The Cultural Emergence Empowerment Deck - Looby Macnamara

Card Deck Review 

The Cultural Emergence Empowerment Deck is the latest creation by permaculture designer and teacher, Looby Macnamara. The deck contains  96 cards, and each one features one of Looby’s beautiful hand drawn illustrations. Although the deck is designed to be used in conjunction with Looby’s ‘Cultural Emergence - A Tool Kit For Transforming Ourselves & The World’ book, published by Permanent Publications in 2020, it's also a great ‘stand alone’ tool.

The deck features cards from the following areas of Looby’s work - The Cultural Emergence ‘phases’ (tools for balancing life), ‘practices’ (tools to embody regenerative habits) and ‘principles’ (tools to support effective decision making), the design framework from People & Permaculture, the Design Web and cards representing the 7 Ways To Think Differently, (growing supportive mindsets from systems of limitations). The last category the card deck includes is about the 8 Shields Model, designed by Jon Young, with the aim of deepening our understanding and practice of nature connection. 

It was really great to be part of a workshop Looby facilitated at the Permaculture Association’s ‘Festival Of Permaculture’, to explore how the cards could be used both personally and in group settings. Some of the ideas shared in the workshop that  fit with Looby’s intentions for the deck as a tool included - creative work, decision making, journaling prompts, problem solving, coaching, designing, and self care practices. 

I use card decks from a wide range of disciplines in both my personal and work life and I’m really looking forward to seeing how the Cultural Emergence Empowerment Deck can be used on a regular basis, especially as part of my permaculture design projects. 

​