Class 5 notes by Carmen L.

Arriving a bit late to our 5^th PDC class, which met at Berkeley Youth Alternatives instead of Common Circle Education’s space, I found my classmates dispersed throughout the BYA grounds and each gazing into the distance.  I wondered what happened to community building, developed over the past 4 classes?  When I located Sage, she explained that we were beginning with a sit-spot exercise until further notice.  Thus, I found an unoccupied bench beside a tree but did not sit directly under it as I noticed birds perched on its branches and I didn’t want any bird poop to land on my head!

Like wandering outdoors to observe patterns during our 3^rd PDC class, this was another rare moment of solitude away from the group.  While comfortably sitting still to observe my surroundings, I wondered about the tree that was cut down to make the wooden resting spot for my posterior . . . and then I thought about the electric blanket conversation between Wally and Andre from My Dinner with Andre. In one of my favorite films, playwright Wally reunites with an old friend Andre, who dropped out of the theater world at the height of his career many years ago.  Andre tells Wally about his experiences while traveling the world and finally experiencing what it truly means to be alive—in contrast to a life that has become habitual so we’re just performing our roles and we don’t really perceive the reality around us.  When Andre says he wouldn’t put on an electric blanket, Wally protests saying he would never give up his electric blanket because New York is cold in the winter, we live in a difficult environment so he won’t give up one of the few things that provide relief and comfort—in fact, Wally’s looking for more comfort because the world is very abrasive so he needs to protect himself.  Andre’s view is that comfort is dangerous because it separates us from reality so we don’t really see the world, ourselves and how our actions affect other people.  Andre says we should be making every moment a prayer or sacrament—spoken like a permaculturist!

Sage and Jay made some bird-like sound signaling us back to the BYA garden, where we formed a circle to express gratitude.  Instead of sitting on another wooden bench, I opted to get a bit uncomfortable by sitting on a log closer to the ground.  We talked about making maps and then drew our own direction maps of BYA to our homes.  Next, Sage and Jay showed us how to draw a map to scale using triangulation, from 3 separate points, using measuring tape, engineer scale ruler and compass.  We then broke out into smaller groups to practice drawing maps to scale.  When we regrouped, we again broke out into 5 groups to draw maps based on 1) landform & waterflow, 2) vegetation & wildlife, 3) buildings & infrastructure, 4) microclimate, and 5) access, circulation, people flows.  We also counted our steps as we walked the length of a 50-foot tape—another method to draw maps to scale.

Following lunch, we convened at Brigid House for a wild design charrette—each group had about 30 minutes to use existing materials to create 1) rainwater catchment, storage & purification, 2) food storage, processing & cooking, and 3) something functional to the House—which resulted in sonic aquaponics!  After admiring our creations, I took some Kodak moments before we disassembled our works.

Sage and Jay discussed the design process via SADIE-MET:  Survey, Analyze, Design, Implement & Evaluate; plus, optional 3 steps:  Measure, Evaluate & Tweak.  They discussed conceptual design methods:  brainstorm, prioritize, mind map, critical path, random assembly, design by exclusion, and design for disaster.

Sage and Jay reminded us of SWOC (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, challenges) and input/output analysis (introduced during our 3^rd class) before breaking us into 5 groups for an input/output analysis of 1) aquaculture pond, 2) house, 3) chickens, 4) food forest, and 5) community kitchen.  We then formed a circle tossing a ball of string among persons sending an output to another who received it as an input, repeating the give-and-receive so almost everyone held on to part of the string and we formed a web within our circle.

