Making Permaculture Stronger

This episode shares the continuation of the conversation Jason Gerhardt and I started in Episode 25. While we refer back to the below framework I was playing around with at the time we mainly explore drawing and mapping in relation to permaculture design as well as topics around certification, not needing permission, and more. Oh yeah at the start I refer back to this post where I explore generative transformation as an attitude not something dogmatic as regards to map or not to map. Jason directs the USA’s Permaculture Institute and Real Earth Design and I just love being in touch with him and having him as a colleague in this work and these adventures. Stay tuned for much deeply exciting stuff in the pipeline. Phase Two is about to kick in big time and I am going to need you to get involved. Finally here’s the place to voluntarily donate some of your hard-earned cash to this project. It makes a massive, huge difference even if just $1 per month so thanks if you even consider it let alone actually do it :-). For those of you interested in joining the new online community that meets every six weeks then join at the $10 tier or get in touch via the contact page to explore other options (as in, if you can’t afford it or whatever, then let’s figure something out!).

So what does my recent discussion of the problem with solving problems look like in relation to the trunk in the Permaculture Tree diagram? Well, the way I have come to see it is that the whole trunk is itself an imposition. What, wait, what? I believe the whole above-ground part of the permaculture tree has been growing from a grafted-on collection of design process understandings that were imported from outside.49 Imported from places like industrial design, engineering, architecture & landscape architecture.50 Because the scion wood and the rootstock were not a compatible match, the graft never really properly took. Indeed, as a result of it being there at all, the latent energy around permaculture generating its own process possibilities has either remained dormant in the roots, or been overruled by the DNA of the grafted-on material. You see where I am going with this. I don’t want to continue trying to patch up a trunk that in so many ways is a distraction from the work I’m here to participate in. I don’t want to be pulling apart layer upon layer of imported design process understandings that shoot permaculture in the foot by dishonouring its very essence.51 I want to dive deep into permaculture’s beautiful foundations and then to help grow and tend and realise fit-for-purpose design process understandings directly. Without distraction! What this means for me is… The Tree is Coming Down I am cutting the permaculture tree down. Consciously. Carefully. Lovingly. As a personal thought experiment, I’m cutting it down. Just below the place where the foreign design process understandings were imported and grafted on. To create a fresh surface from which all kinds of wild regrowth can spring forth. I am talking about the development of design process understandings that stem from permaculture’s own roots. From permaculture’s own DNA.52 I’m talking about consciously coppicing the permaculture tree, take three. To be clear, none of the tree is removed from the site after the coppicing operation. Yes, it will fall to the ground and it will remain there, branches, twigs, leaves. Hot compost the most diseased material, tuck the rest in around the stump. Where as fresh growth bursts forth, anything relevant breaks down and is reabsorbed and assimilated into the living tissue of the re-growing tree. Just think, the fungi are going to have a field day and there will be mushrooms by the plenty. In other words, nothing is lost. I would like to think the babies will gurgle in contented gratitude to be free of the bath water. This is when the real work begins. The work of tending to the new shoots. Watching them closely, nourishing them while delicate and young. As they grow, selectively removing weaker stems and shaping up those that remain for optimal health and form. Making Permaculture Stronger – Phase Two I declare Phase Two of Making Permaculture Stronger open. Phase Two is all about tapping into permaculture’s essence, its potential, then co-articulating from scratch design and creation process understandings that resonate with and actualise this potential every step of the way. Where those of us drawn to this work respectfully converse and collaborate in the hard, honest, yet immensely rewarding work of co-crafting, co-creating something fresh. Something authentic. Something alive. Something worthy of what Bill and David gifted the world in co-originating the permaculture concept. To me, this is one way of tapping the part of permaculture’s essence that Bill Mollison manifested when he talked about having lost heart in protesting and fighting against what he didn’t want. He retreated into the bush and when he came back he was a different person. He was intensely focused not on what he didn’t want, but on what he did want. He focused his fire and he took permaculture to the world, igniting a global movement. I don’t want to be against what I don’t like in permaculture any more. I want to be for what I love. I want to be for growing from that place and the incredible potential within it. Rather