Permaculture and Global Alchemy

In an interview I did with noted alchemist and author Dennis William Hauck, he proposed a new global alchemy based on spiritual principles. "I think it is the idea of being in balance with the earth and cosmic laws that make sustainability have this spiritual connotation," Hauck said. While one must listen and learn from the most prominent alchemist living today, I would argue that Hauck’s so-called “cosmic laws” are better morphed into more practical sustainable values and technologies. This, in alchemy, is transmutation through action and communication. The new alchemies are now available and experienced as a spiritual exchange, vision maps, and digging in the soil. I propose that the following types of alchemy are available for our use:

· Imaginative or Creative Alchemy

· Eco Alchemy

· Shamanic Alchemy

· Sound or Sonic Alchemy

· Digital Alchemy

· Community Alchemy

· Earth or Global Alchemy

Permaculture Symbols

· What is Permaculture? Some basic principles:

· Observe and Interact

· Catch and Store Energy

· Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services

· Produce No Waste

· Design from Patterns

· Integrate Rather than Segregate

· Use Small and Slow Solutions

· Use and Value Diversity

· Creatively Use and Respond to Change

Here are potential sacred permaculture symbols (see graphic below) that are built upon our love and respect for Nature, our communion as we work together in the soil, and the mystery of the seasons, stars and birth:

- Diversity (Soil)

- Growth (Seeds)

- Harvest (Basket)

- Transformation (Fire + Smoke)

- Stewardship (Compost Pile)

- Localization (Community Well)

What do you see? Feel? Nature in her various manifestations and integration are here. Could these symbols be seen as Sun-driven, each combining to build the larger tree of life? Both the ancient symbols and these offerings call for an integration of science and spirit.

The New Mythologies

Two powerful examples of sources for the new global permaculture-based, alchemy-fueled mythologies are the nature-related (what some call "dark green") religion movement and rock music.

Dark Green Spirituality:

Since the publication of Rachael Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, environmental alarm has intensified and become increasingly apocalyptic. Meanwhile, nature- related religion has been rekindled, invented, spread, and ecologized. A great deal of this religious creativity has been dark green, flowing from a deep sense of belonging to and connectedness in nature, while perceiving the earth and its living systems to be sacred and interconnected. Dark green religion is generally deep ecological, bio-centric, or eco-centric, considering all species to be intrinsically valuable, that is, valuable apart from their usefulness to human beings.

This (dark green) value system is generally:

(1) based on a felt kinship with the rest of life, often derived from a Darwinian understanding that all forms of life have evolved from a common ancestor and are therefore related;

(2) accompanied by feelings of humility and a corresponding critique of human moral superiority, often inspired or reinforced by a science- based cosmology that reveals how tiny human beings are in the universe; and

(3) reinforced by metaphysics of interconnection and the idea of interdependence (mutual influence and reciprocal.

(Excerpted from Dark Green Religion by Bron Taylor, p. 13. www.brontaylor.com/environmental_books/dgr/dark_green_religion.html)

Rock Music:

As for rock music, we hear and see symbols through rock music and art. Band names and titles of records and songs contain important cues, many political or humorous, but some for "mythic punch." Album art work is the first to be interpreted and often carries the same meaning all over the world. When musicians combine song lyrics with complimentary symbols, mythic meanings are reinforced and deepened. Symbols and metaphors are the seeds, our invitation to the feast. And many symbols, like numbers and colors, have ancient meanings and universal power. Joseph Campbell might have asked at this point: Do we know the power of these symbols? Have we lost our connections to the mythic reservoir?

So now I hope to build upon the powerful ideas of Joseph Campbell with the following "myth development" process that allows us to create and share new potential myths to serve as vision maps - stories that help us find our place in the world we are creating. Think initiation, journey maps, heroes, green technologies and permaculture in your backyard, neighborhood and community!

Mythology Generator for the Sustainability Age

1. Define current event, players, short and long-term impacts, artistic, religious, ecological, political, spiritual implications

2. ID historic, literary, mythic precedents that relate to the event

3. Chart multiple paths and outcomes from the event

4. List universal lessons

5. Draft myth story line using new names, place(s) and symbols from world mythology

6. Check piece for universal as opposed to local or real reference(s)

7. Simplify and finalize myth

Examples of six potential new myths crafted by this process can be found at www.planetshifter.com/node/1696 .

Inner & Outer System of the Sacred

We need to decide what is sacred as a collective. In support new myths, new alchemy, permaculture and the sacred connected by the above model, the following ideas about sacred are offered:

· Intention is a component of the Sacred.

· Trust is a component of the Sacred.

· Vibration is a component of the Sacred.

· Protection is a component of the Sacred.

· Initiation is a component of the Sacred.

· Journey into Community is a component of the Sacred.

· Process is a component of the Sacred.

· Artifact is not is a component of the Sacred.

· Control is not is a component of the Sacred.

· Money is not is a component of the Sacred.

· Buildings are not a component of the Sacred.

· Ceremony is not a component of the Sacred.

· Ego is not a component of the Sacred.

· Competition is not a component of the Sacred.

This essay offers a starting point for exploring the ways that myth can point the way to the transformation necessary for our culture to build a sustainable future. I view the power of the classic myths as withering and unconnected to the environmental challenges of today. My charge is to create a new tool kit of alchemic symbols and renew the sacred as we collaborate to create the permaculture myths of the future - a call for new symbols, stories, & songs – connect new alchemy & myth back to our communities and the land!

I conclude with an excerpt from a recent PlanetShifter Magazine book review by David Metcalfe of the Book of Symbols - published by Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism:

“When we begin to take a more active view of the images that influence our interpretations of the world, we gain a better grasp of the world we are interpreting. The interplay of meaning, and the multitude of possibilities that lie in symbolic imagery, create a vital area of interpretation. Images arise in our sleep and their surreal juxtapositions call us to question what we ignore while awake. As art, poetry, devotional works and writing, these images emerge to express our relationship to the world.”