I’ve spent the past week attempting to re-enter the world as i know it with a head chock-full of knowledge about permaculture. This has occurred following a two-week course (the Permaculture Design Certificate) at Aldinga Eco Village (well not actually IN Aldinga but at the caravan park nearby… long story) in South Australia.
The plan was that, since Nick is still working in his high office building until christmas, I would head off and do a PDC in order to get my head around Permaculture principles in readiness for our move…
I chose this particular course because it was being taught by Geoff Lawton , who, in addition to running the Permaculture Research Institute , is apparently the gun on arid and semi-arid environments, and how to get them regenerating in a matter of months. yup, months. I was ready to learn that trick….
However, in the best tradition of life-shifting experiences, this 72-hour theory course on Permaculture principles blew my mind apart and re-applied my head to my body with various screws replaced, new eyes, and some serious re-considerations about what i should be doing with my time. I got fed an incredible amount of information and made a heap of new friends.. there were 20-ish people doing the course and we had a damn fine cross section of society – from 18-year old Vermont girls to 40-year old Belgian farmers to locals to miners and mums and dads and kids and just about everyone – which made for a huge amount of different perspectives and intentions, which made the experience all the richer and useful.
I am now very keen to get out of Melbourne and onto a piece of land that I have an opportunity to interact with, learn about (and from), and work with in order to create a place that sustains us as it regenerates. Nick will be doing the same course in February ’07 , taught again by Geoff Lawton, but this time up at his farm – and I’ve wrangled a spot as farmhand and kitchen slave for the duration of this course, in order to learn about and work on a farm built on Permaculture principles.. and because I might get to learn to milk something…
