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There is a myth that as the human population increases, food, and
arable land to grow it on, will necessarily be in short supply.
Competition for land and other dwindling resources will, in turn,
destroy the world's remaining forests and ecological preserves.
But there could be another outcome, another approach to life, an
new beginning. In her three-part, exclusive interview with Ecotecture,
Permaculturalist Penny Livingston tells us how.
To learn more about Penny and her Permaculture
Institute of Northern California (PINC), click
here.
-PSW
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Ecotecture: Sounds like he has a good reputation, at least.
PL: (Laughs) That is what I expected. I didn't know. You just
think, here is somebody who is a global figure . . . But he is not
at all any of that. He is really fun.
Pond, water storage tank, trees and light
on Livingston's PINC property.
Click for full image.
I feel very grateful not only that I have gotten to be friends
with him and to get to know him the way I have, but also that he
decided to not go out in the bush and isolate himself, that he did
come back (from his trek in the wilderness) and bring this design
system with him and walked the globe and shared it with community
after community for two or three decades now. I feel indebted to
him, in a way, and extremely grateful that he did that. It certainly
changed my life.
I don't know of any other single human being that has done more
to empower communities to start taking responsibility. There are
more Permaculture people doing silent, quiet — just doing the
work — then there are in any of those big USAID, World Bank,
or Peace Corp projects combined. There are literally tens of thousands
of people doing this all over the world involved in on-the-ground
Permaculture projects.
But they are not announcing it. There are journals where people
write about what they are doing, but, often, it is very difficult
to find the people because they are just doing it. The Permaculture
community is very anarchistic.
Ecotecture: What happened after you took that first Permaculture
course?
PL: I came home and basically did business
as usual, still. People would talk to me and say how was it, what
happened, and I would say, "I can't even talk about it. I'll get
back to you (laughs)." My brain was so full. I went through all
my notes, put 'em on a computer, rearranged them. That really helped
me to remember everything. Because after about a week and a half
I went brain dead. You get so much information, especially in the
old way of teaching — and it is still being taught this way
— lecture, lecture, lecture. Whereas in our (PINC) courses,
as much as possible, we get out there and do hands-on every afternoon.
We break up the input of information so people can process it.
So, it wasn't until I went to the Green Gulch Zen Center near
Bolinas, California, where they were doing a workshop on sustainability
. . . I just happened to read about it that morning, when it was
happening, when I opened up the Green Gulch newsletter. I dropped
everything, jumped in the car, went down there, and said, "I want
to hear what you have to say."
As we were walking along, and looking at the landscape and what
was happening there . . . you can see that it used to be a ranch,
they pulled the cows off, it's has been probably three years or
more with no cattle there, so you can see the land re successioning
itself and coming back. So it is a good example, the hills there,
and, all of the sudden, things just started trickling out of me.
An understanding happened.
I don't take ecology classes — scientific biology. I do have
a lot of friends who are naturalists that have really given me great
information, but there was a pattern, something clicked where I
could see the pattern and see flow patterns. That is a big part
of Permaculture. That is the tool you use, along with observation.
Those are the two things, observing and pattern understanding and
recognition — mostly you are observing and looking for patterns.
Ecotecture: What kind of patterns?
PL: Oh, any kind of patterns. That's the beauty. It could be flow
patterns, patterns of succession, air flow, water flow, pathway
flow, human dynamic patterns. Just looking for patterns and identifying
them has helped my whole understanding of complex systems.
Once you identify a pattern, you work within that pattern, work
within that flow. It is an understanding that just comes. It is
a non-intellectual understanding. In fact, I have been musing about
how much of what we attribute to intuition is really pattern recognition,
and maybe vice versa (laughs). Because it comes in very much the
same way. You see, when you are looking at a tree, for example,
or you are watching a river or creek flow, you are getting so much
information that you don't even know that you are getting it, consciously.
So as a designer I make decisions that just feel right. What Permaculture
brought to me was learning how to trust my intuition. I really think
a lot of what I was calling intuition was simply complex pattern
recognition. As a designer, I could tap into that, and I ended up
with successful designs. Especially if one is working with living
things, landscape, for example, you are working with plants, soil,
critters, water, wind, and weather (dynamic patterns.) It's not
like building cabinets and putting them in someone's house or getting
a piece of furniture. It is a living system that you are designing
with it.
