Form and the Human Relationship to the Environment

Questioning the Plan

Philosophy, Design, and Praxis

Regenerative Garden Landscaping 

Starter Greenhouse made from Recycled Materials

A Note on Planning From The Bhagavad Gita

Questioning the Plan

Its not always in the plan, the way nature works. The plan is a human construct of mind, an ideology put to form, something to have the future seem to be ordered in ones favor. In my experience, that is a comfortable illusion. The perfect plan is a delusion of easy street. Danger at the door is seldom in the plan.

The school plan, kindergarten through college,  the suburban plan, the golf course world, the agriculture plan. the planned systems of food distribution and the american dream, a no fail plan right…?

What is more concerning than the illusion of the perfect plan, is if nothing ever goes wrong with the plan.

The plan to subdue nature, to wrestle it into form, to create forms that function better than nature itself is the delusion of lord man, and the cause of much suffering on earth. 

Suffering is the human condition until something else happens. 

Suffering is a shared condition, humanities foundation of compassion, because I have suffered, I know that you have suffered. Much is created in suffering.

A building, a city, built from suffering, ill harvested material, built without care, many injured beings, does it cause suffering and illness to live in it?

True cessation is our shared emancipation. What leads to true emancipation, and what is the relationship between the emancipation of the mind-body, and the environment? 

Understanding the place of humans within the ecosystem is to be humanities greatest challenge. Lord man, the delusional overlord of all earth, has created a trajectory that is beautiful and amazing in form, but the maintenance of which is a destructive and ominous force in the earth system.

What is the process of building with earth?  

Philosophy, Design, and Praxis

Permaculture Design addresses the human role in an over-developed earth. Our most human of urges after eat, sleep and procreate, is to put things to form. To see natures cycles, how they function, the combination of meditative observation of nature, the mind, and creating form from that understanding, is to design with earth.

Human forms are an extension of mental formations, some of which work better than others within the earth system.

The illumination of humanities imbalance of the ecosystem is hard to comprehend, our world, our built environment, full of stimulation and our population full of bodies of prompting and inducement. Most bodies are prompted to consume, drive, and use a cell phone or a device, rather than to plant a seed, study a natural system, meditate or look for reusable, repurposable materials in what is considered waste.

Deception, attachment to ideology and material, false profits of consumerism and the illusion of cessation, false hope, the bane and default mode of modernity. But in experience I know that nothing changes without an attempt, the automatic human masses shall run their course unless prompted otherwise.

A self awakening may occur when natures inevitable processes bend or break the systems of man, the hurricanes, the floods, the mass destruction of the built environment.

The recognition and experience of suffering and sickness an awakening in itself. An opportunity to recognize the impermanence of the individual, the fragility of living systems, and the delusion of the built environment.

No form of mind or material better explains the nature of reality. Yet humans spend almost all of our time creating forms.

The monumental building, a form to exemplify ones might and power, the form of currency, the dollar to explain ones understanding of transaction, energy exchanges and the movement of resources. The arts and creative forms to express the human experience.

Trying and trying and trying again, the barer of bits and pieces of what is most true is often occupied by the task of putting to form a communication or something material, something of form that can be understood as meaningful to existence.

The task in itself is somewhat paradoxical, like the form explaining the formless, the creation can only elude to the process of how it was created. The process of that which is most true in reality, of being and of nature is not a formation, humans use and create formations of mind and material to communicate, to build, and for the creation of objects. The overuse of formations of mind and material has lead to an ecological and mental/spiritual earth crisis.

Even before I knew what was meant by form or formation, I was navigating reality mostly in this way;

What is that form? Interest, curiosity and observation.

and

What process created that form?

The observation of form, with the senses, investigation of it, leading to an understanding of how the object or formation of mind came to be.

The formation of mind behind a plastic lawn chair is different than the formation of mind behind a hand carved wooden chair.

Everything that a process entails has a learning experience to it. The making of a wooden chair is a process. It would involve learning of the wood, learning of the tools, learning of aesthetics and design. The chair itself an object of process. All material formations are objects of process.

The process of navigating reality, lead me through human forms to the patterns and cycles of nature.

Ideal earth is a process of ever changing form.

