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What is Permaculture… REALLY?

Permaculture is...

"...an agricultural system or method that seeks to integrate human activity with natural surroundings so as to create highly efficient self-sustaining ecosystems"

-Merriam-Webster

"...a creative design response to a world of declining energy and resource availability, with many similarities and overlaps with Lovins' emphasis on design processes drawn from nature.”

-David Holmgren

“...is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people, providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.”

-Bill Mollison

Did you notice how NO ONE’s definition of permaculture can be summed up into less than 10 words? It’s just too big a concept! Permaculture is extremely complex in its applications, principles, and techniques, and yet amazingly simple in it’s theory. We’re patterning nature. Period. In what? In everything. The 12 principles were just drawn out of those patterns that were seen. But just telling someone “Permaculture is really just me patterning my life after nature” is a little anticlimactic and… well… not full of very much insight. It’s a tricky thing to explain, I can hardly explain it without a 5 minute explanation, and I have to explain it a lot! But I suppose at the core it’s a regenerative design theory. How do you define it?

Tell Your Friends!

Ok so maybe now we’ve started to wrap our minds around what permaculture is, but why is it so important that we share it?

Permaculture is a global movement. Most of us started getting interested in permaculture when we saw it as a viable solution to the HAVOC being reaped on Mother Earth and her people. If we really want to see that havoc be mended or reversed, we need to build permaculture into even more of an impactful global movement. 

Ok, are you ready for the soap box?

We need to push past our fears of connection and band together as a community, and as a community with other communities, so that we can build this amazing permaculture Juggernaut and start impacting the politics that are limiting our society. We need to spread the word so that we have a CULTURAL change, not just a change in farming tactics. We need to help permaculture cover the Earth and regenerate her, and ourselves in the process!

Phew, ok I’m done.

The Movement

If we are going to turn permaculture into a powerful global movement, we need to do more than just tell our friends. I mean, by all means, TELL YOUR FRIENDS! But there are other things too. To really create this positive change in the world, there needs to be a cultural shift that happens. Luckily, for a long time people have studied cultural changes and there are patterns to how that change happens…

1. Know Your Movement and Get Educated

• We obviously have to start with digging deep into permaculture and having good depth and breadth of knowledge about our art. If you feel like this is lacking, I will suggest a few resources…

Here’s David Holmgren’s Book (the theory and principles)

Bill Mollison’s Book… (the how to… AKA the Permie Bible)

Edible Forest Gardens (when you’re ready to do the food forest thing, this book is irreplaceable)

One Straw Revolution (another angle, super good read)

Okay okay okay, last book recommendation, Gaia’s Garden (great for applying permaculture on the home scale)

Alright, so there are a bunch of books to jump start you if you feel like your knowledge is lacking or you want to expand a bit.

1. Make it Popular

• As a marketer, this is a loaded section for me to write. We can talk for days about how to make things contagious and spread so that they become popular… but for all intensive purposes here, we need to spread the word however we can, don’t keep it to yourself! Is there a way that you can spread permaculture in your current circles? Or would someone around you be open to converting some of their property into a small food forest? Do you post about it on your general social media, or just in the permie groups and forums? We HAVE to find ways to get it out there for more to see. The more we do this, the more it will spread. We all know permaculture is a common sense, amazing solution that people don’t know they don’t know.

1. Rally the Troops and Set Up Communication

• So you’ve educated yourself, and you are getting the word out, now it’s time to gather your community and rally the troops. Find the permies around you, whether in your community or online. (If you haven’t already, we have an awesome Slack channel we are doing this on) If we don’t rally the troops, we can’t march forward to change. And if we aren’t talking with each other and building relationships, our efforts won’t have the combined power they could have.

1. Get Noticed

• If we are getting the word out there, spreading the message, pushing forward positive change with our fellow permies, and communicating and brainstorming together, we are going to get noticed. This once counterculture revolution will start to turn into a true cultural revolution like we’ve never seen before.

Ok, there you have it! Even though the actual podcast episode here was related, we DEFINITELY went a cool direction here in the blog post, I hope I didn’t scare you away with all my troop rallying… but if I did I guess you wouldn’t be reading this…cool beans troops!  Alright, so I hope you enjoyed this post and feel called to arms! Don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already, and check out our LinkedIn page, we’re throwing out motivational content all over the place. 

Keep growing permies!

Oh ya, and in the episode we mentioned a few AMAZING movies to check out if you’re in a “Netflix and Chill” mode… or “Movie and Chill” sweet, enjoy! Oh, and trust me, you will just want to buy these and re-watch over and over again :)

Previous Episode: Lessons in Meditation and Agnihotra with Dee Doanes

Next Episode: Urban Permaculture and Community Impact with Adam Brock