The Amazon Is Burning.

All summer, I’ve been traveling and teaching regenerative approaches to our current environmental and social breakdowns, showing people how we can redesign our way of living to meet our needs while healing the environment around us. It’s been an inspiring but very packed trip, with few days when I haven’t been working or traveling, […]

Gifts for the Earth

The Earth, She Is Changing…

Just a few weeks ago, Northern California was covered with what felt like the smokes of Mordor. The most destructive fire in California’s history—still not fully contained—continues to burn in the north—and for the second autumn in a row we have endured over a week of smoke and […]

Politics and Pastry Creme

The Leaves Are Changing, and Congress Can Too!

It’s October—the month before what may be the most crucial elections of our lifetime. The November midterms will determine whether the Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate, and whether there is any hope of defeating the racist, misogynist agenda and massive corruption that […]

Why Permaculture?

The Dirt On Our Climate Future

The news cycle is so constant, so outrageous and often so distracting that it’s hard to tear our eyes away from the meltdown of our social and political worlds. But there’s another meltdown going on, one that will affect us and all of the planet for […]

A Vision for the New Year

At the Dawn of 2018

A new year is beginning, and many of us are relieved to leave 2017 behind, as if the change in the calendar date could signify a change in everything. For me, last year was a strange mix—politically disastrous, personally full of satisfying work and some incredible experiences.

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The Story We Need to Tell; the Movement We Need to Build

Monster Hurricanes, Raging Wildfires, Massive Floods, Unprecedented Heat Waves…

This disastrous summer has shown that climate change is no longer a theory but a full, galloping reality. Now is the moment to organize around it, and build a movement broader and stronger than ever before.

Great efforts have indeed been […]

Where Water Flows Through the Cracks: A Visit to Aranya Farm, India

Today We Visited the Aranya Farm

It’s a beautiful example of food forests, inter-cropped annuals and biodiversity, a paradise on a plot of land that was a barren crust of thin soil over rock twenty years ago. Now it is rich with mangos, bananas, papayas, soursop, acacia, mulberry, pigeon pea, sorghum, tomatoes […]

Lessons from the Fires

“Sacred fire, that shapes this land,

Summer teacher, winter friend.

Protect us as we learn anew,

To work, to heal, to live with you.”

This is the chant we sing each summer as part of the fire protection ritual we do on my land in Western Sonoma County. […]

We have Two Great Crises

1 Officer Hospitalized, 6 Arrested During Violent Overnight Berkeley Protest

Preparing for our climate change workshop and ritual today, while last night even as protests filled the streets the LA police shot a homeless man. I start my talks these days by saying that we have two great crises: climate change and the concentration […]

Permaculture Solutions for Climate Change

The solution to both our social and ecological solutions is the same: community. Restore the community of caring and sharing, understand that community means the interconnection of people with the environment and natural communities that sustain us, restore power and resources to communities, and trust in the resilience of the community of life. We have already altered the world, and it will never be the same again. But if we take action to stop the damage and employ the solutions, if we partner with nature and our great earth-healing allies, it can still be a beautiful, thriving, life-sustaining place for ourselves, for the life around us, and for future generations. […]