permaculture

["katey culver" <newtribe@hughes.net>]

A short anecdotal story to follow this article:

I just returned home from a meeting in our town where a small number of us
had the audacity to do something.  Meeting weekly, with every meeting
bringing in at least one new community member than had been before, all
practicing good listening skills and sharing good information, we developed
a plan and started working on an event.  Our small core group is quite
diverse: the town mayor, a young artist, a local businessman, a retired Air
Force Colonel and a permaculture designer.  The meetings are tackling issues
in a much different way than i would ideally like to see, but we are all
working with what we have - and having a good experience with it.

Today's meeting was 3 times the usual size with members of the local Chamber
sitting with arms crossed and frowning faces exclaiming how we are going
about our efforts all wrong and there is formality to follow, and on and on.

This is the One Right Way group.  Not permaculture at all.  No room for
redundancy, diversity, multiple approaches.  This appears to be what Hopkins
is doing in his article below.  If the book he is reviewing is not the right
book for his sister-in-law then don't give it to her.  There are many
different kinds of people - shouldn't there be many voices to listen to?

As for the revised edition of Spiritual Midwifery i wonder if Rob has
visited The Farm lately?  Most of the beards and long hair are still there
just a little thinner and a lot more gray. For me the real question would be
what new information is Ina May presenting?, not whether they airbrushed the
photos to sanitize it for the masses.

Here's to many voices, many paths, many opportunities for healing,
Katey

-- 
Katey Culver
www.earthandstraw.com

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Jim 
<ashevillecurrencyproject@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi All-
> In this review below, Rob Hopkins of Britain (and the innovator of the
> Transition Towns approach to peak oil)
> raises some questions about Permaculture culture.
>
> -- Jim
>
> *********************************
> Book Review: Permaculture, a beginner's guide
> Review by Rob Hopkins
>
> http://transitionculture.org/2009/01/12/book-review-permaculture-a-beginners-guide
>
> Permaculture: a beginner's guide (second edition). Graham Burnett.
> Spiralseed Publications.
>
> I have had a copy of the initial edition of this small book for many
> years. Graham both wrote and illustrated the book, and it has a very
> distinctive look and feel which are particular to his work. His
> particular background and his perspective on permaculture emerges from a
> long background in anarchism, veganism, and a more urban, communitarian
> approach than some more rural-focused writers such as Patrick
> Whitefield. He is also active in Transition Westcliffe-on-Sea.
>
> The book is a clear and information-packed, and it covers most of what
> you would expect a short introduction to permaculture to cover. It
> covers the ethics and principles of permaculture, opting for Mollison's
> original ones, rather than Holmgren's revised principles. This dilemma
> presents an interesting choice for permaculture teachers and writers,
> which to use? Personally, I tend to see Mollison's as the GCSE ones,
> more accessible for beginners, and Holmgren's as the A'Level ones, for
> those already grounded in the basic ideas. In this regard, I think
> Graham gets it right opting for Mollison's, they certainly work very
> well in the context of this book.
>
> He then explores the permaculture design process and how to apply
> permaculture in a range of settings, the garden, the farm, and within
> the urban community. Like any good primer, or introductory text, 'A
> Beginner's Guide' does lots of signposting. Of course it can't tell you,
> in its 74 pages, how to coppice a woodland and create a roof garden, but
> references are provided to those who can. Some of the tables are very
> useful, offering a quick guide to edible weeds and reading a landscape,
> among other things.
>
> More nice things?
>
> I have only two grumbles, one small and one larger one. I was a bit
> disappointed, having had my original copy of this for many years, to
> find that the 'second edition' is almost exactly the same as the first.
> So far as I can tell, all that has been added has been a colour cover
> and some (albeit useful) colour pictures at the back with accompanying
> case studies. In spite of all the advances in permaculture since, and in
> the world around it, what you get it still a version of permaculture
> from 10 years or so ago. The opportunity for a more substantial updating
> of the original seems to have been missed.
>
> The other thing is the presentation. In the world of permaculture such
> as it is presented graphically by Graham's accomplished illustrations,
> everyone is a member of some minority group or other. You would think
> that the only people who practice permaculture are punks, hippies,
> people who wear T-Shirts with radical slogans printed on them, people of
> colour, people with a penchant for going to the toilet with no clothes
> on, people with mohicans. dreadlocks and 3 day-old stubble. While that
> may have been the case when this book was originally written (although
> it wasn't my experience of most of the people I met practicising
> permaculture at that time) I was reminded, as I read the book, of a copy
> of 'Spiritual Midwifery', that classic 60's guide to holistic birthing,
> owned by my wife.
>
> 'Spiritual Midwifery' was produced at The Farm in Tennessee and was a
> classic, selling millions of copies. In the original, all the men have
> beards and long hair, and all the women have long hair, with head
> scarves and long dresses, and most women report giving birth as being
> like one long orgasm. When my wife bought a copy about 10 years ago, on
> the cover was a banner boldly proclaiming "Updated and Revised for the
> 1990s!" I opened the book, intrigued. Had they airbrushed out the
> beards? Did all the men now have trainers on and Timberland jackets?
> Were all the women dressed in the finest Prada and have their
> bellybuttons pierced? No. The photos were exactly the same, leaving me
> wondering in what sense the book had been brought up to date.
>
> Similarly, 'A Beginners Guide' feels, graphically at least, stuck in
> some 1980s version of radical change, where the only people really
> pursuing change of any value are small minority groups, not anyone who
> carries even a whiff of the mainstream. In this world, most change of
> any value comes from punks, rastas, animal rights activists, anarchists
> and squatters. I would have loved to see, in a second edition of this
> highly useful book, a more up to date look at who might actually be
> implementing this stuff, given the degree to which it has subsequently
> moved on (if, indeed, it was ever like this).
>
> What I see as I travel up and down the country meeting Transition
> groups, is a distinct absence of mohicans and dreadlocks (not that
> there's anything wrong with those, its just that the vast majority of
> people don't have them). In that sense, there is something in this book
> which somehow encapsulates why it is that permaculture has struggled to
> escape from a ghetto of its own making.
>
> Who would I give this book to? I think as an introduction to
> permaculture for someone already immersed in 'alternative' culture, it
> is excellent. It certainly was a big influence on me at the time in my
> life when it first emerged. People with a background in campaigning and
> in activism will find this an easy-to-follow, rousing introduction to
> permaculture, a very useful and important tool.
>
> Would I give this to my local councillor, my MP, my next-door
> neighbours, or to my sister, in an attempt to convince them that
> permaculture has a role to play in transitioning their very conventional
> lifestyles/workplaces? I don't think I would. In that case I'd opt for
> Patrick Whitefield's 'Permaculture in a Nutshell', but acknowledging
> that even that may well not have a universal appeal. Feels to me like
> with the world heading headlong into financial meltdown and energy
> famine, and with permaculture, as Holmgren so passionately argues, being
> the design system of a post-oil world, we need ways to broaden,
> mainstream and deepen its appeal as quickly as possible. While this book
> is a passionate, powerful and information rich guide to permaculture
> principles for those already amenable to alternative ways of looking at
> the world, it is not, by a long way, the book that will bridge across to
> the mainstream.
>
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