Understanding and Accepting Gifts

Posted on December 10, 2012 by admin

A short time back, we received a Christmas card from my wife’s 88-year-old grandmother.  When I said something to my wife about getting the card, she immediately said that she was upset because her grandmother always sends a check for holidays and birthdays, and seeing how she is on a very limited and fixed income, she cannot really afford to send anything.  More recently, we were getting a few Christmas gifts ready for my parents in anticipation of them coming over for an early holiday gathering (they winter in FL every year).  My wife expressed concern that we were not giving my parents enough in return for the gift they gave us and told me that she felt bad about this.

While feelings of displeasure surrounding the receipt or giving of gifts may seem contradictory on the surface, the reality is that this is the reaction that many of us have more often than we care to admit — myself definitely included.  It also shows that way that gift-giving has been almost completely marginalized within our society, for us to feel a sense of genuine unease over something that should bring us happiness instead.  I think that the source for this unease is something that very few people recognize — the way that the rules of market exchange have gradually overtaken many areas of our lives that they have no business entering, with the exchange of gifts being a major instance of that intrusion.

In order to explore this issue, it’s important for us to look at the basic mechanics of gift economies versus market economies, because they are decidedly different from one another.  The market relies primarily on immediate, quid-pro-quo exchanges between people who often have no other relationship than the moment of that exchange of money for an item or service.  Once that immediate exchange is satisfied between purchaser and vendor, there is no outstanding obligation between the parties.  Contrast this with gift economies, which not only rely upon continuing obligations to function properly, but exist within broad webs where those obligations are not necessarily paid back to the party who gave the initial gift, but are more often paid forward to others.

When looked at in this manner, I think that it is understandable how we have such issues with gifts when we are conditioned countless times each day to think in terms of market exchanges.  To take it a step further (and perhaps make it more controversial), I think that greater engagement of the gift economy has the potential to undermine the market economy’s hold on so many aspects of our daily lives — and enable us to live more aligned with the permaculture ethics, particularly the third ethic of return of surplus.

Charles Eisenstein has written extensively on the nature of gift economies in his book, Sacred Economics.  I don’t want to go too deeply into his writing in this piece, but one of the major themes he takes up is the subject of gift economies, and the central role that they played in our daily lives for the overwhelming majority of human existence on this planet.  Eisenstein likens our current market-dominated economic landscape to a monoculture of one single plant (such as corn) spreading across thousands and thousands of acres.  This kind of arrangement can be held together through massive interventions — at least for a time — but overall it is fragile and fleeting, and good neither for the corn nor for the end user.  I don’t consider it a stretch to look at the goings-on of the financial sector over the past few years and conclude that what the money economy is currently doing is not good for most of the citizenry in the “developed” world, nor for the long-term viability of the currencies of those nations.

Another theme that Eisenstein visits in his writing and talks is the way that an increased reliance on money creates a sense of scarcity — and although it seems contradictory, the more money that people have, the tighter they hold on to it for themselves.  This can be supported by the statistic that people from lower income brackets tend to give a higher percentage of their income as compared to people from higher brackets.  Simply put, the more money a person or family takes in, the more they use that money to pay for a broader range of goods and services (thus increasing their reliance on the financial system), and the less likely they become to readily share what they have.  I have seen this dynamic at work in my own life.  As my household income has gone up, I have actually found myself becoming more preoccupied with money than I was before, and consistently finding excuses to put off giving — even as my surplus has grown.  It is only through reading, listening and thinking about the nature of gift economies that I am even able to recognize this phenomenon at work and come up with a plan to counter it.

The first step I have taken to better orienting my financial life with the permaculture ethics through gift giving is to change the way that I look at gifts given to me as well as how I give gifts to others.  Although I still have the urge to protest gifts when offered, I force myself to open up and accept them, with all of the gratitude that acceptance entails.  When it comes to giving gifts to others, I have expanded my definition of a “gift” — it could be something material, but it could also be sharing my time with someone or providing a skill that I have.  In the event that I feel like someone else has given me more than I have given them, I do not allow myself to be constrained by the need to pay them back, but rather open up the possibilities to paying their gift forward in the future to someone in need.

Taking this further, my wife and I are planning out scheduled giving as a part of our regular budget — no different than food, utilities, or savings.  By doing so, we are forcing ourselves to regularly engage in the gift economy.  My goal is for this to eventually help us to displace our over-reliance on the monetary/financial economy and increase our household resiliency in the process.  For an example of how far you can take such an engagement of the gift economy — and the rich life you can discover as a result — I recommend checking out “Radical Possibilities with Ethan Hughes” from The Permaculture Podcast with Scott Mann.  For a quick write-up on Ethan Hughes and his community, click here.

