Tomorrow, the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence. Two hundred and fifty years is no small thing. By any measure, it is a remarkable milestone in the life of a nation, especially one born from a bold and imperfect experiment in freedom.

And yet, as I sit here listening to the pounding upstairs from the Loving Homestead renovations the day before this historic July 4th, I find myself strangely unable to simply join the celebration.

Not because I don’t love this country but because I do so very much. I’m so grateful that the forces of life allowed me to be born in Weymouth, MA a little over seventy-seven years ago. I do not take that bit of kismet for granted.

That distinction matters to me. This is not intended as a political article, even though politics is the language many of us have been trained to use when we talk about the state of our nation. Politics matters, of course. Policies matter. Elections matter. Leadership matters. But beneath the politics, there is something deeper:

Lately, as part of my morning One Cause vow, I’ve begun asking a simple question:

This morning, that question did not lead me to an answer so much as a deeper inquiry. What does it mean to honor Independence Day when so much in our national life (and consequently our world) feels fractured, fearful, and off course? What does it mean to love a country without pretending it is well? What does it mean to grieve the direction we seem to be heading while still refusing to surrender the possibility of something better?

I don’t feel at home in either of the easy camps. I cannot celebrate blindly, waving a flag as though all is well. But neither do I want to become one more voice shouting into the great national storm, convinced that outrage alone is a contribution. I know people who seem to think patriotism means defending everything America does. I know others who seem to think honesty requires condemning everything America has been. Neither feels whole to me.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, courageous and complicated people declared independence from a distant king. That declaration was visionary and incomplete, inspiring and flawed, liberating for some while excluding many others. It’s been a work-in-progress ever since.

The American story has always carried both promise and contradiction. Perhaps every human story does. What matters now, at least to me, is not whether we can polish the past until it shines or condemn it until nothing remains. What matters is whether we can tell the truth about where we are and still choose who we are becoming. Let me rephrase that as a question:

And that brings me to the possibility that maybe this particular Independence Day is inviting us into a new kind of declaration—not independence from another nation, but independence from the assumptions that have brought us to this moment.

For starters, let me suggest a few.

• How about independence from the belief that we are separate from one another and from the living Earth.

• Independence from the story that more is always better.

• Independence from the illusion that Earth’s resources are endless and ours to consume without consequence.

• Independence from the hope that technology alone will save us from the deeper transformation we are avoiding.

In the language of One Cause, maybe this is a moment to begin freeing ourselves from the Four Great Untruths and recommitting ourselves to the Four Great Truths:

Interconnectedness,

Sufficiency,

Reciprocity, and

Stewardship.

Not as political slogans. Not as ideology. Not as something to argue about online. But as ways of being we practice in our families, our neighborhoods, our communities, and our relationship with the living world.

When I look at Logan and Piper, this all becomes much less abstract. They don’t wake up asking whether the world is red or blue. They notice worms, flowers, birds, puddles, berries, bugs, and whether the adults around them feel safe and loving. They are learning, every day, what kind of world this is by watching how we live inside it. And I find myself wondering: What version of “normal” are we handing them?

Perhaps a new patriotism is being asked of us now. Not the patriotism of certainty or superiority, but the patriotism of stewardship. The kind that loves a country enough to help it mature. The kind that tells the truth without bitterness. The kind that plants trees, repairs relationships, protects children, tends soil, welcomes neighbors, and asks what freedom is actually for.

Freedom for compassion. Freedom for responsibility. Freedom for service. Freedom for the long, humble work of becoming better humans, parents, and ancestors. Freedom to participate in the healing of a world that is not separate from us, and never has been.

So tomorrow, I may still watch fireworks though probably just listen to them from the distance as I try to calm my two canine companions. I may still feel gratitude for the many blessings this country has made possible in my own life. And I may also feel sadness, concern, and grief for how far we still have to go.

Both can be true.

Maybe that is what maturity asks of us—to hold love and grief in the same heart without collapsing into denial or despair.

This Independence Day, I’m not sure I can celebrate in the old way. But I can recommit. I can recommit to living as though the web of life is real, sacred, and asking something of me. I can recommit to my family, my community, and this small patch of Earth we call the Loving Homestead. I can recommit to the future Logan and Piper deserve.

And perhaps that is celebration enough.

This weekend, maybe the question is not simply, “What are we free from?” Maybe the deeper question is,

Over the next few weeks, I’d like to invite you into an exploration of an idea that has been quietly growing in importance for me. It sits at the intersection of my work as an author, my role as a grandfather, my One Cause experiment, my Write On Purpose Coaching practice, and my growing conviction that stories may matter far more than most of us realize.

The idea is called Thrutopia.

If that word is new to you, don’t worry. A few months ago it was new to me too. In this first article, I don’t want to explain Thrutopia so much as explore why it matters. Why stories matter. Why imagination matters. And why the future we create together may depend upon the stories we choose to tell ourselves and each other.

Let me begin with a simple story.

A few weeks ago, I was spending time outdoors with my grandkids, five-year-old Logan and three-year-old Piper. We were in the backyard where there’s a fantastic playground set up that has been the site for many of our adventures. This day was no exceptions. One moment we were climbing the ropes of a pirate’s ship, the next we were on a spaceship flying to Mars. Then, in the blinking of an eye we were dragon riders. To Logan and Piper, these weren’t merely games. They were possibilities. They were rehearsals for who they might might someday become.

Watching these two beautiful children, I was reminded that long before children learn facts, they learn stories. Long before they understand economics, politics, or climate science, they begin constructing an understanding of how the world works through narrative. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? What happens when challenges arise? Can ordinary people make a difference? Is the future something to fear or something to help create?

One of our favorite shows to watch with Logan and Piper these days is Bluey. On the surface, it’s a delightful animated series about a family of Australian dogs (already a winner in my book). But beneath the humor and playful adventures are stories about imagination, kindness, resilience, creativity, friendship, and the importance of family and community. Episode after episode, children are quietly absorbing messages about what it means to be human—and perhaps just as importantly, adults are too.

Stories answer those questions long before logic does. They help children—and grownups—develop an internal map of reality. They shape what we believe is possible, what we expect from others, and what kind of future we imagine ourselves inhabiting.

What Stories Shaped You?

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I’d love to hear from you. What book, movie, television show, teacher, coach, or family story most shaped how you see the world today? Share in the comments.

And then it struck me. Maybe adults aren’t all that different.

Most people assume the future is created by politicians, corporations, technological breakthroughs, and economic forces. Certainly those things matter. But I’m not so sure that’s where the future begins.

I think the future begins in imagination.

Explore One Cause

One Cause is my ongoing exploration of the deeper narratives shaping humanity’s relationship with nature—and how we can create a regenerative future together.

Before every nation, there was an idea. Before every movement, there was a story. Before every invention, there was someone who imagined something that didn’t yet exist. The Wright brothers imagined human flight. Martin Luther King Jr. imagined a different America. Jane Goodall imagined a different relationship between humans and the natural world. Every meaningful change begins twice: first in imagination and then in reality. Stories are the bridge between those two worlds.

The more I’ve reflected on this, the more I’ve begun to see that many of the challenges we face today are not simply political, environmental, or economic. They are also narrative challenges. We are living amid what many people call the polycrisis—a convergence of climate disruption, political polarization, technological upheaval, economic uncertainty, social fragmentation, and a growing crisis of meaning. Yet beneath all of these challenges lies a deeper question:

What story are we telling ourselves about who we are and where we’re headed?

Because the dominant story many people seem to be living inside right now goes something like this: the world is broken, human beings are the problem (or at least those ‘other’ human beings who don’t agree with me), everything is getting worse, and the future is something to fear.

If we’re honest, much of our entertainment reinforces exactly that narrative. Turn on the television, scroll through streaming services, or browse the bestseller shelves. Dystopian futures are everywhere. Civilizations collapse. Artificial intelligence takes over. The environment falls apart. Communities disintegrate. People betray one another. To be clear, I understand why these stories resonate. I’ve written a few of my own including The Stars Beckon, Babble and Rabble. They often contain important warnings. They can help us see dangers we might otherwise ignore. But warnings alone rarely inspire transformation.

As I recently learned during a Gaia’s Call 2.0 conversation with author Manda Scott, people don’t change simply because they’re frightened. They change when they can imagine something worth moving toward. That insight landed deeply for me because when I look around,

I don’t see a shortage of warnings.

I see a shortage of compelling visions.

