Fractal Permaculture: local, bioregional, global
Hierarchy of Needs:
Air - Water - Food - Health - Energy - Money - Transportation - Housing - Overpopulation - Democracy - Community - Love - Spirit
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www.ratical.org/LifeWeb/Erthdnce/chapter19.html
EARTHDANCE:
Living Systems in Evolution
Elisabet Sahtouris --
copyright © 1999 by Elisabet Sahtouris
One Meshika grandmother, Xilonem Garcia, has said "Anyone who knows how to run a household knows how to run a world." She understands fractal biology -- that patterns repeat at different levels, and that a healthy living system must run by the same principles no matter what size and scope it has. Consider the definitions given earlier of ecology and economy as 'organization of the household' and 'operating rules of the household.' This native elder understands that they cannot be separated. [emphasis added]
http://healingtreefarm.wordpress.com
/2008/09/16/the-universe-in-a-weed/
September 16, 2008...11:11 am
The universe in a weed
The biggest lesson I've received from observing the natural world, is that everything mimics a larger system. The smallest atoms with electrons revolving around an nucleus mimic the planets in orbit around the sun. The laws of succession which produce nutrient-rich top-soil are mirrored by the same process over time in our universe with dead stars giving birth to matter which later forms new stars and new planets. There's always some reflection of ourselves or our garden or in the largest of imaginable places that resembles the smaller, that takes on the characteristics of another system within a system within yet another system. The further out we head from tiny atoms to the great expanse of our own universe, we begin to see how each thing is connected and most importantly, it reminds us that we are a part of everything.
The second big question relates to the balance between individual healing and community healing. Some say you can't even begin to heal society until each person heals him/herself, while others contend that individuals who only "work on themselves" will never lead to the building of collective power to bring about social change. They say, "Change the world first, then you have the luxury to change yourselves." There are clear dangers in taking an exclusive approach either way. In the first scenario, people may "stick their heads in the sand" while exploring inner worlds and never engage in collective action for social change. In the second scenario, which we often see in the social change arena, activists and organizers use their time-intensive work to escape or avoid actually getting to know themselves and figuring out their own wounds; this hampers their ability to go about their work from a place of love, forgiveness, and compassion instead of a place of anger, hatred, and "victimhood." For example, the internal "martyr" is a common archetype in many activists and organizers (I should know, I used to have her running my own show much of the time!). But the martyr is, by definition, ultimately completely destructive to the self, and thereby to the organization and the whole of Life. These common unhealthy patterns often lead to frequent problems of conflict within organizations that, unfortunately, more often than not lead to the eventual disintegration of organizations. The third, or middle road, says that these two things - individual spiritual growth and organizational or movement growth - need to happen simultaneously. But how do we figure out models so that those personal journeys of healing and growth also feed into powerful collective action for social change?
-- Sue Hutchinson
in "The Love That Does Justice: Spiritual Activism in Dialogue with Social Science"
http://www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org/downloads/The%20Love%20That%20Does%20Justice.pdf
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-12-18/perma-culturally-deconditioning-the-climate-crisis
the need for "inner permaculture" to address external needs
"Not all of our patterns of our inter-subjectivities and histories necessarily need deconditioning, which is why it is so valuable to first observe them all and sit with them before interacting with these symptoms of our cultural conditioning. For starters, observing our subtle actions throughout the day, even down to how we look at people when walking down the street, where we sit in a cafe, which plants we love most, and why what makes us happy makes us so. This is where the most important skill set we can develop exists: the worldview gap between ourselves and potential allies in the general public. Our daily patterns speak volumes to our conditioning, and after noticing these patterns, we can begin to do the inner work to transform ourselves into healthier, more efficient evangelists of effective ecosocial restoration. By doing an effective Life and Career review and using intersubjectivity effectively, we can prevent overzealous restoring of the inner landscape without first observing and identifying what needs tending, causing more interpersonal waste than yield."
