Defining Permaculture

Before I get into defining permaculture, I'd like to delve into how I came to find myself in a permaculture course this winter.

For a very long time my life was dominated by depression. I would say this was the case from about the age of 15 to age 35, although when I really look back, I think I was born this way. I wouldn't say that at age 37 I have completely overcome depression, but it is no longer the dominant factor in my life. A variety of factors have gone into my healing, one of them being the realization that it was natural that I ended up depressed in the first place, considering the state of the world I was born into--a sick planet reeling from wars, pollution, fear, and rage. My depression was a reaction to a sick world, a place, that when I scan back into the recesses of childhood, never felt right. This is not about being a victim. It has nothing to do with anything that was done to me, I am just looking at depression as a symptom of the sickness of the world that has manifested in human bodies, probably in all sorts of bodies--do animals at the zoo seem happy? Do the trees on your city block coated with soot look wan?

We are creatures made out of the earth. Even the Bible agrees. Once I realized this fully my depression made sense and I was able to begin to let it go. Still, I knew that I had to take action in some way, to become fully engaged with life, which, on a planet that seems like it's dying, is difficult if one is fully open and sensitive to this pain. Even more profound, was the feeling of gratitude that came over me as I began to realize that depression was a gift that had been given to me--an opportunity to learn, to grow into a more balanced human being. I want to talk about this more in another post, but for now I want to get back to the skin and bones of permaculture.

Isolating myself on Block Island has definitely been a reaction to the ugliness of the mainland. For the first few years I was out here I made pretty frequent trips to the mainland, which tapered off as the years went on. It got to a point where I wasn't going off unless absolutely necessary, and when I did I dreaded it. I think I didn't go anywhere besides my parents' home in CT and maybe a day trip to Wakefield for three years. I talked about my dislike (fear really) of the mainland with my healer and friend, Maria. How I just got so depressed by the way the mainland looked--the soulless strip malls and fast-paced highways. She told me that if she focused on those things she herself would not be able to go on. She simply chose not to participate in their reality (by not shopping there and by viewing them as temporary). This was a big shift for me. I began to tell myself whenever I got upset at how ugly everything was that it would disappear someday. I was even glad about how badly constructed everything was because that meant it would decay quicker. However, the earth was still being polluted and destroyed by these buildings, by this system that takes more than it gives in the name of hoarding profits instead of sharing the surplus that would be available to us if we were living in pre-industrial days.

Although the poetry and novels I have been working on for the past ten years have been healing for me, and my intent in writing to them is to heal people, and to offer my words to the earth as atonement for what we have done to her, not many people have read them as I have had a hard time getting commercially published. I needed to take more direct action.

So I found myself last January at Earth Activist Training, a permaculture course like no other, full of joy and despair and magic and hardcore activists who have been embroiled in the global justice movement. These people blew me away! (For those interested in learning more about this movement I recommend Starhawk's book "Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising."

EAT was taught by three incredible people: Starhawk, Penny Livingston-Stark, and Erik Olson. The following explanation of permaculture is what I gleaned from their teachings.

To paraphrase Starhawk: "Permaculture is a form of ecological design developed in the 1970s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. The term includes the phrases "permanent agriculture" and "permanent culture." It includes principles, practices and ethics that enable us to design sustainable environments that function like natural systems--for growing food but also for growing human community."

The above definition is from another Starhawk book I highly recommend "The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature."

To quote Penny: "the ethical basis for permaculture rests upon care for the earth--provisions for all life systems to continue and multiply, including access by humans, domestic animals and wildlife to resources necessary for their existence, not the accumulation of wealth, power, or land beyond their needs. "Give away surplus" is a permaculture maxim. Observing the general rule of nature--that cooperative species and associations of self-supporting species make healthy communities, permaculture practicioners value cooperation and recognition of each person's unique contributions rather than standardization and competition."

At first I didn't see how I could fit permaculture into my current living situation, since I caretake a condominium. I have the owners' rules and the condo association's rules reigning me in from gardening, but as the course went on I began to understand that permaculture isn't just about growing food, it is a whole system of thinking, one that I could feel good about embracing, and inspired by the amazing stories of Erik Olson, guerilla gardener extraordinaire, I began to see ways that I could fit permaculture into my life right now, just by changing the way that I thought about power, even if it was only in the way that I reacted to authority. (Although I do plan on starting a wormbin in the basement. NObody goes down there except for me anyway!)

As Penny explained, permaculture came into being from an awareness of the ecological crisis we are facing on earth. It is a way for people to break free from the dying system and use the land around their homes to grow food. The more productive the areas around people's homes are, the more feasible it is to save the remaining wild lands and forests from destruction. I was scared a lot of the time at EAT. While nobody knows exactly when or how our system will self-destruct, no one there doubted that it was going to happen. Up until this point in my life I have been documenting the feeling of apocalypse. After EAT I feel like I am equipped to become part of the solution, which brings me to the first permaculture principle I would like to share.

THE PROBLEM IS THE SOLUTION. The ecological crisis we are now in is leading us to work together to heal the planet. It is re-opening our senses to the animals and plants who share our world. Instead of cursing those who led us to this place, we can appreciate them as part of our growth process, and be glad that we have realized what needs to be done before it's too late. (in earth time at least. I have begun to perceive time as illusion lately. this does not mean that I don't think immediate action is not necessary! It just means that I am aware of the cyclical nature of everything. All dies, and this is reborn. Our fear makes us resist this process so that we no longer allow ourselves to die gracefully, and we are certainly not allowing the earth to go in grace! We are speeding up her demise. And maybe once we realize that we are killing ourselves with toxic wastes and pesticides, we will realize we need to heal the earth if we are to survive. Once again, the problem is the solution!

When I left EAT I knew I had been transformed forever on the last day as we sat in the ground in our circle, giving back to the earth the energy we had raised. I knew this even more fully as we drove along the highway through Santa Rosa. While normally I would have been dulled into a stupour by the strip malls, my eye saw right past them to the rows of trees planted along the highways! The moment I realized this was one of the most joyous of my life! For the first time ever I saw the beauty right in front of me, instead of letting that beauty be ruined by what was ugly.

Thanks to the first two people to post messages here. I really appreciate this forum to share our ideas. So thank you to the spider goddess for putting the world wide web into place! My friend Jill mentioned GMOs in her update from New Zealand, which sounds like an incredibly aware place. It is good to know that critical mass is already in effect some place on the planet. Thanks Jill! Tomorrow I will talk about GMOS. So get ready....

peace,
whitewave