As always, the heart of our Convergence lies in the outpouring of information and experience
that our presenters so generously share with us all.
that our presenters so generously share with us all.
This year's presentations were categorized according to topic. The topical tracks are:
- Tools and Tech - Solar, Wind, Water, Aqua and More
- Green and Resilient Lifestyles, Culture and Economics – Eco Villages, Cooperatives, Neighborhoods, Place Making, Companion Movements, Communication
- Allies, Assets and Opportunities - Working With the Mainstream - City, Neighborhood Associations, Non Profits, Faith, Ad Hoc
- Gardens, Plants, Soil and Animals – Suburban, City, Rural
- Rural Permaculture - Large and Small - Regenerative Agriculture
- Short Stories - True Permaculture Stories from Real Life that deserve to be heard. 15 to 20 minutes each story
- Skill Share - Outdoors, active, hands-on
Keynote Speakers
Friday
Friday evening's keynote will be four inspiring twenty-minute short stories about applying permaculture values, principles and actions to urban and suburban settings.
Stories will be coming from Pat Rasmussen, working with city, neighborhood associations, non profits and schools in Olympia; Emily Scali working with the city, non profits and community organizations in Seattle's Othello Neighborhood to educate healthy lifestyles, Christina Clark in Eugene, working with her church to take gardening and healthy lifestyles into the neighborhood and community and Jan Spencer, with focus on greening his suburban neighborhood with grass roots approaches, his neighborhood association and city of Eugene.
Stories will be coming from Pat Rasmussen, working with city, neighborhood associations, non profits and schools in Olympia; Emily Scali working with the city, non profits and community organizations in Seattle's Othello Neighborhood to educate healthy lifestyles, Christina Clark in Eugene, working with her church to take gardening and healthy lifestyles into the neighborhood and community and Jan Spencer, with focus on greening his suburban neighborhood with grass roots approaches, his neighborhood association and city of Eugene.
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Pat Rasmussen, Olympia, Washington
Pat dreamed of doing forest gardens since 1994. In 2006 Pat's friend Dave Sansone was testing which perennial vegetables work well in our bioregion. Pat and Dave visited Olympia with a powerpoint, "How to Make a Forest Garden." Pat and Olympia embraced the food forest idea. The first public food forest in Olympia to involve city and a neighborhood was the Joy Avenue Pathway in 2011, a collaboration with Northeast Neighborhood, that converted an overgrown and rubble filled city right of way into a bike trail with benches, art and forest garden. Since then, Edible Forest Gardens, a non-profit in Olympia, has installed more than 80 forest gardens of fruit and nut trees, berry bushes and perennial vegetables around town in yards, community gardens, neighborhood pathways, schools, churches, farms and businesses - all with volunteers and College interns. Importantly, EFG cooperates with Neighborhood Associations to apply for Neighborhood Matching Grants from the City of Olympia to purchase plants and supplies for collaborative projects. Together, they have planted forest gardens at elementary schools, middle schools and high schools with students taking an active part in design, planting and taking care of the gardens. Olympia High Schools now have “victory” gardens where students grow food for school lunch programs while permaculture class are taught in school. EFG has worked with the City Parks Department so food forests are now included as permissible landscape options in city parks. Pat works with Evergreen State college students and teachers. The group installed a demonstration site with five different natural water harvesting models and just created a half acre market garden. Pat has helped bring many segments of the community together. |
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Emily Scali, Seattle, Washington
Emily Scali is a Seattle architect, educator, and entrepreneur focused on ecological architecture, permaculture, and urban renewal. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from Virginia Tech and has over 12 years of experience in a range of architecture, urban planning, historic preservation, and landscape design projects nationwide. Emily's short story will be a practical example of her permaculture based design ideals. She is engaged in making her neighborhood more green and resilient, from the scale of her own property to the dynamic area surrounding the Othello Light Rail line in SE Seattle. Highlighting and growing the neighborhood’s community gardens, transportation options, and pedestrian safety, Emily is working with community organizations, non-profits, and city groups to collaborate cross-culturally in this diverse community. An important new entity in this neighborhood community building matrix is the Beet Box. The Beet Box itself is a purple painted repurposed shipping container, housed on a long neglected vacant lot. As a temporary pop-up space supported by non-profits, it is a hub for food and nutrition education in the Othello neighborhood. It is becoming a well-known place with a community herb garden, tool and seed library, and for neighborhood educational events related to gardening, nutrition and healthy lifestyles. The Beet Box is an important place making project. It creates affirmative social identity and brings the community together which creates new relationships and friendships that can lead to still more positive initiative and benefits in the neighborhood. Emily's short story will provide us with an insider's view of her path to creating strong relationships necessary for greening SE Seattle's Othello Neighborhood. |
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Christina Phillips Clark, Eugene, Oregon
Christina's story will describe a project that will enhance the well being of her neighborhood in many ways. Every town and city has communities of faith - Christian, Jewish, Islamic, non aligned and more. Communities of faith with their positive social values and ideas, have enormous potentials for being allies to create far more healthy and peaceful homes, neighborhoods and world. Christina is working with others at her church in Eugene to create a market garden on church property. This part of the plan is already complete. Its a beautiful garden and there is an impressive farm stand in the church parking lot along a busy suburban street. Thats just the beginning. The garden will become an educational platform for reaching out to the nearby neighborhood to encourage those nearby to grow food and live healthy lifestyles. And thats not all. The next part of the plan is to network and share the garden/outreach model with other communities of faith so they can reach out to their neighborhoods. Important, Christina was a commercial farmer on 100 acres in Arkansas servicing accounts with 66 grocery stores She transformed a suburban property, front and back into a micro farm. She also has maintained a passion for education and improving the health and well being of others and the natural world. Christina's story gets even better - it converges with Jan's neighborhood plan story. |
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Jan Spencer, Eugene, Oregon
Jan took a PDC in Austin, Texas in 1990. He bought a house in River Road, Eugene in 2000, which has become a permaculture landmark in the Northwest. Well over 2000 people have visited over the years to see what permaculture can look like when applied to suburbia. Since then, Jan has made dozens of presentations and radio interviews; organized site tours, restored a filbert grove; and written for magazines and the local mainstream news paper, all about repurposing suburbia for social, environmental, economic and even spiritual transformation. Jan has been involved with both local and Northwest Permaculture convergences including the 2015 NW Convergence, which took place in his suburban neighborhood. Jan's short story will highlight a unique and unprecedented opportunity to take permaculture ideas and actions much deeper into the community. The City of Eugene has invited his neighborhood to create a new planning document that will guide decision making for transportation, land use, economic development, open spaces and resilience in his neighborhood over the next twenty years. Jan and friends are working to load the plan with as much permaculture, green and resilient content as possible. This pioneering neighborhood plan can become a model for other neighborhood plans in Eugene and elsewhere. Notably, permaculture approaches to urban planning strongly support City of Eugene and State of Oregon planning goals. This is a significant understanding! |
Saturday
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Dr. Elaine Ingham will be making Saturday evening's keynote. She has an impressive resume and has star power among organic and regenerative soil enthusiasts.
Dr. Ingham is an American microbiologist and soil biology researcher and founder of Soil Foodweb Inc. She is known as a leader in soil microbiology and research of the soil food web. She is an author of the USDA's Soil Biology Primer. In 2011, Ingham was named as The Rodale Institute's chief scientist. Ingham earned her PhD from Colorado State University in 1981. Her doctorate is in Microbiology, with an emphasis on soil. In 1986, Ingham moved to Oregon State University and joined the faculty in both Forest Science and Botany and Plant Pathology. She remained on faculty until 2001. Ingham has been an Affiliate Professor of Sustainable Living at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa; Adjunct Faculty at Southern Cross University in Lismore, New South Wales from 1999 to 2005; Visiting Professor with Melbourne University from 2004 to 2008; and was Program Chair of the Ecological Society of America from 1999 to 2000. She joined the Rodale Institute in 2011 as chief scientist and left in 2013. Ingham is the founder of Soil Foodweb Inc, which works with soil testing laboratories to assess soil biology. She has become Director of Research at the Environment Celebration Institute's Farm near Berry Creek in Northern California, demonstrating the methods of biological agriculture to grow plants without pesticides or inorganic fertilizers. The Convergence is excited to have Elaine as Saturday's keynote speaker! |
Sunday
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The 2018 Northwest Permaculture Convergence is very pleased to have Michael Becker join us for the entire weekend, and give Sunday's keynote.