than feeling like I’m pissing on the permaculture party, I want to jump in with the crowd and to celebrate as we co-create new dance moves so wild and so alive that the concrete cracks open and long-dormant seeds germinate for miles in all directions! Let us honour the pioneers, honour all those who have contributed to permaculture’s incredible story and journey. Not by assuming that permaculture is finished and perfect and beyond improvement. I can imagine no greater insult to everything they stood for, stand for, to everything permaculture stands for. Confronting the fact that permaculture is not finished and perfect, I used to think I had two options: 1) Politely ignoring permaculture’s problems, tensions, issues and weaknesses or 2) going on about and trying to ‘fix’ them. I now see both as equally impotent. No more of that. Let us not close our eyes to the issues. Yet let us see them as indicators. Let us hone in on and widen the cracks until what is broken falls away and we are left with a place from which to re-grow fresh tissue true to permaculture’s core.53 This is what I choose to participate in and I sense this is where I am going to direct a decent chunk of my life force. If it resonates, I invite you to get involved. To bring your gifts to whatever table or forum works for you. Where of course this work is already happening in hundreds of different ways and places, all around the world. Thank God. For this must be our work. It must be held within a field of co-creative coherence. Indeed, if it resonates, it is because it is not only my voice. It is already in you. If this has any merit as a conversation, it is because it is a conversation that is already happening, all around the world. Let us bring it out into the open. Let us let resonant threads all over the world know that permaculture is well and truly IN THE GAME. We are leaving the story of the expert, the genius founder behind. It has been a great story, it has served us, it has been a part of the way forward. I have only gratitude for all the pioneering genius that has lifted us high enough to see so far. Yet we are, at a cultural level, moving into a new story, a story in which a process of deep, authentic co-creation is so, so ready to germinate. It is my hope to look back some day and see that this post was part of the needed scarification. From today, Making Permaculture Stronger’s byline is no longer by collaboratively identifying and addressing its weaknesses. It is Collaboratively Unfolding Permaculture’s Potential. Thanks for reading. Thanks for being with me on this journey. I hope to catch you amidst the indescribably exciting things to happen from here on in. Acknowledgements I am indebted to Finn Weddle for his support and for the clarity and depth of his reflections on an earlier draft of this post. I also thank Joel Glanzberg, Bill Reed, and particularly Carol Sanford, whose living systems frameworks are increasingly informing my approach to all this. Endnotes

Note: This post may not make much sense unless you read (or listen to) the previous post first. What I’ve been doing… As reviewed in the last post, I have spent more than three-and-a-half years attempting to help strengthen permaculture’s weakest links, or, in other words, solve permaculture’s biggest problems. In this approach, success is tacitly defined as the degree to which the weak link or problem is made to go away.64 The Problem with Solving Problems Phase Two of Making Permaculture Stronger starts with my realisation that focusing on problems, even if the problems are getting solved, does not and cannot solve the problem that the whole approach of solving problems is itself, well, problematic.65 Joel Glanzberg has summarised the situation perfectly: We are so accustomed to machines and the mechanical world of Newtonian Physics that we can barely think about how to address the problems of a living world. We try to fix them as we would an old truck: We identify the bad part that is to blame for the problem and repair, replace, or remove it. This is our general approach to everything from medicine to foreign policy to justice. We try to get tumors, dictators and other “bad guys” to reform or we simply replace them. Then, we are continually surprised when new tumors, symptoms, or bad guys promptly arise to take their place. Changing the manifestation of living systems without shifting the underlying causal patterns will always be an uphill battle and often takes us in the wrong direction, like super-gluing the cracks in a hatching eggshell. As has Carol Sanford (in this article): When you start well-intended efforts by identifying a “problem,” you are trapped into thinking that you have to fix it. This leads you on a search for the causes and results in efforts to try out many solutions. It pulls all of your energy toward an endless effort that is based on the mindset that got people into the rut in the first place. Einstein warned us about that. Hmmm. This is exactly the sense in which I have been trying to ‘solve permaculture’s problems.’ Oh well, it’s not like nothing good has come from this approach (and yet it is time for a fundamental change of direction)… Now I do not think all this effort has been a waste. Absolutely not! I have learned a heap that has really boosted my ability to serve as a permaculture design process facilitator. I know this is also true for permaculture colleagues around the world. Almost weekly someone reaches out with gratitude for how this project has inspired and supported them to deepen their own design process understandings and practices. Nonetheless, I’m clear it’s time Making Permaculture Stronger explicitly extracts itself from the business of dabbling in problems. Where I spend countless hours focusing on aspects of permaculture that I don’t even like. On weak links. On problems. Problems that worry me. Problems that demoralise me. Problems that as best I can tell are getting in the way of permaculture’s ability to evolve toward deeper and fuller expressions of its potential. I’m glad for everything this effort has created and I want to make a clean break from the whole mentality. It is time for something different. Thankfully there is an alternative that resonates so deeply it brings shivers to my spine. Regenerating from the Core Having spelled out the futility of the problem-solving mentality, Carol Sanford brilliantly illuminates an alternative approach: Okay! Okay! So what do we do? As crazy as it sounds, we skip over what exists. We act as though the problem doesn’t matter. This sounds harsh, even cruel, but consider: within regenerative processes, problems are not useful information. Nature doesn’t care that rat populations are exploding in the suburban countryside. Regeneration in this instance occurs when this niche within the ecosystem is filled by returning populations of foxes and owls. Circumventing problems is how much real change comes about and particularly the kinds of change that disrupt markets—and also history, for that matter. Instead of lamenting a problem, ask, “What are customers (or the planet or social groups) seeking to achieve and why?” This is the route to the creation of something that doesn’t yet exist. Don’t look at why current methods aren’t working. Keep your eye squarely on the your buyer’s intention, on the intentions of living systems and social groups. What problem? Wow! What an idea! Instead of lamenting the problem or problems, to take this approach we’d ask “what is permaculture’s core intention” and we proceed directly toward helping to realise that as if all the problems weren’t even there. For Carol, this entails, “going back to base material and regenerating from what is at the core.”66 Where we move from strengthening weak links or solving problems to unfolding potential: Seeing true potential requires us to go back to the DNA of our intentions, conscious and unconscious, back to first base, where the uniqueness of the opportunity exists. What is screaming to be realized directly? … The same is true for engaging with people. For example, when we pay attention, we see loads of potential in the children around us. We see their shortfalls as well; there is no end of shortfalls to fix. But if you start with who a child really is, deep inside, what makes them unique, and you help them realize more and more of that, to become closer and closer to their own singularity, then they thrive. Who wants to make a child “less bad”? Don’t we instead want to support them in their quest to realize their unique potential? And don’t we feel the same about each new business and each watershed? No two living systems are the same; each is pursuing a unique potential. Find that and you become a great business leader or a great biologist. As a colleague of Carol’s, it is no surprise that Joel Glanzberg is once again on the same page: Life is by nature creative. She never goes back but only forward. Repair or restoration may work for antique chairs but not ecosystems, eggs or countries. They will never be what they once were, any more than you will ever be a teenager or Humpty Dumpty will be put together again. Living systems, whether organisms or organizations, ecosystems or economic systems, resolve their problems not by “fixing” them but by outgrowing them. The maturing chick running out of food and space in her egg does not add on or send for take-out. She does not fix her cracking shell but uses this breakdown to break through and emerge into another world, one of air and light where her parents feed her. Then, when the chick and her siblings outgrow the nest and their parents’ ability to feed them, they fledge and fly into the wider world where they can feed themselves and migrate to more favorable climes as the seasons change. Time to shift things up… I also just love the way Robert Fritz talks about this stuff: There is a profound difference between problem solving and creating. Problem solving is taking action to have something go away – the problem. Creating is taking action to have something come into being – the creation. Most of us have been raised in a tradition of problem solving and have had little real exposure to the creative process. For this reason many people confuse the two. It doesn’t help when some ‘experts’ talk about ‘creative’ problem solving. They think that the creative process and problem solving are the same. They are completely different. The problem-solvers propose elaborate schemes to define the problem, generate alternative solutions, and put the best solution into practice. If this process is successful, you might eliminate the problem. Then what you have is the absence of the problem you are solving. But what you do not have is the presence of a result you want to create (The Path of Least Resistance, p. 31) How beautiful are all these statements? How exciting are they! What is screaming to be directly realised in permaculture? What would it mean for permaculture to crack open, fledge, and fly? What is the result that we in permaculture want together to create? Now we are talking. And this brings us right up to where this little project called Making Permaculture Stronger is going to be heading next… References Fritz, Robert. The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life. Fawcett, 1984. Learn about Carol Sanford’s books (with free sample chapters) here and her podcast here. Visit Joel Glanzberg’s website here. Endnotes

