Permaculture is a design science started by a University Professor in Australia. It has a list of ethics and a design protocol. It leads with theory and brings that theory to life with
land use techniques. There is structure to the design theory, and a University quality textbook to boot (Permaculture: A Designer's Manual). There is a sort of recipe, as you say. For many people this makes it much easier to learn.
For Holzer's methods there is no recipe book, no list of ethics, no design protocol. The way that Sepp developed his techniques is the reverse approach. Everything he knows he has learned through his own
experience as a keen observer of nature; he's constantly experimenting and observing the outcomes. Communicating with and observing nature, reading the landscape and climate, these are the only "design protocols" that Sepp uses.
Sepp is more like a
Native American coyote teacher than a university professor. He often answers questions with a question, and he never just gives you
the answer to a question that was not thought about beforehand. If you are not thinking for yourself, without fear as a quick witted and keen observer (like the coyote), then you have failed from the very start. Nature is the ultimate guide and is always speaking to us all; all we have to do to listen is release our fear and open our senses.
It is a very special experience to spend some time with Sepp. He walks the world seeing catastrophic mismanagement of land, seeing the natural systems that were in place, that could be in place again. He sees the
trees dying, the soil drying, nature telling us her current condition. What he sees is so simple, so logical; the fundamental aspects of living a meaningful existence in harmony with nature. Yet everywhere he goes this blows people's minds because they are so deep in the cripples of theory. Sepp has made every mistake you can imagine, we learn much more from our failures than our successes. These mistakes are a big part of why he has so much knowledge to share.
Sepp also speaks passionately about civil courage (which is sometimes but not always a part of permaculture). Seeing such degraded landscapes he understands that it is long overdue for the people to stand up and courageously advocate for the health of their lands. We cannot remain quite anymore while our world suffers one man made catastrophe after another.
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