Summer 2017 Permaculture Design Course

To learn about the 2017 PDC, check out the brochure.

Our Permaculture Design Courses

We hope you will leave this course saturated with a new way of knowing which empowers you to look at old problems with new lenses to create holistic solutions. In this ten-day workshop we will delve deeply into the system of permaculture design.

We will begin by exploring a new way of knowing that is holistic and biological. One way to describe permaculture is “land-use design based in systems thinking.” Thinking in systems is basically the opposite of how we have been trained to think, and how we think and how we think becomes so deeply ingrained that most of us don’t ever realize that there are alternative ways of knowing. Limits to the dominant way of knowing in our culture, reductionism, are becoming increasingly evident as human and ecological systems continue to degrade. Thinking in systems is the foundation upon which regenerative, ecological, and social solutions can be implemented. We will relate this new way of knowing to agriculture, evolution, ecology, natural history, water, social organization, natural building, epistemology, and more to come up with a pattern language for a regenerative culture.

A permaculture way of knowing cannot be built on top of our current unsustainable way of knowing. Simple linear accumulation of knowledge is not sufficient. Radical reorganization of lifeways is necessary if we are going to create a regenerative culture—a permaculture. We step back, question our assumptions, and ground ourselves in a paradigm of sanity and empowerment.

Join us for this ten-day immersion course in a permaculture-inspired land-based community. You will learn from a functioning permaculture site as well as several regional practicing permaculturists. The lectures and discussions will be bolstered by daily hands-on activities. Three local organic meals daily, on site camping, and materials will be included. This design course is intended for hands-on practitioners and is priced to be affordable; certificates available from Clare Hintz for those whose management goals include certification.