Michael is bravely going where few middle school teachers have gone before. He has been teaching for 15 years in public schools in Hood River, Oregon, and has developed a reputation for innovative learning about the real world that combines standard curriculum with hands-on research and experience. His students started the first farmers market in Hood River, which took place on the school grounds, with the kids growing and selling the veggies at their vendor's booth from their school garden. The farmers market has grown much larger since then. Michael has been developing the Hood River Middle School Food and Conservation Program for 11 years. It's a permaculture inspired integrated approach applied to standard school curriculum where students are the researchers, engineers, designers, architects, and builders. The hands-on approach has a focus on ecology, community and sustainability, and particularly on water, food, energy, waste and diversity. Approaching the grounds of Hood River Middle School, one is impressed with the solar panels and the big green house and garden in back. Michael's students had a hand in putting all this together, transforming what could be mundane curriculum into real life learning and participation. School becomes a bridge to the real world, critically, with the students having a progressive vision for what the real world can be like, given the times we live in. Michael has a great story to share with parents, kids, professionals, and permaculture enthusiasts. His keynote at the Convergence will be a real treat for learning how permaculture ideas and actions are finding their way into school curriculum, students' lives, the wider community, and world. |
Weekend Earthworks Course
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Join world-renowned Permaculture consultant, researcher, educator and Regenerative Agriculture farmer, David Ahlgren, for a free weekend-long Permaculture Earthworks and Swales on Contour Workshop at the Convergence! We will design, lay out with a laser level and dig swales on contour with an excavator to create a food forest for Camp Singing Wind. Participants in the Earthworks Course who complete all course work and participate in the digging will receive an Earthworks Certificate.
David is a PRI trained Permaculture Design Educator. Beginning and Advanced will be offered. Friday afternoon: Earthworks, Ponds and Swales 101 and Earthworks Workshop, Lazer Work and Design. Saturday morning: Earthworks Swale Creation Workshop. Saturday afternoon: Advanced Earthworks: How to observe diverse land, then apply design and earth moving options. |
David Ahlgren is a seasoned and innovative permaculture consultant, educator, researcher and innovative land steward. He helped to plant his first food forest on the island of Guam at age 7. David was sent to the United States as an orphan when he was 16. In college, due to many city zoning citations for his agricultural and green-energy experiments on a small city lot, he purchased 13 acres for a home and permaculture research. In 2007 David returned to the island of Guam for a consulting project to find his childhood food forest a self-sustaining and regenerating cornucopia of nutrient dense food. The contrast between the food forest and the surrounding conventional farms inspired David to dedicate the next 10 years to research and large scale food forest food production on his 120 acres in Oklahoma.
Earthworks, Ponds and Swales 101 - Session A
- Site Evaluation
- Access
- Planning
- Economics (surplus)
- Equipment
- Finding contours
- Using a laser level
- Swale Design and implementation
- Level Sills
- Swivel Joints
- Methods
- Equipment Demonstrations
- Pond integration and applications
- Digging swales with the excavator
- Walk the land
- Design potential layouts
- Discuss earth moving options
Presenters
Tools, Tech & Building
Solar, Wind, Water, and More
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Aquaponics: A Learning Lab for High School Students
Terry O'Day Forest Grove, Oregon
As part of a course called “Gadgets and Gizmos for a Sustainable Household”, I worked with college students to help build and install an aquaponics lab that will support experiential science curriculum and provide fresh greens for lunches at the alternative high school in Forest Grove.
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Terry O'Day teaches Permaculture Design at Pacific University and has been involved with a number of projects that integrate education, design, and sustainability. Projects include the B Street Permaculture Project (Pacific University's school farm), The Forest Grove Community School (a sustainability-themed charter school), and EdenAcres Environmental Education (a non-profit that provides outdoor experiences for youth and supports outdoor learning spaces for students in the Forest Grove school district: www.edenacres.org). She is currently developing an urban community learning center that includes aquaponics, a biogas digester, a biochar cone kiln, rocket stoves, a barrel oven, coppice for fuelwood, gardens, rabbits, chickens, and more. For more information on these projects see O'Day's website: pacificart.wixsite.com/oday
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Building Low Impact Housing
Bomun Bock-Chung - Sequim, Washington
www.sheltercraft.org Building healthy, low cost, beautiful tiny homes out of scavenged materials is totally possible. Bomun has spent the last 10 years in New Zealand with the goal of creating just that. A low cost, earth friendly shelter that is a pleasure to experience.
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Bomun has been a carpenter for 20 years, and an alternative builder for 10 years. He teaches workshops on a multitude of natural building techniques which include: Earth plasters, building a cob oven, round house building, earth bag construction, short term shelters out of bamboo, and more. He played a crucial role in building Awhi Farm, a permaculture based outdoor education center in New Zealand. Awhi Farm is now run by a Maori women who is one of the founders of Awhi Farm. Bomun built a number of structures there. With very little resources or funding, he had to be innovative and resourceful. It was the testing ground for the shelter models that he continued to develop in following years. Bomun has been involved in the teaching of over 12 Permaculture Design Courses. While helping host the Australasian Permaculture Convergence from Awhi Farm, he led the building of a large bamboo bender for the dinning area. He was involved in Luminate for over six years. Luminate is arguably one of the best and most sustainable music festivals in New Zealand. It has evolved into more than just music, with many transformational workshops taking place all day. Bomun has been leading the building of the healing zone at Luminate for years. He builds a large Round House with extended wings as a free and shared healing space among other structures for the healing zone.
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Natural Motion Magic: How Vortex Generators Add Value to Your Water, Health, and Life
Adam Abraham, Chehalis, Washington
Youtube channel Society's greatest obstacle to evolution is itself. More specifically, learned or inherited customs that we continue to promote and perpetuate even though common sense and available knowledge would suggest alternate courses. One such custom involves water, our views about it, and treatment of it, and the unnecessary price we're paying.
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Adam Abraham has been involved in the *re-education* of humanity since 2006, with an initial focus on health, through book publishing "Transdermal Magnesium Therapy" written by Mark Sircus, and a documentary film "Understanding MMS: A Conversation with Jim Humble" (2008). Introduction into the world of water and its amazing transformational power through vortex motion highlights a new opportunity for permaculture to use less of this amazing substance while enjoying better quality and overall results. info@presidentwater.com www.presidentwater.com
Green and Resilient Lifestyles, Culture and Economics
Eco Villages, Cooperatives, Neighborhoods, Place Making, Companion Movements, Communication
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The New Economy: Beyond Capitalism
Jacki Saorsail discusses the differences between capitalism, socialism, and the new economy, and teaches her design principles for Regenerative Enterprises, Regenerative Dynamics. Learn how to apply the same level of intentionality to designing your organizations that you bring to designing your land.
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Jacki Saorsail is a community organizer and social entrepreneur who has organized housing co-ops, community gardens, music festivals, an organic gourmet mushroom farm, a food co-op, and a community center. She is currently working on a Master's Degree from Gaia University studying Regenerative Enterprise Design and developing an online course in the topic. You can find out about her content and business consulting on her website at RegenerativeDynamics.com.
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Block Repair: Revillaging the Colonial Grid
Mark Lakeman Portland, Oregon
cityrepair.org • communitecture.net • planetrepair.org This presentation and hands-on workshop describes how a typical neighborhood in SE Portland is unmaking the isolation and disengagement of the roman colonial grid. We will first test ideas with a hands-on model, then have a slideshow to complete the effect.
