A Permy of One!

[The Call of Nature] • "Where exactly is Gaia University?" They ask.

"Everywhere!" I reply with a giggling grin.

Let us step into the flow of a permaculture design course with the one and only Starhawk. That's where I find myself less than a month after joining the master's program at the infantile Gaia University.

Yes, you read correctly.

Don't worry, I can hardly believe it myself.

Then again, my name is Nature.

My first deeply insightful question within liberated education,
"I wonder what the correlation is between wet dreams and sweat lodges?"

Ah, the mysteries one ponders while dropping the kids off at the playground beside the first public compost toilet in Portland, OR. Especially after spending the previous evening praying for awakening, healing, consciousness, presence, and love. Only to open one's eyes to the sticky stark reality that one's dreams were a little juicier than one had expected. At least I got lucky in the dreamtime two nights in a row without shame, guilt, or unwanted pregnancy.

My point is that most people wouldn't consider "giving back" to the earth -- donating the effluents of their digestive system -- a potentially (r)evolutionary act.  What they don't know -- and permaculture teaches -- is that today, 14 billion years after the Big Bang, we've finally learned how to  process our fecal produce properly,  using it to fertilize our next crop of scrumptious consumption. Personally, this new excremental experience left me feeling quite empowered, like I had actually accomplished something and taken another step toward the far off  land of Permatopia.

Now, how can I empower others to join the ranks of the resource-replenishing super-natural permacultural task force?

First: Program this Godforsaken machine to recognize the word permaculture not only as grammatically correct, but also as meaningful and righteous. Words have feelings too, you know.

If you're not hip to the lingo, permaculture is a design system which utilizes a systems thinking approach to create sustainable human habitats by analyzing and duplicating nature's patterns.

In this case, the experiment is happening at Tryon Life Community Farm urban eco-village intentional community, non-profit experiential environmental education center (how's that for redundant), and a sustainability demonstration site.

It is also my former home. Today I return to undergo another initiation, following the path of change and transformation, on the road to creating Heaven on Earth. Well, Heaven On Mother Earth (H.O.M.E.) according to a bunch of treehugging dirtworshippers. (Can you believe this computer doesn't recognize the word 'treehugging' either?)

Those of us burrowing down in the wormy dirt with the permaculture fairies may not know exactly where we are going with all of this earth-sharing, fair-trading, people-caring that we like to talk about, and we sure as hell don't have all the answers, but we strongly suspect one thing:

We're having a lot more sun and fun than those guys working overtime to plot bombing raids and glum Armageddon scenarios at the Pentagon.

This column aspires to incite inspiration, laughter, and gaialogues (yes, gaialogues) around the issues and ideas alluded to, above. At the same time, it will document one being's journey to invent his own reality within the multidimensional diversity open for all of us to explore in our ecstatic, tragic glory here on Spaceship Earth.

More merriment and mayhem to come as we go deeper down the rabbit hole.

For my next trick, clean and FREE water!