Much of how we see and experience ourselves and the world around us depends upon the beliefs we have internalized along the way.  We initially see the world the way we've been taught to see it by our culture.  We have all been culturally hypnotized from birth.  This inner programming can be changed, but it is a difficult process and can be very painful at times.  Change can begin when one begins to realized that real learning  does not come solely through assimilating knowledge.  Change also involves coming to hold one's conceptual frame work sufficiently lightly to allow in experiences that don't fit well with one's current framework.  If we would allow our belief systems to fundamentally change through experiences, our perceptions and everything else about our lives will change.  Formulating, expanding, and revising one's world view can be the most exciting thing about being alive.  If we come to see the universe and our planet with its ecosystems as intelligent, it seems inevitable that our esteem for nature will rise

Developing a contextual perspective:  We modern humans, in designing and building our economic and political "machinery" have considered ourselves separate from the rest of nature and even in control of it.  But, in truth, our social organization is as biological a phenomenon as that of any other life form.  We can acquire profound insights on where we succeed and where we fail only by recognizing ourselves as living systems embedded within other living systems.  The lack of a biological awareness of ourselves as one of many interconnected and interdependent species has resulted in the unintentional destruction and pollution of the very environment from which we draw our nourishment.  We are only just beginning to learn that the consequences of our industrial activity are actually threatening our survival.

Reworking conceptual models:  Our contemporary human society is an interesting test of the Darwinian evolutionary model that has guided its economic organization.  We have assumed that competitive individualism, with profits as a bottom line, in leading to the "survival of the fittest" would somehow benefit us all.  But this model leads to a ruthless elimination of all but the most aggressive competitors.  These economic competitors always become few in numbers and ultimately dominate all economic and social activity for their own personal benefit to the detriment of society and the destruction of the natural living environment.  Nature shows us that mature ecosystems do not evolve toward the sole survival of the most aggressive and clever.  Rather, they evolve toward intelligent and cooperative mutual support communities in which every species has a valid and valued role.  In such a community, the bottom line is not profits, but output useful to other species in a virtually 100 percent recycling economy.