I see a shortage of believable pathways toward a future people actually want to inhabit. I see a shortage of stories that tell the truth without surrendering hope.

And perhaps that’s one reason so many people feel stuck. Human beings can endure remarkable hardship when they can see meaning, purpose, and possibility on the other side. Without that, fear easily becomes paralysis. This is where I find myself increasingly drawn to the idea that writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers, teachers, podcasters, and other creatives have a larger role to play than we often realize. Yes, creatives like you and I.

Not because creatives possess all the answers. Lord knows I don’t. The deeper I dive into the polycrisis, the more aware I become of how much I don’t know. But perhaps our role has never been to provide answers. Perhaps our role is to expand what people can imagine.

After all, before we can build a different future, we must first be able to see it.

That realization has been quietly changing how I think about storytelling, about my own fiction, about Gaia’s Call, about One Cause, and even about the conversations I have with Logan and Piper. It has also led me to a fascinating question:

Why is it that so many of our stories about the future seem

trapped between two extremes?

On one side, we find dystopias—stories that warn us where our current path may lead. On the other side, we find utopias—visions of a perfected future that often feel disconnected from the messy reality of getting there. One leaves us frightened. The other can leave us skeptical. Yet it seems to me there ought to be another possibility.

What if there were stories courageous enough to tell the truth about the challenges we face while also helping us imagine realistic pathways toward a world we would actually want our grandchildren to inherit? What if stories could help us move beyond both blind optimism and doom-filled pessimism?

That question led me to discover a growing movement known as Thrutopia. And it may turn out to be one of the most important storytelling movements of our time.

In preparation for next week’s article, I’d like to invite you into a simple experiment.

Pay attention to the stories you encounter over the coming days. The books you read. The movies and television shows you watch. The news you consume. The conversations you have with family and friends. As you do, ask yourself:

What future is this story inviting me into?

Is it inviting me toward fear or possibility? Toward helplessness (as in learned helplessness) or agency? Toward isolation or connection? Toward resignation or participation? You don’t need to judge the answers. Simply notice them. Because once you begin paying attention, you may discover that stories are shaping far more of your worldview than you previously realized. In fact, they may be shaping your expectations of the future itself.

And that brings us to where we’ll begin next week.

We’ll explore Thrutopia—what it is, where it came from, and why an increasing number of writers, thinkers, and changemakers believe it offers something our culture desperately needs right now: stories that tell the truth about where we are while illuminating believable pathways toward where we might yet go.

Until then, pay attention to the stories.

They may be shaping the future more than any of us realize.

An Update on Write On Purpose Coaching

Since selling my small animal veterinary practice in 1989, I’ve been on a joyful adventure that has blended two lifelong passions: writing and transformational coaching.

A few years ago, I brought those passions together through Write On Purpose Coaching, helping aspiring and emerging authors move from “one day” to “today.” Then, in late 2024, I took a hiatus from coaching to focus on my own writing—including much of what many of you have been reading here on Substack.

Today, I’m excited to announce that I’m returning to Write On Purpose Coaching.

Over the years, I’ve discovered that most people don’t struggle because they lack talent. They struggle because they lack clarity, confidence, accountability, or simply someone who believes in them before they fully believe in themselves.

That’s why I continue to offer complimentary Creative Clarity Sessions.

Whether you have an idea for a book, a manuscript gathering dust, or a completed draft that’s waiting for its next step, this conversation is designed to help you move forward.

You’ll leave with:

• Greater clarity about your book and the deeper purpose behind it.

• A practical roadmap for what comes next.

• Renewed momentum and confidence to move your writing—and perhaps your life—forward.

One of my clients described me as “the person you want to have your back.” Another said our work together helped her become not only a better writer, but a deeper and more authentic human being.

Those words mean a lot because they capture what Write On Purpose is really about.

Yes, we write books.

But we also author our lives.

And sometimes the very thing standing between us and the book we’re meant to write is a conversation that helps us see what is possible.

If you’ve been carrying a book inside you for months, years, or even decades, consider this your invitation.

The world doesn’t need more unfinished manuscripts hidden away in drawers and hard drives. It needs your story. Your wisdom. Your experience. Your unique voice.

Don’t let your book die within you.

Instead, let’s explore what’s possible together.

To schedule a complimentary Creative Clarity Session, visit:

www.wbradfordswift.com/coach

I’d be honored to have your back and support you on your Write On Purpose journey.

In Part One of this series, we explored how the stories running in our minds shape what we believe is possible. If the narrative we carry says the future is doomed and nothing we do matters, our most likely response will be withdrawal, anxiety, or quiet resignation. But when we step back and notice that those stories are interpretations rather than inevitabilities, we begin to reclaim a small but powerful space of freedom. We can choose which stories we continue feeding and which ones we begin to question.

In Part Two, we looked at something equally important: the science of motivation. Research suggests that people rarely change because someone else tells them what they should do. In fact, that approach often creates resistance. What truly motivates people is discovering their own reasons for caring and acting. When we reconnect with something we love—a river we grew up near, a forest trail that shaped our childhood, a garden we tend with our hands—the desire to protect life arises naturally.

Join the conversation with others exploring this path

Taken together, these two insights point toward something quietly revolutionary. If we change the stories we carry and reconnect with our own motivations for protecting life, the possibility of meaningful action begins to open. But there is still one question that many people understandably ask when they look at the scale of the challenges before us:

What difference could one person—or one family—really make?

This is where one of my favorite metaphors enters the picture.

The architect and systems thinker Buckminster Fuller used the term trimtab to describe a very small device attached to the rudder of a large ship. When the trimtab moves, it creates a small change in pressure that helps turn the much larger rudder. Once the rudder begins to turn, the entire ship slowly changes direction. In other words, a relatively tiny input can help shift a much larger system.

Fuller loved this metaphor because it illustrated how complex systems often change. Transformation does not always begin with massive force. Sometimes it begins with small, well-placed actions that alter the direction of the whole.

When I think about the ecological challenges facing our planet, the trimtab metaphor feels especially relevant. Many people assume that only governments, corporations, or global agreements have the power to influence the trajectory of the Earth’s future. Those forces certainly matter, but history repeatedly shows that cultural change often begins elsewhere. It begins with shifts in how ordinary people live, relate, and imagine the world.

Over time, enough of those shifts begin to alter the larger system.

This is where the Four Great Truths of the One Cause framework come into practical focus. These truths are not abstract philosophical ideas; they are descriptions of how living systems actually function. Interconnection reminds us that life operates through relationships. Sufficiency invites us to reconsider the assumption that endless growth is necessary for human flourishing. Reciprocity reveals that life thrives through balanced exchange. And stewardship invites us to live as participants entrusted with care across generations.

When we begin living with these truths in mind, even small choices can become trimtabs for a larger cultural shift.

A family plants a pollinator garden in their yard, and suddenly butterflies and bees return. A group of neighbors organizes a repair café, extending the life of everyday objects. A school plants a small food forest where children learn how soil, water, and sunlight collaborate to create life. Someone chooses to support a local farmer, strengthening both community and ecosystem.

None of these actions, by themselves, solve the climate crisis. But they begin changing the story of how we live on Earth.

In my own life, I see small examples of this almost every day. When Logan and Piper come to visit, we wander through the yard and the small food forest we’ve been nurturing here at the Loving Homestead. What begins as simple curiosity—digging in the soil, noticing worms, watching birds—quietly becomes something deeper. They are not just learning about nature. They are forming relationships with the living world.

Moments like that remind me that transformation rarely begins with grand declarations. It begins with relationships—with soil, water, animals, neighbors, and children who still remember how alive the world is.

What’s one small action you’ve taken—or could take—that helps life flourish where you live?

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Leave a comment and reflect

Each of us can participate in this shift in ways both large and small. Some will influence systems at scale. Many of us will contribute more quietly—through how we live, how we relate, and how we care.

In systems language, these are trimtabs.

Small actions that help the larger system turn.

If you feel inspired, begin with something simple. Identify a place or relationship that matters deeply to you. Ask yourself: Why does this matter? What would I like to see flourish here? And what small step could I take?

You don’t need to solve everything.

You only need to begin. Because when enough trimtabs begin to move…

The ship begins to turn.

As we close this three-part series, I want to return to the simple experiment that began it. The stories we tell shape the possibilities we see. When those stories shift—from despair to responsibility, from separation to relationship—we begin to see new paths forward.