The forms of man are rigid, obtuse to natures cycles.

Natures order and the ever changing forms of the natural system are non-rigid.

A tree and a wooden chair are solid differently. The chair is rigid and static, the tree is non-rigid and dynamic.

The disruption of forms and systems creates an unexpected experience. Design gives form expectation and when that expectation is shattered, that which is most true to the nature of reality may be experienced. By nature or by human demonstration, there is an ongoing and inevitable process that bends or breaks the formations of man.

What arises when human formations of mind and material are destroyed?

The cyclical systems of earth continue, the nature of reality maintains and the ever changing forms of nature, that which is self sustaining and regenerative, overcomes that which is not.

I applied the observation of the patterns and cycles of nature the design and creation of wild garden plots, and landscaping at a family property. A personal account of this past springs work is below.

Regenerative Garden Landscaping 

The wild plots and the raised bed last year were an amazing success. The wild beds planted in the ditch worked well, but there were issues in regards to public/private land and how the work I was doing was received. The golf course culture and environment generally ignored the small plots of squash and sunflowers, but there was some perceived negative feedback. No direct vocal feedback, other than some encouragement from a local farmer whose irrigation water I had been using.

Regardless, the ditch between the golf course and the grass lands to the east of the golf course had amazing soil, with decomposing leaves from people placing there yard waste and grass clippings in the concave of the ditch. The system was naturally fertile and natures cycles created an amazingly abundant system that required very little water. The raised bed from last years recycled materials build was able to spread seed to the landscaping bed, wild lettuces migrating from the encased environment to the redwood mulch landscaping indicating a developing natural system.

Landscaping for the 1451 Front Nine Drive Property – Permaculture Design, Native Plants, Edible Currents and Berries, and Garden Beds with Squash and Peppers.

After three years the landscaping is doing well. We replaced the rocks with redwood mulch so it helps to improve the soil over time, the edible currents and raspberries that we choose and Greening Up put in are doing well, I’ve made a raised bed garden and garden beds by removing some of the clay soil and adding wood chips, compost from our food waste and soil. The clay bed serves as a liner, retaining water in the compost/soil mixture, and the run off from the downspouts runs into the clay bed planters.

Plants for the Starter Barter – Bike towing rig almost made it all the way there – Plants were fine, thanks to a young man and women who gave me a ride and helped me get the plants there before sunset.

I’ve been implementing permaculture design principles into the 1451 landscaping over the last three years, making an edible landscape of Colorado native plants and garden vegetables. Through suffering and success the whole ecosystem design principles have been working, the landscaping is turning into its own micro system, seeds planted migrating from the raised bed to the mulch and taking new life there. Since the landscaping was ripped up and left as a dead zone, we have slowly been restoring it.

Starter Greenhouse made from Recycled Materials

I made a starter greenhouse this past spring while all the construction in the neighborhood was going on. The massive church addition that partially obscures our view of the mountains, and the flurry of asphalt roofing, inspired me to work on something using recycled materials in contrast to the construction using all new materials and fossil fuels. I had plastic sheets left over from the raised bed planter build, and some 2 x 4’s, some hinges and some wooden pegs. I approached this build differently. I approached the build with no plan, using instead the continued interaction with the materials and my problem solving abilities in the present moment. A much different experience, the living present and observation of the mind in regard to the process, the material objects and the momentary problem. Eyes, ears and intuition on the next problem to solve. Noticing the moments motivation, noticing my environment, noticing the workers and the vibe of the neighborhood, all effecting the rate and mood of my work.

I did an initial build of a collapsible greenhouse topper for the raised bed, it had several to many hinges and I had to take it apart. Having a structure that could be taken apart was important to the idea of the design, something portable.

I initially was going to use brackets and bolts, but something in mind convinced me to try wooden pegs. I was working with the hand tools for the entire build. There was an oriental design aspect to the overhang on the top and bottom cross bars so they were just past the edge of the greenhouse face supports.

Starter Greenhouse made from Recycle Materials

The greenhouse has two sets of hinges in the middle, the supporting structure on the front face locks the hinges closed with a puzzle like hinge lock that I put together as I went.

