An Injury to One Is An Injury to All

A couple of presidential elections ago one of the political websites had an interesting presentation. As a visitor to the site you could take a short quiz about your own political convictions, then the website would pair you with the candidate who best matched your own views. (This was early in the primary, so there [...]

But, I’m Not Using My Physics In My House

One problem with our media-heavy life is that good things come and go unnoticed because 1) they are buried amongst an avalanche of junk, and 2) we are always going on to something new.
But in order to make something our own we have to sit with it a while, chew it over some, set it [...]

Permaculture Principle #12: Creatively Use and Respond to Change

“Vision is not seeing things as they are, but as they will be.”
We need to deal with change in two ways:

When changes beyond our control occur we adapt, and
We also make use of change deliberately and cooperatively.

Watering our garden during dry times is an example of the first. Making and using compost for the garden [...]

Permaculture Principle #11: Use Edges and Value the Marginal

In natural systems the most active and productive spaces may be found along the edges — in the margins — where one habitat meets another. An edge forms its own special habitat, taking elements from each neighbor and adding its own. Edges contain a lively complexity of life found nowhere else.
Think, for example, of the [...]

Permaculture Principle 10: Use and Value Diversity

This principle would seem to be self-evident until you look around to see what is actually happening in the world.
Large monoculture fields vastly increase crop vulnerability to pests or diseases, and vastly increase the amounts of fuel and toxic chemicals used to counteract them, as well as leading to serious loss of topsoil — yet [...]

Permaculture Principle #9: Use Small and Slow Solutions

The simple yet profound idea of this principle is that human endeavors work best at human scale, both in size and in speed. Let me say it again — we get the best results when we keep our projects at human scale — not too big, and not too fast. Naturally.
Our systems should be designed, [...]

PC Principle #8: Integrate Rather than Separate

We have learned to look at reality as a collection of elements. Using the scientific method we break things down into smaller and smaller bits in order to study them. This intense reductionist focus draws our attention away from the connections between elements, their varying nature, and the way they work.
Permaculture design aims to redress [...]

David Holmgren’s Permaculture Principle #7: Design from Patterns to Details

In general, Principles 1 through 6 look at systems from the bottom up — concentrating on system elements, organisms, and individuals. Principles 7 through 12 will emphasize a top down perspective — the patterns and relationships that emerge from system self-organization and co-evolution. Pattern recognition is a difficult skill to learn and must always proceed [...]

Permaculture Principle 6: Produce No Waste

Improperly designed systems produce pollution, or work.
Pollution occurs when one system produces too much product or by-product that cannot be used by another related system. Work, on the other hand, must be done when there is a deficiency — not enough product or by-product to assist another system with its needs.
In nature, production and consumption [...]

Permaculture Design Principle #5 is Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services

David Holmgren’s Permaculture Design Principle #5 is Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services.
As you probably already know, a renewable resource is something that provides us with direct yields that can be replenished by nature over a reasonable period of time without needing major non-renewable inputs.
Less familiar is the idea of renewable services: benefits we [...]