permaculture

[Daniel Jager <dfjager@yahoo.com>]

"I practice 'do-nothing' farming, therefore I go out and work in the fields 
the whole day."

This is just the first of many paradoxes to solve before one can understand 
Fukuoka.

Fukuoka was originally trained as an agricultural scientist. He worked many 
years for the Japanese government as a researcher on plant diseases. This is 
a point that one has to remember since it proves that his rejection of 
scientific farming was not due to ignorance or unfamiliarity with it.
One day however, he had a vision and saw 'the heart' of Nature. He then also 
saw that almost all (scientific) 'methods' to improve on Nature would lead 
man more and more away from Her.

Reading Fukuoka and the description of his 'vision', it is clear that he had 
a profound mystical experience. His subsequent approach to farming can 
probably be called something like 'Zen' or Taoist farming.

In his farming, like in Taoism or Zen, there is the believe (for him: the 
Knowing) that the essence is perfect. But we all have gathered superfluities 
around this essence that hamper its unfolding. The 'trick' is to remove these 
barriers to let the essence be dynamic, to let it flow again and unfold.

Fukuoka's method is without a doubt a form of agriculture based on Eastern 
spiritual thought. The problem is that most of us do not really understand 
this ideas at all; mostly because we have not had a similar vision ourselves; 
we lack the level of awareness.

Fukuoka's view is that of the spiritual essence of Nature. The only way to 
approach Nature and 'cultivate' Her is to *see* more of Her. According to 
Fukuoka, we can start doing that by living in much closer proximity to her 
for several years; to raise our 'sensitivity' (eq. awareness). And from this 
new sensitivity, this new knowing, to start removing the barriers that 
prevent our food plants from reaching health, vigor and fertility.

Of the people who come in touch with Fukuoka's ideas:
There is quite a large group of people that think that Fukuoka's Natural 
Farming is a lazy man's way of growing food.
There is another large group of people who read his work and reject it for 
being 'faith'-based agriculture with no 'practical' value.
Then, unfortunately, there is a much smaller group of people that seem to 
grasp his core ideas, but like with all other dynamic things in Life, the 
essential ideas are quickly turned into 'a METHOD', a 'system', a trodden 
path, a static approach. So they equate Fukuoka's 'method' to 'no pruning', 
or 'no tilling', or 'seedballs', or 'rice/barley double cropping'.
And then there is a very small minority of people who do not need any outside 
authority or 'method', but cultivate the Earth on the authority of their own 
awareness.

Ask your participants this: To which group do they wish to belong?


> Message: 3
> Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:58:06 -0800 (PST)
> From: Laura Ruby <larue1221@yahoo.com>
> Subject: [permaculture] One Straw Guiding Questions
> To: "permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org"
> <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID:
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> 
> Hi All,?
> 
> I am hosting a discussion group based around Fukuoka's One
> Straw Revolution. ?Do any of you have any guiding questions
> for students as they read the book, or any recommendations
> for discussion questions?
> 
> Many Thanks!
> Laura Ruby
>