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Mark Lakeman is a national leader in the emergence of regenerative communities and places. In the last decade he has collaboratively directed, facilitated, or inspired designs for more than seven hundred new community-generated public places in Portland, Oregon alone. Through his leadership in communitecture, Inc., and it’s various affiliates such as the The City Repair Project (501(c)3), The Village Building Convergence, and the Planet Repair Institute, he has also been instrumental in the development of hundreds of participatory organizations and urban permaculture design projects across the United States and Canada. Mark works with governmental leaders, community organizations, and educational institutions in many diverse communities. The work of communitecture and City Repair has been recognized and published widely, including having received the national Lewis Mumford Award for Socially Conscious Design. Planet Repair has been mostly distinguished by it's acclaimed Urban Permaculture Design Course, and it's ongoing project Block Repair.
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Cultivating Biodiversity in Democracy - STAR Voting
Sara Wolf, Portland, Oregon
www.starvoting.us STAR Voting is a new voting system that is being proposed as a model for the nation. We need fair, equal elections where we can see the full spectrum of voters and opinions represented. Our nation is facing deep seeded systemic problems and rather than just running around in triage mode we can draw on wholistic design principles and grassroots culture to create systemic change to manifest a world that respects our full diversity. This is social permaculture in action.
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Systemic problems require design based solutions! Sara Wolf is a Portland grown activist and musician with a background in permaculture design and sustainable agriculture. She is passionate about ecology and loves working to cultivate solutions that help people live symbiotically with our natural world. In that context election reform may seem like a tangent, but on the contrary, fighting for real democracy is the key to making an exponential difference on every other issue that we care about. Until we are rewarded for voting our conscience, and until the will of the people is accurately represented, humanity will continue to fail no matter how much we learn. Now Sara is leading the Portland chapter of the Equal Vote Coalition and is working to bring a new voting system, STAR Voting, to Multnomah County. Start local, think global. STAR stands for Score Then Automatic Runoff and that's exactly how it works. You rate your candidates 0-5. The two highest scoring candidates are finalists, and the finalist you scored higher gets your vote. Unlike our current system the 5 star ballot lets us show our full, honest opinions and the implications are groundbreaking. This is the cornerstone in the fight for the Equal Vote and the implications send ripples into every corner of politics, social justice, and environmentalism. Reclaim your voice. Heal democracy! http://starvoting.us sara@equal.vote
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Making Friends with Dragons - Productive Conflict for Communities
Having a conversation with someone you disagree with can feel like walking into a dragon’s lair. You probably either want to avoid it altogether, or go in with your armor on and your sword drawn. What if you could make friends with the dragon instead?
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Woosi Wildwood first became interested in productive conflict when she realized there was a better way to deal with conflict than hiding under the table and biting people’s ankles as they walked past. Since she’s come out from under the table, she’s taught productive conflict at businesses and schools, and coached her clients on taking a productive, heart-based approach to conflict. She’s also used the techniques in her own life and business to speak up and strengthen relationships built on transparency, trust, and heart. You can hire Woosi for personal development and conflict coaching, or to teach productive conflict in your business or community. Go to wildwoosi.com, or email her directly at woosi@wildwoosi.com
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Native American Horticulture, Ecology, Ethnobotany and Cosmology
Many traditional subsistence agricultural concepts pre-date and are in congruence with the ideas of permaculture. This talk explores this convergence and how a traditional belief system or cosmology of a specific new world tropical rain forest culture may inspire our understanding and relationship to our natural, cultural, geological and geographical landscapes.
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Bill Harp is a technologist, cultural anthropologist, and a geospatial analyst who has worked as a cultural anthropologist in Panama. During his time in Panama he did research among the Emberá people in eastern Panama, and subsequently earned his MA in Anthropology from the University of Oregon where he specialized in the ecology and cosmology of tropical lowland, indigenous cultures of the new world. From 1986-2000 he worked for the U.S. Department of Defense, Southern Command, specialized in technology, training and geospatial applications in defense and intelligence. He was also a program manager for a large, national mapping project of land use and forest cover with the United Nations REDD (Reduction in Emissions, Degradation and Deforestation) program in collaboration with the Panamanian Ministry of the Environment. He served as a Commissioner with the Panamanian Ministry of Tourism for sustainable heritage and eco-tourism. From 2004-2011 he worked at Esri (www.esri.com) where he became the Defense and Intelligence Industry Manager. For the previous three plus years, Bill worked as the Director, Technology for Bonner County Government (Emeritus). He also writes popular articles on science and technology for the Sandpoint Reader weekly newspaper and served as a Commissioner for Historic Preservation for the City of Sandpoint. Bill and his wife Susan, also an archaeologist, journalist, editor and anthropologist, alternate between their country homesteads in Coclé, Panama and Sandpoint, Idaho where they maintain subsistence gardens and orchards. e-mail: harp@trail2.com
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Fractal Permaculture: local, bioregional, global
Mark Robinowitz, Eugene Oregon
peakchoice.org Mark highlights how permaculture design can be scaled up to the largest levels. Practical approaches can help families, neighborhoods, bioregions and the whole of civilization "transition" to adapt to the limits to growth on our round, abundant, finite planet.
The presentation is partly inspired by permaculture co-originator David Holmgren’s Future Scenarios: How Communities can adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change. futurescenarios.org. Could social structures that require increasing consumption be converted toward a steady state economy more suited for actual sustainability? What potentials exist for globalized cooperation instead of globalized competition and militarism? What can we learn from our society’s collective ignoring of ecological warnings? The oil wells are half empty and half full. Half empty, so we cannot continue business as usual. Half full, so we have resources to power the power down. Transition towns and transition planet. |
Mark Robinowitz, publisher of PeakChoice.org: cooperation or collapse, has advocated for understanding these limits and opportunities for a third of a century, integrating deep ecology, energy literacy, grassroots activism to prevent highway expansions, food irradiation and other toxic technologies. He is especially interested in the political and psychological obstacles that prevent widespread recognition of “Peak Everything.”
Combining preparedness, wilderness survival skills, and permaculture for truly resilient permaculture lifestyle
Steven Knopp, Yelm, Washington
Four plus decades as a self sufficient homesteader, permaculture educator, and wilderness survival skills educator and preparedness consultant have taught me to combine these areas for a truly resilient permaculture lifestyle. For all those serious about a lasting, succsessful permaculture lifestyle, and making a real difference in the world by doing so.
Steven Knopp is widely recognized as an extraordinary educator in many arts including wilderness survival skills, permaculture, martial arts and archery, preparedness consulting, and a master builder and craftsman, and musician. Steven combines decades of experience and tremendous passion for alternative living and lifestyles and teaching these arts to others. His presentations are no nonsense, get real wake-up calls for those serious about these subjects, but presented with a sense of humor as well as passion and deep insight into the future .
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Creating Durable Communities
We will look at the connections between community living, having a shared vision, and the concept of studying together.
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Florian Becquereau is a new co-President of the Northwest Intentional Communities Association. He's been diving deeply into environmental sustainability and community living as a way to solve the systemic issues our era is facing, leading him to be a co-founder of Earthship Seattle and then Star Community. He's now working on Tenowa, a village scale holistic living environment made to host the development of a truly sustainable culture and haven for fully integrated activists. The best site for Tenowa's land project has been found in Lewis county.
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Permaculture Careers Pathways
Andrew Millison, Corvallis, Oregon & Marisha Auerbach, Portland, Oregon
permaculturerising.com |
There are ample opportunities to serve humanity with your passions and skills in designing permaculture systems. Join Andrew Millison and Marisha Auerbach for a discussion about permaculture design career opportunities. We have noticed that ecological and design services are relevant to more career pathways than most people think. This will be an opportunity to share about potential opportunities, pathways, and challenges to designing your right livelihood. We hope to inspire and empower participants to be active leaders for resiliency in their home communities.
