Space, Time and Culture

Patterns in nature provide a model for us to follow and potentially anticipate inevitable declines.  Physical patterns as well as nature’s time cycle patterns provide us with ecological principles of design.  The descent of our economy has been seen as a negative occurrence because our “growth culture” values dictate that success is defined by our ability to grow indefinitely.  This is not a reasonable or sustainable expectation. In “Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability,” David Holmgren stated, “The real issue of our age is how we make a graceful and ethical descent.”  

The ecological reality that decline is inevitable allows us to view decline as an opportunity.

A few months ago, during the fall, I started cultivating soil by sheet mulching my front lawn.  The layers of used coffee grounds, decomposing leaves and broken eggshells combined their collective decomposing powers and represent an opportunity for growth potential in the spring.  For now, the sheet mulching pile has consumed the grass, which was an inefficient consumer of resources and did not provide a useful output.  Using nature’s decomposition cycle will create nutrient rich soil in time for the growth cycle of the spring.  This type of useful application of ecological principles provides a potential model for our society to apply to our economic and social systems to make a graceful and ethical descent.  

Our societal values and organizational patterns have the potential to be inspired by ecological principles and implementing permaculture site design.  For example, instead of constantly expanding garden sizes and creating more complex production systems, surpluses and knowledge is used to set up new gardens.  New efficient systems added to preexisting efficient systems follow the patterns of cellular designs seen in nature such as beehive honeycombs.  This type of approach or design has the potential to be applied to living systems such as co-habitation or co-ops to meet our expanding populous needs. 

Application of nature’s time and space principles is an empowering model to follow and help guide our personal efforts.  Permaculture zones and sectors provide a conceptual model for understanding the power and ripple effect of how our personal choices influence and extend outward throughout our communities all the way out to the global sphere.  

Last Monday night, Katie said, "Rather than sharing our vision in the hopes for others to follow, allow others to envision for themselves."  Imagine the possibilities of this type of efficient cellular expansion of ideas pulsating from your center out to the global level.