Geoff Lawton, Permaculture designer &; teacher said, “You can fix all the world’s problems, in a garden. You can solve them all in a garden. You can solve all your pollution problems, and all your supply line needs in a garden. And most people today actually don’t know that, and that makes most people very insecure.”

Bill Mollison, co-originator of the Permaculture concept reminds us, "The ultimate end to a growth economy is the same as an analagous growth: cancer. But for national economies, the victims are nature, soils, forests, people, water, and quality of life. There is one, and only one, solution,and we have almost no time to try it.

We must turn all our resources to repairing the natural world,and train all our young people to help.

They want to.

We need to give them this last chance to create forests, soils, clean waters, clean energies, secure communities, stable regions,and to know how to do it from hands-on experience".

Hello!

I'm the coordinator of Alliance for a Post Petroleum Local Economy - Bloomington (APPLE – Bloomington, IN) and the Relocalization Network (http://www.relocalize.net). I invite you to join our Local Post Petroleum Group. Please join me in inviting other friendly people who INTEND to survive and thrive in the challenging times before us. Anyone who breathes is qualified to help (I hate to be limiting but one has to draw the line somewhere...on the other hand, call on your ancestors, too. It can't hurt. It may help).

This growing alliance of groups represents an opportunity to blend and strengthen the personal and organizational energies of all those in every locale who love our beautiful blue-green planet.

We are the ones we've been waiting for. It's time.

Together we can do the difficult, but necessary work, of regenerating a BLOOMING culture quickly and, hopefully, gracefully. If the current collection of idiots in Washington (and elsewhere) has done anything at all, it's been to wake a significant number of people out of their lassitude and stupor. Let's not go back to sleep.

More than at any time in the history of the planet, we need people willing to restore the garden, one yard at a time (or even two or three). We can no longer count on the "chains" of supply to meet our REAL needs, but we must be able to count on each other. In every garden lives the promise and pattern for true abundance. Growth is good. Ask any gardener.

Take a few minutes to read the short story about The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil by Megan Quinn (http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/657). This will give you a sense of what is required of us. It's fairly simple really.

Or try out Toby Hemenway's article, Seeing the Garden in the Jungle: Beyond Wilderness (http://www.patternliteracy.com/beyondwilderness.html) for a renewed perspective on forests that may remind you of some of the descriptions of Eden, our first garden.

Feeling a bit removed from that original garden? Look into Heather Flores' new book, Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community (http://www.foodnotlawns.com/).

If you have a more technical bent, you might enjoy The Lean Economy: A Vision of Civility for a World in Trouble (http://energybulletin.net/4514.html) by David Fleming. Be sure to read the section on 'play and fun'. You might learn what it feels like to have not only the courage of your convictions, but the courage of your location.

If that gets your juices flowing, you'll enjoy Designing and Teaching for Change (http://www.permacultureactivist.net/PeterBane/PBDesigning4Change.htm) by Peter Bane who informs us that, " Reducing fossil energy consumption worldwide by 90% in the next decade is probably the minimum price of admission to a livable future. The changes the world must make cannot be mandated by any single authority, no matter how powerful, but must rather be adopted by people everywhere from a sense that these are the best approaches we can make toward preserving a livable world. Everyone must have a stake in their success."

Wondering how to tap into your creativity like never before? Here's another hint from Peter Bane's article, "My experience as a teacher of design has shown me what insightful thinkers have also pointed out—that people’s potential to solve apparently intractable problems is far greater than we imagine, but, if that capacity is to be realized, people must be given respect, access to information, and a sense of the importance of the job to be done."

If that isn't enough to motivate you, read Between the Ice and Ocean: The Rising Tide (http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=64&Itemid=33) by Albert Bates and find out a bit more about "the importance of the job to be done".

And, finally you can do something to reduce our dependence on imported energy and fuel by becoming energy producers. One main hurdle to getting solar photovoltaics installed on more than 1/2 of 1% of the homes in the US is the cost of the system. That problem has been solved by a progressive company called Citizenre. They have eliminated the need to spend 10s of thousands of dollars by providing solar by renting the equipment, installing and maintaining it for free, and guaranteeing a stable unchanging price for electricity for up to 25 years. You can read more about it by using this link:

http://www.jointhesolution.com/KeithJ-SunPower

If you would like to become an ecopreneur and help people switch to solar power use this link:
http://www.PowUr.com/KeithJ-SunPower

I don't know about you, but I need all the help I can get, so, please lend a hand (...or an arm or a leg...or even your WHOLE self). C'mon. Your grandchildren will praise you rather than curse you...and that's a good thing, eh?

Thanks,
Keith Johnson

P.S. Some of you reading this live nowhere near Bloomington, Indiana, but I hope you will join up with relocalize.net and start or join groups in your area. If good black earth is already under your fingernails, keep doing what you are doing, and bless you, bless you, bless you. XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

If you don't have the time, or energy to start a garden, or join a group, at least forward this email to someone else who might. You have a few other options, though. You can study and share what you learn. You're already doing that? Hallelujah!! You can plant a tree. The planet needs more trees! You can join with your friends and neighbors and hire your own farmer to grow what you need locally.