Andrew Millison brings nearly 20 years experience in designing and building permaculture projects to his teaching and wants to share that rich, real-world experience with his students. He has been studying, teaching and practicing permaculture since he took his first course in 1996. He began teaching permaculture at the college level in 2001 and has been an instructor at Oregon State University in the Horticulture Department since 2009. Andrew currently teaches the Permaculture Design Course and the Advanced Permaculture Design Practicum at OSU both on campus and online. Andrew first learned permaculture design in the drylands of Arizona, where he studied for his undergraduate and master's degrees at Prescott College. His focus was on rainwater harvesting, greywater systems, and desert agriculture. He started a permaculture landscape design and build company and also worked in an ecologically-based landscape architecture firm. In recent years, Andrew's focus has been more on broad scale farm planning, permaculture housing developments, and obtaining water rights. In 2015, he founded Permaculture Design International (PDI), a collaborative design firm that works on large-scale global projects.
Marisha Auerbach is an internationally recognized permaculture educator, designer, and speaker based in Portland, OR. Marisha has lived and practiced permaculture in both urban and rural environments. As an avid gardener and herbalist, Marisha specializes in food production, ecology, and useful plants. Marisha believes that it is possible to respond to the current environmental challenges, lower our ecological footprint, and continue to live equally delightful lives through permaculture design. This passion is what drives Marisha's active teaching schedule throughout the year.
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Permaculture of Human Relationships
David Ahlgren, Oklahoma
Discover and discuss the application of permaculture principals to how we apply them in relationships. We will discuss community, client, government, family, and personal realtionships. This will be an interactive and lively discussion, that produces good insights and new ideas.
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Hawaii, Italy, and the Northwest: Explorations in Ecovillages, Permaculture Farms and Eco-Intentional Living
People have organized and expressed themselves on the landscape in efforts to live in harmony with nature and all beings with incredible diversity. In this talk, I present a sampling of ecovillages, farms and eco-intentional living that vary from urban to rural, from 5 to 600 people, and are located in the jungles of Hawaii, the foothills of Northern Italy, and here in our own temperate forests.
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Miku Lenentine holds a Ph.D. from the University of Washington in the Human Dimensions of Environmental and Forest Sciences, and a master’s degree in Natural Resource Management from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. She is also trained in Social Permaculture and Social Forestry, having completed certificates and programs with Tommi Hazel (Tom Ward), Starhawk and Pandora Thomas. In addition, Miku is an experienced meditation practitioner and circle facilitator. She was raised in a mindfulness tradition and has trained with Eric Carroll at the Center for Vibrant Living for the past 7 years. Miku has guided weekly meditation and community dialogue circles since 2013 and facilitated a number of workshops at permaculture communities, urban international communities, farms and festivals over the years. She has extensive experience with small group dynamics, regional and local level planning, as well as collaborative group processes utilizing consensus building and egalitarian decision making. In 2014 Miku co-founded the Soulshine Intentional Community house in Seattle which has now transformed into the community-based startup organization, 道Vibrantly. Miku currently works as a post-doctoral research associate at the center for Vibrant Living, and also works as an adjunct faculty in environmental studies at the University of Washington. She also instructs in social permaculture, teaches yoga, meditation, compassionate dialogue, and helps coordinate 道Vibrantly.
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Permaculture Petri Dishes: Sustainability Geography for the 21st Century
Greg Schundler, Olympia, Washington
Youtube In this talk, GIS Data Scientist Professional, Greg Schundler, shares a new lens for political and bioregional geography at all spatial scales. What can we learn from places that are "just like us"? What are the best management practices from self to neighborhood, municipality to county, state to watershed?
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Greg Schundler cultivates permaculture on all spatial scales: he is equally interested in integrating a mountain bike into his 7,000 sq ft Olympia garden work flow and growing Ozette potatoes on clay-soiled timberland terraces, as he is processing NASA landcover and carbon emissions satellite data for all watersheds and regions of the world. Greg works for Thurston County, Washington, but is also developing a Wiki-Atlas for the whole planet with Seattle's Democracy Lab. He is also available for collaboration through his own Wellsight Consulting.
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Vegans in Permaculture
As vegan homesteaders in the north we seek to bridge the gap between veganism and Permaculture. This presentation will offer a vision of how an animal sanctuary can be a Permaculture farm. The animals are participatory in the system, and through not breeding we stick to a manageable scale.
Michaelyn Erickson is an owner at Soulstice Gardens animal sanctuary and homestead and manages the Community Farmers Market at Chehalis. She grew up in the midst of rural Washington and learned farming at an early age in her grandfather’s corn fields. After earning a degree from The Evergreen State College, Michaelyn found her passions in Permaculture and veganism. Soulstice Gardens homestead offers experiences which teach about interacting with the land and ecosystem in a passive yet productive way.
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Profitable Permaculture Partnerships
Panel discussion on successful, long-term industry businesses by Michael & Carolyn Dolan, plus new Raintree owner, James Owen. They will each speak to the search for work/life balance, right livelihood, and the challenges and rewards of developing sustainable businesses that create a small footprint but leave big change in the lives of their employees and their customers.
Building as Birthing Energy: Natural & semi-natural materials, community, and success vs trauma
Joseph Becker, Olympia/Corvalis/Cascadia
www.ionecobuilding.org faswall.com
www.ionecobuilding.org faswall.com
Building high quality, durable, healthy and ecological homes and structures is a great and challenging problem/opportunity/process. This process can be taken too lightly, too seriously and everything in-between. We will discuss owner/builder processes and focus on participation as a pathway toward intimacy, responsibility and stewardship. We will also discuss pitfalls and look at building well within a metaphor of having a baby, climbing a mountain, or running a river - "it is not something to take lightly and not well advised to do alone."
Joseph Becker studied economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and has practiced applied sociology, social engineering, and habitual village building for the past 20 years. He is a passionate ecological builder, educator and owner of ION Ecobuilding; and a representative and is incubating new ventures with Shelterworks, the manufacturer of the Faswall ICF building block. Joseph specializes in local, natural, and least toxic materials, energy efficiency, and traditional building systems (including wood, earth, straw & lime). He facilitates owner/builder processes while being an active member of the NW Ecobuilding guild for 18 years, where among other projects, he was the lead instigator behind their Code Innovations Database Project. While helping owners, builders and communities on collaborative ecological building projects, Joseph is trying to balance training and inspiring a new generation of builders while being a partner in raising 2 children. Joseph’s ultimate hope is to reinforce a sense of place and enhance the world where we live, by working together and participating intimately with the world that sustains us.
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Reading the Human Landscape and Emotional Literacy
Jillian Hovey
As permaculture matures, People Care has been lifting up in recent years. But, since her early days over 20 years ago, Jillian saw that the human landscapes are where the energy gets stuck in systems. Being able to read the human landscapes is essential to good design, and a key aspect of that skill is self knowledge and emotional literacy. This workshop will explore this frame and skills in the complex, less-visible realm of Permaculture Design.
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Jillian Hovey is a leading edge practitioner of regenerative systems design who works creatively and collaboratively with individuals and groups on a wide range of projects. She has taught and consulted in Permaculture and eco community projects in over 30 countries across North & Central America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand. Jillian has strong background in traditional biophysical aspects of the permaculture and has a deep history of connection with land and nature. She has also seen over 25+ years of practice, that where we need to develop the most skill is in the “Human Landscapes” and that we need need to develop literacy and skills in “Human Ecologies.” Through her facilitation, teaching, coaching & mentorship, she supports others to connect with the matrix of our human and biological existence, and to bring our whole selves to permaculture practice.
Allies, Assets & Opportunities
Working with the Mainstream; City, Neighborhood Associations, Non-profits, Faith, Ad hoc
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Permaculture and Suburbia
This presentation will describe actions, over a period of 18 years, to green the River Road neighborhood in Eugene. The presentation will show and tell several property transformation projects, colllaborations between neighbors, free public site tours, various celebrations and educational events, working with the City in the Greenway, the 2015 NWP Convergence at the n'hood rec center and currently, efforts to have strong green/resilient/permaculture based content to a new neighborhood plan.
