We began the day with the Elm Dance, a way of bringing us all together after a week of living our lives separately from one another. The dance represents a release from experiences of the previous week and a way of reconnecting on an energetic level with everyone else in the course. Asleep at first,
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The first class was devoted to social permaculture, which is the aspect of permaculture that I believed was of least interest to me but that I now realize is integral to rebuilding our communities. I really didn’t know what to expect this first day, and for the most part, I was pleasantly surpris
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“We are nature working,” spoke Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese farmer. So began a discussion and exploration into the nature of permaculture – essentially a way of reestablishing and strengthening relationships between people and the world around us. Some would say it is having a sense of communi
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We started in with the ethics of Permaculture. I didn't have time to take notes on them but was assured that all of this information was going to be made available to us. My first sense of these ethics was that it is a pretty basic compassionate view of our relationship to the world. As we discus
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We began our second PDC class with the Elm Dance, expressions of gratitude, re-introductions and then exercises focused on our learning intentions and setting forth community agreements in response to “How do we as a group begin to behave as a learning community to support our best possible outcom
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The peaceful and welcoming environment at Common Circle made me feel right at home.
My loudest thanks go to the introductory classes and the instructors, Vladislav and Johnathan, for clarifying the objectives of the course, and for the emphasis on Social Permaculture.
Last year,I attended permacu
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The day started off with a meditation. That was great for me. Slav lead it in a way that made it very accessible to all. I don’t think he called it a meditation. He just got us in our bodies, and feeling present. After some introductions, we started the awakening the dreamer symposium.
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Wow! What a powerful experience right out of the gate. What a great way to start learning about sustainability but to focus on the why of it instead of the how.
I had been looking for a permaculture experience since I got laid off in November. I applied, unsuccessfully, to an internship at one
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Our first class of the 12-weekend intensive Sub/Urban Permaculture Design Course (PDC) focused on Intention, Presence and Community Building. We were welcomed into a rectangular room with yellow painted walls and windows opening to the East, which invited the morning sunshine in—excellent feng sh
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Milling around person-to-person is all well and good but the answers don't really come until you're forced to sit and take that person's hands in your own and recognize the power in that person. There is an infinite amount of wisdom and experience in each person, behind the facade of socially-constr
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