Dan Palmer

Permaculture isn’t a form of gardening – it’s a method of inquiry about relationships – that’s all it is. And it’s awesome and in that way it’s similar to traditional ecological knowledge from all over the planet and it’s a constantly shifting evolving body of knowledge too, that’s never the same in the same place twice. Love it!

Welcome back to Part Two of a conversation with permaculture co-originator David Holmgren, in which David continues sharing significant milestones from his many decades as a practicing permaculture designer.

I’m thrilled in this episode to share the first part of a two-part interview in which David Holmgren shares his journey with permaculture design process over the decades.

Whenever you design and create anything, you deploy one or another conceptual framework. One or another way of framing and making sense of both what you start with, how to go about developing or changing it, where you are heading, and why you are even bothering. No matter if you’re aware of your conceptual framework. It is there.

Now here’s the thing. Adaptation cannot be fabricated or master planned, period. I believe it to be an essential truth that adapted systems can only emerge or be generated iteratively, in an ongoing dance between a system’s form and its context.

Generative transformation is really good stuff. I believe permaculture and generative transformation are meant to be together, just like orchid and wasp, legume and rhizobia, or carbon and nitrogen in the perfect compost. Indeed, I’d argue that generative transformation is in play when any permaculture project really shines.