23/10/2025
DEEP SYSTEMS THINKING is what Lao Tsu and Albert Einstein were trying to express, I think, as well as Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (with his insights of inter-being).
It's a VISION of how everything and everyone in the Universe are connected together as a unified whole, a vision that rose up into global consciousness in the 1960's, inspiring countless musicians and an entire generation of young people.
Leonardo da Vinci, Black Elk, Joanna Macy, Alan Watts, Terrence McKenna, Aldous Huxley, Fritjof Capra, the poet William Blake, the art of Van Gogh (as well as Indigenous shaman, musicians and mystics across cultures and ages) have tried to share this deep understanding with us.
I came to this understanding first with psychedelics and then meditation, in the early 1980s, influenced by the culture of the sixties.
For many years, I tried to represent this wisdom as best I could with my art and drawings. It's about seeing (with our imaginations) the unity of all that exists, the deep connections that link us to one another, to human history, Nature and the evolution of the Universe.
"To practice mindfulness and to look deeply into the nature of things is to discover the true nature of inter-being... There we find peace and develop the strength to be in touch with everything.." ~Thich Nhat Hanh
This is the Universe we belong to, a unified and evolving Creative DANCE that has brought trillions of galaxies, stars and planets (and each of us) into being. Where Chaos is a natural consequence of systems about to dissolve, but that always leads to new Creativity and Evolutionary Emergence..
This is the deep unified vision of the Upanishads, of Taoism, Indigenous wisdom, Sufi masters, Kabbalah and Zen. Now we can show by Art & Science, but these understandings are not new.
Many sages, scientists and prophets have told us that human beings need to think and behave differently, align with the unifying patterns and hidden laws of our Universe.
It's a way of understanding connections that allows us to "see the whole," to use our imaginations to peer below the surface of our lives, to understand the perspectives of others and heal deep traumas, to visualize our Universe back through time and the destructive nature of our industrial civilization in the present, to imagine what is going on in our cells and below the soil, where tree roots and mycelium networks communicate.
To think deeply about our relationship to galaxies, life and atoms and everything in between. To see chaos as a natural phase of the spiral dynamics underlying creative change..
Most importantly is we need to go beyond endless words, concepts and thinking to transmute humanity's technological mastery and modern ignorance by aligning with the unifying power of our imaginations (and the deeper universal wisdom of our hearts, communities and biology) where LOVE and compassion, joy and gratitude for the Deep Creative Intelligence of Nature & the Cosmos that sustains us (and moves within us) takes a guiding role.
Centuries ago, Hildegard von Bingen said this: "We shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion."
Look within you. Align with the wisdom of your favored spiritual practices. Look deeply into Nature and the Universe. All the answers we seek are already here. We just need to flow and connect with the Deep Mystery that we belong to, that has brought us ALL into being.
~Christopher Chase
Deep Systems Thinking (1995, 2025)
The Art of Systems Thinking (my drawings since the early 1980s, with explanations) https://creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com/2021/12/29/the-art-of-systems-thinking-christopher-chase/
Related, an overview of how I have been teaching DEEP SYSTEMS THINKING and Systems Science to University students in Japan... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J76h4uPida0