Making Permaculture Stronger is about to cross a pivotal threshold in its evolution as a project. Let me explain… This project launched three and a half years ago with the intention to be… …a space where permaculture practitioners come together with a spirit of strengthening the design system aspect of permaculture by clarifying its weaknesses and coordinating efforts to address them. …where… The best way I know of strengthening something is to identify weak links and then to direct energy toward making them less weak. An early requirement for the project was to create a framework for thinking about all the different aspects of permaculture. Some way of holding the whole so that weak links could be honed in on and strengthened… Permaculture Tree (take three) Remember this? I sure do. I still find it helpful way of mapping out how all permaculture’s different aspects sit in relation to one another. I introduced my original illustration here and what follows is a new (draft) version beautifully illustrated by my friend and permaculture illustrator Brenna Quinlan. Note – the arrows leaving and entering the tree represent permaculture bringing foundational understandings in from outside and creating solutions that go out to become part of other approaches or the culture in general (as isolated things) To recap the main idea: permaculture has general foundational aspects that are universal in their relevance (roots) permaculture has specific solutions (design configurations, strategies, and techniques) that are appropriate in some situations and not in others (limbs, branches and leaves) the only thing that can get you from the foundations to the appropriate solutions for a given situation is sound design process (trunk) I can’t resist sharing two further aspects of the tree before I move on, given I just rediscovered Brenna’s lovely sketches of them. First, here’s a view from above where you might recognise something familiar. Second, the cyclic patterns of movement I’m using the tree to highlight are an instance of the pattern Bill Mollison called the core model.73 Brenna Quinlan’s sketches of two additional aspects of the Permaculture Tree (Take Three) The Original Plan Having created the original tree diagram, I hatched a cunning plan for the future of Making Permaculture Stronger. I was going to complete, and indeed have completed, a few inquiries myself. Each was to start with something permaculture seemed to have got wrong in terms of design process and end with some better alternative to it. I went so far as to prepare the below plan. I was going to put this out there once I had the ball rolling (as in about now). A diagram to set the parameters to invite others to come play this same game over and over. Together we were going to remedy permaculture’s issues, one strengthened weak link at a time.. My early masterplan for Making Permaculture Stronger Why I started with the Trunk I spent a few posts explaining why I chose to start my weak-link work in the region of the tree’s trunk, as in design process. I described the apparent lack of a deep, coherent, shared, widely used understanding of sound design process in permaculture as a foundational weak link. Foundational in the sense that all sorts of other littler weak links flowed from it. Foundational in the sense of a Type One Error. Here is how I originally diagramed it, noting that “the image I get is of a huge oak tree teetering on a feeble little stem”: The First Two Inquiries (and where they led me) I then started the first of two epic, in-depth inquiries where I honed in on problematic aspects of the shared understandings of permaculture design process that were available in the literature. In that sense I identified design process as a weak link then went looking for little weak links within the big weak link that were presumably making the big weak link weak! I dove deep into two of them… From Assembling Elements to Differentiating Whole Systems I have such fond memories of the opening post of the first inquiry, which drew on the work of Christopher Alexander to identify an initial problem: the common permaculture understanding that design is a process of assembling or combining parts or elements into whole systems. In doing so I shared Alexander’s alternative suggestion that systems and landscapes with the character of nature are achieved by a process of differentiating wholes into parts. The post stirred up a lot of fantastic commentary and dialogue. It was a great experience and so gratifying to have the interested attention and appreciation of colleagues (including the likes of David Holmgren, Dave