In a time when the challenges can feel overwhelming, perhaps the most powerful question we can ask is not:

How do we fix everything?

But rather:

What is one small way I can help life flourish today?

That question may sound modest.

But history suggests…

It is exactly how great turnings begin.

In Part One of this series, we explored something deceptively simple but profoundly important: much of our suffering—and much of our paralysis in the face of global challenges—comes not from the events themselves but from the interpretations we attach to them. If the story running in our minds says the future is doomed (or some similar disempowering story), the most likely result is despair. If the story says nothing we do matters, the most likely result is inaction. These stories we carry around as though they are true quietly shape and limit the possibilities we see.

But changing the story in our minds is only the first step. The next question is just as important—and perhaps even more challenging:

If we’re honest, most of us already know what we “should” be doing in many areas of life. We know we should eat better, move our bodies more often, spend less time staring at screens, and perhaps spend more time caring for the natural world that sustains us. Yet knowing what we should do and actually doing it are often two very different things. Information alone rarely changes behavior. If it did, the internet would have already solved most of humanity’s problems. (And yes, some might say such a wealth of information has only served to make matters worse, but that discussion we’ll save for another day.)

For many years I assumed that motivating people—including myself—worked in a fairly straightforward way. You explain the problem clearly, you explain why it matters, and then you encourage people to do the right thing. In other words, we tell people what they should do and then we try to persuade them that it’s important. Psychologists sometimes call this the “tell and sell” approach. It sounds reasonable enough, but research suggests that it rarely works as well as we think.

In fact, something interesting often happens when people are told what they must do. Instead of becoming motivated, they become resistant. There is a well-documented psychological phenomenon called psychological reactance, which describes our deeply human tendency to push back when we feel our autonomy is threatened. The harder someone insists that we adopt a certain behavior, the more our inner sense of independence starts to protest. Even if we might have agreed with the suggestion originally, the feeling of being pushed can make us want to do the opposite.

Anyone who has raised children—or remembers being a child—recognizes this dynamic immediately. Tell a young person that they absolutely must clean their room right now, and suddenly cleaning their room becomes the last thing they want to do. Adults are not so different. Study after study has shown that people often avoid actions they are strongly told to take, even when those actions align with their own interests.

This insight sits at the heart of a fascinating motivational approach developed by Yale researcher Michael Pantalon in his work on Instant Influence. His research suggests that people are far more likely to change when they hear themselves say why they want to change. In other words, lasting motivation rarely comes from someone else’s arguments. It arises when individuals connect with their own reasons for taking action.

The practical implication of this insight is surprisingly simple but powerful. Instead of asking someone why they should change, ask them why they might want to change. That small shift—from “should” to “might”—makes a remarkable difference. It lowers resistance and respects autonomy. Rather than triggering defensiveness, it invites curiosity and reflection.

From there, a short sequence of questions can help people uncover their own motivations. One might begin by asking, “Why might you want to make this change?” The next question explores readiness: “On a scale from one to ten, how ready do you feel you are to try this?” Then comes a clever twist: “Why didn’t you choose a lower number?” That question nudges the mind toward the reasons change already matters. From there the conversation moves toward imagining the positive outcomes of change, exploring why those outcomes are meaningful, and finally identifying one small next step.

Notice what is happening in this process. No one is being lectured. No one is being pushed. Instead, people are discovering their own motivations, and once those motivations begin to take shape, action often follows naturally.

When I first encountered this research, something clicked immediately in relation to the climate crisis and the broader polycrisis we are navigating today. For decades, much of the environmental conversation has relied heavily on the tell-and-sell approach. Scientists present alarming data. Advocates explain why change is necessary. Leaders urge people to adopt more sustainable behaviors. While these efforts are often well-intentioned and factually correct, they can sometimes trigger the very resistance psychological research predicts.

If psychological reactance is real—and the evidence suggests it is—then some of our attempts to motivate environmental action may unintentionally produce the opposite result. People do not want to feel pushed or shamed into caring for the planet. They want to feel that their actions arise from their own values and their own sense of meaning.

For example, given that my background and training as a veterinarian was science based, it felt natural to talk about and seek out the facts about climate change, but I found that data did little to motivate me or others into action. It wasn’t until Logan (and later Piper) came along that I realized it was time for me to take action to forward the process of creating a regenerative future that would leave them with a planet they would be proud to call their own.

So, what do you deeply care about that might inspire you into action to join the ranks of being an Eco-Guardian-In-Training? Why not leave a comment below?

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This insight suggests a different kind of conversation about the Earth. Instead of telling people what they must do to save the planet, we might begin with a much simpler and more human question: “Why might protecting the natural world matter to you?” For one person, the answer might involve their children or grandchildren as it did for me. For another, it might be the beauty of a nearby forest or river. For someone else, it may be the simple desire to live a meaningful life that contributes to something larger than oneself.

Whatever the answer turns out to be, the motivation becomes personal, and personal motivations are powerful.

I was reminded of this recently during a conversation with a friend about the state of the world. We talked about climate disruption, political tensions, and the growing sense that many of our systems are under strain. At one point my friend shrugged and said something I hear fairly often these days: “Honestly, it feels like there’s nothing ordinary people can do.”

In the past I might have responded by offering examples of practical actions—reducing consumption, supporting regenerative agriculture, planting trees, or restoring local ecosystems. Instead, I tried a different approach. I simply asked, “What do you care most about protecting in the world?”

He paused for a moment, thinking. Then he began telling me about a river where he used to fish with his father when he was a boy. That river, it turned out, held some of his most cherished memories. As he spoke, the entire tone of the conversation shifted. We were no longer discussing abstract environmental problems. We were talking about something he loved.

From there, it became much easier to imagine what kinds of actions might help protect places like that river. The motivation didn’t come from my arguments. It came from his memories and his sense of connection.

This approach aligns beautifully with the deeper philosophy behind the One Cause project. The Great Untruths of modern culture have encouraged us to see the Earth primarily as a backdrop for human activity or a warehouse of resources to extract. The Four Great Truths invite a different perspective: that life is interconnected, that sufficiency is possible, that reciprocity with nature sustains abundance, and that humanity’s role is stewardship rather than domination.

Those truths cannot simply be imposed through arguments or ideology. They have to be rediscovered through experience and relationship. When someone reconnects with a river they love, a forest they remember, a garden they tend, or a piece of land they care for, those truths often begin to reveal themselves naturally.

If you’re curious to experiment with this idea yourself, try something simple this week. Choose one small action that might support life in some way—something practical and manageable. Perhaps it involves planting a tree, reducing waste, supporting a local farmer, restoring soil in your garden, or spending time tending a small piece of land. Then ask yourself a few gentle questions. Why might I want to do this? On a scale of one to ten, how ready am I to try it? Why didn’t I choose a lower number? Imagine I did this—what positive outcomes might result? Why are those outcomes important to me? And what might be the smallest next step I could take?

Notice that none of these questions force action. They simply invite reflection. Yet once our own reasons become visible, action often begins to feel less like an obligation and more like a natural expression of who we are.

In the final article of this series, we’ll bring these two insights together. Changing the story in our minds opens the door to possibility. Discovering our own motivations ignites action. Together they can help us become something Buckminster Fuller once described with a beautiful metaphor: trimtabs—small forces capable of helping turn much larger systems. And in a time of planetary transition, the world may need many trimtabs.

P.S. — A New Ecosystem & A New Conversation

By the time this podcast episode airs, Ann and I will be with Logan and Piper for a much-needed—and deeply earned—family beach trip. It will be their first time experiencing an entirely new ecosystem in such an immersive way: the rhythms of the ocean, the pull of the tides, the vastness of something both playful and powerful.

I have a feeling we’ll all be learning something.

Shortly after we return, on Friday, May 29, a new episode of Gaia’s Call 2.0 will go live—one that feels like a natural continuation of everything we’ve been exploring together in this series.

Marla (of the Eco-Chapter) and I will be joined by Manda Scott, host of the Accidental Gods podcast, for a conversation that goes right to the heart of this moment:

• Why are we in this mess?

• What role do our deepest fears and cultural patterns play?

• What can one person actually do?

• And perhaps most importantly—what role does creativity play in shaping what comes next?

Manda speaks powerfully about what she calls “the imagination revolution”—the idea that creativity isn’t optional in times like these… it’s essential. It may, in fact, be the leading edge of change.

