"Because we have replaced nature-based myth with a set of fixed prohibitions relating only to other people, and unrelated to nature, we have developed destructive and people-centered civilisations and religions." (Mollison, 1988, p. 11)
With that in mind, here's a look at some nature-based mythology relating to a god of cultivation.
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Saturn was the ancient Roman deity of agriculture. He was associated with agriculture and prosperity, but also with time and the cyclic destruction of the harvest. As traditions became less Pagan and more Christian, the figure holding the scythe and the hourglass who reigns at midwinter became less associated with our lost Golden Age and wealth, and more associated with finitude, hardship, labor and death. Saturn continued to be associated with truth, however. When the workings of the Universe started to be compared to a grand clockwork, Time's symbolic role no longer was seen as a warning that we must die and should spend our limited time on Earth preparing for the hereafter. In a newly secular world, whose imagination was captured by the promises of science and technology, the grim figure of Death became conquered by and subordinated to Love (Macey, 1994, p. 210).
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The connection seems obscure at first until we consider that new life is seeded by sex, and that through physical union worldly destruction is succeeded by regeneration. Thus we come full circle to the indulgent and erotic ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, where Saturn becomes god of misrule and liberation rather than the ascetic figure of finality and judgment. The harvest becomes a time outside of time, much like the Golden Age itself, in which schedules of labor and the rules of society do not apply. The grim reaper now presides over recreation and the joyous satisfaction of appetites, more like Bacchus than Death – the grapes of harvest become the wine of immortality.
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Thus we see hints at the idea that if we understand the mysteries of time and generation well enough, we can conquer death itself. Saturn (like Janus, who also rules at the end of the year - and the beginning of the next), is a god of contradictory qualities seemingly set opposed to one another yet actually giving rise to one another. Order and discipline create the prosperity that makes chaotic celebration possible. Austerity gives rise to pleasure. Silence and darkness give rise to wisdom. To be utterly unmoving is to be everywhere at once. Time becomes timing, the art of finding the opportunity hidden in the moment. Perhaps by respecting time and boundedness by eating what is local and in season, we can experience renewal – a form of limitlessness through limitation. Yet Bill Mollison points out that immutable rules do not apply, and that we need to explore flexible principles and directives (p. 11) – in other words, pay attention to the needs of the time and use our brains to reveal the hidden opportunities. Perhaps if we saw the world as interconnected patterns and living wholes rather than straight furrows marching to the thresher we would eat of the Tree of Life rather than being cut down like the grain. In contrary fashion, the flaming sword that guards the Garden gives not the death of the scythe but the life of the spirit – note that it is placed East of Eden, the aspect of sunrise and renewal – and that it is a tree that holds this promise, not a grassland struggling to root itself in defoliated earth.
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Thinking about time and death is even more poignant than usual for me right now, because I live in the middle of the COVID-19 outbreak that is happening near Seattle. Memento mori indeed. This outbreak started in a market that sold wildlife for food (a practice supposedly banned), and could be the Revenge of the Pangolins, the most poached and trafficked animal in the world, now functionally extinct in China. Its meat is a status symbol served to high-level guests. This kind of exploitative relationship with the natural world is the antithesis of Permaculture; perhaps the virus is a flaming sword of justice.
Macey, S. L. (1994). Encyclopedia of time. New York, NY: Garland Publishing.
Mollison, B. (1988). Permaculture: a designers manual. Tyalgum: Tagari Publ.
Yu, W. (2020, March 5). Coronavirus: Revenge of the pangolins? The New York Times. Retrieved March 6, 2020 from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opinion/coronavirus-china-pangolins.html
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