permaculture

["Darren Doherty" <ozfx@bigpond.com>]

Hello Everyone,

 

I've been away from the list for a few months now and came back last night. Looks like there has been a fair bit of "flow" over that time - as I went through the archives and caught up on the various threads going round. I just wanted to have offer my two bobs worth on a few of the issues raised over this time.

 

I read with particular interest the "Seed's for Change" interview with Bill Mollison in New Mexico last year. I just wanted to clear up a part of this interview where I was the subject and straighten out some of what Bill said:

 

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One of my students married permaculture to his computer and he
has programs that let him pull down properties from archives kept by
the state.  He can plan all the water for the farm and tell you how
much it will be to make your dams and how many thousands of
gallons or mega-liters you’ve got in each one; how much your fence
will be; he’ll plant all your trees for you; he’ll plant them on mounds;
he’ll put mouseproof and rabbitproof collars around them all. He
invests, on behalf of people buying farms, probably a hundred million
dollars a year at present.

 

What a typo!! All of this is accurate apart from the amount of money that we invest on behalf of our clients...however, the potential dollar value of what we have done for our clients will easily exceed the figure that Bill mentioned - perhaps that is what he means. Also at times I think (as does my wife!) that I'm married to my computers and not the permaculture....

 

So he does hundreds of farms; he’s always
got 20 or 30 going. He’s got a full-time surveyor;  And then he’s got
a big nursery backing that up and very large teams of planters. So he
does a lot. He’s the future of permaculture. The near future. The
present of permaculture.

 

So, in his short life, in Victoria, after I trained
him (he doesn’t have a degree or anything), he has put in more
forests and more farms than anybody in the history of Australia and
he has decided the future of hundreds of thousands of acres of land.

 

We've designed and consulted to on average about 2 (new) clients a week for the last ten years - without many breaks. What Bill means by hundreds of thousands of acres I don't know - perhaps he's alluding to the overall whole of catchment effects - definitely not in area - its probably closer to 50 000 odd acres of plans and less than half of that in development.

 

And that’s how I’d have all my students go.

 

That's the challenge to us all. What are we doing with what we've learned and how are we applying what we learn each day. Bill wasn't my only training. In fact the course I did with him inspired me further as a designer - it taught me little or nothing in how to get out and maintain a business - to operate a consultancy - or how to establish forests of all shapes and forms. The thinking framework - well that's another matter - that's the intrinsic nature of permaculture to me - look outside of the box and run the other way from the mob.....This hurts sometimes - I know this perhaps better than many - but the experience is worth the ride.  Driving and flying as much as I do I can see that there is not much risk of market saturation with people like myself. The communication networks need to be kept alive though - that's the great risk to our movement - despite the best and excellent efforts of the PIL people and this lists' web master. Its hard though when so many of us are on the edge all the time...(some wouldn't be anywhere else - just for the effect!)

 

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It was interesting reading Russ's measured response to this interview as it is a reflection of the view that many hold of Bill's work - particularly his teaching and narrative/interviews - where his style is distinctive in its comparison to his written work. As a mate of his, and having co-taught (with Janet Millington) the last two Permaculture Institute courses with Bill, and having been a student of his back in 1995 at my 2nd PDC, I have witnessed first hand the oft discussed use of creative and comical vernacular and colloquialism in conversation and the classroom. The effect of this to some (of our students) has been of bewilderment, great upset, illusion crashing and most of all sore abs. The stories of cannibalism in particular have a fairly predictable effect on some students - where the seemingly poor taste is too much (I've liked all the Russians I've met!!).

 

At the January 2002 course his four diverse performances (out of 17 performances in total) at the end of course concert were to die for and had some of our students incapable of containing themselves and having to leave the room as he was just too funny. Our student's feedback responses centred on the educative value of Bill's "embellished vernacular", to coin a phrase, and the "shock value" as one English student put it, and that this typified some sectors of the older Aussie story tellers' enigmatic way of not letting a good story get in the way......One thing is for sure: when you go past the bullshit and understand the never ending metaphors you always remember the story. And the stories continue through our community and beyond - so powerful that in general they reach out further than the written word. Isn't this the durable and effective neo-tribal way of interactive and intergenerational communication that we in PC try and promote?? Perhaps I'm unique but poorly told stories don't get to stay on my hard drive I'm afraid.

 

Cheers,

 

Yours and Growing,

 

Darren Doherty

Australia Felix Permaculture