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  • From: "rafter@liberationecology.org" <rafter@liberationecology.org>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Questions for Starhawk, and for the Pc Movement
  • Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 21:04:31 -0500

Because there is an appeal for support here, I'll ask of Starhawk, and her projects, the same question I try and teach all of my students to ask, of any project that they consider supporting, or creating, or identifying with...

Where is the leadership for these projects coming from?

The question isn't about internal democratic process (though that is a worthwhile question) it's about external relationships, between the project and larger communities. Who initiates? Who decides? Who shapes the objectives of the project?

We live in a social system where resources flow in one direction, from the many to the few, and control flows in the opposite direction, cascading outwards from the few onto the many. In such a system, inequality will always increase over the long duration.

To reverse that pattern and begin to flatten power differences, projects and communities can systematically seek out control from those groups with *less* power and freedom than they. And I mean here all those aspects of "control" that are worth seeking:
leadership, influence, direction, and accountability.

This is only worth doing if you are interested in flattening power differences, i.e. with fostering social health. I do find myself supporting projects that don't do this - I just don't consider them directly relevant for broad social well-being.

What I do hope is that we can begin to ask this question of all the projects that we encounter - where is the leadership coming from? I hope that in this way, by learning to look for the flow of control in the same way that we look for the flow of energy, we can create a permaculture movement that is, on balance, relevant for creating a truly healthy, democratic society. I don't think we are there yet, particularly not in Europe and the US.

So to Starhawk and Penny, and to all of us who seek to use permaculture to transform our world: where are we looking for leadership? To whom are we accountable?

Note: This is not a rhetorical or trick question. I really don't imagine I know what Starhawk's answer would be - or will be, if she reads this, if she answers. If it seems like I'm singling EAT out for special attention, it's only in response to an appeal for support that makes no mention of what - for me - is becoming the primary question.

all the best,
rafter t. sass
The Liberation Ecology Project
liberationecology.org
518-567-7407



My friend and colleague Starhawk recently sent out this appeal for
support that I think you will find worth reading.
Keith

Dear friends,

Many years ago, I wrote a book called /The Fifth Sacred Thing,/ that
envisioned a transformed, diverse and green San Francisco in a world
divided by war and ecological collapse. I go back to that story a lot,
these days, as both the worst and some of the best aspects of it seem to
be coming true.

That San Francisco of the future is a place where streams flow freely
through garden streets lined with fruit trees, where celebrations and
rituals honor a multiplicity of cultures, where humans have learned to
heal and live in harmony with nature.

Now, I spend a lot of my time not just writing about that vision, but
trying to make it a reality by teaching the skills of ecological design.
In 2002, together with Penny Livingston-Stark, I began teaching Earth
Activist Trainings, because I saw so many enthusiastic, deeply committed
people on fire with the desire to change the world, but often without a
clear sense of what the solutions are.

Over the last six years, Earth Activist Trainings have loosed hundreds
of fired-up permie potentizers onto the world, seeding communities
across the globe with the skills and knowledge of regenerative design.
Here’s just a few of the things they’ve done:

Disaster Relief and Bioremediation:

In New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, EAT alumni became core
organizers of the grassroots Common Ground Relief efforts, ran the
trauma support and counseling program at the clinic, and started a
bioremediaiton project to clean toxins from soil using microorganisms,
plants and fungi.

Sustainable Development in the Third World:

Rainwater catchment in Bolivia, a model permaculture farm in Brazil,
community development and tsunami relief in south Indian fishing
villages, sustainability programs in the rural Phillipines, women’s
programs in a permaculture institute in the West Bank of Palestine.

Urban Permaculture;

Rejuvenating a community garden in the Bayview, the poorest area of San
Francisco; living and working in the L.A. Ecohouse, growing food in the
projects of Miami, transforming intersections into gathering places in
Portland; model backyard gardens and community power-down programs in
Iowa City; youth programs in poverty stricken downtown Detroit.

And much, much more than we can fit on this page. You know as well as I
do that the world is at a crucial turning point right now. Finally, the
general public gets it that climate change is happening and the waters
are rising around us. But we still haven’t begun to make changes on the
scale and with the speed that’s needed. The media is full of green news
and the stores are full of green products, but we can’t buy our way out
of looming ecological collapse. No one technology or technique can save us.

That’s where we come in. There’s a pressing need to train people in the
art of designing flows, links and connections, creating systems that
meet human needs while healing and regenerating the environment around
us. And that’s just what we do.

Please help us continue this work. We have three residential courses
planned for 2008, an Urban Permaculture course over a series of six
weekends, a new Youth Course, and a Sustainable Skills Tour with our
newly built EAT bus.

To do all this, we need your help. EAT has had generous funding which
has allowed us, in turn, to be generous with financial aid. For each of
our courses we’ve provided ten to twenty thousand dollars of work trade
and scholarships, which in turn makes it possible for activists and
low-income students to attend. But that funding is now at the end of its
cycle, and we need help from new sources to continue being able to say
‘yes’, not ‘no’, to those who want this training.

Many of you are out there, right now, doing your regenerative activism
on a daily basis. (Thanks!) And you may not have a lot of financial
wealth to share. But, please, think about the value of Earth Activist
Training. And think about how desperately we need more activists of this
caliber. Then, give whatever you can. The results of even a small pledge
of $10/month will be exponentially effective in the big picture. Because
every dollar you donate will help train more passionate, intelligent
people to cleanse the soil, heal the water, share their skills, and
restore the balance – in countless and priceless ways.

Please consider a donation right now of:

$1700 (provides one full scholarship for a two week course.)

$800 (subsidizes one work trader)

$100 - $250 (provides some hands-on supplies for a course)

Just to be clear, we welcome donations of every size and kind. Large.
Small. One-time. Quarterly. Annual. Sporadic. We gratefully accept it
all. *Make a monthly pledge for exponential impact. Join the EAT
Mycelium Fund Monthly Giving Circle.
*
And now we invite you to choose the way you will contribute to this most
necessary educational endeavor.

Donate online at http://earthactivisttraining.org/donate.html
<http://earthactivisttraining.org/donate.html>

or send checks to

Earth Activist Training
POB 251
Sierraville CA 96126

Thanks! Your generosity is a crucial part of the solution.

Starhawk

Earth Actiist Trainings

www.earthactivisttraining.org
www.starhawk.org

P.S. Don’t worry—I haven’t stopped writing. In fact, my holiday gift to
you is an expanded, updated vision of San Francisco of /The Fifth Sacred
Thing/. It’s too long to send, but you can find it at www.starhawk.org/
<http://www.starhawk.org/> . Look on the left sidebar for “Latest Essay”.





  • [permaculture] Questions for Starhawk, and for the Pc Movement, rafter@liberationecology.org, 12/09/2007

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