 March 2017 - I have decided to stop undertaking any further interviews for Healing Agriculture, so I can focus on other permaculture work and designs.
Healing Agriculture was a core part of my learning and development throughout my Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design and I have gained so much pleasure, knowledge and inspiration from the people I interviewed, and the regenerative farming projects they designed. I hope you continue to be inspired by the wonderful diverse range of Land and People featured here. I will continue to share related information on social media via the Healing Agriculture Facebook Page and Twitter account. If you would like your own project to be featured in similar collections and connections of permaculture designs and people, then I can recommend Daniel Tyrkiel's podcast project. http://danieltyrkiel.co.uk/podcast/ About Healing Agriculture Through creating Healing Agriculture I aim to profile and give a voice to the many people working in broad scale agriculture in Europe, aiming for ‘beyond sustainability,’ using the ethics of Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share in their farming work and lives. Across the planet, how we produce our food is killing our amazing Earth and all who live on her. In a very short space of time conventional agricultural practices have caused destruction on a horrific scale. On a daily basis the media informs us of the widespread harm and bleak future we all face because of our Governments’ and personal actions. However, there are people throughout the land who are working incredible hard on many different scales to change this. For some time I have thought about a way of being able to share to a wide audience the extent and depth of this way of farming in Europe. The main goals of Healing Agriculture are - * To raise public awareness about the very positive aspects of food production on a broad scale (sites bigger than 1 acre) throughout Europe. * To build connections between farmers and projects who are using different design tools - RegenAG, Holistic Management, Permaculture - to undertake this restorative way of growing our food.
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Its exactly a year since I completed the wonderful People and Permaculture Facilitation (FIT) training Attending the Permaculture Association's Thriving Communities Gathering this weekend, and meeting up with Anna and Charlie who had also attended the FIT training, got me thinking about how FIT and the resulting monthly online gatherings, had influenced my permaculture design/work. Anna, Charlie and myself, all facilitated key workshops focusing on People Centred Permaculture projects, at the Thriving Communities Gathering - it felt like a very meaningful presence, bringing our applied and tested designs focusing on People Care and Fair Shares, to the event. More details about our workshops, (text taken from the event programme) - Reciprocity in Communities - Working with deprivation - with Charlie Gray of Horton Community Farm & Grow Bradford, 1.30pm This workshop is about creating reciprocal relationships in deprived communities, of which Charlie has great experience to share through her work in and around Bradford. Charlie is part of a LAND permaculture Centre in Bradford, West Yorks as well as Grow Bradford and Plenty, all food related organisations which are helping to transform food systems across Bradford by various means. The next steps for these projects are all focused on how to link underprivileged and privileged areas and how to run projects across these areas to best effect. www.hcf.org.uk  Photo by Horton Community Farm Using the Design Web - Diploma Accreditation with Anna Locke, 3.00pm An accreditation event is the culmination of the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design, in which the apprentice makes a 45 minute presentation of a selection of their design work to a peer group panel made up of Diploma holders and Design Course Certificate holders. This panel also inspects the student's portfolio and assesses the work against the accreditation criteria. Anna Locke is presenting highlights from her 3 year diploma journey. Her 10 designs reflect her paid work as a community gardener as well as a playful translation of some of the classic land-based permaculture concepts into reality --- e.g. Hugelkulture, biodiversity, using edges, green manures, grafting, irrigation, creating structures and more. The presentation is in two parts- first an overview of the 10 designs- 7 of which are in London and 3 of which are within a very large community forest project in Sussex. The second part is about a growing connection with the use of the design web. Because of the complex nature of community gardening Anna started using the design web and doing people-centred designs. There is a clear progression along the 10 designs journey and she will be giving her thoughts, tips, observations and reflections gathered along