"What’s usually missing in a homeostatic model is that the driving force is unspecified."

Maybe because specificity is a function of the static formulation, not the dynamic flow?

Energy radiates out, toward infinity, while form coalesces in, toward equilibrium.

Think in terms of a wave; While the energy drives it, the ripples, the fluctuations, rise and fall, back toward equilibrium. So the energy goes past to future, while the forms generated go future to past.

Consciousness goes past to future, while perceptions, emotions and thoughts rise and fall, future to past.

Which creates this effect of our sense of being not quite synonymous with the forms, the thoughts and emotions it expresses.

In order to function, organisms need to synchronize their various processes and clocks, while ecosystems need only harmonize. So organisms rise and fall as one, while ecosystems have all their various nodes filling in the spaces and networks, as some come and others go.