permaculture

[Thomas Allen <thallen@nwlink.com>]

On Thursday, February 22, 2007, at 10:28 AM, Toby Hemenway wrote:

> I'm teaching right now in Belize with Larry Santoyo, who is drilling 
> into
> everyone's heads the mantra, "you don't DO permaculture, you USE
> permaculture." In other words, an architect who learns the permaculture
> approach doesn't stop doing architecture. She uses permaculture to do
> architecture. It's a noun, but it's not a thing. The word used as a 
> verb or
> adverb erroneously suggests that there is a thing, permaculture, that 
> we can
> do. That's like saying, "I want to do ethics. Let's ethicize that 
> backyard."
> Just as it's near impossible to show someone some ethics, it is hard 
> to show
> someone some permaculture. Can anyone show me some permaculture sitting
> around somewhere? No, because it's a process and an approach, just as 
> ethics
> is, or justice, or other words that don't lend themselves well to 
> becoming
> verbs or being described as a static thing.
>
> Toby
> http://patternliteracy.com
As a has-been lurker, I'm out of the lurker closet to respond to Toby's 
comments above.

The discussion is getting 'round to a conceptual framework that defines 
permaculture. I've wrestled with that recently while producing  
"sustainable ag" series for KBCS news in Seattle. The term permaculture 
has popped up in at least half of the last dozen segments. And people 
ask me, "What is Permaculture?" So I finally did a  "what it is" 
permaculture piece  about a month or so ago. It's really hard to do in 
six minutes. I hope I got it right. Michael Pilarski and Marisha 
Auerbach talked about what they thought is is. (They're regional 
permaculture design teachers for you out-of-area folks.)

Then I did a couple of pieces on Portland's City Repair where Mark 
Lakeman "pointed" to some permaculture -- the cob facade of the Our 
United Villages building on Mississippi Ave. And Hindy Iserhott talked 
about the bioswales to impede rainwater runoff. I didn't identify 
either as examples of permaculture at work. Maybe I missed my chance.

When people ask me about permaculture, I usually stumble around for a 
minute and then give an example of something that uses permaculture 
principles but that doesn't seem to do it for them. Then I say, "Well, 
its a design process that uses a set of principles like "the problem is 
the solution" or whichever of the dozen next comes to mind. Then I try 
the philosophical angle and say its' a lifestyle philosophy but that 
makes it more confusing and the conversation thankfully moves on. Pc is 
a far cry from mainstream people's mental upholstery and they 
desperately need to know even though they don't know it. One of those 
things you don't know you need to know sort of things, ya know.

What I and maybe others need are some talking points to help describe 
"it" to lay people.

--Tom Allen
> .
> On 2/21/07 9:07 AM, "bwaldrop@cox.net"  wrote:
>
> > Permaculture is generally used as a noun.  But in english, we are 
> > always
> > turning nouns into verbs, and I was wondering how people felt about 
> > using
> > permaculture as a verb.
> >
> > e.g. "Permaculture that planet!"  (actually, that would be a command
> > imperative.)
> >
> > or "you too can permaculture your yard."
> >
> > Adjective
> >
> > The "Permacultured Kitchen"
> >
> > Adverb
> >
> > I would like to work permaculturally for several years.
> >
> > I am curious as to other's thoughts on this.  Does this vocal 
> > evolution
> > detract from understanding permaculture as a whole systems approach 
> > to design?
> >
> > Bob Waldrop
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