The Problem is the Solution

Well, pardon my brief hiatus:  I had some relocating, and therefor the important work of re-integrating my own natural cycles and rhythms to the larger ones of my new community, to do.  Welcome to Huntington Beach!

...And now, back to Permaculture.  Where we focus on living in rhythm with our own natural cycles and the larger natural cycles, which a permie person would call Systems (think habitats), of which we are a part. Zones are what a permie would call your own personal cycles and rhythms.  Think of your daily rounds, you probably have an exact daily routine that includes maybe two or three basic areas of your home.   These basic routine areas are part of your rhythm.  They are your first zone.

Today's post will cover a few different permaculture principles, which is good because as in any system, whether it's the Bolsa-Chica wetlands and the watershed that reaches it, or your own human body, remember that every part effects the whole.  So think of permaculture that way, too: a macro world view that encompasses every micro.  I like the metaphor of a great spiral.  You are the heart of the spiral at the very center, you are your very own first most important Zone!  We call the person Zone Zero.  Look up, look down, see all the circles that overlap and overlap and overlap and weave out from you in every direction.  Look at all the many, many other circles, all those other Zone Zeros, that intersect and weave in to yours.  Each Zone Zero has three or four Zones that spiral out from them!!  And that's just at their HOME!  Think of all the spirals you are connected to. That's the way we are going to learn to look at this.  A Permaculture Worldview.

A Few Basic Principles*

1. The problem is the solution.  In permaculture, we focus on Resources.  A resource is any energy storage which assists energy output--a plant, food waste, the shade of a tree are just some examples.  Solution means we learn how to use the least amount of energy to assist the greatest yield of energy.  All excess energy is returned to the whole.  In looking at a Zone--and one's home is their main Zone (technically speaking, a permaculturist would go so far as to break your home in to a number of Zones according to where you use the most and the least amount of resources, or energy).  So the problem, or the micro-Zone where energy is most wasted, holds the answer.  There is no doom and gloom defeatism here.  Look at the waste, how can it be corrected to assist surplus and contribute yield of surplus in the most maximized way.  We don't need to create new resources, we just need to redistribute, or re-balance, the yields of energy that natural resources already provide.  Resources want to create!  The answer's right there in front of us!
2. Pollution is an unused resource. If a system--your home for example--has more energy produced from one resource than in can use, the system becomes imbalanced.  Think of squash season, how those little vine buggers will take over and suffocate the whole garden.   Now think of what happens when every one on the street receives a basket of squash on the doorstep tonight.  Energy has gone from wasteful to doubling in its provisions.  
3. Cooperation, not competition, is the basis of future survival for existing life systems.  This is a simple one.  Walk in to a room.  Smile.  See how many people follow this example.  Later walk in to a room and scowl. See what you attract. Your worldview is where this all starts.  Do you want a happy, companionable Zone, or a defensive, glowering one?  How you look at yourself, at your life, how you treat your most personal Zones, is the ultimate choice.  It's the one thing that remains entirely up you.

*principles taken from Earth Activist Training Manual; adapted from Bill Mollison

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture is my world-view.  It teaches  PATO, which is protracted (a word that means lengthened) and thoughtful observation of nature's systems.  In other words, it asks us to pay attention.  We pay attention to the scientific cycles that generate the natural world.

Here's the part I LOVE.  To pay attention requires that we not be asleep behind the wheel, mindlessly running the pointless hamster hoop of a boxed-in life. So permaculture, as I learned it, first asks of us to start with Zone Zero, or our selves.  We connect to the life within, aware of our self and our own cycles and patterns of living, of personal growth and its ins and outs.  From that place we naturally connect to the people around us, the larger communities and ecologies of which our communities are a part that extend out from there.  It's a naturally self-perpetuating approach that seeks always to feed the whole systems which we as individuals make up.  Starts with self care, then our families, our houses, our neighborhoods and communities, our towns and the bioregion (a word that means an area of space defined by characteristics in nature, for example the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, instead of a man-made or defined space like a county line) in which we live.  It's the formula that describes my life: home is where the heart is.  Literally.

This site is meant to educate myself and others about a worldview that means so very much to me.  Information and guest bloggers are always welcomed!  Email me at the address provided on my profile.

Let's keep it simple, and just start with this:

Permaculture: Three Simple Ethics

1. People Care.  Care for our selves.  We start with our self, to fill the resource of care that we can then share with one another.
2. Earth Care.  Care for the earth's ecological systems on which all our survival is based.  
3. Fair Share. Commitment to the practice of giving back to the earth surplus resources.  Sustainability is not balancing the amount of resources used, it is actually giving back more than we take.