William George Paul

"Longbow Village: A Permaculture Story"

In the years after the silence — when the roads cracked and the stores stood empty, when the land had forgotten the sound of laughter — people began to wander, looking not for riches, but for each other.

Among them walked Marty the Builder and Joan the Baker. They carried no gold, only small tools and a pouch of saved seeds. Where others saw ruin, they saw the patient bones of the earth, waiting for new songs.

One evening, they came upon a dry valley. The moon hung low, shaped like a longbow drawn across the horizon. Marty pressed his hands into the tired soil and said, “This place remembers water.” Joan knelt beside him, whispering, “Then we will teach it to flow again.”

So the people gathered — ten, then twenty, then fifty — calling themselves the Longbow Village, for they wished to bend together in strength, not break apart. They built cisterns to catch the rain and swales to slow its journey. They planted guilds of trees — apples embracing clover, berries feeding bees. They pressed seeds into the dust and sang to them under the new sun.

Work became their prayer. Some shaped bricks from earth, some brewed soap from ash. Marty raised walls with hands that had known both war and harvest. Joan baked bread that smelled of courage. Together they wove a pattern of care across the land — orchards, gardens, forges, mills, bees, cows, oxen, and children.

Yet the true trial did not come from drought or frost. It came when abundance arrived. The storerooms filled, and old fears whispered, “Take more, guard your own.” For a time, the people forgot the promise of the Longbow.

One dawn, Marty climbed the hill above the village and strung a great bow from the bending limbs of a willow. He called the people together. “A bow’s power,” he said, “is not in how hard it is pulled, but in how true it bends. So too are we.”

The people listened. Old greed softened into gratitude. They feasted that night beside the pond, where the frogs sang of rain and return.

And since then, it’s said, when the moon rises full over the reeds, you can hear the hum of the Longbow — the sound of a village that remembered how to live.

And in that sound are all of us — builders, bakers, planters, keepers — bending together toward tomorrow.

Resilient Communities Network
https://resilientcommunities.network/

"The Food Forest"

At the village’s edge, the soil waited
No single hero rose only the many
hands shaping circles of care

They planted hope in layers
roots deep, branches reaching
children pressing seeds like promises

Seasons tested them
drought, abundance, hunger, joy
They tended both tree and trust

When fruit hung heavy for all
they spoke only of ours
The land changed them
and they became its myth.

resilientcommunities.network/

"The Soilmakers of Bend"
A RCN New Myth

In the high desert winds of Bend, Oregon, where lawns once shimmered green with foreign thirst, there stood a village restless for renewal. Jake and his friends felt the hum beneath their feet — a whisper from the earth asking to be tended, not tamed. Each morning, they gathered at the Commons, a circle of bare soil and grass still clinging to its suburb past. They called themselves The Soilmakers.

Their elders spoke of the Resilient Communities Network, a web of kindred villages forming a constellation across the land — places learning again how to live with the earth instead of upon it. So Jake’s band took the old lawns as their dragon to slay. Their adventure began with spades and shovels, not swords.

At first, there was doubt. The lawns resisted, the soil was thin and tired, rich only in memories of pesticides. Yet they planted hope — organic seeds gathered from neighbors — and built compost heaps like shrines. Worm by worm, they made new soil. Water flowed from new swales, and the first sprigs of kale rose like green phoenixes.

The crisis came one summer when the heat grew fierce and the sprouts shriveled. The village nearly lost faith. Then, together, they remembered the permaculture principle of observation. They slowed down, shaded the beds, gathered mulch from the forest, and sang to the soil. The garden breathed again.

By autumn, the lawns had vanished, replaced by food forests buzzing with bees and laughter. The Commons was reborn — a permanent place of sharing, where no one bought vegetables; they exchanged stories instead. Jake and his friends were no longer just gardeners — they were stewards of a living myth.

Now, each spring, when newcomers arrive to learn, the elders tell the tale of how the Soilmakers turned grass into grain and separation into community. The myth lives on, spreading through the Resilient Communities Network — a reminder that regeneration always begins with the courage to plant something new.

Resilient Communities Network
https://resilientcommunities.network/

"A Permaculture Garden"

When storms of anger shook the town
Mark and Susan called the circle round
Not with shouts, but with open hands
They turned the soil, they healed the lands

Together sowing more than seeds
They planted trust to meet all needs
Roots of care, of earth’s embrace
Grew stronger than the hearts of hate

The village rose where weeds once spread
The garden sang where discord led
And in the bloom, their myth was told
That love restores what fear had sold.

Resilient Communities Network
https://resilientcommunities.network/

"The Skyward Village Aquaponics Center"
A Resilient Communities Network Story

Skyward Village sits on a gentle rise above Western Oregon, a place where the morning fog nuzzles the evergreens and the sun finds its way through the cedar canopy like a patient rumor. By summer of 2026, a three-acre heartbeat will pulse at the edge of town—the Aquaponics Center, born from the Resilient Communities Network, a project that looks as much toward tomorrow as it does to the soil beneath our feet.

Jacki Smith stands at the center of a glass-walled room, watching the first glimpse of life in the recirculating world below. The tanks gleam like tranquil seas, housing tilapia that move with a quiet, patient purpose. Above them, the grow beds rise in gradients of green, leafy and eager as if they, too, are listening for the town’s heartbeat. The air smells faintly of citrus and fresh earth—the delicate scent of a promise being watered into reality. Outside, a crane’s cage of movement swims in the background, as if the center itself is drawing its future into form.

