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  • From: Tommy Tolson <healinghawk@earthlink.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] defining permaculture
  • Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:17:55 -0500

Hi, Roxann,
Thanks for responding. You write beautifully. I've read your post over and over just to enjoy your prose and the passion with which you've written. I think if all humans did as good as you have at fitting into nature, we might have a good shot at surviving the 2030 convergence. Unfortunately, my sense is that's not the case.
It may be an overstatement, but I think humans are the only species which seeks to rule nature. I suspect only western culture seriously engaged that project, but, again, that may be an overstatement. No other species that I know of seeks to change nature to have it suit them. Beaver, perhaps. Other than that, only humans take more than nests and a subsistence living from nature. No "civilization" has avoided ecological collapse, so far, and our civilization isn't going to get close without something like a major popular awakening. I believe humans have as much right to nature's bounty as any species. I do not believe we have the right to exercise dominion over any part of nature. We are, as Aldo Leopold said, simple members of the land's community. We are neither rulers of the land nor its favored inhabitants. As I've said before, when pond scum is more ecologically useful than humans, it seems to me like a serious wake-up call.
That said, I seriously fear my current lifestyle. I live in an apartment in Austin, TX beside a major commuter artery and buy all my food. There is a food co-op, Wheatsville, but it's a long drive. I make almost no difference politically, that I can detect, in Austin. I practice shamanism and write fiction, both of which are therapeutic for me. I have PTSD from the brutality I experienced in Vietnam (70% disabled) that consumed my life for twenty years before the VA got a PTSD diagnosis. I have a great deal of difficulty with handling stress. My sense is that I am among the most ecologically and socially vulnerable persons on the planet. Recovery helped, therapy helps, and shamanism gave me back enough of my soul to live most of the time in my life. Shamanism is a natural spiritual practice.
I am at work organizing a nature church in Austin called Life Circle. The aim of this church, to me, is to bring nature religion into the mainstream and form a true pluralism in US culture. Everyone else worships God. We worship nature. I don't know the parameters of this church. Its founders will create those in democratic process. So democratic process is a parameter, I suppose. This is a long-term shot at a solution to dominion, in my mind, at least. A solution to dominion, it seems to me, opens a new door of possibilities.
Otherwise, if my ecological situation doesn't change before 2030, I'm toast.
I'm sorely tempted to buy a piece of land and return to working the land, which suits me. I have the cash flow of my VA compensation (as long as the federal government remains solvent) to hold me while I observe the land, its flows, its inhabitants, its soul, and use that input for my Permaculture design. Perhaps I'd do some damage control, but I would try to do nothing until I'm satisfied with my observations. But I have this piece of me, the mature magician archetype, who serves his tribe. Mostly Cherokee and Scotch Irish, that I know of, I'm tribal. My tribe is my Sacred Family: the land and its creatures. So I observe for a solution larger than saving myself. I know how to save myself. I don't know how to save my Sacred Family. I feel as if I were on a sinking ship, though, so the stress eats me alive. Can I save anyone but myself? Must I save myself first, to enable me to save anyone else? Can I, in fact, save anyone else? In my early healing, 12-Step programs taught me that the unwilling can not be saved. They first have to surrender, to admit they are powerless (though not helpless), and that their lives are out of control.
So I continue my observation.

Tommy Tolson
Austin, TX





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