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Jan Spencer has a PDC from 1992. He is a pioneer of suburban permaculture, transforming his 1/4 acre suburban property for 18 years with thousands of visitors over the years. Jan has promoted the term home economics - taking care of more basic needs close to home such as food, energy, water and social. He has presented coast to coast at conferences, universities, public places and by internet. Jan has been on his neighborhood board for 14 years and has advocated permaculture ideals and actions all of that time. He has written for magazines and has produced 4 educational posters. He has helped with half a dozen PC convergences and was the architect and primary organizer of the 2015 NWPC in his suburban neighborhood in Eugene.
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Social Permaculture CEO Dialogue
After 10 years of designing and implementing social permaculture programs at Fortune 500 companies, intentional communities, and non-profit organizations, Luke Lenentine brings his CEO to a workshop. CEO stands for Centered and Exhilarated Only, the two aspects of trust building that require attention, in order for the rest to fall into place. The results are observed in a team’s ability to perform even the most stressful tasks while feeling inspired, nourished, replenished, and supported.
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I have worked as a social permaculture consultant for the past few decades, assisting organizations in structural design principles aligned with social permaculture. I was uniquely blessed with gifts at a very young age, of noticing when my parents would argue over words, even though the meaning underneath their words was the same. After meeting my wife, Miku, I was able to learn the permaculture aspects of nurturing a deeper relationship with myself and others with minimal inputs and maximized outputs that continue to feed the system. I was then able to put names to these systems of teamwork and organizational relationship, in terms of attachment theory, neuroscience, and Compassionate Dialogue. I have also helped guide weekly meditations and community dialogue circles over the past 7 years.
Building a Bridge - Puerto Rico
Permaculture is more than a design system for a garden, a farm, or a homestead. It is a system of cultural values that align people, communities, and networks to regenerative and natural cycles.
Last year Peter lived at a permaculture homestead in Southern Middle Tennessee. At Spiral Ridge, he learned more about the community and the village than he did about growing food. While being integrated into the community, the food growing happened as participants learned their strengths and weaknesses and supported each other to grow and work together more effectively.
This past year Peter spent a lot of time in Puerto Rico. There is a thriving permaculture community that has existed on the island since well before Hurricane Maria, yet they have limited support from the mainland when it comes to access of tools, funds, and labor.
Peter is here to share his story and encourage our community on the mainland to integrate and collaborate with an enchanted community in need that is not so far away. If we can build a bridge then both communities will grow stronger.
Last year Peter lived at a permaculture homestead in Southern Middle Tennessee. At Spiral Ridge, he learned more about the community and the village than he did about growing food. While being integrated into the community, the food growing happened as participants learned their strengths and weaknesses and supported each other to grow and work together more effectively.
This past year Peter spent a lot of time in Puerto Rico. There is a thriving permaculture community that has existed on the island since well before Hurricane Maria, yet they have limited support from the mainland when it comes to access of tools, funds, and labor.
Peter is here to share his story and encourage our community on the mainland to integrate and collaborate with an enchanted community in need that is not so far away. If we can build a bridge then both communities will grow stronger.
Peter Broderick has a strong drive for community building. He has worked and lived with communities such as Spiral Ridge, The Farm, and throughout Puerto Rico. He has not published any articles or books. He has not delivered speeches, he is not a voice for Puerto Rico. He is a voice for people on the mainland, and a bridge to the Island and grassroots movements. Working with Land and Heart Project and Brigada Solidaria/Resilience Fund in Puerto Rico. He is bringing a story, and a message, about our responsibility as neighbors, as brothers and sisters, and as a global community.
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Faith-based Community Initiative
Christina Phillips Clark, Eugene Oregon
This presentation describes a three-phase project being undertaken by a suburban church in Eugene to reach out to the neighborhood and wider community. First (and current) phase is the development of a self-supporting market garden. (That will be accomplished by March 2019.) The church currently has a farm stand along a busy street. Second phase is outreach for teaching interested persons in the neighborhood how to grow their own food, providing food for those who can't garden, plus other related ministries aimed at strengthening local food security, and social/economic resilience. Third phase is networking with and mentoring other groups (preferably faith-based) to start their own garden and resilience based outreach projects. The goal, to fulfill Christ's "second greatest commandment" of 'Love Your Neighbor.'
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Christina Phillips Clark, a self-described 'maid of all trades and mistress of none', has pursued (and continues to pursue) many interests, educations, and professions throughout her life, the culmination of which is being directed into the realization of a vision she's long held for improving the lives and livelihoods of our nearby and all-too-often overlooked neighbors.
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Observe, Design, and Connect: A case study & workshop to help you find & work with mainstream resources
A South Seattle neighborhood is transforming vacant lots, improving pedestrian safety, and encouraging cross-cultural collaborations by working with the city, community organizations, and non-profits. In this interactive workshop, we will discuss this ongoing project and do an interactive activity to help participants apply permaculture thought to their own mainstream project.
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Emily Scali is an architect, educator, and entrepreneur focused on ecological architecture, permaculture, and urban renewal. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from Virginia Tech's Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center, and has over 12 years of experience in a range of architecture, urban planning, historic preservation, and landscape design projects nationwide. Emily has completed a PDC and an Advanced Permaculture Certificate in Teaching, which has led her to promote permaculture as a framework and method for working in the built environment. She is currently the co-owner of Gridless Studio in Seattle, WA (www.gridless-studio.com) and the Project Coordinator for The Beet Box - a hub for food and nutrition education in SE Seattle (www.facebook.com/beetboxseattle).
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Responding to Climate Change and Building Community
Join Marisha Auerbach, Andrew Millison, Tao Orion, and Karen Taylor for a conversation on developing community based responses to climate change. At home in our communities throughout the northwest, we are experiencing shifts and challenges that are expected to impact our way of life. How can we show up in our community as leaders to facilitate positive future outcomes? This conversation is participatory. We invite you to join us in circle to share both your successes and challenges. In the end of our session, we hope to gather ideas and provide support for each other into the future.
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Marisha Auerbach is an internationally recognized permaculture educator, designer, and speaker based in Portland, OR. Marisha has lived and practiced permaculture in both urban and rural environments. As an avid gardener and herbalist, Marisha specializes in food production, ecology, and useful plants. Marisha believes that it is possible to respond to the current environmental challenges, lower our ecological footprint, and continue to live equally delightful lives through permaculture design. This passion is what drives Marisha's active teaching schedule throughout the year.
Goodtopia: Visioning Regenerative Organizational Cutlure
Shaelee Evans, Sequim, Washington
As a part of our Community Mapping and Directory Project, the NWPCC team will have an ongoing conversation augmented with digital and tangible tools to visualize what our community looks like.
Gardens, Plants, Soil & Animals – Suburban, City, Rural
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How to Design Multi-Functional Hedgerows for
Rural or Urban Environments This is an opportunity for you to design a multi-functional hedgerow for your own site. You will learn how to design, implement and maintain a hedgerow with functions to provide soil stabilization, shelter and food for people, wildlife, and beneficial Insects, windbreaks, privacy screens, reduce pollutants as well as ways to diversify your income.
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Jude Hobbs is an internationally recognized permaculture designer and educator and a co-founder of the Cascadia Permaculture Institute and Permaculture Institute of North America. With over 30 years’ experience in the design and teaching fields, her focus is whole systems thinking to generate environmentally sound solutions that inspire sustainable actions in urban and rural settings. As an educator, she conveys her passion for permaculture by providing information that is accessible, inspiring and information rich. She is the author of the OSU Publication; A Guide to Multi-functional Hedgerows in Western Oregon. Jude tends Wilson Creek Gardens, a 7-acre homestead and demonstration site located in Cottage Grove, Oregon. www.cascadiapermaculture.com cascadiapc@gmail.com
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Working with Invasive Species
This workshop will give participants a series of tools to use when making a plan to deal with invasive species in the home garden and on larger scales. By understanding site history, ecosystem function, the roles of climate change and anthropogenic forces in shaping ecosystems, we can start to see why invasive species are so prolific. These observations also give important information we can use to make long-term management plans that will encourage more biodiversity and ecological functionality.
