Voices of Women in Permaculture

Permaculture Womens Guild

For most of my career as advisor for Results Based Monitoring (RBM) I supported government and NGO teams in changing their perspective and approach to the way projects are planned, implemented and monitored. The most important shift was moving from asking “Why” to asking “What for”. Over the years and decades thousands of projects have been implemented around the world in reaction to an undesired situation. Wells were drilled, schools and hospitals built, roads constructed, “because there were none.” (Yes, I’m simplifying.). Little thought was given to the people these projects were supposed to serve, until the day governments and…

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Gudrun Cartwright As a woman in my late forties, I am definitely approaching menopause. I feel in that ‘peri’ state. Even though I am perpetually altered by chemical hormones, due to suffering from pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). My doctor tells me I can’t be feeling this because I am on the pill, but I know my hormones are still there. Just masked. I feel them every month as I move through my cycle. And I am also childfree. Purposefully so. It’s not that I didn’t want children. For many years I did. But for my husband and I, we…

Permaculture Womens Guild

War, what is it good for? We need more compassion and understanding.

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Julia Pereira Dias Shame spits into your romantic dinner. Shame coughs blood on the hands that reach out. Shame laughs its ugly cackle at your reflection in the mirror. Shame is the last door in your dungeon. Locked tight with a thousand padlocks, barricaded, fortified with thick chains and boarded up with massive wood. A door so deep down you have forgotten it was there. Except when you hear it spit, its coughing, its laughter it. When it spoils your moments of freedom, intimacy and expression. When it pops up like a jack-in-a-box before you make that courageous move.…

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Priya Logan I previously wrote a post about identifying and even celebrating your “inputs and outputs”, as a human that is a complicated, sometimes fun and organic practice. That is unless you just think of it as a put food and water in — -> get waste out. Of course, we all know that much of what makes us energised and fulfilled is a bit more ephemeral than that — that is once we are able to easily meet those basic needs. It’s also good to also take a moment regularly to acknowlege our wealth if we have no subsistence problems. I have…

Permaculture Womens Guild

Permaculture approaches to landing during pregnancy. By Priya Logan As a birth doula and mother of fifteen years and counting I often see and distincly remember how it is to view your pregnancy and impending parenthood, or expanded family, through a lens of duty to your responsibilities and often a profound narrowing of resources and energy. For most of us it can feel overwhelming to be faced with an archetypal expectation of what a parent should be or how they should feel even if we know that those ideals are narrow or there are many ways to approach anything. When…

Permaculture Womens Guild

Reclaiming our sense of belonging. By Luiza Oliveira Looking at the many roots from my multi-racial family, I realized that most of my family background got lost in trauma, violence and it is hard to track. When I say most of my family background, I mean most of my brazilian indigenous, black, middle-eastern, and tunisian roots, also known as the non-europeans ancestors part of my family roots. Many of their names, origins, live stories, language, culture, knowledge were traumatically erased, changed, or hidden. And more often than not is hard to understand the difference between what happened and what was…