Morning, noon or night the parking lot has a few dozen cars at the Superstore (grocery + general merchandise Walmart) in St. Johns, Michigan 48879. On this occasion about 30 minutes before sunset early in July, there was a pleasant westerly breeze and majestic cloudscapes on all sides. Such is the intersection of timeless meteorological beauty and the "everyday low prices" luring spenders through the worldwide retailer. On one side of the automatic doors the calculus of small profit margins and Least Cost decision-making rules. And on the other side of the doors the ancient world of ecosystems and planetary rotation with diurnal cycles of day alternating with night is what matters. Perhaps once upon a time the man-made world of transactions, production and distribution was not so distantly separated from the bigger world of life forces and geological time. But today and very likely tomorrow this gap will remain the same or grow even bigger.
