We opened with a gratitude circle and today I was grateful for the long walk I had this morning. We took our seats and gathered around as Slav played a recording of John Trudell, a political activist and poet. In the Permaculture Design Course at Common Circle we of course learn about the technical skills of permaculture but we also learn skills on how to change and develop our understanding of reality. And listening to John Trudell speak about the power of thinking was very inspiring and motivating.

Then Sandra began talking about Need, Function and Product Analysis (NFP) where we picked one element, in this case it was a chicken, and listed it’s inputs and outputs. Some of the inputs included things such as food, water, a dust bath etc. and some of its outputs were eggs and manure. After listing the NFP for the chicken as one group, we got into smaller groups and were each given a different element. We got elements like a pond, a pig, a green house etc. After listing the inputs and outputs for those elements, we thought about how we could connect the outputs of the chicken to the inputs of another element and vise-versa so that, we were reducing waste by recycling our resources for multiple purposes.

Afterwards, we discussed zone planning which is helpful when placing elements according to how much we use them or how often we need to service them. First there’s zone 0 which is the center of activity, i.e. a house, business or nursery etc. Zone 1 is close to the house and the most controlled and intensively used are for example, a vegetable garden or a chicken coop would probably be placed in this zone. Sandra told us about all the zones, all the way to zone 5 which is “unmanaged, natural or wild systems where we are just visitors, no managers.” We also drew out the different zones and added what we might put in each of them. In addition to zone planning, there’s sector planning where we might plant things to help counteract certain elements. For example, you might have the “cooling winds sector,” so you would probably want to plant trees to help block the wind, or you could put a windmill there. The three ways to deal with elements within the sectors is to block/deflect, channel or open it up.

After lunch, we commuted to Bridget House which is a communal house where Sandra lives. In their garden, we discussed patterns in nature. It’s important to be open and understanding to patterns in order to connect with and predict nature. We walked around searching for patterns in the garden. We noticed things like how certain insects preferred particular plants and how orange, white and purple flowers were growing together in bunches. Then Sandra showed us different patters like the Eckman Spiral, the net and the core pattern. Each group was asked to find a particular pattern. My group had the branching pattern which we saw in leaves, roots and stems and even antennas on top of roofs. Before we ended for the day, we talked about how we can optimize edge on our site, because edge provides a shared environment for things to happen and create great diversity among plants and wildlife.