In a future post, I’m going to talk about a project I came up with to combine gift-giving, permaculture food production and communty building in my immediate surroundings.

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Limitations Produce Abundance

Posted on November 30, 2012 by admin

Very rarely do things in the universe occur in a completely random manner.  This doesn’t mean that there is an order to everything that is easy for us to see and quantify, but quite often there are things that go on that are too coincidental, too serendipitious for us to write off as mere chance.  One of the places I notice this quite frequently is in the media I seek out in order to increase my understanding about permaculture and the greater world I live in.

In the previous post, I mentioned the way that using rock dust to increase soil fertility and grow nutrient-dense food was a topic of two of the podcasts I listen to frequently, even though the producers of those podcasts have little or no contact with each other.  This happened again in regards to what I have been listening to.  This time, the subject was regarding limits, and our society’s predelection to ignoring them and/or pretending that they don’t exist.

One of my favorite writers and thinkers out there is John Michael Greer, author of many books and keeper of The Archdruid Report blog.  Greer writes about contemporary topics — sustainability/resilience, peak oil, geopolitics — from a perspective grounded in the long view of history and his own experiences in the appropriate technology and conservationist movements dating back to the late 1970s.  Recently, he was featured in one of Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity podcasts.  The interview was a lively exchange between two of the sharpest minds of our time, both of them with a deep understanding of the predicaments that modern civilization has taken us into, as well as the kinds of things we need to do to weather the coming storms related to those predicaments and even thrive in the process.

One of the topics that Greer raised — one of his favorite topics — was that of our national idea that limits of any kind are bad.  Greer’s view is that if history is to be taken as a guide — and it should, because the idea that we’re somehow exempt from its themes is an impossible notion — then we’d be well served to just get rid of this allergy to limits.  If it isn’t clear by the way I’ve stated it, I fully agree with Greer on this issue.  However, I think that sometimes one of the reasons that people rebel so much against the idea of limits is that they see them in negative terms, equating limits against modern-day notions of material abundance as placing limits on their ability for happiness since those two have become so intertwined over the past century.  Greer doesn’t necessarily present it in this manner — he equates it with us collectively growing up and becoming a more responsible society instead of acting like a 50-year old going through a midlife crisis and trying to act like a teenager again — but given our culture’s fascination with youth and rejection of aging, that’s the way it’s perceived by many people out there.

In case you doubt this, try bringing up the notion of accepting limits to consumption and on behavior at your next family holiday gathering and see how well the topic goes over.  I’ve learned from personal experience that it’s a non-starter.  I rarely even bring up the topic explicitly to my own wife anymore because I know how non-productive it is to do so, and instead just get on with the work needed to get our life to a point where we can realistically accept those limits.  Luckily, I have young children who are unburdened by the false assumptions born out of years of exposure to propaganda of various sorts, and therefore much easier to bring along for the ride.

But back to the serendipity of all of this….  Another one of the podcasts I have begun to include in my regular rotation is The Permaculture Podcast with Scott Mann.  I was listening to an episode of it yesterday that referred back to an older episode with Ethan Hughes, a permaculture teacher and practitioner who lives completely off-grid on as part of a small community on 110 acres in rural Missouri.  Hughes and the rest of his community live a life that, in terms of the modern version of the “American dream” could be described as extreme depravation.  Some 10-12 people living on this farm do so on an income of $9000 per year total — a good portion of which they give away.  They do not have electricity, don’t own a car but bicycle to get where they need to go, and have one phone line that comes to an area away from the house.  When cutting firewood they use crosscut saws instead of chainsaws, and rely on draft horses instead of tractors for moving heavy objects such as felled trees.  They live almost completely outside of the financial economy and within the gift economy, relying upon the reciprocation and goodwill of others to meet many of their needs that they cannot meet on-site themselves.

Yet, in describing their existence and its respect for limits, Hughes said, “Limitations produce abundance.”  Let me state that again so that it sinks in fully.  Limitations produce abundance.  And in describing the life they have living within these limitations, he comes across not as a miserable ascetic but instead as a person living a life of extreme joy and sense of purpose — certainly much moreso than most of us who life the kind of life our society deems to be “normal.”

