Class 2: Permaculture Overview, Ethics and Principles

Class 2 notes by Amy N.

This week’s course focused on Learning Affirmations, Community Agreements, Permaculture History, and the Ethics of Permaculture.

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, eventually our minds gently awaken for the day ahead. Ready to dust off thoughts not visited for a while, portions of our brain that many people don’t address in everyday conversation.

Learning Affirmations

This exercise provided me with the ability to vocalize something I always knew inside, but never expressed outwardly in a profound manner. Milling about, sharing answers to questions on our best methods of learning, some of us noticed a similar learning pattern among the group. It seems that many of us expressed that we best learn by doing. Some learn best where the teacher and student share a path of reciprocated learning. Others learn well in a somatic way. We are human beings made to move freely and with emotion that needs to be expressed. Our current public education system needs help in creating space for these outlets.

Community Agreements

The community agreements are interesting and I’d like to learn more about them. I think they would be helpful within other contexts outside of permaculture. Some non-profits or businesses could greatly improve their working atmospheres by practicing a few of the agreements.

Permaculture History

I liked the way that Sage and Jay step back and allow the class to teach one another. I felt engaged while trying to define permaculture and creating the permaculture flower mandala. When I first signed up for the course, like some of my peers, I had a hard time explaining exactly what I had signed up for and why. It was easier to define once we were split up in groups and were able to bounce ideas off one another for a 10 second elevator speech. My group defined permaculture as something that “creates a sustainable system to address everyone and everything’s basic needs based upon natural systems and cycles.”

Ethics of Permaculture

After lunch we dove into the ethics of permaculture and how each applies to different petals of the permaculture flower. Split into groups again, each was given a petal to focus on and ask questions whether it applies each of the three ethics. Not given a specific scenario to focus on allowed us to interpret the exercise in whatever way we chose. For the Health and Spiritual Well-Being petal, my group chose to look at it as if we were creating a new global health system. Some questions we came up with included, “will profits get reinvested into the earth in measures that prevent degradation of its resources,” “will everyone have equal access to health care,” and “will the system promote self-reliance and personal accountability of one’s health?”

We further “met” Bill Mollison and learn some of his -isms after dinner. I was impressed by the video clips and motivated by the stories in India and Africa. To see the lush gardens that have come from barren land gives me hope for us and that hopefully soon we can turn our arid lands over as well. The swales found in the Sonoran Desert are impressive. It’s amazing what nature does when we leave it alone.

Affirmation for the day: I am working on formulating the life I know I am capable of leading.

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