permaculture

[EFMonaco <EFMonaco@compuserve.com>]

I too just returned from the teacher training at Earthaven in western
Carolina.
Wow! What energy.  The organizers deserve major kudos, and the teachers:
Peter Bane, Chuck Marsh, Goodheart Brown, and the highlight, Patricia
Allison were nothing short of spectacular.  There was some nuts and bolts
on the logistics of teaching, hosting, and organizing a design course. 
There was time spent on content and effective presentations, and a lot of
practice.  There were 24 students that gave two presentations each with 27
critics of each presentation.
One thing I that came to light and is worthy of mention is the group energy
field (GEF).  We know from the Qigong (ChiGung) grandmasters that each of
us contains an energy field (EF), which we could call aura or whatever, but
it is fundamentally energy or qi (chi).  Everything in the physical
universe has its own energy field (EF), more or less, with varying
charactistics and intensity.  Of course, there are entities in the
spiritual universe that do not have physical counterparts, but that is
another matter.  That aura exists is not foreign to science, it has been
photographed, but science has yet to understand the workings of aura in the
way that the qigong masters have cultivated.  This EF or aura "induces"
changes in other entities not unlike the way a current is induced by an
electrical inductor when passed through its magnetic field.  Hense the term
"auric induction".  So-called "magnetic" personalities (such as Mollison)
are an example of this.

When a number of entities' energy fields collaborate in proximity, a group
energy field (GEF) is created.  In the case of places like battlefields,
the group energy field takes on a personality.  This is true of a forest
system.  The forest has a personality to its collective aura, and it
changes from place to place.  What's interesting is what happens when more
than one person comes together in the name of a cause.  The resulting GEF
is greater than the sum of the parts, much greater.  And the greater the
focus of the group and numbers involved, the greater the GEF.  This
resulting GEF forever changes the resident personality (aura) of the
physical location of the group, not unlike what happens in a negative sense
at a battlefield.  When one participates in such a group exercise, one is
forever changed by the group and rides the high of the group for a while. 
After leaving the group the GEF dissipates to some degree, but the
individual's EF is enhanced as they carry part of that GEF with them,
enabling them to spread consciousness and begin to cultivate a new GEF with
others in their own region.  This is what happens in a design course.  The
GEF is huge, and each of us carries it away with us as we feel empowered. 
Of course, the more one cultivates one's own place, the more the GEF is
kept alive and grows.

Normally, when one goes to art or architecture school and does a
presentation, one is critiquited by a few faculty on a panel, if that. 
Over the course of the program one does a handful of presentations.  In the
teacher training, there were 24 students plus 4 teachers and a few others
that already had been changed by the GEF of a design course; moreover, each
had spent time on their own or with a local group cultivating their own
permaculture qi.  So each of us came with a decent-sized EF focused in
permaculture to this group and created a huge GEF focused in permaculture. 
When one of us did our presentation, each of us was up there (in spirit)
with them doing it in the way we could relate to them.  Then we got the
benefit of 27 more critical evaluations.  Imagine doing 48 presentations
with 27 evaluators.  Needless to say the intensity increased exponentially
as the presentations went on.  We were all as high as kites at the end. 
Earthaven as a place was also changed in an extremely positive way.

So bravo to everybody involved.  And for those of you still doubting the
value of a design course, think about what I said above.  Permaculture is
not about a set of techniques for designing a sustainable cultivated
ecology; its about changing at a fundamental level the paradigms and
understanding of how life works so that those principles, patterns, and
techniques can emerge.

Gene Monaco
Knoxville, TN