TPP208 Eco-Punks Hacking The Permaculture Design Course

In this episode I’m joined by my revered permaculture teacher and issuer of my permaculture design certificate. To protect his identity and allow him appropriate distance from the extreme edginess (permies will laugh) of my current path, he’s taken on a sci fi pseudonym. We discuss the origin story of our epic collaborative brother-from-another-motherhood. We bonded instantly many years ago over our mutual love of nature, science, diy tech, radical activism, the punk politics of resistance, and the unmatched sophistication of subversiveness to be found in the permaculture design movement.

At the time our paths crossed, I had been exposed to permaculture for about 10 years, but only within the year previous to our meeting in the late 2000s had I become seriously engaged in study of the design science. He appeared in my life at the best of all times for me to appreciate his insights and accomplishments. I put my best efforts into earning his respect and approval as a budding permaculturalist. As per the original intent of the founders of permaculture, certified designers are encouraged to develop a mastery of the system in order to embolden them to create their own certification course curriculum with adherence to the fundamental contents and structure of the original permaculture design course. I was blessed to establish a barter relationship with him so that I had an extended mentorship which included and transcended the standard PDC curriculum with more oversight and technical support than would be normally accessible in a traditional 72 hour course. My one-on-one training took place over the course of about a year and a half. He provided guidance through my designs spanning apartment scale gardens, to a warehouse parking lot edible park installation, to semi-rural farmstead, and various business and community projects in between.

The intent of our discussion in this episode beyond reminiscing on the past, was to establish the integrity of the lineage of my training, and once again seek approve for one of my designs, in this case, the design of my customized permaculture design course curriculum, an adaptation of the way he provided the course for me.

To be expected, I integrate elements of eco and sacred sexuality with tasteful aesthetics and scientific maturity, he provides his feedback and ultimate approval. We share a sense of deep honoring for the irrepressible hacker mindset of the co-founder Bill Mollison. We dare to presume he’d be proud of my attempts to design for the sector of sexual energy, which without a doubt is the most powerful, yet least valued and most poorly managed energy flow pattern in sustainable human settlement design and engineering.