Following Nature's Lead – Ancient Ways of Living in a Dying World

This finely tuned book draws on ancient Greek and Roman philosophy as a source of inspiration for engaging with our contemporary ecological crisis and reconnecting with Nature. The Greeks had a word for overreach – hubris – that characterises our modern attitude, and which was always followed by nemesis. Ancient Hellenic philosophy can be regarded as a form of indigenous wisdom that is ‘place-based, relationship-focused, situated in narrative, relationally accountable, and actionable.‘ (p. xiii) To thrive together is to live in harmony, with true sensitivity to our real and impermanent situation as interconnected parts within a systemic whole. Ideas from Lucretius are illustrated through King Lear in terms of structural parallels and errors of judgement. This highlights the need for different values to underpin our actions and policies; in this respect, we can learn a lot from traditional wisdom.

In the following chapter, we meet Epicurus and Walt Whitman, but also Liebig as the founder of agricultural chemistry feeding into reductionist and extractive agriculture. Plotinus enjoins us to chisel our own statue into a beautiful and virtuous form. There is a wide-ranging discussion of humility as an antidote to hubris, and it was good to learn that the other phrase inscribed at Delphi besides “know thyself” was “nothing in excess,” which sounds like a Taoist injunction, and is the very opposite of modern consumerism. The author then draws on Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and further 19th century figures such as Ernst Haeckel (Umwelt), Jakob von Uexkull, Thoreau and Emerson, building on Hierocles’ circles of concern in a diagram bringing together the eudaemonic virtues with flourishing. (p. 84)

Seneca reminds us that everything is destined to die, that nothing is stable, and that all is subject to cycles – but also to potential renewal through resilience. The argument of the book is reflected in the chapter title, There is no Wealth but Life, but how do we live this rather than try to manage it in market capitalism? At this point, John Ruskin makes an entry, especially his book Unto This Last, which made a deep impression on Gandhi in developing his economic philosophy of sarvodoya – welfare for all. He writes that ‘the foxglove blossom, - a third part bud, a third part past, a third part in full bloom; - is a type of the life of this world.’ (p. 148) Ruskin had a passion for justice and kairos (rightness), also present in Hesiod, and embodied in valor as strength, value, and the quality of being valiant. The book as a whole represents ‘a creative up-cycling of the past to address contemporary concerns.’ (p. 167) And Ruskin reminds us that while Utopianism is not our business, the work towards a better world is. In his epilogue, the author meditates on the word stock in its various meanings, including taking stock, which this book inspires us to do.