Build Values First
Stuart Hill urges us to be driven by our ethics and values, feelings and passions rather than particular goals or resolutions. By revisiting our ethics and values at the end of the year we can keep the positive fire burning.
By listening to our feelings and passions we give ourselves the energy to create a better future. Though acknowledging our passion we formulate a vision, purpose. Once our passion is invested in our future, we can find energy to develop goals, and sustain the plans and activities.
Awaken your ethics and values- Acknowledge your feelings and passions
- Research your ideas, visions and design (doing this permaculture course is a critical tool in developing systems thinking and building your own design)
- Create action plans
- Finally start the regular activities that will help you realise your goals. At the end of each day, set goals that help achieve the actions you set in your plan.
Hill urges us to: “Act from your core/essential self – empowered, aware, visionary, principled, passionate, loving, spontaneous, fully in the present (contextual) – vs. your patterned, fearful, compensatory, compromising, de-contextual selves”
Core Values for Social Permaculture Design
Every person is different. No two permaculture designers will have the same passions and goals. Here are two different applications of Hills suggestion to act from your core self:
- Ana* knows her core self [empowered, aware, visionary, principled, passionate, loving, spontaneous, fully in the present] involves working with rare fruits and edible flowers.
She builds skills in growing food plants. She also develops her catering projects, observing what drives people to try new foods. She searches for the best way to harvest and cook these unusual foods. Ana strives to find way to integrate rare foods into household gardens and onto the plate. Finally, she aims to build community awareness. Whenever Ana has a set-back (like the time vandals broke into the nursery to destroy plants) she listens to her core passion. This gives her energy to mend flaws in her action plan. - Zane* knows his core self [empowered, aware, visionary, principled, passionate, loving, spontaneous, fully in the present] loves working with people.
He listens and helps them relieve their hunger by helping them to grow food, build water catchment and storage and make efficient stoves. There are more than a few daunting barriers in achieving the long-term goals of this project. The barriers include social perceptions, land access and resources (like seeds and access to water). Over the years, Chris has some devastating set-backs. Sadly, the setbacks include natural disasters. He knows these disasters will strike because the projects are on marginal land. Revisiting his core passion gives him some solace. Through re-visiting his core he recharges his passion. With renewed passion he strengthens his action plans.
[*Names have been changed for privacy reasons.]
Discover your core principles and enjoy the discovery.
Happy new year from us at Permaculture Visions.
