from Permaculture Listserve

When Martin Luther King, Jr. started channeling Jesus' egalitarian,pre-Christ manifestation, he was assassinated in Memphis, where he went to support striking garbage workers who wanted a fair slice of thesocioeconomic pie. Jesus said, "This I command you: Love one another." That's the only command he issued.

Paul of Tarsus, a Roman tax collector,co-opted the Jesus Movement with all his rules. Tarsus was a hotbed of the cult of Mithras, and Mithraism is the origin of the Christ, a King born to be sacrificed for the good of the people. The egalitarian, respectful part lives on in the Permaculture movement.

The Christ part does not, to me, fit into Permaculture. More than anything, the Nicene Creed gave the Roman Empire a domestic behavior police in the guise of the Roman Catholic Church so that Constantine could continue expanding the Empire. After eight centuries of the Inquisition, the people had had all they were going to take of the Roman Catholic Church and started fighting back. Protestantism resulted. The Pope has not apologized for the Inquisition.

Permaculture arises from what we know now of how the world works. Nature is the God science has discovered, a God that gives us life, our next breath, food and clothes and shelter and each other, a God that seems capricious and cruel when we don't understand it or see the larger reality in which our personal reality plays out in the world.

Jesus is as dangerous to American Empire as he was to Roman Empire. Egalitarianism and true democracy (as opposed to Dubya's neocon spin job democracy he endeavors to force upon Iraqis) threaten imperialism and oppression. Permaculture is egalitarian and democratic by nature. People must be free to respond appropriately to the environment in order to live in proper relations with nature so the future continues to occur. The social control inherent to consumerism does not allow this level of responsibility. The Republicans in the US advanced personal responsibility until they found out what it meant.

It is our responsibility to throw off the yokes of social control so we can respond to the call of our souls, the life energy in each of us. Permaculture, by teaching us to feed ourselves physically, emotionally, socially, mentally, spiritually, and volitionally, gives us a vehicle which enables us to live as Jesus commanded, loving each other. Permaculture teaches us to love the land rather than forcing a harvest from it, and it teaches us that "everything is everything."

We love one another by loving the land.

Tommy Tolson, Austin, TX