Earth Activist Training Seminar with Starhawk January
2010
by Vicki Noble
My mind is wrapping itself around permaculture principles
today, as I finally have a chance to relax and observe my
yard and vegetable gardens for the first time since I completed
Starhawk's Earth Activist Training course in Cazadero two
weeks ago. I feel especially blessed to have learned the
lessons of permaculture design within the context of earth
activism, which Starhawk models so beautifully in her public
and political life. She was just back from Egypt where she
had participated with a thousand people in a mostly unsuccessful
effort to enter Gaza and bring relief and support to the
imprisoned people of that ravaged place. During our two-week
course, along with the marvelous technical systems we were
shown how to understand and build, we also did daily rituals
in a Pagan way. Each morning began with a grounding, a casting
of the circle, and the calling in of the four directions
and center. First it was Star herself who led our group
in these practices, but soon the group was invited to participate,
each individual being invited to offer some part of a ritual
into the circle. And on several occasions, we did extended
group rituals under Starhawk's potent facilitation, our
chanting supported by her trance-inducing doumbek drum rhythms,
where we were the lucky receivers of the powerful transmission
of energy and magic for which she is world renowned. It
was impressive and sacred, and I doubt I was the only person
moved to tears more than once by the profound hope for planetary
and personal healing generated in the heart of such Pagan
rituals.
Planting out a new garden
But this morning I am simply observing. Observation
is numero uno in permaculture, a system of natural design
dedicated to finding ecological solutions to land use (in
the largest sense) and in my particular case, for the small
urban lot where I live in Santa Cruz, California. For twenty
years I have studied the living soil (with its teeming microbes
and helpful bacteria), sustainable agriculture (the kind they
practiced seven thousand years ago in Old Europe), and organic
gardening. Finally I am able to put into practice some of
the armchair knowledge I have accumulated over the years,
having moved two years ago into this small but charming rental
house near the ocean in a district called, wonderfully, Pleasure
Point. The pleasure I am finding here is epitomized by the
raised garden beds my landlady put in for me during my first
year here, including steel chicken-wire at the base to keep
out the voracious gophers that populate my backyard—combined
with her warm invitation for me to stay in her house as long
as I like. After moving more times than I like to recall in
the past decade, this lovely piece of ground is the foundation
of serenity and joy I so want for myself in my later years.
The experience of being in one place—and actively gardening
for almost three years now—has given me an opportunity
to actually practice observation of the cycles and microclimates
that exist here in my small territory.
Without really knowing anything about permaculture
per se, it turns out I have been practicing some of its principles
by intuition and happy accident. I have one shady southeastern
corner near a fence in my backyard where I put in some herbs
next to the ferns that already lived there. Last year I added
a lovely Huichol tobacco plant with delicate trumpet-like
yellow flowers, along with some mints and white yarrow; they
are finding a kind of artistic harmony together that pleases
me no end. I admit I like to crowd my plants and put them
in circles or groupings instead of rows, so as it turns out,
it shouldn't be a stretch for me to learn "polyculture"
planting. I'm planning to devote one of my two vegetable beds
to putting in a mix of seeds for garden greens (mustard, arugula,
and mizuna, three of my favorites), followed closely by lettuce,
chard, and carrots among the previously sown seeds. (It was
great having fresh carrots from my garden in every soup I
made almost all winter, so I may have to keep planting carrots
as the summer turns to fall.) Next come the herbs (I love
fennel bulbs, anise hyssop, and basil) and then legumes which
"fix nitrogen" back into the soil (I might try fava
beans in the winter and bush beans for summer). The idea is
that you harvest this dense planting daily and eat fresh salads
for many months, while thinning the garden. Cabbages—so
decorative they look like art objects—can go in later
in the summer as the others come out, and on it goes. I'm
interested in planting some "tree kale" I saw when
I visited friends living near the Buddhist retreat center
where our course was held.