Next Sage and Jay discussed meeting roles and structure.  I liked the idea of a vibes watcher, especially needed in totalitarian work environments where the emperor wears no clothes.  I’ve been wondering whether Sage and Jay have created such a pleasant group dynamic via community building exercises, or whether nice people are just drawn to study permaculture.  Though we’re diverse, even international (Brazilian, Dutch, Italian, Senegalese, American, etc.), we’re like-minded in sharing values like awareness, authenticity, peace, “letting go” (not being attached to “stuff”), etc.—traits of the metal element.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the metal element is associated with our lungs, which interacts with the environment and failing to adapt to changing environments lead to imbalance.  Metal personalities are highly sensitive, affected by the energy of environments and the people around them.  In The Wisdom of Your Face, Jean Haner writes of metal personalities:  “You’re so attuned to what’s happening on many levels in any situation and able to see far into the future to anticipate problems that you can discern more powerful and sustainable solutions than most people.  You can use your energy to great advantage if you can learn how to stay in balance. . . . As Metal, you’re driven toward finding a meaningful life that’s rich with a sense of purpose—even an authentic connection with the sacred in some way.”

After weeks of El Nino rains that kept me indoors, I was so grateful to be outdoors all day in the gorgeous, sunny weather during this seasonal change—on the eve of Chinese New Year (lunar calendar) bringing forth spring (wind/fire)—just the cure for nature deficit disorder!

Class 4 notes by Carmen L.

Our fourth PDC class began with the usual group circle to state our intentions and gratitude.  We introduced ourselves to guest speaker Max Meyers, co-founder and director of Mendocino Ecological Learning Center.  Jay then led us to sing a cappella, while moving around the room, which got everyone’s qi flowing.  I’ve adopted the macrobiotic practice of singing a happy song each day—in private, but I’m not used to singing in public! Fortunately, Jay and Sage have created a safe environment so we can go beyond our comfort zone without fear of ridicule.

Max introduced a South African game, which required us to respond within 2 seconds to 3 different hand signals—a real change of pace as we’ve been taking things slowly to facilitate long and thoughtful observation.  Next Max talked about leading a fast life until his motorcycle accident in 1996 led him to slow down and he was introduced to permaculture.  Max joined the Sonoma County Permaculture Guild with other generalists and ended up specializing in water.

As a segue to Max’s presentation on water-harvesting earthworks and aquaponics, Jay presented dire facts about our scarce water resources (less than .25% of the world’s fresh water is available for human use) and conventional approaches to water management (or mismanagement that has resulted in loss of wetlands, pollution, contamination, etc.).  Since the problem is the solution, Max said the permaculture approach to the water cycle is to “slow it, spread it, sink it.”  We begin with observation:  Max recommends being present in the land for at least 1 year to read the flows of the landscape.  The goal is to harvest rain where it falls on the landscape by redirecting runoff (slow it) using contour berms and spillways for overflows (spread it).  All water-harvesting earthworks are then mulched and planted, which creates a “living sponge” to use the harvested water for growing plants (perennials for swales, fruit trees for berms) and increasing the soil’s water retention (sink it).  Max talked about the work of Brad Lancaster (start at top of watershed), Sepp Holzer (“The Rebel Farmer”) and Geoff Lawton (“Greening the Desert”).

According to Max, we’ve lost so much topsoil, which should be given time to heal; in the meantime, we can grow our food without soil by using aquaponics—a combination of aquaculture (fish in tanks) and hydroponics (grow plants in water) so both grow better.  Dr. James Rakocy of the Virgin Islands, who developed aquaponics as a closed-loop system with few outside inputs except energy to pump water, trained Friendly Aquaponics which supplies local organic lettuce to Costco in Hawaii.  Max says aquaponics is easy to learn—even by people who have a history of killing houseplants—and almost any plant except root crops can be grown.  Max said tilapia, Chinese catfish and koi are commonly used to excrete fertilizer for plants.

After lunch, we met at Berkeley Youth Alternatives garden, where we got hands-on practice in laying out contours using an A-frame, digging swales (trench 1 foot deep) in the form of trails (pathways) along the contours and fishscales (called “smiles” by Jay) around trees to harvest runoff water, piling excavated soil along the edge to make berms, filling the swale with mulch to absorb water into the ground (store it).  It was easy to dig the soil, which was still wet from the morning rain.  After we were done, it was both beautiful and functional like nature intended—not flat, straight lines, but a network of swales and berms along beds and trees to cycle water through the garden while providing depth and dimension to the landscape—that I took several Kodak moments with my digital camera.

