A Permaculture Philosophy

 

   
                                                                                                                      For Emma and Kristian

I want my inner waters back. And I want my mental flow and free thoughts back. I want the fish back in our fjords and waterways, and the seagrass along our coasts. I want the bees and all the other pollinating insects back – the plants they thrive on, and the animals that depend on them. The whole cycle, the entire system: ecology in its original sense; as systems of unbreakable connections. That's what I want back. Not because it's mine, but because it's the foundation of our existence.

Students at Egaa Folkschool slaying the wildflower meadow with scythes. It's important to provide light to smaller plants in the establishing fase and remove withered plants that otherwise would fertilize the soil. Wildflowers thrive in poor and sandy soil and insects thrive on the flower. Photo, Kristian Kornerup Bang.

The gradual degradation of the water environment, air, and breath, along with ecosystems, is one of the major self-created crises of our time. Another is the rising levels of anxiety amongst millennials and Gen-Z and the growing discontent among them.

I believe these crises are interconnected, and I believe they revolve around the meaning of what we do together. Or rather; the lack of meaning in the things we do together. This means that as long as the amount of existential emptiness, endless consumer demands, and political panic is so massive as it is, there will always be a need for places where we meet physically and work collectively, educate ourselves and each other  together – and discuss the ways in which we want to live and organize society. E.g. as we do it at the Danish Folkschools.

Humanities' Contempt for Nature

It is not just a crisis in the world of nature and, in parallel, a crisis in the world of humans. The two are connected, and fundamentally, it is a philosophical existential crisis, about losing the connection to the thing in the universe that enables life. We have lost the connection to the fundamentals of our life.

When did this begin: I dare not say, but I will refer to the condition of the humanities that Emanuele Coccia (born 1976) address in his book "The Life of Plants" (2016). According to him, humanities, for several hundred years, has not given nature a place in their thoughts about human existence. Coccia calls it a self-imposed illiteracy, currently dealing with a series of "false assumptions, superficial castles in the air, and a morbid moralism" based on a radical continuation of Protagoras' dictum: "Man is the measure of all things."

I myself remember this separation of mind and nature from my time as a student of History of Ideas at the University of Aarhus, where part of our awakening to philosophy involved learning to laugh at those who imagined that human biology could influence thought and behavior. And I later experienced it in my first years as a Folkschool teacher, where we discussed the education in natural sciences as a deficiency in our school movement. In response to that discussion, a colleague declared with furious sounds of disgust that he would rather eat dirt than deal with the natural sciences.

We can choose to make our kind the measure of all things, but we will never understand ourselves without understanding our surroundings. This lack of understanding is part of the crisis, as identified by Coccia: When nature is no longer part of our view of humanity, we lose any sense of (inter)connection with the world and any notion that we are limited by something greater and more powerful than ourselves. And almost imperceptibly, it seems perfectly acceptable to us that we poison the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. We will neither be dictated nor forced by nature, but we seem to have overlooked that we cannot force or dictate nature either.

Common earth worm. Photo; Kristian Kornerup Bang.

A desire and demand to control the world constitute all life forms in the modern era, the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa (born 1965) writes in "The Uncontrollable." We imagine that we can control everything and therefore also are capable of creating everything in our own image. But maybe we are just like Pinocchio, singing, "there are no strings attached to me" – without realizing the blatantly absurd nature of the song.

You Are a Fish

In Coccia's book on "The Life of Plants," we are told that we are fish. Or more precisely, that we humans – just like fish are surrounded and enveloped by water – are enveloped and encapsulated in a sea of oxygen, an atmosphere created by the emissions of plants. Lungs breathe, and the heart effortlessly pumps the chemical substance into muscles and cells, promoting energy conversion and sustaining life in the cells that constitutes our human bodies.

This metabolism could well continue indefinitely if we didn't freak out over the tiniest blade of grass between tiles and immediately reach for toxins at the slightest foreign element in the monocultural field.