The plastic tarping I folded and bolted to the sides and greenhouse face. The supports fold inward and the plastic tarping can be folded with the supports. The whole greenhouse face is attached with the wooden pegs and lifts off the supports. The back has a carved wooden pole, that rolls up the plastic. The structure is more of a statement, an art piece, reflective of the suffering humans inflict on the environment and by extension the suffering that humans inflict upon ourselves.

Suffering went into making it. The process about the mind, the local environment and the reality of ideology in action. Formations of Ideology was the topic of mind as I built.

Formations of Ideology, the car, the phone, the computer, the formations of ideology in the Anthropocene. Formations of mind made material, objects defining human interaction with reality and the ecological system. This small recycled materials greenhouse, a formation of ideology, a commentary on humanities use of materials, and the waste that humans produce.

Much can be reused, much can be re-purposed, the process of doing so is not always celebrated. I found that in a local climate of panicked building in the name of economic growth and as a display of power, woodworking with hand tools in the name of ideological greenhouse art brought me much suffering, that ripened into worthy form.

The hand tools that belonged to my grandfather

The ways of undertaking things

Pleasure now, pleasure later

suffering now, suffering later

pleasure now, suffering later

suffering now, pleasure later

The Hispanic roofers seemed to take note, and teased, and encouraged me from a far. The process of working without a plan gave me much time to be with what arose in mind, and to work with the moment instead of planning on top of it and bending the whole process to my will. A very strange and mentally intensive building process, dancing with progress and complete failure, the greenhouse is not a polished design, its painful, and it has a commentary, a story of its own.

The grand plan was to build a water catchment greenhouse. I created plans for my Capstone project when I was a design student in college. A structural addition to a family property, a master plan for a business. I developed a whole plan for what would be an addition to a suburban house, to a family property. Something that would provide year round vegetable growth and catch the runoff from the gutters to be used to water the plants. The family decided not to move forward with the plan, I built the smaller raised bed structure last year instead, which I designed, and then the greenhouse structure without a plan, the portable raised bed topper, also a stand alone starter greenhouse. Suffering, pain and ideology making this design an art form.

A Note on Planning from the Bhagavad Gita

A note on the Planing from the Bhagavad Gita, and my commentary

I found this page in the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, a translation compiled by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivededanta Swami Prabhupada

All religious connotation aside, I am drawn towards insight into the nature of reality wherever I find it to be true, and the nature of reality lets me know of its importance accordingly. This is an experiential process.

The time at which I found this quotation had a profound impact on my thinking ever since. I had never thought of planing as of “demonic mentality” as it states above. This perspective effected the way that I was working, instead of ignoring the input that reality was giving me, I have embraced it and tried living accordingly, the process, discerning falsities from truths. The idea of The Giveness is something that modern philosopher Timothy Morton discusses in his book Humankind. The Giveness, Destino Provea, “I could not have been planed it”, provided by circumstance, ones trajectory, ones path, a crucial and unpredictable part of Soul the Self’s journey. The spontaneous moments of consciousness connection that define ones life, reality most unexpected, a bridging process from now into future. The “permanent” plan can take away from The Giveness. Is the plan a friend or foe? A plan to walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan over the Brooklyn bridge is different than building the Brooklyn Bridge, which is different then planning a genocide of a race of people. One can become thing-ed in a planed way, meaning that someone designed the path, a built walk way suggests that it is the way. To be another thing on a path that someone designed, the thing-ed individual gives credit to the builder of the walk way by walking on it. Do they become of them, of the designer in walking upon the path they made? The actions of the thing-ed “I” while on the walkway seem to go to the designer. Plans are powerful and misunderstood as the way things are. The planning of our developed world goes on forever, at the cost of non-human earth, at the cost of something human that belongs to the world of beings, something that no object can embody, that no plan creates.

The architect sits and makes plans,

The monk sits and does not make plans….

In a lifetime, one could live a whole planed life or a whole life planning. The systems of nature are not planned and the cycle of nature work perfectly efficiently without human concepts and forms. Humanities formation fixation and the rapidization of all anthropocentric process has made our relationship with nature very complex, but seed to soil is never going to be a non-functional natural process, unless humans break the system of natures cycles and balance.