permaculture

[CK Valois/B Brummitt <lilacmn@eot.com>]

Permanent Culture extends far beyond the realm of agriculture into
community, energy and political systems.  I always appreciate it when folks
utilise some of the concepts of permaculture in their gardens, woodlots,
co-op food stores, CSA's, photovoltaic/wind/small scale hydro/biomass energy
creation, township politics, etc., but I can't fault them for not practicing
all aspects at once.  Encouragement is sweet.  Discouragement is bitter.

"People without fault casting stones" comes to mind.  Even though we have
been living the "permaculture lifestyle" for two decades now (including, but
not limited to, all of the concepts outlined above) doesn't mean there is no
longer room for improvement or a need to learn.  Step by step we complete
journeys.

Thanks for reading.

Bruce

      Cheryl Valois and Bruce Brummitt
                 <lilacmn@eot.com>
                    46N46' X 95W20'
<http://www.zianet.com/blackrange/br_pages/brummitt.html>

      

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From: FionaNyx@aol.com (~~Sherry Levi) wrote:

...People can take methods developed and used by permaculturists and use
them to
garden, landscape and grow crops, but unless the purpose is a stable system
and the methods are applied consistently within the context of such a
system,
they are NOT PRACTISING PERMACULTURE.  Don't get me wrong, I am not opposed
to
people improving their gardening practices with methods developed in the
pursuit of permaculture.  But it is wrong to say that extracting a couple of
ideas is "doing permaculture".  

The difference between using a few PC concepts or techniques and practising
permaculture is analogous to the difference between speaking a few phrases
of
a foreign language and being fluent.  It takes a serious investment of work
to
become fluent in a new language and immersion will accelerate the process.
This is likewise true of attempting to learn permaculture, I think, because
to
get the permaculture core concept of PERMANENT CULTURE, we have to abandon
so
much of traditional agriculture's approaches that trade off long term
resource
depletion for short term gains...