Permaculture Principles - Everything is Connected

In this, and the subsequent posts I would like to revisit and complete the discussion of the Permaculture principles I started three years ago.

Stating the (Hopefully) Obvious

Only a few days ago I replied to a post by @authenticity how we are all connected. The post featured a number of impressive photos of the Bulgarian tradition of Kukeri, which known as Busó can also be found in my native Hungary, as well as in numerous other European cultures. @authenticity's reply to me was, that she had wanted to title her post exactly that: How we all are connected. Well, the fact that her post coincided with mine just further examplifies this concept.

I discovered this notion, that all people and all things were in some type of connection, back in my youth when I first experimented with hallucinogenic substances, such as psilocybin mushrooms and LSD. Though it's possible that these hallucinogens simply amplified what I was thinking about anyway, that we are all interconnected with every part of the world, whether we want to or not. There were numerous examples around me pointing in that direction anyway, from art to literature, and from philosophy to everyday experiences. The butterfly effect is one such artful expression of this notion, the to dust thou shalt return is another one.

Direct and Indirect Connections

Nobody will doubt that the mango I ate this morning, and me, are sharing a deeply intimate connection. By now I am digesting this tasty fruit, in fact it may even supply part of the energy I need for typing these words. However, at the same time, I am equally connected to the lady at the market who sold it to me, the truck (and its driver) that brought it to the market, the mango farmer, and of course the generations of mangoes (and mango farmers) that preceded the tree it grew on. Further, all the water it took to grow it, the irrigation lines, all the orchard work that went into it, and all the people doing their part to make it possible. In fact, if we go back far enough (and why shouldn't we), we'd have to include the people who brought it over from India centuries ago... Just thinking about all the connections there would include "pretty much everything."

image source

But on the other side, there are all the connections I have created just by eating this one fruit. First of all, consider the seed and skin which will go into my compost. Yes, the worms will love it, and maybe a small sapling will grow out of it (or it may be consumed by someone before it grows into a tree, which is okay). But then there is the money I paid for it, which will no doubt be spent on something that creates another infinite line of connections. And last but not least, since I'm using this mango as an example in this post, it will be read (and hopefully enjoyed) by you guys, who may even click on an upvote, creating further connections that will no doubt span the world several times. Just to think about all the connections created by this one fruit I ate, I really feel I should have taken a picture of it instead of using a free stock image! But this same pattern can be applied to EVERYTHING!

Functional Relationship Between Components

Okay, after enjoying this nice kumbaya, some folks may be eager to know the reason why Scott Pittman and other Permaculturists took this holistic notion into their list of Permaculture principles. The idea, as permasteve has worded it so skillfully, is to create functional relationships between components in a systems. Instead of going into more theory, let me offer some examples on this:

• If you place piles of leaves in your greenhouse over the winter, it will mediate the temperature drops.
• Putting pigs in your orchard will make sure that the fallen fruit gets eaten, discouraging the procreation of bugs whose larvae appear in your fruit as worms.
• Having a pond outside of your southern windows will reflect the sunlight and ensure more light in your home.
• By using a chook tractor you let chickens do the work of moving the soil around while fertilizing it, preparing it for planting.
• If you plant a living fence of prickly pear cactus, you get to reap the additional benefits of cactus fruits, shoots, as well as creating habitat for small creatures, while your self-mending fence does its job of keeping things from crossing your boundaries.

In all of these examples we establish connections between elements of a system, which are additional to their most commonly used functions. The beautiful part is, all of them keep following their usual pattern of behavior, it's just that you as a designer have placed them in such a relationship that this behavior fulfills a certain role.

In this sense, we may even rephrase the principle to "create as many direct connections between elements as you can. Still, I like to keep the original zen wisdom in perspective, that no matter what, we are all connected, in one way or another.

Sources: 1, 2 Pic: 1

To see my discussions of other Permaculture Principles, take a look at these posts:

Permaculture: A Starting Point

David Holmgren

1. Observe and interact
2. Catch and store energy
3. Obtain a yield
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
5. Use and value renewable resources and services
6. Produce no waste
7. Design from patterns to details
8. Integrate rather than segregate
9. Use small and slow solutions
10. Use and value diversity
11. Use edges and value the marginal
12. Creatively use and respond to change

Bill Mollison

1. Work with nature, not against it
2. The problem is the solution
3. Maximum effect for minimum effort
4. The yield of the system is theoretically unlimited
5. Everything gardens

Scott Pittman

1. Cooperation instead of competition
2. Every function is served by multiple elements
3. Every element serves multiple functions
4. Make the most out of energy
5. Use the edge effect
6. Everything is connected
7. The problem is the solution