Afterword : four key features of permaculture (applicable to 'everything') ; and an opportunity for the future (also applicable to 'everything')

If you have ever said to yourself, as you watched what was going on around you, or reflected on your own situation and actions, "This is not right", "There must be a better way", I suspect that as you read this important book you will have been filled with hope for a better future; and may even have found some answers specific to your particular concerns. Most of us, most of the time, follow these 'thoughts of discontent' by just continuing to 'plod along'. Perhaps this is because the change needed seems to be too enormous, or we feel that whatever we might do wouldn't be enough to make a difference, or perhaps deep down we feel too afraid to change. On some occasions, however, most of us have chosen to do something to address the 'wrongs' and to 'find a better way'. I think of this as 'choosing to act on deep caring and love rather than on fear'- a choice that we actually have every day, moment-to-moment. Throughout history we can recognise significant moments when individuals and groups have done this in ways that have the potential to benefit everyone. In Kerry Dawborn's reflective chapter - 'The Future in Our Hands' she described how in 1955 the acts of Rosa Parks, and in the 1980s those of Muhammad Yunus, led to such transformative, significant and meaningful change. You probably have your own special examples of such inspiration and hope for better futures; not just involving famous people, but perhaps someone in your own family, as well as some of your own past courageous acts. It was such, hopeful and defiant acts in the 1970s that gave birth to permaculture; brought to life by two unlikely collaborating 'midwives': the in-your-face experienced university lecturer, field ecologist and activist, Bill Mollison, and the more introverted landscape design student, David Holmgren (Mollison & Holmgren 1978).