After dinner, we participated in a Non-Violent (Compassionate) Communication (NVC) workshop.  Sage explained that NVC has a place in permaculture because it’s about creating beneficial relationships.  She said that Marshall Rosenberg developed NVC to teach conflict resolution by connecting to our humanity as “compassion attracts compassion.”  After identifying 4 barriers to NVC (diagnosis, denial, demand, deserve), Sage outlined 4 steps to facilitate NVC: observation, feelings, needs, and requests presented in positive language.  She passed out “fortune cookie slips” containing statements so we could practice transforming them into NVC.  Another beautiful exercise, but so unheard of in the corporate work environment which operates like the military or water-sucking/chemical-fed/short-mown grass lawns—all high-maintenance, command and control—ugh!

Earlier Max shared a quote by Lawton about solving all our problems in the garden.  After 48 hours (12 hours x 4 classes), I really feel the sense of community especially while working together in the garden that afternoon—so peaceful and relaxing.  There really is something about nature that is positively life-affirming.  It’s like I belong to a PermaCULTure!

Class 3 notes by Carmen L.

Our third PDC class began with the Elm Dance, a moment of silence to honor people’s historian Howard Zinn, expressions of gratitude to the 5 elements (air, fire, water, earth & spirit), song and re-introductions.

We learned David Holmgren’s 12 permaculture principles, a synthesis of Mollison’s 28, by matching them to their definitions.  For the remainder of the day, we put into practice Observe and Interact (beauty is in the eye of the beholder) and Design from Patterns to Details (can’t see the wood for the trees).

Jay said that permaculture is applied nature awareness, which we should cultivate like indigenous or native people who have a deep-rooted knowledge of place through observation. Unfortunately, I might have nature deficit disorder common to urbanites like Woody Allen, who said he was at two with nature.  To help us become one with nature like naturalists, Jay encouraged us to allow space and time for core routines like sit-spot, journaling, storytelling, wandering without an agenda, childlike curiosity, etc.  Nature is sensitive so we need to be more self-aware, especially our impact on the natural environment, and walk softly on the earth.

Because animals have more direct contact with our natural world, they seem to sense danger like impending natural disasters or predators better than humans and can respond in fight-or-flight mode.  We Americans are so sheltered (wearing clothes and shoes, altering climate with heaters/air-conditioning) that we’re less attuned to our senses and we don’t encounter life-threatening dangers daily so we just don’t pay much attention to nature but seem to rely on language and technology.

During the 15-minute excursion to go outdoors to observe nature’s patterns, I also used the time to think about J.D. Salinger, who passed away on the same day as Zinn.  Like the hypersensitive Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye, I spent my adolescence observing “phony” behavior and feeling alienated.  Now that we were encouraged to practice our “innate” childlike sense of wonder, I kept visualizing Holden as a “catcher in the rye” saving innocent children from falling off a crazy cliff and being exposed to phony adulthood.  Like Holden, I’d pretend to be a deaf-mute so I wouldn’t have to have useless conversations with anybody and then I’d build a cabin near the woods but not in the woods because I’d want it to be sunny all the time.  I digress a bit, but I wanted to honor J.D. Salinger, whose writings influenced me to look at things honestly.

We returned indoors to review patterns found in nature and our own bodies, their function and where they’re found in design:  branching, radial, wave, branching tree, decentralized branching dendrites, packing/cracking, spiral, lobe and scatter/random.

During lunch break, we took a 20-minute stroll over to 100-year-old Brigid House, a 7-bedroom intentional community, for our site analysis.  We wandered the grounds noting landscape features based on David Jacke’s Scale of Permanence:  climate, landform, water, legal issues, access & circulation, vegetation & wildlife, microclimate, buildings & infrastructure, zones of use, soil, aesthetics.  Sage and Jay discussed sectors (map based on larger influences like elements of sun, fire, water, wind) & zones (map based on human energy on land to maximize efficiency), design process (inputs, outputs), and evaluation based on SWOC (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Challenge).

Jay discussed bird language (song, companion call, fledgling, male-to-male and alarm), reminding us that the Apache knew when a white man was approaching within two miles by observing birds.

