After  reading David Holmgren’s Book “Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability” which I finished in his living room, and having one on one discussions with him about the holistic view of the world, I recognized that David’s reference in his book about the potential of Permaculture in laying the foundations for a spirituality or dare I say a “religion” had a lot of potential (“Religio” means to link back – J. Campbell). When one steps out of the structure of religions one begins to realize that they all serve one purpose: Harmony. That is, Harmony within ourselves, within our community, with humanity as a whole, with nature, with future and past generations and with, as much as possible, the 96%? of the unseen, as quantum physics says is outside of the material realm (which matter is really just slow vibrating energy, which when burned is released in high vibrational energy as heat and light…. no wonder we love that stuff…. versus freezing to death in cold and darkness!). This is the common thread they all hold. All the old local traditions did exceptionally well at explaining these aspects when placed in their smaller understanding of how the world works (Joseph Campbell & Bill Mollison have shed some wonderful insight into how traditional cultures did this in their native landscapes, whether it was Polynesians, Aborigines, Bedouins, or you name it). Yet when taken out of their native landscape and brought into the face of our expanded world view, thanks to science, many fail to help us understand how that fits into this new world understanding of science and human advancement.

The major world religions of today that we have all come to know often times are removed from their native landscape and have done so either by focusing on the “One” God (often in the sky) or by focusing on bringing peace within individuals or communities. This has allowed many of them to expand from their native landscapes without loosing relevance. This has also allowed the growth and evolution of humanity into a globally interconnected species. This has also resulted in the expansion of the Human population primarily by turning ecological capital into humanity and society (from 1 Billion to 7 billion in the last 150 years). However, this has often been to the neglect of our earth, and ultimately to our own detriment, as we are currently witnessing across the globe ecosystem collapse, species extinction, and ultimately desertification, where very small populations of humans can survive. This is where our modern day holistic science, ecology and design combined with morals, ethics and a focus on Cooperation and Positivism (aka Permaculture) can lend themselves to the healing and rebuilding of the earths biological capacity and thus human population capacity (although we will have to get responsible with our reproduction out of respect to our future generations) in our quickly approaching post fossil fuel world .

As we work with the Permaculture Principles and design methods they can lend themselves to the key foundations of creating Harmony again. The question remains, how do we apply positivism and cooperation between our Spiritual traditions and cultures across the globe (a Niche analysis if you will). We must also understand what the roll of the mystical experience that each tradition teaches and how these apply to permaculture and our daily lives in the world. We will also explore how we create a new Holistic Myth, if you will, that incorporates all this. One that is Positive, cooperative and helps us see humanity as one very successful family/species on this planet that now must learn to take responsibility for its amazing capacity and powerful actions and learn to heal the damage on all levels. This is why Spiritual Permaculture and what this Blog will address.