It is through acknowledging and respecting the limits that the natural world places on us that we free ourselves to acknowledge and enjoy the true abundance that it provides for us.  When you can slow your life down and take in fireflies all around you on a warm summer night, for example, you don’t need to sit in front of a flickering television screen in order to be entertained.

Thought of in another way, consider the wide variety of products for sale in a typical grocery store today.  Proponents will hold this up as an example of the limitless choices available for the American consumer.  Yet, how many times have you stood in front of supermarket shelves, confronted by the wide variety of products available (take pasta sauce, for example) and left completely befuddled when trying to choose which one to get.  Unless it’s a specific product with which we already have experience, quite often our “choice” comes down to a random selection not really based on any objective criteria, except perhaps cost.

Now, consider walking into a small store that has a limited number of product choices.  This provides the opportunity for a real choice between different items or types within the same item, a choice that is much more often made consciously than the random one we make in the supermarket.  There are very real psychological reasons for this which I won’t go into here other than to just say that our brains become overwhelmed by seemingly unlmited choices.  What I am more interested in is the effect of this acceptance of limits.

Accepting limits allows us to live our lives more consciously, more deliberately, to actually slow down once in a while and appreciate how much we actually have right around us instead of longing for something in the distance.  Limits can actually be liberating in revealing this abundance right around us.  If you’re wondering how to do it, I’d refer you back to the interview with Ethan Hughes, linked earlier in this post.  I’m still trying to figure it out myself, so you’re probably much better off taking advice on the “how” from someone who has actually walked that path for over 20 years.

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Soil Preparation for Annual and Perennial Gardens

Posted on November 29, 2012 by admin

One of the major shortcomings in my gardening approach I identified in the previous post is adequate soil preparation.  Now, this isn’t to say that I have ever actively abused my soil by adding chemical fertilizers and pestcides.  I never did either of those things.  But it’s become painfully obvious through lack of productivity that I also have not provided enough additives to my soil to really get the natural, organic processes going that help to create and maintain fertile soil with minimal maintenance.

Last spring, I attempted to start up several forest garden patches at the same time while also addressing many other demands on my time which I won’t recount here.  The end result was predictable, and much less successful than I had hoped.  In one of the forest garden beds I built a low hugelkultur berm using pieces of rotting wood obtained from the floor of an adjacent woodlot — but I did not use sufficient topsoil cover in order for it to function as intended.  For the rest of the garden beds, I tried to smother the underlying grass by spreading hay in a 6″ layer.  While this suppressed the grass for a brief time, by the end of the season that grass had pretty much re-established itself in most areas.  I attribute this to not taking the time to adequately kill off the grass before starting, not using a thick enough mulch layer (the hay settled to 3″ in many areas after multiple rain events) and not making a detailed planting schedule a core part of my garden design.  In short, my desire to create my forest gardens now resulted in poor planning which created even more work in the end.

Now, I will say that there was one benefit from using all of this hay mulch — namely, in the areas where the grass came up through, it “shifted” the majority of its root structure from the underlying clayey soil into the rotting organic matter, making its removal this fall kind of like pulling up old carpet tacked into a subfloor.  The grass is also providing plenty of fodder for composting.

More on that later — it’s time to return to the core part of this post, which is soil preparation.  One of the local resources I have available to me in abundance is leaves.  We have some trees around the edge of our property that drop their leaves every fall.  The adjacent woodlot borders our road and dumps a thick layer of leaves along the shoulder of that road.  Finally, residents of the nearby village gather up the leaves from their yards and put them in paper bags along the curb to be picked up and taken away for trash — I beat the DPW workers to the punch and pack them in the back of my Honda Fit to take home.  One of my regular activities over the past two months has been mulching leaves with my walk-behind mower, and either dumping them directly on annual and forest garden beds as mulch or stockpiling them for next year.

I also moved my composting operation directly into my garden.  I built a large bin out of some shipping pallets and chicken wire and placed it directly on one of the vegetable garden beds.  Into this I piled the weeds pulled out of the neglected vegetable garden this fall (almost enough to fill the bin) and also deposit food scraps.  This way the nutrients that leach down through will go directly into the garden bed — after this bin is filled and left to cure, it will be moved to a different part of the garden for the next load, providing nutrients for another area.  Plus, all of my compost will be right at the point of use rather than in a different section of the yard, reducing the work required to place it.

I also buried food scraps and pulled weeds directly into my garden soil, but after beginning to read Dave Jacke’s Edible Forest Gardens Vol. 2 I decided not to do that again.  Jacke mentions that this process causes the food waste to break down anaerobically rather than aerobically, fostering some of the less desirable bacteria and fungi in the process.  I’ll have to see from production this year if this is, indeed, the case.

