Monday, September 13, 2010

Baby Steps

I first experienced permaculture while camping with my mentor, Patrick, and some other close friends. Although the camping trip was just for fun, the ideas Patrick talked about really spoke to me. He preached the importance of observing nature and the patterns as well as designs in each living organism, then applying those to your permaculture design. One of the most important parts of permaculture is observation and planning stages. By first observing powerful patterns and then planning a bomber design, you can save tremendous amounts of energy. And saving energy is truly the beautiful essence of permaculture.

Here are some interesting designs to get you thinking:














So, how can we implement these designs not only into our sustainable systems but into our society? We have to get smart and get thinking. Could one of these possibly be used as a new and more efficient traffic movement system? Or maybe the building of a new structure?

What are your ideas?


2 comments:

  1. great post Hans...
    i love fractals... i think if we thought like fractals more - sought out similarities in order for them to become us - making the world a better place would be in it's simplest form.

    my current fav fractal: http://screencast.com/t/ODE1YjBiZ

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  2. It's funny because even though I think too deeply into other things, I've never really thought that deeply into gardening. At least not cosmologically speaking.

    It's always just been something the people around me with deep commitment to the land have done.

    My grandma and grandpa (farmers), my parents (wanting to eat healthy and save money), anarchist friends in High School (we wanted to shake the world up), and most recently in St. Louis (as my commitment to cooking really delicious food with sustainable ingredients has grown).

    The point of all this is, I don't think I'm a very good permaculturalist at all. I've always just inherited garden space (farm/parent's house/community gardens) in which most of the planning and observation had been done by gardeners far more skilled than I.

    This year, which was my first really unsuccessful harvest in a long time, came from a lack of observation I think. Your post has helped me realize it, and I appreciate your thoughts. I'm going to go have dinner in my backyard now, and see if I can find greater detail in what nature has offered me.

    As far as the designs go, I'll update you on what I see.

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