permaculture

["oliver smith callis" <oliversmithcallis@gmail.com>]

I think that Bob Waldrop brings up some great ideas. Particularly about
collectively designing the nature of a National PC organization/organism,
and the ideas of lineage or "family/clan/tribe relations. Here in Utah
Valley, Ut, we are beginning to design a Permaculture Institute to serve as
a means of building community around Permaculture in our
Bioregion/Watershed. I also have struggled with the question as to "who am I
to presume to set up such an organization in my community", not even having
been certified yet - although I have been studying intensively over the last
3 years. I fall back on the observation that there is a niche that needs to
be filled as far as permaculture design within my community, and I can plant
a seed even as I work towards ceritification/diplomaship. We have determined
that our purpose as a Permaculture institute is to work to provide a "big
picture" for the restoration of our watershed, or to provide top down
thinking for our bottom up, coalition/community building. I assume that our
design will increasingly evolve and change the more a community grows around
and is involved in the discussion. Could this national/regional
organization(ism)'s purpose be to build consensus around a top down thinking
for the grassroots permaculture movement as to how we restore our greater
watershed(s): of North/Central/South America (as we are talking specifically
about this bit of the world). It seems to me that the issue of certification
will take a back seat to and be simply a tool  for the accomplishment of our
collective objective (i.e. of regenerating our land base and facilitating
the development of a resilient, decentralized permaculture network).