Subject: Re: Mythical!!??!!

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 07:25:54 -0400 (EDT)

In a message dated 10/14/97 1:53:26 PM, you wrote:

>Mythical. . . . now there is something worthwhile to achieve out of life.
>
>I suggest that all us old folks of permaculture plus years need to
>concentrate on showing the younger ones, the pre-X generation or
>what-have-you, just how to be outrageous.
>
>Time for some Permie Sex Pistols.
>
>Milo Clark
>Berkeley CA USA

Well Bill Mollison is good at that.  Most of his stories are mythical.  They
probably never happend, or at least not that way, but he has improved mere
events on the material plane to make them TRUE.  That is myth--a True story
that probably didn't happen, and surely not that way.  A mythical person
would be a character from such a story--much like the accounts of Elvis's
after death exploits are mythic.  

Myth has fundamental purposes, especially for those who are using
permaculture as a temporary expedient while the necessary generations elapse
to form a real culture for our people again.  A good sense of what is going
on is also useful.  People raised in cultures imbued with mythic  patterns
evolved in that region, or adapted in an evolutionary manner to that region,
see the transitory realities of material existence with perspecacity.  They
know what is wrong about things and what is right, without the wastefulness
of analytical thought.  The analysis is a more subtle kind--the computer of
human culture self-learns it over time.  People who think that analytical
thought by individuals can solve any problems are our friends, if they want
to solve the problem of human destrutiveness to Mother Earth, but they are
dangerous friends.  While we fumble, we must set in motion, somehow, the
kernal of myth.  People can do amazing things through the insight of
collective wisdom.  Myth is the crystaliation of collective wisdom of
generations past.  It illuminates the present and can send a directed
searchlight into the future--seven generations say some folks who have been
on this continent way longer than 3/4 of my ancestors.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence
courses via email.  Next starts in Oct. 1997. Internships available.
Copyright, 1997, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA
 [email-masked]  

We don't have time to rush.