Permaculture

Permaculture can turn into a cultish dogma.

Instead of seeing them as instruction, what if the permaculture principles are used as jumping-off points for inquiry into our relationship with the land?

Catch and store energy
"by collecting resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need"

Sure, make hay while the sun shines. But energy is more than a resource to be hoarded for human use.

Energy is relational.
It only functions when two things relate to each other.

Potential energy is "stored" due to "tension" between objects, be that differently charged atoms that are attracted to each other, or a pinecone ready to succumb to earth's gravitational pull and fall from a tree.

Understanding energy as relational could encourage us to think of it in the same ways as we think of other relations and ways of relating.

Rather than just collecting a hoarding what we think of as energy sources, taking that energy for ourselves and away from others, what if we treat these 'energy sources' as relations.

A transfer of energy given willingly is an act of care. A transfer of energy taken by force is violent extractivism.

Problematizing the wood pile.
Does this tie us up in knots, or does it point us to new practical ways of doing things?

Encourage us to reflect on the ways that our actions impact all life?

Rituals and practices for enquiry?

Lately I've taken to asking the wood if it minds being burned. Really what that means is checking to see whether it is already a home for many creatures, whether it