There is still one important and, thus far neglected task in soil preparation that I need to address.  Compost and mulch will certainly help to foster the kind of self-sustaining vibrant soil ecosystem that is essential for successful permaculture gardening.  But, without the right mineral nutrients present, it is not enough.  Perhaps its the general seredipity of the universe at work, but lately I’ve been exposed to several different sources touting the use of rock dust as a soil additive to build and maintain the healthy soil necessary for growing healthy plants.

The first exposure that really hit me was a recording of organic farmer Dan Kittredge’s presentation as part of the Full Circle Series held at the NYC Horticultural Society.  Kittredge is a second-generation organic farmer living in Massachusetts.  He was compelled to develop growing methods for what he terms “nutrient-dense food” after many years of observing pervasive pest problems, consistently sickly plants, and mediocre yields on his parents’ organic farm.  Today he owns his own very successful and diverse 15-acre organic farm in Western Massachusetts and heads up the Bionuntrient Food Association  to spread the importance of growing and consuming healthy food as a means of ultimately bringing about meaningful social, economic and environmental change.

Kittredge’s solution to the problems experienced by his parents and many other organic farmers and gardeners is actually quite simple: rock dust.  He says that many of the problems of pest infestation can be traced back to significant mineral deficiencies — especially among more trace minerals like manganese, boron and zinc – in the soil.  His own experience with adding rock dust resulted in a quick revitalization of the soil to include decreased compaction and an upsurge in beneficial fungal and bacterial activity.  The ability of his crops to take up these key minerals helps them to better resist disease from bacteria and fungus, as well as increase their protein content, thus making them much less palatable to insect pests.  Kittredge openly states that he ONLY uses rock dust, diluted seawater and seaweed on his garden beds to achieve these outcomes — he does not compost, as he considers it to be too much work.

This subject was also broached around the same time in an episode of The Permaculture Podcast with Scott Mann.  The episode posted on October 26, 2012 was “An Introduction to Nutrient Dense Farming with Mary Johnson.”  Johnson touched on most of the same themes as Kittredge did, and she even cited him as one of the driving forces behind this work.  While she delved a little more deeply into the biological science where Kittredge focused more on the practicality during his talk, the solution was essentially the same — revitalizing soils through the application of rock dust, diluted seawater and seaweed.  Johnson referenced the traditional three sisters mounds as an example of the effectiveness of this approach, saying that the soil fertility in these mounds was enhanced every year by the addition of salmon carcasses harvested during each year’s salmon run.  Since the salmon came from the oceans, they carried the mineral nutrients of the oceans upstream with them and then deposited it in the soils via their rotting bodies.

I also have to say that my mother — an organic gardener with over 40 years of experience but who still constantly experiments with new ideas – used rock dust on her garden this year and found that her yields were significantly increased as a result.  So, with all of the evidence taken into account, I’m going to make use of it myself this year.

Most garden centers sell different forms of rock dust for different mineral deficiencies.  However, I’m always on the lookout for resources that are either free or low-cost, and also that make use of another person’s “waste.”  Toward that end, I’m going to reach out to rock quarries in the area and find out if I can take their rock dust for free.  Dan Kittredge mentioned this approach in his Full Circle Series talk.  In order to hopefully mitigate future difficulties it will be important to determine what rock type or types the dust was taken from.

I’m going to apply this rock dust on top of my thick layers of mulch and let the rain wash it down into the underlying mulch and soil.  This method may take longer than tilling it into the soil, but I think it will be more effective over time.  First, according to what Dave Jacke writes in Edible Forest Gardens Vol. 2, piling on mulch and other additives is a more effective method than tilling them in, because it mimics the way that nature does things and thus optimizes the systems already put in place for us.  I also think that this will have the benefit of putting the minerals into direct contact with the bacteria and fungus that will be prevalent at the mulch-soil interface as the mulch rots down, allowing for more efficient transfer from the bacteria and fungus to the plant roots.

I know that the idea of continuously adding rock dust is not exactly a “self-sustaining system.”  In order to try and encourage it to be so I’m relying on dynamic accumulators — especially comfrey — over the longer haul.  By propagating comfrey throughout my herbaceous layer, it will capture the nutrients that leach through into the subsoil, as well as bring up the already existing minerals from the subsoil.  When the growth is regularly cut and composted or mulched, those minerals will return to the topsoil where they can be taken up by other plants.  By also introducing bio-intensive methods — namely the dedication of sizable portions of my gardens to growing fodder crops — those minerals can be brought up by plants and continuously recycled back into the topsoil as the plants are turned into mulch.  My hope is that although the rock dust will be needed as a kickstart, it will only have to be done once and after that my gardens will be able to maintain their mineral content with just a little intervention at strategic points and times on my part.

