The following are excerpts from a copyrighted draft of "ChangeCraft," by John S. Murphy. They may be forwarded or copiedóplease credit source--except in commercial publications.

ARTIFACTOR

An artifact is something made by human skill. The term especially suggests tools or weapons of archeological interest that helped form the cultures of early tribes. In the more general sense, anything man-made is an artifact, including our buildings, roads, automobiles, computers, and other works which help form our culture today. In this sense we are surrounded by artifacts, and seem to surround ourselves with more and more of them as time goes on. This is an important part of the change that is happening in modern times.

Our cultural environment is based on our natural environment and the things we have built within it. We live with both the natural factor and the artificial factor, or "artifactor." We humans have some control over both, for we design and build the artifacts and we either exploit or husband the natural environment, affecting it whether we want to or not.

It may be useful to think of "the artifactor" as the ratio of the artificial to the natural in our environment. A remote terrain largely untouched and unspoiled by humansóif you can find oneóhas a very low artifactor. One of those fantasy structures of science fiction, without a tree or plant in sight, has a very high artifactor. Our typical cities are somewhere in between. The artifactor of a place can go either up or down, but the average artifactor one experiences in the modern world seems to be rising. For personal examples, consider some of the places you knew as a child or youth, as they were then and as they are now.

Most of us are sensitive to differences in artifactor. Some (like this writer) cannot remain long in a high-artifactor urban setting without beginning to yearn for the soothing and curative effect of forest or mountain or ocean. Others are accustomed to the city and prefer it. The building of our culture and its technologies has depended upon the clustering of people, and this implies the raising of artifactor.

Is there an ideal artifactor for human habitat? Thinking along these lines, we would need to distinguish among various types of artifact, for some are more simpatico than others, and even among types on natural terrain. Regardless of such distinctions, we know that humans tend to avoid artifactor extremes, yet tolerate a broad range between the extremes. Given a pristine environment, we start to add artifact to it, for both needs and convenience. Given sprawling cities, we save space for a few parks, trees, lawns, flower boxes. We preserve some of the remaining wilderness or low-artifactor areas for the re-creation of our spirit.

If we can, we like to have the best of both worlds. The growth of suburbs started as an attempt to have both city and country, an objective which is becoming more and more difficult to achieve. As the worldwide artifactor increases, it seems clear that the upper limit of our artifactor tolerance will be more severely tested.

Space fantasies aside, artifact requires a natural base to support it. For centuries we had ample natural base available for exploitation. In the past century we have built more and more artifacts. The artifactor has increased rapidly, along with the population. A realization is gradually creeping into our consciousness that we are approaching a limit. How much artifact can a limited natural base support? That is a critical part of our ecological challenge.

What is the artifactor of your dwelling? What percentage of your everyday environment is artifact?

CO-CREATION

Theologians say that God created the universe "ex nihilo," out of nothing. We humans cannot create like that, but we can do some rearranging of what we are given. In fact, we must. It seems that GodóNature, if you prefer----wants our participation, for we have been given considerable leeway in the rearranging we can do, for better or worse. In this sense at least, it seems that creation is an ongoing process, a work in progress.

For whatever reason, we seem to be appointed as junior partners in this ongoing process, and our actions can make some difference in how it turns out. Co-creation is an audacious but not unrealistic way of looking at this partnership.

We tend to use the word "create" loosely these days, as when we speak in ambitious terms of creating a better future, or even creating sales or profits. The idea of creating may be an inflated way of looking upon our powers, yet we design things, we build things, we even sometimes invent things, and thus we influence to some degree how the future turns out.

The idea of co-creating is more defensible, more realistic, and probably more helpful. It recognizes and includes a realm beyond our comprehension and control. It can apply individually or collectively, or both. It recognizes our power, our limitations and our responsibility. It is optimistic in the face of mystery. And it suggests a basis for human evolution.

In a basic sense, any artifact--anything that is designed and built by humans--is a work of co-creation, for it is a human work built on a natural base. We must live in and with nature as it is given to us, and we must change it in some ways, and change ourselves in some ways, when we interact with it. The issue is how to cohabit with nature gracefully.

Are we simply exploiting nature as long as we can get away with it? If so, we should realize that we have a dangerous, though long-suffering, partner. Are we trying to fit in or to harmonize? Are we trying to improve nature, or what it-including-us is becoming? That is a daringly ambitious aim, yet there is a growing consciousness that we may be doing something like that.

In a world in which artifact is growing explosively at the expense of the shrinking remnant of its natural base, we can no longer collectively avoid the results of what we design and build, so we cannot avoid the responsibility for our choices. In such a world the idea of co-creation may be useful--a godsend, if you please. It lifts the ecological issue above the problem of survival. It reframes our actions and decisions, urging us to reconsider them in a larger context.

We cannot avoid the responsibility of co-creation, and we cannot collectively escape the results of our co-creation. When we are doing something as daring as trying to perfect what we cannot fully explain and cannot fully comprehend, it helps to bring in divinity as a partner, one way or another.

THE RAINMAKER

There is a classic story about a community, perhaps not so long ago and perhaps not so far away, that was suffering from a severe and prolonged drought. In desperation they sent for a famous rainmaker to come and bring them rain. The people welcomed him and urged him to perform his rituals and bring rain quickly. "First," said the rainmaker, "I need to become attuned to this place and to be at peace." He went to live alone in quiet contemplation in a simple cottage at the edge of town, leaving the people behind, frustrated and impatient.

On the third day, it rained.

In retreat, the rainmaker moved beyond and beneath action into essence.

He came into conscious relationship with his environment. He did not divert his energy prematurely into issues of politics, legislation, technology, projects, management, funding, not even ritual. He did not try to control anything, to make anything happen. He moved directly to the top of the Maslovian pyramid, where he was not just a survivor, or a provider, or a tool-user, or a leader, not even just a rainmaker. He was a human being in balance with his environment. As such, he was playing at the forefront of human evolution, becoming more fully human.

The rainmaker came into harmonious relationship with his environment, offering his benevolent intention and cooperation, withdrawing any inept interference. He did not make the rain, he welcomed it. Sometimes it is best just to get out of the way.

We have in our nature the ability to heal, to become whole, and to resonate in harmony with the rest of creation, of which we are a part. Without that healing ability we would be doomed, regardless of our efforts and inventions and discoveries and projects. With it we can repair a lot of mistakes.

The magic of nature cannot be regimented, organized, funded or scheduled. It just happens, like the rain, and like our healing.