Leverage Points

Anyone who is seeking to make change in the world would do well to take a look at Donella Meadows’ list of leverage points, 12 places to intervene in a system. For us the real power lies in the ability to look beyond the direct effects of a decision to what would in essence be …

Permaculture Lines & Levels

Energy (earth) & Awareness (people). Energy is external, physical world, awareness is internal. Energy is required to interface between systems; the energy cost of interaction increases the further apart systems are from each other in terms of storing energy and/or awareness. Permaculture is a tool that increases our awareness so that we can capture and/or store …

Connecting the Dots: Integral Types in Permaculture

In our past blog posts we have explored holons, quadrants, and states. The next aspect of integral theory we’d like to examine with a permaculture eye is the concept of types. What are types in integral theory? Paraphrased from Integrallife.com in an overview of integral theory, types are the variety of consistent styles that arise …

Baseline, Altered & Chaotic States

In addition to holons and quadrants, integral theory brings another useful concept to permaculture: states. Simply defined, a state is a mode or condition of being; its nature can be either baseline or altered. In order to bring the concept of states into permaculture, we have reframed the scale of permanence as the baseline state …

Balancing the Ethics of Permaculture

In her book People and Permaculture, Looby Macnamara speaks of the way we humans have a penchant for categorizing, compartmentalizing and for creating boundaries between things (where boundaries do not really exist) to facilitate our understanding of the world. This division does allow the human mind to begin to understand complex systems. At the same …

Future Care

Permaculture as a design science is unique among other systems because it makes use of ethics. What are ethics? On his website permaculturist David Holmgren says, “Ethics are culturally evolved mechanisms that regulate self-interest, giving us a better understanding of good and bad outcomes.” Essentially, ethics are a tool that allow us to evaluate our …

Expanding Zones and Sectors in Permaculture: Integrating New Perspectives

What is integral theory in a nutshell? Integral theory is a framework for understanding life, the universe and everything, developed by Ken Wilber. We think that integral theory provides an additional toolset that is useful in permaculture and want to develop and explore how it can enhance permaculture design. You can see our other posts …

The Holon

What is integral theory in a nutshell? Integral theory is a framework for understanding life, the universe and everything, developed by Ken Wilber. We think that integral theory provides an additional toolset that is useful in permaculture and want to develop and explore how it can enhance permaculture design. You can see our other posts …