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  • From: KNat <knat@sprintmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] [ Fwd: Can You See This [Revolution] Coming?
  • Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 08:54:10 -0500

Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [SANET-MG] Can You See This [Revolution] Coming?
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 18:00:24 -0800
From: Woody Wodraska <wodraska@MAC.COM>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Can You See This [Revolution] Coming?

I have written from time to time about how we will all be
gardeners in the future, that it’s in our genes to grow food and
provide for ourselves. This is the way it was a couple of hundred
years ago and further back for ten thousand years.

I don’t mean every one of us will be a gardener--there have
always been classes of people who ordered the others about, or
interceded with the gods, or made a living by trading--but by far the
majority will be pretty close to the earth and live out its rhythms.
While I agree there is need for awareness of Earth Rhythm in all stages, I think it's important to remember we have mixing cultures and Humans too have rhythms. It is not just "classes," as we think of British leveling of rich and poor. We were never all the same 100 years age either. Have and have not in monetary terms is probably not the highest relevance. For Earth change, have and have not in dirt experience is. We are not necessarily going to see a sea tide of farmers (though some areas have disproportionate populations and will.) With people evolving awareness of where food comes from, the Earth Awareness is rising, yes, but each responds in their own way. There is a bubble in American Society from industrialization Baby Boom but the human pattern does not seem to have changed.
I was privileged to be the not strong kid who took care of the Elders and grew with their history as my reality. My Grandmother would listen to me read a sociological Study from some great theorists of cultural change and say "Yes, that's right. 3 generations dirt to dirt." So simple. Translation, a child who is raised on a farm, wants an easier life for themself and their parents. They have food so the are given education, pictures of life beyond the farm they are connected to but never see because there are chores to be done, yet a rich life at home in terms of nutrition and knowledge. They are used to food being around and encouraged as inventors and innovators. The land can only sustain so many and a portion of those children leave. They are unlanded and hire out to work in other things for their keep. Next generation, the families grow up with relationship to money. The children get some education, some working for others. Next generation, their children see choice- work, teach or be with the land. Their education includes what their Grandparents have told them of feet in dirt and stream (or sand and wave) and support from the ground (or sea.) They feel disconnected and seek roots. They, the gardeners who become small farmers and return to dirt. 3 generations dirt to dirt.
Many studies have been done of generations of immigrants, especially Chinese family. First generation American, had a specific delineation. The stages even had different names, so drew Sociologists. A different cultural expectation of one born here than one come here. As my Grandmother quickly noted, in those studies the influx was also from rural to urban so those studies also reflect farm to city to suburb to farm.
Similarly, urban renewal through gardens/farms has been most possible with a solid mix of displaced farmers who left because the farms were taken but still retain the skills and third generation wanting to return. I think we will find neighborhoods of second and fourth dominance do not have the skills and will need specific influx of people to return to food rhythms. (fourth may now have been inserted who look to try a different culture and share much with the third so is very trainable but doesn't have the "feel" for living with the dirt, nor the lore.) As immigrants come from other places they seem, to this set of eyes, to be part of change based not on their origin but their part of the cycle. New arrivals to American cities from farming cultures flow in to the first generation leaving farm mindset. New arrivals from a city elsewhere are second or third depending on their place in the human cycle.
We focus on balance and that includes distribution of human stages. People moving from scratching, to sharing, to wondering, to scratching. Even in returning to small local systems some will grow, some will mill or spin, some will build tools, some will negotiate trades with other local systems. We are not looking to all become one stage of person. I think it's important we each make sure our small area has multiple generations of land relationships and a deliberate education of life outside our locality to keep the flow of human rhythms. The "revolution" is going back to recognizing more than one generation in planning. People come and go whether thru birth and death or thru choice and spirit. The "plans" are for the place not the people.

Peace,
Kathyann




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