permaculture

["Lee Flier" <lflier@mindspring.com>]

Ahem.

As I recall, the reason Bill M. tends to speak disparagingly of spirituality, 
and particularly the new age stuff, is precisely because it can alienate 
people who don't subscribe to your particular flavor of spirituality.  Mark's 
Christian farmers are a good example, and Rick Valley's descriptions of 
various religious permies duking it out are good illustrations of this also.  
And of course nearly all cultures around the world have entrenched religions, 
which they are not going to abandon in favor of some Permaculture teacher's 
philosophy.

The reason New Age spirituality in particular comes under fire is because 
most of the entrenched religions are deeply rooted in culture; therefore many 
religious doctrines actually have practical purposes in terms of people care, 
and are time tested.  Not so with New Age thought, which is a recent 
occurrence and something of a mishmash of a lot of different religious 
thought, without any particular basis for any of it except wishful thinking.  
And of course there are a lot of New Age "quacks" - people hawking completely 
bogus principles with very self serving motivations.  Therefore lots of 
people (myself included) have a deep distrust of New Age-ism.  I've run into 
enough flaky or outright greedy and power-hungry individuals who call 
themselves New Age, to be very wary of them, and anyhow, I hate being forced 
to hug strangers. :-)

I disagree with Gene that the ethics of Permaculture sound New Agey.  They 
don't, because an ethic is not at all the same thing as a spiritual doctrine, 
in that it doesn't require blind faith or belief in something that can't be 
proven.  An ethic makes practical sense in the context of THIS life and THIS 
world.  Care of the earth, care of humans, and return of surplus are ethics 
that can easily be embraced by people of practically any religion without 
alienating them or suggesting that they supplant their own beliefs.  And 
hardly anyone can argue that the results of following those ethics is 
beneficial.  Whereas, with trusting in fairies or channeled spirits it's not 
so evident.

I don't think Uncle Bill meant so much to imply that no one should HAVE 
spiritual beliefs; it's obvious that most of us do.  What he was saying is 
that, like the separation of church and state, spirituality should be a 
personal or cultural thing and not something that is made part of the PC 
curriculum.  I agree with that, but this doesn't mean I don't have spiritual 
beliefs myself.  I think that's what Mark was asking for also.

Now... ALL THAT HAVING BEEN SAID.... I do think that good permaculture design 
does require a kind of "sixth sense" or holistic way of thinking that isn't 
entirely spiritual so much as animal - something that's inherent in all of us 
but is mostly dormant in our own culture.  We are used to thinking of things 
linearly, in terms of "problems" and "solutions" and this isn't the only way 
we're capable of thinking, nor often the best way.  The ability to look at 
something such as a piece of land and right away intuitively grasp a lot 
about what it needs, is a great skill to have, and again most people have it 
already, it just needs to be paid attention to.  I'd call it "right brain" 
thought, the ability to take a mental "snapshot" of something and understand 
it in the big picture, the essence of it.  In that respect some of Gene's 
skills that he learned at the Tracker School hold water, and may be useful to 
westerners who are out of touch with such things.  The pursuit of any kind of 
creative art also encourages this kind of thinking.

Again this needn't either agree with or contradict one's spiritual beliefs.  
That's not to say that some people won't use techniques from their religious 
or spiritual background, such as meditation, to shift their mental gears.  
But I don't think it's a good idea to espouse any specific spiritual 
practices in Permaculture, and holistic/intuitive thinking can be taught in 
ways that are "religion-neutral" so to speak, including to atheists and 
agnostics. :-)

Anyway, hi guys, long time no see, I've been mostly just lurking lately but 
still kicking.  Nice to know y'all are still at it and still ornery. :-)

--Lee

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