fdnokes@hotmail.com wrote:
May I recommend a title, then?With all due respect, and I really hate to keep harping on this but...
The Magical Approach
Seth speaks about the art of Creative Living
this is exactly IMO the kind of title we should steer clear of. Not
that I'm telling you personally not to read it, if you enjoyed it, but
keep in mind there are people on this list who are using the list to
learn about permaculture, and here you are recommending a book that
basically requires people to believe in this channeled being named
Seth. If people who read this list believe that this book is somehow
representative of permaculture and its practitioners, that's going to be
a problem for anybody who would, for whatever reason (either they are
atheist, or they subscribe to a religion whose tenets do not include
channeled beings, or they just plain don't believe in such things), be
turned off to the whole idea of permaculture if they feel they have to
accept these things.
I feel there are plenty of other ways to communicate the ideas you
mention, the "reminder to slow down and notice," which don't require any
suspension of disbelief and/or contradiction with anyone else's beliefs.
I was composing this note, and paused for other things...Just so you know... there seems to be some idea that Mollison himself
Didn't even realize I had left it 'hanging'.
Meanwhile, another post came in from Pat talking about 'nudgings'.
A wonderful process that reminds me of that state of 'not doing' that
Fukuoka communicates so beautifully.
and anybody who subscribes to "Mollinsonian permaculture" is some kind
of pure hard nosed utilitarian. I might offer a few direct quotes
(possibly slightly paraphrased from memory) from Mollison which he
taught in his classes and which I feel is the greatest cultural hurdle
we have to overcome (and that means just about everybody - "earth
centered spiritualists" and "hardcore utilitarians" alike.
- "Where there is hard work, there is usually pollution."
- "What we have is a world of things that either have beauty without
being functional, or have function without beauty. Nature doesn't
work that way - natural systems are both functional and beautiful."
- "One should be able to spend most of one's time in the garden sitting
around, and just BEING in the garden. Or go away for a month's holiday
and come back to find the garden thriving."
I'm sure I'm leaving out a few key points, but you get the idea. By no
means is a pragmatic approach to these things inherently geared toward
"busywork" and being "product oriented." And that, IMO, is where we
went wrong in our thinking. I feel that once you incorporate
permacultural thinking to the point where it becomes second nature, you
can certainly be taken over or "nudged" by your instincts, divine
guidance, your right brain, however it is you choose to think of it.
But people do tend to think of that "nudging" as different things in
different ways, and we should leave plenty of room for that.
_______________________________________________
permaculture mailing list
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
Google command to search archives:
site:https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture searchstring
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.