Thanks to the awesome graphic design skills and willingness of Robin’s partner Rob Clark ‘The Manual for Teaching Permaculture Creatively’ now has a brand new colour cover. Very fitting seeing as the iconic 320 page text, written by Skye and Robin in the early 90s and published by their business Earthcare Education in 1995, is turning 21 this year. Yeah! Many hundreds of people have purchased the Manual and it’s enjoyed in over 65 countries.
Rob’s Wonderful Art and Design Skills Support Robin’s Work
In recent times it’s become available as a PDF through a DropBox Folder system. It was originally designed as a solid ring binder so it could be a huge ‘Tool Box’ to be added to over and over by its new owners as they witnessed, created or adapted processes that they wanted to remember and find easily. This hard copy is preferable to most people though click this link if you’d like to purchase the PDF version and enjoy!
Robin recently completed a massive five week teaching and facilitation journey in Victoria, timed around an invitation to present at ‘Rainbow Serpent Festival’ and also enabling her to present at ‘Sustainable Living Festival’ and display her relevant books and resources there while helping out in the Edible Garden Area.
Night Lighting in the Lifestyle Village with Cocoon Venue in the Background
‘Rainbow Serpent Festival’ was a fantastic and wildly different event which mostly catered to young people out to dance and party hard. The more recently introduced ‘Lifestyle Village’ area opens the festival to a wider more conscious audience which is where Robin was invited in to be part of. It’s replete with a visionary art gallery, two ephemeral temple spaces, a small and a quite large presentation and workshop venue as well as a Permaculture garden area, Indigenous village, free healing and massage zone and children’s area. Robin presented two workshops on Permaculture design and Social Permaculture and was the only woman and only Australian on a five person panel which explored ‘Future Thinkers – What Comes Next for the World?’ as the culminating presentation of this years Lifestyle Village. In amongst fiery debate and strong masculine presence Robin held her own and brought a balanced, informative and much needed nurturing touch to the panel of international speakers and brought Permaculture and other important streams forward passionately.
A full house welcomed Robin to present her ‘Social Permaculture’ one day workshop for several Transition Towns groups, organized by Julie French and Transition Banyule. Great feedback was received and Robin enjoyed meeting and working with the group very much.
Robin swapped hats for three days and became a student while being hosted by her dear friend and training assessor Virginia Solomon. She spent much of the time documenting everything she could manage to prove her competency in 11 Diploma of Permaculture units to show RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning).
PeteThePermie with a Chain Saw Sculpture in her Spirit Care Area on the Farm
Next up was a ‘Dynamic Decision Making’ one day workshop and a six day ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ course up in the Dandenong’s at Telopea Mt Permaculture hosted and organized by Pete the Permie and Sylvia on their Heritage Fruits farm, nursery and teaching site. Wow! What an amazing example of Permaculture in practice and bringing Permaculture right into the heart of Social Enterprise with a goodly dash of Spirit Care on the side and many tasty farm treats for the satisfaction of all.
Lamas are part of the Menagerie at Telopea Mt Permaculture Farm and Nursery
A highlight of the ‘Dynamic Groups’ course was having two gentlemen over 70 in the group and a diversity of mature women mixed with more youthful energy. Also, witnessing Pete’s naturally supportive way of applying ‘Natural Succession’ in a Social Permaculture sense through mentoring and active encouragement with many opportunities for his students, supporting the next generation of teachers in his area. Brilliantly done. Visit Telopea Mt Permaculture website by clicking here
Sand Pit Process in the ‘Dynamic Groups’ Course
Robin’s presentation at SLF (Sustainable Living Festival) was next to Federation Square, on the banks of the Yarra River. It was very well received and attended by founding members of both Common Ground and Moora Moora Communities as well as Murundaka Co-housing members. Titled ‘Seeds For Change – Social Permaculture’ with the subtitle ‘Permaculture, Social Design and the Environment, ‘The Shed’ was the perfect venue and allowed Robin to turn it into a socially designed space, in a circle with rotating rings so most people could see and interact with each other in the creatively facilitated session. Click here for more about session & SLF
Melbourne Permaculture business wizz and mentor Ed Walter whisked Robin away at the end of the festival to drive her, and all her luggage and left over books and resources, to her next engagement, a guest teaching spot in David Holmgren’s PDC at Rocklyn Ashram near Creswick and Hepburn. Ian Lillington extended the invitation and Robin jumped at the opportunity of presenting on ‘Health and Spiritual Well Being’ in a Permaculture course, this topic being one of the domains in David’s much revered book ‘Permaculture Principles – Pathways Beyond Sustainability’. The peace and tranquillity of the gardens, buildings and the residents made a perfect setting for the course and Robin’s visit was timely, well received and inspiring to many.
