The Navajo Way:
"When the dung beetle moves," Hosteen Nashibitti had told him,
"know that something has moved it. And know that its movement affects the
flight of the sparrow, and the raven deflects the eagle from the sky, and
that the eagle's stiff wing bends the will of the Wind People, and know
that all of this affects you and me, and the flea on the prairie dog and
the leaf on the cottonwood." That had always been the point of the
lesson. Interdependency of nature. Every cause has its effect. Ever
action its reaction. A reason for everything. In all things a pattern,
and in this pattern, the beauty of harmony. Thus one learned to live with
evil, by understanding it, by reading its cause. And thus one learned,
gradually and methodically, if one was lucky, to always "go in beauty," to
always look for the pattern, and to find it.
Reflections of Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn in the book Dance Hall of the Dead,
by Tony Hillerman.
You know, you'll find such expressions of interconnectedness in many
texts. The systems view is just another of those expressions, another
useful metaphor for helping us understand that we're all in this together.
-- John Woods jwoods@execpc.com