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This Page - Scroll Down for the Daily Routines of the Earth Skills Practitioner (using permaculture principles) and Ethics of Earth Skills Education by Wolf Camp staff.
Other Articles Now Available:
• Index of Journey Intros on Study Sites, Hazards, Awareness, Journaling & Sketching, Tracking, Birding & Plants by Chris Chisholm.
• Class Notes from blog on Bugs, Amphibians & Seaweeds edited from Wolf Camp students.
• Woods Lake Species List by Wolf Camp staff.
• Nikki's Primitive Living Experience
• Survival Trek Log by Glen MacKay
• Camper Preparedness & Emotions by Chris Chisholm.
• Naturalist Training: A Doorway by Bill Baroch, M.Ed.
• Your Everyday Herbalist by Christie Wolfe.
• Law of Fours: The Order of Survival by Chris Chisholm.
Daily Routines of the Earth Skills Practitioner
Using Permaculture Principles
Compiled by:
Chris Chisholm
Sources Include:
David Holmgren and Bill Mollison (permaculture)
Jon Young (nature awareness)
Society of Primitive Technology (non-fossil fuel living skills)
Rationalization:
These are most important actions to practice every day, based on our shared principles. Some of the core permaculture principles are combined together into the manifestation of a daily earth skills practice. Although all practicioners should consider practicing each action daily, every person needs to determine how much energy needs to be put into each action, based on their strengths, weaknesses, interest, and speciality.
Permaculture Ethics correspond to Sustainable Earth Living Skills:
Care for the Earth, Care for People, Limit Consumption and Share Surpluses.
Bold: Earth Skills Actions
Italics: Permaculture Principles
Underline: Word Definition needs clarification as it a dictionary can’t do justice.
1. Apply Self-Regulation by Quieting & Caretaking Yourself.
2. Observe, Ask & Interact with your Higher Power, Study Site, Relationships, and World efficiently and with Hightened Senses.
3. Accept Feedback by Appreciating & Recording Actions.
4. Catch & Store Energy by Working on Your Fire & Shelter.
5. Obtain a Yield by Sustainably Cultivating Property, Harvesting Food, Water, and Medicine and then honoring it with fair storage and distribution.
6. Use Renewable Resources and Recycle All Waste without Fossil Fuels as you go about Working on your Personal Preparatory Projects.
7. Creatively Respond to Change with the attitude that every thing has intrinsic worth and that we need to find Solutions To Every Problem, making the greatest change for the least effort, while also remembering to Cultivate Diversity & Similarity, Utilize the Edges & Margins of the System, Design from Patters to Details so that we can relinquished power to a successful design that creates self-managed systems, Consider Zones, Sectors, Succession & Elevation, Recognize Natural Limits, and Follow Natural Patterns when carrying out your Community Service Work.
If you would like a visual perspcetive of this "daily routine" philosophy, click on Seasons of the Cooperative Residential Intensives, Steps 9-15.
Ethics for Earth Skills Educators
During the second official Earth Skills Mentoring course that I taught, a group of five talented young people helped me develop a "medicine wheel" of ethics and responsibilities associated with being a good "earth skills mentor" or good role model when helping to guide others into the field of earth skills.
I would like to begin in the northeast, the place between the end (north) and the beginning (east) in a cycle when viewed from a northern hemispheric perspective. Besides, the sun was rising in the Northeast as we thought about this just after the summer solstice, though during the winter, the sun does not illuminate this direction, so it becomes a place of darkness, gestation, pregnancy.
As you can see on the attached page, we decided to place the concepts of "humility" and "respect", or Humble Respect if you don't mind some redundancy. Without this ethic of Humility and/or Respect, we can never be open to new possiblities, nor take direction from our elders or listen to our children. In fact, this is the direction in which many people believe our ancestors and "future generations" dwell, the very entities from whom, and for whom, we bother going around this wheel.
Then we decided to place "appreciation" in the east, initially because I had heard some members of the Iroquois confederacy talk about "words before all else", meaning that it is critical to start with an attitude of appreciation and speak those sentiments before beginning any journey, meeting, celebration, or other endeavor. Appreciation, we also decided, included "open mindedness" and "acceptance" in its definition since when we start new things, or meet new people, we choose, however conciously or unconciously, to ignore red flags, allow ourselves to be a bit niave and see things with "rose-colored glasses". Otherwise, we would never try new things, get to know new people, or start new relationships.
