Observe and Interact-1 of 12 Permaculture Principles

 "We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love…and then we return home.” ~Australian Aboriginal Proverb

The first of the twelve principles of permaculture is to Observe and Interact, which is very similar to Aboriginal Proverb to observe, learn, grow, love. To observe in the purest permaculture sense would be to observe a piece of land, its eco-system, natural resources, the arc of the sun, prevailing wind, drainage, natural pooling areas, identify plants, bug, and animals. So now…what would that look like with self?

You can observe a lot just by watching. ~Yogi Berra

Hint: The elements of self do not look like…

-A list of unrelated items sent to the insurance company as the content and value of ones life.

-A seating list at a charity event with people arraigned according to their ability to donate.

-Checkboxes of species found in your back yard, _Lizard, _Spider, _Bird,..

In all of the above instances the stuff, beings, or nature have been objectified, listing and quantifying are not the same as observing. The first step to observing is to set aside what one thinks they know, along with stories and opinions. This helps to make room for an opening in which information and relationship can take form and flavor. 

With all of the many things that one can observe and interact with, self, community, family, friends, co-workers, nature, try focusing from the ground up. Check out some dirt…can you find ground? Remember eating it as a kid? Do you have edible dirt, or could yard chemicals or other be making it toxic? Is it hard as a rock or soft and earthy rich vibrant and pulsating with life.

Here’s the deal…. It all begins and ends in the darkness of soil.

The ground on which one stands must be grocked to understand life as permaculture and in turn understand to show up as a whole element in a sustainable system. Once one has ground… the sky is the limit because sky plays off of ground.

The body is the interface with this life. I say start with ground because if we want to interact from a place of being a part of the system as opposed to apart from the system we need first to feel our place in the system…Artist, caretaker, worm food…

We are beginning to wake up and realize that ecology and self are one. Yikes!

Forget about hormone-laden milk…Got Dirt? 

The Personal Side of the Three Ethics of Permaculture

“We are also concerned about the negative consequences for humanity and for creation resulting from the degradation of some of the basic natural resources such as water air and land, brought about by an economic and technological progress which does not recognize and take into account its limits.” Pope John Paul II

The three ethics of permaculture are- care for the Earth, care for each other, and Fair Share- living within limits while redistributing surplus.

The first two, care for the earth, and care for each other are self explanatory. We are not there yet but the pressure to be ecologically responsible as referenced by the Pope is growing. The seeds have been planted.

Care for each other has been taught for a while now too…do unto others. Progress has been made, progress to be made…

Self-set limits however… for most… sheer heresy.

Sky’s-the-limit is a religion unto itself these days and yet there are those who understand self-limits from a place a of seamless dynamic beauty with-in limits, of stuff, consumption, and reproduction, then sharing surplus. It’s living the embodiment of the story of loves and fishes, owning the abundance and fulfillment in taking what is needed… then passing on and sharing the rest.

What is enough? Must be answered differently by each from vows of poverty simple, sparse and eloquent, or the Bill Gate’s model, amass fortune, keeps plenty for self and strategically invests the rest back into humanity, or…something in-between. It’s not about right or wrong, closer to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, taking the time to understand too small, and too big, and finding our Just Right!

There is another piece which must be in place though in order to begin a sustainable life and that is a real connection with the timeless place of self which connects with all of life. It lives in everyone but not everyone chooses to live from the there. Not living from the place of connectivity to self and the eternal is in truth not living, but that’s hard to explain to those who mistake ideals and opinions as path and passion. It’s the difference between George Washington Carver lovingly coaxing seeds to self-evolve into new and specifically useful hybridized strains, and Monsanto mutating seeds to tolerate poisonous herbicides so they could sell more Round-up.  The thing is, we do this with ourselves, we mutate self into accepting toxic unfulfilling lives which look good from the outside if viewed from one angle. …Smile!

