I have been pondering, on my flight from NJ after teaching a course, with my seven year old daughter asleep on my lap, how Permaculture, with its focus on this world of matter and energy, relates to the spiritual life. This quote from Rumi’s Mathnawi sums up the path quite succinctly. How can we, as practitioners of Permaculture, merge the spiritual with our design practice?
“Even though this entire world is his kingdom, (such a) kingdom is (as) nothing in the eye of his heart.”
How do we in the Permaculture realm make sense out of this?
- “I’ve said before that every craftsman
searches for what’s not there
to practice his craft. A builder looks for the rotten hole
where the roof caved in. A water-carrier
picks the empty pot. A carpenter
stops at the house with no door.
Workers rush toward some hint
of emptiness, which they then
start to fill. Their hope, though,
is for emptiness, so don’t think
you must avoid it. It contains
what you need!
Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting your net
into it, and waiting so patiently?”