So, a successful design requires very little maintenance, and
creates a healthy environment and high production. That production
can be interpreted as habitat, clean water, a comfortable place
to be, definitely food production and raw materials of all sorts
for human use. When you start looking at the pattern you realize
that even the migrating Warblers that are coming in and eating the
little caterpillar that would normally be eating your plants —
that is human use too. So habitat, if you want to look at it that
way, has a human function to it as well, that of maintaining a balance
so we don't have to do it.
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Ecotecture:
How did you first get interested in Permaculture, first discover
it?
Penny Livingston: I have a background in landscape design, and
I was getting to a place where I wanted to work with people connecting
them back to the natural world. As a landscape designer, you get
a lot of people saying, "I want a no-maintenance garden." There
are people who want to sit out on their porch or their deck and
look at a beautiful garden and not have any interaction with it.
So I did a lot of natives, and habitat, and getting birds in there.
I've always thought that there is more than just covering the ground
with plants. It is really about, "what are the functions of the
plants, and what else can they be doing besides just looking beautiful?
Can they be make oxygen, process water, provide habitat, heal people?"
When I found out about Permaculture, that pretty much fit the bill.
Ecotecture: How did you find out about Permaculture?
PL: Well, (laughs) I went through a crisis where I fired a client.
It didn't feel very good, but it was just one of those things where
I was working for very wealthy people and constantly getting my
money talked down, talked down, when I charged so little, at the
time anyway. It was just so offensive to me, the I said, "I think
you should find somebody else." I had a big hole in my schedule
after firing this guy. A friend of ours from Lost Valley Education
Center in Oregon was staying with us. I was really upset. I didn't
even want to come to dinner. I was in my office, and stewing, wondering,
"What am I doing with my life, comforting the rich, building these
things . . . what's it all for, anyway? It is a luxury."
Ecotecture: When was that?
PL: This was around 1990. To have somebody come in and design
and put in your landscape for you is not a necessity, it is a luxury.
It was getting to the place where what I was doing seemed so meaningless.
So, my friend talked about a Permaculture course starting three
days hence. I didn't have a clue as to what Permaculture was. She
talked about a blending of ecology and community economics. That
was a hook for me, the community economics part. So, I went, and
took a two-week (Permaculture) intensive design course. It turned
my world upside down, or, right side up, let me put it that way
(laughs).
Ecotecture: Where was the course taught?
PL: It was at the Lost Valley Education Center. It was in December.
It was taught by Tom Ward, June DeHobbs, and Rick Valley, who were
three students of (Permaculture Founder) Bill Mollison's.
Ecotecture: And it turned your world right side up?
PL: Yeah. Yeah, because everything made
so much sense. But I wasn't real clear on what Permaculture was
and how much of what they were teaching was their opinions and how
much was the curriculum. So, I ended up taking a couple more courses.
One of them was with Bill Mollison. Since then I have become good
friends with him. He stayed here and I've hosted him and I've gotten
a real in-depth look from the horse's mouth, so to speak, because
he was one of the co-founders, with David Holmgren, of the concept
of Permaculture. David Holmgren was a student of environmental design
and Bill was a professor of forest ecology at the University of
Australia, or perhaps Tasmania. They put the whole concept together.
Ecotecture: I've heard Bill Mollison
referred to as the "Tasmanian Devil."
PL: Oh yes.
Ecotecture: What's he like?
PL: He's a delightful human being. He has a persona of being a
rather irascible curmudgeon when he gets on stage. He'll rant, he
is an iconoclast, he likes to poke at everyone's sacred cows, and
he does it well-pisses people off. He also angers people into action.
He is very effective at doing that. He really gets people to start
looking at themselves in a more critical way.
But in private, at home, he's like a big bear. He is so interested
in everything. His idea of a good time is to go to used bookstores
and buy books, which is so fun to do with him. He also cooks really
good food, particularly sea food. Fresh, hot, sea food. That is
what we do a lot when he is here. He's not particularly interested
in looking at everyone's garden, and giving everyone advice. In
fact, he shuns that. He really likes to just kick back, tell stories,
talk about new ideas, the old days, and he is a delight to be around.
He spent quite a bit of time here, and, when he leaves, I feel very
sad because I never know if it is the last time I will see him.
Ecotecture: How old is he now?
PL: I'm not exactly sure. I think in his early 70's. He quit smoking,
the first of this year. It was pretty funny, you know, this "sustainability"
guy smoked like a fiend. So he is also sort of a walking contradiction
himself, like so many of us are. He's very accessible and down to
earth and a regular person.
I think when I first met him, before I met him, I expected to
see a grouchy, aloof, disconnected, burnt-out, irascible, egotistical
guy.
Story continued at top
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