Understand that sustainability is not a to-do list of buy green, drive a Prius, and recycle. Those are optional elements of a whole interrelated system. At the center of the system is self and self’s-connection to the whole…Once clearly owned and connected- life, planet and future can be retro-engineered and accessorized for sustainability. Choices become crystal clear, like food grown with poisons which burn soil, pollutes water and kills off companion eco-systems, can not then be packaged without preservatives and labeled as NATURAL… 

Return of light

Winter in the garden and the ground lays bare…
It’s such a cliché and we are so clever…why would we submit to a winter of self?
And yet comes... It came for me.

It came first as a seasonal melancholy, then followed by abrupt and senseless loss…which in turn cut a core belief off at the knees…a belief I held with out question. Feet stood firm but there was a death of ideals along with the comfort of knowing were lost. So I slipped in through the quiet of sorrow to the abyss of the void, retreating into a barren winter within.

There is a sanity in following the rhythms of nature, however dark and long the nights... But even knowing the nature of seasons, I found it tricky to steal time to properly morn, dissolve, or dismantle myself these days. I thought about the necessity of time to reboot the soul, cut loose of the known, to deepen and regenerate while I was in darkness, not blogging, and keeping the company of self…in-between like 32 family gatherings, holidays, birthdays, work, big family and never ending obligations.

Seasons and loss of all kinds happen, and in the end the body will die. Man’s quest for knowledge and power, along with our pathological repression of nature have done little to change the outcome of the game, death still comes…Or so I contemplated in the dark of my winter…

The world got dark, cold, my dog died, rain fell and life sucked, but then the days got longer, warmer, our spring sprung froth to feed and fill the pond, crows courted and a new puppy is on the way. I don’t need to have a vision board to imagine spring. It’s the natural procession of life.

Big smile… I think about the primitives and pagans, simple folk, celebrating the return of the sun, spring, harvest, the quiet of the dead and then a return of life… Can I play too? I want to celebrate the return of the sun but only after having had the privilege to feel its disappearance. I want the quiet of the night, and opportunity to compost emotional and mental debris in the vacuous void. And I’ll trust that spring will let me know when its time to return…

But I must ponder… Who thought to put New Years in the dead of winter? There is nothing natural about celebrating new beginnings when the life which surrounds still lays dormant. Chinese’s New Years on the other hand came this week. It’s the year of the tiger, disruption and change! Perhaps we can change the date of New Years.

The sun is back, the pond is full, the garden wants expanding. Our business, held hostage for months in a bureaucratic winter of Washington DC is poised to get final blessing from the USDA. Call it coincidence or spring… The word feels renewed and my need has changed from isolation to engagement. It’s magic…

Einstein's Map- Liberation Through Compassion

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security-- Albert Einstein
With the equation E=mc2, Einstein was able to convey that matter and energy are really different forms of the same thing and that matter can be turned into energy, and energy into matter…, a truly mindboggling concept with potential limitless and sustainable energy. With, “Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” Albert maps healthy sustainable inner-ecosystem, which in turn, translates into healthy whole planet eco-systems.
If we could master both equations as a collective by next January that would really rock. Tick-tock.
The teaching and concept of compassion has been around… Christ taught it, Buddha taught it, Quan Yin embodied it, and yet from the level of the collective, humans have not come very far. Instead most wallow like pigs in slop in the prison of delusion… Why?
Is compassion that painful? Is the prison that comfy? Are we that dim? What’s the deal?
This blog is on Personal Permaculture, or growing-up our inner psychology to the point where we collectively evolve into sustainable global citizens. On a side-note, my mother has no faith in you the people, or in my odds at making headway with my intent, but I beg to differ. Collectively, I think we dally, but when up against it, we manage to work miracles. For those keeping score, its become evident that the chances, choices and possible outcomes for the future of our kin are narrowing with each passing day, and each passing year as 80 million more people slide down those birth canals joining life raft Earth.
Just as some lizards managed to get wings, I believe that humankind must find liberation from the cell of separation- to recycle trash, plant a garden, practice compassion. Compassion for self, for other, and planet guilt free and with passion! “Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security-- Albert Einstein

Why not try compassion?
Sweet thoughtful widening circles of compassion,
Small ripples, moving through still deep pools of compassion,
Giant waves of compassion to batter rocky shores of isolation,
Compassion with wings….

