With the recession has come a wholesale review of the definition of value, the importance of price, the role of quality and the meaning of brand. It's as if somewhere it has been decided that because money underpins the fundamentals of life, everything must change.

Is this really so? Of course not.

What underpins society are the relationships between people and their connection to the world in which they live. In this sense, the times in which we now live give us all an opportunity, and in some sense, a responsibility, to consciously consider how we can use these times to reevaluate our grounding and connection to what really matters—our meaning of our lives to ourselves.

This is why at Growers and Nomads we say, "You always come home."

These times are catalyzing an inward review, a re-prioritization, a realignment with what is both a simple and complex question: Where do we go from here? The perfect place to deeply consider this question is actually the place called home, because that place—that container—holds the people we love and the treasures and memories of our lives. It is a mirror of what we dream, what we have achieved and attained, and what is always in action.

As we shape our reaction to these times, our homes will reflect this reaction. It may be as simple as having the windows washed so we can really see outside, engaging in a garden as we reconnect with growing something ourselves, "going green" in our homes through insulation or just keeping the lights turned off more often. Anything we do in our home reflects how we feel about our lives.

This link between life and home, home and life, lies at the core of how we will navigate these times. In this way, this moment is vibrant and exciting, yet challenging at the same time, and in many ways a vital new requirement in our collective societal consciousness.