Barwon Heads Community Arts Garden Entrance fence section
After a few days visiting family in Western Victoria Robin completed her journey with three restful and lovely days catching up with Permaculture friend Wendy Marchment in Geelong where she got to visit a community garden, a recycled shipping container café and spend a little time with Wendy supporting Robin’s work on her new book.
Robin with Wendy Marchment at Barwon Community Garden
All in all a fantastic, fruitful and richly satisfying adventure.
Robin would like to thank all her hosts, the organisers of her courses, workshops and presentations, those who drive her around and showed many kindnesses, friends old and new, the participants in all her sessions and all who bought her books and resources. THANK YOU 🙂 It is through your support and the shared journey that we all make together that social enterprises like Robin’s are able to grow and evolve and support our beautiful world.
Things are moving slowly with Robin’s writing of the five book series, though the two card games that are part of the project have been successfully launched – the ‘Permaculture Principles Card Game in September last year and the Creative Process Wild Cards in November. All the wild cards fed straight into the chapter that’s being worked on at the moment in Book 1, the ‘Tool Box’ chapter. As well as the 60 Creative Processes in the card set, the chapter will highlight many other processes, some that act as ‘Glue Processes’, serving the function of supporting the group to work well together, meet and greet and make the most of the material and the time spent together. Ice-Breakers, Name Games, Grouping Processes, Revision Processes and Check-In’s are a few examples.
Brian-storm for 5 Book Series Project
Also included will be many conventional processes that, even though not creative or participatory, still are valid as ways to present content or teach specific information. Ways to tweak them to be more engaging, fun and memorable will be outlined to support teachers, facilitators and group leaders to have the biggest and best tool box ever.
To register interest in staying in touch for when the first book in the series is launched email Robin by clicking here
Every year Robin facilitates at several gatherings, festivals and conferences around Australia and sometimes overseas. Two gatherings that are closest to her heart and that’s she’s also involved in the behind the scenes support and the ceremony creation and energy holding are ‘The Joining’ held around the spring equinox and ‘Being Woman…’ held close to International Women’s day.
Being Woman Women in Circle
This year’s Being Woman… gathering had the powerful theme of ‘Freedom to Fly’ and supported approximately 70 women relax, deepen, share, create, empower, dance, release, heal, cry, laugh, hug and generally have a wonderful 2 ½ days away on retreat in the Mary Valley.
The Joining is fast approaching this year and promises to be an expansive, deep and nourishing time. The theme is ‘Weaving the Invisible Threads of Community’. Men and Women come together to connect, explore, heal, communicate, challenge themselves, have fun, dive deeply and grow. The next gathering is from 22nd to 25th September.
Woodford Folk festival attracts 120,000 visitors over a six day period from 27th December to 1st January each year. For three years running Robin has coordinated and enjoyed immensely participating in creating ‘The Sacred Union Labyrinth’ as an art instillation and community ceremony space.
The Sacred Union Labyrinth
It takes weeks of gathering materials, a full week to construct and one and a half days to return to nature at the end. Much maintenance is required to keep the space fresh and beautiful throughout the festival for literally thousands of people to walk. Four sacred ceremonies are held, where participants walk the Labyrinth to live music. The ceremonies are facilitated by Robin, Mark Healy, Christine Clegg, Stephane Cazard and Rob Clark.
Robin Clayfield and Rob Clark walking The Sacred Union Labyrinth
Robin is deeply honoured to share her design with the world in this expansive and supported way and acknowledges Mark for his spark of inspiration, Rob for his co-dreaming of the project and stunning sign and visual art and Christine and Stephane for bringing their creativity and flair and being such a big part of the innovative team of 15 people that crafts such beauty and sanctuary.
