> "We must draw our standards from the natural world. We must honor with the humility of the wise the bounds of that natural world and the mystery which lies beyond them, admitting that there is something in the order of being which evidently exceeds all our competence." >   — VÁCLAV HAVEL, president of the Czech Republic This is the opening quote of the book, Biomimicry, written by Janine Benyus. Benyus is one of the [[grandmother spirits]] we honour. She coined this word by combining the Greek words for *bios* (life) and *mimesis* (imitation). It refers to a growing field of scientists and thinkers who draw their inspiration from nature. The inspiration occurs in 3 forms: 1. **Nature as model.** Biomimicry studies nature’s models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf.  2. **Nature as measure.** Biomimicry uses an ecological standard to judge the “rightness” of our innovations. After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has learned: What works. What is appropriate. What lasts. 3. **Nature as mentor.** Biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on what we can learn from it. Janine Benyus says that it is very difficult to discover the vital principles of life. For many reasons – such as our innate human arrogance, our blindness to the intelligence inherent in nature, and our emotional attachments to our ideas of progress and certainty – it is not easy for us to discover these principles, or to perceive them without error. Benyus therefore has a practice of fact checking her principles and updating them every 6 months. Imaginal Seeds embraces this spirit of humility and error-correction. Example of a life principle: > "We are still beholden to ecological laws, the same as any other life-form. The most irrevocable of these laws says that a species cannot occupy a niche that appropriates all resources—there has to be some sharing. Any species that ignores this law winds up destroying its community to support its own expansion. Tragically, this has been our path. We began as a small population in a very large world and have expanded in number and territory until we are bursting the seams of that world. There are too many of us, and our habits are unsustainable."