Organic, More than what you eat

This week we explore where personal permaculture meets politics, rule of law and myopic pin-heads…
While admittedly less mythically inspiring than some posts, equally vital to our sustainable future.

~ September 23, 2009 Zelig Golden, NY Times-
“In another important case against Monsanto and the USDA, the Center for Food Safety has again prevailed, demonstrating that GMOs pose serious risk of harm to organic farmers and consumers, and that the USDA is failing to sufficiently protect us from the contamination that can result from the planting of theses crops – this time in Sugar beets!..

A Federal court ruled that the Bush USDA’s approval of genetically engineered (GE) “RoundUp Ready” sugar beets was unlawful. The court ordered the USDA to conduct a rigorous assessment of the environmental and economic impact of the crops on farmers and the environment”

The above ruling is a huge step for organic, without which there might not have been a legal argument. It’s in the National Organic Program rule that organics be GMO-free. GMOs indiscriminately pollute the organic seed stock, along with heirlooms vital to our ability to adapt to the oncoming changes in environment along with our evolving taste/flavor demands.

Recently some nit-wit wrote not to buy organic avocados because they could be peeled thus the consumer could avoid pesticides… Really? Is that where the story ends…with the person who ate the avocado?

Does that sound like the whole picture?

When my mom’s conventional avocado grove (now organic) had to be aerial sprayed for thrips, (twice in one year) -every bee, bug and bird in the orchard dropped dead. Meanwhile our nearby organic grove had no notable thrip damage. So…what is a grove of bees, frogs, and birds worth? What is the value of supporting healthy, bio-diverse whole organic systems? What is the value of eating food not grow with sewage sludge and non-irradiated?

Organics are a verified, eco-friendly form of food production which can no more be taken out of the whole system, than mankind can live without clean water, air and soil and planetary bio-diversity.

In our organic avocado grove the soil is alive with microbials, worms, beneficial bugs, the land is rich in diverse vegetation, mulch, and life such as toads, frogs, song birds, bats, coyote, bob cat, mountain lions, and birds of prey. In the conventional groves there are no weeds, (RoundUp- which can be harmful to frogs…which are then eaten by birds…) the soil is dead, burned by nitrogen, and those dwelling or buzzing through the canopy in danger of lethal spray. Yes, the avocado can be peeled, but in which grove would you put the future of your children’s children?

It’s not always financially possible to buy organic… but to say not to buy organic- is its own crime of conscience… When the choice and funds are available, know that it is a small slice of eco-system you’re supporting. And that is a very big thing….

We are all connected...

‘We are all connected…To each other, through biology…To the Earth, chemically…To the rest of the universe, at the atomic.” Neil de Grass Tyson

Connected biologically, chemically, atomically to each other, the planet and the universe…but are we connected emotionally? Spiritually? To not be connected would seem unlikely.

My friend E.J. Gold wrote “It is our job to alleviate the suffering of the Absolute.” I have pondered this statement for a very long time…Alleviate the suffering of the Absolute. Isn’t God supposed to be responsible for our suffering? As a parent I can say that children do have the ability add to both joy and suffering. My son could definitely spare me untold grief should he choose… so it’s possible. If we are connected, then alleviating any suffering of the Absolute would seemingly lessen the suffering of all.

Along the lines of suffering, mine and the absolute, I have been exploring the space between the exquisiteness of feeling deeply in terms of love, beauty and the divine, and the longing for a body-prophylactic for protection from the rest. But life does not work that way. If I love deeply, I will know loss. This could fit with Buddha’s “all life is suffering.” Although I’m not ready concede that all life is suffering, I’ll agree that love and loss are inseparable.

