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permaculture - dirt or Earth?

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Subject: permaculture

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  • From: Jack Rowe <jackrowe@compuserve.com>
  • To: UNC Perm List <permaculture@listserv.unc.edu>, Envirolink Perm List <permaculture@envirolink.org>
  • Subject: dirt or Earth?
  • Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 22:57:39 -0400

Aw, gee, Scott... while I GREATLY enjoyed the mental image of you 'doing
the sweet pea frug' (a personal favorite), still I wonder who will be the
arbiter(s) of what 'resembles permaculture'? As the great Mr. Murphy has
allowed, once you've opened a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is
to use a larger can... and the permaculture can is wide open! Is this an
area where we might wisely advocate decentralization?

Many's the time I've heard 'spiritual' ideas eschewed as 'not
permaculture'. I personally disagree heartily, and see the entire
disastrous (no pun intended, fellow etymologists) situation before us now
as symptomatic of a culture which has disowned the interconnectedness of
which Marsha spoke. Can any system of thought that does not consider
everything to be interconnected allow us to survive? Can we form a
'permanent agriculture' without considering all ecosystems interconnected?
(I believe we have the answer to this one right in front of/all around us
at this very moment). Can we form a 'permanent culture' without considering
all around us--animal, plant and human--to be One?

In the physics which died a universe-shattering death 95 years ago and yet
continues to haunt us, disturbances in the earth's 'balance' or 'aura' or
'soul' were not given credence. In the new, more accurate physics which
proved itself with fusion reactions turned from Solar beneficence to
diabolical destructiveness, such a level of interconnectedness, such a
level of conscious participation by supposedly 'material' objects, is not
only allowed but implicit (just ask Mr. Schrodinger's Cat). The old idea of
'separateness' is myth... didn't work then, won't work now.

It's finally commonly accepted that what we've perceived as 'matter' is in
fact almost-infinitesimal and yet mind-bogglingly powerful knots of energy.
Less acknowledged is that what we've perceived as 'energy' is actually form
mysteriously-coalescing within an inherently formless 'quantum field'.
Coalesced by what or Whom? For Consciousness to be the root of Form is
perfectly plausible--or more accurately, as wonderfully insane as any other
idea which attempts to explain Experience. Rumi says "Mysteries are not for
solving, the eye goes blind when it only wants to see Why", and certainly
the question of what causes the quantum field to shape itself into energy
and then form is firmly within the camp of Mystery. God, Great Spirit, The
Way Things Are, Mr. Einstein's Ghost... what answer can be more or less
fantastic than any other?

The idea that the Earth is a living thing, that it feels and has an
emotional 'balance' which can be disturbed by violence is no more
far-fetched than the idea that the earth is a rock, and we upon it cosmic
accidents. Could be one, could be the other--who cares? I think that if we
consider the Earth to be a living, feeling being, we ourselves have a much
greater chance of surviving the addicitive stupidities that have directed
our efforts and ideas thus far.

[Insert your favorite list of 'Old Age'-caused environmental/human
tragedies here--I hate to bum myself out so early in the evening]... give
me the New Age any day!

Jack 'Fruitcake' Rowe




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