What Permaculture has taught me

12 synchronous values we can all
live by. . .

As you know by now, we've packed up our life in Colorado and moved to Tennessee to start an intentional permaculture community and education center on 40 acres that we've named "Shambhala."

Some days it's harder than others for many reasons... we've had to be patient, meet new people, try new things, solve problems, reevaluate, pivot, and breathe. In those hard days, I am grateful I have the 12 Insights of the Celestine Prophesy to support me, but I have also gone back to the 12 Principles of Permaculture to see if I can apply these to whatever I'm going through, too. Because I'm starting to see, they are (OMG) very synchronously similar.

Permaculture was originated in Australia in the 1980s and the concept comes from the combination of two words: Permanens – to persist through time in everything we do, and Culture – an activity that supports humans. Permaculture was birthed at the intersection of Ecology, Agriculture, and Landscape Design, and LIFE is in the center triangle of the three.

These 12 Principles that the co-originator of the concept of Permaculture, David Holmgren, designed to unpack the movement itself. And I've found, they can be applied to everything we do.

1. Observe and interact
   
2. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
   
3. Work from patterns to detail
   
4. Obtain a yield
   
5. Catch and store energy
   
6. Integrate rather than segregate
   
7. Produce no waste
   
8. Use edges and value the marginal
   
9. Creatively use and respond to change
   
10. Use slow and small solutions
    
11. Use and value renewable resources and services
    
12. Use and value diversity

I was first introduced to these concepts 30+ years ago, and when I worked for the Sustainability Council or took one or two-day workshops with Permy experts, I was reminded of the principles, but I hadn't actually started applying them into my life. This summer I have been steeping in them, and taking them into every one of my senses like an aromatic tea, and what I've taken away from this re-introduction and re-pairing with a long-slumbering version of myself is this:

Be slow and deliberate, don't jump to conclusions, have patience for the process and release expectations, make sure everything has a purpose and a practicality – multi-function is best; be a better listener than speaker, and appreciate the value of even the most seemingly insignificant.

This entry would be another 10 pages long if I unpacked all that sufficiently, but suffice it to say, we're just at the very beginning of our journey with Shambhala. The concept stems from the 11th Insight of the Celestine Prophesy, and we have a long way to go before it looks anything like that "mythical" community in the mountains of Nepal, but we know we're on the right path because all signs are guiding us there.

Permaculture and synchronicity are one in the same, and that just gives me goosebumps.