Creating Gaia

"You may call me a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..." --John Lennon.

Yesterday, October 9, was John Lennon's 78th birthday, and to celebrate it, I posted on Facebook a deeply touching videoclip of three talented young children in Russia, performing Lennon's iconic song "Imagine" before an adoring audience. All these children, of course, were born long after John Lennon's death by murder in 1980, yet they were all deeply touched by, and continue to carry on, his legacy--the dream of a world where such toxic mental formations as countries, religions, and possessions no longer are pretexts for people killing and dying...a Gaian world with "all the people sharing all the world..."

Having always been a dreamer myself, fond of imagining a world without "greed or hunger," I now have the good fortune of having retired from teaching and moved to a part of our world--the Willamette Valley in the gloriously beautiful state of Oregon--where environmental awareness and responsibility have become embedded in the default ethos of the dominant culture, and where many bright, creative people not only share this dream, but are actively engaged in making it happen, from the ground up.

One such pragmatic visionary is my online Permaculture teacher at Oregon State University, Andrew Millison. He is a vibrant, keenly intelligent, and personable young man, who is bringing the visionary teachings of the late Bill Mollison and his many brilliant disciples--David Holmgren, Sepp Holzer, the late Toby Hemenway, Geoff Lawton, and many others throughout the world--to a whole new generation of talented, idealistic young people.  He has the formidable talent of condensing Mollison's and Holmgren's vast array of ecological design insights into lucid and readily accessible brief lectures and presentations, many of which are now freely available onYouTube.

As I study and learn these brilliant, insightful design principles and practices, and see innumerable examples of their successful application in practice, my pervasive gloom about the political degeneration of our nation and the ecological devastation of our planet fades comfortably into the background of my consciousness. For these are patterns on the macro scale that I can do precious little about, other than voting, canvassing, environmental lobbying, and going to the occasional demonstration--all of which can often feel like exercises in futility.

But Permaculturists are out there every day, actually repairing the planet, one design site at a time, by designing systems that not only emulate nature, but interact symbiotically with the natural world, regenerating topsoil, reducing consumption of resources, mitigating pollution, and repairing the vast damage our industrial civilization has done to our living planet. And--more importantly--they are dedicated to teaching and propagating these principles of healing through design across the entire planet. This is why I plan to devote the rest of my days, to my very last breath, to learning and teaching Permaculture, and--to the extent I am able, within my limited skills and small range of influence--to healing and creating Gaia.

One idea I have for this--which again, may or may not ever come to pass within my remaining life span--is to work with the many new friends I am making here to create a "Dharma Gaia Practice Center" somewhere in or near Salem. Such a center would be first a Permaculture demonstration site, where residing members could give guided tours of the steadily evolving permaculture design on whatever landscape we find, and teach workshops on the methods we use. But it would also be a place where a wide array of hands-on classes could be offered, not only on permaculture design practices, but also on "learning Gaia" through co-sponsorship, with community organizations such as the Audubons or the Native Plant Society, of nature walks around the property or surrounding landscape, or as I like to call them, "Gaia Walks"--where a protocol would be observed, or encouraged, to limit chatter so that we could give full attention to the tour guide. In short, my envisioned "Dharma Gaia Practice Center" would be closely modeled on the Aprovecho Institute of Cottage Grove OR, established by my class mentor, Tao Orion.

Finally, rather like Breitenbush Community nearby, or the Omega Institute in upstate New York, it would be a place that also invited skilled teachers of various "vertical" modes of holistic healing of body, mind and spirit--e.g. yoga, tai chi, ayurveda, meditation techniques, etc.--as well as the "horizontal" healing practices (self-community-planet) of permaculture and satyagraha (i.e. nonviolent, Dharma-based modalities of political engagement). The underlying vision of this Dharma Gaia Practice Center would be a place that integrates vertical and horizontal healing, emphasizing the linkage between healing our fragmented body-mind-spirit systems; healing out community, nation, and world; and healing our homes, our landscapes, and our living planet.

As usual with such dreams, I have no idea if such a vision will ever come to pass in my remaining lifetime. But that does not matter. As the Parable of the Sower illustrates (and permaculture confirms), all that matters, ultimately, is the soil and growing conditions into which we drop our seeds. And I know of no richer soil for a seed such as "Dharma Gaia Circle" and "Dharma Gaia Practice Center" than right here in Oregon. If I get it started but never live to see it, so be it. What we learn dies with us; our only legacy is what we teach, heal, and create.