Making Permaculture Stronger

The creation of this episode was an incredible experience. Carol is shockingly sharp, disruptive beyond belief, and an absolute thrill to be in a conversation with. This episode is dripping with rich insights into regenerative and living systems thinking and I know you're going to love it. Here is Carol's personal website. Here is an article Carol wrote about potential that has informed the future direction of Making Permaculture Stronger. Here is a link to a page with info about Carol's books. Her latest book is called The Regenerative Human and will be released March 2020. She asked me to mention that she is still looking for people to be involved in the action-learning project she discussed in our chat. See the details of being involved in this here. Here's is Carol's podcast Business Second Opinion. This episode goes through Seven Principles of Regeneration and is is well worth a listen. Here are the Deep Pacific online workshops. Carol asked me to "Let your listeners know they are welcome.

It is my great honour to share this opening conversation with Jason Gerhardt who directs both the Permaculture Institute and Regenerative Design company Real Earth Design. Jason recently contributed this guest post to Making Permaculture Stronger, this post shared a snippet from our conversation in the comments of the current inquiry and this one included a diagram sharing the history of Jason's permaculture design process signature. In the closing comments to this episode I mention an experiment I'm currently conducting where I want to find out if the universe in general, and perhaps even you in particular, feel moved to give this project a tiny drip of financial support to unleash unimaginably exciting new levels of blog, podcast, video and book action. Only if you'd like, you can read more about this here.

Darren J. Doherty in a misty paddock with some cows In this episode you get to be a fly on the wall during a farm consultancy conducted by renowned farm planner and Regrarian Darren J. Doherty. I'm sure I don't need to spell out the resonance between Darren's comments about why he no longer does master plans and the current Making Permaculture Stronger inquiry (where I refer to master planning as fabricating). Thanks to Darren for his support on jobs like this as well as his kind permission to share his words here.

So this episode is a talk I gave on a beautiful farm called Mossy Willow Farm last weekend. The event and the talk were organised by Dumbo Feather and I thank them so much for the opportunity - I had myself a lovely time and the talk led to some awesome conversations afterward. During the talk I paraphrase this quote from Peter Senge: It's common to say that trees come from seeds. But how can a tiny seed create a huge tree? Seeds do not contain the resources need to grow a tree. These must come from the medium or environment within which the tree grows. But the seed does provide something that is crucial : a place where the whole of the tree starts to form. As resources such as water and nutrients are drawn in, the seed organizes the process that generates growth. In a sense, the seed is a gateway through which the future possibility of the living tree emerges.Peter Senge, C. Scharmer (2011). “Presence: Exploring Profound Change in People, Organizations and Society”, p.10, Nicholas Brealey Publishing

Dan Palmer, Anne-Chloé Destremau, and Clinton Callahan at an Expand the Box Training in Wellington, NZ, February 2019 This conversation dives into the synergies between Permaculture and something called Possibility Management. It was my honour to be able to explore these synergies directly with Clinton Callahan. Clinton is the originator of Possibility Management, which has now been around about as long as permaculture. For 40 years possibility management has been an evolving portal into radical responsibility, initiated adulthood, whole-person space and feeling navigation, consciously co-creating fresh possibilities out of nothing, and so much else.21 It exists as a system of piercingly clear distinctions discovered (and hence there to be noticed) inside lived experience. In trainings, books and so forth people are supported to discover and play with the power and possibility explosions resulting from experiencing these distinctions for themselves. https://youtu.be/HzdYM0l_T3w This episode as a vid

Meg McGowan In this episode I inquire into Australian permaculturalist Meg McGowan's design process. It is a rich chat in which Meg shares many brilliant insights after working as a permaculture design process facilitator / coach for many years. Meg out there taking it to the people... I met Meg at the 14th Australiasian Permaculture Convergence in April 2018 and was struck by her passion and clarity. While I didn't manage to get a selfie with Meg at the event this character did... David Holmgren and Meg McGowan Meg's (active!) blog is here, her and her partner's Permacoaching facebook page is here, and among so many other things she happens to be a permaculture design cartoonist! Check these out and there are a bunch more here. One Permaculture Design Process Planet Permaculture HUGE gratitude to the wonderful Ben Mallinson for creating the new intro and outro music - a massive improvement (no offence to my mate Nath who created the old one on his phone in about three minutes). Ben ha

