Entropy increases over time within a closed system. But this is where your garden is an exception. Your garden is an open system which can receive more energy every season. If this weren’t possible, every field on earth would become barren quickly. The universe as a whole may be a “closed” system in which total useful energy is always on the decline, but Earth in relation to the Sun is no such thing. The Earth is constantly supplied with far more energy than it needs. The only question is whether or not we can receive and utilize the inflowing energy.. There is no such thing as a “closed” farm system, nor can there ever be. Even the most self-sufficient farm must depend on energy from space to grow next year’s crop. The only question is whether we have the practical knowledge to harvest all of this precious sunlight and produce new organic matter on our farms.
You can try this yourself, imagining yourself to be a “closed” system, but why would you not avail yourself of the energy of others and the fruits of their experience? Some people promise the moon, but we only promise the better use of the sun. As the stars are the source of all fertility, we want to share our knowledge with you so that you too can become an oases in the age of climate chaos.
permaculture
Learning from a Mentor
Learning
Hugh J. Courtney examining “horn manure” preparation samples in 2015
Energy only flows from high concentration to low concentration. This principle is expressed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that order tends to decrease over time. A more accessible way to understand this principle is that useful energy decreases as it is spent. Over time, there isn’t enough of a differential for energy to flow. But this is only given a closed system. Yes, the universe as a whole tends towards disorder but that same tendency allows for pockets of what appears to be negative entropy, where order seems to increase. Cases like this include the Earth in relation to the Sun. The Sun is always losing energy, but because the Earth always has less energy than the Sun. Because of this, the Earth continues to receive a new influx of energy. This is the possibility of evolution and the possibility of soil development. If there weren’t new energy flowing into the garden every year, there would be no possibility of soil development.
The same is true of knowledge. A mentor can only instruct you in what he knows. And you can only learn if you admit that you do not yet know. If we pretend to know that which we do not know, we block ourselves off from development and from the possibility of acquiring true knowledge. In an era opposed to hierarchies, we’ve lost sight of the hierarchy of experience. Respect for elders doesn’t come from any innate authority, but from years of experience. A good grape year doesn’t immediately make a great wine. Good grapes only become good wine after many years of aging and developing. The student comes to the teacher to learn what is not known, not because the teacher is necessarily morally or spiritually superior but because the teacher possesses knowledge someone else does not possess.
My personal mentor was Hugh J. Courtney, founder of the Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics. Shortly before he crossed the threshold, he told me that the next generation would have to take up the work of carrying on biodynamics. That is my work today. I do not just instruct people. I guide clients to realizing their goals and to saving them more time, energy, and money than the mentorship costs. It is the duty of everyone with spiritual knowledge to shine like a star, not hide it under a bushel. It is, of course, possible to go to the “school of hard knocks” and spend years on false-starts and blind alleys, or you can follow the footsteps of someone else who’s already tripped over a lot of the problems along the way. It’s not that the person you follow is superior, they’ve just fallen enough times to warn you about what to avoid. If you want to save yourself endless headaches, enlist the help of someone who has been foolish longer than you in your field of interest.