Resilience and how to slow down

It is getting colder outside. The colours of the forest are changing, forming a beautiful gradient from deep and light green through yellow, bright and dark orange to red, purple, brown. It’s a beautiful autumn scene. As I walk, I think about how incredibly predictable nature is most of the time, at least from the subjective lens of my human experience. I think a lot about how nature might evolve in the future, and what the future of humanity might look like.

Most natural processes, as well as the emergence of life, have taken millennia to develop and stabilise, continuing their slow evolution over time. There are well-established water and carbon cycles, seasonal variations, and gradual transitions from hot to cold and back again, day turning into night and back. This cyclical predictability has helped humans and other living organisms adapt and live in coherence with their environment.

And yet, there are outliers, events that shake this steadiness and predictability. They include extreme storms, which occur at irregular intervals and devastate natural landscapes as well as human infrastructure. Earthquakes, solar activity and impacts from celestial objects, asteroids or comets (though extremely rare), with dramatic consequences in Earth’s history, such as the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.

But unlike these outliers, our modern way of living is causing disruptions that are not part of nature’s cycle. Many of our current challenges arise from humanity’s accelerated environmental impact and the ecological disconnection created by rapid industrial, technological and societal change. Our attempts to control and alter the natural world, often desynchronised and incoherent with Earth's rhythms are made without full awareness of their long-term consequences on the ecosystem. And we are completely oblivious to how these changes might ripple into the future. Nature is our greatest teacher in resilience. Every process unfolds with purpose, in its own time. Entropy though seemingly chaotic remains measurable, even partly predictable. It guides matter and energy toward equilibrium. A quiet drift toward balance. There is no haste in this movement, only steady transitions and delicate adjustments that sustain life over time. The way temperature shifts influence microorganisms, animals, and vegetation determines which species emerge and thrive under specific conditions. As those conditions change, new stages arise slowly, steadily, and in tune with the larger rhythm. In nature, everything is connected; there seems to be a universal intelligence in the way things flow.

There is the concept of a keystone species: "a species that has a large impact on its ecosystem relative to its abundance. Even if it isn’t the most numerous, its presence or absence critically shapes the structure, diversity, and functioning of the ecosystem." I often wonder why humans are the only species on Earth that seem disconnected from these well-established natural systems. We are, in a sense modifiers, a non-keystone species; our presence is not essential to the functioning of any existing natural ecosystem. Actually, through our use and reshaping of the land, we’ve contributed to the quiet loss of countless plant and animal species. If we were to disappear, the planet would most likely continue its process of balancing and recovering from the persistent human influence. We are probably the most prominent outlier in nature's systems. Here is why:

Our urban settlements are typically developed in areas with abundant natural resources. Once those resources are depleted, these areas are abandoned, a pattern repeated many times throughout history. As David R. Montgomery notes in Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, entire civilisations have collapsed due to the overuse of land and resources.

This is still happening again today. Modern agriculture, while designed to sustain humanity, frequently fails both people and nature. We are losing vast amounts of topsoil (crucial for sustaining life and food production); the widespread use of pesticides, intended to ensure consistent food supply, depletes soil nutrients and disrupts local climate, pollute underground water wells, and diminish air quality. The way we source and move building materials not only strains our efforts to manage carbon emissions but also scars and pollutes the landscapes we depend on. With our current consumption rate, and without discovering new reserves, oil will probably diminish within half a century. We simply do not replenish what we take.

Nowhere is our misunderstanding of resilience clearer than in the way we manage water. The way we manage water in cities, along with existing water infrastructure, undermines the long-established water cycle. Water is the most resilient and life sustaining substance on Earth. We are as well, for the most part, made of water. Yet we continue to deplete it, disregarding its natural rhythms and processes. Urban water systems are among the least intuitive and least sustainable human-made systems. We consume vast amounts of clean water (in fortunate countries) and pollute it through daily use. It is then released as quickly as possible, either directly back into nature or through large, land-intensive treatment plants that rely on chemicals for purification. The same applies to atmospheric water management and infrastructure: rigid systems that efficiently remove water from urban surfaces, but in doing so, also concentrate and carry surface pollutants.

