SLO Permaculture Guild Newsletter – Thanksgiving 2016 (pasted below and attached as a PDF)
Let’s be thankful for one another.
Despite all the crazy, unjust and horrible things going on nationally, or even internationally or regionally, we have one another. Despite the atrocities taking place at Standing Rock, tribes of people are coming together to stand together. Despite the despair and disgust at what are leaders are doing, we have one another as permaculture people. We are grateful we have one another to practice permaculture together here along the Central Coast of California.
Permaculture people are solution based people who realize that “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” (quote from Albert Einstein)
Or as Bill Mollison, one of the founding fathers of permaculture would say….
“The tragic reality is that very few sustainable systems are designed or applied by those who hold power, and the reason for this is obvious and simple: to let people arrange their own food, energy and shelter is to lose economic and political control over them. We should cease to look to power structures, hierarchical systems, or governments to help us, and devise ways to help ourselves.”
How can we do this you may ask? Every day we can practice the permaculture ethics of Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share. Every day we make lifestyle choices that can help to create the kind of world we want to live in. Every day we can be repair the Earth. Every day we can honor others. Every day we can share our resources of time, talent and tithing.
“There is one, and only one solution, and we have almost no time to try it. We must turn all our resources to repairing the natural world, and train all our young people to help. They want to; we need to give them this last chance to create forests, soils, clean waters, clean energies, secure communities, stable regions, and to know how to do it from hands-on experience.” (quote from Bill Mollison)
Here are some local examples and local events to put your energy into….
Healing Inner & Outer Gardens - Free Evening Talk on Wed., Nov. 30th at 7 pm w/ Leif Skogberg, Master Gardener, Permaculture Teacher, & Holistic Designer, Healer & Coach at Bliss Café
Appreculture Design Institute Presents 2016 Whole Life Design, California Tour with Leif Skogberg giving a talk on Healing Inner and Outer Gardens Dinner at 6pm at Bliss Café.
Leif’s Teachings offer a simple yet profound nature-based approach to holistic living in both philosophy and application. He offers practical tools, strategies & techniques for creating a more resilient, thriving & sustainable world; from the inside out. Leif teaches Permaculture Design and calls his unique system of inner and outer sustainability; Appreculture. Think of it as “appreciation and culture” put together to restore all our relations.
Appreculture is about creating a socially, ecologically and economically appropriate culture of regenerative and sustainable growth, universal gratitude for all of life on Earth and sincere compassion for all of Earthly creation. A culture where people appreciate natural systems (minerals, plants, animals and humans), global human diversity and the day-to-day challenge of the human journey. The goal is to collaboratively design and build a culture and society that is conscious, regenerative and life affirming.
Come early to enjoy a delicious dinner at 6 pm and then explore insights of the new Appreculture Design system, as well as transformational practices for restoring land, community and the self on November 30th with guest teacher, Leif Skogberg.
Website: http://www.leifskogberg.com/home
Our Global Family Village – workdays on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons 1pm – 3pm and community work day on Saturday, December 3rd 9am – 12noon.
One of our local permaculture projects is a demonstration garden called Our Global Family Village located at City Farm. Please come to the land and help create a place where we can model permaculture farm practices. This “village” will become a place for families to picnic, school groups to have field trips, students to learn & play, and all of us to gather as one family. Here is a YouTube video taken at the project site with Teresa Tree Lees:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lksDqIOgrwY&feature=em-share_video_user
We meet on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 1pm – 3pm. Other days can be arranged as well. The way to get there is to see the “farm along the freeway” on Highway 101 at Los Osos Valley Road and follow Calle Joaquin Road north to the end of the cul-de-sac past the car dealerships. Take the dirt road going straight (no longer take the side dirt road on the left) and then follow the dirt road to where all the sheds are and park there by the Central Coast Grown sign. Our Global Family Village is where the four flags are blowing in the wind and the gathering center in the middle with green canopies.
We need builders, gardeners, community organizers, crowd funders, media connectors, teachers, mentors and general helpers. We are building an outdoor kitchen and are in need of the following:
- 100 feet of 3/4 PVC,
- the loan of a generator at least 2000 watts
- an inverter for a car that can power 1500 watts
- pallets, maybe 8 or 9 of them
- money for deer fencing, irrigation and hardware items
You can donate on the Central Coast Grown website below. Please make sure you indicate “Our Global Family” in the box that says “If this donation should be restricted for a certain activity, please specify.”
http://centralcoastgrown.org/drupal/index.php?q=civicrm/contribute/transact&reset=1&id=1
We are very grateful for recent donations such as $100 from Farm Supply, irrigation work by Wendy Kim, volunteer work from Mark and Diane, contributions of time and money from Teresa Lees and donations from Institute for Sustainable Living.
