00121 Prerequisites for Permaculture Design

Permaculture is Secular and Temporal

Permaculture design is a secular, temporal activity. It is not a religion. Believers in all religions can practice permaculture design without compromising their religious beliefs.

Permaculture design is a useful tool. It’s like the spoon and bowl which help us eat our soup. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Animists, and Atheists can all use a spoon. We could maybe sip soup from the pot, once it had cooled, but it is better if we use a bowl and a spoon to sip our soup. Well, except on cold snowy days when it is more fun to sit in a comfortable chair, wrapped in a quilt, and sip your soup from a thick ceramic mug.

Permaculture design is a human cultural artifact that can help you design your life so that you experience more beauty, happiness, freedom, health, security, and cooperation — with less work, consumption, conflict, injustice, danger, and waste.

The importance of observation.

In the permaculture design beginning. . . we start with long and thoughtful observation.

All permaculture design . . . for everyone, without any exceptions . . . begins with opening your eyes so that you see the realities in which you live, move, and have your being.

Notice that I said “realities” rather than “reality” because the “reality” of modern life is that there are multiple “realities” out there. OK, this is not a technical philosophical or theological discussion of the nature of reality. At most, it is a lay person’s practical approach to life. On that basis, it is obvious from even a casual observation of modern life that people live in different realities.

It’s hard for us to think this way. We want to think that there is one reality, and the real reality is the one we are most familiar with.

But nothing in nature is a monoculture and that includes the practical temporal realities in which we live.

Some say that “perception is reality”. Sure and that’s another statement that could be the subject of hundreds of doctoral dissertations and long scholarly philosophical and theological debates.

That’s not my job. I didn’t write this to decide any ultimate religious or theological questions. I simply think we need a way to go forward into a better, more humane and just world.

We cannot do that if we do not come up with accurate observations of what is around us.

I personally live in a devout Roman Catholic reality. My neighbor up the street, who is from Pakistan, lives in a devout Islamic reality. I will not abandon the reality of my Catholic faith. My Pakistani neighbor will not abandon his Islamic faith. I have other neighbors who are Baptist, Buddhist, and Bahia. I know some atheists and agnostics and lots of pagans.

How shall we live together in this world? My little neighborhood is the world writ large. It is multiracial, multireligious, multiethnic.

That’s what cities are like and if we are honest, that’s a big part of what makes them so exciting.

But we have to see the cities for what the cities actually are, and that means we have to accept the temporal reality that there are multiple temporal realities out here.

So we start with long and thoughtful observation of the realities in which we live. Make notes, take pictures, record videos. Compile spreadsheets and databases. Much more will be said about this in the course of our discussions. Get ahead of the game and start a journal of your observations.

Embrace a holistic viewpoint.

Long and thoughtful observation requires seeing everything in its actual context, which may actually be a multiplicity of contexts and realities. We want to categorize and separate. That’s what we’ve been taught (it’s known as reductionism). Permaculture invites us to embrace the holistic viewpoint. Vision everything as part of a whole. See that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Consider a forest.

We see trees, vines, herbs, shrubs, little critters, bigger critters, creeks, springs, lot's of different elements make up a forest. Yet, the forest most definitely as an entity is greater than the sum of its various parts. Further, we can ask — Where is the gardener? The designer? How does it work together so excellently that it persists for centuries and millennia? The wastes of one element are foods for others. What are the links and beneficial connections that unite these disparate elements into a harmonious whole system?

So we need to see not only the trees, but also the forest, which is the way the individual elements (trees, bushes, worms, birds, wildlife, grass, etc.) work together as systems to make something that is greater than any individual part.

People who can't see the forest for the trees are so concentrated on understanding individual parts, that they never quite get how everything in the forest connects with everything else in the forest.

In urban areas, we look for the community that is the sum of the various elements in a city or region or neighborhood. Like the forest, it will be greater than the sum of its parts.

Trust Yourself.

This is more contrary wisdom. We’re not supposed to trust ourselves.

The Experts say — Trust us! The Experts know all truth. What they say is true. What I think is mere opinion. We should never disobey the Experts. The Experts will never lead us astray.

That is a foundational principle of the default design of the Excess Consumption system. It is part of the system of social control and subjugation that keeps powerful people powerful at the expense of the liberty and freedom of the people and the sustainability of our civilization.

Experts are fine as long as we consider them as resources. When they become authorities, we are in trouble. You are the one doing the design for your life. You make the observations and that includes observing the observations of others (that’s called research).

To do permaculture design, trust your own observations and believe in your ability to make good decisions about your life. The system doesn’t want you to do that, because people who think for themselves take the red pill and drop out of the illusion system that keeps them in mental and emotional slavery.

Respect all creation.

Another bit of contrary wisdom is the permaculture advice to respect all people and creatures as unique manifestations of creation. Permaculture is people-centric. We design and develop systems that people use. We are nature-centric, or planet centric, because we ignore nature to our mortal peril as individuals and as a species. We are integral elements of natural ecologies. That is reality. If we ignore that reality, our designs create unnecessary work, pollution, and waste.

This doesn’t mean that we would never chop down a tree to build a house, nor that we would never kill a steer for food. It does mean that we should never frivolously kill, damage, or destroy for fun and entertainment or mindless activity. Our ability to think and use tools gives us the responsibility to use our abilities to be stewards of the natural creation. The necessities of the future call us to adapt, not dominate.