One of the traps that we can fall into as consultants is to get very focused on thinking, on analysing, on understanding what it is that we are seeing. We can overthink what it is that we are trying to do with our design work, and when we do that, we risk seeing things in isolation. The land. The plants. The climate. The people. The geology and the fertility.
In this video, Geoff talks about how Bill Mollison would remind him of the importance of connections, the connections that knit everything together. They would walk through the farm and Bill would be connecting the landscape’s geology, forming the grand structure of the area, with the birds, the soil and the water as sits and flows through the land. The sparkle of a dew laden web.
This ability to not focus on anything in particular but to see everything in fine-grained detail. And to be able to describe how everything comes together into a meaningful whole.
Bill would describe how these connections are felt rather than analysed, how the connections require us to experience a place in a meditative state. To observe as a child, to be in a state of permanent wonder. For this is where the insights live. In the patterns that emerge when we don’t judge. In the miracles that surround us in the everyday. In reading the land as it flows through your veins, sensing it as it rests in your bones.
When we are in this state, being present but also zoned out, we can feel how everything is connected. How we don’t need to go looking for miracles, but can instead let them be recognised in the past, in the present, and potentially in the future through how we use our observational experiences.
It is this state of observation that we need to strive for. A state of not-knowing. We come to the land with a childlike mind rather than the mind of an expert. We let ourselves be delighted again and again.
This state is not a simple thing, because we so often want to have the answer. It is very easy to believe that we need to know the answer, to even feel that pressure when talking with people about what we are seeing. It can feel like we need to interpret when we should just stay open to observation. Remain alert to the wonder that is before us. Let the senses gradually build a picture for us from the myriad observations before us.
Because it’s in this state that we can be something special. We can be a land whisperer. We can see the connections, the patterns, the unique array of attributes and use them to create a landscape. A landscape that is not just productive, not just gorgeous, but a landscape that is permanent and sustainable because it works with the forces that are already in play.
By being observant, we can read the existing patterns and weave them together into something new. By zoning out, we plug into the world around us. By becoming open to wonder, we see the miracles before us. We become a part of the land and so can let a vision form that is not driven by ego, by what we can make happen, but rather a vision that is formed by the land and what it wants. What it needs. Zoning out is not just something that’s nice to do, not just something that we permit ourselves, but it’s something we must do if we are to be landscape designers.
By listening with our whole body, our spirit, we can let the connections form. And it is these connections that we need to use to create a landscape that can become ancient. To see to design for abundance.
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