Voices of Women in Permaculture

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Jennifer English Morgan “Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.” ~ Robert L. Peters During the 2016 election cycle in the USA, I experienced an upheaval of my emotional stability, as anger, elation, and fear arose during and after the November election. Shifting to see what was behind the emotions, I recognized the presence of a collective force. The feelings were not mine to hold. I am an empath. The emotions were arising out of my link to the state of the world around me. I had already once been verbally assaulted by a Trump supporter in…

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Jennifer English Morgan Crash, clatter, smash, tink, tink. A careless boy’s ball shatters the front window pane. A scorned lover flings a picture frame into the brick fireplace. A glass slipping through nervous fingers falls to the floor. All adrenaline rushes of fear, anger, and surprise. Moments of exhilaration turned sour if left to ferment. When trauma goes unresolved, fragments of the soul get imprisoned. The glass is a broken mirror. The shards and cracks remind us of suffering. Painful memories lodge into our psyche. Eckhart Tolle named this tenant, the pain body. It’s that little voice in our…

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Laura Bee “The goal of the PWG is to hold space for women who choose to work with women, for whatever reason is real for them. We aren’t asking permission to do this, nor are we seeking approval. We are simply, in permaculture terms, filling a niche that has been open for far too long”. — Heather Jo Flores, founder of the Permaculture Women’s Guild. I started my permaculture journey in April 2016, shortly after leaving an extremely stressful full-time job. I left with a lack of confidence and a depleted sense of purpose. Around this time, my friend Charlie Gray…

Permaculture Womens Guild

Building an anti/beyond/despite capitalist movement By Becky Ellis Permaculture is a philosophy and set of practices aimed at creating regenerative human spaces that mimic natural eco-systems. The concept was developed in the 1970s based on observations of the ecological systems created by Indigenous and “traditional” communities around the world. The philosophy of permaculture offers a counter-hegemonic worldview especially regarding the place of human societies within nature. While permaculture can be thought of as a movement, some of its proponents insist it stay de-politicized and professionalized as a system of ecological design. Indeed, some of the practices of permaculture limit its…