Finding Home in Permaculture
By 2024 apprentice Allura
“Stand Still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, and you must treat it as a powerful stranger, must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, you are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.” - David Wagoner
There is a word I once heard called Solistalgia. It’s meaning is similar to nostalgia, but it is for a place you are already in. It is feeling lost and missing even when you are “home.” It was brought up at a discussion I attended by an indigenous elder, so too was the quote above, recited with strength and invitation. She said it is a collective occurrence, “for the forest to be lost on us”. For us to be disconnected from the land in which we dwell, for nowhere to feel quite like home and to be searching for it everywhere. To remain in a state of longing. But then a sense of gladness washed over her form, and she spoke again with an antidote: ‘let the forest find you. let the plants identify you instead of you trying to identify them. That is how we come home’ This wisdom is an upside down concept for many of us when we’ve been taught that we are the only observers when “alone” within the trees. Yet I also think it is quite simple and innate, to remember the awareness that surrounds us. It is a practice of receptivity and reconnection, one that seems so natural within children. Simply opening ourselves up to pay attention to the wonders and mystery of life as adults may at first seem like an intangible act but I truly believe it is just a practice of nurturing and reawakening one of our many organs of perception. One of my greatest guides to relearning these perceptions has been through the study of Permaculture, a culture that merges ancient wisdom and new through a system of principles and designs, bringing humans back into harmony with the earth. And it is the first principle, to Observe and Interact, that grounds me with roots deep and unwavering into my sense of ‘Here’ wherever my feet kiss the ground.
When we are children, it is instinctual to observe the mystery and wonder of life through interacting with nature. When we are small and physically closer to the earth it's as if we can hear her better and we naturally want to play, explore and relish in the awe of it all. I believe Observing and Interacting is the first principle to practice in permaculture because it drops us into the beginner's mind reminding us that we need to return to this way of observation and truly learn how to be with the land before anything else. This seems simple but it takes time. This principle goes against the reading or looking up of information on the internet with motivations of speeding up the process. David Holmgren, co-founder of Permaculture, says in his book “Although I recognize the value of formal education and training and communications media, they are also part of the problem preventing us from a more direct connection with, and experience of, the natural world through observation and experience.” Relearning how to be present and open is a fundamental prerequisite to reigniting our connection to the earth in order to work with her again. It is as if only the soft whisper in the trees can sing us a song to enchant us with her magic- ‘do you remember how to be with me?’ she asks. When coming to the first principle of permaculture, we must take the time to get to know our unique ways of observing and interacting with the earth.
So I am learning how to join the dance of being one with the heartbeat of the earth again, a rhythm that I realize I knew quite well when I was young. Some ways I choose to interact with the land is by falling to my knees in her beauty, before the silent mountains or at dawn in the long grass that holds the morning dew. Falling in love with Earth, I consider an interaction too, with the sounds of the jungle’s midnight symphony lulling me into my dreams, or with the seedling in the nursery that sprouts strongly towards the long time sun. Sometimes I do interact with reading, about the plants or out loud to them. I merge my sense of play and devotion by encircling trees with offerings. Sometimes that is by clearing the space around them and surrounding their trunk in leaves and compost for nourishing support. Other times it is an altar of flowers and dark chocolate in honor of their beating spirit. I dare my quiet and shaky voice to talk with the plants too, asking questions and for guidance or by offering words of my own love. I am learning that I am interacting when I am in the forest and being, just being or singing, laughing or crying, dancing or resting, and loving. These are the ways I know to Interact. And I observe with my breath in reverent stillness of my mind. Sitting with a plant and breathing in, gratitude for their life and the air they feed me, I breathe out- this exhalation is for them. I believe these ways of observing and interacting with the land relays a message to the earth that I am ‘Here’, that I am listening and I am paying attention. I think it is not about what we do when we “Observe and Interact” but the intention behind it that forms a language of patience, appreciation and awe with the earth. The ways in which we each do this are unique to each person but in essence I think it is all within the same song. I hope this song can be heard, but in truth, I don’t know if I can prove to you that it is. I decide to carry on and do it anyway because after all, this is a process of being found rather than of finding.
“By observation we usually mean using our eyes, but this reflects how visually dominated modern people are, raised in a literate and now graphical world. All of our senses have great potential to provide valuable information.” David Holmgren
I believe it is possible to reconnect to the wonder and mystery of life by opening our senses to observe and interact, as the first principle of permaculture suggests. And when we can learn/remember how to connect with the wondrous earth that holds us, maybe within our sense of longing we can feel her longing for us too. Longing for us to remember that she is home and our ‘Here’ no matter where we wander off to in this wild world. How can we feel her closeness? There have been studies that show us the mycelium mat under the soil, which acts as the sentient mind of the forest connecting all trees, is able to sense when someone walks inside. It is becoming common academic knowledge that individual trees have the ability to hear, feel, see, recognize rhythm, store memory and the ability to communicate what they know amongst other trees. We already know the earth is identifying us. The unraveling knowledge becoming apparent is pure magic and can provide some reassurance to this process. But must we read it to believe it? Or can we simply join the dance and awaken our perception to believe and know it deep in our bones. ‘Stand still, the forest knows where you are.’ It has certainly found me.
“Thus the thinking and design revolution, of which permaculture is a part, only makes sense when it reconnects us to the wonder and mystery of life” David Holmgren
