Introduction: who, what, where ...

About Me

I've been passionately concerned about social justice, re-designing education & protecting the environment as far back as I can remember.

I started working as an activist (anti-poverty work) as a volunteer in an NGO at 15. During my twenties (I was born 1966) I did many things from carpentry to youthwork, particle physics scanning to accounting, worked alongside a famous chef and alongside infamous radical social activists, whilst studying physics, electronics, education, psychology and pottery, and selling my own original papier-maché jewellery line in craft markets at weekends.

So when I discovered permaculture I was over the moon! It completely satisfied my wide range of interests and many things (eg. how and why society is organized as it is) made a lot more sense as it weaved it all together in an integral, holistic and especially pro-active and scientific, human approach: observe how the system works and change it (starting with yourself) in small, empowering, effective ways.

In 1994, straight after my first permaculture course, I set up an innovative permaculture charity in south London, England, with a bunch of friends. (Green Adventure)

This led to an early community-led transition initiative, as we launched a bicycle-delivered organic-produce box-scheme, community greenhouses, recycling schemes and several forest gardens, all integrating the LETS scheme (local money) and DOING Local Agenda 21 (when most were just talking about it).

I co-ordinated this, we employed a dozen people over 7 years and engaged hundreds of volunteers, doing what the community asked for and gaining three prestigious awards (including the 'oscar of regeneration' for the UK) during the first few years.

At the end of 1999 (my version of millennium madness) a strange set of circumstances led me to visit and eventually stay in LaPalma, one of the smallest of the Canary Islands, and what I hope will become a great sustainable post-industrial bioregion, by design.

After 10yrs of observation (and many design experiments & initiatives), I am now starting a new permaculture EcoVillage around a farm I set up with my partner & launching Integral Permaculture, bilingually, with our brilliant NodoEspiral Permaculture Academy colleagues.

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(having forgotten I already had an intro here, I wrote the following for a colleague asking to put my biog in terms of 'earning a living from permaculture', as a story... will meld the two when I get some time)

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I've practiced (and lived of) permaculture since my first PDC in 1994. First by setting up a grant-funded urban charity which ended up employing 12 people over 6 years to do a synergic mix of urban permaculture projects, in the lowest-income, highest crime area in the UK. That part is documented here, http://www.gaiatasiri.org/home/antecedentes

From 2000 I took a sharp turn south and moved to the remainders of the lost continent of Atlantis (Canary Islands ) to be somewhere much nearer to my native Italian culture. Here I gave myself the challenge of doing rural permaculture but with no grant funding whatever, just private funds.

I had no money of my own when I moved here, but some 6 years later was able to sell a house I co-owned in London, which had trebled in value & in part (I like to think) thanks to the urban regeneration work we had done in the area (I used to live next door to one of our bigger projects).

In those first 6 years I scraped by thanks to my passion for discovering how to design better action-learning environments for people to learn permaculture. I had a little more than one months' rent in savings when I decided (after 1 year of wwoofing and observing the culture and landscape) to jump at the opportunity of a farm being rented cheaply (because very run down and basic).

I was willing to ride the permanent (& pretty scary) financial insecurity mostly because I was so engrossed in my action-learning experiment + stewarding the land and my pottery) that I didn't care about the lack of funds. I grew some of my food, rented a room when I could, ran the first rural cyber-café of the area in my home (that paid for my phone bill & internet connection) and a few pottery workshops (I was fascinated by the local clay and learned to dig it up and work it from scratch).

And all the while wwoofers came to stay to help with the farm and I was observed what they wanted to learn and how they went about it, and I enjoyed trying to figure out how to best introduce permaculture principles whilst we worked. I didn't charge anything for this, it was just for direct exchange, at first.

When I got more confident that I could offer something much deeper than the usual wwoofing experience I started to ask for a money contribution towards food & teaching, and accomodation in exchange for work done on the farm.

During this time I was getting clearer about the need to teach permaculture design properly, and the limits of 'learning by doing' - and I was realizing just how much scientific theory I took for granted that everyone would have, but in fact didn't (and how debilitating that is when it comes to understand why we do what we do in permaculture.having had a science background and taken good PDCs with science-based teachers).

I ran lots of earth fertility experiments during this time, and had tons of fun learning how to run a commercial market garden + pottery operation after I stopped taking volunteers (which I found too exhausting).

.... to be continued

3 Fields of Work

of the menu are the 3 fields of work that the diploma considers and the various designs in each section: Academy (EDUCATION), FincaLuna (SITE DEVELOPMENT), CollectiveIntelligence (RESEARCH)

I have added a downloadable pdf for each section so that there is 'something tangible also' for this portafolio, but please note these are not copies but summaries of what's here in the wiki (the extra parts are in purple here, on the corresponding wiki pages).

General Section

is my personal + reference information like CV (Curriculum Vitae), testimonials

Articles & References

There is a section of reference articles (written by others and referred to in my work), eg.

