Is there a sustainable living tool we must use in the building of our communities?

Yes, it's called Permaculture.
When I was in Australia during the late seventies I had a very 'psychic' experience. This very profound event turned my life around. From then on all I wanted to do with my life was build communities around the world. Nothing in my life had prepared me for this soul purpose mission, or so I thought. It was only years later that I understood why we make the choices we do. During the eighties I came across an article that described a sustainable living tool named PERMAnent agriCULTURE. It instantly struck a cord. I had found a way, or a tool to work with.

The name Permaculture was originated by two people, Bill Mollison & David Holmgren from Australia. They re-awakened a system our forefathers must have used; a system of beneficial assembly of plants and animals in relation to human settlements for sustainable living was a daily practice in ancient times.

Back to basics

My good friend, Ed Barendse (my wife's brother-in-law) and I pooled our skills, his interest in design strategies and my civil engineering skills, and started to look for suitable land. The more I realised how permaculture principles can be applied to eco-renovation that will modify our lifestyles, the more I became convinced that this system was the best. After all I knew all about the price of oil, and our upcoming lack of it! Changing our way of life will have less impact on us if we act now.

I will give a quick summary of what permaculture is, and then use it to examine a typical lifestyle (ours) to see how it can help tackle the problem our Oil situation in the world.
In the process we will see how mitigating the impact of peak oil can also help us tackle climate change, as the two are closely related. Indeed some argue the onset of peak oil is a good thing, on the basis that the sooner oil supplies run out, the fewer greenhouse gases we’ll emit!
Permaculture is an ecological design system that emphasises the importance of design, observation of nature and application of natural solutions. It can be applied to many areas of our life, not just growing food. It is highly applicable in an urban context where most of the world’s population lives.

This gardening principle is based on a set of core ethics; to work in co-operation with nature where each has a fair share in food, where we take care of our planet, and apply principles of unity. It also places a strong emphasis on careful observation and design as the key to minimising work. The ethics stress the importance of ‘stewardship’ – looking after the earth and its inhabitants – and that was what excited us both especially since we knew about the many problems we expect to face soon.

Our energy crisis

In our modern lives we rarely think about how we use resources, and the impact their consumption has on the environment. We needed to find ways in which our modern lifestyles can be maintained since one of the most striking aspect of our lives is the vast quantities of energy which they’re driven by. We all have a heavy dependency on a web of energy supplies, many of which are still anchored in the oil fields of the Middle East

However, this gardening system has come to mean more than just food sufficiency in the household. Annelies made me aware how self-reliance in food is meaningless unless people have access to land, information, and financial resources.

In recent years I had to apply appropriate legal and financial strategies, including strategies for land access, business structures, and regional self financing schemes in order to make an impact in changing a whole human system.of living on this beautiful planet of ours.

Our Half-way house rules

We are teaching people at Half-way house to analyze existing energy flows of sun and rain and how even the energy of money effects our human energy field. We teach this through gardening, household or business strategy courses, and through healing modalities that many feel drawn to these days. Then we teach them to position and interconnect all the elements of nature in their lifestyles in a way that is beneficial to our relationships to others and to our energy flows.

If a member of our Half-way house community has correctly designed such a living lifestyle, and they have a full understanding of how we must change the way we live on this planet, they can become teachers that know how to treat the biosphere in a more productive and healthy way.

These people will then move to a community like 'The Buttercup' in the Austrian Alps, the community Ingrid writes about in her journal The Awakening Clan.