This is the Reckoning: What Ancient Wisdom and Living Systems Science Demand of Us Now
The Reckoning by Dr Demeter diagnoses how linear, extractive institutions, from governance and justice to economics, fracture our ties to Country, ecologies and Life. Drawing on First Nations ontologies and living-systems science, it shows how current models rely on linear time, resource extraction, and punitive logic that sever relationships and ignore ecological feedback. The essay threads together:
Ancient Wisdom, as found in songlines, ceremony, and relational practices that view time as cyclical, land as kin, and history as alive in every gesture.
Living-Systems Science, which sees ecosystems, societies, and economies as self-organising networks of feedback loops, patterns, and interdependencies.
By weaving these perspectives, The Reckoning calls for a shift from top-down bureaucracies and extractive policies to participatory, place-based co-design that honours Indigenous law, restores relational justice, and regenerates soil, spirit, and social fabric. Its core prescriptions are to decolonise thought by dissolving the nature–culture divide; reweave reciprocity through restorative, relational practices; and value embodied integration over mere information.
In closing, the essay issues an urgent invitation to remember the ancestral balance our systems once held and to co-create new governance, economy, and justice, an urgent reckoning with what we’ve forgotten and what the world now desperately needs.
