The Essence of Permaculture

How often have you looked around you in Springtime and marvelled at Earth's natural ways? This year I had planted little myself yet there was such a flourish of life in the garden. Small seedlings springing up all around that by now in April are reaching a mature 4 leaf stage. All I feel when I see this is how can I work in harmony with the Mother earth and utilise the power of Nature in my agriculture and horticulture, in other words how can I practice permaculture!

This way of being has me thinking all the time of ways I could plant or harvest to esure the life of each and every plant in harmony with nature. This all takes time I hear you say and the gift of time is exactly what we do have; our precious time being spent on preserving Nature and ensuring the sustainability of the natural world. We are lucky beings to have time on our hands and by making good use of that time, by making time for Nature we can enable the ease of working the land in a permaculture way. Why the word permaculture you may ask well plants do grow in one place, at least to begin with and indeed may spread far and wide with the winds and the birds and animals let alone how far plants have spread with us humans!! We are lucky enough to have plants and trees from all over the Earth in this one land of Britain thanks to the adventurers of yesteryear bringing back seeds and young trees from their travels. We have Japanese Zen Gardens right here in the UK something only once seen on a journey to Japan. Seas too have washed seeds from far distant shores up on this land. What a beautiful world!

To me, the essence of permaculture is to be in complete harmony with the natural world we live in and as it comes from the words "permanent culture" you will see that we humans need to appreciate that to exist on this planet is to be part of a whole world of cultures. Both the natural world and the beautiful splendour of ancient cultures of humankind. How can we look around us in this day and age without crying at all humankind has done to the permanence of Earth. She may be a strong Ancient being but how fragile She is! Look at the anima in even a leaf blowing in the autumn winds, they seem to dance and jump and settle in their new homes happy just to be! Why do we humans not learn from that leaf to dance to jump to settle in our new homes and learn to just be!