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-12-22/mats-and-nets-patterns-from-the-dunes
permaculture patterns in the Oregon dunes, by Toby Hemenway
from the profound to the humbly practical
Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
I first read Peace Pilgrim when I got involved with peace movements during the 1980s, I re-read her periodically as a spiritual tune up. She wandered the country for decades as a pilgrim for peace, starting in the 1950s when it was even less popular. Perhaps she could be part of a future Really New Testament.
I love the analogy of staying on top of the mountain. "I've been to the mountaintop and seen the promised land" (MLK) but haven't taken up full time residence on the higher hill -- and trying to understand why not. Maybe we are all already there and merely distracted and forgetful. That's the root of our inner voyages.
http://www.peacepilgrim.org/steps1.htm
INDEX TO "STEPS TOWARD INNER PEACE"
Steps Toward Inner Peace (From a KPFK radio talk, Los Angeles)
Summary
Four Preparations
Four Purifications
Four Relinquishments
Thoughts
From My Correspondence
Peace Pilgrim's Progress (Excerpts from the Newsletters)
from a site about writing and creativity:
www.talentdevelop.com/2810/pain-and-suffering-and-developing-creativity/
Creating depends on how open we can allow ourselves to be to both our inner and outer lives, and on our capacity to stay emotionally balanced, not tortured.
After using solar electricity for a quarter century I'm convinced that "off grid" is mostly an illusion, even if there are not any power lines to one's house. There are many grids: telephone, internet, gasoline, money, etc. The food distribution grid may be the most important.
Solar PV is "alternative" technology, it still requires fossil fuels and minerals and a high tech infrastructure to build and maintain. Passive solar heat for hot water (in the sunny times of the year) and greenhouses / solar gain buildings is "appropriate" tech that can be done without intensive global electronics supply chains.
Growing even some of one's food teaches profound appreciation for what it takes to keep grocery stores supplied.
A decade ago I had the privilege to hear David Holmgren, co-originator of permaculture, who said that the symbol of "solar power" a century from now, after the fossil fuels are gone, is likely to be a tree, not a solar panel.
It's good for people to work on self-sufficiency but I think community resiliency is going to be most important. I doubt that even the most prepared homestead or compound is likely to cope with catastrophic social collapse, even with lots of ammo. Regenerative agriculture and community cooperation seem critical to me. Our survival trait is we are able to share food and strongly feel that mitigating the myriad disasters unfolding around us will require us to tap this strength.
The waste tanks at Hanford in eastern Washington (and other locations) require containment far, far into the future to protect future generations of all species. That, in turn, requires continuation of complex social arrangements to ensure the wastes can rust in peace (if possible).
Good luck to everyone everywhere
Richard Heinberg
THE PARTY'S OVER: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies 2003
www.postcarbon.org
excerpt:
There is much that individuals and communities can do to prepare for the energy crunch. Anything that promotes individual self-reliance (gardening, energy conservation, and voluntary simplicity) will help. But the strategy of individualist survivalism will offer only temporary and uncertain refuge during the energy down-slope. True individual and family security will come only with community solidarity and interdependence. Living in a community that is weathering the downslope well will enhance personal chances of surviving and prospering far more than will individual efforts at stockpiling tools or growing food.
Meanwhile, nations must adopt radical energy conservation measures, invest in renewable energy research, support sustainable local food systems instead of giant biotech agribusiness, adopt no-growth economic and population policies, and strive for international resource cooperation agreements.
These suggestions describe a fundamental change of direction for industrial societies -- from the larger, faster, and more centralized, to the smaller, slower, and more locally-based; from competition to cooperation; and from boundless growth to self-limitation.
If such recommendations were taken seriously, they could lead to a world a century from now with fewer people using less energy per capita, all of it from renewable sources, while enjoying a quality of life perhaps enviable by the typical industrial urbanite of today. Human inventiveness could be put to the task, not of making ways to use more resources, but of expanding artistic satisfaction, finding just and convivial social arrangements, and deepening the spiritual experience of being human. Living in smaller communities, people would enjoy having more control over their lives. Traveling less, they would have more of a sense of rootedness, and more of a feeling of being at home in the natural world. Renewable energy sources would provide some conveniences, but not nearly on the scale of fossil-fueled industrialism.
