Join us for a three day Permaculture Action Course and Permaculture Action Day before Sonic Bloom Festival in Colorado this year, the Sonic Bloom Permaculture Academy.

June 11-14, Sonic Bloom Festival will be hosting their pre-festival Academy on the festival site, the beautiful Hummingbird Ranch. Take a deep dive into permaculture design, skills for ecological regeneration, and the how to’s of organizing in community with skilled and experienced facilitators and like minds.  Get the details here.

The Permaculture Series

Permaculture comes from the terms “permanent agriculture,” or more broadly, “permanent culture,” and encompasses a design process by which humans can create relationships of mutual benefit with the natural world and with each other that provide for an abundance of human needs.  The tools and technologies of permaculture exhibit how humans can move away from an extractive, exploitative paradigm with the earth and one another, and towards systems of symbiosis, ecological regeneration, and community.

Get your hands dirty.

• Learn the permaculture design process and ecological design principles.
• Gain hands-on skills to directly transform the world around you.
• Relate to the earth symbiotically to create and gather your food, shelter, water and energy.
• Get training in community building and action planning for a better world.
• Dig into practical tools for ecological regeneration with experienced practitioners.

$366          *Enroll Here*

Academy students can look forward to a whole lot of perks with your admission fee including…

• 21 class hours of world class educational experience
• Connections with like minded people
• 2 healthy, organic meals per day (brunch and dinner)
• Be the first people on site
• First priority shaded and creekside camping

Get the details and sign up:   http://sonicbloomfestival.com/academy/permaculture/

Facilitators

Lead facilitators for the full academy: Ryan Rising, Kendra Krueger, and Mike Wird (bios below)
Special Guest Teachers include: Soils and composting experts Shelby Kaminski and Ryan Bruno, permaculture landscaping business entrepreneur Erin Anderson, and the Front Range BioRegional Crew of Permaculture Action Network

Ryan Rising is a community organizer and permaculture educator based out of the San Francisco Bay Area and co-founder of the Permaculture Action Network. After a decade of local organizing around direct action, food justice, ecological design and community space, Ryan organized the Permaculture Action Tour for music producer The Polish Ambassador in the fall of 2014. The tour visited 32 cities across the country, holding a Permaculture Action Day in each one and bringing together up to 400 people at a time to implement projects including public food forests, edible gardens, natural buildings, urban farms, and greenhouses. The tour was so effective in moving thousands of people into regenerative work and movement building for the just transition that an organization of local chapters throughout multiple bioregions, the Permaculture Action Network, arose from it.

Ryan focuses on creating community access to land for local food growing and regenerative living—connecting people to take direct action and transition to a resilient way of life; and social permaculture—the ways we make decisions, build resilience, resolve conflicts, and organize in community.

Ryan has taught numerous courses and workshops, including the Elemental Alchemy Permaculture Intensive before Symbiosis Gathering in 2013, 2015, and 2016, Permaculture Design Courses across California and Tennessee, a month-long Gaia Education certified Eco-Village Design training in Nicaragua, and numerous Permaculture Action Courses and workshops. Ryan also sometimes guest teaches at University of San Francisco, San Francisco State, and Laney College. A certified permaculture designer with a degree in Peace and Social Justice Studies, he also co-founded a regenerative, productive urban farm in the East Bay and the Omni Commons—a community space and education center in Oakland, CA.  

Kendra Krueger is a scientist and community organizer who teaches how to use science as a tool for personal liberation and discovery. She uses techniques and concepts of social justice, permaculture, theater and movement to facilitate processes of inquiry, discernment and design. In addition to leading scientific liberation workshops in the community and around the country, she helps to run the Denver Permaculture Guild, an eco-social justice community organization and is an adjunct professor at Naropa University, a liberal arts buddhist college. She has worked and studied as an electrical engineer (BS Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, MS University of Colorado Boulder) and has experience in community radio production, journalism, theater, dance and music. She is originally from New York City’s Lower East Side and currently lives in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. You can follow her work on facebook at 4Love+Science or on her website www.4loveandscience.com

