As a teacher, trainer, speaker and author on homesteading, sustainable living, activism, art, and farming there is one key “complaint” I have heard from people literally hundreds of times: They get stuck. They can’t figure out what they want, or … Continue reading How to ACTUALLY Transform our Lives and Achieve our Dreams
For a lot of us homesteaders, permies, eco-minded people, artists, activists and simple-livers, money is part of the problem, “the source of all evil” and even bringing it up makes people suspicious that you might be some sort of counter-revolutionary capitalist stooge. In our crowd, it can be tough to convince people that talking about money just might be as important as eating weeds. Continue reading How to Save and Invest Regeneratively: The FIRE/FREE Path to Financial Freedom
In just the last week, I’ve talked to two different people who were under the impression that the word “Permaculture” primarily referred to a particular labor arrangement where one party owns the land and productive assets and another party does … Continue reading Permaculture – It’s just feudalism?
Whenever there’s a completely failed, overgrown weedy tangle of an abandoned garden, I know I’ve discovered a gifted high value gardener with true natural intelligence, just waiting to flower. It’s the surest sign there is. As I am a natural gardening teacher and Permaculture designer, these poor discouraged gardeners frequently seek me out at social gatherings for a sort of gardening confession and penance. If you listen carefully, you can hear keen insights and clever observations through their exasperated sighs, gnashing of teeth, wails of garden guilt: “It’s been two seasons since my last confession…” “I just couldn’t keep up … Continue reading Why Completely Failing at Gardening is a Sure Sign of a Great Gardener – Transformative Gardening, Part 1
In part 1, we discussed how changing our relationship with money and work is one of the key leverage points for transforming our lives, our society and the world. We explained that designing our interaction with money is a leverage point for creating viral change, because it has a huge “payback” for individuals, can help us fund our dreams, has a huge impact on the success of our projects, and it can be a fun adventure, too. “Hey, wait – sure it can help us invest in successful community organizing and regenerative projects, but money? An adventure?” Yes! Once we … Continue reading The FIRE Path to Freedom – Part 2 FIRE or FREE?
The FIRE Path to Freedom? (The Most Important thing We’ve Learned about Permaculture) Well now that’s quite a loaded headline! Clearly, we’re going to talk about money and the current popular “FIRE” (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement – but … Continue reading The FIRE Path to Financial Freedom (and The Most Important thing We’ve Learned about Permaculture)
“I’m not interested in what you do in your garden. You can read any one of 1,000 books on the topic. What I want to talk about is where you’re banking your money, and how you’re spending it.” Bill Mollison, the Founder of Permaculture As a system of design, Permaculture can be applied to almost every aspect of our lives, including how we structure our finances and fund our endeavors. It’s worth noting that far less than half of the Permaculture Designer’s Manual is about growing food. And for me and Kim, it is the materials on Social Permaculture … Continue reading Permaculture and Money: Investing in Transforming our Lives, Livelihoods, and Society
(Edible Forest Garden at Lillie House, filled with food, flowers and medicinal and culinary herbs.) Nature is calling us home, and people all over the world feel it, the urge to reconnect with their landscapes in a more meaningful way than the endless struggle against lawn and weeds. And the forest garden – a designed ecosystem filled with ripe fruits, lush vegetables, craft materials and medicine that integrates native plants and wildlife habitat – is the ideal representation of our rightful human relationship with the world, cultivating the wild, working with ecosystems to meet our needs instead of reaping them … Continue reading The Era of Edible Forest Gardening has Arrived
Why is it that nobody ever walks into a healthy forest and says, “boy, does somebody ever need to do some mulching in here! Somebody needs to weed, water and fertilize this forest, too!” For the most part, healthy forests … Continue reading Forest Gardening Articles and Resources