Nature, by contrast, takes a different approach. Rivers meander to slow water flow. Vegetation gradually filters and cleans it, creating conditions for plants, life to thrive and allowing clean water to circulate naturally. Rain filters through the soil, replenishing underground water wells, a quiet cycle of renewal that remains invisible but effective.

So, the faster we re"move" water in our surroundings, the more we destabilise the water quality, quantity and the water cycle. We learn and adapt: From architecture standpoint, contemporary architecture and urban projects aim to challenge traditional approaches and reshape the environments we inhabit. Concepts like sustainability, liveability, green infrastructure, and resilience have gained prominence, a shift away from design focused purely on function or aesthetics. Increasingly, architectural projects consider their broader context, with drawings extending beyond the building itself to include the surrounding landscape and ecological impact. Inclusive design, attentive to both human needs and environmental potential, has become a guiding principle in some practices. This marks a noticeable change from past approaches, where architects often held central control over project decisions. Architecture and engineering professions share enormous responsibility for the condition of our cities, and it is encouraging to see evolving approaches that integrate environmental awareness and holistic design thinking.

The way we design infrastructure and the systems we create to seemingly control our environment and make life easier are clearly harming not only ecosystems but ourselves as well. Resilience in our cities won’t come from control, but from balance, an approach rooted in understanding, shared knowledge, and collaboration across disciplines.

In nature, every element contributes to equilibrium. Change unfolds through patience, the slow noticing of what works, what doesn’t, and the quiet adjustments in between. If we can learn to move at nature’s pace to build, grow, and renew with awareness, technology can serve as an ally rather than a driver.

True resilience isn’t resistance. It is rhythm, cycle, constant adaptation, a capacity to keep evolving. That same rhythm belongs in us too, shaping how we live, design, and care for the environments we inhabit, ensuring that the systems we build support life rather than disrupt it. We are intelligent and remarkable species. We learn fast, we adapt fast. Finally, I hope for a future where we move and live in coherence with nature, when we finally slow down and look around, and remain immensely grateful for being allowed to exist in this world, our home.

Jelena Holl 13.10.2025

What Is the Point and What if … ?

The Creation of Adam, by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel, Vatican

Like most people, I’ve been thinking a lot about the purpose of our existence, about the existence of the universe itself, the singular moment when everything came into being. It’s almost impossible to imagine that the vast cosmos we explore and witness today was once compressed into a single “singularity”. And then…why did it expand? Did it really happen like that at all, nobody knows, we can only speculate, but yet here we are.

I have always had this notion that when we think of the formation of the universe and the life within it, we are overlooking one of the most profound realities: consciousness. It is the invisible thread that connects all life on Earth. Humans, animals, insects, even the smallest organisms seem to be conscious. Where does this underlying prerequisite of life originate, and what is its purpose? I often wonder: would the universe exist at all if there were no conscious living beings to experience it? And then comes the eternal “chicken-and-egg” question: which arose first, consciousness or life? Is consciousness fuelling life and is it a pre-condition for life? It seems inseparable from it, woven into its very fabric. When I witnessed my grandmother’s death, I experienced one of the most surreal, emotionally unbearable, inexplicable, and most profound moments of my life. I noticed, the moment she died, her body became nothing more than a shell. I could no longer recognise her face, as if when life left her body, it carried her beauty, all her light with it. What remained was an unrecognisable husk, as though an animal had shed its old skin and stepped into its next phase of existence. The void of her soul no longer being among us was the hardest things to grasp. And yet, as I sat beside her body, in the depth of my grief, I also felt an unexpected wave of relief: her body was no longer suffering, and in some ineffable way, it felt as though she had been carried into another realm. A dimension which I could only hope for and in some way imagine and feel, just so that her passing would not be meaningless. Her uniqueness not lost. Her love still present.

And since then, after witnessing this “transition”, I have often wondered: where did that life, the force that animated her every cell of her body, every breath, every heartbeat go? Did it truly vanish, or did it dissolve back into the deeper fabric of time and space, rejoining something greater than we can ever comprehend? Could her life experience, her memories, her very essence, have been absorbed into a universal field of information, a kind of human consciousness database, one that continues to expand and evolve, perhaps even accelerating the unfolding of human awareness itself? I know that she has, at the very least, enriched my own “database.” And if there is even a small possibility that life both originates from and returns to such a source, then perhaps the point of our existence is to enrich, expand, and evolve this hidden dimension of the universe. And death therefore does not exist.

