Who Am I?

What is Permaculture?

If your growing interest in permaculture is anything like mine was, you have come across the term because you: like delicious fresh food, place high importance on healthy living, have a genuine concern regarding human impact on the environment, want a strong personal connection with the living world, or self describe as a homesteader, be it urban or rural type. From what you have heard and already know of permaculture it seems to be some kind of magic bullet for sustainable living. It claims to be a fulfillment of all your hopes and dreams and a cure for all of your biggest fears. In the circles of green freaks, health nuts, farming aficionados, urban homesteaders, survivalists permaculture has come to mean many different things for many different people.

Before you get started on your permaculture journey, it is critical to have a clear definition and understanding of what permaculture is and what it isn't. In all of my design work and teaching I have settled on the following clear,  concise, and practical definition of permaculture: An integrated site adaptive design process that maximizes human goals while maintaining ecosystem function.

For Further elaboration watch this short video clip taken from our Free Intro Course.

This definition is clean and testable. Here is why:

1. We can define a single meaning for each term in the definition.
2. We can act upon all elements of the definition.

Seriously...if you come across an idea that can be neither defined not acted upon forget about it. Life is just too short to spend time any energy on things outside of our control.

For clarity's sake:

integrated:

incorporation of different parts into a whole

adaptive:

to fit or adjust one thing to another

design:

the art of planning and creating something  in accordance with appropriate functional and aesthetic criteria

process:

a course of action or proceeding, especially a series of stages in manufacture or some other operation

ecosystem:

a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment

function:

a mode of action or activity by which a thing fulfills its purpose

Setting a Vision

Here is a short clip from video two of our free intro to permaculture course which covers a technique for sorting out hopes and dreams into an organized system of visioning.