And as I watch Logan and Piper encounter the ocean for the first time, I’ll be reminded that imagination begins exactly there—in wonder, in relationship, in direct experience with the living world.

Politics at Thanksgiving.
Who left the dishes in the sink.
And, perhaps most of all…

Pee.

Yet here we are.

And honestly? If we’re serious about becoming a more regenerative culture—one that lives by the Four Great Truths instead of the old extractive mindset—it may be time to have a surprisingly practical conversation about what we flush away every single day.

Because here’s the startling truth:

Every time we urinate into a toilet and flush, we are literally flushing away valuable plant nutrients… using gallons of perfectly clean drinking water to do it.

Nature, meanwhile, is probably shaking her head.

Wait… Human Urine Is Actually Fertilizer?

Yes. Quite literally.

Human urine contains significant amounts of:

• Nitrogen

• Phosphorus

• Potassium

In other words…

the exact same core nutrients listed on commercial fertilizer bags as N-P-K.

Most of the nitrogen in urine is present as urea—the same nitrogen compound used in many synthetic fertilizers.

Researchers estimate that urine contains:

• roughly 80–90% of the nitrogen,

• 50–65% of the phosphorus,

• and 50–85% of the potassium found in household wastewater.

Or to put it more bluntly:

Your kidneys are producing fertilizer every day.

Congratulations.

You are a mobile nutrient recycling system.

The Strange Modern Habit of Flushing Nutrients Away

For most of human history, cultures understood that nutrients belonged in the soil.

Then modern sanitation arrived—which absolutely helped reduce disease and improve public health—but it also created a strange disconnect.

We began treating “waste” as something to remove rather than something to cycle.

So now:

• we mine phosphorus,

• manufacture synthetic nitrogen using fossil fuels,

• buy fertilizer in plastic bags,

• and simultaneously flush nutrient-rich urine into water treatment systems.

It’s a little like buying groceries while throwing dinner into the trash.

Nature Doesn’t Waste Anything

One of the deepest lessons of ecology is this:

In healthy ecosystems, waste from one process becomes food for another.

Fallen leaves become soil.
Dead trees feed fungi.
Animal manure feeds grasses.
Nothing is wasted.

Yet modern industrial culture often behaves as though humans exist outside these cycles.

One Cause calls this separation one of the Great Untruths.

And perhaps nowhere is this more obvious—or more oddly humorous—than our relationship with pee.

So… Does It Actually Work?

Surprisingly well.

Numerous studies have shown that human urine can effectively fertilize crops and gardens when used properly.

Researchers studying urine fertilization found:

• improved plant growth,

• increased yields,

• and performance comparable in some cases to synthetic fertilizers.

Gardeners often notice especially vigorous leafy growth because urine is nitrogen-rich.

Translation?

Your tomatoes may become strangely enthusiastic.

Before Everyone Runs Outside…

Let’s talk safety and common sense.

This is not about randomly spraying pee around the backyard like some kind of eco-apocalypse survival cult.

There are wise ways to do this.

And unwise ways.

Very unwise ways.

Practical Guidelines for Using Urine in the Garden

1. Dilute It

Fresh urine is potent.

Most gardeners dilute it somewhere between:

• 1:10

• and 1:20 with water

Some sources recommend even weaker solutions for delicate plants.

Think of it as a concentrate, not a sports drink for kale.

2. Apply to Soil, Not Leaves

Apply near the roots or soil surface rather than directly onto leaves.

This:

• reduces odor,

• minimizes leaf burn,

• and helps nutrients absorb into the soil.

3. Avoid Use if Taking Certain Medications

Many medications can pass through urine.

If someone is taking:

• chemotherapy drugs,

• heavy pharmaceuticals,

• or has an active urinary tract infection,

it’s best not to use their urine in the garden.

Good rule of thumb:
Healthy person + healthy system + common sense.

4. Don’t Overdo It

Too much nitrogen can overwhelm plants.

If your zucchini suddenly looks like it’s training for the Olympics but produces no vegetables…

you may have gone overboard.

5. Fruit Trees, Compost, Ornamentals, and Nitrogen-Loving Plants Are Great Starting Places

Many eco-gardeners begin by using diluted urine on:

• compost piles,

• fruit trees,

• corn,

• squash,

• ornamental plants,

• and nitrogen-hungry vegetables.

If the “ick factor” feels strong at first, starting with compost is often psychologically easier.

The Water Conversation We Rarely Have

Here’s another astonishing piece of the puzzle:

Modern toilets use drinking water to transport nutrients away from us.

Millions upon millions of gallons.

Every day.

Meanwhile, droughts increase.
Aquifers shrink.
And farmers spend enormous amounts on synthetic fertilizer.

The irony is hard to miss.

What Would an Eco-Conscious Family Do?

Not every family is going to install composting toilets tomorrow.

And honestly, that’s okay.

This isn’t about purity.
It’s about awareness and thoughtful experimentation.

Maybe it starts simply:

• using diluted urine on compost,

• feeding fruit trees,

• or teaching kids about nutrient cycles.

Imagine the conversation:

“Dad… are you peeing on the compost pile?”

“Yes, son. I’m participating in regenerative nutrient recovery.”

“Mom… Dad’s being weird again.”

Probably true.

But maybe wonderfully weird.

Logan, Piper, and the Great Nutrient Mystery

I can already imagine trying to explain this to my grandchildren.

Logan would likely think it’s hilarious.

Piper might announce it loudly in public.

“PAPA PUTS PEE ON THE PLANTS!”

Which, admittedly, could create awkward moments at the garden center.

Still…

there’s something deeply healing about reconnecting children to natural cycles before industrial culture convinces them that everything natural is somehow embarrassing or “gross.”

Kids often understand ecology better than adults.

They instinctively know:

• soil matters,

• worms matter,

• trees matter,

• and life feeds life.

The Bigger Picture

This article isn’t really about urine.

Not entirely.

It’s about whether humanity can relearn how to participate in living systems instead of endlessly extracting from them.

It’s about moving from:

• waste → regeneration

• separation → interconnection

• consumption → reciprocity

The Four Great Truths aren’t abstract philosophy.

They show up in kitchens.
Gardens.
Compost piles.
Water bills.

And yes…

occasionally in conversations polite society would rather avoid.

A Final Thought Before You Flush

I’m not suggesting everyone abandon indoor plumbing and sprint into the woods with a watering can.

But I am suggesting that regenerative thinking often begins by questioning habits we’ve never examined.

Nature wastes nothing.

Perhaps the future won’t be built only through massive technological breakthroughs…

but also through millions of small, humble acts of reconnection.

Even the surprisingly yellow ones.

Resources & Research

• Rich Earth Institute – Guide to Using Urine Fertilizer for Home Gardens

• Wild Abundance – Human Urine as Fertilizer

• Scientific American – Human Urine Is an Effective Fertilizer

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PS - Have you had personal experience with a composting toilet that allows you to reclaim and use your family’s pee? If so, I’d appreciate hearing about it. Leave a comment.

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Part 1: The Story in Our Heads Is Shaping the World

How our interpretations fuel despair—or possibility

Not long ago I was outside in the yard with my grandson Logan, who had discovered something that instantly captured his five-year-old imagination. It was nothing particularly dramatic—just a small worm wriggling through the soil after a rainstorm. But to Logan, it might as well have been a dragon. He crouched down, studying it carefully, narrating what he thought the worm might be thinking and where it might be going. Piper, his little sister, soon joined us, equally fascinated.

Watching them, I was reminded of something I think many of us lose as adults. Children don’t just see the world—they relate to it. The worm isn’t an object. It’s a character in the unfolding drama of life. The tree in the yard isn’t scenery; it’s a companion in the landscape of their play. Everything feels alive, meaningful, connected.

How our interpretations fuel despair—or possibility

Over the years I’ve developed a little morning ritual. Coffee in hand and a bowl of fruit in front of me for a few quiet minutes before my wife, Ann, wakes up. Often Rascal—my loyal canine companion—is curled up nearby. The early mountain light filtering through the trees here in the mountains of North Carolina. And if I’m honest, sometimes my mind wanders through the headlines of the world we’re living in: climate disruption, political turmoil, economic uncertainty, wildfires, floods, storms. Many of us feel it now—that sense that something larger than a typical “rough patch in history” is unfolding. I often refer to it as the polycrisis—a convergence of ecological, economic, social, and spiritual disruptions all happening at once.

