permaculture

[Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>]

May 17 - 21, Building Local Economies: A Permaculture Workshop on Food, 
Water, Shelter, Energy & Community, Pembroke, Illinois.
Contact: Jifunza Wright drjhfm[at]yahoo.com, 773-238-9227

Healthy local economies adapted to the post-oil era will require new 
ways of thinking and acting. A low-energy future is coming our way and 
there will be no place in it for the long-distance monstrosities of the 
global economy. That future can be deeply satisfying or profoundly 
painful and distressing: The choice is ours. To prepare for the world 
our children will inhabit and many of us will help to usher in, we must 
rethink the ways we obtain food, water, shelter, energy, and how we 
interact with our communities.

In this workshop we will be introduced to the principles and examples of 
permaculture design, and will learn to apply this powerful design system 
to the task of reshaping our own homes, gardens, neighborhoods, 
villages, and workplaces so that food, water, shelter, energy, and all 
the requirements of a healthy and satisfying life can be obtained from 
within our localities and regions.

Of especial importance to sustainability and a successful transition 
through energy descent will be forging links of solidarity and economic 
cooperation between country and city. Economic and political power in 
our present society is concentrated in cities, but the resource base on 
which we all depend is far away. Most of what we need can, however, be 
grown within 100 miles of where we live and in ways that sustain farming 
communities on the land and recycle wealth among people who can know and 
care for each other. We will learn applications of permaculture 
appropriate for both urban and rural dwellers.

The workshop will be held near the historic African-American village of 
Pembroke, Illinois some 60 miles south of Chicago and east of Kankakee. 
This economically disadvantaged but culturally resilient community is 
developing important links with urban neighborhoods on the city's South 
Side. We will help foster these links by developing a plan for a small 
farm operation near Pembroke that will be able to provide food and 
medicinal plants for inner city residents and can demonstrate strategies 
and techniques for self-reliance.

Instructors Peter Bane and Keith Johnson publish Permaculture Activist 
magazine, a 20-year old journal of ecological design, and helped found 
and develop Earthaven Ecovillage in the North Carolina mountains during 
the past decade. They have recently relocated to Bloomington, Indiana 
where they hope to develop an urban permaculture demonstration site and 
a network of sustainable communities across the heartland of the continent.

Peter is a native Illinoisan who grew up in the university city of 
Champaign-Urbana. He has lived in various regions of the U.S., taught 
permaculture extensively from Canada to Chile for 15 years, and was 
recognized in 2005 with the Diploma of Permaculture Design for his 
publishing, teaching, and community work. Keith was raised in the 
gathering-hunting culture of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and has been a 
commercial landscaper, stonemason, and organic gardener for over 30 
years in places as varied as subtropical California and the White 
Mountains of New Hampshire. Together they have built their own off-grid, 
timber-framed house of clay, straw, and salvaged materials, and are 
experienced water cistern builders and mushroom growers.

--
Keith Johnson
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 1209
Black Mountain, NC 28711
(828)669-6336
http://www.permacultureactivist.net
also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting




--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.3.5/301 - Release Date: 4/4/2006