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(Feel free to use any of this to promote natural landscaping in your community; adapt my wording as needed.)

The three latest recipients of the “Eco Beauty Landscape Star Award” from Daytona Beach Permaculture Guild. One commercial property (thanks Will Bittorf!!!), and two private residents.

What they all have in common is that they have taken the SIMPLEST approach to achieving natural beachside BEAUTY, plus pollinator support /biodiversity, heat mitigation, & stormwater mitigation on their properties.

Known as the “Managed Meadow,” this approach helps restore our natural beachside beauty & ecology, while saving greatly on water and maintenance.

All of the properties have an array of flowers, shrubs, & other dune plants that vary with the seasons and offer sustenance to the bees, butterflies, & other more-than-human species on which we all depend in the web of life!

One of the properties, additionally, constitutes a slope restoration of truly heroic magnitude (belying its small physical area). Excess mowing, unnecessary blowing, and other mainstream practices not appropriately customized to our beachside environment had turned the sloped part of the yard into a bare sand dune! Now plants are covering the slope, and the erosion which had started to pose structural dangers has been arrested.

A Managed Meadow can have a more deliberate, formal appearance if desired, with the addition of rocks, logs, or other border materials; sculptures or other outdoor art; benches and birdbaths.

Thank you to these 3 latest award recipients and to all the other beachside neighbors whose natural yards are helping to mitigate our city’s flooding & heat, while also adding to the beauty of Beachside!!!

One thing that helps is recognizing that the social norms for a “clean, well-kept house” — and the social norms for what kinds of furnishings a “proper, successful” homeowner must have in their house — are a product of patriarchy, which is in turn one element of white supremacy culture.

My response as a permaculturist has been to scale back on “stuff” so the work becomes minimal and a joy to DIY. #OptOut ; #degrowth #decolonize. And we need to determine *for ourselves* what we feel is clean and nice, not let corporate marketers and manufacturers set those “preferences” for us.

Another thing that turns daily living tasks into drudgery in “modern” culture is that we are isolated, toiling away each in a nuclear-family household instead of doing them in community. A friend who grew up in a less consumerist, less industrialized, non-Western place talked about how much they used to enjoy doing laundry together by the river, with the kids either helping or running & splashing about, depending on their ages and inclinations.

It takes a village … and capitalist/consumerist culture destroyed the village.

Soeaking of kids: Elsewhere on this blog I have shared about how we in “modern” culture have done ourselves and our kids a disservice by sidelining them from really participating in household tasks from a young age. Young kids often really want to help, and are teachable — and by not letting them share their energies in this way we create a “problem” that has to be “managed” (kids having “too much energy” and needing to be entertained with “activities”).

(This post goes for landscaping norms too.)

PS. Back in 2006 at EcoVersity’s Earth-Based Vocations program (Renewable Energy segment, taught by Mark Sardella), Mark told us that the amount of fossil energy available at the fingertips of typical USA Americans today is equivalent to each of us having 80 slaves. At that time I knew nothing about systemic racism. What he told us back then makes sense on a whole deeper level now.

Further Exploration:

• Danita Platt on TikTok (I love her content!!) explains how we arrived at the division of domestic labor. Historic roots in slavery; Jim Crow. Also check out her video “The Stuff that No One Wants To Do“; she made this in response to someone’s comment on her first vid.

There’s more free information out there than ever. And there’s always more information we could gather before starting this or that project.

At some point, however, the best thing is to just start. Start composting; start collecting rainwater. (I chose these two things to mention because they are two of the most beneficial things we can do for the planet — AND for our households, and for our communities — and yet I constantly hear from people who have been meaning for years to start doing these things.)

After a point, information just becomes a barrier; the discouraging tool of perfectionism. The way to learn and get better is START.

In permaculture, we observe and interact. That’s one of the core principles of permaculture design: observe and interact. And respond to the feedback from our environment (physical and social) and adjust accordingly, and so on.

If you start small, the stakes are low and the cost of failure is minimal to zero. Typucally if we start small, the knowledge gained exceeds any cost of failure. (And actually there aren’t really any failures.)

I’ve given more talks and workshops, and written more posts, about composting than I can count. Same with rainwater collection.

My approach is to simplify; de-mystify. But if you don’t trust that approach, there’s plenty of free info out there that takes the hard, complicated approach.

