00041 More necessary In-The-Permaculture-Beginning info

All are guilty of the good they didn’t do. — Unknown

"It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop." — Confucius

An idea can only become a reality once it is broken down into organized, actionable elements." — Scott Belsky, Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality

iPermie will teach you how to hack permaculture design principles so you can design and live an urban life without destroying the planet in the process.

It doesn’t work with your phone. It works with your brain.

It is about walking the talk with the three permaculture ethics —

care for people,
care for the planet,
care for the future by designing limits on personal and communal behaviors and ensuring that surplus circulates and does not concentrate or centralize.

A Change for the better.

Unless you already live a sustainable life, your participation in permaculture will result in changes in the way you live. iPermie is here to help you choose those changes by developing a good-life plan for the rest of your life that incorporates the permaculture ethics as guides for how to live and make choices.

We’ve all been programmed by a system of gluttony, greed, and violence to consume, waste, excrete, and consume some more, without any particular reflection of the consequences of our behavior for others or this planet’s ecological systems. A corrupt political and economic system loots the population to benefit the elites, while marginalizing and ignoring real threats to the common good:

Peak oil,
Climate instability,
Political criminality, and
Economic irrationality

Wishing and waving magic fairy wands will not make these all-too-real problems go away.

The good news is that it is not too late to turn things around if we can learn to make better choices. First we stop digging the hole. Then we figure a way out of the hole. As more people learn these self-evident truths, it becomes possible to make the necessary political and economic changes that can stop our onrushing slide to the ash heap of history.

iPermie is a method of Occupying your lifestyle on behalf of the people and the planet. It is a legal, peaceful, and effective method of non-violent resistance to the corrupt and violent aristocratic elites who dominate our economy, culture, and society.

How to Use iPermie!

iPermie works with any device that can display PDF files or an ebook, when used by a human being with a brain who can read the English language. It can be printed and used in hard-copy format. (If you print a copy, you owe the earth a tree.) It is a method of cooperative learning where the reader is as much a part of the process as the author.

If you study the materials, and work through the assignments and design challenges and ideas of iPermie, you will learn the information and develop the skills you need to design a way that you can successfully adapt to the four cardinal threats of —

peak oil,
climate instability,
economic irrationality, and
political criminality.

iPermie accomplishes this goal by teaching you permaculture design principles, strategies, techniques, and tools so that you can hack a permaculture design for your life.

iPermie is for —

people in urban areas,
students
anyone without access to land for growing food or with access to only small amounts of land.

What iPermie Isn't.

iPermie is not gardening class. Permaculture designs may include gardens. They may include decisions to plant perennial herbs and plants as well as fruit and nut trees. But permaculture is much more than gardening class.

iPermie is not a greenwash system that will enable you to continue to consume, waste, and excrete without a care for the consequences. When used as directed, iPermie can bring about fundamental changes in the way you live. If you don’t want to change your life, stop reading these documents immediately.

iPermie is not a permaculture design course. iPermie is a permaculture hack! Working your way through iPermie will not earn you a certificate as an apprentice permaculture designer.

If your intent is to do permaculture design work for others, or to teach permaculture design courses, you should take a permaculture design course from a competent permaculture teacher (although iPermie will be a useful intro to the subject for you.)

This is not gardening class.

Permaculture is a design system.

Good ideas, best practices, and reskilling information provide details that are helpful for preparing and implementing permaculture design.

They should not be confused with permaculture.

If someone has land and wants to produce food, a permaculture design might include some perennial food-producing plants like fruit and nut trees. Such a garden is not a “permaculture” garden — it is a perennial garden. While it may be the result of a permaculture design process, a garden is still a garden, it is not a permaculture garden.

Implementing a permaculture design is not permaculture. Such work involves carpentry, community organizing, cooking, gardening, etc. The word “permaculture” relates to the design, not the implementation activities.

Well, technically speaking jargon-wise anyway. It’s hard to resist falling into such verbal shortcuts. The point is that we don’t want to limit our concept of permaculture to growing perennial plants. That’s one part of a very wonderful whole system.

iPermie is about permaculture design. It includes a considerable amount of good ideas, best practices, and reskilling information. Such information rounds out the iPermie permaculture presentation and assists you in your design work.

Document numbering system

Each chapter or document of iPermie has a 5-digit number. The first two digits refer to the section — 0 through 13:

00 Basics
01 Invisible Structures
02 Food
03 Energy
04 Shelter
05 Water
06 Geography, Access, Transportation
07 Community
08 Economics
09 Resilience
10 Health
11 Education
12 Family
13 Putting this together

The next two digits refer to the number of the document within the section. The numbers are sequential. Read them in their numeric order within the section.

The final digit refers to the version of this book. This is the first version, identified as 1, so all the document numbers end with 1. If I revise a document or the entire work, that version of those documents will be identified as with a final 2.

Therefore . . . first document of the first section would be 01011.

01 = first section,
01 = first document in the section,
1 = version of the book.

Besides the number, the title includes a word or phrase describes the document.

JARGON of iPermie

This is not an exhaustive glossary of terms used in permaculture. It is a short list of the common terms used in iPermie.

Appropriate Scale. Elements and functions should be appropriate to size and scale.

Bill Mollison. Cofounder with David Holmgren of the design system of permaculture. Author of The Permaculture Design Manual.

Community Base Map. A detailed map of your community that shows the places important to your life — your home, job, school, favored places of entertainment and shopping, etc.

David Holmgren. Cofounder with Bill Mollison of the design system of permaculture.

