Baruch's Blog

Watching the modern film Beowulf and reading some of it again gives rise to these thoughts.

The story symbolizes the death of the old, the dragon, and yet the survival of the old world in the mother, and the rise of the modern patriarchal mechanized sterilized world, but not without a cost to that new world, for it is born out of violence and the gradual disconnection from the spirits of Earth and the rise of monotheism.

This made me think about Permaculture, and some of the language I have used about "return to sustainability" and other such references to bringing back elements of the past. I see, now, more clearly that the work is to integrate the modern with the ancient, not to return to anything, and not to leave everything behind.

I'm sure this is not a unique idea, but it feels like an "aha!" to me. Working with an underlying principle of bringing together the truly ancient and more recent with the skills of the present we should be able to create something that really works!