Lost Valley PDC ~ A week one perspective...

Hello Dreemers!  

I’m writing to you from Lost Valley Educational Center in Dexter Oregon, where I have spent the past week exploring the ecosystems here in the Western Cascades while attending a certification course on permacultural design. Since my arrival last Sunday, I have found Lost Valley, and the Meadowsong ecovillage to be warm and welcoming in spirit. Lost Valley defines itself as “a learning community creating catalysts for joyful ecological, social and economic regeneration,” and Meadowsong is the community in which this learning and regeneration takes place. The weather here has been cool, quite wet, and reminiscent of the Santa Cruz Mountains in January. Rain has paused my plan for camping in the meadow, but I look forward to moving outside when the sun returns…

The property that encloses the educational center and ecovillage contains a handful of cabins, yurts, camping sites, and a main lodge for dinning and social activities, as well as many gardens, orchards, creeks, ponds and hiking trails through forest land. With eight classmates, many residents, volunteers, and instructors living on-site, I am enjoying becoming a part of a close-knit community. I have met a truly amazing group of people, from all over the United States and outward to Mexico and Canada. All from different places and cultures, coming together with like-minds, looking for a place to learn and practice permaculture while building community...

During our first week of the course, we have come together to define permaculture, the focus of our gathering for the next five weeks, as this: permaculture is a malleable understanding of the revolutionary livelihood of working within the systems of a holistic network, while exercising sustainable living, creating unity with nature, and becoming abundant and dynamic forever. Or more simply stated: permaculture is the art and science of creating useable systems with which to produce the needs of humans without harming the environment around us. And with this definition, I am already finding that my educational experience here at Lost Valley is reaching far beyond the study of sustainable agricultural practices… 

 Much of our class discussion, activities and social interaction over the past week has reflected the need for a deeper understanding of the systems in which our earth and our societies operate, a deeper inner growth, required to fully understand the basic concepts of permaculture before moving forward to the hands-on practices. One fundamental and essential concept introduced this week is the difference between sustainability and resiliency. Sustainability being a system which can be maintained, and resiliency being a system which does not only maintain itself but also has the ability to withstand and recover from damage. Over the next weeks I look forward to deepening my understanding of sustainable and resilient systems while observing the world from a holistic viewpoint, taking into consideration the earth's natural patterns as well as the human perspective... 

Reaching beyond our permaculture curriculum, our course has spoken on the concept of power. Our power to move actively to reach our desires, to identify and become the change we wish to see in the world. Our power to overcome the fear of failure, with the transformation of fear into curiosity and excitement for the chance to be innovative and extraordinary. Everyday I am observing that change, like ideas, is spread from one person to another, and we need only start by being, by making decisions and actively living our lives in a way that we honestly believe they should be lived, for the betterment of all, and positive change will follow our light. A friend shared with me an opinion on the power of thought. He said to me that thoughts are like little burning embers, and the ones you stoke with thought and attention the most, are the ones that turn into true fires...


Sending love to friends, family, and Dreem Gardens, and looking forward to using our power of thought together, to manifest our own reality, toward a better tomorrow. 

Please feel free to share in my experience and check out more detailed pictures of my journey  along with my class notes at:  https://www.facebook.com/giovanna.piumarta under the photo section. 

Giovanna Piumarta