permaculture

[Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>]

Great comments Jono, Loren, Steve! I didn't intend to suggest that The
Problem is the Solution is the best way of dealing with the they who shall
not be named's of permaculture, or that there was only one way. It is
what's presently happening though, which shouldn't be discounted as a
possible solution. I see a lot of sides to it actually...my experience with
students who fell into he who shall not be named's hands via a google
search is that they feel burned by it, but that it spurred them to find a
better course. Do they fault permaculture in general for that? Not a bit
from what I've seen; they fault he who shall not be named. They learned the
hard way, which made them even more dedicated to permaculture. They fell
down and got back up stronger than before. I mean, in a way they learned
street smarts for the internet (there are some obvious warning signs).
Everybody has to do that sometime or another. It's a shame people can get
dragged down like that though. So that's a tough love, feral rearing
strategy.

For a more compassionate and empathetic approach I think there are other
things we can do too. Building strong teacher networks like Jono described
in the Northeast is one important way. We have the same thing in the Front
Range of Colorado where teachers support each other, teach together, even
take each others classes, and I see it being very effective.

I also think we can offer more post-PDC support to bring our students into
the fold of this integrated network of permaculturists. One way to do that
is the Diploma program we've been running through the Permaculture
Institute. I see it as an essential offering for post PDC education. The
goal here being to create more excellent permaculture practitioners and to
support them along the way. From the interest coming at us, PDC grads are
craving this right now.

I'm just looking for another way around the issue ("be like water") and
stretching my brain to see it differently. Perception is an amazing thing.
Sometimes it seems there's a problem, and from a different angle maybe it's
not such a big problem after all, and maybe the so called problem is
actually a good solution for something we've been trying to accomplish,
like getting more people into permaculture in this case.

This reminds me of a Mollisonism, "let systems demonstrate their own
evolution". What would it look like for the permaculture community to
demonstrate it's own evolution? Fortunately we are part of this system and
get to contribute to steering it in the direction we want to see it go. To
me it's about making permaculture excellent with positive action, or more
excellent than it already is (we have a lot going for us).

What else can we do to make permaculture stronger than ever?

Jason

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