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A season of mistakes — and the learning that comes with them

Posted on November 8, 2012 by admin

OK, it’s been quite a while since I posted anything on this page.  I don’t have any valid excuses other than letting life get in the way and not making it a top priority.  However, this page is far from the only thing in my life that suffered from neglect over the past several months.

After a great deal of anticipation, my annual vegetable garden ended up being a disaster this year.  First, my seedlings got fried inside a cold frame by an early spring heat wave where temperatures shot up over 85 degrees for one day.  When the planting season was fully underway, I was simultaneously trying to establish three new areas for forest gardens and three sisters mounds while completing my Permaculture Design Course.  All of which while helping out with my year-old son (our 5 year old daughter can address her own immediate needs now) and spending 60 hours/week on my job.  By the summer, the only successful things in the garden were wild ruderals — weeds.  My tomato harvest was terrible (only 3-4 jars of tomato sauce), green beans were a complete failure (no germination), dry beans were planted too late, lettuce and other greens were minimal (fall spinach didn’t even  germinate)… you get the idea.  Just about the only crops that gave decent production were shallots and potatoes through the summer, and brassicas in the fall (esp. kale).

Still, now that the season is over and I can have some space to look back upon it, I cannot consider it to be a failure — because it’s been a great learning experience.  Here is a quick sampling of some of the major lessons learned this year:

  • Have planting areas established by the end of the previous season, instead of trying to get them established and ready during the planting season.  For some reason, this is one that I have messed up on every single year I’ve been raising a garden, but I think I’m in position to break the pattern next year.
  • Planning is paramount.  Not only do I need to have planting areas established and mostly ready to go, but I need to have already laid out what I am planting and where for each succession.
  • Invest time and resources to building soil.  This past year I think that a good bit of my soil was just taxed too much over proceeding years and not replenished enough.  It’s also a no-brainer under the permaculture principles — we need to build resources, not strip them.  This is a topic I’ll get into more in my next post.
  • Observe my surroundings.  Take ample time to just sit down and watch nature at work.  She will give feedback as to what actions are harnessing various energy flows (wind, water, sun, etc.) and which ones are disrupting them.
  • Keep records of everything.  I allowed myself to be so caught up in trying to get too many things going at once, I didn’t keep good track of what I was doing.  Key to a successful long-term operation is keeping good records, which I can refer back to when planning out my next year’s activities.

Toward the goal of having things ready to go next year, I weeded my entire vegetable garden, the horseshoe garden, and parts of the front and back forest patches.  The grass and weeds pulled out were thrown into a compost bin or pile.  Any areas not prepared will not be planted with anything next year.

I spread out a bin of cured compost on one of the garden beds.  I buried food waste directly in the ground in another.  Most of the wood chips on garden pathways were turned onto some beds.  I noted that the chips were heavily infused with fungal hyphae, which will help innoculate my garden soil.  For others, I mulched all of the leaves in the yard with the mower, as well as those on the roadside along a woodlot, and piled them around trees and on more beds.  This will encourage fungal growth as well.

On the subject of leaves, come late fall people throughout town start bagging up the leaves in their yards, stuffing them into paper sacks, and setting them along the curb for me to just pick up and take away!  I bring them home, stack them up and mulch them as I have time to do so.  Before winter all of my beds in the vegetable garden will be mulched, and I’ll have a good pile of leaves set aside to rot for the summer.

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Redefining the American Dream

Posted on March 15, 2012 by admin

In this episode, I discuss how the “American Dream” that has evolved over the past 65 years started out of a set of historical circumstances that have changed considerably over the time since.  In the face of those changing circumstances is it worth still pursuing?  Does it match up against the permaculture ethics?  If it’s not working anymore, can we create a new “American Dream” that is based on permaculture ethics?

BTLP_003_3-15-2012

To download, right-click file and choose “save as”.  To play on your computer, just left-click.  Total run time is 23:09.

