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  • From: Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Re: permaculture Digest, Vol 19, Issue 6
  • Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2004 18:11:37 -0600

At 10:09 AM 8/6/2004, you wrote:
3. Re: Permaculture Events andReligious/"Spiritual"Events: Re:
Permaculture/Lughnasadh Eve Social (Lawrence F. London, Jr.)

This is all very interesting considering the lineage and all that.

Bill eschewed all religion and politics as counter productive in regard to teaching permaculture. His feeling, I'm sure, was that it muddied the waters, especially within a context of cultural differences. I agree with that sentiment whenever we are talking about an organized religion with a written dogma, something about codifying ones spiritual path that creates a contentious atmosphere toward the other, or non-believer. I welcome anyone and any belief system to the courses I teach but do not allow any proselytizing during class. I also spend time speaking to the issue of the unspeakable horrors that Christian missionaries have visited on indigenous people around the world and they continue to do so. A reading of "Thy Will Be Done The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil" by Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett is enough to set ones hair on fire.

On the other hand Bill once stated that the greatest book ever written was "The Golden Bough" by James Frazer, which is a codification of religious practices around the world. I think that there is a big difference between codified religion and Animism which, in short, is a belief that all of nature including us is imbued with spirit, I don't have a big argument with that and I don't believe that Bill would as long as the "spirit" part was self defined. I think that in PC courses it is easy enough to access this ineffable spirit in the talent show, in fact I think that that is the purpose of the talent show, a testament to Bill's pedagogical genius.

There is something, also, that is very magic in the unspoken, that is the primary beauty of good poetry. Bill's poetic descriptions of natural processes were very often near to evoking out of body experiences or a kind of wonder. I think that is the ultimate goal of the deep ecology movement, to create an atmosphere of awe and wonder of nature and our connectedness. As close to church as I want to be.

Scott


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