In this episode I speak with Morag Gamble from Our Permaculture Life, the Permaculture Education Institute, and her very active youtube channel. I'm still getting to know Morag after meeting her recently at the fourteenth Australasian Permaculture Convergence. Morag attended sessions I lead on both Making Permaculture Stronger and Living Design Process and afterward we had the best conversation about it all. But I didn't realise how on the same page we were, and how much longer Morag had been on that page, and just how much I have to learn from her about it, until we recorded this chat. Enjoy, and huge gratitude to Morag for taking the time, and being who she is, and doing all the incredible stuff she's doing toward lifting up and growing and sharing what is great about permaculture. Here are the people, books, links etc Morag refers to in this episode. Fritjof Capra The Reenchantment of the World by Morris Berman Victor Papenek Helena Norberg-Hodge Vandana Shiva Christopher Day (Author of Places of the

In this episode I speak with permaculture elder Joel Glanzberg from Pattern Mind, Regenesis Group and the Tracking Project. Early in the conversation, Joel refers to his 30 Years Greening the Desert project which you can learn about in this clip:  We also refer to Joel's Open Letter and Plea to the Permaculture Movement. Here is a more recent article in which Joel writes beautifully about the necessary transformation toward life at a world-view level. Here's a poignant excerpt: Holding my baby son one night as he slept, I thought about how I would make his body. Having built things all my life, this seemed simple. I would begin by framing him up, joining his bones together using his muscles, tendons and ligaments. Then I’d run his arteries and veins, his nervous system, install all of his organs, sheath him in skin, fill him with blood, a bit of food and water and start him up, maybe with a spark from jumper cables. Of course he was made nothing like this, but this Frankensteinian thought experiment reve

This episode is a recording of a session during a four-day workshop that was run last week by David Holmgren from Holmgren Design and Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger. The workshop was entitled Advanced Permaculture Planning and Design Process, and this episode shares the story of Dan's personal journey with permaculture design process, to which David responds with something of his own story. Here is a photo of Dan sharing his story... ...and David responding... Huge thanks to Keri Chiveralls for coming and for taking and sharing all three photos, Bec Lowe and Brenna Quinlan for supporting David and Dan during the course (and for Brenna's amazing illustrations), Su Dennet for feeding everyone, and the other participants for coming along and making it all possible and for integrating their beautiful energies into the mix of this emerging conversation whose time has come around (once again): Andrew, Anitra, Annaliese, Anne, Ben, Daryl, Delldint, Delvin, Franky, Gavin, Jazmyn, Jenny, Ken, Kim,

In this episode Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger speaks with Jascha Rohr from the Institute for Participatory Design which is based in Oldenburg, Germany. With his partner Sonja Hörster, Jascha has created a fascinating and powerful way of framing design process they call the Field Process Model. The Field Process Model brings together inspiration from Bill Mollison's core model and Christopher Alexander's generative process against the philosophical backdrop of field theory (rather than the systems thinking backdrop permaculture usually stems from). Here it is sketched at a high level in two dimensions (get your head around this first, where reading this article is highly recommended)... ...here in more detail in three dimensions (or of course four if you include the movement or dance through time): Here are field process model originators Jascha and Sonja during the recording, which happened on February 20, 2018. The red squiggle indicates a certain four-volume set of books, the second vol

