Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Maddy’s new book Fertile Edges — Regenerating land, culture and hope is a testimony to her doing just this in an eloquent, insightful and deeply caring way. The anthology of editorials of 25 years of Permaculture Magazine is the kind of book you can leave on the breakfast table and treat youself to a daily dose of inspiration one editorial at a time.
For those that aren’t aware, Dave Jacke is a world class ecological designer, writer, and teacher. Lead author of the acclaimed two-volume Edible Forest Gardens books, I have long respected Dave’s sophisticated and comprehensive grasp of design process. While he prefers the phrase ecological design process1 over permaculture design process, he unquestionably has helped / is helping permaculture lift its game in terms of a design process that not only starts by deeply tuning into people and place, but embodies the principle of starting with patterns and ending up with details.
I wonder if the process of learning and discovering with our senses isn’t really what makes us human, what makes our life worthwhile. Perhaps this is how as humans we evolved our ‘big’ brains, our specialized neural networks. Maybe in exploring the word with our senses and trying to make sense of it all, we developed language in order to tell stories, we developed writing in order to keep records, and in the process we advanced our social group from tribes into culture and from culture into civilizations.
In this episode Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger enjoys a wide-ranging conversation with Darren J. Doherty from Regrarians.org.
Earlier this month, I gathered at the village of Cloughjordan, County Tipperary to learn how to do just that. There the organisation Cultivate held an intensive course in permaculture, drawing more than two dozen people from eight countries. Permaculture, strictly speaking, is a system of designing gardens, buildings and landscapes to re-use as much energy as possible and waste as little as possible.
My opinion that the design process at the core of permaculture currently lacks soundness and coherence. As a result, in spreading permaculture (which is above all else a design system), we are unintentionally spreading ideas that are unsound and incoherent. Ideas that will, if inadvertently, undermine the ability of permaculture to deliver real solutions in different domains. To deliver on its incredible promise.
It was downright thrilling to see David uncovering, literally dusting off, and sharing the initial sequence of Melliodora design diagrams. David was putting design process on the table, when in my opinion it has been far too long hidden away in the cupboard (or in some cases swept under the rug!).
So being a political being doesn’t necessarily mean knowing anything about parties, about who won what and who did what to who. Being political, in my understanding, first means dreaming, imagining the society you want to live in, the interactions you want to have, and acting upon it.
I explored the parallels with reading landscape in that you are not only iterating between inspecting, aspecting, and sidespecting as you get to know your clients, but you are iterating between what you observe or feel and guesses about what this is indicating, which you then test with further questions and so on. As you immerse in the parts of the clients being shared with you, you slowly build up an increasingly complete and coherent picture of the whole. This process is integral to sound design process and has traditionally not been a strong point in permaculture.
Climate cooling activities increase water storage to support green plant growth, and draw carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis to form deep, rich soils under forests, marshes, and grasslands. The result is known as Drawdown, carbon banking, or when coupled with agriculture, carbon farming.
By focusing solely on the ‘creating a better world’ part, and refusing, as a movement, to give a narrative of the systemic, structural reasons that led to this situation of near-collapse, I think the permaculture movement is undermining its potential. What I am criticising is the representation, by the permaculture movement and mainstream media, of individual attitudes as the solution.
My hypothesis is the following – permaculture as a third wave green movement, with its strong emphasis on a philosophical lifestyle and holistic paradigm, lacks a strong political approach, which eventually will forbid the movement to go from a middle-class lifestyle to a more general model of society.