This will not, however, be an automatic outcome of the energy decline. Such a happy result can only come about through considerable effort.
There are many hopeful indications that a shift toward sustainability is beginning. But there are also discouraging signs that large political and economic institutions will resist change in that direction. Therefore much depends upon the public coming to understand the situation, taking personal steps, and demanding action from local and national governments.
"Without intensive ties which have genuine meaning, modern man maintains an essential anonymity in society...Associations often are on a contractual basis and the person is treated as an object or thing or commodity. The individual fulfills his role in order to attain a higher reward, not because there is intrinsic value in being one's self, but because there is an economic value toward which one is directed...In modern life, much social interaction is between surface figures or ghosts rather than real persons."
-- Clark Moustakas, Loneliness
from Wendell Berry
http://thegreenhorns.wordpress.com/essays/essay-in-distrust-of-movements-by-wendell-berry/
... all of us who live in the suffering rural landscapes of the United States know that most people are available to those landscapes only recreationally. We see them bicycling or boating or hiking or camping or hunting or fishing or driving along and looking around. They do not, in Mary Austin's phrase, "summer and winter with the land". They are unacquainted with the land's human and natural economies. Though people have not progressed beyond the need to eat food and drink water and wear clothes and live in houses, most people have progressed beyond the domestic arts — the husbandry and wifery of the world — by which those needful things are produced and conserved. In fact, the comparative few who still practise that necessary husbandry and wifery often are inclined to apologize for doing so, having been carefully taught in our education system that those arts are degrading and unworthy of people's talents. Educated minds, in the modern era, are unlikely to know anything about food and drink, clothing and shelter. In merely taking these things for granted, the modern educated mind reveals itself also to be as superstitious a mind as ever has existed in the world. What could be more superstitious than the idea that money brings forth food?
I AM NOT SUGGESTING, of course, that everybody ought to be a farmer or a forester. Heaven forbid! I am suggesting that most people now are living on the far side of a broken connection, and that this is potentially catastrophic. Most people are now fed, clothed and sheltered from sources toward which they feel no gratitude and exercise no responsibility. There is no significant urban constituency, no formidable consumer lobby, no noticeable political leadership, for good land-use practices, for good farming and good forestry, for restoration of abused land, or for halting the destruction of land by so-called "development".
We are involved now in a profound failure of imagination. Most of us cannot imagine the wheat beyond the bread, or the farmer beyond the wheat, or the farm beyond the farmer, or the history beyond the farm. Most people cannot imagine the forest and the forest economy that produced their houses and furniture and paper; or the landscapes, the streams and the weather that fill their pitchers and bathtubs and swimming pools with water. Most people appear to assume that when they have paid their money for these things they have entirely met their obligations.
Money does not bring forth food. Neither does the technology of the food system. Food comes from nature and from the work of people. If the supply of food is to be continuous for a long time, then people must work in harmony with nature. That means that people must find the right answers to a lot of hard practical questions. The same applies to forestry and the possibility of a continuous supply of timber.
permaculture for nine billion
The Earth should not be cut up into hundreds of different sections, each inhabited by a self-defined segment of humanity that considers its own welfare and its own "national security" to be paramount above all other considerations.