Distributive Justice. Justice in the distribution of and access to material goods.

Diversity. In permaculture, diversity refers to the diversity of interconnections on a site, not just a list of numeric diversity. E.g., compiling a list of the plants on a site illustrates numeric diversity. Looking for and describing the connections among those plants, how they function together and support each other and other elements/functions of the site, is an exploration of permaculture diversity.

Elements. Any individual item in a design. Trees, kitchen equipment, a side walk, a garden, a compost pile, vermiculture project, etc., all these are elements.

Energy Storages. Energy stored for use later, and/or energy embodied with useful stuff/kit/gear, and/or storage of consumables such as food, water, or other supplies.

Entropy. Everything will eventually fall apart. Without exception. Often spontaneously and when least expected. Get used to it. Plan for it. Take advantage of it.

Excess Consumption System Design. The present system in general use worldwide, which encourages thoughtless consumption and discourages, and sometimes penalizes, examination of alternatives and adoption of alternative paradigms of living.

Foodshed. The geographic area from which you get your food.

Functions. Systems or activities on a site or in a life. Things that need to be done. Things that you want and need done. Nutrient management is a function. Resource cycling is a function. Nitrogen fixing is a function, an aspect of nutrient management. Eating is a function.

Guild. A gathering of mutually beneficial plants, systems, communities, etc. is referred to in permaculture as a guild.

Household Base Map, A detailed map of your house or apartment, and the plot of land/geography on which it sits.

Invisible Structures. Organizations, governments, bureaucracies, businesses. Structures and systems in human cultural, economic, religious, and political systems.

Instrumental Value. An object, person, or system with instrumental value is useful to something or someone else.

Life Inventory. A detailed observation of your life that establishes the base line of the beginning of your permaculture journey. As you update your records, it charts important milestones.

Permaculture. Permaculture is a discipline used to design more sustainable human lifestyles and systems that care for people, care for the planet, and have a care for the future by incorporating voluntary limits and justly distributing surplus.

Permaculture Design Manual. The "Bible" of the permaculture design movement. Written by Bill Mollison, it lays out the ethics, principles, strategies and etc. of permaculture.

Peri-urban. Territory that adjourns an urban area, between the suburbs and the countryside.

Plucking Plants. Cut and come again plants. If you harvest some of the plant, it will grow more. Swiss chard and many other greens are examples of plucking plants.

Praxis. Action coupled with contemplation and reflection and observation of feedback.

Prep. Anything that will help you in the event of a disaster or catastrophe can be referred to as a "prep,” which is a contraction of "preparation.” So storing food and water is a "prep,” as is a hurricane evacuation plan, or a shelter in case of a tornado.

Sectors. This is a way of describing and analyzing the external flows of energies and resources onto, through, and out of, a particular place and time, or how they impact an individual person in a certain geography and time. The identity of these sectors is specific to the site or individual/household that is the subject of the design.

Sink. A place where resources disappear.

Systems. A collection of elements that function together for a purpose.

Succession. This is a variation on the theme, "first things first, second things second." The principle derives from observations of what happens to destroyed or damaged ecologies. The first plants to colonize the destroyed or damaged area are known as pioneer plants. These grow rapidly and seed prolifically. They provide support for a new generation of plants that comes in. This process continues, and over time, a destroyed ecology can become a mature forest by a series of stages. Succession is a common strategy in permaculture design.

Types of Resource Use (Permaculture Design Manual, p 16)

— Resources which increase by modest use. A cut and come again plant like chard. When you use a bit, it grows more.

— Resources unaffected by use. Many people can look at a beautiful view of the landscape, without diminishing the view. Water in a flowing stream used to power a turbine or mill is unaffected by its use to run the equipment.

— Resources which disappear or degrade if not used. If you don't harvest the wheat, it dissipates.

Resources which are reduced by use. Fossil fuels are a pre-eminent example of this.

Resources which pollute or destroy if used. Fossil fuels are another example, as are herbicides and pesticides.

Zones. A method used in permaculture design to locate elements based on the frequency of maintenance/use by the inhabitants.

Usual Disclaimers

I am not in the business of offering engineering, architectural, psychological, psychiatric, or medical professional services. If you need these services, contact qualified personnel.

Every person is unique and may have special issues or challenges that contraindicate any particular suggestion or recommendation in iPermie. For example, if you are allergic to wheat, don't follow any recommendation to use whole wheat flour. Each person must read these materials in light of her or his own unique circumstances and situations and limitations and be prudent in what they choose to do or not do as a result of their use of iPermie.

Always take appropriate precautions when handling fuels, fire, or electricity.

Always follow recommended science-based procedures when doing food preservation.

The sites and resources referenced herein have a variety of cultural, political, religious, medical, or scientific world views in their backgrounds. The listing of any sites or references here should not be considered as my endorsement of any world views they may embrace. I chose the various iPermie information resources based on their potential contributions to those studying the related subjects, not for the purpose of advancing a political, cultural, religious, medical, or scientific world view. Well, I want to advance a "culture of permaculture" so maybe that's an exception but that’s my personal bias. Let readers beware!

Some sites and resources listed herein are commercial sites. Listing them here does not constitute an endorsement of any commercial products or services available at such sites, unless explicitly mentioned in the texts. I have not been paid by any site or product for listing them here. This is an ad-free zone. As with all things commercial, "let the buyer beware.”

Your mileage may vary.
Caveat Emptor.
Illegitimi non carborundum.