Two years ago I ordered plants from an organic medicinal-herbs
nursery online. Some of the plants I put in have done well
(chamomile, rosemary, sacred tobacco, a variety of echinaceas;
motherwort, mugwort, and valerian) while others failed miserably
(most notably black cohosh, which I tried two years in a row
without success). There is one plant in particular in which
I am quite emotionally invested, the small blue elderberry
tree I bought the first year, which will flower (attracting
bees), and fruit (attracting birds), and whose berries make
a kick-ass syrup for curing colds and flu. My little seedling
tree had a terrible time in its first location in my front
garden bed, where snails decimated it. I moved it to a pot
for the next year, and still it was unhappy, wilting and drying
each time I neglected to water it enough. Finally last summer
I opened a spot for it, put it in the ground in the middle
of my backyard, wished it well (I "witched" it well
is more like it), and have since left it more or less alone.
This seems the happiest arrangement so far and I'm truly hoping
it will begin to flourish this year, as I attempt to turn
the area around the little tiny tree into a "guild."
Plant guilds are "natural plant communities," certain
sets or groupings of plants that not only get along well,
but actually contribute to one another's growth and enhance
the well being of the land. It's one of the many permaculture
approaches that imitates nature and increases diversity. To
put it bluntly regarding mainstream methods: "Monocultures
deplete the soil, provide a sumptuous feast for pests, and
dull the senses" (Gaia's Garden, p. 142). You put the
smaller plants around the outer edge of where the mature tree
(or in this case, shrub) will eventually reach, along with
a ground cover and some herbs or flowers; you can even cultivate
mushrooms in some instances. I have been actively imagining
my guild for the last 24 hours, my passion for the idea steadily
growing, only to come up against an obstacle already. So far,
even with all my searching, I can't seem to find "companion
plants" for elderberry. This may be because one of the
functions of elderberry is to "confuse pests"; does
that somehow make it unfriendly as well to other plants? Clearly,
I will have to study this more before proceeding with my great
plan! (Back to the permaculture drawing table.) I did learn,
in passing, that the foliage from trimming an elderberry tree
is super-good for my compost pile, causing it to ferment better
and faster.
|
|
We learned so many wonderful ecological approaches and sustainable
systems during the two-week training program, partly through
excellent and interesting lectures and slide presentations.
But the hands-on instruction is what stays with me the most,
such as the day our entire group went out onto a slope on
the retreat property behind our classroom, where we created
"swales" to catch the rainwater that otherwise goes
shooting down across the land and into the creek at the bottom,
eventually flowing out to the ocean. In a remarkably simple
but brilliant engineering system, we dug horizontal grooves
along the contour of the hill, so that the water could be
tricked into flowing sideways in the little canals where it
might seep into the soil on the hillside instead of running
off so quickly. Then on another day we planted fruit trees
below the swales, to benefit from the salvaged rain water—a
kind of passive (and I thought, quite beautiful) irrigation
system. During that same process we learned how to "sheet
mulch" around the newly planted trees, a process that
adds back nutrients and organic matter to the land without
chemical fertilizers, and kills weeds without chemical poisons,
by laying down cardboard and compost (recycled kitchen scraps
that have fermented over time and become humus; at a retreat
center, they have plenty of kitchen scraps).
The hands-on highlight for me was the day I used my first
power tool (a jig saw) and learned to do some rudimentary
plumbing, by participating in the installation of a gray-water
system for one of the yurts on Starhawk's land nearby. It
was inspiring! There is now a very real possibility that I
could create water-harvesting systems in my back yard and
begin catching rain water from my roof, as well as "gray
water" from the shower or laundry, to water plants and
lawn. This would keep more of the water that falls on my property
here for longer, while wasting less water in general and lowering
my water bills.