-- Issac Asimov
| Local Water Conservation | Watershed Protection | Climate Change and Global Water Policies |
rainwater harvesting graywater re-use: divert water drains from sinks, showers and washing machines for beneficial plants (fruit trees, berries and other food plants) humanure (preventing water pollution) piss outside! (especially if you're male) solar distillation of drinking water conservation and efficiency drought tolerant plants (xeriscaping) |
water conservation and pollution prevention bioremediation and mycoremediation for toxic areas (especially in cities) reforestation to restore hydrologic cycles plant based diets require less water |
Kyoto and Paris Treaties (to slow drought and desertification) enforce weather modification prohibition treaty (1976), to prevent dangerous weather modification experiments prohibit water exports between bioregions (which encourages unsustainable living, damages ecosystems and requires enormous energy inputs) |
| Personal Production | Community Food Security | Global Food Supplies |
food not lawns - grow food around homes grow gardens if you have a lawn, share with a neighbor or a community garden if not permaculture gardens, intensive square foot gardens container gardening and community gardens for apartment dwellers rooftop gardens "victory gardens" support organic food growers, natural food industry, buy in bulk (cheaper, less packaging) eat low on the food chain (meat based diets require much more energy and water than plant based diets) |
urban/rural alliances to protect farmland from sprawl development, promote urban gardens, farmers markets, Community Supported Agriculture convert golf courses to agriculture compost municipal sewage for agricultural fertilizer, if toxic chemicals dumped down the drain (ie. sold in local hardware stores) are banned -- a substitute for synthetic fertilizer made with natural gas -- methane digesters using sewage can also provide cooking gas to replace depleted fossil "natural" gas -- substitute cover crops and humanure to replace natural gas based fertilizers urge grocery stores to buy local Agricultural Extension Services (and permaculture experts) can help teach communities to learn to grow food again inventory regional sufficiency - identify gaps in skills, materials and facilities city dwellers train and work exchange with rural farms
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unprecedented international cooperation will be required moratorium on genetically engineered crops ("frankenfood") substitute hemp, kenaf and other annual plants for trees for paper making (these could also be done on the regional level) ban factory farming (the cause of bird flu?) ban cannibal cows (feeding cows to cows causes incurable Mad Cow disease) reverse Green Revolution with low-input agriculture that is locally appropriate and doesn't require fossil fuels climate change requires promoting drought tolerant agriculture, adapting new varieties for shifting growing conditions halt deforestation to reduce climatic disruptions and protect arable soil food aid for worst disasters - but support local agriculture even during famine relief (when possible) transition from free trade to fair trade -- relocalization plus fair trade of surpluses |
| Personal Wellness | Health Care For All | Global Public Health |
preventive health: organic food, herbs, exercise, stress reduction, low (or no) meat diet, exercise, bicycle, walk take responsibility for your own health to minimize dependence on industrial medicine systems |
single payer National Health Care to reduce economic waste in the health systems (the money for the insurance industry would be sufficient to ensure basic health care for the uninsured) non-toxic industries reduce consumerism |
international cooperation to prevent pandemics similar to 1970s smallpox eradication efforts -- AIDS, bird flu, malaria global ban on organochlorines and other persistent toxic substances nuclear power ban and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, ban on "depleted" uranium ban land mines, which have devastating effects on war torn regions (Angola, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Cambodia, etc) reproductive rights for women: family planning, prenatal health care, nutrition, abortion rights |
| home power | public utilities, solar cities | oil depletion protocol |
energy conservation ethics
renewables at the residential scale: solar, wind, micro-hydro, biogas, passive solar, attached greenhouses energy tips for renters (and owners):
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make megalopolises more sustainable through relocalization, reconfiguration of urban areas for efficiency in transportation, food production and energy production local energy production: solar energy requirements for new building construction (in building codes), local biofuel production publicly owned utilities - public power - utility scale solar and wind power local government roles:
shift from petrochemicals to plant based plastics, inks, glues, solvents and other industrial products (the carbohydrate economy) |
use remaining oil for permaculture for nine billion people - convert the military industrial complex for peaceful purposes The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse technology transfer of renewable energy equipment and efficiency systems to encourage newly industrializing nations to avoid the mistakes of the US and Europe -- reparations for imperialism |
| personal finances | steady state economy | reverse globalization, relocalize everywhere |
