We often hear permaculture described as 'a design process' but what does this actually mean? How can we apply permaculture design principles to not just our gardens, but our whole lives?

Meg McGowan, permaculture designer, teacher, writer, artist, and cartoonist joins us this month via Zoom to talk about her journey in permaculture and how she applies her own condensed set of permaculture principles to life:

Align behavior with the three ethics (Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share)
Build diverse and resilient communities
Cooperate with nature
Design from macro to micro
Energy is everything and everything is energy

Meg discovered permaculture in her early 20’s when she picked up a first edition of Rosemary Morrow’s ‘Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture’. She was immediately captivated by the common sense of a system that cooperated with nature and provided a pattern for human existence that cherished and restored the earth.

Meg doesn't just use permaculture design principles and methods for gardens – she has also applied them within organisations. She quickly recognised that the concept of 'systems thinking' in problem solving (acknowledging that everything is connected, how we frame problems can limit possible solutions, and thinking in 'silos' often creates new problems or shifts them elsewhere) is the foundation of permaculture. Meg has used these design principles to develop an organisational model based upon circular patterns and shared accountability as an alternative to traditional silos and top-down management hierarchies, and even applied design theory to create corruption-resistant organisations and develop effective crime prevention strategies.

We highly recommend Meg's blog Smarter Than Crows for a lovely mix of permaculture design teaching, recipes, big-picture thinking, and her great cartoons! She's also on Facebook and Instagram.

Instructions for joining via Zoom:
The link to join is: https://zoom.us/j/99404149302?pwd=NWZ4WFZadTkxZk1YdlpzeVFndzBzZz09

Meeting ID: 994 0414 9302

Computers: Simply click the link above or paste it in your browser, and press OK for any prompts which show up.

Smartphone/tablet: You need to install the Zoom app, and may be asked for the meeting ID which is 994 0414 9302.

Phone: If you are without internet, or if the above methods fail, you can still listen to the presentation by calling 02 8015 6011 and then dialing the meeting ID 994 0414 9302 followed by the # key.

If you wish to confirm that your computer or smartphone/tablet is Zoom-ready, go to the following website (test call) and press join: https://zoom.us/test