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Re: Permaculture Principles.1
Dan Earle wrote;
>Does each instructor have his/her own set of principles that are passed
on to
students? [,,,]
>Permaculture is best defined in the act of doing, not talking - should we
assume
that everything we do can be explained and documented and talked about.
... <
I took the Permaculture Design Course from Bill Mollison in 1981 and was
among the three folks in the US certified directly by Bill to teach it
early on. (The other two were John Quinney and Sego Jackson.) Bill's
course was the perfect thing for me at the time as it clarified issues
that I had been circling for about 10 years previously. But I was
frustrated when, as I did immediately, I began to teach permaculture,
because nowhere did Bill enumerate anything like what any thinking person
could call principles.
In 1981, at least, Bill was saying that permaculture design emulated
ecosystem design principles, but he did not say what those were, though
some were mentioned in various parts of the course. My job right after the
course was to be a vocational instructor for the minimum security prision
at Shirley Massachusetts, where I proceeded, among other things, to offer
a series of permaculture courses. The inmates and I worked for about two
years to distill the principles from Mollison and other sources and
finally we came up with our list--four principles to get ourselves ready
to practice permaculture and 8 principles of eclological/design/
permaculture. I published these in issue #2 of The International
Permaculture Seed Yearbook (TIPSY) around 1983. This is still in print and
available from us. So far as I know, no one has yet improved on this
treatment--I doubt if any individual or group has given the subject as
much thought as we did (about 40 person years). The material has been
bastardized by some teachers. What else is new.
If anyone wants to order this issue of TIPSY, request a Yankee
Permaculture order form from me by email or regular mail, Yankee
Permaculture, P.O. 2052, Ocala FL 34478-2052 USA. We' ve filled quite a
few other gaps as well.
Frankly, I am concerned that someone is teaching permaculture who regards
it as action. Permaculture is design. The single word permaculture is
just shorthand for the full phrase permaculture design. This was stressed
>from the outset but has been diluted or lost in various cases as people
declare themselves teachers without the humility that would require them
to prepare themselves for 10 or 15 years. This is not off-the-cuff stuff
guys. We are talking about trying to undo damage that we, as a species,
were'nt smart enough to avoid. The really top knotch peoples in regard to
protecting their environment just had to know enough not to damage an
intricate design that worked without their intervention. It is a long shot
that really informed and experience people can show the rest of us how to
do better. It is a joke to think that someone can teach us with no more
experience than a three week course--oops, now it is a two week course!
At the outset, Mollison stressed that the Permaculture Design Course was
step 1 and that then people needed to read, observe and cautiously
intervene and check themselves out. Somewhere that prudence got lost and
that is why we have teachers who vary widely in the basics of
permaculture. There are some really qualified people out teaching
permaculture. And there are a lot of half-assed teachers as well. Anyone
reading this would do well to get some background on a permaculture
teacher or designer before paying out money. If they seem full of
bullshit, it just might not be a defect in your perceptions. But
permaculture does work and can make a major difference--it just isn't
instant Earth healing. And it isn't dashing about DOING before we do the
THINKING and for many people (I happen not to be one) THINKING works
better collectively and that requires TALKING.
Now I don't know anything about this Dan Earle whose posting got me going,
but he just may be one of the good teachers. [Part 2 to follow . Ran out
of space.]