Soon approaching all in the UK – from permaculture designers to large corporations – is the imported American concept of Black Friday – the steep price cuts following thanksgiving that mark the beginning of the Christmas Shopping Season.
As a permaculture blog dedicated to living more sustainably, you may wonder why I would even cover the subject at all – but the truth is, the presence of this as a discrete day in our calendar says something significant about how modern supply chains and the shift from local, sustainable communities and supply networks to the dominance of big, unsustainable corporations has transformed our consciousness.
Black Friday, as a date, is more known than many of the natural phenomena that would have been second nature to recognise for our ancestors. The time of year that a certain plant would flower – the rising and setting of constellations – all of these betray a rhythm and harmony in our relationship with the land that has been lost. What’s more, these dates coincided with natural patterns of boom and bust, supply and demand, that forced us into making decisions that were, if not always sustainable – for mankind has always had both postive and negative influences on the natural world – at least as sustainable as they could be due to their intrinsic reliance on natural resources at a direct and tangible level.
Examples of a ‘natural calendar’ that has been lost include the cuckoo-flower – so called because it bloomed at the same time as the eponymous bird – and St. George’s Mushroom – which was often found in dewy fields around St. George’s Day and which previous generations would have been much more confident in recognising and using.
Why does this lost knowledge matter? Robert McFarlane’s book, Landmarks, shows how the way we think and speak about landscapes affects our consciousness, choices, and way of interacting with them. Preserving natural knowledge creates a ‘knowledge baseline’ for future generations that makes the modern attitudes of constantly-on-demand production and immediate gratification – as exemplified by the recent import of a holiday that is purely about commercialism – stand out starkly as unnatural. With this fresh in our minds, it becomes easier and more pressing to challenge this, whether by abstaining, supporting local and ethical businesses, producers, and community organisations instead, or simply by talking about it.
So what can we do? On the ground, there’s not a huge amount of ability to challenge the decisions of big corporations. However, by deepening our connection with natural rhythms and choosing to live seasonably and sustainably, we can opt out and preserve a framework that prevents this kind of constant consumptions becoming normalised.
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