the way. annalockediploma.weebly.com  Anna Locke Permaculture Creative Dying: Permaculture Design for end of life care - Katie Shepherd, 1.30pm Creative Dying uses permaculture design at its centre. The workshop will encourage participants to explore creative, positive and unique approaches that we can take to design the end of our lives and how we die. It will appeal to the many people throughout the world already using permaculture to increase resilience and healing in other aspects of their life and work. www.ktshepherdpermaculture.com  Creative Dying - Well of Grief My current designs, especially the development of my overall Right Livelihood and then Creative Dying, (using permaculture to design how we die), have evolved and grown in a really effective way over the past year, with much of the knowledge and experience of the FIT training being core to this deepening growth. My next steps over the following month are to document these designs into a publicly accessible format, meaning others can benefit from more accessible People Focused design information.  Artwork by Jaine Rose Once again day and night, light and dark are equal, reminding us to find the balanced edge of equilibrium between our outer and inner selves. Autumn equinox marks the final end of the outer growth cycle. It’s a time of change with high tides, wild changeable weather and wild uncertainties as we plan what to do next. The shorter, colder days and colder, longer nights affect these decisions. We recognise this as a transition point, an opportunity for a new set of possibilities and the opportunity to grow in new ways. We take all we have learnt during the spring and summer and transform them by taking them with us. We walk the outer ways and walk the inner way, and aim to flow in poise and balance in the wild edges in between. Glennie Kindred – Letting in the Wild Edges Today is the Autumn Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere and Ive decided to use the energies and characteristics of this Earth Festival to start a design that hopefully others will also be able to take inspiration from focusing on creating and maintaining balance in our lives. I've had a few months away from the focus of my work as a permaculture designer and practitioner, so it feels a great way to get back involved with documenting my reflections again. Im using OBRADIMET (Observe, Boundaries, Resources, Analyse, Decisions, Implement, Maintain, Evaluate, Tweak), as a Design Process as its one that fits well with some of my initial ideas before I start considering the details. Observe What areas of my life feel in balance at the moment? Work, play, Right Livelihood, physical health, emotional health, energy levels, spiritual connections, what I give, what I receive, ….. What don’t feel in balance? What does balance feel/look like to me? What does out of balance look/feel like to me? Boundaries What actual or potential boundaries are in my life which create unwanted imbalances for me? What positive boundaries/edges do I have in my life which will help keep the balances I create? Resources What kind of resources do I have now that help create positive balance in my life? What resources do I need to seek out? Are there resources I have identified since the spring equinox, over the summer, that can be useful? People, knowledge, time, finances, skills, work, experiences, patterns, ideas ….. Analyse How does all the information I have gained so far in the design connect and influence each other? What are the functions of the design? Which permaculture principles can help with guiding my design ? I have decided to focus on the Principles created by David Holmgren for this design How do the permaculture ethics of people care, earth care and fairshares help shape how I will create and improve balance in my life? Decisions From my evaluation what decisions have I come up with my design? Implement How am I going to implement my decisions? What realistic timescale will I use? Maintain, Evaluate and Tweak How will I maintain the momentum of my decisions? How will I make sure that any tweaks made to the design, after evaluation, are then included in the implementation plan? Connections to other designs in my life, aim to mini -evaluate at every full moon and then big evaluation at the Spring Equinox... Tools and Resources Initial thoughts about design tools and resources I aim to use in this design Input/output analysis Web of connections Zoning (life/people focused) SWOC (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Constraints) Mindmaps Flow Diagram For more detail and ideas about tools used in permaculture design see Aranya's excellent book Permaculture Design - A Step By Step Guide Gaiacraft Learning and Teaching Tools - to help explore and identify permaculture principles in a creative way Letting in the Wild Edges by Glennie Kindred Nicole Vosper's entire series of blog posts on Overcoming Burnout will also be a major resource contribution to this design.
