Fig. 3: A framework for the reconstruction of postcolonial narratives.

Three nested enfoldings model how material reality, spiritual reality, and divine reality interact as a co-evolutionary process. An enfolding refers to the emerging and linking together of two inseparable things. The primary enfolding of material reality refers to the forming of biological entities within their environment, including the formation of the biological aspect of human nature. The primary enfolding of noetic reality refers to the formation of the hierarchy of spiritual beings, including the spiritual aspect of human nature. The secondary enfolding refers to the forming of the experience by human beings of subjectivity and objectivity through the conjoining of the co-evolution of biological life with the hierarchy of spirits, which enables the creative use of symbolic language to reflexively enhance adaptive capacity of human beings within biological life. The tertiary enfolding refers to the forming of personal relationships within community through reflexive awareness of the creation of symbols, to enable personal decisions to be made between adaptation and maladaptation. The tertiary enfolding enables human beings to attune to the co-evolution of biological life, to avoid maladaptation and the consequent selection against by co-evolution. Cultural traditions emerge from the tertiary enfolding to facilitate the attuning of human beings to divine reality, mauri. Divine reality is the source of all three enfoldings, including co-evolutionary selection against maladaptation. In biological life and in social–ecological systems (SES) formed by secondary enfolding, adaptation and maladaptation co-exist. The tertiary enfolding, through the emergence of cultural traditions, minimises the existence of maladaptive SES.