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Jessie

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 8 months ago

Jessie Marcham

 

 

... pleeese send a fotie Jessie! ...

 

  • Jessie quit school at sixteen to get an education and ended up volunteering on organic farms, working for a human rights group and doing an MSc in Human Ecology (http://www.che.ac.uk/).
  • Her claim to fame is that she once had an allotment next door to George Monbiot (http://www.monbiot.com/).


 

  • completed a Thesis in Dec. 2005 on Evaluating permaculture education:

 

Evaluating permaculture education in the UK – does the permaculture design course enable graduates to actually practice permaculture? Please note: this is the “public version”.

 

(18 of the 88 pages reproduced below ... pdf. is 800kb, please write directly to Jessie for original)

 

Jessie Marcham

MSc Human Ecology Centre for Human Ecology

December 2005

 


 

Abstract

Evaluating permaculture education in the UK – does the permaculture design course enable graduates to actually practice permaculture?

 

The aim of my research has been to begin evaluating the effectiveness of the permaculture design course in Britain. I’ve been asking whether the permaculture design course enables students to actually practice permaculture in the long term, and how and why it works or does not work. In this paper I describe the background and context to my research, how I carried it out and what I found. Permaculture is a design system for creating ecologically and socially sustainable human settlements. The permaculture design course is an internationally recognised 72hour programme taught by a network of independent teachers. I have been engaged with the permaculture network in the UK since 2001, as a student, practitioner and, more recently, a teacher. I conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with twelve students and nine teachers of the design course and came to the conclusion that the design course acts as a very basic foundation in permaculture, giving students only just enough to go out and start experimenting for themselves. Most students do try to use permaculture in their own lives and some feel that it influences everything they do. Some students carry out small scale design work and engage with local or national networks, but perhaps more significantly, many students gain a new understanding and awareness of the world, and make general shifts toward more sustainable lifestyles. The design course receives much praise from students, and in many respects appears to be a good example of sustainable education in practice. The real-world solutions-based focus of the permaculture, combined with big-picture systems thinking and the potential for building community are key strengths of the course, as well as the creative and participatory teaching techniques. I identify a lack of community and support after the course as the main barrier to students attempting to practice permaculture, and suggest that addressing this issue is key to improving the effectiveness of the design course. I also identify a lack of clarity about the purpose of the design course amongst teachers, and highlight this as another issue to be addressed. I am keen to tell my story to a wider permaculture audience and to be part of ongoing and conscious processes of action and reflection, working to strengthen both the permaculture course and the permaculture network.

 

Background and introduction

In this section I give some background and context to my research. I explain what permaculture is, how the Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course functions in the UK, and what the permaculture network in the UK looks like. I also explore my own role in the permaculture network and how I came to be doing this research.

 

Permaculture originated in Australia in the 1970s as an approach to sustainable, or ‘permanent’, agriculture. In the last 30 years an informal permaculture network has spread around the globe and permaculture has come to mean a lot more than agriculture. It is variously billed as sustainable living, a design philosophy, and a revolution disguised as organic gardening. The permaculture design certificate is an internationally recognised qualification allowing graduates to practice as permaculture designers. In Britain, the design course, or PDC, is taught by an informal network of independent teachers and offered in a wide range of different formats and venues. Having attended a design course myself in 2001, and subsequently become deeply involved in the permaculture network, I was curious to find out if the permaculture design course really gave people the ability to go out and practice permaculture. What is permaculture? The term permaculture – a contraction of permanent agriculture and permanent culture - was coined by two Australian ecologists; Bill Mollison and his student, David Holmgren (Mollison, 1988; Holmgren, 2002). Witnessing ecological destruction and unsustainable farming practices close to home, Mollison and Holmgren were inspired to reinvent a more sustainable approach to agriculture based on the diversity, resilience and productivity of natural ecosystems. Combining the traditional wisdom of indigenous cultures, insights from ecologists such as Odum (eg 1997) and Birch, systems thinking, and the latest advances in modern technology, they created both a system of ecological design, and some more specific tools or techniques for use in agriculture, horticulture, architecture and beyond. The three-fold ethics of ‘earth care’, ‘people care’ and ‘fair shares’1 give permaculture an explicitly ethical basis. Various sets of generic ‘design principles’ act as structures and patterns to guide design work, condensing sometimes complex ideas in to memorable slogans. There’s a strong focus on observation, working with natural patterns and transforming problems in to solutions. Though developed in an academic context, permaculture is very much a grassroots movement, emphasising practical, local action for more sustainable ways of living. Permaculture is often typified by the concept of a ‘forest garden’ - trees, fruit bushes, herbs, perennial vegetables, climbers, and annuals are combined to mimic a climax forest ecosystem, or the ‘edge’ between woodland and grassland. The system is designed to be largely self-maintaining, and contrasts starkly with the vast energyintensive monocultures of conventional agriculture. Though retaining a focus on agriculture and horticulture, permaculture is now applied to practically every area of human life; it has been used to design eco-homes, businesses, workshops and even a refugee camp. It’s also been adapted and expanded to suit different cultures and climates, as the theory and practice have gradually spread round the world. Mollison’s (1988) Designer’s Manual is still the classic tome, but it’s now been joined by a number of other publications focussing on different areas of activity, rooted in different climates or aiming for a more accessible introduction (see, for example, Burnett, 2000 and Bell, 1992). Mollison and Holmgren’s original set of principles has also been adapted and recreated several times, with different versions promoted by different authors and teachers.

