Courtney

The article I’ve chosen was found on the International Permaculture website (www.ipcon.org). It highlights some of the events that took place at the 8th International Permaculture Conference in Brazil. The city of Sao Paulo held the meeting this past May for a weekend and seated a 500 member audience from 42 countries. The theme for the conference was Green Economics, which went well with the Brazilian Permaculture Network’s two year project of educating progressive banks and businesses in Permaculture, and finally inspiring some prominent members of the national financial community to speak at the event. Many other topics were covered during the three day presentation, ranging from mycologists explaining how mushrooms can save the world to sustainable initiatives from conventional businesses. One of the most interesting speakers was Aerton Paiva from Apel consultancy who helped invent a computer software for a self-evaluating sustainability index that connects to various international systems. He was able to deliver this software for free to all thirty of the largest corporations in Brazil, thereby taking the first step towards corporate responsibility. Over all the conference was a wonderful breeding ground for the most innovative, Permaculture centered concepts and also sparked some important initiatives, not just in Brazil, but throughout the world. The next International Permaculture Conference will be held in Africa in April of 2009.

So, I am now back at home in my little dorm room, settling in for the night after an exciting three days at the Bioneers Conference. The last few hours of being here has been a bit depressing, as I've suffered major withdrawls from the passion I witnessed at Grinnell. With that said, I'll relate my experiences at the Conference.....

Hands down the most powerful, inspiring, reverence inducing part of this whole weekend was from all of the indigenous peoples that graced us with their presence. I am very honored to have been able to stare into Evon Peter's eyes as he, with incredible compassion, voiced what makes alot of us European Americans go stiff. It's exactly this that, in my opinion, needed to be heard the most. I sure was drowned in a sea of humbleness after realizing how much ego had been apart of this seemingly radical event up until that point. To those who also picked up on this phenomenon and/or has consciously acknowleged their own uneasiness during this speech, I just want to say that the ability to feel this stiffness at all is something every one of us should be grateful for. It further proves how better in tune we are than our psychopathic "leaders". At best it can open us up to the process of a deeper spiritual healing. I think it's about damn time we face the collective guilt that has been responsible for fueling our male dominated, white supremacist culture for centuries. We today still compulsively repress this fact with countless addictions, the subtlest and strongest being our minds. If we don't learn to feel these emotions and be present in our bodies, our patterns will continue to control us and our chances of surviving on this planet will become slim.

So to name a few ideas for our program I say we form a group( actually expand a specific group I'm already apart of-http://www.freewebs.com/identityspectrum/), or maybe even a class dedicated to doing this soul work. It can be sort of the Sustainable Living Wing's version of consciousness-based education, where we challenge our biases and learn to be present and real with each other. In order to create a truly sustainable way of life, we need to free ourselves from whatever sexist, racist, classist, ageist, homophobic, xenophobic, ableist, speciesist (you get the point)tendencies. We need to reconnect to our intuition and allow our creativity to flow freely to one another. So......is anyone down?

Another thing we should do is jump on acquiring heirloom seeds. With the worst of climate change just around the corner, we should follow Winona Laduke's and others lead.

Oh! What about outside showers for the warmer months......maybe inside too somewhere?