What is Permaculture?

So, these days I get asked a lot on what I am doing, where I'm living, etc, etc. my main response is that I'm living out in permaculture village. Where I usually get the response of what the hell is permaculture? I always have a bit of a problem explaining exactly what it is, but today I stumbled upon a lovely news article explaining what it is all about. This Article (http://www.onegreenplanet.org/lifestyle/why-permaculture-aint-just-about-gardening/) explains that permaculture is not just about growing food. It is about using all your resources around you, to use the land in the most efficient way to help with reducing waste, while using everything at your disposal to create, be it food or structures. Most importantly, permaculture is a way of life, a way to look at the world in the sense of what is re-usable and what is pollution. This way of thinking can lead to great things, such as making a green house out of plastic bottles, as Andrew Douse has done, here is his website on how it is all done (http://andrewdouse.hubpages.com/hub/plasticbottlegreenhouse). This has the benefit of creating a structure, out of something what would be throw out, and the structure helps with the creating of vegetables.

More importantly it leads to a way to look at the world in a way that has been taken away from us, we have become a throw away society that looks at the package things come in rather than looking at how something is made and if we really need what we are buying. The pressure we get from our peers is huge, just looking at what phone your friend has can want you to get the latest and greatest, even though we have a phone that works perfectly well. That is why having a community where we can show of our latest and greatest eco friendly, up-cycled contraptions is absolutely awesome. it makes use of the same behaviour that marketers have been using on us to buy their stuff and lets us use it in a positive way that will not only help benefit us, but also benefit the community as a whole.

While it is true that I do not practice permaculture as much as I would like, just like a lot of people that live in Crystal Waters. I like to think that the community as a whole, thinks in ways to reduce waste, and produce as much as we can where we can.  

Is it Interesting

So I got thinking the other day, “is this going to be interesting to people other than myself?” Well at first, when I looked the way I live my life, I found it quite boring. However, I then came to the realization that it is only boring because it is my life, and people would be interested in a life that is not the "norm". I also thought it is not just my life I will be talking about, but also the life of all the unusual characters I meet on my journey of community living. Also, there are many interesting parts of community living, things that I rarely think about yet want to find out more about such as politics, the social side to community living and how it all got put together in the first place and why it is still so successful after thirty odd years.

Now that I am thinking about it, I really want to find out why some people find Crystal Waters a success story in community living and what some people think it would be too much of a bother to move here. It is strange for me to look at the community in this light as I have grown up here and have fond memories of almost all aspects of community living. However, I know for a fact that some people dislike their childhood in a community living situation. I will definitely track these people down and find out their reasoning behind there dislike.

I also think that I will be able to help people come to terms with all the stigma that comes with community living and help show people that, even if you don't live in a community there are certain parts of such a lifestyle that can be incorporated into the everyday life of the "average" human. This will improve your outlook in life and gain a healthy understanding of what it takes to run a place such as crystal waters.

When I first decided to do a blog on community living, I thought it would only be a personal blog that only interest myself. Now I am thinking it can benefit anyone who reads it. Even if I improve the life of one reader, it will make me a happy writer.

A Young Lad in a Community

So you might be wondering why a young lad like myself is writing a blog about community living.  Isn't community living for elderly people or hippies? Well yes and no; I have to agree that most of my community are either hippies, aging, or both, but I am not. I might be a little bit of a hippie but not a true one.

My experience with community living started when I was four, when my parents moved to a budding little permaculture village in the sunshine coast hinterlands called Crystal Waters. I grew up in a love/hate relationship with the community but stuck it out until I was seventeen. I then moved to the Sunshine Coast to experience the "real world" which I enjoyed very much. I had a tendency to more around a lot and lived in many different places, but once I hit twenty-eight I had enough of it and decided to stop moving around as much. This is when I looked on the map and tried to put down a spot where I could see myself for the next four to five years. Surprisingly I kept on coming back to Crystal Waters, but I did not know why. My thoughts kept on telling me, "no you can't move back to where you grew up" but then I lost my job and my girlfriend of the time broke up with me and the decision was made for me. I had to move back to my dad’s place as I didn't have the coin to live anywhere else.

To my utter astonishment, not only did I like it here, I thrived. It has been the best thing for my health and my social skills. But why is such a type of lifestyle good for me? Is it just me or can all people benefit from living the community lifestyle? I have decided that the best way to find out is to write a blog about my thoughts and experiences on community living,if I can spot if the benefits are just for my personality type, whether it has something to do with my upbringing, or if people in the "real world" can use some community practices to make their life a more special and meaningful one. I have a feeling this blog might get a little personal and sometimes a bit confronting for me. But hey, if I can crack the code to my happiness and help others in the process, so be it.

About Me

Hi, I'm Jory Freyee,

My parents and I pronounce it, Your-e, Fray-Yay. I've never been quite sure if I'm pronouncing it correctly, so I certainly won't mind if you pronounce it differently. You see, both my parents are hippies, and not just hippies, but Dutch hippies. They changed the spelling of our last name from Freijee to Freyee. As for my first name, they saw it on a truck in America and decided they liked it. I grew up in a new permaculture village in the sunshine coast hinterlands, and have recently moved back to live in the cabin where my life started.