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Tao Orion is the author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration. She teaches permaculture design at Oregon State University and at Aprovecho, a 40-acre nonprofit sustainable-living educational organization. Tao consults on holistic farm, forest, and restoration planning through Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC. She holds a degree in agroecology and sustainable agriculture from UC Santa Cruz, and grows organic fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and animals on her southern Willamette Valley homestead, Viriditas Farm.
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Proven Fruit Varieties for the Pacific NW
Sam Benowitz, Morton, Washington
raintreenursery.com Sam will present a power point presentation showing many proven fruit varieties for growers in our region. He will talk about which plants best fit into which niches and talk about many of his favorite cultivars.
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Sam Benowitz has been the owner of Raintree Nursery for 45 years providing more than a million edible plants for gardeners in the Northwest. He has focused on providing the information people need to succeed and has offered hundreds of the best proven fruit and berry varieties. He has focused his variety search on disease resistance, flavor and nutritive value.
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Carbon-Smart Nutriculture: soil regeneration for nutrient-density
David Yarrow, Far Out Farm, Pe Ell (west of Chehalis)
nutriculture.org dyarrow.org terra-char.com Time to go beyond "organic" to grow food with optimum nutrients. Carbon sequestration and soil regeneration combine to yield complete foods to restore human health. A national movement is underway to advocate a nutritional food quality standard, and a chapter was formed in western Washington.
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David Yarrow was a healer, Earth Advocate & food system activist in the Northeast for 30 years, starting many projects, businesses and organizations, including Syracuse Center for Self-Healing and Northeast Organic Farming Assoc. of NY and its certification program. After a 7000-volt near-death experience and recovery, David taught Carbon-Smart Biological Agriculture in the MidSouth. This year, David landed in western WA, at Far Out Farm, working with a coalition to advance Carbon-Smart Nutriculture.
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Protein from Bushes, Carbs from Trees
Michael Dolan, Onalaska, Washington - near Toledo
www.burntridgenursery.com Longtime nurseryman and orchardist Michael Dolan, co-owner of Burnt Ridge Nursery and Orchards in Onalaska WA, will share ideas for using perennial trees and bushes to create vibrant nutrition and whole diet components that are usually supplied by livestock and annual row crops. Whether you're vegan, vegetarian or omnivore, trees and bushes are easy care options to optimize your health, sequester carbon and increase the resilience of your soil! Michael will also give suggestion for specific varieties best suited to Western Cascadia's changing climate.
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Michael Dolan, longtime nurseryman, farmer and perennial plant expert, has been developing his 20-acre farm and orchard, Burnt Ridge Nursery & Orchards, since 1980. Nationally recognized as an expert in nuts and nut cultivation, Michael's mission has been to grow and sell productive perennial food plants all over the United States. He has been involved in scientific study of propagation techniques, as well as identifying and bringing to market dozens of new varieties of nuts, fruit trees and perennial plants. Deeply influenced by the seminal book Tree Crops, A Permanent Agriculture by J. Russell Smith, Michael has travelled the world in search of chestnuts and other exotic edibles to bring to our American tables and gardens. Michael also maintains a grounded approach to his passion, by continuing to hand-propagate thousands of trees and shrubs for his nursery each year, as well as keeping a busy schedule of speaking engagements for regional groups, and selling fruits and nuts at market from his well-established organic orchards and nursery.
The Biodynamic Approach to Regenerative Agriculture
Raphael Guzman of the Biodynamic Association, on behalf of Clay Wesson in McMinnville, OR
www.biodynamics.com www.unconventionalfarmsupply.com
www.biodynamics.com www.unconventionalfarmsupply.com
Clay Wesson will present on the deep principles of regeneration and innovation that is the practice of Biodynamic agriculture. This work can be taken up by any farmer or gardener and has shared common roots and principles to permaculture. The impulse, to enhance the health and vitality of the soil and the food grown.
Clay Wesson founded Unconventional Farm Supply in 2016, wanting to support the Organic farmers and growers in their pursuit of the ideals of clean farming. What started as an idea to simply provide certified organic cover crop seed has grown into a business that with a variety of offerings.
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Introduction to Biochar Production and Use
Francesco Tortorichi, Port Townsend, Washington
Attendees will be presented with an overview of biochar history, production and uses, including local examples (Jefferson and Clallam counties). Biochar is produced in simple micro-gasifier stoves, kilns and industrial processes. Examples of these different processes will be discussed.
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Francesco Tortorichi is an engineer and long-time appropriate technology advocate. He was the co-founder and Director of the Norwegian Center for Appropriate Technology in the 1970s. His interest in those technologies led him to attend the ETHOS (Engineers in Technical and Humanitarian Opportunities of Service) Conference in 2011. Through that experience, he worked with several NGOs which promote clean cook stoves that also produce biochar.
In 2014 Francesco collaborated with the Port of Port Townsend, designing and building biochar filters to remove heavy metals form stormwater runoff. He teamed with several Jefferson County farms in the production and incorporation of biochar. In Sequim, he collaborated with a mushroom farmer to develop a commercial gasifer stove used to pasteurize straw and make biochar.
Francesco and his wife, Joan, created Olympic BioChar (OB) in 2015 to promote biochar’s uses and benefits and provide a locally made biochar. OB donates biochar to area school gardens for co-composting and other garden/orchard applications which introduce biochar to students. Most recently, Francesco’s focus is on regenerating soils to produce nutrient dense food by using biochar, mineral balancing, etc.
In 2014 Francesco collaborated with the Port of Port Townsend, designing and building biochar filters to remove heavy metals form stormwater runoff. He teamed with several Jefferson County farms in the production and incorporation of biochar. In Sequim, he collaborated with a mushroom farmer to develop a commercial gasifer stove used to pasteurize straw and make biochar.
Francesco and his wife, Joan, created Olympic BioChar (OB) in 2015 to promote biochar’s uses and benefits and provide a locally made biochar. OB donates biochar to area school gardens for co-composting and other garden/orchard applications which introduce biochar to students. Most recently, Francesco’s focus is on regenerating soils to produce nutrient dense food by using biochar, mineral balancing, etc.
Rural Permaculture, Regenerative Agriculture Large and Small
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The African Idea of Permaculture
Rohn Amegatcher
In this presentation we will share our strategies for how we have transitioned a raw timberland environment into a thriving permaculture farm and food forest following the principles of sustainability, repurposing and creatively using what you have. We will go into detail about how these principles have influenced the design and building of Log Hollow Farms.
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A native of Ghana, Rohn Amegatcher was born into a family that valued the land and met their needs through what the land could provide during a time of military conflict. Early on he took to how food could be produced using the principles found in nature, learned to simplify the infrastructure required for a farm, and the role livestock played in those systems. Following a productive career in construction management and land development, life circumstances brought him out of the urban environment into a secluded rural area. Over the last 7 years he has applied the learned lessons of life around agriculture and animal husbandry to developing a center of learning and farming. He can usually be found out in the forest working along side nature at Log Hollow Farms.
The land is a mile stretch along a bend on the Chehalis River. Century old timberland until it's stewards carved from it a network of trails to connect it's diverse habitats thus developing a unique setting on which to cultivate a permaculture farm and food forest. The project has been seven years in the making for Rohn and Amy Amegatcher, who see that the future of permaculture is patiently working with nature generationally.
The land is a mile stretch along a bend on the Chehalis River. Century old timberland until it's stewards carved from it a network of trails to connect it's diverse habitats thus developing a unique setting on which to cultivate a permaculture farm and food forest. The project has been seven years in the making for Rohn and Amy Amegatcher, who see that the future of permaculture is patiently working with nature generationally.
