In the book I recently reviewed Ecotherapy: Healing With Nature in Mind I found a link to a very interesting article: Ecological Collapse, Trauma Theory, and Permaculture by Lisa Rayner. The article closely approaches something I have thought for a long time, that Gaia, the Earth, is sick with the disease of civilization and that individual disease (mental or physical) can be seen as a microcosm of planetary suffering and vice versa. As a species we have multiplied and overrun the earth, much like a systemic candida yeast infection (candida normally resides in the healthy body in small amounts).
If this is so, the methods of healing should be similar for both people and the planet. Like the various ways we respond to the environmental crisis from “it doesn’t exist”, to organic agriculture, to violent resistance, people have differing opinions on how to treat candida, from “it doesn’t exist”, to just stop eating so much refined sugar and add some probiotics to the diet and you’ll be alright, to blasting it with fungicide.
Although I do not see permaculture, at least in its current incarnation, as the end all be all solution (for a rousing argument about this read post and comments @ Urban Scout’s: permaculture vs. rewilding) I believe the author is on to something. I particularly like the quote: “I have a very visceral understanding of overshoot and collapse. That is because I have experienced overshoot and collapse within my own body. I am a trauma survivor. This experience has given me the ability to understand our civilizational predicament in a way that people who have never experienced severe psychological trauma do not posses to the same degree.”
In my experience, most rewilders are misfits, generally both sensitive and brilliant, who have experienced trauma either acute or complex, which has caused them to resonate with the pain of the earth. More thoughts on this later!
Hello Emily. I like your blog very much. As for rewilding vs. permaculture I’m of a mind that this is an unnecessary distinction. I think you’re right that permaculture isn’t itself an end all be all solution.
That said, I’d say that for the most part rewilding is permaculture. In that living in within the constraints of resources at hand and respecting your place in the homeostasis that sustains you is permaculture.
Could a person or group take rewilding and twist it into something that doesn’t respect the natural balance of the land? Sure. Anything taken to an extreme can be made harmful. I’m sure that if a million folks went to a rewilding camp up at hood we’d scare off all the wildlife, and just about crush the place.
A mentor and I developed a shared interest in green building practices. He says that cob structures can be sustainable. But if every one in Portland were to dig up a clay bank and some dirt, grab up all the sticks and straw they could gather, the land would be barren waste in no time.
My two cents is that the same idea applies to hunting and gathering. Our population base is supported by an industrial capacity that is not sustainable.
A population base in the billions cannot act within the confines of a traditional homeostasis. It is by it’s nature unsustainable.
Well what I like about permaculture is that it more proactively addresses the reality of our population base.
I’m as romantic idealist as the next guy, but I haven’t drank the cool-aid when it comes to the glorious dreams of collapse. Don’t get me wrong there’s shit that needs to get fucked up.
It’s just that wars are notorious for fucking up ecologies, and utopian visions that don’t address the fundamental realities of peoples existence, tend to start hurting lots of people. People we need to organize.
I mean to say that there are things that an organized body of people can do to restore healthy ecologies. Permaculture is all about it. Any movement that advocates for making the earth healthy should organize permaculture, and assess the degree to which it can consciously re-wild.
gosh im sleepy..
This is *very* interesting, Emily–I really look forward to more thoughts on this!
Funny… I actually printed that article out a while ago when it was referenced to in an Anthropik piece.
Since then, it seems to pop up all over – when I’m looking for a certain book, or rummaging through my paperwork, etc.
I hadn’t checked your site for maybe 6 months until just now and here it is again!
Woo-woo.
aww poor earth!
*RAGE* I SAW PICS OF HORRIBLE WATER POLLUTION I WENT MAD THOSE IDIOTS