Video Chat in Permaculture with Willi Paul & Melissa Miles

Show Notes & Participant Questions:

Eastern Pennsylvania Permaculture Guild
href=http://www.meetup.com/permie/

SoilKitchen.org is a temporary, windmill-powered architectural intervention and multi-use space where citizens can enjoy free soup in exchange for soil samples from their neighborhood. Placed across the street from the Don Quixote monument at 2nd Street and Girard Avenue in North Philadelphia, Soil Kitchen's windmill pays homage to the famous windmill scene in Cervantes', Don Quixote. Rather than being "adversarial giants" as they were in the novel, the windmill here will be a functioning symbol of self-reliance. The windmill also serves as a sculptural invitation to imagine a potential green energy future and to participate in the material exchange of soil for soup - literally taking matters into one's own hands. This exchange provides an entry point for further dialogue and action available in the space through workshops, events and informal exchange. Soil Kitchen provides sustenance, re-established value of natural resources through a trade economy, and tools to inform and respond to possible contaminants in the soil.

Soil Kitchen will coincide with the E.P.A.'s National Brownfields Conference. Soil Kitchen gathers soil and creates a Philadelphia Brownfields Map and Soil Archive. In addition to serving soup and testing soil, the building will be a hub for exchange and learning; free workshops including wind turbine construction, urban agriculture, soil remediation, composting, lectures by soil scientists and cooking lessons.

Questions for Melissa:

Are there new myths rising from the practice of permaculture? What the new symbols in permaculture songs, poems and story?

When you say that you do alchemy & permaculture, what are the raw materials and outcomes in this mix?

Is there a global permaculture revolution rising now? How do you envision the big crash / transition ahead?

What is sacred about the practice of permaculture?

In my work, permaculture is primarily spiritual. Is this true for you?


Questions for Willi:

1. Re: Your "Inner and Outer System of the sacred" graphic... the triune nature of the symbol is archetypal. In addition to the many things the triangle represents in various cultures, the 3,4,5, triangle is a representation of the Classical Trivium. How do you think the Trivium Method of education relates to the permaculture and personal empowerment?

2. The "New Alchemy" you have brought forth is comprised of: Imaginative, Eco, Shamanic, Community, Earth & Digital. You have defined the Digital aspect of New Alchemy as, " Electronic learning and feeling working with computers including chat text, email and documents." Can you discuss how this Digital aspect is distinct from the Community aspect of the New Alchemy?

3. One of my favorite Alchemical terms is, "Solve et Coagula" (perhaps this is because I am a Scorpio!), but I'd like for you to talk about what this term means to you and how you feel it relates to the cultural paradigm shift I believe we are in the process of undergoing.

4. How do you define Sacred?

5. Now that we have reached the point where most people are recognizing that "we" (Western culture) have been on the wrong path for some time and, that some sort of change is needed ...what, if anything, can be done to prevent green-washing/co-opting and/or disempowering "sustainable alternatives" (like, the Venus Project, imho) from grabbing people before they have become conscious and fully aware that what is really needed now is for each of us to making changes in ourselves?

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Category:

Education

Tags:

• Video Conversations
• Permaculture
• Willi Paul
• Melissa Miles
• SoilKitchen.org
• CommunityAlchemy.com
• openmythsource.com
• crash
• post-crash
• sacred
• sacredness
• Nature
• Alchemy
• Mythology
• Trivium Method
• Solve et Coagula