Keep up with the latest offerings
On Thursday, November 19, from 2:30-4:30 Eastern, we’re hosting Permaculture Design for Resilience, an online workshop through REED, our Indiana-based project for permaculture education and design.
Resilience
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In the first post in this series, I wrote that permaculture and sociocracy are off-ramps — essential exits from a destructive highway, but not the destination itself. I ended with a question: if these frameworks help us exit, what does the road ahead actually look like? And how do cultures build new roads in the first place?
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The Off-Ramp Is Not the Destination
Systems thinking is the beginning of cultural change, not the end
The journey led me to dynamic governance (or sociocracy). It also had me asking questions about the limits of permaculture. I began to wonder about other systems thinking tools. I started talking about both permaculture and dynamic governance as
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This year, I did something I’ve thought about for years. I took a pilgrimage to my “home” on my birthday. I took the day off from obligations. I made my favorite birthday cake, celebrated with loved ones, loaded the seven-month-old bully pup into the car and set off with a fresh cup of coffee to wander
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When COVID-19 reshaped our world in 2020, I found myself stepping back from the permaculture organizing and design work that had been central to my life. What began as a necessary pause became something more profound—a time of reflection, healing, and ultimately, transformation.
The search for better ways to organize ourselves while living in harmony with the Earth has led to many innovative approaches. Two particularly powerful frameworks—permaculture design and dynamic governance (also known as sociocracy)—share remarkable synergies that, when combined, create robust systems for both ecological and social
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This quote seems more applicable today than ever before:
― Bill Mollison
In the 20 years since my own permaculture design course, I am reminded again and again to return to the basics of permaculture design. It’s the “chop wood, carry water” kind
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This post appeared originally in Permaculture Design magazine, issue #112 as "Mistakes We Make."
Everything and everyone is my teacher. This was made explicit in my Standard Class at the Tracker School, though I had been using it implicitly for much of my life. I’ve learned from others mistakes, but I’ve learned the most from my own errors. And
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Breeding Plants for the Gardens to Come
(Originally published in Permaculture Design magazine, issue #105, 2017)
I remember exploring my grandfather’s gardens. Bryce Ping had five gardens located in different parts of the Jackson County, Indiana: each one sporting some of the same—but often different varieties—of squash, corn, peppers, and tomatoes.
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This beautiful, fragile flower reminds me so much of squash blossoms. I am appreciating the delicate veins in the petals and the way it is folded and curled. But what is most lovely about the blossom is that this lily has kept on putting blooms out after (two weeks? three?) the other lilies stopped. It keeps reaching out to the sun.Â
I find that
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