permaculture

[Lee Flier <leeflier@comcast.net>]

Tripp Tibbetts wrote:
> ...I introduced the idea that some "freaky interesting things have happened to me 
> since I discovered permaculture."  I then invited anyone interested in talking 
> about that kind of thing off-line for further discussion.
>  
> This line of discussion was then continued ONLINE, and has drawn some fire as an inappropriate part of the permacultural world.  (Apparently even in this setting!)  Repeatedly the idea that I would be teaching New Age, Aquarian thinking in a PDC setting, if not nipped in the bud now, has been fabricated out of thin air.
Actually, two things were responsible for my comments: 1) your post 
about "speciation leading to a new age" which I felt was something 
highly speculative and not really relevant to anything, and 2) the post 
by someone else who said they only made it partway through a PDC before 
they felt somewhat alienated because they were asked to participate in 
some "spiritual" exercises, and meanwhile they weren't learning anything 
of value to them.

I wasn't trying to intimate at any point that you personally would be 
teaching New Age Aquarian thinking in a PDC setting. :)   You weren't 
the only participant in the thread.

> But Lee, your post makes a lot of sense, and I want to thank you for finally 
> touching on what I was hemming and hawing about in the first place.  I was 
> starting to get the feeling that that more indigenous connection to the 
> spirit had somehow been missed by a whole bunch of people who were claiming 
> some pretty intense experiences!  How could that be?
>  
> Is the subject just still a little taboo?
>   

Taboo, no.  Easily misunderstood and mis-applied, yes... see my last 
post to Frances.
>  
> It's that tangible reawakening of the spirit and deep connection to Nature that I think of as the beginning of a new age for humankind.  A completely different relationship with the natural world, not based on economics of scarcity, but on Gaia's bounty.  Maybe not capitalized 'New Age' in the Aquarian sense.
Well unfortunately, words have cultural connotations, and "New Age" is 
one of those phrases that has a definite connotation in our culture.   
Basically, it's important to avoid muddying the waters by using loaded 
phrases.