In my first post I focused attention on three principles, indicating that they will be central to what I share here.  Now I want to say more about the first two:

• All life comes from life.
• All life depends on life.

Some might roll their eyes at the first one; it's so obvious!  Everybody knows about mothers, eggs, seeds and such.  Who needs a reminder of origins?  I reply that life needs us to maintain the perspective; of almost seven billion people, certainly some can use a reminder.  Not only that, it's one thing to know the fact and another to be mindful of it, consciously impressed, one could say, with life's variety and productivity.  I am calling for such mindfulness.  We should finally see it in each other, whenever we look around: Countless other beings brought me to life!  Countless other beings gave me life!  Living in such gratitude would certainly change our tune and dance.

The second principle, pertaining to sustainability, neatly resembles the first, but perhaps too much.  As such, it understates the fact that all lives constitute a life support system for all lives.  That system needs our understanding, care and cooperation as never before.  We interfere with and diminish it at our peril; it's the only proven sustainable life support system.

Beings capable of photosynthesis are esteemed for forming light into edible matter, and the eaters and decomposers of that matter, and its descendants, complete the life support system, aka the web of life.  The web is simultaneously structure and process, a complementarity and unity that is the supreme example of interdependence.  History suggests some strands of the web have been non-essential, but now, and increasingly, any reckless removal of beings and connections adds a potential challenge for the survivors -- or might even knock out an essential.  Never in history were so many people hoping and striving for personal possession of so much lifeless matter.  Never were so many people consuming food grown in lifeless soils or taken from declining stocks. Never were there so many people.

I began this with what was the given for us in the first place.  Because humans have lately surfaced and used so much ancient sunlight (fossil fuels), some of our lives, who can know how many, may depend on it.  That's possibly the ultimate in risky behavior.