Great discussion today. I went outside and sat on the grass just afterward looking at the woods and musing on the connection between the description of archetype as a pattern, the pattern of an ecosystem, and the "war of the gods" during Apocalypse. I'm viewing a Northern Appalachian Oak-Hickory forest ecosystem. This system was able to be described and typed because a repeating assemblage of certain plant and animal species occur with each other and these particular soils, geology, topography and micro-climate across this ecoregion. With climate change, plant and animal species are migrating northward (in the northern hemisphere) and to higher elevations. Species are moving at different rates attempting to keep within their climate envelope. More mobile species (such as birds) are better able to relocate and keep up with climate change than salamanders or turtles (these taxa may need our assistance to survive the next century).

This will likely lead to current assemblages/ecosystems becoming "unglued". As (if) the climate continues to destabilize, this means while some ecosystems hold on for a time (certain trees may take 100s of years to succumb) no new "classifiable" (stable) ecosystems will emerge, or due to the rate of change, will emerge and then quickly disassemble again. 

If places are reflecting archetypal patterns, what does this mean for the process? I guess new archetypes. Is there an archetype that is always in flux, one of constant change that requires from us constant adaptability? Gone is the idea of a sedentary food system, or sedentary communities. Human communities may need to be mobile and able to assemble and reassemble into different forms adapted to the new locality or conditions relatively quickly (say within 50-100 year timeframes). 

This would require intense ability to interact and co-adapt successfully with an always changing landscape without destroying its productive capacity and its ability to adapt and change, for our sake and that of other species (in the new world we are always balancing our needs with those of other species). 

I don't think this is possible to achieve through today's Western science alone, since we spend too much time inside analyzing remotely collected data and abstracting it into standardized understandings and classified meta-data (with everything changing around us, this only helps so much - at the beginning of ecological irrelevancy now). 

I think we'll need to add to use of the scientific method a re-adoption of indigenous practices such as nature immersion and intense field observation (including measurement and documentation), and psycho-spiritual practices for non-rational ways of knowing - dreams, symbols, stories, etc. like we're talking about in this course. I see the re-emergence of dream societies or something like. I read a great ethnography on native dream practices of the  Plains tribes and the point was made over and over that dreaming as a way of cultivating knowledge was a matter of great practicality to the survival of the community. 

My vision is that the coming era will be one of flux and ability to navigate fluidity and change. The old systems are so very, very inadequate (bricks and mortar? too heavy to carry). Food, transportation, ability to survive in place - all these technologies (inner and outer) may be about deep ability to communicate with and relate to surrounding places. How else to fine tune our actions to an environment of constant change?