Joel DeVyldere

“We want freedom, but we settle for sports cars.” A room full of hippies, environmentalists and student activists reflect in wonder at the articulate musings of speaker, author and neo-economic dreamer Charles Eisenstein, a well-spoken man with flagrantly optimistic notions. Both energetic and calm, the 35-year-old joyfully makes the case that a culture based on consuming goods is not spiritually fulfilling for human beings. Mr. Eisenstein recently came through Eugene on a speaking tour where he expounded on topics from his book Sacred Economics.

We don’t exist in a vacuum, as convenient as that might be. Because we’re alive and co-habitating on earth, any disconnection we can conjure tends to be of the artificially motivated and anti-humanitarian bent. You might hear writers, thinkers and speakers articulating a particular human condition as an ‘inter-mingling of destinies.’ It’s true. Schisms turn to rifts, and erupt into chasms. Gravity has a way of working with gale-force winds, and tree-clingers fall, limbs ripped from the icy branches in an awesome display of ‘just because.