How Permaculture's Third Ethic Enchanted my Workspace
Updated: Oct 4
For someone managing home chaos, and possibly neurodivergence, Permaculture's Three Ethics could seem like yet another demand on an overwhelmed system. Care for the Earth
Care for People
Share what's Spare
In my recent 'Home that Loves You Back' webinar I showed how a 'Share what's Spare' attitude enabled me to fall in love with once-scary bookkeeping, so I could keep my permaculture business ticking over smoothly. These days, calculating taxes has become so satisfying that I once found myself using it as procrastination from drawing pictures! Like compacted land getting fluffy and productive, I found a new version of myself there all along.
First I'll show you my 2010 office and its inspiration. Then I'll explain how the three Ethics unlocked the resources that made it possible.
When I first glimpsed the office of the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, I was blown away. I had always known that a regular work life wasn't for me. But this office, in the depths of Tokyo Disneyland, exploded my ideas of what an office had to be. Walls were not needed! We could scrounge what we needed from shipwrecks or op shops.
A few months later, in the terrace house I rented in North Melbourne, I found I had such an office. My work time even included designing clever water systems, just like the Swiss Family.
In true Japanese style, I had a bedroom by night and an 'anything' room by day, with my bedding folded up into one corner. I would clamber out the window, with a tray full of pencils, notebooks, my electronic Japanese dictionary, and, of course, breakfast.
My tiny balcony garden became a world I could escape to, where I could work with focus and flow. I studied Japanese writing in this chair for four hours a day. If the phone rang downstairs, I wasn't going to clamber down to get it. My tea was in a thermos by my side, so no fridge raiding.
Can you see the humble wheatbag in the chair in the photo with the breakfast tray? This cosy homemade friend extended the time I could use this office by six months. $1 worth of wheat and second-hand fabric, for an entire office. That's a great real-estate deal.
Soon I had a monthly column 'Cecilia's Permaculture Slow Life' in Dengon Net Magazine. I wrote it in Japanese and illustrated it for 4 years. If the dream is alluring enough and the environment supportive, the most scattered-looking minds can find focus and flow.
An approachable view of Permaculture's Three Ethics
Care for the Earth can start with under your feet.
When our kitchen scraps turn into flowers via our compost bin, we have proof we live in a redemptive universe and we are powerful co-creators. When we put out a birdbath, we get to hear birdsong. Of course, we are the earth, and when we care for it, we remember the generations and millennia that went into creating the miracle that is us. Care for people can start with ourselves.
The person we can most successfully look after is, after all, ourselves. It can start with finding ways to eat a rainbow of food and get to bed on time. In my case, it started with becoming a WWOOF host, and caring for travelling volunteers as they did the work my mind was not cut out for. As I'll share later, even putting unused costumes in dress-up box to dip into can lead to people care. Share what's Spare is how we can fulfil the first two Ethics.
This third ethic is sometimes called 'Make Available the Surplus'. Because life can be constrained, sometimes we don't notice how many unused, undervalued resources are sitting around, waiting for someone appreciative to unlock them and share them with the world. The sofa you aren't using at night can be a place travelers can happily stay and contribute. This only works if you set up the rest of your ecosystem: a folding screen for their privacy, quiet mornings, and other zero-money, totally precious resources.
Just as microbes unlock minerals that were sitting there in the soil and make them available to their friends the plants who need them, we can do this for each other.
The power of un-appreciated resources for getting taxing things done
Design can work around almost any problem. Here is my social design to enjoy preparing my tax return:
I threw a week-long taxation party. The only guests were me and the nice man on the phone at the Australian Taxation Office, who I called, for free, every time I was confused or nearing overwhelm.
I dug up my poufy 'Gone with the Wind' gowns from my fancy dress box to feel honoured and playful. I prepared a few days' worth of easy party food like smoked salmon, and said 'no cooking till it's done'. I had an epic soundtrack to match my heroism, something like 'The Last Samurai'.
I learned tricks such as 'divide and conquer'. First I'd circle all the dates on receipts so they were easy to see, then I'd enter them into my ledger. Amazing! When you stop multi-tasking, there is all this brain-power left over. Why did nobody teach me this?
The taxation party did go for many days and felt spacious. It inspired me to be impeccable about using separate bank cards for business and personal expenses and putting the right receipt in the right place for years to come. I had no meltdowns, and when I pressed 'send' on the completed return, I felt I had won the lottery. It was a chance to see how all the shortcuts I had hidden from myself were leading me astray.
I made my fancy dress box available to my volunteer workers, to enchant the often humble tasks that make up a permaculture paradise. It's much more fun to wash dishes as Marie Antionette or turn compost as a pirate.
It connected housemates to each other, and reminded us, we are here on this earth for the fun of it.
Seeing constraints as opportunities
There is a non-whimsical reason I had a sparkly bead curtain instead of a door.
The attic room I kept to host WWOOFers rent-free had a ladder instead of stairs. When unfolded it protruded permanently into my doorway. I had a choice: to shut the door for privacy or have a constant stream of wonderful people helping me make my Permaculture dreams come true. It was an easy decision for me.
Soft security
The tinkle of the beads gave soft security, giving feedback to let the world know when the room was entered. The concept of 'invisible fences' is one of the things that make my flexible-looking, surplus-sharing life work out.
Ecosystem of skilled helpers They guy who owned our local Mitre 10 cut and bent a copper pipe to measure, so my privacy curtain hang straight over the bottom of the ladder. He was used to me asking for special help with my world-saving passive watering systems. There is a surplus of human energy and a lack of lovely dreams to use it on: if you have a vision, and communicate it well, people often join in.
And the former bedroom door? I repurposed it to cover the wall-mounted water tank that fed my balcony garden. Me? Nah, my WWOOFer helpers did it.
Decide to do something the world needs. Start. Ask for help. Liberate locked-up resources to make it happen. Marvel at the unexpected connections you will have as your dreams meet reality, and each shapes the other. If you enjoyed this article, consider sharing the surplus by pressing the 'share' button and sending it to encourage a creative friend. To get expert help setting up your own ecosystem of support, email me for private consulting, or subscribe to my Eventbrite for upcoming Home Harmonising workshops.
You never know the chain of events these small actions might set off.
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