 

Permaculture in Britain

Permaculture arrived in the UK in the early 1980s and, after a fitful start, a network of projects, teachers and designers has slowly been established. The Permaculture Association (Britain), or PAB, is at the centre of this network, promoting permaculture, providing advice and information, maintaining a comprehensive website, linking up various offers and requests from around (and beyond) the country and hosting an annual ‘convergence’. Compared to major players such as Friends of the Earth or WWF, the Association is tiny – in terms of funding, staffing and membership. It has around 1000 members and 140 registered projects and local groups. There are 57 people listed on its ‘designers’ register’ and it employs only 2 part time office staff (information provided by PAB). Permaculture projects range from individuals’ back gardens to 60 acre holdings, from rural composting systems and self-build eco-homes to local-government funded inner-city community initiatives.

 

What is the design course?

Both the Permaculture Association and many groups and individuals put a significant amount of time and effort in to education and teaching. The permaculture network has an established educational system, and even a standard international syllabus (Permaculture Institute, undated) and qualification2. The Permaculture Design Certificate, or PDC, is probably the main route through which people learn permaculture and become part of the active network (Goldring, 2000, p363). Some students will have attended ‘introductory’ courses before the design course, or learned permaculture basics through books, magazines or lectures. However, most courses have no entry requirements. The 72-hour design course covers the basics of permaculture ethics and principles, design methods, and the ecology of soils, woodlands and water, plus elements of sustainable agriculture, housing, transport, economy and society. On ‘graduating’ from a design course, students earn the right to use the term permaculture to describe their work. Students are also encouraged to progress to the 2-year action learning based Permaculture Diploma, where they are expected to demonstrate their skills through practical design work. On completion of the Diploma, they are referred to as a ‘diplomat’ and are considered to be qualified to teach the Design Course. The PAB estimates that there are over 3,000 graduates of the design course in the UK, and around 40 active permaculture teachers (information provided by PAB3). In Britain, the Design Course has been taught in a huge range of different settings, contexts and formats: it can be anything from an evening class in the local community centre to an intensive 2-week residential workshop or a summer school in a university. However, it usually falls in to the broad category of ‘adult education’, and is run through organisations such as the Workers Education Association, independent education centres, or by private individuals. Where the course has been accredited by the Open College Network, it’s recognised as a level 3 qualification (ie at the same level as A levels). Teachers are expected to be Diploma holders, and in some situations also need teaching qualifications. The PAB helps to promote courses and provide something of a networking function, but there is no formal body actively monitoring, co-ordinating or overseeing permaculture teachers or their courses.

 

Why I’m doing this research

I took part in a permaculture design course four years ago, and since then have gradually become more involved with permaculture and the national permaculture network. I’ve helped out on design courses, done a six month permaculture internship and been trying to use permaculture in my own life and work. When I came to the point of thinking about what to do for my thesis, I realised I wanted to do something around permaculture. I also knew that I was interested in education and in what causes people to learn and change. I sent out an email to various permaculture lists and individuals in the network explaining my situation and asking what research needed doing. The suggestion that resonated with me the most came from Andy Goldring, who would be useful to find out how effective the design course really was, as no one had looked in to this before. I returned to the email lists with Andy’s idea, asking for feedback, and realised I’d hit upon something of a generative theme when my mail unintentionally sparked off a lively e-discussion about effectiveness, which continued for several weeks. Encouraged by this response, and by more specific messages of support for the research topic, I gradually refined my question and approach. The key question which I moved forward with was: “Does the permaculture design course give students the ability to practice permaculture?” I wanted to find out what happened to graduates after the design course, how they used permaculture, and whether the course gave them what they needed to start applying the theory. I also hoped to come up with some ideas about the strengths and weaknesses of the design course, and suggestions of how to improve it.