get out of debt, if possible learn skills that would be useful in a barter based society voluntary simplicity (is easier than involuntary simplicity) vote with your dollars: support local businesses, buy locally made products from companies that treat their employees and the Earth with respect, invest in locally controlled, ethical businesses gold? if you are thinking about gold, remember that it is hard to dig garden beds with gold coins - it is a substance that has been valuable for millennia, but if the dieoff scenario is the outcome for Peak Oil, it is unlikely that gold would be useful. Gold mining has severe environmental and human rights problems. |
Community Currency - LETS, paper currency and hybrids (at local and bioregional levels) locally ownership of banks, credit unions , cooperatives and collectives of cooperatives encourage economic development of sustainably oriented businesses tax (or ban) polluting, unsustainable industry and subsidize businesses needed for the post-carbon future municipal support for locally owned businesses, not out-of-region owned chain stores shift economic paradigms away from "growth" toward steady-state systems Community Supported Manufacturing (similar to Community Supported Agriculture) - begin making products currently available in stores but made on the other side of the planet Relax zoning ordinances to promote relocalization and permaculture |
cut military budget to fund sustainability transitions There are also an estimated $11.5 trillion hidden in offshore accounts to avoid taxation that could be used to eliminate poverty, mitigate climate change and transform civilization toward renewable practices. nationalize US petroleum corporations (to use petroleum profits for public purposes) stop drug profits (through decriminalization / legalization) and arms trade In "third world" -- microcredit loans (such as the "Grameen Bank"), changing IMF/World Bank policies, land redistribution, reparations for corporate exploitation and imperialism - compensate war victims and convert military establishments to the biggest challenge in human history: developing a sustainable civilization that can survive and thrive beyond the petroleum era |
| local transportation | bioregional transport | think and act globally, use internet not jets |
walking (humans are bipedal) bicycles (the most efficient mode of transportation ever invented) car sharing and car pooling consolidate driving trips use public transportation slow, dependable electric cars and delivery vehicles telecommuting (although that uses lots more energy that most are aware) turn suburbs into ecovillages (know your neighbors) relocalize production and buy local to reduce fossil fuel use for cargo ships, delivery trucks and freight trains - your personal ecological footprint probably includes many other people using energy on your behalf, to sustain your way of life (even if you are conscious of energy conservation and have already reduced your consumption) |
moratorium on new highways, lower speed limits (90 km/hr, 55 mph), and tighter drivers license requirements fund urban mass transit with federal transportation dollars, use interstate highway funds to maintain and repair crumbling bridges - declare the interstate highway system complete municipal communication systems to support car sharing, car pooling, car-free days improved urban public transit: buses, streetcars, light rail, subways better urban design (ecological cities) - walkable cities, car free areas change zoning and long term planning to promote permacultural cities relocalize production of food and other essentials revival of the national train system in the US -- inter-city high speed bullet trains for passenger service, shift freight from interstate highways to rail, put solar and wind power systems along tracks better intercity bus services increased gas taxes to fund public transit and renewable energy systems, institute gas tax rebate system for poorer citizens so that increased gas taxes impact the rich |
use the internet for international communications instead of jet travel sails on cargo ships can reduce energy consumption for products that are transported relocalize production to reverse globalization and reduce petroleum combustion |
| Green Building | Intelligent Urban Design | |
intentional (and unintentional) communities -- cohousing, ecovillages and other shared housing models City Repair revitalization strategies green building with non-toxic products retrofit suburbia for post petroleum paradigms, if possible |
building codes need to reflect the end of cheap oil - mandatory passive solar design, solar panels, insulation requirements, etc. some US cities make abandoned homes available for $1 if the new owners will fix them up - low interest loans can help poor people achieve home ownership rent control prevents economic dislocation and gentrification land use zoning changes to encourage compact urban footprints, protection of green space in cities, encourage urban agriculture (food not lawns) |
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the gap between global overpopulation and declining natural resources is the greatest crisis facing the human race
solutions to overpopulation include women's equality and mitigation of extreme poverty
family planning to prevent unwanted children (world population increases 10,000 people per hour, births minus deaths)
| Cooperative Neighborhood | Bioregional Governments | A World Beyond War - Planetary Democracy |