JOIN COMMON VISION’S 2017 SPRING TOUR - PLANT SCHOOL ORCHARDS.
MAKE ART. INSPIRE KIDS.
Common Vision is seeking educators, tree planters, and artists who want dig in on creating school gardens, orchards, and living classrooms for kids in California. In Common Vision’s School Orchard Project, 18 crew members travel to public schools to plant fruit tree orchards and create art with thousands of kids. Crew members provide essential pruning, irrigation installation, art programming, and other tree care and education in 50-100 maturing school orchards. Working to grow delicious living classrooms by day and camping together by night, crew members experience intensive fruit tree education, a meaningful way to contribute to the school garden movement, and often the cultivation of lifelong friendships.
CREW MEMBERS WILL:
- Gain intensive education and experience with fruit tree cultivation
- Work closely with a fun and dedicated team of change-makers
- Educate California youth through planting trees and art workshops.
- Travel in a bus run on Recycled Vegetable Oil and Solar Power
- Have Room and board covered
People of color are encouraged to apply. We are seeking a cook and a bus driver.
Limited number of stipends is available. Here is our schedule:
Jan 24-28: Orientation in Bay Area
Jan 28-Feb 4: San Diego Area
Feb 5-17: Los Angeles Area
Feb18-28: Santa Barbara, Ventura
Mar 1-13: Bay Area
Apply Here: www.commonvision.org/volunteer
December 4th Tour Eco Conscious Aquaponics Farm in Santa Barbara County with the Santa Barbara Food and Farm Adventures Meet Up Group
Eco Conscious Acquaponics (ECA) is a small farm operation using aquaponic technologies to produce high efficiency food using a fraction of the water that conventional agriculture uses. They currently provide food for a variety of local restaurants and sell at our farmers markets. They will have produce, seedlings and select fruit trees available for purchase including Pomegranates, Figs, Goji berry, Dragon fruit and Aloes. http://www.ecoconsciousaquaponics.com/ Cost is $6.00 for our tour guides; RSVP at Meetup guarantees you a spot.
https://www.meetup.com/Santa-Barbara-Food-and-Farm-Adventures/events/235487318/If you are not a member and are unable to RSVP, contact Gerri to arrange payment. (805)705-8248 Supervised Children welcome; Children under 12 are free.
Afterwards starting at 2:30 you can participate in a tasting of the Miracle Fruit Berry which transforms sour tastes to sweet. You can google it and read about it in many articles and Wikipedia. Sponsored by ECA, cost is $20.00. Prepay for this special event at this link:
http://www.ecoconsciousaquaponics.com/?product=dec-4th-miracle-berry-tasting
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NEW BOOK/The Local Food Revolution
How Humanity Will Feed Itself in Uncertain Times
Author: Michael Brownlee
http://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/the-local-food-revolution/
Demonstrating that humanity faces an imminent and prolonged global food crisis, Michael Brownlee issues a clarion call and manifesto for a revolutionary movement to localize the global food supply. He lays out a practical guide for those who hope to navigate the challenging process of shaping the local or regional food system, providing a roadmap for embarking on the process of righting the profoundly unsustainable and already-failing global industrialized food system. Written to inform, inspire, and empower anyone—farmers or ranchers, community gardeners, aspiring food entrepreneurs, supply chain venturers, commercial food buyers, restaurateurs, investors, community food activists, non-profit agencies, policy makers, or local government leaders—who hopes to be a catalyst for change, this book provides a blueprint for economic action, with specific suggestions that make the process more conscious and deliberate.
Brownlee, cofounder of the nonprofit Local Food Shift Group, maps out the underlying process of food localization and outlines the route that communities, regions, and foodsheds often follow in their efforts to take control of food production and distribution. By sharing the strategies that have proven successful, he charts a practical path forward while indicating approaches that otherwise might be invisible and unexplored. Stories and interviews illustrate how food localization is happening on the ground and in the field. Essays and thought-pieces explore some of the challenging ethical, moral, economic, and social dilemmas and thresholds that might arise as the local food shift develops. For anyone who wants to understand, in concrete terms, the unique challenges and extraordinary opportunities that present themselves as we address one of the most urgent issues of our time, The Local Food Revolution is an indispensable resource.
“Buckminster Fuller could have written the preface to The Local Food Revolution: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” A deep bow to Michael Brownlee, who is serving as a lead catalyst and synthesizer of this new model. Join the emerging global awakening to beat the clock of mass extinction.”
—John Steiner and Margo King, transpartisan/sacred activists