It can be a lot to take in. Some mornings, if I’m not careful, my mind can start telling a story about it all. A story that has become all too familiar. To borrow a phrase from my own childhood: Our world is going to hell in a handbasket. Maybe you’ve heard versions of those stories in your own mind as well.

Recently, two articles I happened to read on the same morning stopped me in my tracks. Something about them felt deeply connected—not just to each other, but to the work many of us are trying to do in this time of planetary transition. And it dawned on me that the climate crisis—and the broader polycrisis—may not just be a technological or political challenge. It may also be a story challenge.

One of the articles explored something psychologists have been saying for a long time: much of our suffering does not come directly from events themselves, but from the interpretations we attach to them. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus put it bluntly centuries ago: “It’s not things that upset us but our judgments about things.” When something happens in our lives, our minds almost instantly begin constructing a story about what it means. A friend doesn’t text back. A project fails. A troubling news headline appears. The event itself may last seconds, but the story we tell ourselves about it can last for years.

Psychologists refer to these internal patterns as schemas—mental frameworks built from past experiences that quietly shape how we see the world and ourselves. Over time those schemas become so familiar that we stop recognizing them as interpretations. They begin to feel like reality itself. Not interpretations, but facts.

When it comes to the climate crisis and ecological disruption, I notice a similar dynamic playing out in the collective psyche. The facts are serious. We are destabilizing the climate. We are losing biodiversity. We are drawing down natural systems faster than they regenerate. These realities deserve our full attention. But the interpretation layer often goes much further. It turns into a narrative of inevitability: We’re doomed. It’s too late. Human beings are the problem.

Those interpretations can quietly shut down the very thing we need most right now—agency. If the story in our head says nothing matters, why would we act? But what if those interpretations are not the only story available to us?

One of the most powerful ideas I’ve encountered over the years comes from Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who survived the Nazi concentration camps. He wrote that between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our power to choose our response. That tiny space may be one of the most important places in the human experience. Because inside that space something extraordinary becomes possible. We can notice the story our mind is telling and decide whether or not we want to keep believing it.

The article I read put it another way: our thoughts are powerful, but they are not us. They are simply things our minds produce. Once we recognize that distinction, something begins to loosen. We don’t have to fight every anxious thought that appears. We can simply notice it. Ah…there’s my mind telling the “nothing will change” story again. Then we come back to the present moment—to our breath, our body, and the living world around us.

When I step back from the daily news cycle and look at the larger arc of human history, another story begins to come into view. Yes, we are facing unprecedented challenges. But we are also witnessing something else: millions of people waking up to their relationship with the Earth. Young people planting forests. Families restoring soil. Communities creating repair cafés and sharing networks. Scientists, farmers, and Indigenous wisdom keepers working together to regenerate ecosystems.

In the language of the One Cause project, we might say that we are slowly rediscovering what I call the Four Great Truths: that life is interconnected, that sufficiency is possible, that reciprocity with nature is essential, and that our role as humans is stewardship rather than domination. These truths do not erase the challenges we face, but they do change the story from doom to responsibility—from despair to participation.

Reading those two articles together sparked an idea that I’d like to explore with you over the next few weeks. Because the second article introduced another fascinating insight: if changing the story in our minds is the first step, the next step is understanding how people actually change their behavior. And it turns out the science of motivation is surprisingly counterintuitive. It’s not about telling people what they should do. In fact, the more we push people, the more they resist. Real change tends to happen when people discover their own reasons for acting.

That insight will be the focus of Part Two of this series.

Together, these two ideas—changing the story in our heads and discovering our deeper motivations—may help unlock something incredibly important for this moment in history. Not just awareness, but action.

What story about the world have you noticed running in your own mind lately?

Until then, I’d like to invite you into a small experiment. The next time you encounter a troubling news headline or feel anxiety about the state of the world, pause for a moment and ask yourself three simple questions. First: what actually happened? Just the facts. Second: what story is my mind telling about it? And third: is there another interpretation that leaves room for possibility? Not blind optimism—just possibility.

If you try this simple experiment, I’d love to hear what you discover.

Have you ever caught yourself telling a “nothing will change” story? What helped you shift it—if anything?

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Because the future we create will depend, in no small part, on the stories we choose to believe—and the actions those stories inspire.

In the next article we’ll explore something fascinating: why people almost never change when they’re told what to do, and the surprisingly simple questions that can ignite real motivation—for ourselves, our families, and perhaps even the wider culture.

Until then, I’d love to hear from you. What story about the future of our world have you noticed running through your own mind lately? And what might a more life-affirming version of that story look like?

I understand why.

When the ground beneath society feels shaky—politically, economically, ecologically—people naturally seek coherence. They seek community. They seek a moral compass and a story large enough to hold suffering. Religious traditions have long provided those anchors.

But as I’ve listened to these conversations, I’ve found myself wondering whether we might be looking in the wrong direction—not because Christianity is wrong, but because the search may need to reach further back in our collective memory.

My hunch is that we haven’t gone far enough back. Before Christianity. Before modern secularism. Before the idea that the world is mostly made of objects.

For tens of thousands of years, human beings lived with a very different understanding of the world: that we exist within a living community of beings—animals, plants, rivers, mountains, winds. Our ancestors did not think of nature as scenery. They experienced it as relationship.

Today we often call that worldview animism.

Importantly, animism does not have to replace other forms of faith. It isn’t necessarily an either-or proposition. Many people may find ways to hold both perspectives—honoring spiritual traditions while also rediscovering a deeper relational connection with the living Earth. If anything, animism invites us to focus on what many traditions share: reverence, humility, and participation in something larger than ourselves.

Where animism differs from much modern spirituality is that it is less about belief and more about relationship. It is embodied. Present-moment. Experiential. You don’t simply believe the world is alive. You participate in its aliveness.

Gaia: A Living System

Around the same time these ideas were beginning to stir in me, I also began listening more closely to the work of scientist James Lovelock and others who developed what is now known as the Gaia hypothesis—the idea that Earth functions as a vast self-regulating system, with life and environment interacting to maintain conditions favorable for life.

More recently, Nate Hagens has explored these ideas through his podcast and YouTube channel The Great Simplification, where he helps translate complex ecological and energy realities into language ordinary people can understand.

Taken together, these perspectives offer a powerful reframing.

If Earth behaves like a self-regulating system—a kind of planetary-scale organism—then communication does not occur through sentences.

It occurs through changing conditions.

Feedback. Adjustments. Signals embedded in the environment itself.

In that light, weather begins to look a little different. Not as punishment. Not as divine anger. Not as random chaos. But as information made experiential. Storms, droughts, floods, heat waves—they bypass ideology and go straight to the nervous system. They remind us, sometimes quite dramatically, that we are not separate observers of the planet. We are participants inside its processes.

Living here in the mountains of North Carolina, we’ve felt those reminders firsthand. Tropical Storm Helene. The fire that swept across the hills not long after. And this past winter Gaia spoke again with the winter storm of snow and ice someone decided to name Fern. These events are not “messages from God,” but they are interruptions to the illusion of separateness.

They encourage us to pay attention. Several years ago I heard the story about the Universal UPS truck. It goes like this. From time to time, the Universe tries to deliver a package to us within which is an important lesson we are to learn, but like the conventional UPS truck, it’s no big deal if we aren’t home or ready to receive the package. It will just schedule a time to deliver it again. The only real difference with the Universal UPS truck, is that each time it attempts to deliver the packaged lesson to us, it become a bit more deliberate and intentional until eventually it’ll drive its truck through our living room to get our attention.

I believe we are at that point today. Do you agree? What are your thoughts on the subject? How about sharing them by clicking the comment button below, or joining the chat?

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The Deeper Issue Beneath the Storms

If we step back even further, we can see that the storms and climate disruptions we experience today are not isolated events. They are symptoms of a deeper pattern.

For roughly the last two hundred years, humanity has been drawing down an enormous storehouse of energy in the form of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas. These fuels were created through geological processes that unfolded over millions of years. In a sense, they represent a vast savings account of ancient sunlight, stored underground.

But rather than treating that inheritance as a finite trust fund, we treated it as an endless supply.

The result was an explosion of industrial growth, technological progress, and human population. Much of modern civilization has been built on that energy windfall. Yet this rapid extraction also came with consequences—most notably the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and the resulting destabilization of climate systems.

Here again we encounter one of the central insights of the One Cause framework. For centuries, many of us operated under what I call a Great Untruth: that Earth’s resources are effectively unlimited. But the web of life operates according to a different principle entirely—reciprocity.

