Four Questions for a Sustainable Society: Does it Create Abundance?

Reader Contribution by Staff
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Abundance is a very old word. It came to modern English speakers virtually intact from Middle English about a thousand years ago. They got it from Old French, which picked it up nearly intact from the Romans who had a goddess, Abundantia, who reigned over the concept and guarded the mythical cornucopia, the horn of plenty. At some point she passed the torch to St. Abundantia, an Italian girl from Spoleto who made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and spent five contemplative years in a cave in the Egyptian desert. St. Abundantia was known for her generosity, the spontaneous ringing of bells and the tendency of flowers to bloom in her presence, even in the middle of winter.[1]

People have always been aware that abundance was what we desired. It is a feature of every Utopian vision. But nature has a bad habit of reminding us that the symbols of abundance — flowers blooming in winter or a goat’s horn that delivers unlimited amounts of excellent food and drink — are mythological. In the real world resources are limited.

The only practical means of creating abundance in our world requires examining the ratio between our capacities and our desires. Our capacities can be measured. Our desires can, presumably, be adjusted to fit within our capacities. And if we fit our desires within our capacities with some room left over then abundance is possible.

A few years ago Natural Home magazine profiled Michael Funk’s California foothills home on the Yuba River. Funk made some money in the natural-food business and chose to build his dream home among the waterfalls, gorges and pine-scented woods of the Sierra Nevada. He built the home off the grid to generate all its own electricity with passive-solar energy for heat and efficient natural ventilation. He used reclaimed wood, recycled wood and wood certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council from renewable sources. He used local granite for walls and foundations, insulation made from recycled denim and wool clothing, natural wool carpets, permanent natural slate for the roofs, natural waxes, solar hot water and cultivated extensive orchards and gardens that provide a lot of food for Funk and his guests.

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