The men used the right hemisphere of the brain and so were practical, lived by the sun and the seasons and were given responsibilities outside the house. They provided food by tilling the fields and by hunting. They also protected the women and children from predators.

To bring you back to the tree – how is this beautiful metaphor of village life linked to the tree?

The metaphor of a village was that of the interlinked, non-linear biochemistry of the tree and its cells – most agricultural waste was fodder for cows and buffaloes, which provided people with milk to drink and cow dung as fertiliser. Important resources such as the river, trees and fire were deified to conserve them. And disease was battled with herbs and prevented through yoga.

Then the population grew and spaces shrank. Ordered life gave way to chaos and the Yuga changed. Mantra gave way to tantra, and with it came invasions, pillage and mass migrations. The need for fortifications arose and the first cities took shape. They were primitive, polluted and prone to disease. This then lead to the era of yantra and man started constructing momentous monuments. His creature comforts and aspirations to grandeur became very important. His life turned to the external and was once again ruled largely by Shri Lakshmi. The cities as a result became linear and were driven by rapid and rampant industrialization with life becoming increasingly defined through material acquisitions. The new metaphor for the city was now the ‘machine’. All machines are based on linear principles: cause and effect – I push the pencil and it moves. But nature is non-linear; the cause does not immediately have an effect, it takes its own time to manifest.