Jacke and Toby Hemenway). If that particular post hadn’t been so well received I wonder if the project would have even continued. In any case, it did, going on to look into this issue in some depth, where ten posts later it had arrived at a different conception of design that was not only articulated theoretically but applied and documented in two practical design project examples (see here and here). So I guess on its own terms the inquiry achieved its intent. It started with a problem or limitation and ended with way of approaching design that resolved or avoided the problem. The dialogue this inquiry catalysed also helped me arrive at a new take on the whole matter that was a pivotal stepping stone toward the more recent work on designing via transformation. From Detailed Up-Front Design through Concept Designing to Generating In Making Permaculture Stronger’s second inquiry I honed in on the dominance of up-front master planning in the permaculture design literature. I first showed the seemingly universal consensus that “in a sound permaculture design process one completes a detailed design before starting the implementation of that design.” I then pointed out how problematic this idea is in light of permaculture’s aspiration to create nature-mimicking systems. As in the first inquiry, I ended up, in striking contrast to the standard permaculture mantra of: observe (people and place or whatever) concept design detailed design implement evaluate/tweak …with either a hybrid (or concept designing) approach or the fully-fledged generating approach74 where you: Immerse in the overall context of the design Decide on what high-level features or aspects to tackle first Rapidly generate then iteratively test or prototype a first step until something feels solid and relatively certain Adaptively implement that step Re-immerse in the new reality of the just-transformed whole Again, I started with a perceived problem and arrived at some alternate understandings that appeared to resolve the problem. Generative Transformation I had no idea that after these two inquiries what would emerge next is the chart I then developed. This chart brought the outcomes of both inquiries together into one place where any design process could now sit in one of nine different spaces. To me, the most important outcome of the whole project so far is a fairly clear initial articulation of the space called generative transformation. I have argued that generative transformation is permaculture’s home turf. Conclusion Aside from a few other bits and bobs (including the podcast and videos) this pretty much sums up the entire journey so far. In the next post, I’ll share why and how I’ve come to realise that it is time to let go of this whole idea of finding and strengthening weak links. Before, in the post after that, sharing in the post after that the alternate approach Making Permaculture Stronger will be taking from here on in. Endnotes

I’m sure you’ll enjoy this rich, deep yet lively second conversation with Jason Gerhardt (first chat was here). Jason directs the USA’s Permaculture Institute and Real Earth Design. As it turns out we continue exploring the ordering framework I introduced in Episode 24. Here’s the framework diagram, slightly updated thanks to a suggestion from Bill Reed. Or download as pdf here. Oh yeah I also mention this recent recreate of Making Permaculture Stronger’s purpose that Joel Glanzberg helped me with and that uses the pattern I explored with Bill Reed here: MPS inspires creative exploration and dialogue around permaculture design in a way that develops our ability to think and act creatively as and with community to effect the large scale systemic change we need. Oh yeah Jason mention this amazing white paper on the four levels of Regenerative Agriculture by Ethan Roland Soloviev & Gregory Landua. I can’t believe I haven’t read this yet. Do check it out if you’ve not seen it and leave a comment telling me what you make of it. I also mentioned the Permaculture Home Garden by Linda Woodrow.

I’m excited to share here the beginnings of a (Carol Sanford inspired) framework in my second conversation with perma-powerhouse Meg McGowan (the first was here). It is a framework I feel is going to inform much of Making Permaculture Stronger’s evolution moving forward. Here is a preliminary sketch laying it out as a starting point to crash test and improve together (or download as pdf file here). Huge thanks to Meg for taking the time to help me share and start developing it. Oh yes in this episode I also share my brand new project Designing for Life that will be developing in conversation with Making Permaculture Stronger moving forward. Exciting times my friends, exciting times! Visit Meg’s blog here, the interview on the other podcast she mentioned here (episode three), her pyramid of wisdom here (note: compare with this). You can also go listen to the mentioned chats with Carol Sanford and Joel Glanzberg and Bill Reed by clicking on their names (where you’ll find further links to their sites and work). Finally, if you would consider supporting Making Permaculture Stronger financially, then visit our support page and mega-thanks in advance for what you are making possible in terms of supporting and fast-tracking the evolution of permaculture’s wildly exciting potential in the world.

