By Tom & Carol Braford
Nobel prize-winning chemist, Ilya Prigogine, famously said, “When a system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence can shift the entire system.”
When a flood comes, individual rocks are tumbled downstream, but when the floodwaters reach Islands of Coherence where rocks are tightly knitted together, the stream itself changes course.
There are proverbial storm clouds on the horizon that portend a calamitous future for individuals and loose-knit communities on social, environmental and economic fronts.
So what can we do? The good news is that our city, region and country are all well positioned to rapidly change course away from what is now our predictable, almost certain future. What will it take? We need to come together in small Islands of Cohesion, not just to survive, but to form a network of close-knit communities that can thrive and become models for others.
The Arizmendi Ecovillage in the Central West End and the Hummingbird Micro Ecovillage in Fox Park are designed to lead the way to these kinds of communities, not just for now, but well into the post carbon, less dependent, more abundant future that we all want to be headed for.
Contact us to find out how you can join the team that is putting an end to greater and greater fragmentation and moving us in the direction of Islands of Cohesion by celebrating our humanity.
As we outlined in our August article, we are working with an international team to create celebrations for ‘I Am Humanity’ Day on October 26, 2024, in countries all over the world!
How would you like to participate with us to create St. Louis’ celebration? Can you help us spread the word and engage your family, friends and neighbors in participating? Can you join a team to help produce St. Louis’ unique program, ‘We are Humanity in the Heartland’?
We envision having live music, singing, dancing, yummy food, and special activities for the children.
To find out more and to join one or more teams, please contact us as soon as possible at: braford@sbcglobal.net or at www.ArizmendiEcovillage.com.