reason for permaculture, or in other words, is that trip really necessary?

Hey all permies

I stumbled around your forum, where i was looking for some info on how to live banker-free. Kinda master of own domain style. However more I drilled down the subject the more I saw people who achieved that goal of self dependence feeling lonely and wanting to hang around others more. So I wonder, is it really worth it, or would it be more personally beneficial to do some craft and help with it some other people, or sell art. Living on a boat or in a some small town community? (something like in the disney flick 'cars')

I am wondering about emotional aspect of going permie, since it sure seems nice to have a refuge when all things will start crumbling down, but it seems to be lonely at the top for some.

However, the more i read the more i saw people who go into woods who carry some emotional scar, which they try to coverup with saying 'watch me, succeeding in the world'.

I compiled various popular scares that lead people into thinking, "omg omg, lets stop having a life and be eco instead" http://pleasanthacking.com/2012/03/13/popular-scares-of-the-first-world-debunked-by-science/ and response from the science which tells that its not really that bad as one might think.

In that you will find that science is pretty much solid about the fact that human-animals are not influencing climate change, and with the internet we can learn that vaccines are not that healthy because simple going vegan (like Mike Tyson, or Bill Clinton) will solve all of your longterm health needs, and that there are some small-town communities that operate without money where everyone can grab a brocolli that grows in public space and eat it (Tobmorden in UK)

That plus for example when nature left to its own, like it happens in the chernobyl area ( http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chernobyl+life+in+the+dead+zone ) it thrives and handles itself on its own remarkably well. Not that I endorse messing up nature, but was just wondering about, is being permie really necessary when one can be happy instead?

What puzzles me about back to the land movement is voluntary abandoning of all the good stuff some cities have. I come from the software world, and I saw that NIH pattern there too (Not Invented Here) where people would reinvent same thing over and over for the sake of it, and sadly to say kinda out of spite. Isn't it better to stay in city and figure out how to heal the system instead of changing it?

All I wanna as is why do you guys do go permie?

Thanks for all kind replies

( comic below is CC BY-NC from http://abstrusegoose.com/343 to kinda show my point of view on why to complicate stuff that is simple )

You do not have to go into the woods to go permie (though I have).

Permaculture can be considered a design system - where elements are redundant and resiliant and each element performs more than one function. You could think about how to apply this to your economic life and the desire to live banker free.

You'd need multiple kinds of money and multiple was to earn it.

I'm guessing the vast majority of permaculturists live in suburbia. I might be wrong, but they sure seem to. I agree, CJ, permaculture is a design system for human settlements, including urban.

1. Permaculture does not mean being a hermit, in fact, if you listen to people like Toby Hemenway and Peter Bane you'll see that it's actually much more preferable to live in a community. Interdependence is much more resilient than self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency doesn't even mean isolation in the first place.

2. Veganism is good and all that, but in the temperate climate it's not really feasible. Much healthier to have animals in the system harvesting calories that you can't (such as thistle, grass, ect) into edible protein (raw milk, fresh eggs, rabbit meat, ect.) There's also an inherent contradiction in the vegan ideal of not harming animals, but finding it fine to harm plants. Both are living beings, and if you accept that it's alright to harm plants in order to eat them (which is necessary in a temperate climate) than there is no reason that you cannot eat meat or products from animals. We are talking naturally raised animals here though, not factory farm. If a chicken does it's chicken thing and lives a good life and produces tasty and healthy eggs every day or so, why should you not eat them?

I went permie because it makes the most sense from the most perspectives. If you go by the lowest common denominator of worldviews, which I find to be materialism, it makes sense. From a spiritual perspective it makes even more sense. When you grow a portion of your own food, you create power for yourselves and your community, you connect to the earth, and you learn a great deal. By doing this, it is possible to start dropping out from the current exploitative economic system that bases value on numbers and start basing value off of usefulness, practicality, life, and information.

Best of luck in your journey,

Isaac

P.S. Here's a great essay by Toby: http://www.patternliteracy.com/107-the-myth-of-self-reliance

I do kinda know the whole lets make it self sustaining type of thing. Tho i still wonder, given that we as a species have ability to construct self-feeding (duckweed based) aquaponics, where only input is sunshine and output is clean organic veggies (and fish for non-vegans). Is it really worth the effort to setup whole food forests and so on? Replacing office 9-5 with nature 9-5 instead of figuring out how to reduce overall work input to the system?

