permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Patterning
patterns in nature:  emulated/enhanced/stabilized/reproduced in permaculture systems

Here's something Milo wrote about patterns and permaculture:
<>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 13:49:25 EST
From: Milogic <Milogic@aol.com>
To: permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu
Cc: bd-l@biodynamics.com
Subject: Pattern and difference

To echo Scott  on the permaculture list and Bea on the biodynamics list (to a
degree): core elements, for me, within the permaculture vision and Mollison's crazy
wisdom* are what Bateson called 'the patterns which connect" and differences that
make a difference. (*substitute Steiner and Biodynamics freely)

Polyculturing is patterning in ways that create differences which make
differences--and doing so within manageable microcosms.

Permaculture is dynamics in systems. People outside permaculture like Theodor
Schwenk and Hans Jenny or Ralph Abraham are working within patterning ideas and
finding pragmatic links between cosmos and soil particles.

Some of the precursors in people like Rudolph Steiner, Edmund Bordeaux
Szekeley, Wilhelm Reich et al, worked earlier in time and under conditions no longer
available. In a remarkable way, in terms of human experience on this planet, we are
totally connected and totally alone together.

New ways of linking, such as this, may be creating the webs of relationship,
community, through which we can abandon reason as we have been taught and find
actualities in tune with now. I suspect permaculture is one of those linking ways.


As we try to cope with conditions presenting themselves from soil imbalances in my
back yard to firestorms in South East Asia, we are dealing with dynamic systems
overburdened with positive feedback, thereby increasing entropic tendencies at
exponential rates. Reason, as we have been given to understand it, is proving
irrational and failing us.


Permaculture offers pattterns, which if explored with open mind, may allow us to
grok differences needed which, in place, will make key differences in species
survival for humankind. Permaculture, by encouraging people to take action in place,
with awareness of universal sentience, provides essential anchors for turbulent
times.

Crazy wisdom is in short supply. Treasure every bit that falls upon you.

For those inclined to Eastern spiritual practices and thought, permaculture may be
understood as a grounding of bliss to find grace, one way of ending suffering
through finding out who we are. For those who follow such paths, it is clear, at
least to me, that east and west are converging into sets of understandings more like
parallel and converging paths.

The works which flowed through a Western mind who integrated Eastern patterns, Lama
Anagarika Govinda, are particularly cogent in adapting and adopting these sets. And
also, an Eastern Mind who groks Western mind, Tarthang Tulku, continues to expand
his Time, Space and Knowledge series. A Western scientist who groks well is Ralph
Abraham (see his Chaos, Gaia, Eros).

Perhaps the better path is simply to meld your being with the soil on which you walk
(if any is available to you).

Milo Clark
Berkeley CA USA
<>
and from Lee Flier:
-
To: permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu
     Subject: Re: edge zones
     From: Lee Flier <lflier@mindspring.com>
     Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997

>Would anyone care to expound on the design and usage of
>edge zones  and patterning in the context of permaculture
>systems?

OK, I'll bite.

Yes, the patterning in design and the use of edge zones is very important in
maximizing use of resources on any site.  It's a really underrated and fascinating
area of study.

"Edge zones" occur naturally at the transition point between any two media. This
could be between air and water, water and soil, forest and field, valley and slope,
etc.  The interesting thing is that the edges of anything are always very dynamic
and productive compared to the interiors.  For example most farmers know that the
yields at the edges of grain or cornfields are almost double what they are in the
interiors!  Also if you look at a pond, there is more potential diversity of species
at the edges of ponds than in the middle.

So, in designing sites we want to maximize the amount of "edge".  In the case of the
grain fields for example, you can plant trees, (together with herbs, fruit bearing
shrubs, vining plants, tubers and anything else that will do well under trees), and
then run 6 foot wide swaths of grain in clearings between the  trees.  This gives
you a "perpetual edge" and you will get nearly the same yield you would have had if
you'd planted all grain, PLUS the yield from the trees and other plants.

Likewise with a pond, if you make "fingers" all around instead of a simple round or
oval shape, you will get much more edge which will yield a lot more in the same
area.

Nature itself has a tendency to arrange things into certain patterns that appear
random to us if we aren't conscious of them, but which are often optimized to create
edge (as with the "finger" shape which is also in an oak leaf, the "branching"
shapes of rivers, lungs, and tree branches, etc.)  The shape of a mushroom is also
prevalant; trees, bones, the flowforms of running water, and many other things take
on this shape.  The patterns, the reasons why the patterns occur, and the
connections between them are endless but the basic ones are fairly simple, and a lot
of aboriginal "abstract art" is really a map of these natural patterns, a way to
pass knowledge of them down to the children.  Most westerners see this artwork and
see it as purely aesthetic, not having a clue that they're looking at the equivalent
of a school textbook - only a lot easier to memorize!

The idea in learning these natural patterns is that by imitating them in human
designs (rather than patterning everything after the needs of
machinery, such as in straight lines and squares), we will get more out of the
system with less work and less use of resources because these are the patterns
things "want" to fall into without our help.  We in fact are wasting resources every
time we try to design a system that runs counter to these patterns.

Well that's the basic idea... I'm sure others will have something to say too!

= Lee =

==================================
Lee A. Flier

--

Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljvenaura@gmail.com