Marine biologist Rachel Carson (1907-1964) described in her 1962 book "Silent Spring" the consequences of the many chemicals we have surrounded ourselves with since the 1950s: "The new environmental health problems are multiple […] created by the endless stream of chemicals, of which pesticides are a part, now permeating the world we live in, affecting us directly and indirectly, individually and collectively." We have seen, she continues, "how they pollute the soil, water, and food, how they can empty our streams of fish and make our gardens and forests silent and birdless." And we see it now in Denmark, where our own coastal waters, fjords, and waterways are close to lifeless.

But the crisis does not stop at the external nature. Chemicals have penetrated into our cells, our internal environment, our bodies’ insides,  where they have the potential to disrupt molecular metabolism and energy conversion.

Cecilia and Trine resting by the pond in the meadow. Photo; Kristian Kornerup Bang. 

"Their [the chemical’s] presence cast a shadow that is no less ominous because it is formless and obscure, no less frightening because it is simply impossible to predict the effects of lifetime exposure to chemical and physical agents that are no part of the biological experience of man." (Carson, page 168).

Chemicals accumulate in fat, affect nerve pathways, promote cancer, and impair our reproductive abilities. We know what needs to be done, but still, we let the chemical rain of death fall, as if there were no alternative, and as if we had lost the will to demand what is good for us.

If we live in a dystopia, we have created it ourselves. And when we see how we treat the world, it's not surprising that the young don't seek advice from adults. It's almost a sign of intelligence. But it does not mean that they have the prerequisites to solve the problems themselves. We adults embrace powerlessness and hope for a political miracle (or at least more money). The young have no one to consult with and must either remain obedient or bewildered. They must follow the curriculum and take exams or go wild and go home. The truth is that most young people probably find themselves somewhere between disapproving obedience and resignation.

Part of the Solution

We know that an increasing amount young people are struggling, but we don't really know what to do about it. We sense it in the Danish Folkschools and establish places where young people can pursue meaningful experiences that they can build a future life upon. We provide them a sense of community and a feeling that not everything is pointless, at our will or without a higher purpose – that there is something we must do to get through the day well.

Karoline and Merle in tough but fun and satisfactory labor in the meadow of Egaa Folkschool, EUH. Photo: Kristian Kornerup Bang. 

The philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) connected the necessary daily grind with the fundamental joy of being alive. That is, she found the basis for the happy moment in human's basic exchange with nature. That exchange, necessary to simply fill the stomach, replaces the toil and trouble associated with extracting nourishment from the earth and sea with immediate satisfaction and joy when you can turn work into recreational regeneration, she wrote in "The Human Condition." That is, when you lean back and enjoy the meal you have created from the crops you have grown and cared for – perhaps around a dining table surrounded by fellow human beings with whom you can discuss the day's events and glance at tomorrow. A bit like at a Folkschool.

At Egå Youth Folkschool, we can provide the experience that Hannah Arendt associated with the happy moment, and at the same time point the way out of the crisis of diminishing bio-diversity crisis brought about by the agro-industrial complex. Over the past seven years we have experimented with permaculture on a small corner of the school's grounds and, in 2021, we expanded the experiment to cover one whole hectare. And, in addition to that, one hectare with wild forest and a third hectare we laid out as a wild flower meadow with a small pond.

Drone shot of the perma garden structure as it looks approximately one and a half year after establishment. There's a spiral shaped bed with  medicinal herbs in the left of the picture and a leave shaped plant school where the crops can sprout and students can study them in detail. Photo: Kristian Kornerup Bang.

Permaculture areas are also measured in cubic meters instead of flat square meters because you cultivate in layers with trees, bushes, and ground plants, balancing light and shade, rainfall, and humidity, keeping the yield high. Efforts are made to create systems of crop plants that mimic nature's own processes and plant and insect combinations; to design self sufficient systems. As mentioned, the goal is biodiversity, as it is diversity that creates the basis for balance – and a calibration of the human mind to align with nature’s duration. Monoculture disrupts that balance: if you have only one crop in a given area, you will also attract the bugs that feed on that crop, and then the use of toxins becomes necessary to safe your crops. It’s worth while to consider if the cure is worse that the problem in this matter.

