Zone and Sector Analysis

Permaculture Design often uses Zone and Sector diagrams to map relationship and activity densities to the features of the land and the built structures.   Zone and Sector maps are useful in that they are represented in concentric rings giving an idea of the holistic inclusion concept but Bevan and I were talking about mapping relationships and we both agreed that the Zone/Sector map on it's own is too simplistic for mapping land with a variety of focal activity points and programs. Bevan emphasizes from his experience that the relationships are the most important and that looking at how the relationships from each activity interrelate in the overal design is necessary.

 

Multiple Overlapping Centers

I've been thinking about this concept (relationships are most important) as well and in my studies of the work of brilliant Architect - Christopher Alexander,  I've found his concept of interrelated centers does a much better job of modeling what I think the pattern is. I like this concept of looking at what we normally think of as objects as centers instead.  The concept of a center has the natural idea of interconnection whereas we can easily think of an object as being separate from us.

In fact, in a interesting way our language itself, being comprised of subject/verb structure - causes us to conceive of ourselves and other external objects as separate.   Linguist Benjamin Whorf and Blackfoot Leroy Little Bear point out that many of the Indigenous languages (such as Blackfoot) are verb based languages which naturally represent interconnected processes.  It is said that two Blackfoot speakers can converse for an hour and never need to speak a noun to communicate. (see Indigenous Permaculture Wiki article).  This should give us much to think about when we seek to understand why we have become so disconnected from Nature.

 

Fractal Relationships

I've been doing quite a bit of study on Fractals as I feel that Fractals are likely the form Nature uses for process interconnection in relationship.   Fractals have the interesting properties of being self-similar regardless of size (scale) and of having self modifying feedback loops where the input, after being transformed by the fractal function (process), becomes output that is again fed back as part of the input.   I think this hints strongly at how adaptation and change is handled so successfully in Nature and also gives us clues to where the ancient saying "As above, so below" comes from.

  

Coherence

When centers come into mutually beneficial relationships where the wholeness of the entire web of relationships is enhanced, something magical happens.   Buckminster Fuller called it synergy. It is sometimes called system gain.  Architect Christopher Alexander points out that livingess increases and beauty increases.  Coherence Coherence, or the relating of more to more, more effectively and more appropriately  is the goal for all of our designs.  Learning to create the attractive conditions to help this occur,  characterizes our role as conscious co-creators,  ushering in the next generation of reverent, life-affirming human culture.  Take a look at the spiral forms below.  The spontaneous spiral waves forming in the Belousov-Zhabotinskii Chemical Reaction look quite similar to petroglyph drawings.  We have much to learn from the Ancients!

Belousov-Zhabotinskii Reaction Celtic Monolith  Spirals Oraibi Petroglyph