Designing Regenerative Cultures Quotes

“So, are we worth sustaining? Life on Earth will continue without us. Yet will it not be a much impoverished place without a species capable of reflecting on the miracle of life’s evolution and able to be awestruck by the beauty of this precious planet? We have to be honest with ourselves. Even in dedicating our lives to the creation of regenerative cultures and a more sustainable future, we are not ‘saving the planet’ or ‘saving life on Earth’. Both will continue long after our species meets its almost inevitable fate of extinction. Nevertheless, we don’t have to actively accelerate our own demise, as we have done with increasing effort since the industrial revolution.”
― Daniel Wahl, Designing Regenerative Cultures

“A human being is part of the whole – called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature […] [italics added] Albert Einstein (1950)”
― Daniel Christian Wahl, Designing Regenerative Cultures

“Through thousands of years of anthropocentric conditioning […] we have inherited shallow, fictitious selves, and created a pervasive illusion of separation from nature. […] As long as the environment is ‘out there,’ we may leave it to some special interest group like environmentalists to protect while we look after our ‘selves.’ The matter changes when we deeply realize that the nature ‘out there’ and the nature ‘in here’ are one and the same, that the sense of separation no matter how pervasive is nonetheless totally illusory. I would call the need for such realisation the central psychological or spiritual challenge of our age. John Seed (2002)”
― Daniel Wahl, Designing Regenerative Cultures

“Living the questions together is an effective way of preparing for an unpredictable future.”
― Daniel Wahl, Designing Regenerative Cultures