Like a Sprint in a Traffic Light

In the Folkschool permaculture gardens, it's as if the paths out of the crises are starting to emerge. The kestrel hunts in one end, the sparrows chirp in the other, and insects swarm and buzz, and the wind creates sounds in the leaves. Insects and birds chase and eat each other in beautiful harmony. Plants convert the sun's energy and retain carbon. We talk about what matters to us. One person's idea leads to another's, while we water and eat strawberries, harvest cabbage for the kitchen, and pick flowers in the adjacent meadow. We laugh and relax while working and learning.

There's also stuff to do in the winter time. Emma's working with the brush fence. Photo; Kristian Kornerup Bang.

Or at least, that's how one would wish it to be. The young people can't quite figure it out. They don't understand the slow pace; they marvel at the ease and joy of the work. They seem initially intimidated by the freedom we present to them and the responsibility we believe they should accept to arise to. They ask about the curriculum: there must be a concrete purpose behind the thought, there must be specific questions with answers to learn. They have been played as instruments by the competitive state, and now they are looking for something they can instrumentalize themselves. It must go from thought to invoice. From idea to start-up. They find it challenging to see the joy in learning something and that we maybe ask, think, investigate and learn because we are curious, and because all of those kinds of activities are entirely natural for a human to do.

The young (we all are) are used to sprint to make it across the road while traffic lights are still green. They are used to the world being for the quick, the goal-oriented, and for those who can use a calendar and work efficiently. They have no idea how to enjoy life. They have been taught that ordinary wonder and free association are simply not profitable activities.

Hannah Arendt connected, in her philosophy, humans to the soil, but she also connected humans manufacturing and creative processes and finally to thought and the political part of our existence. Labor, manufacturing, and the social are the three essential aspects of human life and existence that, in one way or another, must be connected. If we can connect those three parts of life in the Folkschools (and anywhere else) there is a chance that we can get life back into our inner waters. We begin in the garden and establish a relationship with the fundamental conditions of human life and existence. Students can find peace and slowly open themselves to the idea of moving out of the fog of teenage immaturity and build enough courage to use their own reason, sense of judgement and raise their voices.

The above may seem peculiar and somewhat naïve to those who have not seen or experienced it themselves. I do not believe that we will see it as the dominant lifestyle of the future but it can certainly inspire. The Folkschool – with their small crop yielding areas and workshops for creative, artistic and artisan activities, their common meals, singing together, and democratic conversations – is a space for enlightenment: places where you can experience nature up close and understand that meaningfulness and purpose is something we do together in this moment and not a goal to be achieved sometime in the future.

Democratic Superstition

In the conclusion of the book "Factfulness," Swedish professor Hans Rosling wrote that we have registered progress most places in the world. Even in countries "with the most useless presidents imaginable, progress has happened. It inevitably makes one wonder if leaders are really that important. And the answer is probably no. It is the people, the many, who build a society."

Rosling's observation should not be seen in this context as a criticism of politicians. Instead, I would send it as a reminder to citizens across the planet that politics will not – and cannot -  solve everything. We cannot solve all of reality's problems from the world's parliaments. And neither should we expect an ideologically consistent or unified answer from anyone or anything. And we must accept that nothing ever goes entirely according to the way we planned it.

*This is a translated and edited version of an essay previously published in the Højskolebladet.

References

Arendt, Hannah 2018 (orig. 1958) The Human Condition. The University of Chicago Press
Carson, Rachel 2000 (orig. 1962) Silent Spring. Penguin Classics.
Coccia, Emanuele 2022 (orig. 2017) The Life of Plants. Polity Press