Finally though, regardless of how you choose to approach it, the thing is to just start. You will learn quickly. Nature teaches us.

Oh, and it’s even better, the learning & yields are multiplied, if you get other people involved in the effort. But if you’re working by yourself, don’t let that stop you!

Designing for the least advantaged makes things better for us all.

Making transportation easy for the nondriving public makes things better for drivers too.

Making a city a kind place for its residents to live automatically makes it a nice place to visit.

Posting on the fly; will add more later as I think of them.

(This is to help those of you who, like me, often get requests to promote other people’s stuff, and who want to be kind & diplomatic & supportive to a fellow activist without feeling obligated to give your labor to something you don’t necessarily feel aligned with).

Good morning, I don’t know if you remember [name of person]. A longtime travel writer focused on climate-friendly travel. He needs followers to his blog. Followers are very important to getting his latest book published. It’s a subject that might interest you and you might pass it on to your eco-aware friends & associates.

Thanks, I’ll check out your friend’s blog; always good to see what my fellow people who identify as “green/eco” are saying.
But, as I have written extensively in my own book and blog (did you know I have a book and blog?), I’m pretty adamantly against tourism and air travel — not only for eco footprint reasons but also for reasons of gentrification, displacement of indigenous populations, etc.

The tourist industry, even “eco” tourism, is deeply problematic in many ways.

And doubly so for our Boomer age group and privileged demographic, who have already gotten to see so much of the world with no thought to the consequences. It’s time for us to stay home, stick to train travel and human-powered transport, maybe sailing (for people who insist on continuing to travel overseas).

Too much to fit in an email but i go into my takes on tourism, consumerism, and other eco topics on my blog DEEP GREEN — www.jennynazak.com

BTW (in case it helps give you an idea of my general orientation): Besides being very active in the permaculture design movement, I’m a strong advocate and participant in the decolonization, Deep Adaptation, Degrowth, and Bioregionalist movements.

Cheers and Happy Friday to you! And thank YOU [fellow activist] for being such a force for good in reimagining our transportation system here at home, and getting people to appreciate what we have right here; be deep tourists of our own place. It helps not only our region but the whole planet.
jenny

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(Afterthoughts: Of course, once I check out someone’s site or other work, I could end up feeling aligned with it. In that case I’d consider sharing it, but if the request comes from outside my mutual-aid community I would probably want some sort of reciprocity, be it financial compensation or mutual publicity. Even just a seemingly simple share is WORK (if you doubt it, see how quiet most people get when you ask them to help you publicize your thing); it involves risks that tend to be overlooked; and it deserves compensation!)

(More afterthoughts): 1) I referred to the person who emailed me as a “fellow activist,” and that is true … But also, to be honest, this person would probably best be considered my “superior”; is sort of a regional superstar who someone of “my status level” probably would not usually hear from. So it was a big deal for me to speak my mind frankly to this person and not just be bowled over with honor that they contacted me at all and thought I might have something to offer.

(… Ah: POWER-ADJACENT. That’s the phrase I was looking for. It always blows me away when someone who’s a lot more power-adjacent than I am thinks of me as someone to ask for help from.)

And 2) After reflecting, I realized I didn’t feel right about closing off the possibility of dialoguing w the eco tourism expert who this person was wanting me to help promote. So, I sent them a Facebook friend request.

And, I sent the colleague/superstar a followup email:

“Hi again ___,
I just found ____ on Facebook and sent them a friend request. I may not be able to help them publicize, but one never knows! And it’s always good to connect & find common ground with people who care about [eco issues]. Happy Sunday to you!”

FINALLY: These posts of mine, where I share my responses to inquiries, may or may not be helping anyone else find their voice, temper the edges where appropriate, sharpen the edges where appropriate, etc. But I figure there are probably others of you who are dealing with similar challenges so I go ahead and make these posts. If you don’t find this type of content of mine useful, I hope other types of my content will be helpful to you.

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BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! (By now I should know better than to say “finally” on my posts). There’s an additional dimension that only occurred to me belatedly.

The eco tourism writer is male. The person who approached me, to enlist my help in helping her friend, is female. Would a guy ask another guy to do this? To be fair, I’m not exactly sure of the details; for all I know she volunteered to help him, rather than him asking her. But then the next question, would a guy volunteer to help a guy in this way? Just something to ponder. Power dynamics, status hierarchy.

