This question posted by ecoTrain caught my attention and decided to give it a shot. Since there are many possible answers, I will focus on one. The root conflict is the absence of roots.
Think about it, us city dwellers walk constantly in a rootless ground. Most of our steps are taken on a concrete floor, and if we consider our feet to be our personal roots, they rarely get to touch the Earth without being shielded by shoes.
We have almost no root connection. Our main interaction with roots is in the kitchen when we cook carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, ginger or turmeric. We have no idea what purpose roots serve to plants or the Earth. We ignore the vast information networks they build with fungi in a forest, or how there are entire micro-verses of thriving life built around them.
So there’s the actual physical absence of roots. But what of the spiritual lacking of attention to where we stem from?
It takes enormous amounts of resources and energy to bring a human into existence. When tracking down your origins, we finally all stem from the Earth. Everyone feeds off the Earth yet many wish to feel superior, and take pride in the domination of nature.
This is when the word ego comes into place. Ego is the opposite of gratefulness. Ego knows how things should be and will hack away all that it considers an obstacle.
If we looked into detail at the role that roots play out in nature, and finally in our own lives we would diminish our ego. If we became grateful and respectful of these cycles we depend on, we would most likely start walking the path of harmony.
It is a difficult journey no doubt, because there are some big players that have no interest in people connecting with roots. They make millions and millions through this fragmentation we have with nature.
Did you know if you roast dandelion roots and crush them you will have a delicious coffee substitute, which is also very medicinal? But we are taught dandelions are malicious weeds that need to be pulled out and exterminated.
Dandelions are healers of the Earth, the will always appear when it has been depleted of resources and begin to crack from dryness. Also, their leaves are more nutritious than lettuce, spinach or chard.
We are told to pull out dandelions so we keep buying coffee. So we keep buying GMO vegetables. So we consume their drugs that promise healing but never deliver. So that dandelions won’t slow down their crop production and money making business.
How does it make any sense to buy coffee from Brasil, contributing to the devastation of the rainforest, when we could get something just as good from our backyard? It doesn’t, but money can make a lot of senseless things happen.
So the unmet need I think is consciousness. The only reason why we keep coming back to their rigged little system is because we are not aware of all that we can accomplish. We have become so comfortable inside this bubble of ignorance it is really hard to step outside.
But we can, and we will. One step at a time. After all, the ways of Nature are slow, and if we wish to join in, we cannot hurry or we will find ourselves in a world of frustration.
One step at a time is all it takes.