For those seeking sustainability practices from Indigenous cultures, it is important to focus on both ancient and contemporary knowledge of a demotic origin, rather than individual inventions or amendments.

Yarns are like conversations but take a traditional form we have always used to create and transmit knowledge.

There needs to be an interaction between abstract (spirit) and concrete (physical) worlds of knowledge for this kind of complexity to develop fully.

Some new cultures keep asking, “Why are we here?” It’s easy. This is why we’re here. We look after things on the earth and in the sky and the places in between.

Adolescent cultures always ask the same three questions. Why are we here? How should we live? What will happen when we die? The first one I’ve covered already with the role of humans as a custodial species. The second one I’ve covered above, with the four protocols for agents in a complex dynamic system. The third one us-two will look at next.

an Indigenous person is a member of a community retaining memories of life lived sustainably on a land base, as part of that land base. Indigenous Knowledge is any application of those memories as living knowledge to improve present and future circumstances.

This is how traditional message sticks work. This kind of haptic knowledge is also encoded in relationships, which is why kinship systems are so central to our cultures. If you learn something with somebody, you might have trouble remembering it on your own but recall it in vivid detail when you are with her again, or if you think of her or call

When you place a number of boids on a screen with three or four simple rules telling each to match the velocity of the others, move randomly, and avoid collisions, after a while they will begin to move together as a group in complex patterns resembling the flocking of birds.

It is a ritual that incorporates elements such as story, humor, gesture, and mimicry for consensus-building, meaning-making, and innovation.