Do you know your origin story—the evolutionary account of your
roots and those of everything else? If you’re like most people
in Western societies, your honest answer is no. And that, it
turns out, is a BIG problem. What’s the problem with being
story-less? We’re in the midst of a gargantuan sustainability
crisis, the greatest challenge ever faced by humanity. The vast
majority of scientific experts, from ecologists to
climatologists, are in full agreement that we are currently on a
collision course with ruin, involving human suffering and
devastation to the biosphere on an almost unimaginable scale.
Finding and following a new, more sustainable path will require
much more than new technologies. Any solution demands no less
than a novel way of seeing the world, one that gives our lives
greater meaning and causes us to take action to protect and
nurture our native places. In other words, we must foster a new
worldview that roots humanity in both local places and deep
time—exactly the kind of thing that origin