It's called Permaculture

It always surprises me, as much reading and exploring as I do, when I come upon something that truly resonates with me on many levels. As I mentioned in my last post, my thoughts have followed a pattern of wanting to find a way of treating the addict inclusive of their place in society - rather than exclusive of it. That seems to be one of my problems with AA and related programs; I see them as separating rather than integrating the addict. A lot of people are able to use these programs to re-enter their lives fully and stay on a recovery path, but just as many use the programs as another way to avoid responsibility, practice delusional thinking and stay firmly within the addiction whether they're using or not. The anonymity factor, which I believe is actually a very good spiritual principle, does nothing to mitigate the shame factor and self-rejection that so many addicts suffer from. And it's convenient for society to separate themselves further from the problem as well. It looks to me like another cog in the addictive wheel like the war on drugs and the "just say no" campaigns. If we could just say no we wouldn't be addicted. Hello.

I first heard about permaculture through Starhawk's writings, but I thought it was mainly a gardening technique when it's actually much more than that. It's a philosophy, a way of life, a holistic model for individuals and society and more than anything I've read about, it seems to hold a lot of answers for the problems that face us now.

It's based on three ethics and 12 principles. They are:

Ethic #1 Care for the earth
Ethic #2 Care for people
Ethic #3 Fair Share

Principle # 1 Observe and interact
Principle # 2 Catch and store energy
Principle # 3 Obtain a yield
Principle # 4 Apply self-regulation and feedback
Principle # 5 Use and value renewable resources and services
Principle # 6 Produce no waste
Principle # 7 Design from patterns to details
Principle # 8 Integrate rather than segregate
Principle # 9 Use small and slow solutions
Principle #10 Use and value diversity
Principle #11 Use edges and value the marginal
Principle #12 Creatively use and respond to change

I'm just getting my thoughts together about how this can relate to recovery from addiction, but some are pretty obvious. Observe and interact, apply self-regulation and accept feedback, integrate rather than segregate, creatively use and respond to change- these are the obvious ones. And of course, permaculture is a community-based philosophy and you know how much I love that.

So that's the big solution I'm seeing right now. In the meantime, I continue to observe myself, apply self-regulation and accept feedback and don't drink one day at a time. And in the long-term I envision building a life worth living where all people are treated with dignity and respect and are valued for their contribution to the whole. I can only start with me but I'm interested in what my brilliant blogger friends think about this.

I'm working on a laptop and can't figure out how to get my links in, but I'll link to Starhawk and some of the permaculture sites soon. I'm going to a permaculture workshop Saturday and then on to Brent's. We made the decision. Boy am I eager to have a home again and get my kitten back! Thanks for visiting Eclectic Recovery.