The word "spiritual" normally means something that's distinct from the fleshly or the material. It's not of the world. But that version of spirituality is bankrupt today. It had its use when the program of science divested matter from the spiritual qualities - - the qualities of a self, or of a being. When science divested the world of those qualities and made it into just a thing, rather than a self, it gave us license to treat it as just a thing, and not as something sacred, conscious, alive, intelligent. So this is tied into the whole trajectory of our civilization.

The financial crisis we are facing today arises from the fact that there is almost no more social, cultural, natural, and spiritual capital left to convert into money.

You can't have community as an add-on to a monetized life. You have to actually need each other.

Each experience of love nudges us toward the Story of Interbeing, because it only fits into that story and defies the logic of Separation.

In a gift economy, the more you give, the richer you are.

Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says 'more for you is less for me.' But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. This shift of consciousness is universal in everybody, 99% and 1%.

When any of us meet someone who rejects dominant norms and values, we feel a little less crazy for doing the same. Any act of rebellion or non-participation, even on a very small scale, is therefore a political act.