conflict resolution authentic consensus and respect for diversity gender, racial, religious, economic non-discrimination non-violent communication potlucks, gatherings, picnics, meetings learn skills that increase self-reliance and that are useful for trading with your neighbors - this will probably be more practical than individualist, survivalist schemes to survive while those around you do not |
honest elections require paper ballots, counted by hand Campaign Finance Reform to end legal bribery (public funding of elections would cost taxpayers less than corporate corrupting of the political process) break up media monopolies, support local independent media not funded by corporate interests or foundation grants abolish the CIA to prevent covert interference in elections Truth and Reconciliation Commission to expose military-industrial-intelligence complex in the decline of American democracy: JFK, Vietnam, Watergate, October Surprise, Iran-Contra, rigged elections, 9/11 foreknowledge, war on Iraq, etc. |
democracy for the United Nations:
disband undemocratic elite planning groups: Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, World Trade Organization human rights, women's rights, respect for bioregional autonomy and independence, support for the World Court and International Criminal Court, United Nations Declaration of Human Rights repeal NAFTA treaty and similar "free trade" agreements - replace them with global agreements on "fair trade," workers' rights, minimum wages, and prohibition of slavery and sweatshops |
| Local Culture | Bioregional Culture | Global Culture |
Reclaim streets for pedestrian purposes Turn off TV, corporate media and entertainment and entertain yourself, your family, neighborhoods - musical instruments, poetry, reconnection with natural world (and much more) Transition out of corporate work learn ways to gently extricate yourself, family, neighborhoods from corporate control of food, economics, transportation and other vital systems |
festivals and carnivals (secular and / or religious) community supported entertainment reclaim endangered languages |
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights cross cultural understanding through exchanges, respect the variety of experience instead of ethnocentrism human rights equal opportunity for women and ethnic / political minorities |
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-02-24/growing-the-growers-communication-and-wellbeing-on-farms
Growing the Growers: Communication and Wellbeing on Farms
By Morwenna Lewis on Feb 24, 2016
"The practical and economic challenges faced by those involved in farming are enormous. But just as important are the psychological and emotional ones, especially when working collaboratively within a group. ...
"a project will never fail because the land is poor, it will fail because the people will fail to get along."
"People don't get along because they fear each other. People fear each other because they don't know each other. They don't know each other because they have not properly communicated with each other."
-- Martin Luther King Jr.
"Why can't we all just get along," as Rodney King (and others) asked ...because we are not the rational beings the Libertarians (and the European Enlightenment) assume us to be.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-04-03/egalitarian-alternative-us-mainstream-study-acorn-community-virginia-us/
"Relationship represents the greatest challenge for the individual, for it is only in relationship to others that unresolved problems still existing within the individual psyche are affected and activated. (…) The friction that arises out of relating with others can be a sharp instrument of purification and self recognition if one is inclined to use it."
– Eva Pierrakos
....
Communards recognize that being closer and more inter-dependent than it is usually the case in the relationships outside one's family is a challenge. Acorn community has a system of maintaining good relationships among its members: 1) regular personal updates; 2) no "withholds"; 3) mediation in conflicts. The first measure consists of weekly check-ins – short sharing of how one feels during a weekly meeting, presenting one's wellbeing and plans towards the community once a year, and obligation to talk with each community member in a one-on-one conversation at least once a year. The latter one is reported during the weekly community meeting. For example, someone shared that the obligatory conversation made her realize that she had a lot in common with someone she hardly talked to all the year. The principle of "no withholds" bases on the premise that long-term frustration may result in explosion or bad atmosphere. Members schedule an appointment to share their frustration. The addressee of this revealing is supposed to abstain from responding during certain time and integrate the feedback. In a situation of a conflict between two members, a third person may be involved. People in conflict engage in a mediation process until it is resolved. ....
Living in a community requires a lot of learning and self-exploration. One needs to embrace a different way of being with other people. This aspect of personal development was mentioned by several of the interviewees as their motivation to live in an egalitarian community. For example, in a conflict situation or while feeling frustration one cannot use the position of power but rather needs to work on oneself and on their communication skills. For example, to have an influence on community's affairs, it requires continual work on one's social capital within the community and showing commitment to it. Getting interest or collaboration of other members on a project that one wants to work on requires a lot of communication work.