Sources:

Paul Wheaton interviews Geoff Lawton, Part One

The Cancer and Slavery of Debt | The Survival Podcast Episode 369

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BLTP Podcast Episode 002 — Making a Permaculture Livelihood

Posted on March 14, 2012 by admin

Most of us spend more of our waking hours either working at, or commuting to and from our jobs.  Therefore, if we’re going to better align our lives with the permaculture ethics, it’s important that we focus on our livelihood.  In this episode, I share my own process for moving from a life as an “industrialized man” in the employ of others toward my goal of being a “permaculture man” with greater independence and control over my own life.  I initially wanted to title this one “Finding a Permaculture Livelihood” but decided that the term “finding” was too passive — and replaced it with “making”.

To play this episode, just click on the link.  To download, right-click and then select “save as” on the menu.  Total running time is 44:57.

BLTP_Podcast Episode 002 — Finding Making a Permaculture Livelihood

Sources and references for this episode:

Paul Wheaton’s “Evil Empire” (richsoil.com, permies.com, etc.)

The Survival Podcast with Jack Spirko

The Automatic Earth blog and resources

Your Money or Your Life

 

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BLTP Podcast 001 — Leading into Permaculture

Posted on March 13, 2012 by admin

In this introductory podcast episode, I talk about how my educational background has shaped my approach to permaculture, the importance and benefit of taking a PDC, things I’m doing right now, and some lessons learned.  The end of the podcast features a call for listener feedback to help shape future episodes.

To download podcast, right-click and highlight “save as.”  To listen on your computer, just click on the link.

BLTP_001_3-13-2012

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Permaculture = Abundance

Posted on March 7, 2012 by admin

One of the best selling points about permaculture is that it brings abundance to our lives.   The most obvious way is building up food production systems that really take off over time.  The other, perhaps even more effective way is that it helps us to redefine what “wealth” is in our life, and how permaculture helps us to attain it.

Geoff Lawton sums this concept up better than anything I could say about it — I have it on the cover of my PDC binder as well as posted in a prominent place in my work office, so I can read it daily.  He clearly explains what real wealth is, and how permaculture accentuates it while following the status quo actually kills it for many/most of us.  The following is from a podcast he did with Paul Wheaton:

I know people who survive on their permaculture systems with twelve hours work a week.  Twelve hours.  The average industrialized man works a 40 to 60 hour week.  And what do you have to show for it?  Gadgets.  You’ve just got gadgets.  You haven’t got that clean air, clean water, clean food, sensible housing, warmth, friendship, and community.  You haven’t got that wealth.  You’ve got gadget wealth.  And you’re… completely time poor….  Your time density is really weak, and your time density is really low.  When you work in these (permaculture) systems — it’s so meaningful — your time density is extreme, it’s an extreme time density.  And your time quality is really high.  And if you only have to work ten hours a week, look at all that extra time you’ve got for family, for community, for helping other people, for returning your surplus to your local community.  That’s wealth.  That’s real wealth.

This quote is effective because of what it doesn’t say, as much as what it does.  It says nothing about exotic vacations, ostentatious houses or fancy cars — the version of the “good life” that the status quo narrative tells us.  It changes the narrative to a life of meaning instead of pleasure.  By doing this, it helps those who embrace it to see unlimited abundance around us, and bringing our own permaculture visions more sharply into focus.

For me, the results of this mental shift have been significant.  I’ve never been the natural optimist — in fact, it’s usually been the opposite.  I spent too much time noticing the things around me that were not right, instead of doing the things that are right.  Permaculture flipped that completely on its head — where I used to see problems to be protested against, I now see opportunities for achieving true wealth.  I have already seen the impact of this shift in my working life — I have noticed and seized opportunities that before would have eluded me.  I think a big reason for seizing those opportunities has been the way that permaculture brought the life I want to live into focus, and made it achievable through purposeful work and forethought.

What are some ways that permaculture has changed your overall outlook on life?

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Things Permaculture Can Teach Us Through Our Children

Posted on February 28, 2012 by admin

I spent the past weekend at the Green Phoenix Permaculture Design Course in High Falls, NY.  I cannot recommend them highly enough.  Kay Cafasso, our lead instructor, has done an incredible job in teaching, administering the course, and providing some really great guest speakers.  Our first weekend had Chris Jackson and Tama Jackson (no relation) as guest instructors.  This past weekend Connor Steadman taught us about the geological history of New York — both how our landscape affected human settlement in different ways, and how we affected the landscape in return. We shared fantastic dishes of food that we all prepared, and became immersed in meaningful conversation with each other during our breaks.  The most empowering thing of all about taking a PDC is being surrounded by 25-30 other people who are as passionate to learn about permaculture as you are.  If you have the opportunity to take one, do it.

