I was talking with my permaculture teacher and friend Keith yesterday about this site, to which he says he has referred many people. “But,” he continues, “since you also cover UFO/ET phenomena, many people dismiss the site altogether.”
I presume he’s talking about permaculturists, though I didn’t ask. I’ve always known about this deep ubiquitous conditioned bias in the culture, of course, but I keep on forgetting! And could this blind-spot be more prevalent among permaculturists than others, since they are so deeply steeped in working with what they assume to be nature’s immutable laws as found on planet Earth?
But what, I always say, if what we call laws are merely habits?
Wouldn’t you know, my personality is still so combative that his remarks made me want to include even more UFO/ET stuff, just to say, “There, you beautiful, creative, deeply alive people with your heads in the sand making soil, take that! Wake up to the larger mystery bathing us all!”
My main thrust in life seems to be to puncture the balloons of taboo, and the one against a living populated multidimensional universe is, of course, the biggest taboo imaginable. Once we pop that balloon, we’re united with all that is and the abundance that we seek and design for as permaculturists will undergo an as yet unimaginable transformation.
Just look up, and out, and within — surrender to the cosmos, bursting with life, seeking to express through you!
Here’s a good one, posted to abovetopsecret yesterday, December 3, 2011.
0 thoughts on “Are permaculturists more biased against UFO/ET than most people?”
I think it’s probably true for the reasons you mentioned, Ann. I see permaculture as very aligned with the ideas of ‘Limits to Growth,’ and what I would call the fear-based approach to gardening the world that comes along with this. To the extent that permies argue that we ‘have’ to adopt these new approaches, the suggestion ETs or free energy or that sort of thing is in opposition to permaculture.
Of course, I don’t think it needs to be- connecting to land and autonomy and self-determination and community, human and other, are great reasons to get into all this. Maybe better reasons than being cajoled by fear into it.
But I certainly have, in times of frustration and disappointment thought or said aloud some variant of- ‘Fine- you don’t have to believe me about all this; reality will force you to.’ It’s a comforting and nice story, to imagine we have the full force of the planet behind our convictions. But it does continue the myth of redemptive violence in a way- the ‘bad’ people (who don’t see climate climate change or energy descent or whatever) get punished for their failure to abide, and we in the know get to bask in our ‘goodness’ by being more adequately prepared.
Ran Prieur made this point: ‘In a sane society with healthy values and customs, people find them intrinsically rewarding, and become one with them… In a dysfunctional culture, the reward for obedience is enjoying the punishment of the disobedient.’ http://ranprieur.com/archives/034.html
For me, permaculture was at one point a way to ‘obey’ and also savor in the hardships of those who didn’t. It seemed like an ultimate trump card; I couldn’t lose because I was choosing to align myself with the ultimate winner, planet earth. But like Rupert Sheldrake says, what if our laws were more like habits? What if there is more possible than we can yet imagine?
There’s some principle in psychology that says something like, we become less open, more contracted when we’re in fear, and this allows for movements like fascism to emerge in populations. Maybe some permies are afraid, perhaps very reasonably, of what will happen in the near future, and so become more aligned with power (in the form of the exclusionist scientific paradigm), and hope to ride that horse to victory. To say we can have free energy- well, what would that lead to? Why then would we move away from car culture and consumerism and centralization? Only by removing the means to power of the oligarchy can we create the world we want. We must be eternally vigilant to stop us from doing all those ‘bad’ things again. Lucky for us, these natural limits are on our side, so the bad people just won’t be able to be quite so bad anymore. A more spiritually resonant approach for me now would be to instead say: car culture, consumerism, centralization and all the rest actually suck. They undermine my and others’ attempts to live lives of meaning and connection. It’s because we want something better that we can step into a new world, not (just) because limits to growth force us too. Even if we didn’t face these limits, I would do it anyway, because it’s a better way to live.
Maybe not every permaculturist fits this bill and maybe I over-stated the case somewhat. But it’s a thought pattern familiar to me, and one I hope to broaden outward from. Fortunately, I think, like you I’m drawn to being a contrarian and piercing bubbles and exploring this stuff. So keep on trucking with the ET stuff, Ann!
Rob,
Love the various ways in which you think. And am reminded of two stories:
1. Our dear long-time local activist Lucille B. shouted out her alarm when I mentioned free energy, said that meant nothing would stop us and we would pollute even more! True, given the current myopic perspective of most humans (I include myself), unless free energies are non-polluting.
2. Back in the early ’80s, when I was a (violent, i.e., dogmatic and preachy) peace activist, I had a long, soulful talk with an old man whose ranch in Nevada bordered some kind of infernal nuclear testing range. He was a real agitator, determined to keep the U.S. from continuing down the absurd M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) road. That was the time when both the U.S. and the Soviet Union had 50,000 nuclear missiles aimed at each other. (Notice how the initials for Soviet Union, S.U., are (were) the mirror image of initials for the U.S. . . . truly our most honorable opponent back then.) And, that grizzled old peace activist concluded, even there was no hope, even if he died in a nuclear holocaust, he would at least know that he went to his fiery death trying to prevent it.
As bad as things are now, that time was also certifiably insane. I’ve said in these posts somewhere that what really woke me up to the ET presence was the fact that we hadn’t blown each other up, and why not? I knew that an accidental nuclear exchange was almost unavoidable, given our mutual incompetence, so why hadn’t that already happened? At the time I wondered if it was divine intervention. Later I learned that ETs have kept a close eye on our nuclear idiocy, and actually prevented the worst from happening on a number of occasions. See the Robert Hastings posts on this site.
Thanks Ann, great stories. I was struck by that idea elsewhere in your blog that maybe some other force was at work keeping back nuclear war- divine intervention/ETs, whatever. (Is there (necessarily) a difference ?)
I like the continued expansion in your response too. Some useful insight from me, affirmation by you and continued movement outward and onward. Great reminder- thanks.
Interesting, your question, is there a difference between ET and divine? Maybe not! Some theories hold that “the gods” of old were ETs. Another way of phrasing it, is there a difference between ET and spiritual? Lots of people “believe” in channelled messages from spirits, but don’t “believe” in ETs. Go figure! Anything that is “not of this world” is beyond our ken, and tends to be either worshipped or feared — until we realize that the deepest inside of our own essence opens to become the cosmos. We too, are “not of this world.” Or maybe, “this world is not what we think it is” Nor are we!