2.5.1. Overview

Energy flows in patterns based on universal laws of mathematics and physics. These patterns, such as spirals and fractals, are repeated throughout the universe at macro and micro levels and produce certain types of energetic functions.

We’ll explore some of these later in this article, and how you can use your understanding of these patterns to direct and distribute energy, capture and store energy, release energy, slow energy, and increase energy in your design.

Understanding patterns in nature also allows you to read landscapes. If you understand these patterns, you can understand a lot about what you’re looking at, even if you’re in an unfamiliar landscape and don’t know any details about it.

Many of nature’s patterns were developed because they were highly efficient and aided survival over millennia. Patterns serve a function; by looking for the energy flows and exchanges one can often perceive that function.

There are patterns of human settlement that have been, over time, demonstrably more regenerative than other patterns. It’s useful to know what those are too. They tend to reflect natural patterns.

Some patterns in how we design communities encourage community support and interaction, and some discourage it, for instance.

There are also patterns of behavior, habit patterns, and even patterns about the way we view the world. Understanding those patterns can help you to understand yourself better and also perhaps even make whole systems design choices about those patterns. 

Pattern recognition allows designers to deepen and accelerate the understanding and assessment of sites and of the design process itself. This can become a language. “A pattern language is an organized and coherent set of patterns, each of which describes a problem and the core of a solution that can be used in many ways within a specific field of expertise.

The term was coined by architect Christopher Alexander and popularized by his 1977 book  A Pattern Language.” (Wikipedia)Designers can develop their own pattern language that can aid the work of putting together complex designs. What are solutions that work consistently in your region or ecosystem, or in your type of soil?

Permaculture founders and others have developed quite a bit of pattern language but there is more to be done that is not yet widely documented and codified. We are dealing with virtually all of life in a practice of whole systems design. We may never complete that language. 

For instance, understanding wind patterns allows one to properly place windbreaks. The pattern language would be the knowledge of how to put together an effective windbreak in your region. There will be differences in every site, but there will be a general pattern to the design that works in the vast majority of circumstances, based on common denominators in wind patterns. 

There are universal patterns that are found everywhere in nature, in humans, in the universe. We’ll discuss these patterns, what energetic functions they perform, and how you can use them in developing your own pattern language as a designer and in your life in general. Keep in mind when studying the patterns in nature that simply understanding that they exist and what they are is useful in itself. You may not see exactly how to use this knowledge, but realize that it's helping you to see the world in patterns, which can help you in your design process. 

Some cultures educate children in pattern language at an early age. Australian aborigines, for instance, are so good at reading patterns in the landscape they can find water and food where neither are obvious. They view the world in pattern language to the point where they don’t name individual plants, but communities of plants. 

They recognize symbiotic relationships, and know the function of different types of plants within the larger pattern. Many indigenous cultures base their growing methods on patterns they’ve observed in the natural world. They see every single element in the world in the context of its interdependencies. 

One of my mentors, Marsha Hanzi, a permaculture designer who has done significant work with regenerative agriculture in Brazil, says: “Context is everything.” That is one of those phrases that have applicability in many different settings and directions. One could even consider it a principle because of how broadly it can be applied.  

For instance, a design question might be "how much food do you want to grow?" Some context would be the time available, condition of the land, and water availability. You'd need to understand these things before you could design a system to grow the food you needed or wanted successfully. 

Thus, patterns of rainfall, soil and schedules would be relevant context. The universe is full of patterns - from cosmic to microcosmic, but we don't have to know everything about every pattern in order to design successfully. 

Throughout this course we will share the key patterns and context you need in order to increase your success. This section is just an introduction to the topic. In our culture in the US, we are taught to focus on individual items, separate from any other. We learn names of streets instead of the patterns of life in a neighborhood. 

We learn the dates of wars or other events in history, without the context of patterns leading up to or stemming from those events. We learn details about nature, buildings, cultures, finance, community and governance without understanding big picture patterns or context. When we solve problems, we often focus on solving a detail in the problem rather than looking at the context or pattern. 

This means that the cause of the problem is likely not addressed and it won’t actually be solved. An example would be to spray pesticide on bugs that appear on your plants. What is their pattern, in relation to other patterns? If you understand that, there are other ways to reduce the damage they can do that will be more effective, for longer. 

We learn the names of individual plants, instead of learning plant families. Plant families have similar qualities. For instance, kale, broccoli, cabbage, and other greens are all members of the brassica family. They all like certain types of soil, water, and temperature. Knowing this reduces your learning curve. 

Families of plants have similar flowers, and sometimes similar leaves, stems and other identifying qualities. If you could identify a plant from the mustard family via pattern language, you would know that you could eat it, because there are no severely poisonous plants in that family. (Important note about wild foods: 

Please keep in mind that some people have sensitivities to plants and some mustards are harder to digest than others, especially wild versions, so please use caution always, in eating wild or unfamiliar foods). In the carrot family, on the hand, there are deadly poisonous plants such as water hemlock, so it would behoove you to recognize that plant family and be positive of anything you’re eating from that family if you’re wild foraging. 

A great book that is a permaculture favorite for learning plant families is "Botany in a Day" by Thomas J. Elpel. 

When designing a site, it’s very tempting to start thinking in terms of where you want trees, the home etc., before you get into anything else. Recognizing patterns first, and only then moving into details of a design helps prevent errors that happen because of lack of context and lack of understanding of relationships. 

Of course, one can get rote about anything, including going only from pattern to detail when at times, details are important to note. Pattern recognition is an infinitely useful skill for both visible and invisible structures. In this section, we will touch on some of the most common patterns found in nature and discuss some ways that they’re useful.