At one point on this Saturday, another member of our group mentioned trying to find a kindergarten program that emphasized giving children time to explore “wild” areas as central to the curriculum.  This immediately sparked a connection for me, because my 4-1/2 year old daughter is always asking to go into the small woodlot behind our house.  She asks me to take her in there, often when I’m already engaged in something else.  Sometimes I cave in and say yes.  If I say no, she asks if she can follow the dogs if they go in the woods.  By hook or crook, she’s determined to explore “wild” places.

Today, she and I explored back there for about 20 minutes, until the sun was barely creeping over the horizon and the coming darkness chased us inside.  We followed the dogs’ trails throughout the woodlot, stopping here and there to look more closely at a moss-covered log, peek at the rich humus soil of the forest floor, or gaze up at the tall oaks in awe.  Through her eyes, forests are places of wonder, beauty and grandeur — and fun!

I was blessed to have a tract of woods over 2 miles deep behind the house I grew up in, all the way back to the Allegany River in Western Pennsylvania.  Two nearby friends and I spent hours and hours in those woods every year.  We would just explore, climb, dam up creeks, catch crayfish, crawl through ice caves — whatever the area had to offer.  Every summer we hiked the length of the creek, all the way to the river.  Sometimes I would just walk the woods by myself.  Even back then, they were a source for all of the things that my daughter sees in them now.

Our relationship with our earth is deep and timeless.  Children don’t have to meditate on that — it’s just something that comes instinctual to them.  Our “civilized” world is what tries to sever that connection, and losing it is harmful to our state of being.  Permaculture is a way that we can try to re-grow and strengthen that connection.

Geoff Lawton spoke with Paul Wheaton about how permaculture was being taught in the curriculum in an increasing number of Australian schools.  It wasn’t taught there because the administrators and communities of Australia were suddenly all permaculturalists.  It ended up being taught because there was a drastic difference in the students who participated.  They became more focused, acted out much less frequently, and as a result were more effective learners.  I think a large part of the success of those programs is that the students were given opportunities and cooperative activities that reconnected them with the earth and each other.

It’s never too early for us to encourage our children to bond with their environment.  I took my daughter to the vegetable garden a few weeks back and showed her a section of one of the beds that is going to be “hers” this year.  It’s just a small section, an “L” about 20 square feet worth.  She was definitely excited when I told her, but it will be really amazing to see her reaction as she watches some of her seeds turn into full plants over the summer.

What I think is really amazing about those schoolchildren in Australia and our own children is how much better they will be at this than we are.  Most of us who practice permaculture come to it in adulthood, and we have to unlearn many of the things civilization has schooled us in as well as re-learn our place in our environment.  They’re learning it when their brains are developing.  Permaculture for them will be much more intuitive than it is for most of us.  I can only feel optimistic when I think about what kind of things these kids are going to do when they’re my age, when they have another 30 years of life under their belts.  If we’re going to change the world through permaculture, at least part of that change has to take its cue from our children — because in many ways they already know better than we do.

 

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Regaining Focus from the Winter Doldrums — the Importance of Goal-Setting

Posted on February 18, 2012 by admin

The winter provides a good time for reflection on where we’re headed — in permaculture, as well as its place in our lives.  For most of us, that means that we still have to engage the “regular” world for many things, not least of which is usually an income.  Throw in the day-to-day demands of raising a family, and what time we have left over often isn’t much.

At times like this it’s easy to get discouraged — it’s dark soon after you get home from  work, you miss the feeling of your hands in the soil and warm sun on your face, the heavy drear of winter clouds your focus.  That’s why this time of year is a good time to restate our life goals, our own vision of a permaculture life.

For me, a permaculture life means that I gain back my time instead of spending so much of it commuting and working for someone else, according to their rules.  Every second that I gain back is one more that I can spend with my loved ones, expand my permaculture knowledge and systems, and return surplus to my community.  By spending more of my time working either at home or closer to home, I spend less time commuting.  I will be able to see my kids get off their school bus more often than not.  Observing, building and tweaking our permaculture systems will provide countless opportunities for unschooled education, experiences through which my kids will be able to learn about biology, mathematics, chemistry, physics, history; as well as hone their basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic.  Volunteering within my community will also have a prominent role.  Life will have more of a rhythm in the future than it does now, even as there is just as much work to be done — if not more.

Here’s a great video with Geoff Lawton speaking about Permaculture and Time, and I’ve found it to be one of the most inspiring pieces in describing what it means to live a permaculture life.  It’s one that always gives me a jolt any time I’m feeling a little worn out.

