![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Nov. 19th, 2006 09:49 pmBack from Permaculture intensive. Now to assimilate the notes... The workshop was held at Heathcote (http://www.heathcote.org), an intentional community which is trying to go more toward a path of sustainability. Their vision is to create a sustainability educational center that includes a Permaculture demonstration site for use in permaculture and organic gardening workshops. The focus of the current apprenticeship program is to give a needed boost to Heathcote's vision through the students' ideas, skills, and labor, and hopefully complete some of the planting for the permculture demonstration. This, in turn, would provide a foundation for possibly creating a branch of Gaia University at Heathcote where students could obtain credits toward Gaia U's Integrative Ecosocial Design degree program.
Last month's class centered on building the basic permaculture vocabulary, and on imparting the foundation concepts. The assignment was to create an As Is map of a project of our own devising. We chose our yard as the project and mapepd it out, more or less. After going over the As Is maps we'd created and brainstorning suggestions for each other's projects, this weekend focused on starting the permaculture demonstration site. The intention had been for us to address the problem of doing something with an area that had been totally disrupted by putting in a septic field - maybe doing something to restore the area. After looking at the history of best laid plans coming to nothing, though, the whole class kind of gravitated toward doing a design for the area immediately surrounding the cabin of the person who is most involved in bringing permaculture to Heathcote - In fact she is the only reason it is there at all. At first she resisted, because she *really* wants to fix that blighted area, but we broke it down kind of like this:
"You're the central point from which permaculture on this land will take hold. Therefore you are the Keystone for this ever happening. Therefore you have to be strenghtened and your position strengthened by getting a forest garden going right around your house, in your Zone 1. From there, other people will come in, will be attracted. The path from the educational center to your house should be the demonstration area, because that is the path you and everyone else will be taking. Besides, you will want to be able to pick breakfast on the way to the educational center".
In other words, by observation, we identified the path that she would be treading the most frequently, and recommended that we do the demo area there. This would take the least amount of effort, and would be easiest for her to maintain. That's the whole idea of permaculture - to design it so the effort and impact on the forest are minimized. Also, since that is her "Zone 1" (the area around her living quarters), she has more say over what happens there and could proceed without committee involvement.
During our interview with her, we had noticed that she was extremely stressed. She doesn't want to think only of herself and do her own little area, yet she knew that previously, they had tried to bite off more than they could chew, and had gotten nothing done. She was convinced that once again nobody would help her and all the designs and plans would come to nothing. But then you could see her slowly realize that if she nourished her own space, that this could be the heart from which the whole thing could finally live in manifest form. Also, if we made the design small enough, she would not be quite as dependent on anyone to make it happen. Assistance could come in the form of organic gardening workshops in which people came to learn gardening techniques by helping with the permaculture demo area.
Then we spent some time mapping out the designs - we worked in groups of three and came up with three designs, each one thinking in terms of what would make her happy. The next step will be to actually make it happen for her. Unfortunately they're extremely shortstaffed out there - of the people who live there only two attended the course, and one may or may not be committed to the project. It almost feels like she is entirely on her own with trying to create the educational center and the permaculture demo.
One of the people in the class brought up some interesting points: The resident group needs people who are committed to the work and the ability to reach a consensus within the group, before addressing the problems of a forest garden. Partially true. However, I think that making the design small enough so one or two people can handle it and addressing that small part for starters may actually serve to obtain that consensus. Once the rest of them see it work, I'm hoping they'll decide that they want a forest garden just like it. Then they can figure out how to connect the various spaces so they work together. The trick will be to persevere through several years with the first design, and see to it that the first little part does work.
Last month's class centered on building the basic permaculture vocabulary, and on imparting the foundation concepts. The assignment was to create an As Is map of a project of our own devising. We chose our yard as the project and mapepd it out, more or less. After going over the As Is maps we'd created and brainstorning suggestions for each other's projects, this weekend focused on starting the permaculture demonstration site. The intention had been for us to address the problem of doing something with an area that had been totally disrupted by putting in a septic field - maybe doing something to restore the area. After looking at the history of best laid plans coming to nothing, though, the whole class kind of gravitated toward doing a design for the area immediately surrounding the cabin of the person who is most involved in bringing permaculture to Heathcote - In fact she is the only reason it is there at all. At first she resisted, because she *really* wants to fix that blighted area, but we broke it down kind of like this:
"You're the central point from which permaculture on this land will take hold. Therefore you are the Keystone for this ever happening. Therefore you have to be strenghtened and your position strengthened by getting a forest garden going right around your house, in your Zone 1. From there, other people will come in, will be attracted. The path from the educational center to your house should be the demonstration area, because that is the path you and everyone else will be taking. Besides, you will want to be able to pick breakfast on the way to the educational center".
In other words, by observation, we identified the path that she would be treading the most frequently, and recommended that we do the demo area there. This would take the least amount of effort, and would be easiest for her to maintain. That's the whole idea of permaculture - to design it so the effort and impact on the forest are minimized. Also, since that is her "Zone 1" (the area around her living quarters), she has more say over what happens there and could proceed without committee involvement.
During our interview with her, we had noticed that she was extremely stressed. She doesn't want to think only of herself and do her own little area, yet she knew that previously, they had tried to bite off more than they could chew, and had gotten nothing done. She was convinced that once again nobody would help her and all the designs and plans would come to nothing. But then you could see her slowly realize that if she nourished her own space, that this could be the heart from which the whole thing could finally live in manifest form. Also, if we made the design small enough, she would not be quite as dependent on anyone to make it happen. Assistance could come in the form of organic gardening workshops in which people came to learn gardening techniques by helping with the permaculture demo area.
Then we spent some time mapping out the designs - we worked in groups of three and came up with three designs, each one thinking in terms of what would make her happy. The next step will be to actually make it happen for her. Unfortunately they're extremely shortstaffed out there - of the people who live there only two attended the course, and one may or may not be committed to the project. It almost feels like she is entirely on her own with trying to create the educational center and the permaculture demo.
One of the people in the class brought up some interesting points: The resident group needs people who are committed to the work and the ability to reach a consensus within the group, before addressing the problems of a forest garden. Partially true. However, I think that making the design small enough so one or two people can handle it and addressing that small part for starters may actually serve to obtain that consensus. Once the rest of them see it work, I'm hoping they'll decide that they want a forest garden just like it. Then they can figure out how to connect the various spaces so they work together. The trick will be to persevere through several years with the first design, and see to it that the first little part does work.