The journey promises to continue into future festivals and you can follow the documentation of the journey on the dedicated FaceBook page for The Sacred Union labyrinth. Click here to like the page
Making the Labyrinth Paths in the First Ceremony
The Labyrinth’s lead musician Andy Copeman has recently written an instrumental piece called ‘Labyrinth’ inspired by the Woodford ceremonies. He has produced a stunning video track, accompanied by footage his partner Laurel Heffron took in Ceremony in the Labyrinth at last year’s festival. Click here to view and listen
Robin spent a full 5 weeks in August and September 2015 on an amazingly full and fruitful adventure to UK and Spain, presenting courses in three countries, attending the International Permaculture Conference and Convergence, offering workshops there and also on the core facilitation team for an exciting global Permaculture initiative called Permaculture’s Next Big Step. She came home exhausted yet deeply satisfied at the response to her work and managed to cover the costs of her trip and sell lots of books, manuals and training resources that went home to dozens of different countries. One outcome is invitations to offer her ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ Creative Facilitation and Teacher Training course in something like 7 European countries and the UK again in the middle months of 2017.
One of our hosts in Mallorca with the Paella he made for our lunch
Her trip began in the Mediterranean, on the Spanish island of Mallorca where she was hosted by PermaMed to run a one day Creative Facilitation workshop. RuMi had made the invitation three years previously so it was a joyous day to finally connect these two dynamic women.
Next stop was the Sustainability Centre in Hampshire, England to offer ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ as a five day training for dedicated Permaculture people, with Looby Macnamara, author of ‘People and Permaculture’ as her special guest facilitator.
The Beautiful ‘Hub’ Community Building at Lammas
A quick trip to Wales saw Robin spend less than two fabulous and very interesting days at Lamas Community, the first legal Eco-village in UK. Robin was there to support her friend Robin McCurdy from NZ present an Earth Nature Spirit Workshop. While there resident and natural house builder Jasmin Dale and Robin celebrated their reconnection after 15 years since Jasmine did her PDC with Robin in Australia.
The Amazing Facilitation Team at the Social Permaculture Course in UK
Back at the Sustainability Center Robin linked up with Starhawk (US), Looby (UK), Robina (NZ) and Peter Cow (UK) to facilitate a five day Social Permaculture course, joined by 40 participants and several staff from the center. Wow! This certainly was a full, rich and powerful time.
The IPC UK (International Permaculture Convergence) attracted people from approximately 60 to 70 countries who spent two days in central London at the Conference and five days in Essex for the Convergence. Highlights for Robin were catching up with many old and new friends, launching her new ‘Permaculture Principles Card Game’ to a very appreciative audience and facilitating with StarHawk, Jennifer English, Andy Goldring and others as the core facilitation team to support Permaculture to be more able to strategically respond to global issues and challenges.
Permaculture’s Next Big Step Initiative with Robin on the Facilitation in UKMany of the Australians at IPC UK
Called Permaculture’s Next Big Step Initiative, Robin greatly enjoyed the culmination of 15 months Skype meetings across several countries in the lead-up and finally being able to weave in many other keen Permaculture practitioners in the five afternoon sessions on topical themes and interests.
Robin’s trip ended with two relaxing, informative and beautifully hosted days with Jo Barker in Canterbury, recouping and visiting and eating from forest gardens she’d designed and implemented.
127 Ingredients for the ‘Mandala Salad’
Jo did an ‘Advanced Permaculture Creative Teachers Facilitation course with Robin and Skye 17 years previously when they were in UK training teachers so this was a great way to reconnect and complete such and awesome journey so many years later. Jo’s speciality is following up with her clients and together picking as many edible salad ingredients as possible to share a meal together. Her previous record was 80 something and on this occasion all records were broken and a massive 127 ingredients were picked from the back yard Forest Garden visited. As you can see from the photo there were many edible flowers and from all accounts the lunch was absolutely delicious.
Robin’s annual and much appreciated creative teachers, facilitators and group leaders six day residential intensive course will be held from 19th to 24th May and will be a little warmer than the mid-winter course last year. The fire will still be going when needed and …
Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning Dynamic Courses, Books, Resources and Tours for Healthy Groups, People and Culture with Robin Clayfield
As well as the 60 Creative Processes in the card set, the chapter will highlight many other processes, some that act as ‘Glue Processes’, serving the function of supporting the group to work well together, meet and greet and make the most of the material and the time spent together. Ice-Breakers, Name Games, Grouping Processes, Revision Processes and Check-In’s are a few examples. 