What if you could instead work with your local community to make public grow spaces accessible by anyone with no restrictions, just like guys at the Todmorden are doing: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2072383/Eccentric-town-Todmorden-growing-ALL-veg.html

Wouldnt it be more happier place to be than reinventing society on your own all the time? After all we all use chinese made communication devices I guess the only real difference is whether you use free for all opensource (android, ubuntu, linux, heirloom seeds, biodiesel svo - straight vegetable oil) or restrictive tied to the money and patents type of thingy (monsanto, microsoft, big-oil).

But overall on personal level, is it really makes one more happier trying to re-create society instead of healing it?

Artur Sowinski wrote:Replacing office 9-5 with nature 9-5 instead of figuring out how to reduce overall work input to the system?

Permaculture reduces overall work input to the system because the system becomes largely self-supporting.

Tho i still wonder, given that we as a species have ability to construct self-feeding (duckweed based) aquaponics, where only input is sunshine and output is clean organic veggies (and fish for non-vegans).

I have an aquaponics setup but it's just a small part of the big picture. What's your backup? What if the grid goes down?

Is it really worth the effort to setup whole food forests and so on? Replacing office 9-5 with nature 9-5 instead of figuring out how to reduce overall work input to the system?

Again, no one says you have to give up your day job to "do" permaculture.

Cj Verde wrote:
I have an aquaponics setup but it's just a small part of the big picture.

Same here.

I live in NJ, the most densely populated state in the country, in a city too. It's not the most populated city by any means (actually, it might be the least populated city in the state), but I've been learning about and trying to apply permaculture for several years now. There's a group of people who are meeting in my town to integrate permaculture into our overall plan for the future, th rough the Transition Town model. Also, there's quite a vibrant and up and coming permaculture community throughout the state, and most of it centers around the urban areas, including new brunswick, jersey city, belleville, camden. Not to mention the fact that philly and new york have frequent permaculture events and several permaculture projects that I'm aware of.

It's not just about going back to the land. It's primarily a way of designing things (any and all things, including technology, cities, whatever) that models itself after ecology, focusing on the relationships between things instead of each individual component. So for a city, you don't view sewage as a substance that should be taken as far away as possible to be treated by chemicals, but rather look at the sewage itself for a function it could provide to some other useful element that might be desired, such as fuel (methane), fertilizer for plants, or possibly even using plants themselves to treat the waste. The ideal in permaculture would be to install composting toilets in every housing unit, which could then be harvested once safe for use, and used to grow food on the roof and balconies of the building. This turns an expensive waste disposal process into a useful resource. That's one of the main ideas behind permaculture, produce no waste, just like a healthy ecosystem.

Here's a video about urban permaculture from one of the guys who invented permaculture, Bill Mollison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpyocn1Vc5U

There is an overlap between permies and "back to the land" people in the country and even the "sh*t hits the fan" survivalist types. I see all different kinds talking about permaculture online. But permaculture itself is just a way of thinking about things as complex systems that can either be self-sustaining (inputs and outputs all used and generated within the system) or dependent on outside inputs or some outside way of dealing with waste streams (an unused output would be considered a system's "waste" if it is offloaded to someone else who isn't using it as an input). To practice permaculture, nobody needs to be a "self-sufficient" bug-out-bag-carrying separatist running away from their real life's challenges to live in an intentional community fantasy world. I can see how people get that impression from some of the stuff we all see online, but as others stated, I believe most practitioners of permaculture are likely fairly integrated in the normal social, media, and monetary ebb and flow in their broader communities. The totally off-grid, unplugged, far out hippies are definitely the minority, but they also bring value by really testing the limits and trying to live in ways that most people would find counterproductive or a little backward.

Most of us probably don't want to give up our arts, culture, safety nets, and DIVERSITY (which includes people who don't think like you and yes, a criminal element, and people you wouldn't choose to live with but we're all better for the challenge). And we all have very different reasons to try permaculture.