After dinner, few of us shared learning affirmations, which were re-assigned to us as a “curious exploration” (euphemism for homework) so more of us would be prepared to share next week.  Finally, guest trainer Liz Turkel facilitated storytelling exercises (biographical, traditional, spontaneous) to demonstrate how talkers and listeners are co-creators in storytelling.

My left brain created my own curious exploration about the 5 elements: fire, earth and water elements are commonly recognized by Pagans and Chinese, but why do Pagans observe air and spirit (invisible) while Chinese observe wood and metal (visible)?

Class 2 notes by Carmen L.

We began our second PDC class with the Elm Dance, expressions of gratitude, re-introductions and then exercises focused on our learning intentions and setting forth community agreements in response to “How do we as a group begin to behave as a learning community to support our best possible outcomes?”

Our homework was to create a learning affirmation so here’s mine:  I effortlessly grow organic produce to feed myself and community!

My experience with organic gardening has been based on the biointensive method, a 4,000-year-old Chinese tradition practiced by my grandfather and which involves lots of muscle power to dig 2 feet deep into the ground.  In deeply prepared garden beds, water enters soil more easily and plant roots can penetrate further down into compost-enriched soil (instead of needing to spread out in search of water and nutrients) so plants can be spaced more closely.  According to John Jeavons, we can produce up to 4 times more food by using this method than an equivalent shallow bed planted in rows.

Growing up Chinese meant that I followed my grandfather’s tradition of gardening in our backyard in Hawaii, where we raised most of the food that we ate.  In Chinese culture, food is so important that we greet one another by asking, “Have you eaten yet?”  In fact, my happiest childhood memories are coming home from school to snack on plants picked from our garden—sugar cane, bananas, mangoes, papayas, tangerines, etc.  Growing up Chinese also meant that we ate lots of fresh vegetables and nothing was wasted so food scraps went to the compost pile.

Because eating fresh produce has been so nourishing to my well-being, I wanted to get involved in food security issues.  One way was to go to developing countries to promote small-scale, biointensive gardening.  In Tanzania, we worked primarily with women who lost their husbands from AIDS/HIV, malaria or other infectious diseases; it was a real challenge for the women to do digging work because this reminded them of burying their deceased loved ones or sometimes illness would compromise their strength to do so.  While biointensive gardening has a proven track record, I wanted to explore alternatives so I searched “no dig gardening” on the internet.

I was fascinated to learn about Sydney gardener Esther Dean’s No-Dig Garden, which eliminates the need for backbreaking work by building a garden above ground with layers of organic matter.  This led me to the permaculture work of her fellow Australian Bill Mollison.  I want to learn all I can to apply permaculture design principles to let nature do its work J!

While Sage and Jay asked us to tap into our “inner wisdom” during discussions about what is permaculture (designing systems to mimic relationships found in natural ecologies) and its ecological ethics (Care for Earth, Care for People, Return of Fair Share), I often felt like tabula rasa (blank slate) as I have spent much of my working adult life in an unnatural environment that I need to re-learn our natural environment.  For 15 years, I have worked with U.S.-based employers to establish and maintain employee benefit plans based on governing labor and tax laws, collectively known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).  As these man-made laws reflect compromises made by politicians, they are subject to many exceptions (or “loopholes”) and frequent revisions.  Even practitioners can get frustrated with the intricacies of ERISA, which is also known as Every Ridiculous Idea Since Adam.

I was relieved when Sage and Jay handed out the list of 28 permaculture design principles as I would not have guessed them all.  But as usual, they weren’t going to make it so easy as they asked us to partner with a classmate to act out the principles in charade!

We viewed Global Gardener, a film showing Permaculture founder Bill Mollison creating gardens in the tropics, dry lands and urban areas.  It was inspiring to see how permaculture principles are applied in places as diverse as Australia, India, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Germany and U.S.A. (including Village Homes in Davis, CA)—to great success when we follow the universal laws of nature.

