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.
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