Dr. Vandana Shiva spoke so directly, clearly and passionately. She was a refreshing voice and an extraordinarily effective speaker. Her approach of holistic thinking about world issues combines elements of the spiritual sanctity of our planet and its people with systems thinking essential to understanding complex ecological and economic systems. This synthesis is in itself holistic.

The understanding that nature is not “out there” but we are in it  accomplishes so quickly and elegantly a leap that the rest of the world needs to make—to conceptualize environmentalism as part of the human environment. This also has to do with circles. We ourselves are part of a circle that travels from nature to humans  whose uses of nature in themselves change that nature and the circle continues. The circle’s ultimate “destination”, where the loop closes, is that when life ends the human body remains a permanent member of the collection of matter that makes up our universe, and nothing more, no matter what we believe. We are points on a large circle, we travel in circles over our life time and we interrupt and take part in circles every day.

I loved thinking about circles and watching Dr. Shiva speak because there was a circle right on her forehead!! The bindi is a cosmetic tradition that spans immense amounts of time and has a vast diversity of cultural and spiritual significance. This speaks to the universality of circles and that holistic consciousness and systems thinking is the only way to make the world continue to turn in a circle, while it travels around the sun (a circle) in a circle. I did mention that we live on a circle, right?!

Look at our heads, our eyes, and consider the perfection and complexity of a circle, and you’re a more valuable citizen to this earth than you were before.