permaculture

[Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>]

At 10:09 AM 8/6/2004, you wrote:
> 3. Re: Permaculture Events   andReligious/"Spiritual"Events: Re:
>       Permaculture/Lughnasadh Eve Social (Lawrence F. London, Jr.)

This is all very interesting considering the lineage and all that.

Bill eschewed all religion and politics as counter productive in regard to 
teaching permaculture.  His feeling, I'm sure, was that it muddied the 
waters, especially within a context of cultural differences.  I agree with 
that sentiment whenever we are talking about an organized religion with a 
written dogma, something about codifying ones spiritual path that creates a 
contentious atmosphere toward the other, or non-believer.   I welcome 
anyone and any belief system to the courses I teach but do not allow any 
proselytizing during class.  I also spend time speaking to the issue of the 
unspeakable horrors that Christian missionaries have visited on indigenous 
people around the world and they continue to do so.  A reading of "Thy Will 
Be Done The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in 
the Age of Oil"  by Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett is enough to set 
ones hair on fire.

On the other hand Bill once stated that the greatest book ever written was 
"The Golden Bough" by James Frazer, which is a codification of religious 
practices around the world.  I think that there is a big difference between 
codified religion and Animism which, in short, is a belief that all of 
nature including us is imbued with spirit, I don't have a big argument with 
that and I don't believe that Bill would as long as the "spirit" part was 
self defined.  I think that in PC courses it is easy enough to access this 
ineffable spirit in the talent show, in fact I think that that is the 
purpose of the talent show, a testament to Bill's pedagogical genius.

There is something, also, that is very magic in the unspoken, that is the 
primary beauty of good poetry.  Bill's poetic descriptions of natural 
processes were very often near to evoking out of body experiences or a kind 
of wonder.  I think that is the ultimate goal of the deep ecology movement, 
to create an atmosphere of awe and wonder of nature and our 
connectedness.  As close to church as I want to be.

Scott


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