 

Literature review

In this section I review the current limited literature on the permaculture design course, and start to build up a clearer picture of what it looks like. I also look wider, to literature on sustainable education and behaviour change, and identify some theories describing how people learn and what ‘good’ education should look like. In particular, I draw on work by Sterling, and Maitney and Reed.

 

Permaculture design course

There is currently very little literature available on the permaculture design course. In this first part I have drawn heavily on two main sources. The first is work by Caroline Smith, an Australian permaculture practitioner and researcher. The second is the Permaculture Teachers Guide, a handbook edited by Andy Goldring (2000a) and published by the British Permaculture Association and WWF. I have also used some more informal sources of information, including personal correspondence and reports from a UK teachers’ gathering, to help fill in the picture of what we already know about the design course. As already mentioned, design courses are run in a huge variety of different settings and formats, by different teachers, with variations in course content. We need to be wary of making generalisations within this diversity, but can draw out some useful themes and pointers. All design courses should include the core content of permaculture ethics, principles and design methods (Goldring 2000a), and all teachers should have completed a permaculture Diploma. Permaculture as a subject gives a strong emphasis on practical and integrated design solutions, and in the Guide, teachers talk about the importance of holistic or systems thinking, observation skills, using real life issues and experiences, building confidence and listening to each other’s stories (Tippett, 2000; Skye 2000; Whitefield 2000; Bell 2000)). Many teachers use action learning techniques or concepts to help realise the links between theory and practice (Goldring, 2000, p11; Tippett, 2000; Brighton Permaculture Trust, undated). Bell (2000) argues that the design course should be “a profound experience”, and others hint at the possibilities for personal transformation and new ways of seeing and being in the world (Whitefield, 2000; Goldring, 2000). Smith (1997, 2001), reviewing design courses in Australia, comes away enthusiastic about every dimension of the learning experience. She feels that the design course is “best described as a participatory community of learners...” (1997, p4), and identifies several aspects of ‘empowering pedagogy’: “permaculture is inherently problematising, enabling a dialogic approach... Second, the PDC teachers are highly valued by the participants because they possess personal powerful experiential knowledge... Third... permaculture’s implicit interdisciplinary content and in the emphasis the teachers place on connections and interdependence between natural and human systems” (1997, p4) She also reports that students gain a remarkable sense of empowerment from the course, describing how two case study individuals were able to gradually internalise permaculture over a period of two and half years and use it in on projects such as a productive garden, a passive solar house and work with the council to devise ecological solutions to a sewage problem (2001, p5-9). Smith’s high opinion of permaculture pedagogy may be somewhat uncritical and overstated. But she does give a general impression of the culture of the design course, which tallies up with teachers’ own (perhaps partially aspirational) descriptions of their courses as participatory, interdisciplinary and empowering. She also acknowledges that most students begin the course with already very high levels of motivation and awareness, and that not every student will demonstrate quite such a positive response to the course.

 

Teachers in the UK (and beyond) do seem to be aware that the design course is not flawless.

According to small scale research carried out by Macnamara (undated, around 2001), teachers feel that groups such as ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, as well as professionals, are under-represented on their courses. In the same study, teachers suggested that the course would benefit from more outreach and collaboration with other organisations.

A permaculture teachers’ gathering held at Dial House in June 2004 discussed, amongst other things, the issue of post-design course support.

A report from the event details the current lack of follow up and support, and makes several suggestions for improvement (Evans, 2004). Ongoing email discussions also highlight, and help to resolve, issues such as how to incorporate peak oil in to course teaching, how to deal with disruptive students, whether to create a new ‘short course’ format, and how to encourage students to progress with the diploma (permalearners email list, 2004-5).

 

Bell raises an interesting question: whether the permaculture design course should be viewed as ‘education’ or ‘training’.

