permaculture

[John Schinnerer <eco_living@yahoo.com>]

Aloha,

I could look up in atlases and local government agencies' databases the
info on rainfall patterns and amounts, seasonal prevailing wind speed
and direction, days and hours of sunny and cloudy weather, sunrise and
sunset times and locations, etc. etc. for the area my land is in (and I
have done some of this).  I could even set up instrumentation to
measure all that and record it, as was done to create the databases.

All that and I still wouldn't have my own internalized working and
workable sense (knowing) of what 'actually' happens on my place daily,
hourly, seasonally.  The data is abstract, not living (and yet I'm
hoping to design living systems using it...?), certainly not living
in/through me.  I really can't apply it with optimal wisdom unless I
let it soak (sometimes literally ;-) into me by being there - for
however much time is 'enough'.  

When I did that, camping out for about four months on my land, after
about a month and a half or two I realized I had most of the basic
patterns (sun, wind, rainshower vs. sqall vs. storm indicators, shade
location/movement, etc.) 'down' without really having to 'study' them
explicitly.  Then I could look at a prospective building or planting
site or whatever and visualize all that stuff happening and make some
design decisions that I could not possibly have made, or certainly not
made as well, with just 'data' and external 'tools' (though I probably
*thought* I could before this experience).

I've never done Tom Brown type courses, but from all I hear one learns
a great deal of 'observation and assessment' - a.k.a the first three
steps of PC design cycle... ;-)

Different people use different words to describe these kinds of
experiences.  If I get tangled up in my differences with their
particular way of explaining, I risk missing potential value in the
actual experiences they're hoping to re-present.

And, as they say in the South (or so I hear) - "if ya spot it, ya got
it."


=====
John Schinnerer, MA
-------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
HotJobs - Search new jobs daily now
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/