Some people collect porcelain, others collect baseball cards. I collect no-drive days. Travelling this much, having a place to stay where it's not necessary to start up a car at all for a day or two has been priceless. At the Northeast Permaculture Convergence near Ithaca, New York, this was the case.
Of course the past few days have been much more than that. As had happened two weeks ago in Oswego, some of the best minds on this planet converged here. By comparison, this group was much more diverse. We had men and women of all ages and several races. Child care was provided.
This event was designed in a different way compared to most conferences. The majority of weekend events are usually scheduled to the wall. Here, we had many concurrent sessions, which are also a feature of many conferences. On Friday and Saturday, schedule structure was relatively normal, with sessions for everyone, breakout discussion sessions, and presentations. During Sunday, however, much of the day was left open for events to be determined during the conference. In other words, everyone had the opportunity to set up a session for that early morning and afternoon.
Permaculture is about much more than farming. In order to be a place where people are happy, a community needs many kinds of people linked together. This includes musicians and other artists. That's why i was here. In fact all of my books fit into this movement, and i've been working with various aspects of permaculture since the beginning of my first marriage in 1978. "Design Ecology" directly addresses building techniques and synergy necessary for functioning permaculture communities. "Wheel of Occupations", which is available for free download through the Tesla Academy web site http://www.teslaacademy.info is about how to create a balanced economy where nobody feels exploited. "Harmonic Chemistry" and "Fundamentals of Geobiology" go into technological ideas that are useful in the process of developing ecologically sane communities. All my work with Tesla related research, which now mainly consists of scattered bits of documentation, covers technologies which ideally could be cheaply adopted by permaculture communities.
A pioneering spirit prevailed throughout the Convergence. Results are much more important than qualifications. Have you managed to keep your crops from getting eaten on the ground, without putting toxic substances there? Are the people in your community able to live without burdens of debt and overwork? Do artistic productions truly inspire everyone to do high quality work? Is everyone properly fed?
At the Convergence, our little temporary community worked well. We had abundant healthy food cooked by enthusiastic volunteers. The Saturday night party with two local bands was absolutely beautiful. Lots of learning took place in group presentations and many private conversations. All the children were safe and happy.
Many photos from the Synergetics Workshop and a very few from this Convergence have been uploaded to the Photobucket site now. That link is http://s93.photobucket.com/albums/l62/mriversong/
This Convergence was put on by the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute, PO Box 54 Ithaca NY 14850 phone 303-815-3535. They're delivering a Permaculture Design Certification August 3 - 19, and i strongly encourage anyone with interests in this field to sign up -- it will be worth every penny. Having met the instructors, i know they will be knowledgable and competent. Web site: https://fingerlakespermaculture.org
Michael Riversong
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Beautiful Music for the Glory of God
http://home.earthlink.net/~mriversong