Oh, motivation, my motivation!
Where are you? I can’t design without you!
The design process involves both analyzing functions and elements to meet needs and drawing on creativity and inspiration.
After all, it’s like a poem.
You arrange words into a sentence (elements of the system), evoke images of the future (you work with beauty and natural succession), you get excited… but above all, we want to achieve certain goals that can be both conscious and unconscious, pragmatic and political. In permaculture design, there is a clear intention to convey a message, an ethical framework, and principles to achieve that end.
In the design process, as we saw in our previous article, there are several phases, but none of them can be separated from “What for?” and “Why?” are we doing this design in the first place. Identifying the purpose correctly and keeping it in mind throughout the entire process is one of the keys to a successful design. If this objective isn’t clear, the process can lead us far down a path toward results that will later be difficult to correct.
Sometimes we come across designs that worked very well on paper, but after they’re implemented, we see that something isn’t flowing smoothly, maintenance isn’t being done, or they constantly raise questions among the people involved. This is often an indication that the design isn’t meeting a real need or that it’s straying from the broader vision, the clearer mission, or the more specific goal.
How can we clearly identify that purpose?
There is no set formula. The process of inquiry can draw on various tools, questions, meditations, dreams, revelatory experiences, more questions, honesty—a great deal of honesty.
What determines my quality of life?
What activities truly bring me satisfaction?
Which basic need takes a lot of my energy (time, money) to meet?
How do I want to be living 10 years from now?
What kind of scenery do I want to see around me?
Which world do I want to belong to?
At La Casa Integral, these questions are constantly on our minds—in our own designs, in our courses, and during the coconut-themed workshops at our Demonstration Space, held every last Sunday of the month.
To kick off our online CDP #SABERES for a Possible Future, we also ask you to connect with your purpose—in life, in this training itself, and in your day-to-day life. We believe that when we truly connect with our authentic vision, our purpose in life, or our role in the ecosystem, we’ll feel more capable of making the right decisions for our situation, more empowered as leaders, more satisfied with our daily lives, and more fulfilled overall. Satisfied and happy people don’t need strife, power, or wars…
An excerpt from that module:
“We suggest you try one of these exercises—or all of them! —so you can find your design inspiration for this course, this month, and the next 3 to 5 years…
Follow a guided visualization by reading this section of Chapter 2 of Stephen Covey’s book, *The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People*.
Listen to and watch Donella Meadows in this YouTube video: “With Both Feet on the Ground” (the subtitles aren’t 100% accurate, but they’re good enough to understand her)
Define Your Holistic Framework (Allan Savory), especially if you have a farm and work with animals
“Create a‘Vision Board’in combination with the SMART (MARTE) goals mentioned earlier and an analysis of your Wheel of Life.”
At our design studio, every client is unique and presents a new opportunity to explore different approaches. The client interview we use always varies and pushes us to observe the person in front of us from different angles, to perceive and embrace their dreams and motivations with great openness, so that nothing slips through the cracks. We ask clients to define their Purpose, their Specific Needs, their Resources, and their Limits.
Sometimes designers have their own dreams… and it’s important to set them aside. When we talk about “understanding nature” in permaculture, we’re also talking about that subtle and complex human nature. That’s why we recommend investing a lot of time in your own Invisible Structures to become better designers—by getting to know yourself and what’s truly yours—so you don’t confuse it with what your client envisions. Sometimes you may need to analyze the situation and accept that “working with nature, not against it” means that not every type of client is right for you.
But let’s get back to Design Motivation. In Stephen Covey’s book *The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People*, we see that Habit 2 is:“Begin with the End in Mind.” Where are we going? Where do we want to go? Why do we design? What is the purpose? What need do we want to meet? We need a horizon to guide our decision-making; you could say that it’s much easier to navigate with a compass.
Every design begins with a design motivation—yours or your client’s. We have a variety of needs—or desires—in the world and among living beings. Our desires are not always basic needs, and not all of our desires can be met by our ecosystem if they are mere whims. This makes it clear to us that we live in nested systems and that ethical principles are our best guides to ensure that our actions remain compatible with meeting our own needs and those of other beings.
Our culture cannot exist without the ecosystem that provides its foundation. Ecology will always be the limiting factor in our designs for “permanent” cultures over time (and there’s plenty of room for creativity within it!). Hence the famous permaculture response: “It depends!” Because it depends on where we are, it depends on the context—with its many layers that we’ll unravel throughout our #SABERES training.
Our first client, then, is Gaia. Shifting from an anthropocentric perspective to a biocentric one. Our projects (though inherently human) will only have a future if they are in harmony with their context, caring for the planet, people, and the future all at once.
If we do not live within the limits of our current ecosystem (there have been many variations of Gaia over the millions of years that have already passed, it is only now that the conditions for human life exist), our ecosystem becomes unbalanced, and the species that currently (still) live within it will be unable to meet their basic needs. Gaia doesn’t need us, but we need her.
Science has already shown us that, as humanity, we need a healthy and diverse ecosystem if we are to survive as a species; therefore, we could infer from that statement, from the context we’ve been living in for several years now, that our primary motivation as humanity should fundamentally be one and the same: a healthy and diverse ecosystem—or, to put it another way, a sustainable world and a humanity prepared for what lies ahead (and what is already here in some contexts!).
In another article, we’ll discuss how to demonstrate the effectiveness of our designs, how to gauge whether we’re getting closer to our Vision, and whether our MARTE Objectives are on track or if we should adjust them to align with the 3 Ethical Principles.
And you—why do you design, and what is the purpose of your design?
We’d love to have you join us at our #SABERES CDP for a Possible Future if you’d like to delve deeper into design techniques and learn more about strategies, techniques, and tools within a community of people just like you. Check out our blog for the start date of the next cohort if permaculture interests you!