The core of permaculture is design. Design is a connection between things. It’s not water, or a chicken, or a tree. It is how the water, the chicken and the tree are connected.
Bill Mollison Introduction to Permaculture
Mollison points out that it is not the discrete objects themselves that have the greatest importance but the way they connect with other objects or elements that is of prime importance. Elements have characteristics that combine with other elements in such a way as to make the whole much greater than the sum of their parts. I suppose that this is what we may call a definition of ecology.
Often ecological principles are looked upon as pie in the sky idealism and it is certainly the case that there is an element of quasi mysticism which can indicate to some people that it is not to be taken too seriously. There is no whiff of patchouli about Mollison’s theories. They are based on many years of direct observation and a step by step analysis of what works. By using down to earth elements like a chicken, one can begin to see that ecology begins to be something that concerns us in a much more immediate way than the more global aspects.
The principles can be used in many aspects of life as they are about design and design is about the optimum placing of objects in space and time. Therein lies the beauty. Natural beauty is, I think, this complete “rightness”.
Things that cause stress and frustration do so as a result of their inability to fit in because they are in the wrong place or they are badly designed, or they are deliberately made to avoid integration- often for commercial reasons, think of mobile phone adapters. In nature bad design and poor integration lead to extinction. This is a frightening conclusion for us humans since our existence is now dependent upon poorly integrated and badly designed systems. I refer of course to globalisation.
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