Here we are. Hovering on the cusp of Phase Two of this project. Toward the end of 2019, we set the scene by way of chopping down a certain tree. We then disappeared for a while.11 We took a breath. We pondered. We came back. It is time to start navigating the path ahead, starting right here, right now.

Before we take an actual step, however, let us metamorphose into birds and catch an updraft to consider relevant patterns from up high. In other words, we'll zoom out to get a sense of some of the things we'd like to make true of our subsequent steps forward.

Toward this end, I ask you to bear with me as I explore a fresh framework for thinking about different ways of relating to permaculture as design.

This arose after a previous framework led me to the question of "what is a community of practice, anyway?" Looking up that phrase led me first to the distinction between a community of practice and a community of interest and second to the related notion of a community of inquiry. Together, these three then came together in my mind to generate a further framework.12

Communities of Interest, Practice and Inquiry

There is a group of folk in the world that are interested in permaculture design.

Within this group there are folk who are not only interested in but who practice permaculture design.

Within this practicing group there are in turn folk who consciously inquire into permaculture design. Who do research and experiments and make the results available to other inquirers as well as those practicing without inquiring or interested without practicing.

I'm not fussed about the exact lines of differentiation between these three nested layers. The lines can remain somewhat fuzzy so long as you agree that it is possible to draw the lines.13

The point is that it is possible to be interested in permaculture design without practicing it, and it is possible to practice permaculture design without (consciously and explicitly) inquiring into the way of designing that you have learned to use and are using. None of these are good or bad, better or worse. They are options.

Now.

Let us move from the idea of groups or sets to groups that have internal connectivity, whether online, offline, or both. Here, we move from groups to communities. As I'm guessing any permaculturalist knows, communities are where it's at.

From here on as I develop this diagram I am always talking about communities, not just sets of individuals.

I personally am part of a large community of folk interested in permaculture design, a smallish community of colleagues who go beyond interest to practice permaculture design, and a tiny community of colleagues who go beyond practice to consciously inquire into permaculture design.14

Overall Ratios, Flows, Blockages and Orbits

We can now consider the overall flows, ratios, blockages and orbits between and within the three kinds of communities. Along the way I'll start laying out what this means for Phase Two of this project.

Flows and Ratios

The above diagrams are not to scale, and numbers of people within each of these three nested community types obviously fluctuate.

As far as flows go, the way folk become permaculture design practitioners is via interest. The way folk become researchers or inquirers, surely, is as a result of questions that arise within their practice. Where, ideally at least, the findings then move back out through the other communities, and in some cases even out into the beyond-permaculture community and culture.15 Indeed permaculture itself was birthed from a two-person community of intense interest then practice and inquiry that lasted a couple of years and catalysed huge waves of interest and in some cases practice in others.

The following diagram captures this sense of overall flows in a very simplified, limited way. The black arrows represent people transitioning into communities at each of the three levels,