Andrew Faust from Homebiome is my teacher and provides his own unique personal history to the lessons. I will try my best to bring out the most interesting and relevant parts of his lecture that struck me and will stay with me as I go along this path. So what is 'permaculture? It started off as being a combination of permanent + agriculture, and is also now often understood as permanent + culture. In the most basic way I understand the word as meaning, 'the most sustainable culture in all aspects whether it is ecological, economical, or social.' An easier way of understanding permaculture is through the different concepts and words associated with it. This diagram brings out some of them. A few catch phrases on what permaculture aims for or does;
Why permaculture design? Permaculture is a body of knowledge about how things are and mostly devotes itself to designing. Often when we look at nature and the way it functions we find ourselves making connections between its elements and seeing a pattern. In our eyes nature has numerous systems and patterns just like a design. Humans as biological beings have also based our lives on patterns and designed our world accordingly. The thing I am convinced about however is that our arrogance has led us to believe that we can design better than ecology and have ended up creating many highly destructive designs that have become alienated from nature. We have forgotten that we are essentially biological. Permaculture wishes to design spaces in a way that generate care rather than competition, simplicity rather than accumulation, meaningful lives rather than disenchanted existence. We have rearranged nature and it is rearranging itself at a pace that has extinguished the possibility of restoration. Permaculture is saying that let us deal with what is now in our hands and retrofit and redesign our culture in a way that is least harmful to ecology and most beneficial to humans. Permaculture design is about
As a permaculture designer, there are many principles to follow. But integral to being a good designer is contemplation, introspection, and meditation. To understand the way of the land being silent, observant, and present is essential.
Over the next few blog posts I will talk more about the principles of permaculture design. For now I will leave you with some facts we all should know.
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Lessons from my Permaculture Design Certification and experiments thereafter Archives
June 2016
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