This is my attempt
To summarise in verse
My dad’s big theory of everything
Of us and the universe
From the big bang to today
He’s got a hell of a lot to say!
About all we must change and learn
If we earthlings are to play our turn
Quickly and with conviction
To prevent our human extinction
In brief
My dad’s big ToE
Says much of what we need to know
Is etched within deep time’s truths and tales
At both macro and micro scales
It points to the need to learn to go
With Earth’s great patterned flow
To follow evolutionary route maps
And avoid extraction and distraction pits and traps
To embrace a 13.7 billion year logic
Neither random or ideologic
An eco-logic stitched through time
With its own poetic rhythm and rhyme
It says we must learn to go with the cosmic grain
Or we’ll be left to explain
To generations to come
Why we are being evicted by planet mum
It says we must look around us, really look
And in physics, biology, theology and history books
To see Earth’s beautiful fractals
It’s repeated patterns and spirals
Which repeat, renew and evolve
As sure as sun, moon and earth revolve
Distributive and diverse
The twisting, turning dance of the universe
It tells us to demystify and intensify
The process of enlivenment
Help life to build on life
In this complex web of entanglement
It reminds us that in evolutionary scales
Our human existence pales
Into insignificance
Whilst suggesting, with a glimmer of romance
That we humans can play a critical role
In Earth’s next great dance
As Earth’s first species
To have the means and abilities
To consciously enquire into life’s mysteries
To learn and to find
With open hearts, hands and mind
How to intentionally follow and enhance
This planetary dance
Of Earth’s staggered advance
It points to our biological and ecological
Interconnectedness as people and planet
The way we are bound to each other
As sister, brother, mother and lover
And not just bound, but as one
Inseparable part of the sum
An ingredient in nature’s batter
In mind and in matter
His ToE, urges us to
Use our capacity for conscious
And intentional collective action
To change and challenge western Extraction, deduction and destruction
That values humans and nature so low
And continually works to exploit and to grow and grow
It says if we are to survive
We must end this capitalist, imperialist drive
Instead we must strive to thrive
As a whole species and a living planetary system
With love, hope and wisdom
We must become agents of Gaia
Our ancestral mother and life supplier
To survive and thrive
We must embrace a syntropic drive
To avoid entropic disorder and decline
We must optimise and synthesise
Energy In it’s many forms
With ever increasing efficiency as the norm
Like nature’s harnessing of solar
Leaving nothing wasted or left over
We must build capacity to get to the root of adversity
And to embrace diversity
Of people, plants, ideas, tech, resources
And of organising and decision-making structures
To heal ruptures
End oppression and dispossession
It points to the Anthropocene
As the result of man-made greed and machine
Western values, beliefs and ego
That put man’s individual wealth and power before the eco
That detached logic from nature
Mind from body
Science from art
And head from heart
To survive and thrive
We must now make way for the rise
Of women and the global south
Recognise that logic derives from nature’s mouth
That relationships are our strongest currency
And our greatest power and wealth is
In our collective wellbeing and agency
That systems need to be more organic than mechanic
And the machine must turn green
And the importance of the integration and glue
Between all we think, feel and do
And this must be replicated and reflected
in the redesign of our organising systems and structures
For life, work and agriculture
In short
Our compassion, consciousness & curiosity
Can set us free
They are our superpower
And provide humanity’s only hope
In this critical hour
And so
His ToE
Weaves together
His 80 years of life, work & play
His own thinking, feelings and actions
And many interactions
And the very many many books and papers piled high
Where he eats, sleeps and retreats
To pull together
Physics, Cosmology, Ecology
Theology, Sociology, Economics
Politics etc etc
As integrated threads
In one complex web
A web we have the ability to reimagine
And to redesign
Except we are rapidly running out of time
There is only so much
One poem can cover
If there’s more you’d like to know
About my dad’s big ToE
Please wish him good luck
In writing his book!
Thanks in advance!
December 2021, written for my dad, Chris Duncan, for Christmas
Eve Holt 