K Daugherty

I LOVE this idea... not to differentiate in the negative, but to better understand where someone is coming from in a more positive, how-do-we-communicate-more-effectively kinda way. I believe permaculture is the kind of subject everyone sees through filters we bring to the table when we learn it. What I hear in many comments regarding 'purple' heavy events is that people mildly (or greatly) resent being pressured into approaching perma through a specific filter. "Purple" participants will in turn complain that sepia-tone brown events have no heart and lose the feel of perma. Blue's have no idea why they are even bothering with such small scale and whites and greens are finding it difficult to sit still when there's exploration to be done But truly, if I have two tickets to the flower and garden show I want to find the lavenders in my Rolodex. Mormon estate sale with mass food storage equipment? Bring on the black. Disaster relief to be done... again reds and blacks are first on that list... one to teach the other to distribute.

Considering we design with different plants when we learn to appreciate their attributes, why should we treat people in a community any differently? I think this is actually a beautiful way of clustering peoples preferred skill sets and world views into a multi-talented well rounded permie juggernaut...... OR we could just sit around and continue to debate who's filter color is 'right'

yukkuri kame wrote:Why stop at purple:

Purple - we all intuitively know what this means
Brown - ? ill defined in my mind, except in opposition to purple
Green - ecotopians, would rather be foraging in zone 5 than figuring out how to feed the urban billions
Blue - businessmen like Gunter Pauli, author of the "blue economy" that are trying to bring systems design up to economy of scale
Red - feel entitled to distribute the fair share on behalf of those who are obtaining a yield
Black - Doomers, Peak Oilers
Lavender - Nice ladies that like to dabble in the garden, who are happy as long as it blooms pretty and attracts butterflies.
White - mycophiles who got a vision of permaculture when communing with the 'shrooms
etc., etc.

I imagine there are as many colors of permaculture as there are permies. To me, classifying into purple and brown is unnecessarily polarizing, though perhaps appropriately thought provoking.

What happened to integrate rather than segregate? What if purple were a weed in your system? What would you do with it? I presume the preponderance of purple has a purpose and a place in permaculture. My ability to obtain a yield from purple is limited by imagination and the amount of information I have about it.

UPDATE: With 16ish hours left to go in the survey the raw data standings look like this:

North East US / New England 29%

South East & Atlantic Coast 14%

Upper Midwest & Central planes 16%

Northwest Coast & Inland / BC 15%

Southern Cal / Southwest drylands 19%

Central West Coast / Bay Area 7%

Outside Contenental US - willing to travel 1%


adjusted for travel it is the NE in 1st, MW and Central Cali tied for 2nd, SE in 3rd and NW and SW tied for 4th. Survey is still open till Nov 5th. U.S. Permies have your say at: www.bit.ly/USPCsurvey2012

STANDINGS AS OF TODAY IN NATIONAL SURVEY

After weighting responses to reflect distance people are willing to travel, the information gathered thus far indicates 46.5% would go to the Northeast and 47% would go to central California.

Also emerging from these surveys were two viable offers of Amherst, MA or Sacramento, CA... sooooooo... If you feel strongly for or against either of these eventualities please a) make sure you've filled out a survey and b) pass on the link to your respective networks. Survey is open till Nov 5th. Thanks again for your participation!

Actually the 'outside the US willing to travel' was always there And that is where our friends to the north have been placing themselves in the survey.  my recommendation to someone asking where Ohio fell in the regions was to select the region you'd most be willing to travel to...same with Texas where half the state considers itself SW and the other The South and outsides think it should be it's own country all together... being a Texas native i can almost agree

As the individuals who have volunteered to facilitate the convergence are in LA, Miami, Seattle, and NY it doesn't matter where it ends up three of us will be making quite a haul to get to it. FYI a little inside scoop from the IPC... Alaskans need to be talking to the Canadians since Canada wants to qualify for an IPC and needs to hold a national convergence to qualify.

Thank you L.London for reminding me... Ive been meaning to post this to your listserve as well. just coming down off the backside of a 70hour workweek and been doing this in my 'spare' time LOL

OPEN INVITATION TO US PERMIES

At the International Permaculture Convergence an open session was held to discuss the possibility of holding a US National Convergence. If you live in the states and/or would be interested in attending and would be willing to fill out a questionare about what region your in and other convergence preferences please go to: www.bit.ly/USPCsurvey2012  and fill out the form.

note: Participation in this survey does not obligate you to attend. We are just gathering some rough numbers to get going. Please feel free to share this survey with your extended permie networks as well.  The more feedback we start with the better.

Thanks in advance for your participation and to Paul for this forum to spread to invitation