Rosemary: thank you

Hello Rosemary, really I wouldn't know what to ask, I mean you have been so extensive in this week that I find difficult to touch any new subject.
I'm near to starting my pdc, hope in march 2015, but I've been reading a lot and here on permies.com they make me feel at home, so I ask what gets in my mind.

My question is about permaculture as a method or a dogma. I hear a lot of people that tell me you can't do this because Mollison in introduction to permaculture says you can't, I wasn't speaking of building a nuclear reactor but of using multiple grazing animals that I had read and found interesting on a permablog. Anyway, I think we have to focus a lot on the way permaculture is passed on to others, it can't be seen as a dogma, but i think we have to focus on the fact it is a method of design, it's principles aren't to recite by memory but have to be applied in all the niches of life.

what is difficult is that the experiences are growing a lot around the world and sometimes there are people that think that solutions found are in contradiction with what Mollison wrote thirty years ago. I like the fact that in the world people have made the method evolve, apply to diverse regions and found solutions.

I can't apply everything Mollison writes for Australia and obviously have to find the path for Italy based solutions.

I loved your answer to Burra Maluca, permies.com mother tree, on another post on the teaching and how you can get to it. In Italy we have a diverse situation divided between two different institutes and sometimes it's difficult to understand why they argue so much. this takes people away from the movement and I think is the worst thing we can do.
I think the best thing would be to have some sites that apply a permaculture design and that can show what you can achieve with permaculture.
I would like not so much one day to teach but to demonstrate what can be done with good method of design.

edit: had forgotten one aspect. What happens after a pdc? this is my big point we risk to find ourselves full of ideas but alone, thats why I'm in too strengthening the network of cooperation around my region. it already exists in some regions in Italy, especially in Sicily, they are awesome, but what we need is to have people that may not have access to big money to manage some works they have to do with this network. I see with the network the possibility then to gain the help even of people that not necessarily have already a PDC but have some usefull expertise. like building stone walls in spring we're organising a two day course on that. I work reclaimed wood and I can use that expertise to help others, isn't that even permaculture, sharing one's knowledge?
Today I'm leaving for a weekend on a friends farm to dig some swales and do other earthworks I may not have a PDC but I have arms to work, then he'll come to my land in spring like this we create a network, and i share my surplus of energy and friendship

all the best, and may you walk on natures path with joy

Lorenzo

Lorenzo - you have an amazing network started - keep it up! To me, this feels like the highest expression of the ethics - to not only care for earth and people but share and spread what you know so that others may benefit. I have no doubt you will create a wonderful, exciting demonstration site.

this is the swale we dug this weekend, a part of it actually, great two day's work, pity I had to go back to reality and get back to my real work
but I'll be able to change in the near future
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=764990026905202&set=vb.100001826347398&type=2&theater
and here a timelapse of part of the work!

Thank you Jennifer, well I try to cope with the fact I don't have a PDC but I am willing to work and learn hands' on, but still I think we pay to little attention some times on what happens after a PDC I want to start maybe a thread to know what people think of this point, just to know what people do after they take a PDC what they achieve