Characterising ‘education’ as resulting in only a theoretical understanding, he feels that the design course should be a ‘training’, which gives people practical skills. For him, the ultimate question is, “How well can each student...Make effective permaculture designs?” (2000, p12).

 

Whitefield points out that it is not possible to teach students everything about permaculture within the 72 hour design course, but in his opinion “What is possible is to give them a new perspective ... The perspective is the unique contribution of permaculture...” (2000a, p22).

 

In email discussions, several teachers felt that one of the core functions of permaculture courses is building community (permalearners email list 2005). It is also recognised by teachers that students come to the course for many different reasons (Macnamara, undated).

Bell suggests that students may be seeking, “to enhance their work skills, to develop their plot or homestead, or to give meaning to times of pivotal change in their lives” (2000, p13). It seems that the course is about more than theory or practical skills or new perspectives, but perhaps a synergy of all three - and potentially something deeper and wider; a source of community and new ways of understanding and being in the world.

 

Sustainable education

The permaculture design course is somewhat unique, and therefore not easy to place within the wider context of education. Is it environmental education? Education for sustainable development? Design education? Adult education? And, beyond this, where does permaculture fit in to the whole sustainability debate? How does it relate to movements such as deep ecology or eco-socialism?

 

Permaculture seems to straddle much of this plethora of ‘educations’ and ‘isms’ – it’s such broad discipline, drawing on many different traditions and encompassing great diversity. As a subject, permaculture is essentially holistic, integrative and actionorientated, advocating grassroots empowerment and participation. It has an explicit ethical basis and an explicit agenda for change. And, as Caroline Smith, explains, permaculture is “...far from a call to recycle the milk bottles, switch off the lights and use the bicycle more.

 

It is a challenge to rethink the very foundations of the way we live, our system of values which determines our relationships with each other and with the natural world...” (2001, p5) One thing that’s quite obvious, then, is that the permaculture design course is far more radical than current UK government policies on education for sustainability, which define learners as little more than consumers (Jackson, 2005; Sustainable Development Education Panel, 2003; Sustainable Development Unit, 2005).

 

It is also clear that though permaculture may include elements of some of the so-called ‘adjectival’ educations, such as environmental education and development education, it’s actually much broader and deeper than any of these. In the continuous evolution of identities and labels, the relatively new concept of ‘sustainable education’ seems to be the closest fit with permaculture. Coined by educationalist Stephen Sterling (2001), ‘sustainable education’ describes a radical and ambitious new vision of education – a vision which the permaculture design course may not always fulfil, but which it certainly seems to share. In many senses, sustainable education builds on environmental education, and education for sustainable development; it teaches sustainable living and ecological literacy. But it is also about creating sustainable educational structures, processes, and cultures. Sterling describes sustainable education as transformative, constructive and participatory, contrasting it to the dominant educational paradigm, which, he argues, tends to be transmissive, instructive and imposed (2001, p11, p35). Transformative education has an explicit change agenda; according to Wenger, it ‘changes who we are by changing our ability to participate, to belong, to negotiate meaning” (ibid, p57, citing Wenger, 1998). Sustainable education gives equal weight to normative, descriptive and active dimensions of learning, integrating Pestalozzi’s ‘head, heart and hand’.

 

Theories of learning and the values-action gap

Research shows that most of us have a good level of basic awareness around environmental issues. We know that we should recycle, use public transport and switch off the lights.

At the same time, most of us don’t act on this knowledge. Just because we think that recycling is a good thing, and even if we feel that recycling is a good thing, we often don’t actually do recycling. This ‘values-action gap’ is a widely recognised phenomena in environmental education and behaviour change studies.

 

Even government reports on sustainable consumption acknowledge that “...all too often there is a yawning gap between attitudes... and behaviour...” (Jackson, 2005, p4). Some would argue that the cognitive dissonance this values-action gap implies is actually endemic to our society. Paul Maiteny believes that “...the cultural constructions on which we base our lifestyles, strive to make sense of our lives, and satisfy our in-needness, are ecologically dysfunctional” (2000, p15). If the level of crisis and dissonance goes this deep, it is perhaps unsurprising that, in a review of behaviour change literature, Kollmuss and Agyeman conclude, “Numerous theoretical frameworks have been developed... many hundreds of studies have been done, but no definitive answers have been found” (2002, p240). Smith describes permaculture as “a challenge to rethink the very foundations of the way we live, our system of values...” (1997, p5). Maiteny argues that much of our mainstream culture is dysfunctional at the basic ecological level (2000, p15). Any model which attempts to explain or describe how we learn and change must surely address both the deeper (spiritual?) levels of consciousness, and the collective dimension of learning and change. Courtney-Hall and Rogers, arguing against a “privatised picture of environmental action” remind us that, “...this values-action ‘gap’ is one that needs to be understood at the systemic level, at the level of the social structures and patterns that make it rational at some lower level in the social-ecological system for a person to act in ways that are irrational at the larger ecosystem level...” (2002, p294).

