It was early in the morning when all the students of the Permaculture Design Course went out for their morning observation sit.

They had done this every morning, waking up with the sounds of the robins singing and the sun filtering through the red alder trees. It was part of the immersion experience during a two-week certification class in Permaculture Design. Everyone went out to learn directly from our greatest teacher, the Earth.

Practicing a way of walking silently, both physically and mentally, the students quietly approached their sit spot, the place they would come to know well during the two weeks. Here at their spot they learned how to observe natural patterns, read the signs in nature, and immerse themselves with the rhythms of the wild. They would then go back to apply their observations to the practices taught at the Permaculture Design Course, including designing the way water moves through the landscape to maximize use of this precious resource and installing a grey-water system to clean "used" household water that would then be re-used for outdoor irrigation.

As they sat at their spot, there was a different energy in the air. They did not see the bobcat that typically hunted in the field in front of them, the birds seemed to be skittish as they fed on the seeds of perennial grasses, and then darted back to cover.

The llamas were in the corner of the pasture, not relaxed as they had been all the previous mornings before.

As the 17 participants walked back toward the barn that had been converted into a classroom they were all anxious to share the story of the morning. What had other people seen, heard, and felt during the morning sit?  We gathered around a large map of the area that had marks of the movement patterns of the bobcat, the sightings of birds, and other observations the class had made. We started to pick apart the observations of the morning sit. The llamas were anxious. The birds were not acting as they typically do in the morning. Everything seemed on edge. These were the types of comments we heard from the group. What was it? Many of us were thinking, but no one spoke up. Could it be that something had created this sense of high-alert while we were out at our spot? If the group had not known how to recognize the baseline of this spot, would they have noticed that something was out of the ordinary? Just then, as we were pondering the mystery, Kenneth, who had been working on building a trail down by the creek, came up eager to tell the class something. I just found fresh tracks of a mountain lion in the creek. They weren't there yesterday -- they must be from this morning! The energy of the class became excited. They had picked up on the communication system of nature that alerted them of a predator moving over 500 yards away, not because they saw the mountain lion or the tracks of the mountain lion, but from what they observed directly from nature.

We are looking forward to another Permaculture Design Course in July of 2009. If you are interested in a life-enhancing experience that will give you the tools to apply regenerative practices immediately into your life, please join us at the Penninsula Permaculture Abundance in Action.

The Earth will thank you for making the commitment to restore life's resources. If you are interested in giving or receiving a scholarship, we have a scholarship fund available for those who need financial support.

by Doniga Markegard

To learn more about Peninsula Permaculture and our course offerings, email us at permaculture@conexions.org or call Susan Osofsky at 650 938-9300 x18