Permavoices

Learning, The Permaculture Way, a preconference workshop at Permaculture Voices 2015 (Twitter #permavoices), spawned the following four questions:

How do I connect with the right people, how do I properly communicate, and how do I create/find community? [Inter-Human]
How do we reconcile/balance our desire to integrate wildlife and net biodiversity (whole ecosystem health)with the human need for a system that ‘produces a yield’? [Inter-Species]
How do my design elements fit together as a system? [Inter-Elemental]
How can we become our best whole selves to care for ourselves, our communities, & the earth while at the same time welcoming the reciprocity of those things caring for us, our communities, & our earth? [Intra-Personal]

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Responses re Inter-Human Working Relationships

How do I connect with the right people, how do I properly communicate, and how do I create/find community?

From Rick Edwards…

Group question from PV2 = How do I connect with the right people, properly communicate and create / find community?

My question from PV2 = How can I improve community stability?

Like minded is a good start, but not enough. Often times difference will deteriorate to division. Embracing difference for growth is a key element.

All interactions have at the same time, political and biological responses. This requires thoughtful communication to keep the energy on a positive track.

My other goals of the conference and after were:
Help others with their path.
Improving perceptions and interactions with all flows of energy.
(Some will have to be inter-human)

“… not commanding from an office. I’m an aid in a team, building inter-personal relationships” Maddy Harland

Learning and using cultural differences to move projects forward even after we are gone. Paraphrasing Neal Spackman

My distillation from the conference.
I want to have an amazing life around amazing people and I’m willing to do the work, whatever it takes, to spread that ability to others.

Learning and using cultural differences for acceptance.
Embracing difference for growth.
Helping others with their path whenever possible.
Never manipulate.

From Soiree-Leone:

Short response:

Building community: Don’t let others inform your reality in terms of who you connect with…toss the net out far, wide, and deep! The more diverse the people, the more diverse the views, the more complete and accurate picture we have of the world around us. Have a GoPro camera view of the world rather than a Polaroid. A rich, dynamic, full color, gazillion pixel view!

Long response:

The whole question of community and how do we “create community” can be a loaded question:

Your idea of community and my idea of community might be completely different. Community to me in simple terms is a network of people who create a web of support. We do not have to love each other and in fact it’s great if we disagree from time to time and live very different lifestyles.

The question behind the question of community (or under the question or lurking in the back room) can be around diversity. What do we mean by diversity? This is a tough one and in the interest of not getting anyone too fired up….let’s just say we need to toss the net far, wide, and deep and accept all of the people as part of learning about being human on earth.

The word “community” has seemingly become code for inner city, disenfranchised, low income, underrepresented, emigrant, haven’t gotten with the program, and problem. Or community is mistaken for a free loving commune or some group of willy, nilly, hippie-dippie freeloaders.

Now, we can talk until the cows come home. Ride the roller coaster of agree, disagree, agree, disagree. But let’s just do it! Permaculture Velocity. Here’s what we did:

At our urban homestead, 107 Garden, we experimented with community during the Permaculture Voices conference. We wanted to demonstrate care of people and care of the earth as well as return of the surplus.

We hosted eight permies and somehow we all shared one kitchen and one bathroom plus a humanure toilet. That’s a total of ten adults including Dale and me!

We didn’t select any of the permies. We didn’t know any of the permies before the pop-up community. We didn’t filter. We didn’t require applications or references or even identification! For three weeks we worked getting everything organized and designing to prevent issues, problems, confusion, and so on: charger station (check), additional seating and relaxation areas (check), shower sign-up board (check), additional towels, hand towels, wash cloths, plates, bowls, mugs, and silverware (check), rearranging the furniture (check), toiletries in case someone forget a toothbrush or sun screen (check), menu and food (check), beer and tequila (check)…seriously the list was three pages long. And just when you think we’ve lost our minds… here’s some of the bounty we received from the permies who stayed with us:

15 fresh goose eggs from Texas. Thank you, Triple!

A connection to another urban homestead in the LA area. Thank you, Janice.

A connection to one of the PV2 speakers I admire…and a great conversation with him! Thanks again, Triple!

Help cleaning up and putting things away after the pop-up community. Thank you, Darren!

A personal revelation and moving moment over a piece of gold mining core. Thank you, Adrienne!

And finally, working the same property for 7 years can lead to the inability to see…Adrian revealed so much about how we can address the drought conditions further in our landscape, saving me hours and hours of work! Thank you, Adrian.

We composted kitchen debris and humanure, conserved water, carpooled and rode bicycles, and enjoyed organic food. Extra food was shared with other permies, friends, and neighbors.
And based on the feedback survey responses, people enjoyed the experience.

Side note: As a participant in the inter-human breakout group at Permaculture Voices, I would like to point out that the three-part inter-human question resulted when we were not able to distill the community question further in the time allotted. It’s my impression that “right people” was not intended to imply some people were wrong but rather how do I find people for real connection rather than a passing fancy. I’m not entirely clear what “how do I properly communicate” meant to the contributor so I passed on addressing that aspect of the question.

Responses re Inter-Species Working Relationships

How do we reconcile/balance our desire to integrate wildlife and net biodiversity (whole ecosystem health)with the human need for a system that ‘produces a yield’?

Responses re Inter-Elemental Working Relationships

How do my design elements fit together as a system?

Responses re Intra-Personal Working Relationships

How can we become our best whole selves to care for ourselves, our communities, & the earth while at the same time welcoming the reciprocity of those things caring for us, our communities, & our earth?