 

Holons and feedback loops

Sterling uses the concept of holons – wholes within wholes – to describe the way in which the emerging culture of sustainable education exists within the dominant culture of western industrial society. We cannot escape this dominant culture; indeed, we are part of it. And it is bigger, more pervasive, more powerful than the culture of sustainable education which it contains. It is difficult to learn and act upon ecological values if your family think you are crazy, or if society is set up in such a way as to make it difficult to, say, find a job when you don’t drive a car. What this means, says Sterling, is that sustainable education must set up positive feedback loops: loops where sustainable education contributes to changes in wider society, these changes reinforce the sustainable education paradigm, and sustainable education is able to contribute to further change in society (2001, pp31-3). Martin argues that this cannot be done effectively through educational ‘subcultures’, and that activists should be seeking to work within the mainstream education system rather than creating their own alternative or add-on educational structures (1996, p 41). Interestingly, the permaculture design course takes something of a middle path – a few courses are taught within universities, and several through semiestablishment organisations such as the WEA or OCN. On the other hand, many courses are taught outside of any formal education structure, and even those supported by the WEA or OCN are not usually integrated in a wider programme. If Martin is right, there is perhaps a danger that permaculture educators are merely creating a sub-culture which can never hope to change the world. It is also possible, though, that Martin underestimates the value of sub-cultures in modelling alternatives and pioneering ideas that the mainstream is not yet ready to accommodate.

 

Deep and surface learning

Sterling describes three potential responses to learning. First order learning is learning within accepted boundaries, and requires only adaptation or accommodation of existing ideas or practices. Second order learning is critical and reflexive learning, and often involves learning about the process of learning. Third order learning is about consciousness shifting, and is transformative learning (2001, p11). For me, the difference between second and third order learning is not totally clear, and I would imagine that in reality the three levels form not so much distinct steps, as a continuum. This has parallels with Bateson’s (1973) ‘levels of learning’ and the concepts of ‘deep’ and ‘surface’ learning (Atherton, 2005). Second and third level, or deep, learning is usually a slower process than surface learning, but with more permanent changes taking place. It can also be more challenging than surface learning, as the learner’s basic assumptions about the world begin to crumble and change. Rogers, cited by Hicks and Bord (2001), looks not at three levels of learning, but at five different ‘dimensions’. These five dimensions are the cognitive (facts, ideas, knowledge), affective (emotional, personal, caring) and existential (identity, purpose, responsibility), followed by empowerment and action. Rogers uses a circular or cyclical model of learning, describing three lyrical stages of ‘awakening’ - awakening the mind, awakening the heart, awakening the soul – culminating in a fourth stage of action. Hicks and Bord argue that every stage of learning requires equal attention, and that the first three stages must be somehow resolved before the learner can move in to action. Rogers’ stages or dimensions of learning tie in loosely with Sterling’s levels of response to learning – purely cognitive learning is often only first order learning, whilst learning at the affective and existential stages is far more likely to be second or third order learning. These stages and dimensions also bring us back to Sterling’s original description of sustainable education as normative, descriptive and active.

 

Oscillation theory

Maiteny (2000) builds on the ‘oscillation theory’ created by Bruce Reed at the Grubb Institute of Behavioural Studies, to give another view on the process of deep learning.

According to this model, we are – individually and collectively - engaged in a continuous search for satisfaction and meaning. We oscillate between states of ‘selfdependence’ and ‘extra-dependence’.

During the period of self-dependence we are feeling confident of our own sense of meaning and purpose, and are happy acting on our values and worldviews. However, we all come to periods of questioning or uncertainty, doubting if the world is really as we thought it was.

We move towards extradependence, turning to other people, organisations or ideas to give us reassurance, new meanings or a safe place in which to explore our doubts.

