“Invisible Structures: the economics of sharing and caring”

* Date: July 8th, 2011
* Location: STAR School- near Flagstaff, Arizona
* Instructors: Larry Santoyo and guests

info@earthflow.com

Date: 2011-07-08

Indigenous Sustainable Communities Design Course

“Invisible Structures: the economics of sharing and caring”

* Date: July 8th, 2011
* Location: STAR School- near Flagstaff, Arizona
* Instructors: Larry Santoyo and guests
info@earthflow.com

This design course experience includes one of the finest models of permaculture, peaceful autonomy and of a people practicing ecological, economic, and cultural sustainability.

Start Date: 2011-10-16
Start Time: 09:00
End Date: 2011-11-01
End Time: 16:00

Please join us as well every Friday before a workshop for an evening talk and panel discussion. Venue to be announced. See www.carboneconomyseries.com for topics, speakers and dates.

Speakers include:

Gary Liss | Zero Waste Economy Community Planning | June 24-26

Nate Downey l Water Harvesting in Arid Lands July 22,23

Owen Hablutzel | Keyline Design for Whole Fertility Farm | July 24

Joel Salatin | Ballet in the Pasture: Polyface Farms | August 26, 27

Kirk Gadzia | Holistic Land Management | September 16-18

Dr. Elaine Ingham | Soil Food Web & Compost Technology | October 14-16

For more info, or to register, please visit www.carboneconomyseries.com .

For more info and to register: http://westcoastwomenspc.weebly.com/

to register for all or part: http://www.covolv.org/covolv-sustainable-travel/special-deals-experience-packages.html

via COVOLV: Permaculture Heroes Vol.1 on Vimeo.

Permaculture Heroes Vol 1, the first minidoc in this series, is a short introduction to permaculture, a legendary permaculturist Larry Santoyo, and an amazing model of permacuture, the Indigenous CO-OP & Community high in the Sierra Madre called Tosepan Titataniske, which means in Nauhatl, “Going Forward Together We Will Succeed”. Tosepan Titataniske is an autonomous CO-OP in the beautiful mountains of the Sierra Madre in Cuetzalan. Puebla. Mexico. They are one of the finest models of peaceful autonomy and of a people practicing ecological, economic, and cultural sustainability.

So until that happens, I stay cool by drinking ice-tea sweetened with mint from the garden and lie down to read a new book in the shade of the tree I planted a few years ago when I moved to this once-barren corner of The Ranch.

I’m grateful for that tree and its intrinsic ability to cast shade and cool the environment around it.  It can’t help but do that – it’s its nature.

I find that appreciation to be a similar theme running through the new book I’m reading, “Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World”. It’s a collection of essays from luminaries in the environmental movement, including Larry Santoyo, that address the question “If our world is facing an imminent environmental catastrophe, how do I live my life right now?

And while each of the many authors has their unique and beautiful take on the question, it seems that it comes down to this: let us cherish and protect what we love about our world now. Wherever we live, city, country, apartment or house, we each can find a way to act upon and honor this and that will give us the power to continue.

I find that learning permaculture design has helped me to do that. By understanding that everything is a potential resource,  I allow myself to see more possibilities and probabilities for designing and caring for the systems, natural and constructed, around me and to play with them. That gives me hope.

Being involved in the design courses for over 10 years and watching the students who have taken them also gives me hope, as I  know now that there are plenty of people out there whose care is leading them to seek the tools that can help them effect the greatest change with the resources at hand.

If you need an inspirational lift for dealing with the world’s challenges, then do go ahead and read this book. If you want to learn a process for meeting those challenges, then study permaculture. There’s still time to register for EarthFlow’s LA permaculture class series beginning Oct 2 & 3 and for the two week intensive San Luis Obispo permaculture class that begins Oct. 17 .

As Larry reminds his students, “We have everything we need for a sustainable future now.” Truly, we don’t need to wait for anyone or anything. It’s just a matter of choosing- agreeing- to make the changes necessary.

Feeling hot? Plant a tree, grow some cooling mint for your ice tea and then come help me build my earth-sheltered coolroom.  Restoring our place in the natural world is the greatest challenge and most hopeful thing that we can do now to adapt and advance.

If you’re new to us, welcome; if you’re not, thanks for visiting again to see what’s new.

We’ll be talking about things and people of interest in our classes, projects and communities… as well as highlighting issues we think are of importance in the world at large.

Everything can be described as a predictable pattern: though we are not fortune-tellers, we know that by being keenly aware of the present, we can predict the next step in the cycle- and choose to step in and change the flow of the pattern if we wish to change the outcome.

The time is now to change what you or we wish to see in the world- will you step in with us?

We welcome your questions, comments and maybe a little bit of your concerns.