On Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:03:51 GMT, len garden
wrote:

yes jake,

it scares away new players in the field as no one wants to join a
board where they may get abused, me i reckon i have a right like
anyone else to be here, but not like some that are involved who have
agendas to push.

it is the 'permaculture' for sale agenda that is stopping pc from
being accepted by the rank and file at grass roots level the greed of
the dollar and the mistaken concept that an expensive course needs to
be undertaken before you can say you follow pc principals. i've had a
number of e/mails asking where new comers might find open free chat
about pc without the pressure of buying something, just nowhere around
at present.

Yes. I'm probably just scratching the surface of the pc philosophy.

But can I digress onto semantics? When I first heard the word
'permaculture' it was a noun used by someone describing the practice
of growing crops that yield produce year after year with little human
effort required. When I looked the word up on Wikipedia, and other
places, I found that the word has more than that and more than one
distinct meaning, as far as I can tell. I are say it may mean
different thiongs to different people, so I'll come to the point and
state what I'm really interested in...

I'm mainly interested in the subject of self-sufficient (or as near as
possible) communities. I was inspired by an essay by Australian, Bill
Trainer that convinced me that self-sufficient communities, pursuing
an organic, self-sufficient, energy-efficient lifestyle, off-grid, is
the best way to live, for many reasons. I can invisage that if
disaster happens (due to oil running out or whatever), such
communities will be among the few with the skills and resources to
survive. It made me aware of the wrongness of the way I've been
living, buying into wasteful destructive consumerism, like there's no
tomorrow, etc. I used to feel justified in living like that, until I
became aware and convinced that there's realistically a better way,
and a better type of community.

I just happen to have a wad of cash in the bank right now, having just
sold my house. I'm thinking of buying land somewhere, and pursuing a
more self-sufficient lifestyle, perhaps with some like-minded people,
here in the British Isles, or even somewhere on mainland Europe. But
first, I am just reading up on relevant subject-matter, in
preparation.

How about youself? What pc-related pursuits are you involved with?

JD