Take without giving back long enough, and the system begins to respond. Not out of malice. Out of physics. Out of biology. Out of the simple mathematics of living systems.

Harm a river long enough and its vitality declines. As vitality declines, scarcity increases. Communities downstream suffer. Care for the river, restore its health, protect its watershed—and abundance often returns. The vitality of the system supports the vitality of the people.

Reciprocity is not a spiritual slogan. It is how living systems work.

From Resource to Relationship

This is where the Four Great Truths of the One Cause project come into clearer focus. The Great Untruths teach us to see Earth as backdrop, raw material, or resource. The Great Truths invite us to see Earth as relation—as kin.

If we begin from that place, stewardship stops feeling like an obligation imposed from the outside. It becomes something more intimate. Stewardship becomes love across time.

The choices we make today ripple outward—to forests we may never see, rivers we may never visit, and grandchildren whose lives will unfold long after we are gone. Seen this way, responding to the climate crisis is not merely a technical challenge.

It is a relationship challenge.

A Small Daily Practice

You don’t need to adopt a new belief system to explore this way of relating.

You can begin with a simple daily reflection inspired by many Indigenous wisdom traditions that focus on maintaining balance and vitality in the web of life.

At the end of each day, pause for a moment and ask yourself three questions:

• What did I do today that increased life—in myself, in another person, or in the land around me?

• What did I do that may have diminished life, even unintentionally?

• What is one small act of repair or care I could offer tomorrow?

This practice does not require perfection. Only our attention.

Returning to the Conversation

My own journey into these ideas followed a path I didn’t fully recognize at the time.

Animals first taught me kinship. The rainforest taught me sacred interconnection. And animism finally gave language to something my life had already been practicing. If we are indeed living through what many now call a polycrisis—a convergence of ecological, economic, political, and spiritual disruptions—then perhaps our task is not simply to solve problems.

Perhaps it is to rejoin the conversation with the living world. I’m not asking anyone to adopt animism as an identity. I’m inviting you to experiment with a different relationship to the world—one that feels strangely sane in a time that often feels anything but.

And if we listen closely enough, we may discover that the Earth has been speaking all along and we’ve simply haven’t been listening. It’s time to listen deeply.

After 32 years in our home, we are in the midst of a significant transition. We’re moving from 2300 square feet—multiple closets, two walk-in storage areas, and the accumulated contents of three decades—into a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment downstairs, roughly 1000 square feet. And we’re doing it by choice. Not because we have to, but because we want to make space for something that matters more. Our daughter Amber, her husband Justin, and our grandchildren Logan and Piper are planning to move in before the school year begins in August. Which means… we’re making room. Literally.

The Outer Work: Letting Go

If you’ve ever lived in a home for 30+ years, you can probably imagine what this process looks like. Closets that quietly filled over time, storage areas that became repositories of “we might need this someday,” and objects that carry stories—some of them easy to release, and some of them surprisingly not. A box of old papers, a tool you haven’t used in years, a random item that somehow feels harder to let go of than it should. And yet, piece by piece, we’re letting go—donating, gifting, sharing (our local Buy Nothing group is about to get very active). With each release, there’s a little more space. Not just in the house, but in us.

The Inner Work: Rethinking “More”

We live in a culture that quietly—and sometimes loudly—reinforces a simple idea: more is better. More space, more storage, more comfort, more accumulation. But what if that’s not actually true? What if “more” isn’t the goal? What if the deeper question is: what supports life, connection, and meaning? This move is, in many ways, an experiment in that question. We’re not downsizing because we’re forced to; we’re choosing to live with less space and fewer possessions so we can live with more connection.

A Living Expression of Sufficiency

In the One Cause framework, one of the Four Great Truths is Sufficiency: there is already—and always—enough when we remember how to share. It’s one thing to write about that. It’s another thing to live it. This transition is giving us the opportunity to do both—to ask what we truly need, what can be shared, what can be released back into the community, and perhaps most importantly, what kind of life we are actually trying to create.

The Messy Middle

I won’t pretend this is all graceful and serene. There are moments of overwhelm, moments of second-guessing, and moments of “Why did we keep all this stuff?” 😄 And also… moments of clarity, moments of lightness, and moments where it feels like we’re aligning our lives more closely with what we say matters.

Making Room for the Future

Logan and Piper don’t care about square footage. They care about connection—about shared meals, about being together. In a very real sense, this move is about making room for the future. Not just physically, but relationally.

An Invitation

You don’t have to move houses to explore this. But you might consider asking: What is “enough” for me right now? What am I holding onto that I no longer need? Where could I make a little more space—for life, for connection, for something new? We’ll keep sharing pieces of this journey along the way, including—quite possibly—a steady stream of items looking for new homes 😄 But more than that, we’re exploring what it means to live into sufficiency. Not as an idea, but as a way of life.

There are moments in a parent’s life when a conversation shifts from the everyday into something deeper—something that feels like it matters not just for your family, but for the times we’re living in. This was one of those moments.

Amber and I were talking—not about anything unusual at first. Just the world as it is right now. The noise. The intensity. The constant stream of headlines and opinions and reactions that can leave even the most grounded among us feeling unsettled. And then she said something that stopped me.

Not in fear—in wisdom.

She told me that instead of getting pulled into the emotional swings of social media, she’s been trying to step back… to look at what’s happening through the lens of history. To understand this moment not as chaos—but as part of a larger pattern. As a dad, and as someone who has spent much of his life trying to make sense of the deeper patterns of life, I felt a quiet sense of respect. And curiosity. Because that’s exactly the question I’ve been living inside of too.

What if what we’re experiencing right now isn’t random? What if it’s not just “things falling apart”? What if it’s part of something that has happened before?

That question led us into a conversation about a book I’ve been reading: The Fourth Turning Is Here by Neil Howe. And while the book itself can be a bit dense at times, the core idea is surprisingly simple—and surprisingly powerful. History, it suggests, moves in cycles. Not perfect circles, but rhythms. Like seasons.

According to this framework, society tends to move through four “turnings” over the course of roughly 80 to 100 years: a time of stability and building, a time of questioning and awakening, a time of unraveling and fragmentation, and then a time of crisis—a Fourth Turning. A winter. A time when systems break down, tensions rise, and the future feels uncertain. But also a time when something new begins to emerge.

If Howe is right—and many historians and observers of history across centuries have sensed that time moves more like a rhythm than a straight line—then we are living in that fourth phase. From Ibn Khaldun’s observations of civilizations rising and falling in cycles, to Arnold Toynbee’s view that societies move through recurring patterns of challenge and response, there has long been an intuition that history has seasons of its own.

As Amber and I explored this together, something else began to come into focus. This moment we’re living through isn’t just about “the world.” It’s about who we are in the world—at this moment in time. According to this model, each generation tends to play a different role during these cycles. And suddenly, it felt very personal.

My generation—what Howe calls the “Prophet” generation—we are the elders now. The ones who have lived through earlier seasons. The ones who remember, or at least can sense, that these cycles are real. Our role isn’t to control what happens next, and it’s not to rescue. It’s to offer perspective. To help name what’s happening. To remind others—especially our children—that winter, as harsh as it can be, does not last forever.

Amber’s generation—the “Hero” generation, those born roughly in the 1980s and 90s—came of age in a time of increasing instability and are now stepping into adulthood during a time of crisis. If this framework holds true, this is the generation that will do the rebuilding. Not alone, but together. They are the ones who will shape the next set of systems, the next culture, the next “normal.” Which means Amber’s instinct—to step back, to look at the bigger picture, to seek understanding rather than reaction—isn’t just wise. It’s exactly what this moment is asking of her.

And then there’s Logan. Five years old. Full of curiosity, energy, and that beautiful openness to the world. In Howe’s language, he would be part of what’s called the “Artist” generation—the ones who are born during the crisis but grow up in what comes after. The ones who don’t lead the rebuilding, but inherit it and shape it in quieter, more relational, more creative ways.

Just the other day, I watched him crouch down in the yard, completely absorbed in something most of us would have walked right past. A tiny line of ants moving with quiet determination across the soil. He stayed there for several minutes, studying them, asking questions, narrating what he thought they were doing. In that moment, the world wasn’t chaotic or broken—it was alive, fascinating, and worthy of his full attention.