Hey all. In this episode I share my second conversation with Bill Reed from Regenesis Group and the Regenerative Practitioner Seminar (our first chat is here). It is a conversation I highly recommend in which we look in detail at several aspects of how the rubber hits the road in the regenerative development or living systems approach Bill works with. I also get a bunch of things off my chest at the start around bumping this whole conversation up a notch and inviting your input into where and how Making Permaculture Stronger evolves from here. Hope to hear from you (whether via a few bucks via our patreon page and/or your reflections and suggestions in the comments below or through the contact page). I have to say all this focus on the likes of Bill and Joel Glanzberg and Carol Sanford is starting to rub off on me. I have noticed that the language I use is on the move, the thoughts I think are on the move, and even my entire understanding of what the heck Making Permaculture Stronger is and could be about are on the move! Heed this warning my friends: these people are dangerous radicals who consciously mess with minds. As Bill says, they see what they do as a mental technology that is intended to frustrate and destabilise you out of your automatic patterns. Bill mentions this article by Jonah Lehrer in the New Yorker, I mention possibility management, and you can find out more about Regenesis Group here and Carol Sanford here. Example Purpose Statements including Function, Being, and Will As promised, here are the function, being, and will based purpose statements Bill shared: The Yestermorrow design / build school’s purpose is to learn together through shared inquiry and hand-on experience the ways of making human habitat… (function) …in a way that expands our understanding of who we are and how to live in beneficial interrelationship with the earth and each other… (being) …so that we all can thrive in a world with limited resources and unlimited potential (will) and I’m going to take raw ingredients and transform them into a meal for my family… (function) …in a way that we sit down with our children and share our love for each other, or at least our daily events around the table… (being) …so that our children have the psychological wellbeing and nourishment to grow into responsible adults (will) As a recap the function aspect is about what are we doing and transforming? The being aspect is how do we want to be and what do we need to become to do this? Or as Joel Glanzberg has put it to me, what are the capacities to Be you are aiming to develop during this task? The will aspect is what is the larger field we wish to shift or positively impact? As Bill put it this is like asking what is the purpose of the purpose? Keep in mind also, if you can handle it at this stage (I barely can!) that Bill talked about paying attention to the so called three lines of work at function, then again at being, then again at will. The three lines of work are the immediate whole you are working with (might be you, or your school garden), the proximate whole (might be your team, or the school community) and the greater whole that you envisage being able to positively impact through your work (might be the farm, or the community the school is nested within). Here’s a preliminary attempt I made at an upgraded purpose statement for Making Permaculture Stronger:79 Making Permaculture Stronger exists to hold a unique space for intelligent, collegial, and rigorous inquiry and dialogue into the subject of permaculture design process… (function) …in a way that respectfully honors permaculture’s incredible depth and value and openly explores ways its potential might be more fully and rapidly developed… (being) …so that it continues to thrive, grow and evolve in its ability to contribute positively to humanity and the earth (will) After some reflections on this from Joel Glanzberg (thanks Joel!), I tried: Making Permaculture Stronger holds space for intelligent, respectful, collaborative exploration and dialogue into permaculture as a socio-ecological design science… (function) …in a way that is alive, authentic, inclusive and yet gently disruptive… (being) …so that it continues to thrive, grow and evolve in its ability to contribute positively to humanity and the earth (will) Running this past Joel he came back with what I consider an excellent example of cutting to the chase. This fully resonates with my understanding of why MPS exists, and it is so much more clear, concrete and direct (how much punchier is the ending! YES!): MPS inspires creative exploration and dialogue around permaculture design process… (function) …in a way that develops our ability to think and act creatively as a community… (being) …to enable permaculture practitioners to effect the large scale systemic change we need (will) Here is another example Joel and I worked on after a session with an organic farming co-op: The purpose of our co-op is to continue to develop and articulate an agro-ecological cooperative system that grows our businesses and the health of the land… (function) …in a way that inspires and enables others to do the same… (being) ...so that we can build the health of the foodshed, food sovereignty and a viable option for the future of aging farmers and their land (will) Here is an example Joel and I worked on after a session with staff at my kid’s Steiner school where I’m helping facilitate the garden redesign process: The