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Ecoforestry in Cascadia
This workshop will articulate principles and strategies for regenerative forestry in the context of both timber management and agroforestry contexts.
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Abel Kloster has a degree in Land Stewardship for Sustainable Communities from Humboldt State University. He has worked as an organic farm manager and restoration forester. He is the co-owner of Resilience Permaculture. A fourth generation Oregon native, he is well acquainted with the forests and fields of the Pacific Northwest where he has been a farmer and land steward for many years. Abel is currently completing his Master’s degree in Agroforestry from the University of Missouri.
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Connecting To The Internet of Rain
Anthony Paglino - St. Pete, Florida
raincube.io Collecting rainwater using connected devices and cryptocurrency to balance the local watershed in community cooperatives by sharing surplus.
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Anthony Paglino was born and raised in Tampa. Over the past ten years, he has lived in China and California exploring culture, cuisine, technology, spirituality, and the environment. Anthony moved back to Tampa Bay in the fall of 2015 to take care of his dying mother. After she passed away from cancer in the spring of 2016, he decided to help save Mother Earth by pursuing Raincube and the Internet of Rain full time. In addition to building Raincube prototypes in Florida, he has been spreading the good word in Central America, Europe, and Asia.
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Ecosystem Restoration & Permaculture
What is the relationship between permaculture and the discipline of ecosystem restoration? We will look at what permaculture can learn from ecosystem restoration and vice versa. We will look at ecosystem structure, function and processes and how permaculture affects them. We will discuss the use of native plants and organisms in permaculture design. And attitudes and management of invasive species.
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Michael Pilarski has been involved with the permaculture movement since 1981 and has taught 40 permaculture design courses. He attended the 2nd, 3rd and 4th International Permaculture Convergence & Conference (held in the USA, New Zealand and Nepal respectively) and helped develop the program for the convergence in New Zealand. He was co-teacher for the international pdc in Biratnagar, Nepal held in association with IPC4. Michael is the founder of the Northwest Permaculture Convergence and the Inland Northwest Permaculture Convergence and co-organizer of the 1st North American Permaculture Convergence held in 2014 at Harmony Park in southern Minnesota. Michael is a small-scale farmer.
Short Stories - True Permaculture Stories from Real Life that deserve to be heard. 15 to 20 minutes each story
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Hug a Hugel
Woosi Wildwood and LightFoot McBride are members of the CopperMoon intentional family, living on 20 acres in the Cascade foothills near Monroe, WA. They've been experimenting and learning with sustainability, permaculture, and shared community living for over a decade.
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CopperMoon is a homestead where we are creating systems to support a resilient life and property. Some of our 2018 goals include: finishing our sauna project, rainwater catchment systems (including at least one swale), constructing a new tiny house, increasing our food production, firewood harvesting and building pole barn for storage.
Skill Share - Outdoors, active, hand-on
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Permaculture Hand Tools
Rick Valley Eugene/Deadwood, Oregon
What are the best tools if you want to garden without machines? What works, and why?
Good tools are not just Earth care, they are People Care, and the decline in availability of good tools reflects an alarming loss of culture and tradition. I'll demonstrate how to use the tools, and tell you where to get them. |
Rick Valley first gardened with his parents, but got fanatic about it after a distasteful academic experience in grad school. Arne Lewis, a Utah ranch kid who become head of Vertebrate Paleontology Preparation, Museum of Comparative Zoology (Harvard), was his first tool mentor. Travel in Latin America got him interested in tools used in other cultures, and meeting Masanobu Fukuoka got him interested in other gardening alternatives. Around that same time he found English garden tools via Smith & Hawken Tool Company. Rick was a founding member of the Pacific NW Chapter of the American Bamboo Society, and started the first specialty bamboo nursery in the NW. He was a remodeling carpenter working with many building styles, and began doing permaculture landscape work after meeting Bill Mollison and Masanobu Fukuoka in 1986 at the 2nd International Permaculture Conference. While Land Steward at Lost Valley Education Center, he and his interns and volunteers implemented large-scale human-powered composting on a market-garden scale without destroying their bodies in the process. Since 2001 he has been a partner in Earthkeeper Landscaping LLC, and continues training crews in ergonomic use of hand tools. He has used wood heat for 45 years without using a chain saw.
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Authentic Relating Games
Experience the easiest way to create deep, lasting community connection. Authentic Relating Games can be tailored for any group and context. They help your community or team build good communication skills while getting to know each other and having fun.
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Jacki Saorsail is a community organizer and social entrepreneur who has organized housing co-ops, community gardens, music festivals, an organic gourmet mushroom farm, a food co-op, and a community center. She is currently working on a Master's Degree from Gaia University studying Regenerative Enterprise Design and developing an online course in the topic. You can find out about her content and business consulting on her website at RegenerativeDynamics.com.
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Reading the Landscape for Fungal Opportunity
Raskal Turbeville Olympia, Washington
Mycouprrhizal.com This workshop will involve a site evaluation/walk/discussion, with a specific eye toward mushroom cultivation and fostering the health of fungal communities. Participants will walk away with the confidence and knowledge to choose the right location for permaculture minded mushroom cultivation and properly organize fungal elements into a permaculture design.
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Raskal Turbeville grew up practicing Permaculture in Southern California, with a focus on dry-land farming and water conserving strategies, helping to teach these techniques to his high school peers. Once he discovered his passion for mushrooms he moved to the Pacific Northwest to continue his permaculture education/practice with a focus on integrating Mycological solutions into Permaculture systems. Over the last 5 years Raskal has dedicated himself to the field of mycology by studying, cultivating, teaching, and spreading the message of the fungal world. He has helped to facilitate and teach mycology through Two Non Profit Organizations (The Maya Point Project & The Olympia Mycelial Network), during his undergraduate career at The Evergreen State College, and on a Professional level throughout the country. Raskal currently co-owns and runs the mushroom farm MycoUprrhizal in Olympia Washington.
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Hands-on Seedsaving
Join Marisha Auerbach to learn how to winnow seeds. Marisha will have a variety of dried seed that participants can get hands-on experience in removing the chaff and processing the seed for storage. Seed saving is an important skill that helps protect our local seed sources as resources for our communities.
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Marisha Auerbach is an internationally recognized permaculture educator, designer, and speaker based in Portland, OR. Marisha has lived and practiced permaculture in both urban and rural environments. As an avid gardener and herbalist, Marisha specializes in food production, ecology, and useful plants. Marisha believes that it is possible to respond to the current environmental challenges, lower our ecological footprint, and continue to live equally delightful lives through permaculture design. This passion is what drives Marisha's active teaching schedule throughout the year.
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Friends in the Field
A guide to wild and horticultural edibles, medicinals and usefuls in the PNW. We will cover each plants key identifiers, bloom-time, useful parts and most common applications.
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Shaelee Evans began studying permaculture in 2005 and implementing practices on her 1 acre urban farm in NW Washington. She studied Sustainable Gardening through the WA State Nursery and Landscaping Association (cert in 2003), and Natural Resource Management and Business at Peninsula College (graduating with an AS in 2006 and a BS in 2018). She has taught workshops on forestry, wild plants, art, cooking and sustainable land management. Aside from landscaping, farming and homeschooling her three children, Shaelee is presently focusing on Goodness Tea, a company she founded in 2008 which creates and wholesales herbal teas based on plants that naturally thrive in the Pacific Northwest. May we all do the same.
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Local, Wild Edibles and Medicinal Plants - Healing by Being in Forest and Nature
Christine Jarlik, Yelm, Washington
I'm offering 2 hands-on workshops (2 hours each). During the first 2-hour walk we'll come to know local wild edibles and medicinal plants and mushrooms. We're learning by using our senses and getting in touch with our inner knowingness when it comes to the use and benefits of our plant allies. Participants walk away with the confidence to identify plants and use them, to sustainably harvest and prepare them as infusions f.e.. How would it be to have our local plants as allies, friends in our lives? Meditation and connection with nature is part of this training. The second walk will get us in contact with the forest, the trees and ultimately with ourselves and our fellow humans. We'll use hiking and wandering in the forest in a group as a way to heal ourselves and others. Science has confirmed that being in contact with trees is ultimately healing for human beings. This meditative and also active practice is intended to be applied in our everyday lives when we return home after the Convergence.
