permaculture

[Elfpermacl@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/5/98 5:48:13 PM, blissv@nmhu.campus.mci.net wrote:

<<It is my directive to fuel and support
others, not undercut and demean.>>

The balances of your post indicates that you do not conform to this directive.

Yes, anyone can participate in this list.  Permculture Design is an
irreducable phrase.  If one does not design, one does not practice
permaculture.  It has been stressed from the beginning of permaculture that
this is what permaculture is about.  As a dancer, you probably appreciate the
importance of design.  In permaculture, if it is not design, it is not
permaculture.  

People are free to use the words any way they want, of course, as we see here
on this list.  However from the perspective of this one person who has worked
for almost 20 years to make awareness understanding of permaculture available.
It is obvious enough that how people customarily use words has some power and
that careless, uninformed, or, shall we say "creatiave," misuses of terms
dilute their meaning and thus their power as keys to understanding.

Permaculture is design.  Everyone involved in the creation of permaculture as
a separate concept agrees on this.  Those of us who follow have generally
taken that distinction to heart.  To people who casually examine permaculture,
it may seem that it is the same as organic gardening, edible landscaping,
agroforestry, tree-crops, appropriate technology, etc.  It is an easy human
weakness, which I am sure we call all find in our pasts if we examine
honestly, to equate something new with what we already know.  Otherwise, it is
a lot of work to learn the topic--we need to create an entire new frame of
reference.  This is exactly what we try to do in the permaculture design
course, when taught by someone with a sound backg round in permaculture
anyway.  (That's another topic altogether.)

I am sorry that you feel that I attempted to hit you below the belt.  I assure
you that any dancer is far too agil for me to get away with that.  My point is
that if one does not practice permaculture design, the relevance of broad
generalities about it are clearly uncoupled to experience.  

I fully support your right to describe permaculture and its philosophical
underpinnings any way you wish.  And I equally insist on my perogative to
criticise such characterizations if I feel that they undermine understanding
of permaculture's power to solve our global problems or even, if in the case
of your flighty cosmology statemeit, if they seem utterly unconnected to
permaculture.  It is true, I agree, that in general one's personal facts are
unrelated to the LOGIC of an argument. Attack of a position on personal
grounds is the classic ad hominum argument.  On the other hand, if someone who
doesn't practices permaculture DESIGN interjects concepts that appear
unrelated to the established structure of its practice, one is justified in
wondering if this comes from experience in practice or just untested
speculation.  Untested speculation isn't necessarily wrong, but as the fella
says, that's the way to bet.

It is unfortunate that people in western society, including by necessity this
list, increasingly find disagreement and critique a personal attack or that it
is some affront to social intercourse.  Having grown up in the New England
Town Meeting atmosphere, where differences are made as clear as possible and
argued directly, I have no desire to lower my standard to be politically
correct, particularly at this stage of life.

Recall that this entire exchange grew out of my agreement of a post regarding
the authoritarian measure of trying to enforce a limited and specific
defninition on the word "organic".  (There is material for the cosmic humor
playwrited--is Ionesco still with us?)  The meaning of *Permaculture* is not
defined or enforced by anyone.  Claims that the term is copyrighted are bluff,
since it was known by those repsonible for this claim as early as 1981 that
international copyright law, generally adopted in the relevant countries, do
not allow the copyright of a word, even a coined word.  Sanity in law!  Well,
nothing is perfect.  Anyway, while anyone can express an opinion on the
matter, that doesn't mean that all opinions are equally valid, pertinent,
informed, accurate or otherwise of merit.  Moreover, where facts are a matter
of history, such as the stated purpose in designing the concept of
permaculture design, some   statements can be clearly right or wrong.  One can
disagree about remote history, but here we have the principals still among the
living and the two most visible, Mollison and Holmgren, both put the fact that
permaculture is the adjective and design is the noun forth incessently.  And
of course, since people want it to be like organic gardening or something,
they routinely let that detail slip from their minds.  The purpose of the
creation of the system of design is to solve problems.  The style by which
this is done varies a lot, with Holmgren getting about as far into linear
analysis as I think can be sane, given the complexity of all settings.  

