Healing Earth, Culture, and Self, through Conscious Evolution

Next scheduled for Thursday-Friday, August 9-10, 2007     10am-1pm, 4pm-6pm

Permaculture principles were created about twenty-five years ago by Bill Mollision and David Holmgren to guide us in designing homesteads that can provide us with what we need for healthier and more self-reliant lives, taking pressure off surrounding lands such as farms, wilderness and foreign countries to supply our needs. Many of these principles are common sense yet powerfully helpful sayings our grandmothers might have shared with us, for example "The Problem is the Solution." They are broad enough in scope to apply not only to how we go about providing ourselves with food, shelter and energy, but also how we can have more vital relationships with ourselves, each other and with spirit. Just as humans are called to live more in harmony with the natural world in the way we grow food and build buildings, the health and vitality of our planet unfolds from how we relate to our selves and each other psychologically, culturally, and spiritually. Our inner and outer worlds co-evolve with one another, such that truly transformative healing of the Earth must ultimately address both of these dimensions. This workshops draws on permaculture principles created by the founders of permaculture and those who came after them, including the creators of this workshop; participants will be invited to add to this body of evolving wisdom.

Session One: Observation, Noticing Patterns and Working Where it Counts
Observation is the first permaculture design principle we will explore in both the outer and inner worlds. We will begin by learning methods of walking outdoors with awareness developed by Native Americans and by permaculturists, and by distinguishing between observations and interpretations. We will then practice these skills on our own minds, using insights of Byron Katie and others. Next we will focus on noticing patterns in our behavior, and finally look for ways to shift patterns we'd like to change with ease rather than by pressuring ourselves to transform.

Session Two: Natural Succession, Invisible Structures, Self-Reliance and Interdependent Guilds.
After looking at how the concept of natural succession can be applied to creating a diverse and useful community of plants, we will turn to Ken Wilber's concepts of spiral dynamics to explore how we can embrace every person in our human family, valuing and including everyone's insights, while still moving us to evolve in ways that are critical to the health of ourselves and our planet. We will explore how our culture functions in ways that are not immediately apparent, how we can stop supporting invisible structures that are harmful, and how we can create better ways of living through cultivating self-reliance and healthy community interdependence.

Session Three: Exploring Edges, Shadows, and Diversity
Traditional Permaculture encourages humans to use edges and value the marginal and to use and value diversity, in order to harmonize with complex ecosystems. Similarly, to live our full consciousness and vitality, and to harmonize with others and with the planet, we need to explore our personal and socio-cultural edges, shining the light of consciousness into the shadows of who we think we are. Through activities designed to help us listen to voices that we often repress or ignore, we will learn to expand and more fully integrate our sense of self. In so doing, we are able to live more flexibly and fearlessly, transforming opposition into an opportunity for growth.

Session Four - Living From Body-Heart-Mind-Spirit
In Permaculture, we integrate rather than segregate and use and value renewable resources. So, when it comes to our own bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits, we can also look for ways to have all dimensions of ourselves aligned and playing together in synergistic concert. Drawing on the natural, and renewable, source of life energy that flows with such alignment, we can live more in harmony with, and in service to, the well-being of the planet as a whole. In this session, we will explore dynamic exercises designed to identify, align, and follow the natural energy flows of our body-heart-mind-spirit.