An editorial in the Winter '05 issue of 'Permaculture News', the newsletter of the Eugene-Springfield Permaculture Guild.

Every Resurrection is Local

Ancient religious joke. Q: Whaddya got if you put two theologians in a room? A: An argument. Yup, any attempt to 'word-cage' the innumerable variety of philosophies and activities embraced by 'holism-in-action' presents real challenges. Permaculture is (only) our word for it.

Permaculture's practitioners, or 'permies', do agree on some key fundamentals, however. For one, we are universally concerned with what it is to 'settle in' to where we are living, well. We are home-makers.

Done with integrity, rediscovering this art of belonging is, necessarily, a co-creative dialog: the very landscape we inhabit becomes a full-fledged, intelligent partner in life's design. Wisdom, we say, sits in places. Indeed, the common thread uniting permies is our shared effort to live life in harmony with native rhythms - those of local soils, air and water. When we are faithful to this challenge, this art of belonging allows both us and the ecologies we are a part of to thrive.

Admittedly, this can make for an eccentric course but, as Diane Ackerman astutely observes, "If we needed an excuse to adopt a fascinating hobby, work on novel projects, or live outrageously, we could be claiming to be doing it for health purposes."

Like most people everywhere, we also share an ideal of community. What makes the permaculture experience somewhat unique is our rediscovery of the ancient truth that when we each move individually toward the wisdom of place, the belonging we cherish comes alive between us. Where two or more are gathered...

Put simply, we do not so much build community as we allow community to emerge out of a common attunement to local patterns and archetypal forces. These are subtle but infinitely penetrating forms. In other words, permaculture might rightly be described as "the art of friendship that is sheltered and true."