Which raises a question that feels very real to me as a grandfather: what kind of world will he grow up into based on what we choose to do now?

One of the things I appreciated most about this framework is that it doesn’t try to sugarcoat the difficulty of times like these. Every Fourth Turning in history has included real hardship, conflict, loss, and uncertainty. The American Revolution tore apart loyalties and families even as it gave birth to a new nation. The Civil War brought unimaginable division and loss of life while redefining what that nation would stand for. And the Great Depression and World War II tested an entire generation through economic collapse and global conflict—yet ultimately led to a period of rebuilding and shared purpose. We have been through winters like this before. But it also offers something that feels deeply needed right now: orientation. A way of seeing that helps us move from “everything is falling apart” to “something is changing—and I have a role to play in what comes next.”

For me, this conversation with Amber didn’t end with answers. It opened something. A shared way of looking at the world that feels less reactive and more purposeful. Less about surviving the moment, and more about participating in what’s emerging. It also reinforced something I’ve been feeling more and more clearly: the future isn’t something that just happens to us. It’s something that is being shaped right now through how we live, how we relate, and what we choose to build together.

If it’s true that we are living in a kind of historical winter, then maybe the question isn’t “How do we get through this as quickly as possible?” Maybe the question is: Who is this time asking us to become?

As parents. As grandparents. As citizens. As stewards of this living Earth.

And perhaps most importantly: what are we creating now that our children—and our grandchildren—will one day call “normal”?

And for Ann and me, that question—what is my role in what comes next?—is no longer theoretical. It’s becoming practical. After more than three decades in our home, we’re in the midst of a significant transition—choosing to move downstairs into a smaller space so that Amber, Justin, and the kids can move into the main home. On the surface, it looks like downsizing. But at a deeper level, it feels like something else entirely. A quiet, imperfect, very human attempt to live into what this moment is asking of us—less accumulation, more connection… less “more,” and more enough. I’ll share more about that journey soon, because in many ways, it feels like our small, personal response to a much larger turning.

P.S. I’d love to hear how this lands for you. Does the idea of a “Fourth Turning” help bring clarity to what you’re seeing in the world… or raise new questions? Feel free to share in the comments or join the conversation in the chat. These are times that call for more than opinions—they call for shared reflection and connection.

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We awoke before dawn to the sound of birds I had never heard before—notes that seemed less like “song” and more like conversation. The air was thick, humid, alive. My fellow travelers from the North— still a bit jet-lagged, but also curious, slightly unsure—gathered near the Amazon River with members of the Sapara community who had graciously welcomed us into their village.

The ceremony was simple.

Sacred tobacco. Chanting. Leaves brushed gently across our bodies. Murmured words in a language older than my own. The smell of earth and river. The towering trees encircling us like quiet elders.

On one level, it was unadorned. No spectacle. No drama.

On another level, it blew my mind.

I did not merely “appreciate nature” that morning. I experienced being one with it. And especially with the trees.

Not in a metaphorical way. Not in a poetic way. In a felt, embodied way that bypassed analysis. It was as if some subtle membrane between “me” and “them” dissolved. The massive trunks around me no longer felt like background scenery. They felt like presences—vast, patient, ancient participants in a shared field of being.

It wasn’t that I believed the trees were alive. I experienced aliveness as a shared current. That’s a different territory altogether.

Perception as Participation

Looking back, I realize that moment marked a shift. Before Ecuador, I loved trees. I admired them. I had even planted a few. I cared about forests around me where I live in the North Carolina mountains. After Ecuador, something changed in how I related to my surroundings. It was no longer “I am here, observing nature.” It was “I am inside a living community.”

The crisis of meaning so many of us sense today is often framed as a loss of faith. But I’m increasingly convinced it is something deeper: a loss of relationship with thew living world of which we are an inextricable participant—the web of life.

In The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram writes:

“For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people but with other animals, plants, and natural objects… How, then, did humans come to sever their ancient reciprocity with the natural world?”

That word—reciprocity—landed hard. In that rainforest clearing, I did not feel like an observer of trees. I felt like a participant in a reciprocal exchange of breath, presence, and awareness.

This is not doctrine. I am not claiming a cosmology. I am sharing a lived moment that altered me. Interconnectedness ceased being an abstract concept. It became sacred and cellular.

From Experience to Vow

Out of that experience grew something that now forms an essential part of my One Cause Morning Vow:

We are here to create life, not destroy it.
We of Earth—of Gaia, of Pachamama—may be the only place in the vastness of the universe where the miracle and experiment of life is unfolding.
To support that miracle through regeneration is, for me, a sacred act.

When I say those words each morning, I am not speaking in metaphor. I am remembering a forest that felt like family.

The Four Great Truths shifted from philosophy to practice.

Interconnectedness was no longer an idea. It was a felt reality.

Sufficiency revealed itself in the forest’s quiet wisdom. Nothing in that rainforest seemed to operate on “more-more-more.” Growth was abundant, yes—but cyclical, balanced, regenerative. Leaves fell. Soil formed. Life fed life without hoarding.

Reciprocity became visible in every layer of that ecosystem. Exchange, not extraction. Giving and receiving as the rhythm of survival.

I am still learning this sacred rhythm and how to be an active steward of it all.

Back home in my garage, I plant seeds in small hydroponic containers and in small recycled containers designed to bring back food from the restaurant. I watch tender shoots push upward toward the light. I harvest greens and enjoy them in my salads. Even there—in that modest act of tending—I feel a whisper of the forest’s lesson: life thrives through relationship.

Meaning Recovered Through Relationship

If our crisis is one of meaning, perhaps it is not because we lack belief. Perhaps it is because we lack participation. The forest did not give me answers to geopolitical instability or climate complexity. It gave me orientation.

It reminded me that I am not outside the web of life. I am a thread within it. And threads have responsibility—not because they are commanded to, but because they belong. Meaning, I am discovering, does not come primarily from ideology. It comes from intimacy.

A Simple Practice

If you’re curious to explore this without flying to Ecuador, try something small.

For one week, choose a tree near your home. Visit it daily for two minutes. Stand beside it. Notice the light at different times of day. Notice the mood of the air. Notice what shifts in your own thoughts and breath. Imagine, gently, that this tree is a distant cousin rather than a decorative object.

Not as superstition. As experiment. Treat the tree like a beloved relative, not scenery.

See what happens. I didn’t leave the rainforest with a new religion. I left with a new way of listening. And then I discovered: this way of knowing isn’t new. It’s ancient.

And it has a name…which we will explore in our part three of this series.

I’m writing as someone who, late in life, has discovered that something he has been practicing for more than seventy years actually has a name.

Animism.

It’s an old word. Older than most religions. Older than most civilizations. And yet it feels strangely fresh to me—as if I’ve simply rediscovered a way of belonging that was always there, waiting patiently under the surface.

Before I had language for it, I had a dog.

His name was Tiddlywink.

I was five years old when he entered my life. A sturdy, loyal sled-pulling hero who changed winter forever. My brother and I would race down the hill on our sled, laughing wildly, and when we reached the bottom, Tiddlywink would pick up the rope in his teeth and pull the sled to the top. Over and over again. We were the envy of every kid on the block, all of whom had to drag their own sleds uphill.

But what I remember most isn’t the convenience.

It’s the companionship.

He wasn’t a “pet” in the ornamental sense. He was family. A presence. A personality. A partner in adventure. There was loyalty in his eyes. Humor. Even what felt like pride in his work.

Fast forward seventy years.

As I write this, Rascal—my current canine companion—lies sleeping under my desk. His gentle breathing keeps time with the clicking of these keys. The love affair continues.

Reflecting on it now, I realize it was that first love affair that had me decide at seven that I wanted more than anything else to become a veterinarian. Thanks, Tiddlywink. It wasn’t that I had some grand strategy, but it felt natural to devote my life to beings I had always experienced as “someone,” not “something.” Over decades of practice, I met thousands of dogs and cats—each with their own temperament, quirks, dignity, and heartbreak.

I also witnessed something profound in their human companions.

No one believes their dog (or cat) is family.

They know.

There’s a difference between belief and experience. You can read a book about how to ride a bicycle, memorize the mechanics, understand the physics—and still fall over the moment you climb on. Knowing the mechanics is not the same as riding.

In the same way, you don’t believe your dog is part of your family the way you believe a political opinion or a theological claim. You know it because you experience it. You’ve felt the nudge of a nose when you were grieving. You’ve felt the weight of a head on your knee. You’ve watched eyes light up when you walk in the door.

