The Answer (?)

Long ago, when I was in college around 1970, I discovered a poet named Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962), with whom, even then, I closely resonated.  He was not by any stretch a great poet, but he was what I would call a "proto-Gaian" poet--that is, he had an intuitive understanding, even in the heyday of global industrial expansion and rising middle-class affluence after World War II, that the major premise of that expansion--that "nature" was nothing more than an infinite resource for the uses of "man"--was fatally flawed, and that an economy based on infinite growth of extraction, production, and consumption on a finite planet was doomed to collapse and extinction. In other words, he knew then what has become only too apparent today--that we are a part of nature, bound by its inexorable rules, and not apart from it, nor "master" over it.  He expressed his profoundly lucid, yet pessimistic philosophy in a poem called, simply, "The Answer:"

Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one's own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted
and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will
not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear
the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history... for contemplation or in fact...
Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness,
the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty
of the universe. Love that, not man
Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken.

Robinson Jeffers

This poem rings far truer today, of course, than when I was written--and is still good advice. But is there a practical way to transform this dark Gaian wisdom into action--into a viral movement that would actually lead to social and cultural transformation, to a Gaian future, even through the encroaching chaos of global overshoot and collapse, and the ensuing violence this will entail?

I will readily admit that my own favorite trope of "spontaneous remission of the Cancer of the Earth" has largely been wishful thinking, a "dream" with which I have likely been "deluded"--rather than facing the stark horrors of the future--overshoot, systemic collapse, social chaos, ubiquitous violence, and extinction--that we currently face.  But then I discovered Geoff Lawton, a folksy Australian practitioner, teacher, and enthusiastic global advocate of Permaculture, the whole-systems philosophy of ecological design originally developed in 1978 by Bill Mollison, a Tasmanian biologist and systems thinker (b. 1928) and his protege and colleague David Holmgren (b. 1955). Who would have thought that "the Answer" would come from Down Under? But I sincerely believe it has. If the Gaian future we all envision is to happen, I am now convinced that the proliferation of Permaculture will be its agent.

Rather than trying to explain Permaculture myself, I refer you to an excellent, well-organized introductory website entitled Permaculture Design Principles that will walk you through the basic principles very systematically. It also provides access to a free, downloadable precis of Holmgren's Permaculture manual. But then, go to Geoff Lawton's website, send him your email, and you will gain free access to a host of instructional videoclips he has prepared introducing Permaculture principles in a variety of different contexts, from urban to rural, and in every conceivable bioregion. These are not just things he theorizes--they are things he has actually done. Begin with his visionary half-hour introductory video, entitled "How to Survive the Coming Crises." Then share it with everyone you know!

So if there is an "answer" to our imminent global collapse, this is it! A systematic, well-thought-out approach to redesigning and transforming our civilization from the ground up, so that human intelligence ceases to parasitize its biological support system, and instead becomes a Gaian agent of life itself, creating and sustaining the conditions that in turn sustain life!  May it only be so...