permaculture

[<permed@nor.com.au>]

Russ wrote:
>I know that, when I used to teach PDCs, the notion expressed in Mark's
>piece about "what the land wants to be", which suggests that the land
>is not only conscious but has desires, would have been viewed with
>very little credibility by most students. 
>
Depends on context - how it's said - could simply be another way of 
"Listening to the Land" - this BTW is the title of a manual for community 
environmental monitoring used by Regional Organisation of Councils around 
Australia written by Terry White (initial editor of Permaculture 
International Journal). I don't think anyone using this manual baulks at 
the title thinking it implies the land can talk and chatter.....  and 
what about the Gaia hypothesis - that the Earth is a living being in it's 
own right - this 'woo-woo' concept came from science itself. 

I think that 'listening' to "what the land wants to be" is a valid 
approach, an essential tool in design and a true art which engages both 
intuition and intellectual process. 

IMO there's too much of a spiritual cringe in pc, the bagging of 
biodynamics etc. Yet strangely it was through my pc teaching that the 
pagan within was awakened - largely from teaching the stuff on patterns 
in nature and human culture which aroused my curiosity to research my own 
cultural pre-christian roots of the Celts, bards and druids and to bring 
head and heart, intellect and intuition, rational and spiritual into 
comfortable balance. It's interesting that when one delves into the roots 
of modern science one finds a point where astrologoy and astronomy, 
esoteric numerology and hard mathematics were integrated sciences, that 
Pythagoras discovered 'Py' from his spiritual or esoteric understanding 
of numbers....

Science is it's own religion with a blind faith vested only and 
exclusively in the repeatable and easily quantifiable and has astutely 
ignored the variable or whatever doesn't fit it's conceptual, rational 
box at a given point in time - it has only been with the emergemce of 
chaos thinking that some scientists have embraced the 'unknown'. 

Intuition plays a big role in design though it cannot be measured 
scientifically. The original PDC Handbook (1985) written by Bill M, 
Andrew Jeeves and Reny Slay included in "design process" a section on 
experiential - intuition, visualisation, zazen, and other techniques to 
tap into the unmeasurable, unquantifiable qualities of the site/land, 
mainly perceived by activating 'right brain' faculties. It's an 
impoverished design that doesn't acknowledge Sense of Place which 
inherently includes opening one's self to Spirit of Place.
Conversly just working exclusivly the intuitive (and esoteric) without 
having practical knowledge and skills can be a recipe for disaster or 
ill-conceived actions - there needs to be a respectful balance.

I liked what Scott said - and yes when we are dealing with nature and 
whole systems the spiritual is there embodied in the practical and 
touches those who are open and receptive without having to teach it with 
a name or dogma.
Robyn