permaculture

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

> They are part of one another, inextricably linked as I see
> it. NF could be considered subjective while permaculture is 
> objective. Permaculture seeks to design and implement systems 
> that emulate Nature and become natural or NF in their most 
> basic elements. NF gives direction to those designs and installation 
> of them. Permaculture does not just "seek to emulate Nature" 
> is seeks to be nature, harmonious with on site and off site ecosystems, 
> a dynamic process, continually changing and self-stabilizing
> (sustainable, regenerative). Permaculture leads to NF and NF provides
> timeless and essential design criteria, not to mention inspiration.

Larry, these are words and concepts too.  The question is what does it all 
mean in the reality beyond the concepts?  By "emulating nature" you already 
take the first conceptual step that separates you from nature - there is 
nature and there is you who emulates nature, who controls nature, who designs 
nature, ... If there were any philosophy to be extracted from NF (which there 
isn’t), than we could perhaps say that “the NFer IS nature, the NFer does not 
emulate nature”.  Thus, there is the duality of you and nature versus the 
ideal of the “unity with nature” of the NFer.  It doesn’t matter whether this 
ideal can be reached or not, since everything in life (and nature) is 
process.  There is no end and no beginning.  There is constant change.  
Ultimately, the ideal too needs to be forgotten and only nature remains. Of 
course, a Permi can arrive at the same thought processes, methods etc. as an 
NFer, but does she?  How do things look in praxis? 
 If I listen to a newcomer to gardening or farming who presents her 
computer-drawn Permaculture “designs” of her ideal garden or farm, I usually 
have to stop myself from saying anything, because I know that by imposing 
“our design” on nature we deprive ourselves of the things that only nature 
can teach us.  Of course, we are humans, we need to plan for tomorrow, we 
need to make designs; that is “our nature”.  Thus, how do I plan without 
making plans?  Likewise, we can endlessly make word constructions such as 
“method-less method” and the like; which sound intriguing at first, but tend 
to exhaust themselves in meaningless word games.  The art is in the doing.

Modern man is like a forlorn child.  We have lost our traditions, the customs 
of our communities that have fragmented and the wisdom of the ancients.  The 
traditional farmer didn’t need to design his farm with a row of pear trees 
here, some plum trees at a prescribed distance and the chicken scoop or fish 
pond at a certain place behind the farm house.  All these things and much 
more were given by tradition.  The contemporary city dropout needs to learn 
all of this again and artificially create his own traditions.  But with all 
the design features, the avalanche of websites to be studied and the numerous 
practical problems any newcomer will face, it is all too easy to forget the 
other thing.

The bottom line is that the NF philosopher, if she were to exist, does not 
believe in progress, does not believe it science, does not believe that 
humans can improve on nature or that humans can even “know” nature like an 
object to be studied.  That is a hard one to swallow for any Westerner, but 
swallow it we must, or there will be no NF.