Renee the anarchist

What do you get when you mix a police officer and a teacher? A very legalistic daughter.
I have worked very hard my entire life to follow the letter of the law and avoid disappointing figures of authority. But my accumulating years have emboldened me, and I have become a bit of a rogue. One 'rule' I have begun to blatantly disregard is (prepare yourself...) "Do not walk on the grass". This was a hard one to break, not only because I am always afraid somone will yell at me (In my all-too-well socialized mind, there is always some authority figure hiding behind every corner in my life, waiting to jump out and humiliate me with flashing lights or a banging gavel or a raised voice), but also because my entire life I felt as though tramping across grass simply to get somewhere more quickly was (1) lazy, (2) a criminal act against the living grass, and (3) disrespectful to those who tended the lawns. For a long time, this rule fit nicely in my understanding of right and moral conduct. In college, I learned that large numbers of people walking on the ground would push down the soil and make it more difficult for things to grow. But what I have come to realize is - it's grass! And barely! This stuff with which the college campus near my house is adorned chokes out life. And the chemicals and gasoline that go into its maitenance is appaling. I agree that the land beneath it is valuable. If I had any hope that the college would utilize it more responsibly, I would respect their pathways and rules. I have no hope.

Another rule that has come to mean very little to me is, "No littering". It is strange that my increasing environmentalism leads me to disagree with a rule like this. I am a child of the 80's, and raised in a flood of Earth Day, Save the Rainforest, and Captain Planet. What I did not understand about society's embracing of environmentalism was that it is mostly aestetic. Why not litter? We create so much trash in the united states, but it is invisible to most of us! Why not clutter our lives with reality until we are moved to create true change?

bucks

There is life in blood

and water, but when i work

i'm clogged with java

Hot and Cold

Hot and cold are different. One is hot. One is cold. But hot and cold are the same. Hot is a temperature. So is cold. Hot and cold do not easily mix. Most often, where one is, the other is not. When they do meet, there are storms of white light and booming voices blowing off air, hot and cold. They bump up against one another, knocking foreheads until one secedes and storms out. Though sometimes, in the sleepiness of an early morning, those already awake will see them getting out of bed together. And from their union - life.

Person-In-Environment

"Person-in-Environment" is the calling card of social work. At it's theoretical base, this separates the profession from others in the human service field. It recognizes the agency of individuals and communities in creating change as a person or persons in their environment. But person-in-environment also speaks to social work's deep understanding that an environment or system can have a tremendous impact on an individual or community.

A joke: How many social workers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Punchline: The lightbulb doesn't need to change - the system needs to change.

Permaculture is also a person-in-environment model. Like social work, this systems theory recognizes the agency of individuals and communities to affect change through ecological means of meeting, sustaining and governing their own needs. Beyond that, it offers the ultimate social web, connecting across species to find the right 'fit' and relationship for mutual beneficence. There are unexplored models of interspecies cooperation and synergy that may guide social work theory and models if someone took the time to quietly observe and learn. Permaculture offers social work a new perspective on where our current systems falter, and the devastating impact on people (plus). For example, Temple Grandin has observed that, "some of the stereotyped behaviors exhibited by autistic children are also found in zoo animals who are raised in a barren environment".

So how many permaculturist social workers does it take to change a system? Lets find out.

Fixed Woman

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Grandma's Eyes