2 Heads Are Better Than 1 – The Need for Skill-Sharing in Permaculture

in #permaculture6 years ago (edited)

When I was back in the Dominican Republic I was fortunate enough to meet the creative and productive soul that is The Growing Dutchman, Chris Kaput.

One of the important and until recently neglected areas of permaculture that needs much evaluation and a plethora of innovative minds is social permaculture. Encompassing everything abstract that embroils human beings, social permaculture looks to evaluate and devise social and economic systems. From structures of governance to methods of resolving conflict, from techniques for creating a sustainable livelihood to systems for fair sharing profit, social permaculture is a difficult topic to master, especially with the extremely complex and seemingly spontaneous behaviour of human beings.

Going It Alone

From the outset, as an individual embarking on a permaculture journey, making social connections is important to gain social power through networks and communities, both locally and globally. I know that I am not the only person who has experienced the loneliness of this life, heavy like the burden we shoulder when we agree to enter this uphill struggle to overturn the paradigms of destructive systems within our world.

More than once I have heard the heart-wrenching stories of people saying that they felt themselves to be crazy due to their belief in this way of life, on account of the blatant ridicule and dejection of their peers. In fact, when I was completing my PDC, this was a topic that came up so often.

One of the most interesting and authentic cats on our course was a Romanian guy called Liviu, who explained to me that in his culture farmers are considered peasants, and the very concept that he would choose this life and see it as the means to repair the world and provide freedom made him fit for a mental institution in the eyes of his friends. He spoke of the judging looks from shop vendors when he entered their premises with dirty clothes, silently disregarding him and considering him disreputable. He spoke of the loneliness he felt when he walked his gardens, knowing nobody within his remit shared in his passion. And most importantly, he talked passionately and vividly about the invigoration he felt having been afforded the opportunity to spend time with 24 other people from all walks of life who also indulged in his passion.

Liviu, like many others, demonstrates the importance of social connections. Not only as a way to help us find some sense of much needed human belonging, but also as a way to make this work. With a battery of cliches at my fingertips, I'll plump for the simple adage that 'many hands make light work'.

Switching the Lights on in the Dominican Republic

Embarking on this journey alone has been tough and definitely lonely. My outer mirage of tough girl 'I don't need nobody' independence has wavered a few times while I've been 24/7 alone on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, the intricate spider of social media affords us the ability to connect with strangers who share in our passions. While forums may offer remote help, certain social media outlets can provide us with direct connections and a chance to meet new people.

When I tentatively released my debut post on the Facebook group 'Permacultura en Rep. Dominicana', after having reread and re-typed it about 48 times to make sure that the 5 lines of garbled Spanish came across as the cool, laid-back and knowledgeable permaculture wizardess that I so clearly am, I expected maybe the odd 'like' or 'Welcome new friend'. Instead, I was inundated with welcoming messages and people adding me to find out more about my project, with serious offers to visit and help out in anyway they could. Something I had not expected from this island, I must say. This has since been mimicked with my repsonses on my #introduceyourself post here; something for which I'm overwhelmed and grateful to the Steemit community.

One of those friendly faces was Chris Kaput, who immediately offered to link together seeing as we were located conveniently to one another. Not only did we have coffee to chat, he also took a trip out to the farm to help me consider the lay of the land (leading to him losing the soles on his shoes as we chased the floodplains to understand the water flows!). This was followed up swiftly by an invitation to co-host a workshop with him at Sacred Women's Fest.

From Abstract Connections to Productive Skill-Sharing

While social connections can help us in a myriad of ways, from helping to get physical work done to providing us with skills outside of our remit, my most recent experience with Chris has shown that 'two heads are better than one.'

While we each have our own projects to focus on, by combining our skills, we have been able to lend a hand to each other while picking each others' noggins. This weekend, having been set back by car troubles that prevented us from delivering said workshop, we set about to apply our time to other areas of our projects that needed to be pursued.

I am up to my neck in trying to develop a rainwater harvesting system for 7.3 acres of land that currently experiences serious flooding and erosion during rainstorms, followed by long periods of drought that mimic desertification during dry season. While the tropical climate inherently means that much of the nutrients is stored in the plants, the fast-pace rushing water is eroding the beds and large areas of the land, bypassing the trees and heading straight for the neighbour's property. Essentially, all our hard work is being reaped by the guy with the property below.

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Concurrently, Chris is looking to improve his own city property to model it as a shining example of urban permaculture while simultaneously providing online resources that demonstrate how to do this, highlighting the reality of the evolutionary journey of a permaculturist; kerfuffles, mistakes, and all! One of his pressing projects was to build a pallet wood deck to provide a place for humans to chill while the plants can thrive in the remaining space. He's also looking to consider better use of the garden space in order to make better use of his trees.