Our focus is to generate educational events to support local citizens in localizing their food needs by supporting, or becoming, well-trained food growers, especially of perennial food plants. We will offer training in Urban Farming, Urban Orcharding, and Urban Forestry. As a community we can be more resilient in the face of rising fuel and production costs, become less dependent on long-distance transport, and reduce our need to earn by being local producers of goods and services.

Overall we aim to help our community reduce our dependence on fossil fuel required for transportation by developing ride-sharing plans, supporting the local bus service, shopping locally whenever possible, inventorying local gardens and fruit trees to expand community harvesting, develop more community gardens, work with nearby growers, ranchers, etc. to source produce, eggs,and meat.

These actions will be magnified by cooperation with the members of various community orgs who share similar goals, like the Bloomington Permaculture Guild, the Center for Sustainable Living, Bloomingfoods Co-op, The Hoosier Environmental Council, The Slow Food Movement, City of Bloomington Commission on Sustainability, Green Dove, The Local Growers Guild, Bloomington Organic Growers Assoc, Heartwood Forest Alliance, and others.

Alliance for a Post Petroleum Local Economy - Bloomington (APPLE – Bloomington)
It’s a Small World After Oil - Personal and Community Preparedness for a Post Petroleum Future
http://www.relocalize.net/groups/applebloomington

Be well. Stay in touch. Do good work.

Love,
Keith

Here's a bit about me:
I'm newly resident in Bloomington (previously a member of Earthaven Ecovillage in NC) and aim to be very involved in the city's further enhancement and evolution. I manage the website (and am on the editorial guild) for the Permaculture Activist Magazine and have been gardening organically for 32 years, landscaping organically for 20, and teaching Permaculture for 12 (also taught the Permaculture Design Course the last four years through IU), designing and consulting for 18.

I have lecture/slide shows/workshops prepared for a number of topics including:

-Animals in the City
-Appropriate Technology: Sustainable Living On a Solar Budget
-Broadscale Polyculture
-Climate and Biogeography
-Earthworks for Ponds and Water Catchment
-Edible and Economic (Urban or other) Landscape Design, Installation and Maintenance
-Rock On!: Dry-laid Stone Masonry
-Urban Forestry
-Perennial Edibles: Low Maintenance Food Crops
-Natural Building: Strawbale, Straw-Clay, Cob, and Adobe
-Rainwater Harvesting: How to Build a Ferrocement Water Tank
-Introduction to Permaculture
-How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back (or Food - Not Lawns) - An Introduction to No-Dig Mulch Gardening
-Pruning and Grafting in Urban Landscapes
-Lifestyle Design for Energy Descent and Post Peak Oil
-Edible Forest Gardens
-Agroforestry
-Silvopasture for Sustainable Livestock Management
-Forest Gardening: Economic Yields from Shady Environments
-Non-toxic Landscaping
-Edible and Medicinal Wild Plants
-Building Lively Soil Foodwebs for Healthy Gardens
-Creating an Oasis with Greywater
-Eat More Wood!: Edible and Medicinal Mushroom Propagation
-Urban Agriculture for Local Food Security
-Principles of Permaculture
-Trees: They're Smarter than We Are
-Flower Growing for Market
-Urban Permaculture
-Small Scale Urban Aquaculture
-Liquid Gold: Using Urine to Grow Plants
-Wild Fermentation: Live Culture Foods for Health
-Earthworm Composting
-Build Your Own Earth Oven
-Edible Container Gardening
-How to Start a Backyard Nursery
-Backyard Berries and Orchards
-Seed Saving
-Botany in a Day: A Patterns Method of Plant Identification
-Backyard Vegetable Breeding
-Uncommon Fruits for Urban Gardens
-Mapping for Local Empowerment
-Creating Sustainable Neighborhoods
-Mycelium: Nature's Internet
-Making Your Own Mycorrhizal Inoculants
-Tree Crops for a Permanent Agriculture
-Nut Crops
-Living Fences: Willowcraft for Fun and Function
-Four Season Gardening
-Winter Food Production in Greenhouses
-City Repair: Designing a Livable City
-Blue Gold: Water Wars or Design for Abundance?
...and more.

Plus various videos to share like:

In Grave Danger of Falling Food: Permaculture Introduced (56 minutes)
Global Gardener: 4 - half-hour segments about Permaculture in Arid, Tropical, Temperate & Urban Settings
Aquaculture: The Synergy of Land & Water (Water Gardening in the Austrian Alps- 30 minutes)
Farming with Nature: A Garden of Eden at 4000 ft. in the Austrian Alps- 37 minutes)
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil 53 minutes (I've met with Pat Murphy and others who produced this film and attended the Peak Oil Conference in Yellow Springs which he and his org host)

So many great projects are already unfolding. Some just need the loan of muscle, commitment, encouragement, genetic information (see gardens above), or connection. Permaculture has been called, 'the linking science'...so let's connect.
Keith Johnson
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 5516
Bloomington, IN 47408
keith [at] permacultureactivist.net
http://www.permacultureactivist.net
also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting
also Association for Regenerative Culture
also APPLE-Bloomington (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy) It's a small world after oil.
also Bloomington Permaculture Guild