Personally I favor an approach that, if you were not otherwise disposed, you
might find fits your dancer values.  Obviously the design must be four
dimensional, it must dance, respond appropriately to its setting at all levels
of expression, and with an economy that is utterly elegant.  It must know
where it is going and get there by the most appropriate route, rarely the
straightest, and in a way consonant with all other motions and with the
particular music of the spheres as resonated by the specific of space.  And
that corn had damn well better grow.  It is no small matter to undertake such
design.  In the past it has required the collective wisdom of cultures co-
evolved over millenia in their home place, to establish the patterns of
society, including the rituals of story, dance, music, song, prayer, etc., to
keep people as the power for health in their enviornment that we have the
capability to express.  Now here we are, worried about such matters as the Y2K
problem, with out a culture (though quite distinctly an anti-culture in the
sense of the anti-christ), having torn apart this emerald sphere of live to
plunder its parts, trying to be sorry and to act as though we are sorry.  We
have zilch for tools, except here and there little scraps of strategy such as
permaculture design.  We have to learn not just to maintain and foster health
in the ecosystem.  If there is an whole ecosystem left on planet Earth, I've
not seen nor heard about it, and I have traveled some (more than I would have
liked in more reasonable circumstances.)  

We have this tool, permaculture design, that attempts to do everything
milennia of cultural/biological coevolution managed in some cultures, but
surely not all. We have the dead frog and, dispairing of the value of
dissection once done, we want to reassemble it again, watch it leap, hear it
sing.  Well, we can hope it is not quite that bad.  It is like we have a
donkey's tail here, a black walnut root there, here the echol of a dolphin
song, there the exudate of a fungal hyphae, and somehow, like Dr.
Frankenstein, we are going to assemble them into a living Earth which somehow
is healthy and somehow does not turn on us, the true monsters (as judged by
past actions).  It is a long shot.  It requires that we be more powerful than
most of think we can be.  it requires that we speak straight, and maybe even
not seek offense in disgreement.  As one who dances in Hawaii, where dance has
had special power for a very long time, I suspect that you are keenly aware of
the depth of power that can be enlisted.  

Someone said, and Ghandi among others picked up the line, to change the earth
we must change ourselves.  A subset of that assumption is this:  To heal the
Earth, we must first heal ourselves.  We are here arguing about what needs
healing.  Surface placidity, which is also described by the less generous term
political correctness, is one position.  I argue for clarity of sight and
directness of expression.  These are both at the surface of the problem and
distracting, in their way, though limiting until they are resolved and
therefor important to that extent.  Past that surface, we need to find what
gives us power and what does not, and then design acordingly, at least if we
are committed to permaculture.  I believe that first and foremost following
our inner voice, which in my poor cosmology connects us to everying "outside"
if we hear well, is the truest path.  Thats what I work on for me, and I'm
better at it some days than others.  It is enough work so I don't need to
worry about whether or not anyone else is doing this, though I see evidence
that to me indicates they are.  These paths are unique.  They are the valuable
aspect of "individualism" which was superfically addressed by me and others
earlier in this discussion.  It is the lesson of Emerson, its power seen
ramified in figures like Ghandi and King (his direct and indirect students,
respectively).  Even that old fart, Polonius, got it right.  

this is as much of cosmology as feels certain to me.  This is another reason,
besides the reasons of Permaculture, for honoring diversity.  

Lets disagree without anger.  We both know that dancing in anger is a recipie
for self damage and that if we stop dancing we lose our place in even our
small, local slice of the cosmos.  So if you dance your way in hawaii and I do
my clumsy clod-hopper step in Florida, there is no reason for your toes to be
stepped upon.  And there is no reason for our dance to appear in harmony at a
human level of perspective.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since 1982),
Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and annual correspondence
courses via email.  Copyright, 1998, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52,
Sparr FL 32192 USA  Internships. YankeePerm@aol.com  

We don't have time to rush.

A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles may be found at
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html
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