Michael White aka Mike Wird is an advanced permaculture designer/consultant, artist, educator, business owner, and natural builder who shares his dedication to social and environmental justice through cultural arts and regenerative practices.  Mike has been actively building community for over 15 years as a cultural arts ambassador, raising awareness about social, financial, and ecological issues and their solutions in our environments. Mike is Co-Founder of Regenerative Lifestyles LLC, an education firm offering services and opportunities based around integrated living systems, as well as the Center for Regenerative Living, which aims to bring regenerative lifestyle practices to the urban core. In 2011, Mike received his diploma in Earthship Biotecture, and was certified in Permaculture Design, studying with Adam Brock, Toby Hemenway, Larry Santoyo, Penny Livingston, Michael Becker, Jerome Osentowski, and others. In 2012, Mike graduated from the Greater Good Academy, a triple bottom line business school focusing on socially and ecologically responsible business practices and, in 2013, received his advanced permaculture design certificates.  

In 2014, the City of Denver and Green For All, a non-profit dedicated to creating a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty, awarded Mike for his work within the hip hop arts and permaculture communities. Mike currently works toward youth empowerment through a creative education organization called Youth on Record in the Denver Public Schools and residential treatment centers. Mike’s company, Regenerative Lifestyles, also takes groups on special tours four times a year from Denver to Taos, New Mexico, to learn about integrated systems at The Greater World Community Earthship World Headquarters.

Permaculture Academy Curriculum Outline

Sunday, June 11th:

• Arrive, Dinner, and All Academy Orientation at 7pm
• Permaculture Academy Introductions & Orientation

Monday, June 12th:

• Intro to Permaculture
• Reading the Landscape
• Learning from Nature – The Permaculture Design Principles
• Design Methods and Process
• Site Analysis & Assessment
• Water Systems

Tuesday, June 13th:

• Pattern Thinking; Whole Systems Design; and Closed Loop Systems
• Appropriate Technology and Alternative Energy
• Social Permaculture: Applying Ecological Principles to Communities
• Useful Plants and the Permaculture Garden
• Zones, Sectors, and Drafting Designs
• Perennial Gardening and Food Forests
• Urban Permaculture

Wednesday, June 14th:

• Alternative Economies and Asset Mapping
• Soils, Compost, and Organic Matter
• Natural Building
• Permaculture Design Charrette
• Permaculture Movement: Where To Go From Here
• Community Organizing 101

Thursday, June 15th:

• Permaculture Action Day in Walsenburg at a food-justice focused local community farm and farm-to-table pay-what-you-can restaurant

Testimonials

“The Sonic Bloom Permaculture Academy allowed me to take time to observe our surroundings and notice patterns of interconnectedness. The course was informational about the ethics of stewardship and how we can reclaim our role as conscious co-creators.”

•   –  Sunshine Rose, Sonic Bloom Permaculture Academy 2016 participant

“I want to express some really deep rooted gratitude for the Sonic Bloom Permaculture Academy. Since completing the course, the food forest I manage is going through it’s final round of design and trees are finally going in the ground, I’m building bridges for the movement, I started a permaculture design business, and I’m being approached by so many businesses and families in my area asking to help them transition from traditional landscaping to edible and medicinal landscapes. I’ve done zero marketing—every single job I’ve taken has been word of mouth and I have more opportunities to do permaculture than I can in good conscience take on, which has led to this big personal discussion about sustainable business models and creating meaningful employment for my permie friends. I cannot begin to express how very blessed I feel to be a part of such a movement. I’ve been feeling an overwhelming desire to reach out and thank the academy facilitators and other permaculture warriors who have helped elevate me to where I am now. Permaculture Action Days were such a catalyst for so much good in my life and I just want to say thank you.”

•   –  Erin Anderson, Sonic Bloom Permaculture Academy 2016 participant

“The Permaculture Action Network and Academy taps into that mystical festival magic that we are all searching for at these events and brings bits of that magic back to reality when we leave. Action days create excitement within communities that host events like Sonic Bloom by fostering connections between the festival goers and the locals, and providing real life opportunities to heal ourselves by healing the earth.”

        –   2016 Permaculture Academy participant

Register Here and join us June 11th-15h at Hummingbird Ranch

The Permaculture Academy will end with a Permaculture Action Day that everyone is welcome to participate in, regardless of whether you are attending the academy or even the festival, on Thursday, June 15th in the town of Walsenburg. Get the details here.

Read about last year’s Permaculture Action Day before Sonic Bloom in our report backs section: Sonic Bloom Festival hosts Permaculture Action Day at local Walsenburg Community Farm