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Re: growth of PC (fwd)



http://sunSITE.unc.edu/london   InterGarden   
london@sunSITE.unc.edu   llondon@bellsouth.net



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 08:23:55 -0600 (CST)
From: Bruce Brummitt <lilacmn@eot.com>
Reply-To: permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu
To: permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu
Subject: Re: growth of PC



We've followed this thread and wish to put in our two cents worth, now.

Teaching is a constant.  People learn as much or more from what we are doing
than from what we are saying.  To be living the permaculture life that we
espouse gives folks something concrete to grasp.

As has been written throughout this thread, permaculture goes beyond
agriculture into complete sustainable systems, up to and including
community/social interactions.  How we get our food, where and how we get
our water, clothing, heat, electricity, building materials, medicines,
health care, social interactions and loving...and where we put/how we use
the by-products of living.

When folks come to visit our place they are often confused by the simplicity
of the system.  
Perhaps as overwhelmed as we've felt when trekking in an old growth
temperate rain forest of the pacific northwest, or canoeing through a wild
river system.  Awed by the strangeness, the connectedness.

Teaching through doing is the best we can do to further permaculture. 
Questions have more meaning when they are voiced within some context.  Those
questions often give our answers a stronger base.  Those questions often
cause us to redefine meanings to ourselves.  In order to teach, we need to
keep learning and doing, creating and recreating.  (recreation)

For someone who gets all their goods wrapped in plastic, origin unknown, it
is culturally shocking to be "slapped in the face" by a permaculture system.
 To wrap our teachings in plastic does more harm than good.

We laud all the folks that, through their daily lives, are causing change. 
We have problems with folks that drive their Mercedes down a "freeway
system", to work in an air-conditioned skyscraper designing mud-huts/farming
systems for the Agency for International Development.  

Off the box, now.

Cheryl Valois and Bruce Brummitt
       <lilacmn@eot.com>
     "Life is an experiment"
Visit the Natural Building Gallery
<http://www.zianet.com/blackrange>