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Christine Jarlik holds a Masters degree in Geo-Botany and Soil Science from the Trier University in Germany and has decades of experience in connecting people of all ages to our precious plant allies and mushroom friends. Her participation in the Art of Mentoring at the Wilderness Awareness School in Duvall, WA and the Twin Eagle Wilderness School in Sandpoint, ID has given her more teaching tools. She is an avid gardener and forager. 10 years ago she participated in the teaching series of Sepp Holzer's approach to Permaculture and built her first 'Huegel bed'. For decades she has shared her passion for plants/mushrooms, their benefits and organic gardening with people of all ages, from 2 year olds to home school groups and groups of all ages. Currently she's working on the management team of the Yelm Food Cooperative and is creating a website for her new business OWL.OneWithLife. OWL.OneWithLife can be found on facebook. Together with Chris Black she is combining wild edible/medicinal walks with the building of permaculture structures, like Huegel beds.
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Ethnobotany and Traditional Skills- Journey Plant Medicines
Learn about and use wild foraged plants for first aid in daily life using traditional techniques.
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Heidi Bohan, author of ‘People of Cascadia- Pacific Northwest Native American History’, ‘Starflower Native Plant ID Cards’ and ‘Journey Plant Medicine Cards’ is an educator and consultant specializing in native plants and their traditional uses for food, medicine and materials. She works as an educator and consultant for local tribes, cultural programs and museums, with long-time work with Snoqualmie Tribe, Northwest Indian College and as adjunct faculty at Bastyr University teaching Ethnobotany, Northwest Herbs and more. She also offers presentations and classes through her own ‘Gatherer to Gardener’ programs teaching traditional skills and native plant uses. She received her PDC in 2006 after an inspired four days of conversation with David Holmgren and Michael Pilarski in 2005 and teaches at various PDC trainings including the Bullock Brothers Homestead. Her focus is to connect people, through their hands, with the environment
Biochar and Nutrient-Dense Farming and Gardening
Nutriculture Northwest of Olympia, Olympic BioChar and Carbon Smart Nutriculture share the ways biochar can be used to produce nutrient dense food by using biochar along with mineral balancing to grow organic crops, regenerate garden and farm soils and sequester carbon for hundreds of years. Biochar is like a hotel for microbes where they store minerals and water to give to plants. Minerals that would have been washed away in winter rains and gone down the rivers, instead are held in place in the biochar providing nutrients for years to come.
- Samples of biochar and a variety of amendments that lead to nutrient dense produce;
- A variety of biochar burners on display and biochar burns;
- Students of Evergreen State College testing the Brix of produce with a refractometer to see how nutrient dense it is;
- Soil tests to balance minerals in soils explained to facilitate mineral-augmented nutriculture;
- How balanced minerals prevent diseases in animals, plants and humans;
- Three healthy goats demonstrate the good effects of minerals; and
- Presentations by David Yarrow - Carbon-Smart Nutriculture: soil regeneration for nutrient-density; and Francesco Tortorici - Introduction to Biochar Production and Use during the presentations will offer deeper explanations.
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Scythes: cutting edge of appropriate tech
We will cover the many benefits of using a scythe and similar tools to maintain the health of your land, soil and animals. I will share with you an overview of what scything is and some of the strategies and benefits of implementing it on your land. Questions and answer period will follow the presentation. Some of the details the we will go into will be: Scythe - parts, styles, blades, snathes Scythe blades range in length from short (16") bush blades to sizes beyond 30". Scythe setup and adjustments. The most important adjustments: the lay of the blade and the hafting angle. Mowing technique stance, angle, and motion. Mowing pattern strategies, fences, trees, working as a team. Sharpening with a stone for your intended use. Sharpening by Peening the blade. The traditional method of preparing the edge uses a cross peen hammer and a small anvil. Fixing nicks and cracks with a Hammer & anvil.
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Brian Kerkvliet, a co-steward of Inspiration Farm, has a wide breadth of practical knowledge on how to partner with natural systems to bring forth stability and abundance. Having completed three full Permaculture design certificate courses, he now does consultation work for others who want to fast track the establishment of resilient system on their land. Brian teaches workshops at Inspiration Farm pertaining to the many aspects for designing and living within a resilient system that provides for most of the food fiber and medicine needed to live a happy healthy life while restoring the ecosystem. His enthusiasm to share this with a wider audience shows in all that he does. Inspiration Farm is an 12 acre homestead styled farm founded in 1994. Integrating Biodynamic and Permaculture practices in relation to annual & perennial food systems, animal husbandry, appropriate technology, land/water nutrient management. Throughout the year we have a variety of Events, Tours and Workshops. More info can be found at www.inspirationfarm.com
Responding to Climate Change and Building Community
Marisha Aurbach, Tao Orion, Andrew Millison, and Karen Taylor
Join Marisha Auerbach, Andrew Millison, Tao Orion, and Karen Taylor for a conversation on developing community based responses to climate change. At home in our communities throughout the northwest, we are experiencing shifts and challenges that are expected to impact our way of life. How can we show up in our community as leaders to facilitate positive future outcomes? This conversation is participatory. We invite you to join us in circle to share both your successes and challenges. In the end of our session, we hope to gather ideas and provide support for each other into the future.
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Marisha Auerbach is an internationally recognized permaculture educator, designer, and speaker based in Portland, OR. Marisha has lived and practiced permaculture in both urban and rural environments. As an avid gardener and herbalist, Marisha specializes in food production, ecology, and useful plants. Marisha believes that it is possible to respond to the current environmental challenges, lower our ecological footprint, and continue to live equally delightful lives through permaculture design. This passion is what drives Marisha's active teaching schedule throughout the year.
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Tao Orion is the author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration. She teaches permaculture design at Oregon State University and at Aprovecho, a 40-acre nonprofit sustainable-living educational organization. Tao consults on holistic farm, forest, and restoration planning through Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC. She holds a degree in agroecology and sustainable agriculture from UC Santa Cruz, and grows organic fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and animals on her southern Willamette Valley homestead, Viriditas Farm.
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Andrew Millison brings nearly 20 years experience in designing and building permaculture projects to his teaching and wants to share that rich, real-world experience with his students. He has been studying, teaching and practicing permaculture since he took his first course in 1996. He began teaching permaculture at the college level in 2001 and has been an instructor at Oregon State University in the Horticulture Department since 2009. Andrew currently teaches the Permaculture Design Course and the Advanced Permaculture Design Practicum at OSU both on campus and online. Andrew first learned permaculture design in the drylands of Arizona, where he studied for his undergraduate and master's degrees at Prescott College. His focus was on rainwater harvesting, greywater systems, and desert agriculture. He started a permaculture landscape design and build company and also worked in an ecologically-based landscape architecture firm. In recent years, Andrew's focus has been more on broad scale farm planning, permaculture housing developments, and obtaining water rights. In 2015, he founded Permaculture Design International (PDI), a collaborative design firm that works on large-scale global projects.
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Karen Taylor, a transplant to Oregon from central Arizona, brings with her many years of experience as a Permaculture practitioner & teacher, interior designer, ecological landscape designer, rainwater harvesting and greywater consultant, group facilitator and photographer. She has a Bachelor’s of Interior Design from Auburn University, and certificates in Permaculture Design from the International Institute of Ecological Agriculture, Ecological Design from Ecosa Institute and Advanced Permaculture training from Sonoran Permaculture Guild, Regenerative Design Institute and Cascadia Permaculture Institute. She has worked extensively in dryland water systems, natural building, and permaculture site design.
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