As we gradually become more confident of our own ideas again, perhaps radically rethinking them, perhaps strengthening them as they were, we swing back towards self-dependence, engagement with the wider world, and action.

Again, there are parallels here with other thinkers and concepts – the swing from reflection to action and back again fits Kolb’s learning cycle (M Smith, 2001), and the practices of action learning and action research.

Like Sterling, Maiteny emphasises that the experience of swinging from self-dependence to extra-dependence and back again can be a challenging and painful one; we can also get stuck at any point of the oscillation.

We are more likely to experience creative learning if we are consciously engaged in the process, actively reflecting and observing ourselves.

This oscillation is also a process which we experience collectively; as a culture, a nation, an organisation; maybe as a class of students.

Something that particularly interested me about the model was the thought that students on the permaculture design course might be swinging towards extradependence, using the course as “a safe... setting that facilitates: 1. Letting go...of habitual ways of seeing the world and oneself; and 2. Opportunities for re-orientation and the establishment of new and meaningful constructions of oneself and one’s world” (Maiteny, 2000, p12)

 

We are creating a story here of learning as something very complex and multidimensional. As a potentially slow, challenging and deep rooted transformation of ourselves, our understanding of the world and our ways of being in the world. As something that takes place at the level of mind, heart and soul. As something that, to be truly meaningful, results in action. As a process that is taking place within the context of wider society. We are looking at permaculture education as being ‘sustainable education’, not just in terms of its curriculum, but also in terms of it processes, structures and ethos.

 

Meaningful education

We are also beginning to create some strong implications for what ‘good’, or meaningful, sustainable education should look like. Given the lack of wider consensus on the theory of the values-action gap and how people learn, the levels of agreement about what actually works in practice are surprisingly high. Meaningful education, as Fagan argues, “...must be for use, must stem from and reside in its clients’ reality and must continue to make sense there” (1996, p139). Meaningful education uses real life examples, and draws on students’ own experiences. In the language of Reason and Heron’s (1999) ‘extended epistemology’, meaningful education values experiential knowing, and gives attention not just to ‘knowing what’, but ‘knowing how’. Meaningful education teaches skills of critical thinking and reflexive awareness; many writers stress the importance of ‘learning how to learn’ (Parsons, 2004; Sterling, 1996; Thomson et al, undated). Meaningful education creates an active culture of learning, encouraging participation and cycles of action, reflection and experimentation. It also creates a sense of community – of people learning together, challenging and supporting each other. Meaningful education gives attention not just to facts and figures, but also to the deeper emotional and existential dimension of learning. Meaningful education is integrated and holistic, looking at the bigger picture and wider dynamics of any issue or situation (eg Cutter-Mackenzie et al 2003). Both Sterling and Symons also argue that good education needs to pay as much attention to the ‘hidden’ curriculum as the official curriculum. Teachers, classrooms and organisational structures need to role model the values and behaviour they are expounding (Sterling, 1996, p35 and Symons, 1996, p61).

 

Community

Those writing about behaviour change, and even government-commissioned reports on sustainable consumption, focus on many of the same key points as those from the environmental or sustainable education fields. People are more likely to change their behaviour if they have a deeper understanding beyond mere awareness of issues.

 

People are also more likely to act if they have a sense of responsibility for, and personal power in, a situation.

 

There is a repeated emphasis on the importance of learning communities, supportive communities, and support groups (Jackson, 2005; Sterling, 2001 and 1996; Maiteny, 2005; Thomson et al, undated). People need support to maintain their views and behaviours in the face of mainstream society. They need safe spaces in which to let go of old ideas, find new meanings and explore their experiences. People are also far more powerful acting as groups than as individuals. A different and wider sense of community was also referred to by some; a sense of identification with the earth, or gaia. This is perhaps one of the key areas where many of us have a cognitive understanding of the fact that we are part of a much larger living system, but most of us do not carry a deeper sense of that system actually being our selves. As Matthews (1991) explains, once we experience the rest of the world as a wider ‘self’, sustainable behaviour is no longer a duty, but a natural and obvious instinct. If we identify strongly with the living earth, we open ourselves to both the pain and the healing power of a system much bigger than our individual selves.

 

Further complexity

Before we get too carried away, several writers sound various notes of warning.

...

 

(p.18 of 88 ... this takes ages and I don´t have Jessies explicit permission to put this up ... we need admin help!!)

 

 

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