Thank you, Donna, for your support.

Hi Meg, thanks so much for your thoughtful comment.

What springs to mind in response to your question is that no, its not a HUMAN trait to only value what’s precious after its gone — it’s a MODERN HUMAN trait. We did value what is precious until we were conditioned not to. Indigenous people, first nations people around the world still value what’s precious, and they scratch their heads at our values. Around 8 to 10 thousand years of conditioning, since the beginning of agriculture and the “domination culture” we live in now, has taught us to value things that don’t actually make us truly happy. But when what’s precious is gone, or when we get a scare that we might lose it, for example when a loved one has a serious health scare, then suddenly what we truly value can come back into focus.

And as you know, there are ways to identify what we truly value and bring it back into focus before we risk losing it. Ok, you’re right, we have lost some of what is precious and we are at risk of losing more.

And, yes, gratitude for what we still have is super important… to focus only on what’s going wrong and what we’ve lost while trying to save what’s left would be a bit like working for justice while continuing to be un-just to ourselves internally. Hope that makes sense!

If you feel like it, please let me know how that feels in response to your question?

When I wrote The Stick, the Carrot, and the Gift, I promised to expand on that and related topics, and your question has prompted me to dig that out and work on it a bit more, so thank you!

The self reliance skills, in particular growing food, is taking much longer to achieve and I have more patience with myself regarding this…slowly it is happening.
The more I am embedded in the land to grow food the more I feel a connection to the land and my interdependence with it.
I believe many more of us will be working the land with our own muscle power in the future, as cheap energy wanes and this will be a good thing for humans and the planet…for reconnection at all levels.

We already live in the most beautiful of worlds yet through our human made systems of exploitation & extraction for excessive material comfort we have destroyed so much that sustains us and all of life.
Is it a human trait that we only truly value what is precious when it’s gone? Gratitude now for what we still have seems very important.