Geoff Lawton — Permaculture and Time (video)

Think about what a permaculture life means to you, too.  Visualize it at every level, from the most “big picture” into the gritty details of what goes on in a typical day.  The better we can all create this picture in our minds, the better we can resist the “programming” efforts of modern consumer culture (designed to convince us to focus more on accumulating “stuff”), and stay focused on our real goals of “clean air, clean water, clean food, sensible housing, warmth, friendship and community,” as described by Geoff Lawton.

Goals provide posts on our route to a more deliberate and conscious life.  Our vision is where we want to be, but we use goals to try and lay out the course.  When considering goals, I work backward from my vision.  This helps me to create definitive, focused goals, which increases my likelihood of achieving them.  Here are some of my main ones, that I’ve had since I started back to work in engineering and construction.  Some of them are done or in progress, so reviewing them not only helps to keep me focused — they help to remind me of how far I’ve come in a short time.  Here’s a list of seven of my goals, short and long term, to make the full transition from permaculture hobby to permaculture life:

Goal No. 1: Pass my Professional Engineer licensing exam.  COMPLETED.  This goal was important to me because, as a licensed professional engineer, I can work as an independent consultant and focus on natural building methods and alternative energy systems.  In the short term, it also means that I can earn a higher salary, enabling me to pay down debt and obtain financial independence more quickly.  Maintaining my license requires continuing education — I can seek out those courses that best tie into my vision while satisfying the state-mandated requirements (such as structural analysis for timber frame design, plumbing and technological advancements for micro-hydro, greywater system design, etc.).

Goal No. 2: Get a Permacultulture Design Certificate.  IN PROGRESS.  Once this goal is completed the May, I will be able to officially combine my engineering license with a PDC, better preparing me for working with natural building methods, alternative energy and natural landscaping as an entire system.  I’ll be able to better design, implement and maintain permaculture systems on my own property, working out the kinks for when I transition into paid permaculture consultancy.  Lastly, I’ll be able to expand my scope of self-employment across the spectrum of both engineering AND permaculture design, adding resiliency to our finances.

Goal No. 3: Design/build thermosiphoning air panel(s) on the side of our house.  NOT STARTED.  This passive energy project is one of the ones I want to complete in order to showcase the possibilities to potential clients (builders, homeowners, small commercial and industrial facilities, etc.).

Goal No. 4: Design/build a rocket mass heater for my basement.  NOT STARTED.  Just through a quick post on permies.com, I managed to get a response from Ernie Wisner, one of the true innovators and pioneers for rocket mass heaters, about working together to get stamped plans for rocket mass heaters in people’s homes.  This would be a significant step toward expanding this wonderful appropriate technology to more people, helping to reduce fuel costs for home heating.

Goal No. 5: Sell excess produce on roadside stand at end of the driveway.  NOT STARTED.  This is something that I want to start this summer, even if it’s only to earn a few bucks here and there.  Like I said in my previous post on ordering seeds, only selling a few hundred dollars worth of produce over the entire season would mean that my gardens would pretty much pay for themselves, with all of the food raised for my household vastly reducing our food expenses while increasing our wellness.

Goal No. 6: Be self-employed by Summer 2015.  INCOMPLETE.  When I came back into engineering and construction full-time in the summer of 2010, after a five-year departure to attempt a career change into teaching, I decided that I only wanted to work for others for a period of five years.  I’m now about 1-1/2 years into that five-year plan.  Just by keeping this goal in the back of my mind, I’m much more conscious of opportunities for business with other people in my local area.  In fact, I am meeting this weekend with a neighbor to discuss plans to integrate micro-hydro power production into our local wastewater treatment facility.

Goal No. 7: Donate enough produce to local food bank to feed 10 or more people.  INCOMPLETE.  This is one of the ways that I want to live the third ethic of permaculture — return of surplus.  By doing this, I will be helping to increase both the food security of  my community and help increase the wellness of people who use our food bank.  This will also aid in my efforts to better integrate myself within the daily goings-on of my local community, ultimately helping my other efforts in business as well.

What are some of your goals in creating a more permaculture-centered life?  Be sure to think about them, and take the opportunity to reflect on them regularly.  Write your goals and vision down, share it with other people, and always be open to revising that vision and those goals as they evolve over time.  I also welcome any of you to share your own goals and vision.  By sharing with each other and supporting one another, we can all achieve our goals of permaculture becoming our way-of-life instead of a hobby we practice in our spare time.

 

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