Winter's Wisdom: Conservation of Energy
Look around you. What do you see? During the Winter months we see so much less of some things and yet, we can see so much more of others. Plants and animals are conserving energy, and for the most part we see less “life” during the winter months. If you look hard enough though, we can see the patterns in our landscape much better during the cold months. With plants conserving their energy, we get an in-depth view into the world around us in a way that just isn’t possible when it’s lush and green. We too, may feel like we have less and less energy, and we may feel a strong pull to hunker down and conserve our energy, especially during these trying times.
What can we learn from this energy conservation and how can this view into our landscape work to make for a more bountiful and easygoing future? In Permaculture, we are always looking to maximize the energy output while minimizing the energy input. Conservation of energy should not only be a focus in the Winter, but it should be the guiding principle with which you are always looking at your landscape. How can you give and receive more while doing less, and while you can see everything so clearly, how can you redesign your space to be more efficient moving forward?
How many times have you driven by a house that had a shed in the very back of the yard by the perimeter fence or a farm that had a barn across a huge beautiful field from the idyllic farmhouse? It makes perfect sense on one level. But think about this. Every time that person needs to go to the shed or to the Barn, they have to walk some distance to get there and back, and this fact is amplified the bigger your space gets.
If you have a chicken coop and you put it on the far side of your property to avoid having the smell near your home, you may think you’re doing the smart thing. Here’s the truth though. Every day you have to visit that chicken coop, likely more than once. You need to gather eggs in the morning, make sure water and food are clean and that the flock is secure at night. That means that you are spending a huge amount of time walking back and forth. Inevitably, this will start to wear on you, consciously or unconsciously. If the coop was right by the house, you’d waste less time, and you would keep the coop far cleaner and better maintained because of that proximity. This minimizes odor and contaminants and your gals (and gents) will have a better life. So will you.
We can think about this on a ton of levels. Where do you visit the most? What gardens and buildings do you visit at least once a day and how much time are you taking walking back and forth from one to the next? Now you can see your landscape clearly so what can you do to make everything flow, just like water which moves effortlessly downhill. Create order and routine. Do you commonly go to the samefour places, in the same order every single day? Well, those four things should be laid out in a way that makes that as easy as possible. It sounds small, but when you examine everything through this lens you may find that you are wasting more time and energy than you think. If you are designing a new space, this can help guide you to something that will create so much more ease in your life.
We should always be trying to conserve our energy and the energy around us. This can be our motto, not just during the Winter. Energy is life and all life is valuable. There’s wisdom surrounding us, we just need to listen and look.