Turning to the southeast, we must remember to use our intelligence, which is a combination of our "common sense" and "creativity." As one of the up-and-coming naturalist mentors pointed out when thinking about assessing a new relationship, she may be initially attracted to a guy in the "east," but she won't spend time alone with him until she thinks critically about whether that guy is going to treat her well. In other words, we must do what no other species can actually choose to do, which is think critically after our heart is into something, before choosing to proceed into the challenging work associated with the south.
In the south, we placed honesty, but we also liked the concept of "sensitivity" in that location, so though we decided that it was important to be honest, it was also important to speak the truth with sensitivity toward how our words and work would be received by others. We also thought that it was important to flush out the truth before really getting too far into a project or relationship, thereby helping make it flow as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
Turning to the southwest, we realized that we really needed to work hard to accomplish anything, or to work through the difficulties of a project or relationship. We decided that the act of "will power" was an ethic that needed to be developed more fully in human beings in order for us to not succumb to forces that draw us away from our highest good. We can pray, and hope that our higher power will keep us from engaging in our vices, but in the end, we must try to have the strength to choose the high road ourselves, more and more as we go around the wheel and become stronger, wiser, more of an elder, more of a mentor or role model for others. The more we can develop our "will forces," the better we can serve the project or relationship.
In the west, the Iroquois again teach us the second of their three "principles of peace", which is the concept of "unity." Since we are dealing with the field of earth skills, in which there are a few founders with big egos, (otherwise this field would not have been developed), but egos that are not only big but also sometimes unbalanced, (otherwise there would be more unity and lifelong mentoring going on), we need to remember to balance our egos and stay united not only with our personal tribe, but also as a confederated set of earth skills educational institutes.
Turning to the northwest, we wanted to remember that it is important to enjoy what we do, and endeavor to maintain interest in the skills even though we have been working with them for quite a while around the the wheel. In addition, before we can truly love (the ethic we'll be placing in the north), it is critical that we choose to have interest in others, because in the end, love is a choice, not necessarily a feeling of infatuation any more. I have found that choosing to have interest in someone or something is one of the critical aspects in order to achieve true love.
So in the north rests the ultimate achievement, that of peace and love. Again, we find the Iroquois principles of peace as our standard, that we must hold an uplifted mind of peace, but that in order to sustain it as the falible humans that we are, we must continually do all the other work around the rest of the wheel.
Responsibilities of Earth Skills Educators
We need to bring the ethics of earth skills mentoring into reality through manifesting certain responsibilities. Corresponding to the ethic of appreciation in the east, we decided that for participants in the Wolf Camp Cooperative, that we would be sure to write thank you notes to students who attended courses which we mentored.
To balance our actions, we look to the west on the opposite side of the wheel, where we find the ethic of unity, and we decided that the group mentor would take the initiative to pass around a contact list for students in a group to write their contact information if they wish, and then email the list to each participant who wrote down their information.
Turning to the southeast, we decided that to cultivate our intelligence, that in order to mentor courses in the following busy season, that we would have to maintain a 2.5 grade point average (80% or B-/C+) overall, and have no failing grade. Opposite on the wheel we put joyful interest, and since the interest we most enjoy is the study of earth skills, that we would have to enroll in at least one week of new earth skills training each year, and journal at least 1 chapter of field exercises in the Wolf Journey or equivalent curriculum.
Turning to the south and the ethic of sensitive honesty, we decided that we could not mentor a program for one year if we broke any significant law except for purposeful civil disobedience. Opposite in the north is the ethic of love and peace, so we decided that our responsiblity in the off season would be to mentor someone who looks up to us or someone who we would otherwise dislike.
In the southwest is the will to serve, so we decided that we would do some earth skills related service project, for which our volunteer mentoring during earth skills courses would count, or we could teach a new group of students some skill back home, or do something like a restoration project. Opposte on the wheel is the ethic of humble respect, and we decided that we would do some service for an elder in our lives, such as a parent, teacher, or other mentor.
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