“A permaculture way of life empowers us to take responsibility for our own welfare, provides endless opportunities for creativity and innovation, and connects us to nature and community in ways that makes sense of the world around us.
We generally don’t articulate permaculture as a political strategy or movement but reflecting the principle of multiple functions, permaculture strategies have powerful political impacts that have several advantages over conventional political action that focuses on getting those in power to pull the right levers.”
(David Holmgren 2013)
While I have known about the concept of permaculture and have been positively influenced by some of its practitioners for several decades, it is not until now that I have come to more fully appreciate its value to our planet in general and to us humans in particular.
From my PaGaian perspective, permaculture is a very significant Spiritical – spiritual and political, activity that is already providing a growing number of people with daily improvement to the quality of their lives. I find the three ethics at the centre of permacultures twelve design principles namely ‘earth care’, ‘people care’ and ‘fair share’, to be spiritually, politically and ecologically compatible.
While the number of practitioners is still relatively small and growing, if and when the twelve principles of permaculture are practiced by a large enough critical mass of humanity, then we could eventually find ourselves enjoying an ecologically sound and socially just global economy. Permaculture really is a social revolutionary struggle worth participating in.
No matter where one is placed on the socio-economic ladder, no matter what religious or political persuasion one is currently being influenced by, we can and should seriously consider joining the permaculture community, learning its twelve design principles and applying them daily to the best of our ability.
Permaculture is clearly already one of very few viable, sensible livelihood options remaining open to us during what is shaping up to be a geopolitically dangerous, ecologically devastating and socio-economically difficult period for most if not all working families.
Take a few minutes to visit permacultureprinciples.com and see for yourself what it might do for you and your relationship with all-that-is.
As with our spiritual vision, so too with our ecological and social visions, they are planetary by nature and PaGaian by name.
(Livingstone & Seaborne – Southern Spring 2014)
