Subject: Pattern and difference

From: Milogic <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 13:49:25 EST

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