Our first class of the 12-weekend intensive Sub/Urban Permaculture Design Course (PDC) focused on Intention, Presence and Community Building.  We were welcomed into a rectangular room with yellow painted walls and windows opening to the East, which invited the morning sunshine in—excellent feng shui! There, along with about 30 others, I learned to Slow Down, Go with the Flow and Establish Connections as Slav, Sage, Jay, Helen & Jonathan led a series of exercises, in which we formed circles, linked hands, expressed gratitude, established common ground, swayed our bodies like Elm Trees, took in the presence of each other in silence with prolonged eye contact (with optional embracing) and by touching hands with eyes closed, etc.

In Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream symposium, the most memorable statement was about the privileged who feel they have a right not to know the ramifications of our affluence (Americans make up 5% of the world’s population yet consume 25% of its resources).  It’s so unreal that people choose to be so clueless to avoid responsibility so the status quo remains.  In the follow-up exercise, I played the role of Elder speaking to the listening Future about my views on the current state of affairs, my actions in response and how I maintain hope in this crazy world that we live in.  At this point, I remembered the Jehovah’s Witnesses that I met outside the Berkeley BART station in the morning; referencing the Bible, they pointed to prophecies that foretell these “last days” of worsening world conditions—characterized by wars, famines, pestilences, lawlessness, ruining the earth, inordinate love of money, etc.—and hope for restoring Earth to its original Paradise Garden where the righteous live forever in harmony with nature as God intended.  I shared some of this information and talked about my intention to apply permaculture principles for a more sustainable lifestyle.

Our 12-hour day included 1-1/2 hour each for lunch and dinner, plus 1 hour optional yoga during these meal breaks.  For lunch, I joined a few classmates at Berkeley Farmers’ Market and then visited Half-Price Books (“waste not, read a lot”).  For dinner, another classmate joined me for a quick bite before I ran off to yoga class.

What did I learn from our first class that can be applied to a garden? After all, permaculture principles can be applied to our social, not just garden, environment.

1. Interconnections can empower us with resiliency:  Slav explained that Joanna Macy, who doesn’t speak Russian, introduced the Elm Dance as a healing exercise to help Russian-speaking people process their trauma following the Chernobyl disaster; the linking hands and swaying emphasize solidarity and then letting go to raise our hands to call out what we want healed can be cathartic.  It’s empowering to know we’re all together to work things out.  Similarly, Toby Hemenway says “an ecological garden looks and works the way nature does, by building strong connections among plants, soil life, beneficial insects and other animals, and the gardener, to weave a resilient, natural webwork.”
2. Learn to get along with “enemies,” which may be real or imagined:  In Bowing to the Opponent exercise, we bowed in “gratitude” & “compassion” to the Opponent who has destroyed Earth for profit because this caused us to realize how much we value and seek to restore what’s lost.  Rather than stoop to the level of the opponent, we rise to the occasion when we counter this evil opponent with good actions.  We can follow the Biblical injunction to hate what is bad (action), but continue to love enemies—who can turn into allies if they change their behavior or we use them in a beneficial way.  For example, it’s helpful to understand allelopathy, or the biochemical effects of some plants.  Peas and beans are stunted by chives (their “enemy”), but roses thrive in the company of chives, which make the flowers more fragrant and help repel aphids.
3. Yoga is good, but not after rushed meal:  Our natural movement involves bending forward a lot so bending backward during yoga class should help flex our spine after gardening exercises.  But I won’t try do it all again as I would have preferred a slow dinner instead of a rushed one!

While the trainers introduced themselves earlier in the day, my PDC colleagues and I did not have an opportunity to formally introduce ourselves until the 9 pm Closing Session when we finally stated our names, where we were from and our intention.  I was impressed that several came as far as Palo Alto, Sacramento and Bolinas to participate 12 hours on a Saturday in addition to their commute time.  The next day, I read Nicholas Kristoff’s NY Times Op-Ed piece about “The Happiness Hypothesis,” by Jonathan Haidt, who stated, “one thing that can make a lasting difference to your contentment is to work with others on a cause larger than yourself.”  It’s an awesome feeling to share in the work of my PDC colleagues to create a more sustainable future.

- Carmen L.