My reasons include:
- Best Practices. I'm the lazy type of software developer (I HATE reinventing the wheel) and I love standing on the shoulders of giants in terms of taking tested ideas from people who know more than I do. Permaculture has shown some amazing results. It makes sense to me.
- Commercial Chemical Distrust. I'm also self-employed now but have always had an interest in graphic design and marketing (my first post-high-school job was in this field, not IT). The amazing thing about marketing is how effectively the world can convince people they need and want things that are patently bad for them. I have a gut feeling that farmers have been seriously hoodwinked in the past 50-80 years. The only people profiting big from current ag practices are the chem companies. Follow the money and you will wonder why farmers ever thought dependency on chemicals was a good idea. I fear for our food safety, food supply, and the long-term ability to keep up with population growth. Not because there are too many people on Earth (I totally reject that hypothesis) but because our technology and ag solutions have just been totally wrong for the future. Sustainability lies in local, distributed food systems and permaculture ideals will help people advance these smarter solutions. We may have moved in the right direction sooner but there are big companies that profit greatly by keeping us all on the wrong track.
- Lover of Good Food. I really like food. I love fruit but find organic fresh fruit to be expensive and hard to come by. I resent that the best tasting fruit will never be available to me as a shopper (because flavorful fruit doesn't ship well and is sometimes only best after peak harvest, storage, bletting, or other home-grown processing). If I want the best, I have to grow it here.
- Cheap and Intermittently Lazy. I will get more from a food forest garden (per $ spent on plants and inputs) than I would get from a high-maintenance annual garden (where if you miss a beat you can lose entire crops). Permaculture earthworks and rain water harvesting promise reduced water bills, and saving $ is awesome.

You'll notice there is not a lot of hippie-dippy stuff on my list of motivators. I am not a save-the-planet-green-eco-tree-hugger because I believe the planet is already the boss of us. We are doing our thing, and it looks like we are destroying this or that, ultimately, a volcano could blow or a hurricane could hit and we're just ants under nature's foot. Our perceived power is simply arrogance in my eyes. What we need to do is focus on saving ourselves, which means protecting the life forms that evolved with us so we have a chance to live as long as the dinosaurs did... but beyond that? Humanity is not sustainable nor was it meant to be (everything at the "top" of the food chain has its day and then gets smacked down). To think we'll be stewarding Earth forever (or even more than a few million years) is not likely, imo. Doesn't mean I advocate trashing the planet while we're here, but I don't see us as the saviors of the world or having that big of a long-term impact. For me, permaculture is about a better today for me, and tomorrow for my kids. Beyond that, who knows? I try not to assume.

You're right, Kelly, there's a lot of diversity among permaculturists; I don't think one can make any broad generalizations really. I'm more of the hippy dippy tree huggy type myself but what appeals to me most about permaculture is what I can see as the real convenience and money savings of growing my own food and producing (some of) my own energy, rather than being so dependent on working for money to buy these things. Also the convenience of just walking out the back door to pick dinner is very appealing! This is the laziness factor I guess; it's a lot of trouble to go to the store.

Artur Sowinski wrote:I do kinda know the whole lets make it self sustaining type of thing. Tho i still wonder, given that we as a species have ability to construct self-feeding (duckweed based) aquaponics, where only input is sunshine and output is clean organic veggies (and fish for non-vegans). Is it really worth the effort to setup whole food forests and so on? Replacing office 9-5 with nature 9-5 instead of figuring out how to reduce overall work input to the system?

What if you could instead work with your local community to make public grow spaces accessible by anyone with no restrictions, just like guys at the Todmorden are doing: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2072383/Eccentric-town-Todmorden-growing-ALL-veg.html

Wouldnt it be more happier place to be than reinventing society on your own all the time? After all we all use chinese made communication devices I guess the only real difference is whether you use free for all opensource (android, ubuntu, linux, heirloom seeds, biodiesel svo - straight vegetable oil) or restrictive tied to the money and patents type of thingy (monsanto, microsoft, big-oil).

But overall on personal level, is it really makes one more happier trying to re-create society instead of healing it?

I think that you're making some assumptions about permaculture and permaculturists that just aren't true. A bit more delving into the idea of Permaculture would render your questions meaningless. It might hook you, too.

