Sustainable Life Skills Internship
This 9-week internship is an intensive learning experience presented by a team of instructors using lecture, discussion, hands-on projects, videos, site visits, and student presentations as teaching tools. Be prepared for an incredible amount of information to be shared during our short time together!
Along with the intense intellectual and practical information of the Permaculture curriculum, this program gives deep consideration to the cultural, social, and spiritual aspects of sustainability. Thus, included in the curriculum are trainings in nonviolent communication, conflict resolution, and consensus decision-making, as well as whole-foods cooking, gardening, medicine-making, wild food identification, natural building, and dowsing,
Recognizing that we were born into a culture which is based
on disconnection from Nature, and that our education, religion and media
reflect that tragic mistake, a basic aim of Permaculture education is
to stretch our minds to grasp the enormity of our cultural delusion –
the delusion that life is possible without living fully one’s connection
to Nature and to community. Ancient cultural traditions, whose teachings
are naturally expressed in Permaculture principles, can help us to relearn
those practices that connect us to our true Nature.
In this program, Tantric teachings are interwoven throughout the Permaculture
curriculum. Tantra is the tradition from which most of what we call yoga
arose. It is the dance of the masculine and feminine principles operating
within each of us and in our relationships with others; between consciousness
and matter; and between humans and nature. With Tantra, we can begin to
recognize the connections between our inner imbalances and the imbalances
we seek to correct outside ourselves.
This course is also a chance for us to live the kind of culture that we wish to create. Within the supportive nest of an ecovillage of 75 people, tucked into forested mountains and valleys; we meet in circles, we offer ceremony to helpers seen and unseen, we share words and songs of gratitude and inspiration, we resolve conflicts, we make music, we grow and prepare and eat and recycle food, we dance, we work together, we hug, we meditate, we celebrate, we teach, we touch, we learn, we hear each others’ stories, we support each others’ sometimes clumsy growth.
So, please prepare yourself by arriving well-rested and un-distracted, and plan to stay on site or in the area for the duration of the program, so that you can be fully engaged during our time together. There will be time off (the days off are not regular, but average 2 per week) to decompress, attend to business, socialize, go to town, hike, wash clothes, sleep, or . . .
You can also prepare for the course by looking at some of the books mentioned in the Suggested Reading list. There is no required textbook, but Bill Mollison’s Designer’s Manual (or Introduction to Permaculture), or David Holmgren’s Permaculture: Pathways Beyond Sustainability will be valuable resources to you.
For course details and logistics, see: