All things work together. Marcus Aurelius 6.43

Marcus' view of nature: the entire universe is a rhythmic expression of purposeful motion that repeats itself in the manner of a dance, with periods punctuated by final events (such as birth & death, in the animal life familiar to us). All the things we see around us—sun, rain, stars, subtle processes of healing & conceiving that require us to shrink & to grow, to die & to be reborn—are significant parts of this great dance. Even when these parts appear at odds, as the bright sun drying & the dark water drenching, still in the end they are working together, in perfect natural harmony. Our place is to move with them, making our own entrance & exit on the divine dance-floor as skillfully as we can.


Μήτι ὁ ἥλιος τὰ τοῦ ὑετίου ἀξιοῖ ποιεῖν; μήτι ὁ Ἀσκληπιὸς τὰ τῆς Καρποφόρου (†); τί δὲ τῶν ἄστρων ἕκαστον; οὐχὶ διάφορα μέν, συνεργὰ δὲ πρὸς ταὐτόν;


Would the sun ever deign to achieve what the rain does? Would Asclepius do the work of fertile Demeter? What about each of the stars? Though they are different, don't they all work together toward the same end?


---
(†) Pausanias (8.53.7) attests a shrine to Demeter and her daughter (the Maiden, Kore) in Tegea whose cult gives them the epithet that Marcus uses here (ἃς ἐπονομάζουσι Καρποφόρους).