So while we were held up by the mechanic's late arrival, we decided to put our skills together and really stack functions to get two jobs done at once. While I helped Chris build his deck (mainly working as a human level to level out the deck sections he had already prepared) and to weave some climbers to build some tree guilds, we discussed the water systems at my place and the functionality of his garden. While this doesn't seem all that innovative as an idea, the hands-on work really gets your juices flowing as the blood is able to circulate around the body, opening the blood vessels in the brain and inducing those 'Eureka moments'.

Having recently read Brad Lancaster's Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, I felt I had a pretty good beginner's grasp of water systems, but implementing them into the site becomes a whole different story. By having someone to work with who has viewed the same plot of land with different eyes, we were able to both bring our own individual insights into the plan. Moreover, in true devil's advocate style, I found that Chris was able to really question the final I plan I was considering. His input helped me to consider feedback loops of which I hadn't thought, while simultaneously teaching me to break it down simply and clearly so that my clients would be able to understand.

And while all these discussions were going on, we managed to craft a deck and plant a cover crop of mung beans and mustard, which are already happily sprouting away!

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For me, this demonstrates that by stacking our time together, we could also stack our functions and collaborate to offer each other's skills. This skill-sharing helps to build upon individual innovation; after all, we can't think of everything ourselves. With that in mind, consciously and pro-actively making social connections is integral to creating a truly productive permaculture community; both locally to you and as a worldwide entity and supportive family.

It's not about ego. It's not about your name in flashing lights above a swale telling people this was your idea and you're the go-to-guy for permaculturing the world into a new age of regeneration. It's about getting this done and getting it done right, having thought of all the feedback loops. So we don't mess it up all over again.

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Talk about positive globalisation in action. I guess it's so much easier to do these massive projects away from the UK!

Great work!

You know you say that, but I have seen some really cool stuff in the UK. Take a look at: https://www.permaculture.org.uk/

There's a great job board as well as just a place with opportunities you can get involved in :)

Also, most of this is taking place in Chris' back garden in the city of Santa Domingo. It's amazing what can be done with a small space!

You lead such an amazing life. I am going to (and already am) learn so many things from your posts. I have a recommendation for you. There is another I follow who studies plants and plant consciousness. She doesn't post often, due to her education as well as she is very active in sharing her academic knowledge. You may wish to follow her, as I think you two may hit it off. She is very humble despite her genius.

https://steemit.com/@yvesoler

One day I hope to get enough money to buy some land for me and my partner, and turn it into a sustainable area for our children as you described the hostel in another post (only mine will not be a hostel, lol).

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and views here.

@practicalthought. Thank you very much. I am taking a look right now and @yvesoler's work seems amazing and I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot there. Thanks for the recommendation!

This is my dream also. I would love to have a space for self-sustainability while also creating a space where others can practice and learn skills which can generate small microbusinesses on the property, creating a small community while also giving people the chance to learn that skill without being financially crippled in the process. Say someone wanted to learn to create oils, for example, they could work to learn the whole process of growing to making to business development from others on the property offering workshops and running their own microbusinesses. Somewhat of a self-sustainable economy based on skill-sharing and mutual mentorship. I'm a long way off that though!

I admire your goal. I think there is something so powerful and educative about teaching children process and reward from that process leading to self-sustainability. To often in society kids are growing up (myself included) feeling hopeless and powerless. These types of properties are empowering environments or learning and teaching, nurturing curiosity and self-improvement :)

Thanks for your support and suggestions!

Ours are actually grown now, but I never know what one would call our kids when they are grown. Adult children feels like an oxymoron, same with kids. My oldest is about to turn 30 and her oldest is 35, lol. Calling them our spawn also doesn't feel right, hahahaha. We are hopeful though as grandchildren come along we can show them early.

We (my partner and me) tend to disagree on this idea, but I believe it would be smart to leave whatever we may accumulate in a trust of sorts, leaving most to however many grandchildren we may end up with. My dream is to get enough land that it could not only grow lots of food, but have sections split off for housing so that our kids/grandkids could have a place they could live (but being in trust they could never sell it) and live surrounded by the world and not concrete.

Just a dream right now, but based on what I have seen others do investing in crypto one I see more possible now.

So glad you took a look at her profile. I have never recommended anyone to someone else here before now, but it felt right.

Your idea of a small community is exactly what I dream of for family. There used to be a time where it was more common for family to be close and work together and unfortunately as we have been trained to sell our souls to the corporation dreams that has been lost to many.

I think you're dead right. I have been in Bangkok for the last few months and one of the things I noticed was how lonely people are yet they live on top of each other. The idea of community feels more than just being in one place' this idea of working together to achieve something for everyone. I can't help but feel that being in the natural world demands this from us - using and exploring our environment and living from it. In doing this, we work together, we speak together, we eat together and we learn together and this eases that worry, that loneliness and that sense of hopelessness.

I think your idea is lovely and even if your grandchildren don't always live there, it will give them a sense of home; something that's so hard to find in this day and age!