Tikkun Eco Center : Spreading seeds of change
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MÉXICO – Victoria Collier and Ben Ptashnik are a couple with a vision: they want to teach how to create self-sustaining ecological community where people can grow food, disengage from destructive systems with the use of renewable energy and green building, and create community projects that benefit everyone while raising the […]
Love & Waste Aboard a Bus Called Home
In reference to the Vietnam War and President Nixon’s “Pentagon Papers,” whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, decried: “They hear it, they learn from it, they understand it, and they proceed to ignore it.” Both my personal and professional lives focus on how we can re-interpret “information” in order to embody our interdependencies. How can we learn to […]
From Beads to Seeds at the Huichol Center
Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination seemed like the moment Susana Valadez had worked for her whole life. The founder of the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival had spent the past four decades weaving together with painstaking care the components of an organization that provided the Wixárika people with culturally relevant employment and training, a […]
Personal Permaculture: Toward an Inner Ecology
The Backstory Ten years ago in the Maya Mountains of Belize I attended a permaculture design course with author, public speaker and self-described “Emergency Planetary Technician” Albert Bates and an impressive young colleague, María Ros. María, I learned, is a permaculture designer with a whole other profession: she’s a psychotherapist, and her passion for the […]
Breathing in the Time of Corona
As I write, the church bells across the plaza are clanging a noisy celebration of the rising sun; another day has begun here in Mexico, with the same alegría, the same joy as any other dawn. It’s equinox, and I’m reflecting on equilibrium. That quality that allows us to hold fast onto the delight in […]
The Yupaichani Network: Regenerative Practices in Action
Hamstrung by the bureaucracy in their hometown of Boulder, Colo., permaculture designer Zia Parker and biodynamic agriculture teacher Roshni McEldowney headed south to Vilcabamba, Ecuador, where a culture respecting the Rights of Mother Earth is flourishing.
Other names, other colors: Transition, Latino style
Above: Transition Network founder Rob Hopkins, left, grants an interview to Raul Velez at the train station in Totnes, England, birthplace of the Transition movement. (Raul Velez photo) By Tracy L. Barnett For Magis Magazine One of the early Transition Town initiatives was launched in Ensenada, Baja California, by an American expat, Robert Frey. Frey went to […]
Rob Hopkins, Transition and the Power of Just Doing Stuff
By Tracy L. Barnett For Magis Magazine Once there lived a permaculturist, far from the city on an old Irish farm. Together with his wife and four children they had nearly finished creating the house of their dreams, a house of cob in a grassy ecovillage with an organic farm. By day he taught permaculture […]
Living with the Land: Animal-Free Farming
Phil Moore and Lauren Simpson Permaculture People Editor’s note: We are very happy to share with you the sixth short film, Animal-Free Farming, in Lauren and Phil’s new documentary film series Living with the Land for Permaculture Magazine. A pioneer in plant-based agriculture, Iain Tolhurst has been a practising organic vegetable producer since 1976. Specialising in a […]
Phil Moore and Lauren Simpson Permaculture People Editor’s note: We are very happy to share with you the third short film, Regenerative Agriculture: Rebuilding the Soil, in Lauren and Phil’s new documentary film series Living with the Land for Permaculture Magazine. Sitting atop the hills in southwest England overlooking the sea, Village Farm in Devon is a […]
Living with the Land: Natural Building
Phil Moore and Lauren Simpson Permaculture People Editor’s note: We are very happy to share with you the second short film, Natural Building, in Lauren and Phil’s new series Living with the Land for Permaculture Magazine. Natural buildings are an ancient tradition with a modern appeal. Creating healthy, beautiful homes from natural materials such as earth, […]
GEN+20-Day 1: Healing to create something worth living for
Photos by Leila DreggerReporting from GEN+20(Global Ecovillage Network 20-Year Anniversary Summit) FINDHORN, Scotland — One of the world’s oldest ecovillages, this legendary community is host of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN)’s 20th anniversary Summit. Founded 52 years ago, it is a modern spiritual and educational campus on multiple acres in the northern tip of Scotland, United […]
El Llamado de Quetzalcoatl: Materializando la Visión
Por Tracy L. Barnett Traducido por Angélica Narákuri TEMICTLA, México – Si alguna vez hubo duda de que Quetzalcóatl vive, esa duda fue disipada en una luminosa, húmeda y brillante semana en el corazón de México. Aquí en Temictla, un valle sagrado, una pequeña ecoaldea y un centro de retiro espiritual en el borde de […]
Bienvenidos a CASA! Bem-vindos a CASA! Welcome HOME!
CASA is the Council of Sustainable Settlements of the Americas, a network of projects that are working towards sustainability in diverse countries of Latin America. Sustainable Settlements are: EcoVillages, EcoNeighborhoods, EcoTowns, Transition Towns, Nomadic Ecological Project (EcoCaravans), Permaculture Centers, Organic Farms, Collectives, Networks, Cooperatives. Projects who are creating a regenerative and sustainable culture through the […]
Call of Quetzalcoatl: Materializing the Vision
TEMICTLA, Mexico – If there were ever any doubt that Quetzalcoatl lives, that doubt was dispelled in one moist, glistening, luminous week in the heart of Mexico. Here in Temictla, a sacred valley, a tiny ecovillage and spiritual retreat center on the edge of Chalmita, a pilgrimage destination to millions of people of diverse traditions, […]
From caterpillars to butterflies: Mayan dreams for 2012
The last golden rays of 2011 slipped away gloriously yesterday, lingering across the chalky face of the Pinnacles, an ancient towering limestone formation in the north of Boone County, Missouri – one of the places on this planet I will always call home. The unseasonable warmth had us removing layers as we scrambled up to […]
Meet Anna and Dave, the Permacyclists
Meet Dave and Anna, the Permacyclists. She was a corporate lawyer from Brussels; he was a sociologist from New York. Neither of them was happy with their chosen profession, and after a great deal of soul searching, they decided to do what many dream of but few actually do: They quit their jobs, studied permaculture, […]
El Salvador proves fertile ground for permaculturists
By Tracy L. Barnett SUCHITOTO, El Salvador – A gentle breeze ruffles the thatched roof of the hilltop shelter here at the Permaculture Institute. An electric-blue morpho butterfly flits past, a sharp accent against the muted blue of Volcano Guazapa in the background. An incongruously peaceful backdrop for the violence, massacres, scorched earth and […]
At home with a Mayan permaculturist
By Tracy L. Barnett San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala – Rony Lec is roasting coffee beans on a clay comal when I arrive, stirring patiently as the smoke rises. He grew the coffee out back, and every step of the process, like many of his processes, is his own. We’re seated at his kitchen table now, […]
Outside in the darkness, up in the hills not far from here, a chorus of coyotes is greeting the coming of the dawn. How appropriate, I think with a smile. Here in Huehuecoyotl, place of the old, old coyote, I’ve just bid farewell to the greatest coyote of all, Subcoyote Alberto Ruz Buenfil, who is […]
Greening the barrios in Mexico City
Saving your garbage is a tough sell in a place where gardening is seen as peasant labor. But that doesn’t stop Dulce María Vega from rolling up her sleeves, going door-to-door and recruiting her neighbors for a grand mission. Dulce is the friendly face of sustainability in her neighborhood. With more than 30,000 residents, Lomas […]
After a month of travel, these thirsty boots were aching for something more than the road — a place to dig in and put down some roots in the heart of this vast city. And right in the heart of one of its most blighted neighborhoods, I found it. It’s a place where I can roll up my sleeves, […]
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