In this episode Dan from Making Permaculture Stronger enjoys a conversation with permaculture elder Robyn Francis from Djanbung Gardens. Amongst other things Robyn shares on: Her recent return to India (having in 1987 co-taught India's first permaculture design certificate or PDC course alongside Bill Mollison) What she was up to before hearing about permaculture When and how she got involved in permaculture Her own impressions of Bill Mollison's character having worked alongside him How she got started in permaculture design Her approach to permaculture design process including the roles of Visioning / strategic planning Restraint overlays Her work with communities including Jarlanbah Community Her view on the state of the global permaculture movement A taste of all the amazing projects she is currently involved in, locally, bio-regionally, and abroad (including PDCs in China)  A short video about IPC India 2017 featuring Robyn

Dave during the chat with Dan In this episode Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger enjoys another high-energy, cut to the chase dialogue with Dave Jacke from Edible Forest Gardens. The first episode/instalment can be found here. This second instalment of an energy-rich conversation that is far from done includes: Dan sharing his recent feeling that in framing permaculture design processes using linear-sequence-implying flow charts a (kind of big) mistake is being made Dave putting flow charts and other things in a successional (but non-linear!) framing where they have their role in the learning journey Dave sharing his cutting edge, hot-off-the-press, so far unwritten about approach to framing design processes as ecosystems The relation between what he calls the four ecosystem ps: properties principles patterns processes Why Dave avoids using the name permaculture Much, much else! Dave Jacke’s work has been referenced many times in previous posts, and was the sole focus of t

In this episode Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger enjoys a rich conversation with his friend and permaculture colleague Hannah Moloney from Good Life Permaculture in Hobart. Hannah and Dan explore: How Hannah got into all this Hannah's journey working as a professional permaculture designer The permaculture design process Hannah uses The tension between providing a service people are willing to pay for and honouring sound process at the same time Much more Here are some of Hannah's design diagrams (more here): Her and Anton and their daughter Frida's beeuitiful pink home on a hill (more here): and Dan, Hannah, Anton (and young Frida) in 2015... and 2016...

In this episode Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger enjoys a high-energy, cut to the chase dialogue with Dave Jacke from Edible Forest Gardens. Dave and Dan explore: Dave's 38+ year journey with design process and permaculture including: his first design project at Simon's Rock College his initial contact with permaculture and then Bill Mollison his initial contact with the writings of Christopher Alexander (especially Alexander's 1964 book Notes on the Synthesis of Form) his experience studying at the Conway School of Landscape Design his relationship to permaculture his ecological design process Permaculture's design process enigma (has a lot to say about ecological design but not a lot to say about ecological design process) The relation between the designer, the designing, and the designed Problems with the expert/hero approach to design The relation between rationality and feeling/emotion inside ecological design process So much else... Dave Jacke's work has been ref

In this episode Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger enjoys a wide-ranging conversation with Darren J. Doherty from Regrarians.org. Darren and Dan explore: Darren's 25-year journey with design process including: how he got started key influences along the way key realisations along the way The Regrarians Works Pattern and the Regrarians Platform The current state and trajectory of permaculture including why good people so often seem to leave The relationship of Darren and the Regrarians approach to permaculture much else, including the new 10 week REX® Online Farm Planning Program (that Dan is looking forward to participating in as a student) We really hope you enjoy the episode, and please do leave a comment sharing any feedback or reflections below... Dan and Darren recording this episode last week in Bendigo, Australia Oh yes, one more thing - during the closing comments at the episode's end, Dan refers to this video clip: https://vimeo.com/128967954

In this episode Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger enjoys a rich dialogue with Ben Falk from Whole Systems Design. Dan and Ben explore issues and themes around: heathy living processes of design and creation working with clients the relation of necessity to beauty part of what it might mean to enjoy an authentic, healthy, connected life.

In this track Dan chats with Alex Bayley about the agile software development movement and permaculture design process. Alex has a blog series exploring these topics here.

On June 22nd, 2017, Dan Palmer recorded this lovely chat with Bridget O'Brien about her work on permaculture design process as part of her permaculture board game she's called "Adapt" (check it out here).

In this podcast Dan Palmer from Making Permaculture Stronger chats with Rosemary Morrow about permaculture design process.