~ Autumn & Permaculture ~

I know now to expect this new beautiful surprise next Autumn, in my ever shrinking forest.

People see Autumn as a time when nature arrives in its “resting” phase for the cold winter months. As I watch the leaves fall through my little bitty forest I live in, my ears tell me it's a light rain falling. My eyes instinctively search for the droplets that I may not yet feel, coming from the tall trees above me. My ears, eyes and perception deceives me. No rain, no droplets, no storm coming…leaves falling through the tops of the trees and gently tapping each other on the way down to their winter resting space creating the sound of a peaceful rain.

Working on my seventh year of learning to just sit and watch nature’s amazingly resilient way of regenerating herself, I understood that my trees were showing me that the beginnings of its “resting” phase are actually where nature starts to prepare for the seasons to come.

Many of us are far removed from this practice of working with nature and understanding how things, simply, are produced. We could just step back and prepare to assist rather than insert our helpful practices which often disrupt the process Mother Nature has had under control for over four billion years.

We think we are smarter than her and can make this or that happen, speed up, mass produce and divert everything from its natural path. Then she comes back and says, “Okay well let’s move this here and move that over there. We need more water here and regrowth there.” Humans call these events unprecedented and act shocked, over and over again. Mother Nature knows exactly what she is doing and always has; she is implementing solutions to our unprecedented actions.

All of this to feed and protect the little seeds hidden in the flesh..to produce abundance!

Just look at the perfection of an orange, for instance. A flexible and protective peel that won't be damaged when the orange is released from the tree and falls to the ground. Soft and bitter surrounds the sweet and juicy flesh inside; preventing pests. Once opened you see perfectly proportioned, vitamin packed segments, encapsulated in thin protective skin, tasting amazingly delicious.

That’s what she does...lays the groundwork to have absolute abundance in everything all the creatures on this beautiful planet need to survive; if we just let it happen!

This orange: fuels our bodies, the peels can be cooked and made into a healthy, sweet snack full of essential oils, or trailed around garden spaces to deter interested pests. The fruit on the trees feed all the critters who help create our vegetable gardens. Birds eat these little bugs and spread seeds, squirrels replant baby trees, bees and other beneficial insects feast off of their prey and stick around to pollinate our flowers; making us happy and giving us food.

When the orange drops to the ground the little seeds stay moist and fertile from the protective flesh and plant themselves in the soft soil below; which has been kept healthy by the raining Autumn leaves. The decomposing orange feeds a whole new set of critters in the soil and adds nutrients. A healthy space is then provided for more fruit to grow in abundance; feeding all the living beings on this lovely planet.

The leaves that fall in Autumn are, arguably, the most valuable resource we have for creating abundance. A perfect cycle! The roots of trees reach far down to capture minerals from the rocks trapped way below our feet and carry all of those nutrients through the tree into the leaves it produces annually. In an intelligent and completely natural recycling process, as leaves fall and begin to decompose, they create a beautifully fertile topsoil where essential minerals are sprinkled about.

Leaf litter…they call it! Some of the best fertilizer and ground cover we have, wrapped up in a term that reminds us of garbage.

Layers and layers of rich, dark, moist leaves provide material for the microorganisms in the soil to be protected and feed off of all winter, preparing their viability for an abundant growing season.

Abundance is the result if we let the Earth be the engineer.

If trees are actually left standing, humans often rake up the leaves and have people come to take them away and throw them out (like garbage). Then they buy wood chips to cover the soil for the winter, and use manufactured fertilizer to feed the soil while trying to keep it moist and alive.

Mother Nature’s ancient practice is what we now call “Permaculture”. This term was coined in the late 1970’s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in a movement opposing industrialized agriculture practices. When I began to learn about Permaculture, it was so exciting to find the links between why and how certain things happen in nature. I realized quickly that if we just sit back and watch, without interference she will create the beauty she historically has accomplished; we will, in turn, be cared for with Earth’s abundant offerings.