So here we are, a basic framework for a design I am currently working on inspired by the timing of the Autumn Equinox and my return to deeper focus on my permaculture work and development. Please contact me if you would like support from me either in my role as a Diploma (in Applied Permaculture Design) Tutor, or as a mentor/coach, with a similar design.  Over the last year a core part of my Edible Garden work has been to improve the fertility and life force of the soil, to ensure a healthy grounded place for flora and fauna to flourish ....In parallel my pathway as a permaculture practitioner also feels as though creating a holistically healthy base from which to grow a diverse rightlivelihood and life balance, has been key for me during this time - and its now time to start creating yields from them both Mentoring can be a very powerful tool in lots of aspects of our permaculture work. I particularly like this article from thechangeagency.org which explains the benefits that successful mentoring can bring. " Mentoring provides an opportunity to think and reflect in a confidential and supportive environment. It may make sense to review the preceding period, identify challenges, and workshop ways to respond to challenges in the future. " Many aspects of permaculture design -process, ethics, principles and tools - can help to structure and guide mentoring relationships in permaculture contexts and settings. This week Ive been reminded how valuable mentorship is in my both my personal and professional development and learning. Connecting, observing and receiving feedback from others who are more experienced and knowledgeable in subjects we are interested in taking further in our lives can be really empowering. My Skype mentoring session, which was part of the year long people focused permaculture facilitators programme, gave me space to reflect on the last few months of undertaking my facilitators pathway design, while gaining some focused clarity on specific designs and projects I had been working hard to start implementing. Looby's skill in identifying analogies and patterns, in the various tangles of my story is something I am really appreciating learning from her. In addition, a helpful reminder about how erosive my repetitive story for myself about "I need to be more confident" (So, if I need to be more confident, that must mean Im not confident enough!), can be, has given me the motivation to reframe that story by consciously identifying and noting times when I am taking steps to improve my confidence.  More flowers! my Growing Confidence design ....each time I do something which demonstrates I am a confident practitioner and person, I draw a flower in my planner /journal with a few notes. Looking back at the patterns should really help create a lovely spiral of confidence abundance! I have a different colour flower according to significance of the activity ('day to day', 'moderate', 'life changing'!) Another Skype meeting with Ryan, the strategic communications co-ordinator from the Permaculture Association, about my developing work in communications and marketing in the permaculture community, was also a great time to appreciate the role of Ryan's mentorship. Then an observed Diploma tutorial along with some comprehensive feedback by Wilf, (Wilf observing me undertaking the tutorial, after me observing his tutoring/educator skills over the last few years), was my third experience of some wonderful mentors in my life just now.
Reflecting on the momentum and motivation these 3 events in the last few days gave me, also made me consider my mentoring role to others in the permaculture community and beyond too. This is something I will be looking at in more depth as part of my developing practitioner and designer role. This week is Dying Matters Awareness week in the UK - a big diverse event with many people and organisations holding events to promote awareness about subjects relating the death and dying. I decided a few months ago that this week would be my goal for launching the zone 3-5 phase of a design, Designing Dying, I started about 4 years ago as part of my Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design.
I started the latest phase of the design, now called "Creative Dying" by using a different design process (The Design Web by Looby Macnamara) to explore the design at a new level. I presented my experience of doing this at the National Diploma Gathering earlier this month. Creative Dying is a website and coaching/workshop business which aims to support people - at any time of their life - to plan and design the death they would like. It is focused at anyone who would like to explore the creative, positive and unique approaches that we can take to considering the end of our lives and how we die. Creative Dying uses permaculture design at its centre and will appeal to the many people throughout the world already using permaculture to increase resilience and healing in other aspects of their life and work. Im really passionate about the journey of this design for many reasons, and will be writing regular updates about its progress and hopefully success here. creativedying.co.uk Creative Dying on Facebook Creative Dying on Twitter  The National Diploma Gathering - NDG- (for anyone involved in the UK Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design) took place over the weekend in St Werbergs Centre, Bristol. Its one of the highlights of my permaculture year- so much inspiration and learning, and catching up with friends old and new - and for me my first NDG both as a Diploma tutor and as a member of the Diploma Working Group. The Friday before the Gathering was a tutor training day - so a great opportunity to connect further and increase confidence with my new role.  'Im tired of' - discussing patriarchy, and solutions - a fab workshop facilitated by Anna Broszkiewicz, expanding on some of the issues raised in a recent blog by Nicole Vosper, "Overcoming burnout part 6 - Patriarchy makes me tired"  A layered system of observing and assessing Graham's tutorial with Reevsie - I got totally lost as to who was observing and assessing who and why, but the whole experience was really useful as a new tutor - and I have so much gratitude to Graham for letting us all in on his design support hour!  Me presenting my Creative Dying design, without my planned presentation, due to a series of tech issues. The problem being the solution meant I had to just get on with it though - and it certainly deepened some confidence edges in doing so!
