Words&Dirt

“Now, since those prior to us have left undiscovered what pertains to legislation, it is perhaps better for us to investigate it ourselves––and indeed what concerns the regime in general––so that, to the extent of our capacity, the philosophy concerning human affairs might be completed.  First, then, let us attempt to go over whatever partial point has been nobly stated by our predecessors; and then, on the basis of the regimes collected together, let us attempt to contemplate what sorts of things preserve and destroy cities, what sorts of things do so for each of the regimes, and through what causes some regimes are governed nobly, other in the contrary way.  For once these matters have been contemplated, we might perhaps understand better also what sort of regime is best, and how each regime has been ordered, and by making of what laws and customs.

With this as our beginning, then, let us speak.”

––Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins, Book 10, Chapter 9

“Anyone who has spent time looking at nature has noticed that certain patterns––spirals, waves, branches, circles––seem omnipresent and repeat at many scales.  A branching pattern shows up in the convergence of streams and rivers visible out a jet window, in the graceful arch of a tree overhead and in its roots beneath us, and in tendrils of a tiny moss.  Spirals appear in galaxies spanning thousands of light years and in the head of a daisy.  We can see wave patterns in colliding weather fronts and at the beach, both in massive seas swells and in delicate sand ripples.  In all of these cases, matter and energy are being directed into an efficient form for supporting what is needed to happen…Each time we see a pattern such as these, it is nature’s way of solving a design challenge––of moving, collecting, harvesting, or dispersing matter and energy in a marvelously simple and effective way.  This is exactly what we are trying to do in an ecological landscape.”

––Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, by Toby Hemenway, loc. 994