And what if there is no such universal field, then perhaps all this information and knowledge remains within our earthly realm, passed on through memory, culture, and story, carried from one generation to the next. And maybe, in the end, that is all there is.

What we see of the Cosmos makes up only a small percentage of the universe. The remaining large part consists of dark matter and dark energy, realities we cannot see directly but can infer from their effects in and on galaxies. Without them, the movements of galaxies, the structure of the cosmos, and even our current physical theories would begin to fall apart. And if we can infer the effect of death on life, why is then consciousness not taken into consideration while making these measurements which constitute our universe.

Perhaps consciousness is a kind of “dark energy” of life, an invisible force that shapes our reality in ways we cannot yet measure. Just as dark matter influences the motion of galaxies and dark energy drives the expansion of the galaxies and the universe, consciousness might influence the evolution of life, the flow of experience, and even the unfolding of the cosmos itself.

We observe its effects in ourselves and in others the growth of knowledge, the ripple of emotions, the decisions that shape the course of history. The way we transform our lives with time passing. Yet, like dark matter, it eludes direct detection, its unmeasurable. We cannot grasp it even when it leaves our bodies. Could it be that our understanding of the universe is incomplete precisely because we ignore the most intimate, powerful, and pervasive force of all: the inner awareness that perceives, interprets, and connects all that exists?

What if the consciousness that life carries is not only a byproduct of matter and the way matter and its foundational particles interact and evolve, but a fundamental and foundational aspect of the universe, as real as the stars, the galaxies, and the invisible forces that bind them together? If some of us choose to call this presence God, then so be it. Certain life experiences have led me to sense a force beyond our understanding, a kind of  presence or a sort of an undepleting source of energy that quietly sustains and cares for all beings. And there comes up this question again, why does life need to continue and what is the purpose?

I recently watched a lecture by a well known particle physicist who discussed a fascinating idea. She referred to the theorist Lee Smolin, who proposes that “ the purpose of our universe might be to create black holes”. In his view, “the strength of gravity is finely tuned, neither too weak nor too strong, so that black holes can form”. If gravity was even slightly different, black holes would not exist at all. Smolin even speculates that “our entire universe could itself be contained within a gigantic black hole”. According to this theory, the universe may not be “designed” for life, but rather to maximise black hole creation. And from a strictly scientific standpoint, such an idea could sound both probable and sufficient enough, perhaps, to momentarily satisfy our human yearning to grasp the universe’s purpose. Yet if black holes are indeed the end purpose, what meaning lies beyond their formation? From our vantage point, what is behind the Event Horizon, we cannot see nor measure. This line marks the outer edge of our knowledge and understanding. Beyond it is singularity again, silence, mystery, and speculation.

And in a way, this limit mirrors our own human confrontation and understanding of death. Just as the event horizon conceals the fate of matter that falls beyond it, death conceals the fate of consciousness when it leaves the body. Both are thresholds: one written in the language of physics, the other inscribed in the fabric of human experience.

Just as our senses are limited, perhaps the information available to us in this realm is also limited, restricted to what we are meant to discover within it. It could be that existence unfolds like a vast simulation, where we progress through different “levels” of complexity. Each stage of life, with its beauty and suffering, deepens our consciousness and understanding, much like a computer game that requires us to evolve, adapt, and learn each level before advancing to a new one.  But what would be the purpose of that and what if ..….. ? Jelena Holl 24.08.2025

Sacred Water

Once again, my family and I are spending our summer vacation in Macedonia, and arriving late in June, we were struck by how lush and green everything was. The forest was full of mushrooms,  the open prairies were covered with wildflowers and tea plants just beginning to bloom, the water streams were full. The fragrant herbs and mountain tea released their aroma, carried throughout the valley by the fresh mountain breeze. It smelled like a warm cup of tea - everywhere.

