“. . . and now our challenge is, trying to figure out what those interrelationships are.”
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my local intuitive healer a few days ago. She works with a machine that reads frequencies, and prescribes homeopathic remedies that change over time, given how my body/mind/spirit responds to the remedies. But what is really going on inside me? Hard to know. The usual “scientific” way of “explaining” something is to look for a single cause, and see the world in terms of chains of cause and effect, that is, linearly. But we both realize that what’s going on is a field phenomenon, with millions of subtly interacting “parts.” A quantum field, writ small, “inside” me. And one that interacts and interpenetrates with infinities of other infinities “outside” me, all field phenomena, all mysteriously alive.
How do I know the healing techniques are working? Because I’m subtly and gradually feeling more and more in tune with myself and the world around and within me.
So too, with permaculture — including plants, insects, animals, even human cultures! All of them field interpenetrating phenomena, with millions of subtly interacting “parts.” And we want to attune to this panoply of latent and obvious abundance. How?
What we do is stated in the first principle of permaculture: “Observe and interact.” All we know is that various plants (including what we call “weeds”) like each other, and prefer to grow together. But which ones, and why? That’s the never ending challenge: to truly understand the mystery of nature is beyond human imagination and requires, shall we say? — a certain humility in the face of the all-pervasive, regenerative divine.