Rob Meyer wrote:I live in NJ, the most densely populated state in the country, in a city too. It's not the most populated city by any means (actually, it might be the least populated city in the state), but I've been learning about and trying to apply permaculture for several years now. There's a group of people who are meeting in my town to integrate permaculture into our overall plan for the future, th rough the Transition Town model. Also, there's quite a vibrant and up and coming permaculture community throughout the state, and most of it centers around the urban areas, including new brunswick, jersey city, belleville, camden. Not to mention the fact that philly and new york have frequent permaculture events and several permaculture projects that I'm aware of.

It's not just about going back to the land. It's primarily a way of designing things (any and all things, including technology, cities, whatever) that models itself after ecology, focusing on the relationships between things instead of each individual component. So for a city, you don't view sewage as a substance that should be taken as far away as possible to be treated by chemicals, but rather look at the sewage itself for a function it could provide to some other useful element that might be desired, such as fuel (methane), fertilizer for plants, or possibly even using plants themselves to treat the waste. The ideal in permaculture would be to install composting toilets in every housing unit, which could then be harvested once safe for use, and used to grow food on the roof and balconies of the building. This turns an expensive waste disposal process into a useful resource. That's one of the main ideas behind permaculture, produce no waste, just like a healthy ecosystem.

out of curiosity, where in NJ are you?

Artur Sowinski wrote:

What if you could instead work with your local community to make public grow spaces accessible by anyone with no restrictions, just like guys at the Todmorden are doing: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2072383/Eccentric-town-Todmorden-growing-ALL-veg.html

Very permacultural! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/seattle-food-forest_n_1327458.html

Isaac Hill wrote:

I think that you're making some assumptions about permaculture and permaculturists that just aren't true. A bit more delving into the idea of Permaculture would render your questions meaningless. It might hook you, too.

What is permaculture? Apparently not running off to live alone in the woods!

http://permaculture.org.au/what-is-permaculture/

Kelly Rued wrote:You'll notice there is not a lot of hippie-dippy stuff on my list of motivators. I am not a save-the-planet-green-eco-tree-hugger because I believe the planet is already the boss of us. We are doing our thing, and it looks like we are destroying this or that, ultimately, a volcano could blow or a hurricane could hit and we're just ants under nature's foot. Our perceived power is simply arrogance in my eyes. What we need to do is focus on saving ourselves, which means protecting the life forms that evolved with us so we have a chance to live as long as the dinosaurs did... but beyond that? Humanity is not sustainable nor was it meant to be (everything at the "top" of the food chain has its day and then gets smacked down). To think we'll be stewarding Earth forever (or even more than a few million years) is not likely, imo. Doesn't mean I advocate trashing the planet while we're here, but I don't see us as the saviors of the world or having that big of a long-term impact. For me, permaculture is about a better today for me, and tomorrow for my kids. Beyond that, who knows? I try not to assume.

Well said Kelly. I've thought of this recently, the fact that in terms of astronomical/universal phenomenon, there's nothing we can do to plan for the sun's eventual explosion and the subsequent vaporization of all organic matter on earth. Or a massive asteroid impact. Or, or, or. Life is not infinite, at least not in any one place, but given our high level of self-perception and ingenuity, why not use that to make our short existence on this planet as enjoyable and long as possible?

Patrick, I am currently living in Red Bank. I've lived in several areas of the state though, grew up at shore, lived in north jersey for a while. I don't really consider anywhere my official home in the state, just the state/region in general.

Why did I go permie? Because my skin was covered with sores, I was 40 pounds heavier than I am now, and I wanted to retire early but still be able to have plenty of good food on the table. And, oh yeah, I kind of care about animals and I just couldn't stand the increasing horrors that we impose on them so we can eat cheap food.

Now, thanks to a clean chemical free diet my skin is completely cleared up, I am not overwieght but for the first time in my adult life I can eat as much as I want, and we always have an enormous supply of good food on the table that comes from seeds I have saved or animals that I have lovingly raised myself. I do still have to buy some foods but with the savings from raising my own I can afford to spend more for quality foods outside the home.

Is it lonely? Sure, but I really never had much in common with the people who spent thier lives in the doctors office or counting calories - that is why I went searching for something different. I don't care to go back.

Jeanine, that's very inspirational. I don't know if eating more home-grown fruit and veggies will help my health improve but it probably won't hurt!

