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Holistic Goal Planning
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Site Observation (PT 1)
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Site Observation (PT 2)
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Basemapping
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Filed Map & Sector Analysis
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Land Analysis Layers & Zones
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Site Elements & Connections
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Rough Site Design
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Design Concepts & GIS
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Professional Permaculture Pt 1
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Professional Permaculture Pt 2
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Final (working) Design & Implementation
Great discussion! It seems like people are thinking more and more that just by being people, we have a negative impact on the planet when really we can make a positive impact with the right actions.
GREAT lesson! I have often felt this way when I see people starving themselves because deep down, they feel like they don’t deserve the resources to live here, as a human. thank you for bringing up this topic!
Love the comments! I think sometimes we must loose something to truly find the value of what was lost!
This is so true. I know for a long time I felt separate from nature. After having an ecological conversion, I began to understand that everything in nature is connected,including human beings. We are one. It’s beautiful.
This ‘separateness’ had not even occured to me.
I remember an animal rights attorney being insistent on using the term “non-human animals” – it was a way to keep the thought present that we humans are no less animal than all the others on the planet. I love this sentiment that we are animals, we are nature, and nature is us. Thanks Bret for your thoughtfulness!
Woah, I love this approach and perspective. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about how we’re just animals too. It’s so in our face right down to our biological impulses. Thanks for sharing.
I am very happy of this lesson, even if I don´t think everyone would get it.
humans are just another species of animal.
we are natural.
of course there is a degeneraative side of humanity, but think of an enraged and running herd of elephants (it does really happen). they are scared, enraged, they run, they brake trees, crush small animals, divelt anything on their path. still they are part of nature.
we are made by the same components of anything else.
well, anyways, thank you so much. i find it weird when people say ¨save the nature¨ or ¨i am going into nature¨, like it was a living thing or a specific site!
This was a really eye opening lesson. I have always considered myself a “naturalist” in the sense that I appreciate my connection to nature and in theory accepted the fact. . . but in practice I had still bought very much into the human vs. nature separateness. I am looking forward to feeling more integrated and identifying myself as part of nature rather than an observer. Thank you.
When i was a kid there were members of a tribe of Indiginous Americans that took a traditional route in canoes down the Wabash River. They stopped in my very small home town ( population maybe 500-800) and they had fires, dances etc…it was as if something in my soul woke up & recognized something in all of that that i can’t even put into words 20yrs later. But when we left i felt as if i had been born in the wrong century.
I just keep coming back to that tether of connection. There have been things that have distracted me from a lot of that connection over the years but it’s still there…the inner reverence. As i’m getting back to it, I’m shifting how i spend, how & what i “waste” etc, slowly just trying to get into an alignment with the way the world was designed to work.
But i dont think i realized how much this lesson was true til i went to write my comment. The concept of being separate and not a part of the natural world has become indoctrinated on some level i level i think…maybe that’s been fueled by those who seek to exploit it. If more people had a permaculture mindset then there probably wouldn’t be as much profit for them. Being disconnected from our food supply, land, animals etc has it’s consequences.
I love your comments. thank you for sharing
I am so grateful for this class !! I love it <3
Totally random but I love how the shape of the moss in the tree right behind him goes is similar to his body position haha <3
I love this point! We need nature, nature needs us. I just read a book called “Last child in the woods.” by Richard Louv. I am telling everyone about this book. It covers research on what happens when we disconnect with the land. It really does hurt us and the land. I think I might post some quotes from that book on our FB page for the course. I am discovering that I am all about being an advocate for creating nature areas where our kids can form these very critical connections with nature. It is sad that so many people think we are separate. It is just because of the time we live in, the vacant lots are disappearing, kids cannot just go play at the creek on their own or build a fort or explore a forest on their own, too few people even have a garden. If I ever get land, this is what I will be doing….using permaculture to create a regenerative place for land to be healthy but also for families to heal their relationship with land.
Have you ever heard of the outdoor schooling that some places have adopted? They have class/play outside rain or shine, hot or cold. And they’ve shown a lot more benefits to an classroom. I can’t remember where i saw some of that but it looked amazing, i wish we had something like that where I live.
Kids get to run, play, get dirty, & do what kids were intended to be doing.
beautiful words and great to focus the reasons why
There is a great article on this topic by William Cronon – “The Trouble with Wilderness – or – Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” … it can be found at http://faculty.washington.edu/timbillo/Readings%20and%20documents/Wilderness/Cronon%20The%20trouble%20with%20Wilderness.pdf
I think the myth is more about the degree of wildness there is or how manipulated by humans the land is (natural balance is lost when we compare the human population now as compared to the native American days). I do believe lands like national parks should be available and set aside for the mere reason that humans are way too destructive in general due to a greed factor we cannot seem to shake off. I was never much for city dwelling but I remember someone saying cities are good, for they concentrate humanity in one spot, and thus leave the rest to be as natural as possible. After that, I started viewing cities differently. It is funny too that there will always be those who could understand all there is about ecosystems and the inter-relationships but would never consider being that close to the earthiness of it all as they prefer sterile environments and the mere thought of being up close to fungi and worms gives them the creeps. The idea that we cannot separate ourselves is dawning though simply because we see what desertification, global warming, and piles of rubbish do to us. I see permaculture as that bridge to understanding that isolation works only to a point then it all crumbles and the relationships have to be enforced and practiced by those who care. I’d rather see more of the monoculture acres in the hands of corporations disintegrate into many smaller permacuture farm holdings than lose national parks because we need more lands to build on…