permaculture

[Avalon Bruce <avalonb@nwol.net>]

in re: jack's latest brilliant additions to this list, i offer my own
snippet

of the HUNDREDS of books on my shelves, if i were banished to an island
and could take ONLY ONE tome, it would be Peter Russell's "The Global
Brain" -- speculations on the evolutionary leap to planetary
consciousness -- the Earth
has always KNOWN all was connected; now,it's time the two-leggeds woke
up and
figured this out, too!

if ANYONE, al gore included, has ANY doubts bout this 3rd 'rock' from
the sun
being a sentient entity OR that there's a connection between the
individual
consciousness and the fate of the planet, they should read this.

Rumi may be more succinct, but Russell is brilliant; both are profound
in their
own ways


Jack Rowe wrote:
> 
> 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

-- 
The Earth is not given to us by our parents.
It is loaned to us by our children.