Other dimensions I didn’t mention: Both parties are probably a bit older than me, and I am pretty sure both are retired (as in not needing to work). My response might have been different for a young person trying to launch a livelihood; a fellow resident of my community; etc.

Also I overlooked another category of response option. This was prompted by a chat this morning with a dear friend (who is also a fellow activist). She reminded me that it’s not always obvious in the activist realm who is actually doing this as their livelihood and who is a fulltime volunteer. And, who is retired vs. still working.

One could simply write in response to such inquiries, “Hi, I don’t do publicity work but here is the name of a friend of mine who’s really good at what she does. She’s selective about the clients she takes on but he is welcome to contact her for an interview.”

Or, another possibility: “Hi, I do some publicity work for people/groups who I feel in alignment with. My hourly rate is $70. Typically I’m not in favor of tourism and air travel, but your friend is welcome to contact me for an interview to see if we are a fit.”

Re a workshop that has started popping up in my fb feed, about how to build a “fair, reciprocity-based” business of sharing indigenous plant traditions (looks like they are mainly talking about from indigenous Central & South American peoples, but could equally apply to indigenous Asian, African, Australian cultures).

My take, it’s still rooted in colonizer mindset.

Compensating indigenous peoples for their knowledge is a step up from the exploitation that we’ve all too often been doing.

That said, if more of us Euro-Americans would reconnect with our own ancestral roots, which included strong herbal & healing traditions too, we would not feel such a compulsion to go casting about into other cultures that seem “cool and exotic” to us.

Or, we could look to the plants and traditions of the bioregions where we live (with the permission of the indigenous peoples there, and always compensating & crediting the indigenous peoples).

We need to stop engaging in gringo shaman-tourism syndrome.

Tip: Do a search for permaculture guilds, bioregional groups, native plant societies in your local area. The movements aren’t monolithic but you’re sure to connect with at least some people who are on a decolonization-minded path.

(Added later in response to a comment):

To be clear: Of course I am totally on board with us learning from indigenous peoples even if it’s not our own ancestral tradition (provided we are compensating the people generously, according to their definition of generous & appropriate). And, supporting indigenous businesses.

What I disagree with is if we Anglo-Europeans are having our own businesses that are based on indigenous wisdom.

I may have to make a few tries at expressing what I mean, as this isn’t a topic that has come on my radar til recently & I’m still new at speaking up. This is my best effort for now.

Great questions coming across my feed today!

One: “Business owners, what do you do for self-care?” Answers included taking a specific day off each week nonnegotiable; not taking calls/emails after hours; scheduling set breaks during each day. Morning time for spirituality/meditation/grounding is a popular one as well.

And “I’m overbooked and tired but feel bad turning away clients who need these services; how do you deal with that?”

My takes:

One: I keep my overhead super low so I can financially afford to turn down work, in favor of plenty of free time for spirituality, family, friends, activism, taking care of my health (both physical and mental). Self-care is client care & planet care too!

Two: And, to avoid turning away clients in need, I refer them to young up & coming businesses in my same fields who are wanting more clients. Win-win-win!!

(Also, re 2, I offer pro bono guidance/oversight to the young practitioners in my community who I refer jobs to (if they want my guidance). Not only a service to them and the community; it’s also in MY self-interest to grow a healthy local business ecosystem! The ecosystem part is true not only figuratively but literally as well, when it comes to the permaculture/eco landscaping aspect of my sustainability education services!)

P.S. (Added later, when I remembered):

1) In any discussion of “cutting overhead,” I always need to emphasize that cutting overhead is NOT always an option for people.

Capitalist/colonizer culture in many cases causes people’s overhead to be needlessly high. Single Moms come to mind, as do people saddled with medical debt, student loans, and so on.

My personal practice of minimizing my overhead for personal & planetary benefit does not absolve me of the ongoing work of dismantling the flawed, toxic systems that keep people, especially historically marginalized peoples, stuck on the high-overhead treadmill.

Also

2) By “minimizing overhead” I’m not saying people should feel bad or guilty for wanting treats beyond life’s bare minimum necessities. I myself have MANY treats beyond life’s basic necessities; I’m just really selective so it goes a long way.