I’ve never considered myself a researcher, I’ve always known that I enjoy learning about things that interest me. It’s only when I’ve started to pay a little more attention to the things which I’ve been learning about over these past six years that I seemed to be a little obsessed with learning about certain topics that are of interest to me, or more to the point most things that interest me. Fortunately, there is another word which I can use to replace the word obsessive and that is “researcher”.

I’m a keen researcher, now that sounds so much better than being obsessed, doesn’t it?

Been a keen researcher a fair amount of time these past six years has been spent studying. Now we have two beautiful words used to describe me, a researcher and a person who studies. These sound so much better than somebody obsessed with manically consuming information.

Keeping in mind that I am a keen researcher studying topics related to permaculture and subjects that will help me improve my skill set and mental performance whilst working on this diploma, I have enjoyed taking many a deep dive into a topic to help get a better understanding of it. In this research section, I will highlight these key areas.

 

 

 

With this design, focusing on the learning pathway I followed during my diploma has a hankering running parallel with it. As I move through these sections the desire grows stronger and stronger to find the reason the voice inside my head kept pushing me to do this diploma, the same voice that eventually had to produce the money to pay for it before I finally gave in. Once again, this voice is active and here and now I find myself researching once more.

I have a list of new books I feel inspired to read, along with three to reread, these three books I recommended in the personal reflections of my last design “forage”. They are The Inside-Out Revolution: The Only Thing You Need to Know to Change Your Life Forever, Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer to Near Death, to True Healing, and Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife

At times I think I spend far too much time reading or listening to books and that I should be more present in what I’m going. Other times I think I would not be the person I am if I did not read as many books as I do. As I’m writing this I’m coming to the end of Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart. In this book Neil muses on the many books he’s read during his travels; I can only take great inspiration from such an avid reader. Books are a huge part of my life, and this has been reflected throughout my diploma research journey, I’ll pick back up with books in a moment.

 

Researching Dying

Before Justin died, I was familiar with Kt Shepherd’s dying design, with Justin's death I added this design to be included in my list of ten diploma designs.

I worked through Kt’s framework and was fortunate to be able to attend a workshop with her in Kirby Stephenson, North Yorkshire. Justin's death was still quite raw, so it was very valuable to hear from Kt how she used her design and to be able to have a discussion with a small group of interested people about death from different perspectives. In 2018 when I was working on this design, I was struggling with the permaculture frameworks. I found it so hard to be able to put my thoughts into a framework and like so many of my early design attempts I gave up. The research I put into Kt’s design did not go to waste, it all fit into the forage design, the longest and most researched of all my designs.

Even though I never quite finished this design it is one that I will go back to once I’ve completed the diploma and see how it fits into this FORAGE framework.

 

Books

So, back onto books. It’s probably apparent by now that I get through a few books. These are my go-to resource to learn more about something. The number of books I get through is not important, but I do find it very useful to read books coming from different angles that relate to the same subject often from authors who I disagree with. I use these books to sanity-check my thoughts about the subject.  

In my younger days, I never read, now I can sit and read all day if I get the chance, but it has been the audiobook that has changed my life the most. These are a gift from a greater reality, when I listen to an audiobook read by the author, I often learn a great deal more when spoken with the emotion of somebody who has a passion to share what they have written. Other audiobooks are often read by the most entertaining storytellers, here it is again the emotion that is placed upon the reading that resonates deep into my consciousness.  I can walk for hours lost in an audiobook whilst at the same time gaining insights into how their words reflect events and experiences of my own. Audiobooks are an incredible way for me to learn.

Of course, some books just do not work on audio, I’m not denigrating the physical book. I aim at reading at least one book a week and listening to at least one audiobook. It all depends on the length of a book and the depth of the subject matter. I also have serval books on the go at once, I have no problem with interchanging between books. I will also make sure I have at least one fiction book on the go at any time. Fiction can inspire me in my designs just as much as any non-fiction can.

I also have some innate ability to not allow awful books into my life. I always seem to find value on some level in what I read.

Online courses

Since starting the diploma I’ve worked through a collection of online courses. If I need to learn something YouTube is great but to understand something I find I need to take a deeper dive into a topic. This is where online courses come into their own. The platform I mainly use is Udemy. Once you sign up to their mailing list you receive updates offering courses at a great discount. All courses I have taken have ranged from £10 to £15.

To get an overall view of the seventeen online courses I completed during my diploma years I’ve used Wilf Richards elements and functions table to see what stands out.

 

 

There is a clear divide between the types of courses taken, at one end there are courses taken that helped with the functional presentation of the diploma, and at the other end are the courses that helped me to accomplish completing the diploma on a psychological level.

On the functional presentation side, these courses scored mostly minimal points placing them in the “possibly or partially provides the function”, this is represented in the website layout and is limited to the area of information technology. The two social media courses received five points each which placed them in the “doesn’t provide the function” range. At the start of the diploma, I was in the mindset that social media was important, towards the end I dropped the use of any social media from the “Richmond Permaculture Network Design” due to it been over consuming of time spent with having to be constantly posting and promoting posts.

Moving over to the other end the courses seemed to all focus on the psychological level all scoring, twenty-four or twenty-five points placing them in the “fulfils the function” category. These courses may not be directly associated with permaculture, but they provided me with the support I needed mentally to overcome some of the thought processes I was going through at various stages throughout my diploma years. These courses represent the personal journey I underwent to arrive at a place where I can use my thoughts in more sustainable ways of thinking. This is reflected more and more as the progress of my design process improved. Noticeable from design five “Soil Fertility” onwards.  

 

Permaculture design frameworks and tools

These are the things I’ve struggled most with during this diploma. Academia was never my thing. My school days were the worst of my life. The special class was sold to me as a place only a few children got to go in. I went to Richmond school which consisted then of two sites located in different parts of the town. After the first year of big school, everybody had to leave the lower school site and move to the main school where everything was bigger and much worse. Lewis Carrol attend what we then called lower school so as you can imagine the old buildings were quite magical. I left school at sixteen with no qualifications, other than a collection of certificates to show I could make a campfire, and set up a tent, canoe, abseil, and orienteer. These have all served me well in life. Outdoor education was the only thing I enjoyed at school, it was a collection of the special and the naughty along with a few of the sporty kids. An afternoon swimming in the local river was one of my favourite class activities. I even managed to get through school without reading one book, quite an achievement don’t you think?

With limited education, I have struggled with using permaculture frameworks and tools. It was only through looking at how other people have used them in their designs that was I able to put my first five designs together. I’ve tried to find as many examples as possible to try to figure out how to use them as required for the diploma. I’m still doing it now but as I progressed through the next five designs, I’m getting more confident in their use, but still, they do not come naturally to me.

I tend to avoid situations where I may need to write something down that other people will read. I was never diagnosed at school with dyslexia, back then it was never mentioned you just end up in the special class. Therefore, I feel uncomfortable going to permaculture events, or gatherings where I might have to write something down. When I hear the words “you all need to get something to write with” my heart sinks. The only words to top these are, “pass what you have written to somebody else to read”. It’s the humiliation of eleven years at school all over again. So, my message to all your permaculture teachers who think it’s a great exercise for everybody to write things down and to get somebody else to read it, is it’s not great for those of us who can’t spell.

To conclude, lots of the permaculture frameworks and tools are far too complex for me to comprehend. Just to add, please do not tell me that I just need to try, or that I just need to have a go. Nope, I’ve tried and better tried but some are still far too complicated for me to work with.