permaculture

[blissv@nmhu.campus.mci.net]

*** 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.*** 

'preciate it... distance helps though we are still on the same planet always
dancing, always linked...

***And there is no reason for our dance to appear in harmony at a human
level of perspective.***

Unfortunate, since through all the words, I see some basic values we hold
and understand in common... I find it disturbing that devisive and
judgemental word usage, as in:
 **... in the case of your flighty cosmology statemeit, if they seem utterly
unconnected to permaculture.** 
creates separation instead of alignment. You are certainly entitled to your
opinions...There is a way that you can communicate that would be less
abrasive and, certainly, if it was in your interest, with the enormous
creativity you have, you could mightily support others to feel good about
themselves and their ideas rather than leaving them feeling attacked. This
kind of care and co-operation is required on the planet... Is not lack of
these a primary cause for our collective problems?  If Permaculture, or any
system towards whole systems (health) is to 'work',  it requires the
standing together of those that work towards the same, even (especially) if
ways to that success are diverse.  Who wants to work with others when they
feel insulted and putdown? Harmony at the human level is where we must, as a
species, learn to co-operate towards these common values of survival on the
earth.

***  We have zilch for tools, except here and there little scraps of
strategy such as permaculture design***

The 'strategy' needs foundation in the heart whatever design it is! This
does not preclude the need for knowledge, experience, grounded ideology. All
of it is needed. One does not negate the others, rather enhances. The
threefold "Care" ethics of permaculture imply this and though often
forgotten, are foundational to permaculture. "Cooperation, not competition,
is the key."

**My point is that if one does not practice permaculture design, the
relevance of broad generalities about it are clearly uncoupled to 
experience.**

I appreciate your point. As with anything, words do not express the terrain,
only experience. I know you are a highly informed, experienced permaculture
designer. I do not have your years of experience yet I do offer my own areas
of expertise, aligned and connected to permaculture and am doing my own
version of designing systems that support our common purpose. Whether you
respect this or not is irrelevant since it is in our diversity that we have
stability towards our success.

(btw, I dance/live in New Mexico though have studied sacred hula in Hawaii)

v


At 09:48 AM 11/6/98 EST, you wrote:
>
>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
>Elfin Permaculture programs are listed at the Eastern Permaculture Teachers
>assn home page: http://home.ptd.net/~artrod/epta/eptahmp.html
>
>