WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #37I am much more aware these days of the cold and how it penetrates our house. It’s 2:25am and my daughter and I are both in the living room, both on mac laptops, both headphoned wearing half-gloves to keep our hands warm and our fingers free. Only she is researching evolutionary genetics and I am taking a personality test for the CIA. What super power would I most like to have?
Cold air is seeping in everywhere: my feet feel a breeze, my nose, my hands. Do I have to live without windows to have a warm house and low heating bills? Why doesn’t my big orange cat who sits in the sun all day, come over and warm up my feet, seeing as he is a natural solar panel?
Before the holiday I spent a weekend listening to Scott Pittman, Permaculture Institute founder, tell our small group how to build adobes, how to let air circulate, how to appreciate common sense.
Each new subject he tackled reminded me that I already knew what he was talking about. But not in an “I know everything” sense, more like, “Oh, yeah, I knew that” feeling of deep recognition. Some of my notes:
• every element in a system should serve several functions
• the biggest losers in the Enron scandal were the green investors
• Rome put salt into the fields of their enemies to ruin their economy
• cooperation not competition is the rule in natural systems
• ask yourself: how do I occupy space?
• ask yourself: where is the system leaking?
• Russians named our soil terms; Arabs named our desert terms
• look in the problem for a solution
• what resources increase with use? seeds, information, love
I had a bold question; I asked, Why can’t green businesses pay local providers their actual business rate in Santa Fe? Scott answered that he often ends up with a wealthy client which in turn allows him to work with needy groups within their budget.
I jumped all over that, barely giving him a chance to pause: Why are we always dependant on one wealthy client, hoping the money will trickle down? That doesn’t sound like it fits with the tenants of permaculture.
I love to discover the truth, but I was unprepared for how earth-shattering this piece of knowledge came at me. The system is B-R-O-K-E, Scott enunciated with a hint of his own frustration. But I knew that, of course I knew that. However, until that moment, I hadn’t accepted it.
I sat stunned. For a few minutes I stopped taking notes Well, that explains everything, doesn’t it? Why is the dollar worth 4 cents? Why am I always wanting to lie down with my spine touching the earth’s spine? Why do I have dreams of being a spy? Because “the ones who didn’t know better” took advantage of the natural systems and drained them, drained me, made me want to fight. So many of my actions fell into a trajectory that I had not noticed before.
Consider this blog: a year-long exercise on combining writing and nature. Or my photos: all celebrating the patterns of nature.
Another clue: the two summers I spent at Green Gulch farm where I met Fukuoka-san who talked about bombing the CA hillsides with seeds.
My first poem, written at age 14 extolled the beauty of the fairies alive in the moonlight in my humble suburban side yard.
My client list this year: a local greenhouse, a LEED architect, a compost maker, a xeriscape expert, and a landscape designer. How did that happen?
The weekend was very similar to sitting continuous Zazen: the lower back ache, nodding off after lunch, the way the world seemed so fresh and untried when you walked out the door. The sense of coming home, of being with your true family.
For two days I watched the track of the sun slant through the western window, slide up the edge of a podium made from grey barn wood, and turn the last yellow leaves of a rose bush golden before it exited the stage. As I listened, I drew the outline of the table in front of the window that held coffee pots, tea bags, doughnuts, crackers, honey.
After the long weekend of exploration, I know the path I am on, I can feel the solidity of the earth under my feet. But I don’t yet know how to name it.
