The Problem is the Solution

You know the tagline: "Radical Solutions Inspiring Hope." You know HopeDance is all about exploring neato answers to modern social, ecological, and political ills, and I assume that's why you read it, for if you wanted to bombard yourself with tired, standard complaints, you wouldn't be here, right?

Like HopeDance, permaculture is all about solutions too, as was a program I completed last May, an official two-week permaculture consultant's design course called Earth Activist Training.

On April 26, 28 students of widely varying ages and sexual preferences from across the American soil converged on the forested hills of Cazadero, Sonoma County, to learn about permaculture, activism, and magic. We were primarily taught by two powerful women: Penny Livingston Stark, co-founder (with husband, James) of the Permaculture Institute of Northern California and strummer of Pink Floyd ballads on the campfire guitar, and Starhawk, the famed author and activist instrumental in reviving indigenous European paganism and a creative presence in the anti-corporate globalization movement.

In the coming non-stop 14 days, we studied everything from intentional communities to the remediation of Superfund sites using mushrooms.

"We didn't come here to go down the slippery slope of despondency," Penny said. "We came here to understand what to do." Sounds great, but what, exactly, is this "permaculture," and what, specifically, are these solutions?

Permaculture is a holistic set of ecological design principles that help answer how we can provide, in the city, suburbia, or rural boonies, for our food, energy, shelter, and other needs for an indefinite amount of time. And it is dedicated to providing these things well: it is not some last-ditch effort in the emaciated face of scarcity, but a cultivation of an intimate relationship with one's natural surroundings to create abundance for oneself, for human communities, and the earth.

Especially attractive are the ethics explicit to any permaculture system—take responsibility for our own existence and that of future generations, always give away surplus, cooperation not competition, and of course, the problem is the solution. It's easy, especially as green capitalism (and a sometimes related greenwashing) gains popularity, for operations to appear nice and ecologically friendly without any core commitment to sustainability. For example, is Bakerfield's Grimmway Farms, growers of both conventional and organic plastic-packaged baby carrots, more stoked on regenerating the land through not using pesticides or on the premium they get for their section of farm they grow organically?

On the day we learned about natural building, Starhawk told us, "'It depends,' is the answer to almost every permaculture question."

Fortunately, there exist over 20 principles to guide the permaculturist toward a more definitive idea of what to do with her or his land. Some are pretty standard, concepts commonly associated with organic farming, such as increasing diversity (not just in numbers, but especially in the functional relationships between elements), using biological resources, maintaining natural cycles, working within nature, creating small-scale yet intensive systems, and focusing on the local.

Others are more uniquely within the purview of permaculture (though of course, all the principles reflect nature and transcribe it in human terms). My favorite was "the problem is the solution."

One year, Penny had huge brush piles. She decided to plant pumpkin seeds in the piles, which loved the carbon-rich environment and thrived. She harvested the orange orbs, then exchanged them with the local bakery for pastries. The lesson? Brush piles can be converted into yummy baked treats, with a little ingenuity and a willingness to rethink the "problem."


The Land and Beyond

Application of these synergistic principles can manifest in a beautifully productive plot of earth. Permaculture provides a vision of What Can Be and, in many cases, What Is, like Penny's PINC in Point Reyes, or Larry and Kathryn Santoyo's Center for Natural Design locally in Los Osos.

"Permaculture is a very powerful form of activism," Penny told us early on.

Yet the principles and ethics that make this approach so unique are hardly exclusive to growing food, building homes, or creating energy, but can (and should, in this subjective journalist's most humble opinion) be applied to other areas, such as political activism or personal exploration. Plant guilds, for instance, are species that, if planted together, will have multiple effects on the soil, namely fixing nitrogen, accumulating nutrients, and attracting beneficial insects. In community activism we can form analogous "institutional guilds," composed of city government, educators, farmers, students, residents, businesses, etc., all working as an ensemble to birth some common good, such as a permacultured skatepark, as another EAT instructor, Erik, is working on in Sebastopol.

And if there's any doubt about the power of a system that, like permaculture, fosters self-sufficiency, abundance, and cooperation, it should be eliminated by the following story.

Starhawk had returned from Palestine as part of the International Solidarity Movement a mere three days prior to the first day of EAT. She told us she had visited the Sustainability Institute in Marda. Yet instead of being greeted by bounty and beauty, she walked into an office with files and photos strewn across the floor. Marda's epicenter of permaculture had been attacked, and not, according to Starhawk, because it sheltered any suicide bombers (no such terrorists had ever been from Marda), but because "they were doing something much more dangerous."

"They were teaching people to detach themselves from Israeli economic control and become self-reliant," she said, bringing home to a roomful of American peaceniks the understanding that permaculture embodies incredible significance beyond just composting poop and planting pretty gardens.

Throughout the next two weeks, between building cobb benches and completing a greywater system, we learned about consensus-based decision-making, direct action, and "Nine Ways to Intervene in the System" a spectrum borrowed from the late Donella Meadows, which stretches from the baseline of "changing amounts" to the overarching "changing the whole paradigm."

Holding the Vision with a Special Hocus Pocus

After teaching Meadows' changing-the-system continuum, Starhawk facilitated a late-night, group tarot reading, asking the colorful cards, "How can we create a paradigm shift?."

The last card, The Outcome, was the Ace of Pentacles. I can't claim any knowledge of tarot (or even pronounce the word correctly), but it was collectively interpreted that the mindset we need to offer is one that radiates abundance, hope, and beauty. And this is what permaculture, ultimately, asks: Do we want to shirk in a state of scarcity—sending people screaming in fear—or revel in world of abundance—a living, seething, green and proven way of existing?