purpose of the garden is to enable children to experience the magic of elemental alchemy with their heads, hearts and hands… (function) …in a way that inspires them to use this way of being and learning through their entire lives… (being) …so that the school community and beyond are imbued with abundant life and health (will) In this case Joel also suggested a few example principles which then act as guides to decision making: Ensure all four elements are present throughout the garden in transparent ways Inspire mystery through containment, separation and creating intimate spaces Make the gardens places of ease, comfort and excitement Everything is child scale I sincerely hope these examples help. Levels of Thought The levels of thought thing Bill shared was: belief – philosophy – principles concept – strategies – design implement – audit – evaluate Where do you usually start? Endnotes

Jascha Rohr, Oldenberg, Germany, July 19, 2019 In this episode (recorded July 19) Jascha Rohr returns to catch us up on his recent, current and upcoming adventures in taking healthy generative process and applying it to cocreating new modes of global governance! Check out the Cocreation Foundation here, our last chat here, and Jascha and Sonia’s amazing article on their field process model here. You can sign up to the Cocreation Foundation’s e-newsletter here and check out their youtube channel here. In this clip Jascha fleshes out something we discussed during our chat: https://youtu.be/lAzsc3S7Am8 Jascha also shared a white paper for the Cocreation Foundation’s Global Resonance Project you can download as a pdf and read here or by clicking the image below. Here is a link to the book by Hanzi Freinacht’s book The Listening Society that Jasha mentioned. Oh yes, I make mention in the chat of a few complementary approaches that have been rocking my world lately, namely the work of Carol Sanford (who I interviewed here), Regenesis group (which includes Joel Glanzberg and Bill Reed) along with Possibility Management (created by Clinton Callahan who I interviewed here). Enjoy and catch up with you in episode 22.

Photo by Peter Casamento On June 28th, 2019, I recorded this chat with my friend Bill Reed from Regenesis Group. A close colleague of my last two guests Carol Sanford and Joel Glanzberg, Bill is an internationally recognised practitioner, lecturer, and leading authority in sustainability and regenerative planning, design and implementation. You can see a short bio for Bill here (or listen to me read it out in the intro). Thanks to Bill for passing on the below resources and I will record a second chat with him soon to continue tracking down the intriguing and, well, kinda deep body of work he, Carol and Joel all represent. Articles Click to download as pdf these articles either by or about Bill’s work: Regenerative Development and Design – Working with the Whole Designing from Place – A Regenerative Framework and Methodology Sustainability to Regeneration The Nature of Positive Three Case Studies USGBCMagazine_03-2018 Videos Knock yourself out! https://vimeo.com/album/4650028 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFzEI1rZG_U https://vimeo.com/224956617 https://vimeo.com/120837455 https://soundcloud.com/akasa-daka/bill-and-joel-on-the-birth-of-the-regenesis-group/s-sQ3R0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCFoKbM9ikY Education Find out more about The Regenerative Practitioner training here.

Joel Glanzberg – the sequel I was fully stoked to have this second chat with Joel Glanzberg where we continue exploring his journey with living systems thinking and working within a regenerative paradigm (after first talking in episode twelve). Same topic yet very different energy as the previous episode with Joel’s long-term colleague Carol Sanford. As we discuss Joel is heading to Melbourne in July 2019, where in addition to running some Regenerative Practitioner training he’ll be giving a free talk July 17 and a one-day workshop on Regenerating Place July 27 – both in Brunswick, Melbourne. He’ll also be tagging along with me to some of my current projects so I look forward to reporting back on those adventures and conversations in due course :-). Check out Regenisis Group here, the Regenerative Practitioner training here, and Joel’s personal site Pattern Mind here. Here is the full text from Joel’s open letter to the permaculture movement (please share any thoughts you have about this or the episode in a comment – I always so appreciate hearing how this stuff is landing out there): First of all, I want to thank you, not only for your good efforts, time, and energy but for your caring…your caring not only for this living earth but for the people and the beauty of life. Thank you. Many of you may know of my work from the example of Flowering Tree in Toby Hemenway’s excellent book Gaia’s Garden and the video 30 Years of Greening the Desert, others from my regenerative community development work with Regenesis. In any case I know that you share my concerns for the degrading condition of the ecological and human communities of our biosphere and I am writing to you to ask for your help. We are at a crisis point, a crossroads and if we are to turn the corner we need to use everything at our disposal to its greatest effect. My concern is that we are not using the very powerful perspective of permaculture to its greatest potential and that we need to up our game. We know that the living world