Earth Mama Permaculture
be fluent in flowers, forests, fun, and family
April 2nd, 2013 to June 18, 2013
Tuesday mornings 9:30-12:30am
blending a full Permaculture Certification course, in two 12 week sessions (spring / fall)
Permaculture for mothers * integrated child care provided

Permaculture is a complete design system, based on principles of ecology and regeneration. It brings the necessary inspiration to create resilient and productive landscapes, homes and communities. These are visionary and practical solutions for personal and social change. This course gives primary attention to group work, discussions, nature observation, guided walks, hand-on projects, mentoring, individual reflective work, and design exercises as learning methods. You will find yourself immersed in an ecosystem for human collaboration - based on natural principles and practices built upon regenerative living systems and culture repair.
Personal Investment $480 for 12 wks ($40/3 hr. Class)
For more info and to Register contact: Natalie Krueger at greenvoices@gmail.com
Course Topics Include:

Permaculture Foundations
Permaculture Principles and Ethics
Earth Care, People care, Fair Share, Return the Surplus
Structures, Patterns and Strategies for mutually beneficial relation
Culture repair and cultivating our ecological identity

Land and Nature Stewardship
Forest Gardening for Four Seasons
Food ,Fodder, Farmacy, Forage, Fuel and Family for the Future
Urban and Rural Snack Trails; honing your wildcrafting skills
Bioremediation, soil-building, sheet-mulching, hugelkultur, worm composting
Regenerative design methodologies
Reading the landscape & understanding elemental flows.

Nutritional and Herbal Health and Wholistic Lifestyles
Wild Edibles and dietary inclusion
Food Harvest and Storage, Wild Fermentation, Season Extension
Cultivating Rhythms with Gaia and making our body a pleasurable place to be
Earth Wisdom, deep listening with the plants as our guides
Cultivating ceremony and ritual within our lives and families

Appropriate Technology
We are Nature Working, the wonder of bio-mimecry
Systems Approach to Water and Energy Cycles (greywater, solar, etc.)
Art, Agriculture, and Elemental Design


Education and Culture
Weaving the Whole, storytelling and practical thrival skills
Attributes of connection and personal/mutual empowerment
Sensory Awareness and vision
Creating a culture of respect and gratitude

Building Design
Call of the Wild and the Power of Place
Building and designing your niche...a homestead and livelihood in alignment
Bio-tecture (cob, straw, re-cycling, mud mash, no waste and trash...)
Reading the Landscape and re-inhabiting your bioregion


Nature's Economics
Right Livelihood from global to local
Ethical business, paying it forward, trading systems, alternative currencies
Applying self regulation and accepting feedback

Community Resilience
Observation Skills and Celebrating Life and Creativity
Mentoring Models and Circle Teachings a forest model of regeneration
Inner Landscapes engaging our Ecological Identity
Ecosystem Dynamics and Embracing Diversity
Land arts and community activism.


...and so much more with the elements as our guide

The course meets all requirements for certification, upon completion of both 12 week sessions. Participants who attend all sessions of this class and complete the final design project will receive a Certificate of Permaculture Design. The optional fall session will begin in late August, dates to be announced. We will be increasing hands on activities, and focus on design elements to deepen your understanding and practice of permaculture.
Location: Home of the Guelph Outdoor School and a tiny homestead on the SE side of Guelph. We inhabit a yurt and a small cabin with an outdoor kitchen and gathering space. We are off the grid with no running water except for the lovely running eramosa river, steps from our home. There is a grand cedar forest and lots of meadow space for wide open sky viewing as well. We also have a variety of evolving permaculture based gardens . Kids play here! Which means there is a sandbox, climbing wall, gardens and lots of fun things to explore. You and your child will be naturally engaged.
*Further details will be passed along once registered for the course

**Child care will be provided. The class will primarily be held outside with the elemental teachers, as well as some time indoors around fire if need be. Children will have a caregiver and their own “permie” activities. They will also be invited into certain activities to participate with their mamas. This is about building a safe and supportive space to learn and expand while meeting the needs of the little ones.

About the Facilitator:
Natalie Krueger is a Certified Permaculture Designer /Educator, community organizer, earth steward, wholistic herbalist healer, wild plant forager and activist. She is guided by ongoing exploration within the nature of indigenous traditions and awareness of regenerative practices. Natalie lives, breathes, and eats permaculture principles in her off grid cob cabin in the woods that she built within a recycled pallet frame. Integrating and pursuing sacred relationships, she is dedicated to re-valuing her environment and creating new regenerative patterns for her lifestyle and those around her. From a young age Natalie developed a strong awareness in the elements. Her prime teachers in life have been the plant kin-dom, leading her to explore and deeply listen to patterns in many collaboratory structures as she embarks upon her earth pilgrimage. Much like the oak tree, Natalie is a generalist rather than a specialist and looks to see the larger ecological vision, along with engaging the re-connecting questions that will lead us to a thriving future.
While gathering and assimilating elemental rhythms in various parts of the world including Spain, Brazil, Costa Rica, India, and the USA, she has also built plenty of practical experience in Southern Ontario with edible landscaping, herbal medicines, wild edibles, perennial polyculture, market gardens, IPM, water harvesting, cold climate greenhouses, vermiculture, composting, shitake mushrooms, urban agriculture, natural building design, sustainable nutrition preparation, emotional topography, transition towns, community gardens, the work that reconnects, group facilitation, the art of play and honouring the land.