Our family’s small part of a much greater forest at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is all that is left. Trees demolished, wasteful houses and oversized gas stations erected…nowhere left for her to provide abundance for all of us living on this Earth. Mother Nature has never been stopped by whatever has happened in Earth’s 4.5 billion years of existence. She just adjusts; as should we!

‘Changing for the climate’

“Okay,” I thought. “We can do this, we are intelligent, amazing beings, if we can agree on what needs to be done and how to do it!” We have this unbelievable technology allowing us to share our knowledge with people from all of the previously untouched places on this planet. We can learn from anyone, anywhere, and their specific experiences can help us all. Along with social media, we have a global community of scientists and engineers who have reached levels we never thought to dream of. All of those people can share too, with anyone. Anywhere!

Just like the leaves falling, we can create abundance if we sit back, watch and allow for healthy assistance, instead of destruction. Let the creativity and innovation flow. Young creators combined with the intelligence of the older and experienced can absolutely set models for us to learn in our changing climate, allowing her to do what she does best.

As 55% of the world’s population, including 83% of the U.S. population, live in urban areas, we need to look at regenerative agriculture and community resiliency in small scale terms, where the majority of humans reside. The debate between rural and urban poverty suggests that urban poverty is more extreme as it not only costs more to provide essentials in urban areas but there is little space to grow the food needed to eat and to produce our essentials. Innovative people around the world have proven that urban spaces can be sustainable. If managed precisely, highly populated spaces will provide for all of the living things in it. Condensed spaces have the potential to cause less strain on fossil fuels, if mass transportation is efficient, as well as allowing for us to consume a smaller footprint of her land, leaving more space for her to create abundant growth.

There are wonderful examples of innovation being implemented and with this knowledge we can all grow sustainable practices, unique to our own environments.

As shown in “Singapore, Designing a Megacity in Harmony with Nature,”

(PBS Human Footprint, August 17, 2023, https://www.pbs.org/video/singapore-designing-a-megacity-in-harmony-with-nature-behwmk/) - architect Pearl Chee showcases her magnificent working solution to a densely populated city with scarce resources while moving toward healthy sustainability. Simply incredible, make sure you take thirteen minutes out of your busy schedule to watch and learn from her project.

If we all focus on how to improve our own communities there will only be progress. If we do nothing, there will absolutely be zero progress.

Follow along with me and my family, a SoCal girl trying to make a sustainable, resilient home in an itty bitty slice of forest on the outskirts of urban sprawl in the rustic Southeastern United States. We are surrounded by many people living in single wide, older mobile homes, lower income families and most of us struggling to put food on the table and keep our kids safe and healthy. We are all hoping for our children to see a more positive life in their futures.

My resilience plan for our family of six is to use these uncertain times to create infrastructure which allows me to breathe in a controlled environment (living with severe asthma) while we grow our own food with drought, extreme heat, and water contamination in mind; using new technologies, while facilitating community sufficiency.

I am: documenting this all, here on my blog, teaching resilience to our young people through my YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/@alteredclassroom),

and learning right alongside with my students enrolled in courses through my

Altered Classroom.

We will learn new methods of living more gently, using advancements in technology to create abundance that is in touch with our needs, while creating a space for one another to be creative; giving our young people some hope about how to address the challenges being faced.

The recycling that Mother Earth creates so perfectly, like the Autumn leaves creating a superb growing environment for the next things to be planted in her topsoil, is symbolic of our confusing times now. We are falling leaves and have so much to give to create a healthy space for generations to come, we just need to sit back, really watch what is going on and work diligently towards solutions.

Sitting here stale and paralyzed by the chaos, like leaves raked into bags and taken to the garbage, is throwing away the solutions to our problems. We can remain present and decide how we can benefit from what is around us, what is needed of us, and focus on implementation to be ready for whatever will be planted on us in the future.