I wouldn't call it a primary motivator but I also share your desire to see our food-producing animals treated more humanely. I also am concerned about things like declining bee population and other beneficial wildlife. I think permaculture does the best job convincing gardeners to plant things for broader ecological purposes. In the 90s I saw a lot of homes with more native wild flower plantings and rain gardens or butterfly gardens and that was cool, but permaculture is like an evolution of those ideas into planning a garden that works for everyone who actually uses it (including all the wildlife, bugs, fungi, etc.). There is a certain humane and maybe spiritual quality in all of that, even if the main motivator is just getting a nice fruit set with as little culling/damage as possible. I think permaculture promises more win-win between the gardener and other animals.

Also, maybe permaculture does attract more loners or at least people comfortable with doing their own thing outside of the mainstream. I certainly prefer the company of plants to most people (and the company of cats to most plants).

well for me it is a lifestyle that just came naturally to me, I'm not trying to make it a social issue.

I plant fruit and nut trees, fruit vine, berries, brambles and other food bearing shrubs, and perennial, OP and root crops that I can eat ..year round..

I plant food for the wild animals that frequent our property so IF I chose to eat them, I can..

I have a storage pond for water and a shelter that can keep warm from wood off of our own property throughout the coldest winter.

I guess for me it is being able to live without people if I so choose..and I do..generally. Although I do communiate with some people on line or by telephone, it is very rare that people come to our property, I think we have had other than family maybe 3 people per year show up at our house..or thereabouts..

I guess it is a personal thing for each individual..but IF I lived in a city apartment with few windows..I really have no idea how I would eat..or find water if the power was out..or keep warm..etc.

Hmm.. thanks for all replies

Tho still im on a fence here, whether invest in a full time farm, or a masseur course which i could take anywhere with me... I don't really buy that much into ownership of other things than our physical bodies. I rather go for feelings. Sure it would be nice to reinvent the car and so on, and some people do that. However I believe in the power of scale. Some things are better done at larger scale, like i.e. forging steel, making knife or a lightbulb or a glass jar. tho i respect people who do it on their own for own satisfaction. It all depends what we want to pull out of the life.

I guess its the same ol debate that was long time ago between greasers (motorcycle owners who spent their entire day tweaking their machines) and scooter riders who treated the scooter as an appliance that got them from a to b in a pleasant form, without much of involvement in the process of making that whole thing work.

Sure, having own food source would be awesome, but i think if i would go down that path I would use commercial composting service, and grow in tubes ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGVGyAIfjtk ), to minimise the overall maintenance and being soil-independent. I think its more sustainable to have a big-ass composting corpo ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aTWXQqc_4A ) , like John Kohler has to provide own suburban vegan homestead ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX-rL2-KgP4 ) with compost for his 90% organic veggies, and buying rest like coconuts or rice from wholesaler.

To someone who were questioning vegan (plant based only) diet as 'sustainable', youtube is aplenty in folks growing own veggies in hoophouses all year long even throughout winter. Some even augmented with growlights (which can be powered by wind for off-griddin if one would choose to do so). As far as animal rights go, I do see human animals on the same level as non-human animals ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h88ZEf0PqY ), but it its a matter of belief and everyone is entitled to their own. What is scientifically verifiable is that vegan plant based diet makes you not dependent on the big pharma for long-term medical conditions, it reverses diabetes, and so on (link below).

For those who wanna see positive side of vegans (since i admit, theres lots of militant types out there that break the community ) please look at http://pleasanthacking.com/positive-plant-based-promos/ for info on what it means to be plant based, links to celebs like Mike Tyson, Bill Clinton, who are plant based, and so on...

To the guy who was from IT. I wanna minimise my involevment in the system, no need to rewrite libc each time when i could use existing one COTS > NIH, or so i do believe

The grid wont come crashing anytime soon.. Too many people have vested their interested in its operation to let it fail. Even in the case of collapse of US-Dollar, which might happen since people are getting FEDup with the FED (pun intended:P), in case worst will come to worst the keepers of exchange tokens (13 state goverments) are cooking alternative gold-backed dollar coins, just in case:

http://pleasanthacking.com/2012/03/13/popular-scares-of-the-first-world-debunked-by-science/

Tho thanks for feedback y'all, it let me clear up few things