One thing I couldn't help but notice during the course is
that all the different methods, approaches, and techniques
taught by our intelligent and enthusiastic teaching team are
conceptual systems developed by men—smart and progressive
men, obviously, but men nonetheless. Permaculture is indeed
an excellent approach to sustainable living on this planet
and one that feels nurturing and inviting to use in "real
life." I'm also aware, however, that there is in this
"new" paradigm a premium placed on the "hunter-forager"
(back to the forest) life model so beloved of so many young
men of recent generations, who often seem repelled by even
the ideas of "cultivation" and the sedentary life
of a farming people. I have even heard some blame the invention
of agriculture for our contemporary problems, mistakenly equating
it with patriarchy. Yet I have spent the last three decades
of my life at the center of a movement uncovering and bringing
to light the existence of peaceful, egalitarian Goddess-worshipping
"Neolithic" civilizations around the planet, whose
matriarchal members (male and female) practiced sustainable
agriculture in a ritually-based reciprocity with nature for
as much as four thousand years. Only after patriarchy was
established did the agricultural societies (now colonized
and often enslaved) begin clear-cutting forests and causing
other environmental damage; this distinction has been clearly
documented by scientists who study pollen samples and tree
rings, among other things.
I would like to see the inclusion of a matriarchal model in
permaculture, which would bring balance and perspective to
the approach. Forest gardens are fabulous—innovative
and creative ways of returning the planet to something nearer
its earlier or even original state before we humans began
destroying so much of the ecosystem. But it was early women
who apprehended the idea of how to harvest the wild grasses
and make ritual bread out of the ground seeds, the charred
remains of which are found outside Ice Age caves in France
from 12,000 BCE. Then they figured out how to bring those
wild seeds closer to home and cultivate them for the good
of the community, creating storehouses (granaries) as well
as baskets, bags, pots and bowls for holding the results of
their inventions. Food-preservation, cooking, and the creation
of containers may not seem as sexy as water catchment and
building compost toilets, but it is. The mystery of using
fire to turn seeds into bread has been equated by ancient
and tribal people with the pregnancy and birthing of a baby
from a woman's body. In many indigenous communities today,
weaving and making pottery still require performance of the
same rituals as those that necessarily surround the gestation
and birth processes of human women. The organization of indigenous
seasonal festivals and sacred ceremonies has always revolved
around agricultural cycles, because the agriculture—so
often the province of women—has been performed since
ancient times in a reverent and reciprocal way. The famous
Chipco (tree-hugging) women in India, whose brave practices
have inspired today's contemporary tree-sitters, were women
whose subsistence agriculture was threatened by bulldozers
and armies of invading capitalist men with money on their
minds.
Ancient agriculture, rather than being a problem or the source
of our current troubles, is a model: it was a very successful
and long-lived "experiment" in natural cooperative
living. The rituals, songs, dances, myths, stories, customs,
and oral traditions (even "old wives tales") of
people all around the planet keep alive the traditions of
the ancient agriculturalists. Your grandmother's embroidered
tea towels from Poland have stylized Goddesses on them, as
do the woven belts and hats and rugs from every continent.
Permaculture, along with organic and biodynamic farming, are
not new inventions. They are brilliant and worthwhile systems
that we are remembering and reclaiming, as part of what it
means to be human and alive inside an evolutionary web of
life. When I install my rain water harvesting system, I will
be giving thanks to the brilliant guy who most recently invented
it, and to the fabulous teachers and purveyors of permaculture
knowledge in the world today, along with making offerings
to a lineage of ancient women who created the first containers
for catching water, carrying babies, and baking that first
(can you imagine it?) apple pie.
Building a cob bench
Vicki Noble is a feminist healer, artist, writer and teacher,
co-creator of Motherpeace Tarot and author of numerous books,
including Shakti Woman and The Double Goddess. She lives in
Santa Cruz, California, near her children and grandchildren,
and teaches in the Women’s Spirituality Masters Program
at ITP in Palo Alto. She attended the EAT course at Black
Mountain Preserve in January 2010.
Copyright Vicki Noble (c) 2010, all rights reserved.
BACK
to Articles Page
|