The weekend, as usual, renewed my designing energy and motivation and I'm very much looking forward to spending the next few days planning on the next steps I aim to take as a permaculture practitioner.  Baby tutors! I've spent the last few days back in Yorkshire, in Leeds, with a fantastic group of people, all keen to work as tutors for the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design. Led by senior tutor and generally wonderful woman, Hannah Thorogood, and held at the fantastic LILAC (Low Impact Living Affordable Community), the training was 2 intensive days of teaching, reflecting, sharing, weird and wonderful beers from the corner shop, and a fair bit of fun too!  Training timetable As ever with permaculture events I got far more out out of my time at LILAC then simply learning what I need to be a new tutor - being around such inspirational people in a really great setting enabled me to start pushing some my comfort zone edges and creativity in terms of right livelihood and life direction further. Yes, I would like to be a tutor (I'd signed up for the training to gain more information)...Could other forms of teaching permaculture be something I do have the skills and knowledge for?...Is there a need/demand for life coaching/self development work guided by permaculture design? ...were a few of the topics I aim to explore further.  LILAC So I'm now midst spending time processing the last few days..making some kind of sense of my many mind maps and notes, and starting to create my Tutor Learning Pathway, updates to follow!
 This week, 'Permaculture and the Five Elements', an article I wrote based on one of the designs in my Diploma Portfolio, was published in the Winter (No 86) edition of Permaculture Magazine. Along with some beautiful art work (not mine!), it was really good to see some of my design tools inspired by my Earth Based spiritual connections, being shared with the big global permaculture community. You can read the full design 'Journey To Spain' here To find out how you can subscribe to the wonderful Permaculture Magazine click here 
Ive just finished reading People and Permaculture by Looby Macnamara - or should I say re-reading, its actually the 3rd read for me!. I initially read P&P from cover to cover when it was first published, (helpfully as I commenced my Diploma!), and then used various parts of it throughout the designs created for my portfolio. Reading it again in its entirety, a few pages each day, including journaling the suggested activities as I finished my Diploma has been really useful. P&P is one of those books that the more you read and use it, the more you gain from it. But in addition it made me realise how much I had developed and matured as a designer and practitioner throughout my Diploma journey. Alongside reading Looby's latest book 7 Ways to Think Differently, Ive spent time in the last few weeks identifying areas of ‘people care' and ‘social permaculture’ that I would now like to explore further in my design work . Aspects of these very much connect and Edge with the exciting Liberation Permaculture ideas, currently evolving within work undertaken by Nicole Vosper and Graham Burnett in the UK. (Spookily as I write this I’ve just received a questionnaire from Graham inviting me to engage further in the dialogue around Liberation and Permaculture!). I’ve also just signed up to attend thePeople and Permaculture Facilitators Training led by Looby and Peter Cow at Ragmans Lane Farm later this month, which is hopefully going to be a great step in taking my practice to a greater depth.
There are lots of reviews about People and Permaculture out there, and I’m not going to attempt another one here, only to say that its definitely one of the key resources I recommend for any one wanting to learn more about permaculture, and/or wanting to look at personal development design. Many reviews have been left on Amazon and there is a great one at Permaculture Magazine. If you decide to buy a copy of either People and Permaculture or 7 Ways to Think Differently then you can order them directly from Looby or support the fab work of independent publisher Permanent Publications by purchasing through Green Shopping. Designs in my Diploma in Permaculture Design portfolio using The Design Web, the framework at the core of People and Permaculture, are Action Learning Pathway Healing Agriculture Journey to Spain  My Diploma accreditation audience, including so many of my fantastic freinds Ive made over the last few years. The photo was taken just before I nervously started my presentation .... I love new moon time of each month, its such a great motivation to get plans and projects started, (and then their progress reviewed with the energy of the full moon two weeks later). So exactly one month after I accredited my Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design at the International Permaculture Convergence, here is the first post of my new blog, created especially for my next chapter of permaculture learning.
Embracing the permaculture principle of 'each element performs many functions', my blog aims to - Provide a way of sharing my permaculture knowledge and experience with others both in the permaculture community, and hopefully beyond ('hi Dad x') Give me a space to document my experiences and learning in a format where I can easily locate prior posts Encourage my development as a 'writer'. Throughout the 4 years of my Diploma journey, writing is something I've discovered I really enjoy and benefit from. Inspired by the amazing blog The Snail of Happiness written by my friend Jan Martin, I'm going to attempt to write a post each day, for the next month. The kinds of things you can expect to see here are News about my permaculture designs and projects Reviews of books, films, music, websites, blogs, events Recipes Celebratory writing relating to Earth festivals I'm really exited about this blog hopefully becoming an integral part of my life and permaculture work. Feedback is very much appreciated. Kt x |
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