? What laws were in place to make sure you weren’t cheated? What political system governs the laborers who manufactured the clothing? What pollution escaped into the ecosystem during its production? All these questions point to the many different systems in which we’re enmeshed—and that’s just tracing some of the systems surrounding the clothes on your back.
Try this visualization: zoom out from your immediate family system to your neighborhood to your city to your country to your planetary hemisphere to the whole Earth to the solar system to the Milky Way galaxy to the entire universe. Now reverse: start with the universe then zoom in to the Milky Way to the solar system to the Earth to your planetary hemisphere to your country to your city to your neighborhood to your family system. As you visualize the great web of life, feel your connection with the many physical ecosystems in your “Its” space.
A feeling of interconnectedness is natural once a person can comprehend his or her participation in the world’s countless intertwining systems. Examples of shared exteriors include political systems, legal systems, and economic systems. Institutions (for example, educational, governmental), businesses (such as Google), and nonprofit organizations (like the Red Cross) mesh together to form society’s infrastructure. The intersecting meshwork of social systems profoundly affects our lives and development in countless ways.
These intersections include, perhaps most interestingly, extensive systems and networks of communication that link us all together. An increasingly wired society connects us through new ways of exchanging information. The exterior of communication refers to the distribution mechanisms through which information travels, such as mass media, book publishers, cell phone networks, direct TV satellite systems, and, of course, the Internet. Sound familiar?
References
Wilber, K., Leonard, A., Morelli, M., & Patten, T. (2008). Integral Life Practice. London: Integral Books.