Page 34 - ECOlogic Book

being, through us and out of us. But neither an excess nor shortage of
water enters or leaves us. We are neither bloated nor dehydrated, but
sensitive balancing regulators guide water through us.”

“Water”, he continues, “exemplifies our total ecology. Like water, the
natural environment sensitively flows in and through us. Every few years
over 95% of our body is replaced molecule by molecule, atom by atom by
new molecules and atoms from our natural surroundings; not too many, not
too few, just the right amount for our lives to flourish and global life to
continue flowing. Every seven years or so, he says, “we are completely
replaced by Organism Earth. It becomes us, we become it . . . Your thirst is
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the planet expressing its need to flow.”

Jim dodge says that to begin to understand natural systems is to begin to
understand the Self. Our self does not leave off at the edge of our skin, but
extends outward in many layers, like the Russian Matrieska dolls within dolls
within dolls. My “self” is nested into by immediate community, which, in
turn, is nested into the Clinton River Watershed. This, in turn, is nested into
the Great Lakes basin (bioregion), which, again, is nested into Turtle Island,
(the bioregional name, borrowed from its original inhabitants, for the North
American Continent).

Within each bioregion, there may be many “microregions”. Decisions made
within a microregion must take into account the flow within the larger
bioregion of which it is a part. Actions taken with this cognizance have an
ecological integrity. Power flows from bottom to top. As Cafard has said,
“Regional politics do not take place in Washington, Moscow, or other seats of
power. Bioregional power does not sit. It flows everywhere, through
watersheds and blood streams.”

One of the recommendations in the UNA-USA/ Sierra Club report to the U.N.
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Environmental Programme (UNEP) is that the UNEP act as coordinator and
partner in pacts made for the governance of regional seas or river basins
(bioregions), to provide a central contact point for non-governmental
organizations (which could make the U.N. the biggest Matrieska doll of all).
Without a doubt, this will be controversial among bioregionalists, who have
an aversion to centralized anything. But the key phrase here is “point of
contact”. If the UNEP attempts to be anything more than that, the

26 Cohen, Michael, “The Fabirc of Balance”, in Interspecies Communication Newsletter, Fall, 1990.

27 Report: Uniting nations for the Earth, (available from UNA-USA Publications, Dept. 485, Fifth Ave., New
York, NNY)

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