As common as grass

"Systems thinking looks at a variety of natural systems--from organisms and ecosystems to social systems--and sees them as open systems in a steady state. They are 'open' in that they require constant throughput of energies, substances, and information. They maintain a steady state by self-repair of their internal structures. These internal structures are not fixed, like a clockwork mechanism, but are self-organizing. Thus when conditions outside a system change substantially, the system survives through self-transformation. It makes a sudden, creative advance into novelty.

"Fundamental transformation is not only possible, it is the routine way natural systems evolve. Radical change is as common as grass in world history, because it is as common as grass in the life of all living systems."

--Marjorie Kelly, "On the Very Real Possibility of Transformational Change," Tikkun, July/August 2008, p. 36.