ian's eco blog: Permaculture Design Course - October 2010

Monday, October 25, 2010

Permaculture Design Course - October 2010 - Treflach Farm

What an inspiring couple of weeks and what an awesome bunch of people!
I've helped out on many CranioSacral Therapy courses in the past with wonderful groups of participants but this was an extra-special experience. Permaculture is a fascinating and powerful process, empowering people to work creatively with the patterns of nature and helping them to work together as a group; and it keeps them grounded and in contact with the Earth, unlike some therapist and healers I can think of.... It was sad when the day came for the group to go their separate ways but I know we'll all meet again and will all be involved in many amazing projects around the world in the future.

PERMACULTURE
More about Permaculture and this course on Steve's blog here, and the Sector 39 website here.

THE FARM
Treflach Farm is already in the Transition process, looking for ways to reduce the need for fossil fuel input and to diversify. Being a small, hundred acre farm, the cost of fuel has already had a serious effect. As Ian Steel of Treflach says: "Peak Oil has already happened for us, every time I hear a tractor start up my heart sinks because I know we can't afford it."

WHAT'S PEAK OIL THEN?
If "Peak Oil" means nothing to you, or you think it doesn't apply to you then WAKE UP before you're rudely woken up. We are currently using 10 calories of fossil fuel for every single food calorie we produce. Our Western way of life mostly depends on cheap plentiful fossil fuel for materials, pharmaceuticals, fertilisers, heat and light etc etc as well as transport. Yes, there's loads of oil left but it is getting harder and harder to extract it. New discoveries peaked in 1964. Renewables form about 1% of the energy we are currently using. There's not that much uranium either. In a few years time we are likely to be starting down the slippery slope of diminishing supplies - so WAKE UP! and start reading, thinking and talking about it for yourself or alternatively just stick your head back in the sand. If you do want to wake up and scratch the bubble of complacency around you here's a good place to start: The Oil Drum.

PERMACULTURE IS ABOUT SOLUTIONS
The course participants came from a wonderful range of backgrounds, including a gentleman from the oil industry itself who now lectures on Peak Oil within the industry and another who travelled around Wales in a horse drawn caravan for several years, can you get a much wider range than that? They studied the Permaculture principles then put them into practice with designs for the whole farm to reduce fuel inputs, bring back more people onto the farm and re-build bio-diversity. The wealth of ideas and solutions that came up were just staggering. Steve teaches it all with depth of knowledge, great personal experience of Permaculture projects, with tremendous passion, humour, enthusiasm and all from the heart. The group responded by opening up and working together with huge energy. It was a lot of fun too! Singing went on late round the teepee fire some nights - funny how you find you can't remember the words to any songs however much you have heard them...

COLD BRIGHT STARS
I loved feeling part of the Transition Agriculture process, right at the sharp end on the land itself. Most of us were camping in out on one of the farm's fields during the course. Some nights were very clear, away from street lights the cold bright stars reminded me how extraordinary it is to have our life here on the planet and how we take so much for granted.

SUSTAINABLE HEALTHCARE
check out: some extraordinary developments with distant treatment group
At last I feel several strands of my own life coning together, stuff I've been preoccupied with for years: the need to continue to explore the therapy and healing process but to do that within the development of sustainable way of life. In some ways it was just a simple practical thing like giving a tai chi, chi kung class in the morning but I also explored ideas like the worldwide shift in consciousness with the group. I can't tell you how good that feels after ten years of searching and shifting!