Benefits of a more natural habitat

Now that research into the healing properties of gardens has gained currency in the medical field, it's triggered quite a movement. There's even a professional group of the American Society of Landscape Architects for those specializing in therapeutic garden design; it started with just 14 members in the late 1990s and has more than 300 members today, says chair Naomi Sachs.

It doesn't take research, though, to feel the calming effects of spending time in a garden or in nature—if only to enjoy a refuge from the constant sensory bombardment of urban life. Just being outdoors elicits more awareness of what's around us. Yoga in essence means relationship, and one of those key relationships is between the body and the environment, says Russell Comstock, a Jivamukti Yoga teacher and codirector of the Metta Earth Institute in Lincoln, Vermont. When we step outdoors to do yoga, it's like a portal to a new awareness. A hawk might fly by, or we might feel a breeze on our skin, and it becomes an interactive experience, awakening our senses and opening us up to a deeper understanding.
A healing garden needn't be expansive. Some of the most beautiful gardens are just pockets of space, says architect Sarah Susanka, coauthor, with Julie Moir Messervy, of Outside the Not So Big House (The Taunton Press, 2006). You can give the illusion of space by creating layers and textures.
No one knows exactly why gardens have such healing and stress-reducing properties; it seems to be at least partially a primordial reaction wired into our central nervous system. Researchers have found, though, that the more a garden engages the senses, the stronger its ability to distract us from the stressful whirlwind of our thoughts. The gardens that work best are places that facilitate awe and fascination, says Sachs. You want the garden to bring you in touch with yourself and your surroundings at the same time.

Studies back this up. Roger Ulrich, who's with the Center for Health Systems and Design at Texas A&M University, has spent decades documenting the effects of nature on people in health care facilities. He has found that those who have access to a garden experience dramatic drops in stress levels, blood pressure, and pain. Ulrich's research has prompted hospitals, spas, and other care facilities across the country to create therapeutic gardens.

Focus on Permaculture

The word "permaculture" was coined in 1978 by Bill Mollison, an Australian ecologist, and one of his students, David Holmgren. It is a contraction of "permanent agriculture" or "permanent culture."
Permaculture is about designing ecological human habitats and food production systems. It is a land use and community building movement which strives for the harmonious integration of human dwellings, microclimate, annual and perennial plants, animals, soils, and water into stable, productive communities. The focus is not on these elements themselves, but rather on the relationships created among them by the way we place them in the landscape. This synergy is further enhanced by mimicking patterns found in nature.
A central theme in permaculture is the design of ecological landscapes that produce food. Emphasis is placed on multi-use plants, cultural practices such as sheet mulching and trellising, and the integration of animals to recycle nutrients and graze weeds.
However, permaculture entails much more than just food production. Energy-efficient buildings, waste water treatment, recycling, and land stewardship in general are other important components of permaculture. More recently, permaculture has expanded its purview to include economic and social structures that support the evolution and development of more permanent communities, such as co-housing projects and eco-villages. As such, permaculture design concepts are applicable to urban as well as rural settings, and are appropriate for single households as well as whole farms and villages.
Permaculture: the use of ecology as the basis for designing integrated systems of food production, housing, appropriate technology, and community development. Permaculture is built upon an ethic of caring for the earth and interacting with the environment in mutually beneficial ways.

Characteristics of Permaculture

Source: Pilarski, Michael (ed.) 1994. Restoration Forestry. Kivaki Press, Durango, CO. p. 450. Reprinted with permission from the author.

• Permaculture is one of the most holistic, integrated systems analysis and design methodologies found in the world.
• Permaculture can be applied to create productive ecosystems from the human-use standpoint or to help degraded ecosystems recover health and wildness. Permaculture can be applied in any ecosystem, no matter how degraded.
• Permaculture values and validates traditional knowledge and experience. Permaculture incorporates sustainable agriculture practices and land management techniques and strategies from around the world. Permaculture is a bridge between traditional cultures and emergent earth-tuned cultures.
• Permaculture promotes organic agriculture which does not use pesticides to pollute the environment.
• Permaculture aims to maximize symbiotic and synergistic relationships between site components.
• Permaculture is urban planning as well as rural land design.
• Permaculture design is site specific, client specific, and culture specific.

The Ethics of Permaculture

Permaculture is unique among alternative farming systems (e.g., organic, sustainable, eco-agriculture, biodynamic) in that it works with a set of ethics that suggest we think and act responsibly in relation to each other and the earth.
The ethics of permaculture provide a sense of place in the larger scheme of things, and serve as a guidepost to right livelihood in concert with the global community and the environment, rather than individualism and indifference.

1. Care of the Earth
   ...includes all living and non-living things—plants, animals, land, water and air
2. Care of People
   ...promotes self-reliance and community responsibility—access to resources necessary for existence
3. Setting Limits to Population & Consumption
   ...gives away surplus—contribution of surplus time, labor, money, information, and energy to achieve the aims of earth and people care.

Permaculture also acknowledges a basic life ethic, which recognizes the intrinsic worth of every living thing. A tree has value in itself, even if it presents no commercial value to humans. That the tree is alive and functioning is worthwhile. It is doing its part in nature: recycling litter, producing oxygen, sequestering carbon dioxide, sheltering animals, building soils, and so on.