That’s not belief. That’s relationship. And this is where animism quietly enters the room.

Animism, at its simplest, is the shift from seeing the world as a collection of “things we use” to experiencing it as a community of beings we relate to. It doesn’t require superstition. It doesn’t require abandoning science. It simply asks us to notice that our most meaningful relationships often cross species lines.

This is not anti-science.

It’s relational perception.

When I say my dog is a “who” rather than a “what,” I am not making a scientific claim. I am naming a lived reality. A dog is not a human person—but he is undeniably a personality, a presence, a participant in my life. Rascal is one of my best friends who just happens to walk on four legs rather then two.

Over the past year, I’ve taken on what I call the One Cause Vow—to live as though the Four Great Truths are real: Interconnectedness. Sufficiency. Reciprocity. Stewardship.

In reflecting on this vow, I realized something that surprised me.

I didn’t learn interconnectedness from a textbook. I learned it from a dog who loved to pull my sled. I learned reciprocity from decades of two-way devotion—the simple truth that love is a current, not a possession. I rescued Rascal from the Blue Ridge Humane Society. And in the aftermath of losing my beloved Argos, Rascal rescued me from grief and loneliness. That’s reciprocity in its purest form.

And stewardship? Care is the original human technology. Before there were ideologies, before there were institutions, there was the act of tending. Feeding. Healing. Walking. Protecting. Sitting quietly beside another living being simply because they matter.

If this is animism, then perhaps many of us have already been animists without knowing it. Perhaps our first doorway into an ancient way of belonging has always been sleeping at our feet. Here’s a small experiment for today.

One Who Today

Choose one non-human “who.” It could be your dog. A bird at the feeder. A tree outside your window. For sixty seconds, relate without multitasking. No phone. No agenda. Just presence. Notice what shifts in your nervous system. In your breathing. In your sense of aliveness. You may find that meaning does not arrive as an idea. It arrives as relationship.

If animals were my first doorway into kinship, the rainforest blew the door off its hinges. And that’s where we’ll go next.

Are we using technology to solve crises… or to avoid feeling them?

What happens when systems scale faster than our capacity for care?

Is AI neutral — or is it simply revealing what we already value?

At what point does innovation become organised abandonment?

A few weeks ago, Ann and I reopened a conversation that has been quietly circling for years. What if Amber and Justin moved into the upstairs of Loving Homestead… and Ann and I moved downstairs to the ‘mother-in-law’ apartment? Four loving adults. Two extraordinary children. One shared roof. One shared experiment.

It feels beautiful. It feels bold. It feels right. And then—as real life tends to do—a wrinkle surfaced. The local school Logan and Piper would attend has a “poor” rating. That word landed heavily. Of course it did. Parents want the best for their children. We all do.

And I found myself sitting with a deeper, slightly uncomfortable realization: even if the school had a five-star rating… would it actually be preparing them for the world they are growing into?

That question has not left me.

The World Our Children Are Inheriting

We are living in what many are calling a polycrisis or metacrisis—overlapping ecological, political, economic, technological, and spiritual disruptions. Some call it the Great Collapse. Others call it the Great Turning. And others, including myself, see it as something messier and more mysterious—like what happens inside a chrysalis as a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly.

Inside that chrysalis, everything dissolves. Structures break down. It looks like chaos. And yet, imaginal cells begin to organize around a new pattern of being.

Perhaps we are living inside such a chrysalis moment. Perhaps our children are not merely inheriting a mess—perhaps we and they are the imaginal cells of what comes next. Whatever language we use, one thing is clear: the world Logan and Piper will inhabit as adults will not look like the world I grew up in. And probably not even like the world their parents grew up in.

So the real question isn’t, “Is this school highly rated?” The real question is: What prepares children to steward a changing world?

Stewardship Is Not the Same as Success

Most school ratings measure standardized test scores, reading and math proficiency, graduation rates, and college admissions. Important? Yes. Sufficient? Not even close…not for these times that are before us and that our children are inheriting.

Because stewardship requires something deeper.

Stewardship is about how we show up in relationship to the Earth, to community, to uncertainty, and to ourselves. It asks not only, “Can you compete?” but “Can you care?” Not only, “Can you achieve?” but “Can you regenerate?”

In many ways, our dominant educational model is based on and a reflection of the Great Untruths:

• that we are separate from nature,

• that more is always better,

• that Earth’s resources are unlimited, or

• that technology will save us.

• But the world our children are stepping into demand a different set of capacities altogether—ones based in and are a reflection of the four Great Truths.

What Might Actually Prepare Our Children?

As I’ve reflected on this—both as a grandfather and as someone deeply living true to the four Great Truths—a few qualities rise to the top.

Emotional resilience. Not the stiff upper lip of suppression, but the ability to feel deeply without being overwhelmed. To face unsettling realities without collapsing into despair. To experience disappointment without losing direction. In a time of disruption, emotional regulation may be more important than algebra.

Collaborative skills. The future will not be navigated alone. Climate events, economic shifts, technological upheaval—these are collective challenges. Children who can listen, negotiate, co-create, and repair relationships will be far better equipped than lone high-achievers. Stewardship is relational.

Comfort with uncertainty. My generation was largely raised with the promise of predictability: study hard, work hard, retire comfortably. That storyline is fraying. Our children need to become fluent in ambiguity—not paralyzed by not knowing, but energized by exploration. This may be one of the most countercultural capacities of all.

Ecological intimacy. To steward something, you must feel connected to it. If nature is merely scenery or resource, stewardship feels optional. But if children grow up planting, composting, repairing, noticing birds, understanding soil… something shifts. They no longer see themselves as separate from nature. They experience interconnection. And that changes everything.

Entrepreneurial adaptability. Not hustle culture, but creative agency. The ability to see problems as invitations. To start small initiatives. To experiment and pivot. In a rapidly shifting world, adaptability may matter more than institutional credentials.

Inner steadiness. Perhaps the quiet foundation beneath all the others—an anchored sense of self, a moral compass not easily swayed by noise, a capacity to act from values rather than panic. Inner steadiness is cultivated slowly—through modeling, conversation, presence. Not through rankings.

The Deeper Realization

As I’ve wrestled with the school rating question, I’ve had to confront something in myself.

Part of me still wants reassurance—a five-star rating, a clear path, a sense that everything will continue more or less as it has. But another part of me knows that no school—highly rated or not—can single-handedly prepare children for this moment in history.

Education is ecological.

It happens in families, in communities, in gardens, at dinner tables, in moments of failure, in how adults handle disagreement, and in whether we model fear or steadiness.

Recently, I created a miniature hydroponic system out of a plastic take-home container so Logan and Piper could watch seeds sprout in real time. Nothing fancy. Just water, light, and patience. But when those first tiny green shoots emerged, their eyes widened. The miracle of growth became immediate, tangible, intimate.

That, too, is education.

That, too, is stewardship training.

And if Ann and I move downstairs while Amber and Justin move upstairs, something extraordinary becomes possible: four adults consciously shaping a micro-culture—one in which the capacities of stewardship are lived daily, not merely discussed.

A Shift in the Question

Instead of asking, “Is this school good enough?” perhaps the better question is:

How do we, as parents and grandparents, cultivate the qualities that will allow our children to steward whatever world unfolds? School matters. But it is not destiny. Atmosphere may matter more. Alignment among adults may matter more. Modeling resilience may matter more.

Each morning, I renew a vow—to live as if the Four Great Truths are real and trustworthy. To embody interconnectedness, sufficiency, reciprocity, and stewardship—not perfectly, but sincerely. That vow subtly shapes my decisions, my conversations, and the kind of world I’m trying to create within my own home.

Because ultimately, our children are watching far more than they are listening.

The Invitation

I don’t pretend to have the final answer. In fact, one of the most important things our children may learn from us is how to navigate not knowing. But I am increasingly convinced of this:

If we raise children who are emotionally resilient, collaborative, comfortable with uncertainty, ecologically intimate, adaptable, and inwardly steady…

They will be capable of stewarding a world in transition.

Whether the school rating is high or low.
Whether the times are calm or turbulent.
Whether the future is predictable or entirely new.

And perhaps that is the deeper work before us—not simply protecting our children from a changing world, but preparing them to participate in its regeneration.

P.S. Here are a few pics of what has taken up much of my time (and had me miss publishing a Substack article on Feb. 20th):