It was nature as I remembered it, vibrant and alive. The scent from my childhood memories so vivid again. It felt like time travel, I am eight again somehow, when the days were pleasantly warm, and the nights quiet and refreshingly cool. 

A few days after our arrival, I stood in the garden and thought, “What a beautiful summer so far.” But the memory of past summers lingered—and I couldn’t help but await the coming heat with a reluctant heart and fear.

What I was really afraid of was the moment when the drinking water and the water my parents use to care for the plants in their organic garden would vanish, just as it had in the past several summers. The river we used to plunge into each summer was slowly shrinking, retreating further each day. In its place, it left behind the remains of dead crabs and other life that once thrived. I remember, in my childhood, everything felt different. The water seemed to flow endlessly. The forests were thicker. The summers were kinder. I remember needing to put on a sweater in the evening while playing outside. Now, that’s no longer necessary. Sometimes I wonder if the lens through which I saw the mountain and life here back then is simply being blurred by the bias of adulthood and current experiences, or if the changes I sense are real, and I am witnessing the slow, silent undoing of something truly sacred.

The water the village families use for drinking comes from melted mountain snow from Mount Pelister, flowing down as a small river called Stara Reka—the “Old River”—before being collected in a modest reservoir. Higher up in the mountain, the river splits in two, allowing nearby villages on the other side of the ridge to draw from it as well.

The mountain village where my parents now live has also shrunk significantly over the years, though for different reasons. The nearby city of Bitola has become a more popular place to live, especially after the village school closed, along with the small shops where people once bought their daily necessities. Today, only 24 families remain in the village. Most of them tend small gardens near their houses, irrigated by the drinking water coming from the reservoir, further depleting the reserves. The larger gardens that once spread across the hillside, irrigated by the water coming from the river have long been abandoned. There’s not enough people, and not enough water. 

But even with so much less demand the water feels so precious now. Everyone in the village thinks about it, quietly dreading the moment it might disappear under the weight of the harsh summer temperatures. The village across the mountain has already lost its drinking water wells. Now, they draw water from our river to keep their crops alive—under the lingering threat to perish in this heat. Each day, people from there arrive in cars, tractors, and with large cisterns, gathering around the nearby water well. For now, it still provides enough clean, fresh water for drinking. But the image is very unsettling. I can’t help but feel deep sadness for all these people—forced to collect their most basic need in such a way, as if we’ve have somehow leaped forward into a future we never truly believed would come, or could happen in our lifetime. 

We can blame it on climate change, and surely that’s one of the greatest forces at play. But it feels much more personal—like we’ve betrayed something sacred, and now we’re watching it slip through our hands.

I’m very proud of my parents and the way they chose to spend their retirement. They could have easily stayed in the city and lived a quieter, more restful and easier life. But instead, they decided to keep their hands full with hard work—waking up early each morning to grow their own food, care for the land they inherited from their parents, and honour it in the most profound way.  And with water becoming a real issue, they’ve found different ways to help themselves and the community ration the limited supply they have. They’ve organised shared watering schedules to ensure that every drop is used wisely. They do their best to find the most practical way forward, because there’s no help coming from anywhere else. Not from the authorities. Not from the skies. Even the gods seem to have turned their backs. It hasn’t rained in over a month.

My parents use a large 1,000-litre barrel to collect and store rainwater. In their gardening, they intentionally allow certain plant species to grow alongside their crops, companion plants that help retain moisture in the soil and reduce the need for frequent watering. Now, they’re searching for longer-term solutions both for irrigation and for maintaining a stable drinking water supply, as the problem worsens with each passing year. One idea they’re exploring is installing a Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI) system. But the biggest challenge lies in finding a nearby underground water well that could supply the system. Even if such a well exists, the costs of installation might be too high. Additionally the water from this well would need to be tested—there’s no guarantee it would be clean enough for use. My parents face a difficult choice. As they grow older, the way they garden also needs to evolve. They must find a very balanced, sustainable way to continue growing their own food, some of which we bring back with us when we return home. But all of it depends on one crucial factor: A resource so sacred that pushes them to find more inventive ways to work with what nature already provides them with. Their future efforts will depend almost entirely on the availability of this most vital resource:

The sacred water. Jelena Holl July 2025