Feed Forward

All comments and suggestions welcome

you can email me at stella (at) finca-luna (dot) com

thanks for visiting

Stella

why the Callas

About the Calla Lily

(or Callas)

I was delighted to find out, visiting a permaculture colleague in Ibiza around Easter, that he cropped his enormous (1.5-1.7m tall) and beautiful white Callas for selling (at some exorbitant price - Ibiza is full of very rich people), that they came from his black-water purifying system: big, healthy and utterly beautiful - and all grown in shit!

& my Blog

In general, I love re-framing things to see if they make more sense (or are more fun, useful or englightening)

looked at from a different direction. This, for eg, is a good re-framing of that old big question, "What is the meaning of life":

"What is a meaningful life?" is a relevant question.

The photo is one of the Callas in our Finca, which I am propagating for (in the future) diverting the neighbour's black-water into flowers instead of a cool deep cave on our property (which could be put to much better use).

One of my pastimes is to reclaim (and where possible even invent / design) western 'popular symbolisms' in order to help make conscious (& hopefully repair) the great self-hatered / dis-connection many of us First World people walk around with (unconsciously in the most part) which I suspect fuels our rabid consumerism and opression of other peoples.

It seems to me that the Callas could be reclaimed as the western equivalent of the Lotus Flower, which in the East symbolizes the manifestation of the universal Buddha Nature (or Christ Consciousness) inherent equally in all life, because it is a beautiful white flower which emerges from the depths of a muddy swamp.

Personally I don't have much interest in eastern symbolism but notice there are many people in the west who know (and love) much more about eastern culture than our own, nowadays. I see this as a symptom of how lost and up-rooted we are and it seems useful to point out (over and over as is necessary) that often the very same teachings are present in our own western ancient culture (as in all earth-based cultures).

It also seems to be a recurring pattern that the turn to industrialization cutting off from our roots, and this includes a 'sanitizing' of the celebratio of natural Life-Death cycles by cutting out the Death part, and the Callas turns out to have an interesting story to tell in this respect, on more levels apart from the 'from shit to beauty' thing.

Apart from the name which reminds of a famous Italian opera singer, it has other Italian roots (like me) and it is also connected to Winter Solstice - which is when I put together this portafolio, dicember 2008. Majic :)

This is some stuff I found out about the Callas:

Since the days of ancient Rime the Calla Lily has been treasured as a flower of celebration.

First cherished as a celebration of light, then a funeral flower, in today’s world the Calla Lily has become one of the most desired flowers brides use to celebrate their wedding day.

It is associated with the lily as a symbol of purity and as such, these spectacular flowers are beginning to rival the rose in popularity for bridal bouquets.

The Calla Lily, originally from the continent of Africa, is rich with history, and it is an elegant and colorful flower to enjoy on any occasion.

The Calla Lily, Zantedeschia aethiopica, is often called the white or common arum lily.

In the wild, the Calla Lily prefers marshy areas.

One of its closest relatives is the Skunk Cabbage, which also prefers a marsh environment.

The central spike or spadix is the real flower.

The stalks are like giant celery stalks and the leaves are heart-shaped and have a luscious, dark green color that may sometimes be speckled.

The common Calla Lily usually spire to 3 feet and produce snowy white spathes 4 to 6 inches across with yellow centers.

Other callas are generally somewhat smaller, varying from 1 to 2 feet in height.

The small Calla Lilies are called Minis.

According to Martha Stewart’s Living, volume 2, The Calla Lily was the flower that the early Romans used to mark the passage of the winter solstice.

The Romans planted the Calla Lily just inside the portal to their homes, timing it to bloom for winter solstice and giving the effect of bringing the light indoors during the darkest days of the year.

The greater the display of Calla Lilies usually meant the wealthier the resident that lived there.

The Romans valued them so much that they often decorated the edges of the bloom with filaments of gold.

The Calla Lilies of Roman times were said to be much larger than today’s varieties, and often were as tall as seven feet! (probably grown in shit ...)

Supposedly, the Calla Lily was named after Professor Giovanni Zantedeschi, 1773-1846, an Italian physician and botanist.

The name aethiopica is thought to mean south of Egypt and Libya, though the word appears like it is related to Ethiopia in some manner.

It is not know exactly when and how the Calla Lily was introduced to Europe, but it appeared in an illustrated account of the Royal Garden in Paris in 1664.

Over time, the Calla Lily became associated with the celebration of funerals.

Most likely, because they bloomed profusely during the darkest time of the year, winter solstice.

Katharien Hepburn’s famous whispered line, “The Calla lilies are in bloom again!” in Stage Door, was a subtle reference to the dying of the light.

Calla Lilies are one of the most preferred flowers of brides.

The ancient Romans knew it as a special flower and appreciated it. Today, as it did for the Romans, the Calla Lily is a thing of timeless beauty that excels in celebration of weddings, sympathy or to bring light into one’s life and celebrate the joy of living.

I think the answer has to be something like, "How do I use this wonderful opportunity to be an advanced part of the upward trend - to be thinking and aware in the most significant, effective way that I can, enjoying myself as I go?"

(Harvey Jackins, letter 1982)

... permaculturing anything I can get my paws onto ...