Religion has a long tradition of glorifying suffering, to the point of self-inflicted suffering. Our cultivation of suffering is a learned behavior so it is something we can unlearn. “Alleviating the suffering of the Absolute,” intrigues me as a spiritually-mature, healthy alternative to martyrdom.

Perhaps we should not love or not feel?
What do you think landed us here? Not feeling, lead to massive consumption in order to numb our disconnect… and still we felt. From there our inner-toxicity has seeped outward and onto planet...


From the sustainable, whole-systems approach, the equation would be: pain and suffering form connection…, counterbalanced by the joy, inspiration, comfort, and constructive mirroring, generated from resonate sharing of friends, loved ones, and kindred-spirits. Ultimately, the power of love alleviates mountains of suffering. The deep shadow reflective rivers of sadness should not frighten but serve to strengthen our resolve to love more fully…


We are, after all connected…to the planet through biology. When the planet suffers, so does the body and the planet is suffering. Here it’s a no-brainer to commit to alleviating the suffering of the plant and our biological-vehicle… When our body suffers, the mind, the emotional and the spiritual body suffer as well. From dis-ease it is hard to dream new worlds, love fully and experience the searing beauty of our miraculous connectivity.

“The beauty of a living thing
is not the atoms that go into it,
But the way those atoms are put together…
The cosmos is also within us..,
We are made of starstuff.
We are all ways…
The cosmos can know itself…” ~ Carl Sagan

What would you share with the cosmos?
What suffering could you spare the absolute?

Awe...

“When men lack a sense of awe, there will be disaster.” ~Lao Tzu (531 B.C.)

I think if Lao Tzu were coming to dinner we’d have much to discuss.
I spent the day on-line catching up on Ted-Talks, the Bioneers Annual conference postings, cutting-edge organic and environmental art, and other relevant planetary doings…from the hopeful to the hopeless, taking in the global picture. I will say that there are a lot of remarkable people, projects and lines of awareness emerging at this time. Right along side are critical global issues which could so easily render me frozen, mute or lost in despair. If he were to be at dinner I would tell Lao Tzu that awe and disaster have arrived as the Siamese-twins of this era. Then there are the oblivious…until disaster finds them too.

Disaster is being felt each day in a billion ways by millions of beings, as the norm of their lives is being irrevocably altered. It is felt in the faceless-wild spaces where climate is changing, and man has infringed deeply into the sacred balance of nature, fracturing once-whole systems… and those are the first waves. Disaster is setting up house.

Meanwhile…I am in awe… In awe of the guy who is making fat-free (elegant organic low-material) furniture. In awe of the artists who sculpt amazingly sensitive detailed sculptures out of used tires and the photographer who photographs the largest tire dump in the world so that the horror and beauty coexist within the viewer. In awe of the man who while working out the details of using radio waves to cure cancer discovered he could make an engine which will run on salt water. In awe of the multitude of thoughtful, creative, sustainable ideas being birthed and midwifed into form.

Yes disaster is on the march… but the brilliance it provokes in mankind is so awe-inspiring. I wonder what Lao Tzu would have to say about that?

My shaman friend keeps directing me towards my wonder. Awe and wonder seem similar if not the same, although wonder seems child-like and awe seems more adult and age appropriate. I may need to invite him to dinner as well… I was struggling with wonder and feeling discomfort in the naiveté and innocence which accompanied wonder. I did have a dream in which I had “eyes-of-wonder” sort of like glasses which I could take on and off. In playing with them I learned that I can’t wear “eyes-of-wonder” while doing organic review work, but I could wear them in nature…

The point being- I’m finding my way. I’m choosing my side, I’m choosing awe and I’ll continue to work on wonder… It’s a comfort really, a clear job description that I can handle. I don’t have to have answers to problems large or small. I can own my awe.

Disasters will come.

Our power is in our searching and supporting all that is awe worthy.

If Lao Tzu is right… rediscovering awe could be our salvation.