How can we change our world ? this may be a question that burns inside your heart and mind , It all starts with ethics "a set of concepts that guide us in determining what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures"
Permaculture ethics & design principles are central to the permaculture flower posted previously. For our purpose we will mainly discuss examples of ethics in action for now.
1. Care for the Earth : It all begins with Care for the earth because it is from the Earth that we depend on to live . It is where we live and the resources it produces are vital to our lives. Currently we are mainly de-generating the earth and it´s resources because we depend on resources such as oil , coal which also create much pollution when burned.
In order to eat a plate of food today we need about 10 calories of oil per 1 calorie of food. We eat the food and for the most part those scraps go to the garbage creating landfill mass and contributing to methane gas production which creates the greenhouse effect contributing to climate change.
One good step to begin caring for the Earth is to create a garden that you can give back what you take out of the earth in the form of compost to create soils rather than garbage and greenhouse gases. That soil will give back to you by producing healthy food when you plant seeds in it.
2. Care for the people : In this Ethic we relearn our humanity. As humans we are always looking for what will we get in return for something, and though that is valid because we all need an exchange of energy many times the act of just helping someone , pays you back on it´s own.
Let´s take helping someone learn how to make a garden ? will I get anything in return for it ? we might ask ourselves? It takes time and time is money ... as we so learned . Now lets say I apply this Ethic help my friend figure out the basics, get some other friends together and create a garden .
Would not all the members who help out in this endeavor be benefitted with some new found skills that they can use? And with a friend who will in the future have to much food growing that will be calling her friends to please harvest some food for themselves as a thank you for helping create the garden.
Plus the simple joy of knowing that you have a community that you can count on is self gratifying. Somethings money can´t buy.
3. Share the surplus : When we care for the Earth and work with each other supporting then we can receive the abundance from the garden we plant and here is where we can distribute the surplus in fair shares.
It is important to remember when creating a permaculture community even if it is just a community garden always return to the Ethics as a group maybe even do group meeting reviewing these . Especially when members are having difference of thoughts and or opinions we must remember we are human and many times the ego gets in the way. It is needed to always come back and re-asses our true purpose in the bigger picture so we don´t get discouraged.
We must understand that in order to create the new world we dream about we must drop many old habits of how we get around. Caring for people is of especial use for people having differences. Always remember that whatever you are doing is for the Earth that ethic always drives the 2 other ethics. And sharing the surplus also applies to power , there is no one person who should feel overpowered over the others that is another stumble on the path , its all about distributing power equally to all the members of the community.
Another world is possible and we get to be the artist who paints our new world with our choices and community efforts.
