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Bungala Ridge Permaculture Gardens REDUCE ... REUSE ... RECYCLE ... REPAIR ... RETURN ... REVEGETATE ... REPLENISH |
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Permaculture Diary: 15th January 2008 Copyright © Beverley Paine Once again another not so satisfying day in terms of work done, but we did have a great conversation over a long lunch about the direction we want our life to take and what kind of action is needed to keep it on that path. A friend suggested we take away a collection of unused bricks - her house is on the market and she's gradually tidying up. We filled the trailer and went back for a couple of unused baths that will come in handy for the geese or as frog ponds. I worry sometimes about the amount of useful items we collect, especially as the 'depot' expands, but every so often we raid it for projects and that's when we're extremely grateful for our salvage habit. It was good to declare a fruit processing free day and to concentrate on other matters. I wrote an article for the SA Home Based Learers newsletter on the value of chores in a learning naturally program. We finally booked a room in a Perth for our February holiday. I had no idea that doing this would entail so much research. Once again what we really needed to do before starting to look was to define what we actually wanted: what was the purpose of our holiday and what did we need to achieve. Once we had defined and agreed on this everything became clear and fell into place! One thing we are slowly learning is that life can't be an endless marathon of jobs to start, do and complete. We are battling our conditioning to constantly work to feel worthwhile or satisfied. This means reminding ourselves regularly that it is okay to rest and do absolutely nothing, or something that we value as pure leisure. We tend to drop into the couch at night and watch a couple of hours of television and call this relaxation! How silly is that? Some advice I came across today was that we need to reorganise our life to include 'sprints' as well as 'rest' periods. This makes sense and it could be the reason why we are finding it difficult to instigate those rest periods. We don't sprint, we go full-speed ahead, trying to cram in as much as possible. A long distance runner changes pace regularly. If she doesn't she'll burn up her energy and drop out before she's finished. Another thing marathon runners do is set mini-finish lines: break the distance into shorter sets and aim for the nearest 'line' instead of the ribbon at the end. The ribbon is always there, beckoning, but it doesn't dominate when running those short stretches. We really need to learn to do this in our every day lives. Most of my life I've been focussed on the finishing line, the end product. I think that's why it's been so hard to completely finish anything. I run out of puff before I get there. We need to plan for the waxing and waning of our motivation levels. Life is not just about filling our days with whatever happens to get our attention - usually whatever work needs to be done straight away, or if it's a big project, what we want to achieve the lifestyle we desire. We have so much to choose from everyday. That suits us, but the choice can be overwhelming, especially when there are dozens of unfinished projects and maintenance jobs clamouring for our attention. I like the idea of holding firm in our minds our bigger purpose: the reason we have chosen this site, the reason we want to follow a permaculture lifestyle, in our minds so that we don't fall into confusion and stray. Our bigger purpose is that which brings out our inner fire and sense of why we consciously choose to do challenging, difficult or boring that are necessary to keep going for that finish line.
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