The project has two seasons in one: growth and giving. The 180,000 pounds of nutrient-rich produce will travel from Skyward Village’s aquaponic rows to the village market, then beyond, a green ribbon stitching together kitchens, schools, and homes. The nursery starts—150,000 of them each year—will sprout not only into backyard gardens but into the dreams of individuals who once carried heavier weights. Six-month paid training programs will welcome formerly incarcerated and system-impacted community members, teaching them to tend the living architecture of water, fish, and plants. It is a kind of second chance that begins with responsibility—the patient art of balancing a delicate ecosystem and a human story in one breath.

The center’s philosophy threads through every decision like a river’s current. Sustainability is not a buzzword here; it’s the method. Ninety percent less water than traditional farming means that every droplet matters, that the community’s wells are not infinite but patient. It is resilience in practice: a facility designed with the knowledge that the weather can be fickle, the market can sway, and people can stumble, yet still there will be a harvest to stand on.

In the video the team shoots, the camera follows a hand guiding a young leafy green into bloom, then moves to a fish tank where the tilapia drift in a silvery calm. Jacki speaks softly, explaining how the system's bacteria keep the balance, how the pump keeps the rhythm, how the water stays clean enough to drink for a finned and forgotten moment—though not quite for drinking, because the roots of the vegetables drink more than water here; they drink possibility.

As the sun climbs higher, the village comes into view through the center’s wide windows: a community garden on the edge of the urban core, a place where underutilized land finds a second life as a co-created, worker-owned future. The pathways are mapped in red clay and composted soil; the air carries the murmurs of people planning for their own farms of tomorrow, inspired by Skyward Village’s example, encouraged by the Resilient Communities Network.

Permaculture philosophy threads through the story the video hopes to tell: observe, reflect, design with nature rather than against it. The aquaponics center is not isolated from Western Oregon’s ecosystems; it lives within them, feeding and being fed by the rain, the sun, the soil’s memory, and the neighborhood’s longing for a more stable future. It’s a living classroom where the lessons are practical and the outcomes are shared—fish become fertilizer, plants become nourishment, and people become the stewards of both.

When the film crew packs up for the day, the lights dim over the grow beds, and Jacki remains for a moment longer, listening to the soft, ceaseless churn of water. She thinks about the six-month cycles—training cohorts, apprentices, mentors, and the future that will follow them into on-site farms built on reclaimed urban land. She sees not just crops and fish but a pipeline of opportunity: a small library of skills that can travel with a person wherever they land, a map of pathways to ownership that begins where land is underutilized and ends with a community grown strong enough to take ownership of its own sustainability.

The sun sets over Western Oregon, painting the center in a warm, amber glow. Skyward Village stands ready—an ember in a breezy valley, a promise that resilience is not merely endurance but the active cultivation of life in harmony with nature. The video will tell this story, but the truth will linger in the air: that sustainable systems, properly tended, can feed communities, heal past wounds, and open doors to futures only imagined a season ago.

Resilient Communities Network
https://resilientcommunities.network/

Hi Tess. I am helping design RCN. Some of my experiences with this project can be found here: https://willipaulstudio.com/. See "Research."

"permaculture collaborators"
A Resilient Communities Network Story

Under the warm morning sun, a small group of learners gathered beneath a sprawling oak tree at the edge of the village. The smell of earth lingered in the air, freshly turned from yesterday’s composting workshop. This was the beginning of their journey through the Resilient Communities Network’s Village Permaculture Design Course - a living classroom dedicated to reimagining how humans coexist with nature.

The days unfolded in rhythm with the land. Mornings were filled with lessons on regenerative design principles, where students observed patterns in wind, water, and soil. They learned how to restore health to tired landscapes through careful water harvesting, contour design, and composting practices that turned waste into vitality. Afternoons brought hands-on projects: building soil terraces to slow erosion, planting diverse food forests, and experimenting with natural building materials to erect small shelters that breathed with the earth.

Evenings were times of reflection and community. Around the campfire, participants shared meals made from the land and stories of transformation. Guest instructors brought wisdom from decades of experience - farmers, architects, and community organizers all weaving a vision of resilience through practical skill sharing. Topics ranged from disaster preparedness to financial permaculture, grounding high ideals in actionable tools for real-world regeneration.

By the final week, the village had become more than a teaching site - it was a living ecosystem of ideas, people, and plants working in harmony. Participants not only redesigned landscapes but began to reimagine their roles as caretakers and collaborators with nature. As they rolled up tents and packed away notes, many felt that the real course was just beginning. They carried home seeds - both literal and symbolic - to plant in their own communities.

Resilient Communities Network
https://resilientcommunities.network/

"The Well at Sky Village"
New Myth from RCN

Long ago, Sky Village in the land of the Dust Plains, had forgotten the song of rain. Families carried jars across miles of cracked earth, and their hopes were thin as the air. One moonless night, a circle of neighbors gathered around a single candle and vowed to dig a well - not for one house, but for all.

The first shovel struck stone, and despair whispered that the earth itself refused them. But they remembered their promise: care for the earth, care for the people, share the surplus. So they worked together - elders and children, builders and dreamers - lifting rocks, singing work songs, and mapping the flow of ancient water.

After many days, the ground trembled. A cool breath rose from below, and water burst forth like the memory of the first rains. The Sky Village people danced, drenched in joy. When others from dry valleys came seeking water, they were taught to read the land, to plant trees where roots might guide the flow, and to dig their own wells with many hands. In this way, the Dust Plains became a living network of green - a resilient community woven by care.

And they still say: water is life, but cooperation is how life endures.

Resilient Communities Network
https://resilientcommunities.network/