permaculture

[Marjory <forestgarden@gvtc.com>]

Hello,

The absolute best thing you can do for your community is to quit 
teaching until you have implemented a design that provides at least half 
of your food and income needs, and all of your shelter and water needs.  
After you have done that, the students will come in droves and you will 
really  be able to teach something worthwhile. 

Marjory





Udan Farm wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I admit, I do not keep up with this list nearly as much as I would like to, 
> but I'd like to start a discussion about a trend I see, and perhaps how to 
> alter it, or harness it, or ???
>
> I live in a southern state, so we are fairly far behind in Permaculture, as 
> in, classes being taught, and interest in general.
> I am a new Permaculture teacher, trying to get the word out, and my partner 
> and I will be student teaching our first design course this winter.
>
> What I have noticed here in our southern state is a trend of fairly wealthy couples, or single middle aged 
> women, who "decide" to start a farm, eco-village, or other farm related business, with little 
> prior knowledge. They go buy the land with little realization of what to look for, realize that it's a lot 
> of work, and then want someone to come "assess" their land. Most of them want to host a class 
> (mainly because they are too busy to leave the farm) and hope that it will include lots of people planting 
> trees for them. In other words, they want someone to come "DO" permaculture to their farm, and 
> hope it won't cost much. Generally they also hold down jobs in another town or they live part time in 
> another place. They had enough money to create the beginning of the dream but no clue how to sustain it or 
> build it.
>
> I don't want to come off sounding like a whiner here. But this is happening over, and over and over here in my state. You can pretty much map them out, about 100 miles apart. 
> We are feeling very much pulled by every little wind as permaculture teachers, so we are having to be very selective about what we do.
>
> What I was wondering-I don't mean to just crab about it- is are any other 
> Permaculture Teachers out there experiencing this, and what do you tell 
> folks, and how could we get them all together? Mind you it's a 5 hour drive 
> from one end of the state to another.
>
> This is really, in my opinion, an indicator of our larger American society in general. 
> We have enough money to go off in our little corner and live, and we want others to 
> "work for us", as we have come to expect. (I don't think that, but I think 
> American society in general-or at least upper and upper-middle class society does.)
>
> Granted the tide seems to have turned, and people may be more serious and 
> honest about wanting to live simply and sustainably...
>
> but I just wondered what my fellow Perm. folks out there are experiencing, 
> and how they are turning THE PROBLEM INTO THE SOLUTION.
>
> Peace,
> Isabel
>
>
>       
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