is calling for this from us. I often feel that permaculture design is like a fine Japanese chisel that is mostly used like a garden trowel, for transplanting seedlings. It can of course be used for this purpose, but is certainly not its highest use. Permaculture Design has often been compared to a martial art such as Aikido because at its heart it is about observing the forces at play to find the “least change for the greatest effect”; a small move that changes entire systems. This is how nature works and is precisely the sort of shortcut we desperately need. The lowest level of any martial art is learning to take a hit well. Yet this is where so much of our energy seems to be directed: setting ourselves and our communities up to be resilient in the face of the impacts of climate change and the breakdown of current food, water, energy, and financial systems. The next level is to avoid the blow, either through dodging, blocking or redirecting it. Much of the carbon farming and other efforts directed toward pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and developing non-carbon sources of energy fall into this category. At their highest expression practitioners track patterns to their source, shifting them before they take form, redirecting them in regenerative directions. This is what is behind principles like “obtain a yield” or “the problem is the solution” and the reason for protracted and thoughtful observation. We learn to read energies and to find the acupuncture-like inoculation or disturbance that changes the manifestation by changing the underlying pattern. Problems are turned into solutions and provide us with yields if we can stop trying to stop or block them. This is the pattern of Regeneration. Every permaculture technique is a small disturbance that shifts the underlying pattern and hence the system. Water-harvesting structures, rotational grazing, chicken tractors, mulching, spreading seed-balls, setting cool ground fires in rank meadows or forests, transforming spoiling milk into creamy cheese, revolving loan funds, libraries, and even the design course itself all follow this pattern. The point is to disturb brittle senescent systems to allow the emergence of the next level of evolution, even if the system is our preconceptions and habits of thought. This is at the heart of self-organizing systems and the key to effective change efforts. In a changing world it does no good to teach a man to fish. What happens when currents or climate or communities change? It is essential to teach how to think about fishing, whatever can be fished with whatever is at hand. This is why it is called permaculture DESIGN. In its highest form permaculture is not about designing anything. It is a pattern-based approach to designing systemic change efforts. This is the point of the PDC as well as all that time spent in the forest or garden. It is to learn how living systems work and how to observe them to find the effective change so that we can apply those skills to shifting the living systems most in need of shifting: human systems including how we think about the world. Changing paradigm tops systems thinker Donella Meadows list of the most effective places to intervene in systems. To effectively change the systems that are causing global degeneration we need to change the human paradigm and we need to start by shifting our paradigm of what permaculture is. If we do not shift these larger human systems our lovely gardens and beautiful hand built homes don’t have a chance. Although the PDC contains many techniques and ways of doing, it is about changing how we think about the world primarily. It is meant to crack our certainties about everything from agriculture to economics and how the world works. This is why so many of the principles are like a whack on the side of the head. “What do you mean the problem is the solution? Or that yield is limited only by my mind?” If the PDC is designed to shift our paradigm, then it shows us the pattern of shifting people’s paradigms. And this is the greatest use of our skills. Not to create gardens or to train gardeners, but to shift the thinking of folks who understand business and economics, laws and governance, so that they can all be re-thought and re-worked to follow the patterns of living systems. We have been warned that “the map is not the territory” and then have mistaken the map of permaculture as the territory of permaculture. Living in a materialistic and mechanistic culture we have grabbed onto the stuff and mechanisms of permaculture rather than the essential patterns. Just because we learn about living systems through gardens, forests, and fields, does not mean that is where our art is most fruitfully applied. So what am I asking of you? Please just think about this. Let it burn out the choked underbrush of your certainty. Watch how it effects how you think, and teach, design, and work. Let it open room to let something new emerge in the sunlit space. While cracks in structures need to be fixed, in nature from splitting seed coats, hatching chicks, or birthing babies or ideas, cracks are the doorways to new life. Please forward this around your networks. Debate it. Trash it. Try it on and try it out. If you would like to know more or let me know your thoughts please go to patternmind.org. Many thanks for your open hearts and minds, Joel Glanzberg Want to make Making Permaculture Stronger stronger? Learn how to become a patron here.