Permaculture is a wonderful (and revolutionary) way of living a balanced, healthy and happy life. The aim of our Home-grown Happiness course is to teach Permaculture in a holistic way, applying it to our every-day lives. It’s about how to close the loops and apply the ethics and principles of permaculture to create healthy soil, plants, tummies, bodies, people, communities and earth.

In Home-grown Happiness Toni and Aranka want to take you on an exploration, a research, a treasure hunt, investigating nature’s intelligence. The whole course and all the classes are based around the principle to balance the head, the hands and the heart. We have experienced that with these in balance, an optimal learning environment is created. During the week interaction, learning by experience, giving and sharing and playfulness are extremely important. We try to minimize the situation of us standing and talking, you sitting and listening. We believe experiencing is the most effective way of learning and teaching.

Permaculture is woven through the whole course, through the teachers and we’ll do our best to pass our passion on to you. Permaculture is way of living, taking the best care for ourselves, our fellow humans and the world. Respect for everything that is nature. And guess what, you and I are nature too!

Our course follows the structure of a closed-loop-cycle with focus on: Healthy soil; healthy plants; healthy tummies; healthy people and homes; healthy community and earth… then back to the soil.

The main themes in Home-grown Happiness are:

• Permaculture ethics and principles. What is permaculture and why is it so beautiful.
• Organic home gardening. Wherever you have a big windowsill or a big garden, you’ll learn how to sow, grow and harvest. Roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty!
• Waste recycling and vermiculture. Yay! Did you know worms are the best pets ever!?

• Compost and the soil-food-web. ‘Cause there’s no such thing as waste.
• Seed saving. Possibly the most important thing on earth.
• Natural home-made skin and body care. Home grown and home made deliciousness to treat your body well. It’s very tempting to eat your deodorant after this workshop!
• Healing with wholefoods, recipes and remedies. Hippocrates already said ‘Let food be thy medicine.’ We would like to share with you our knowledge about health and food. Please share with us. Also we will cook, share recipes and remedies.
• Fermentation. It’s alive and healthy. Kefir, kombucha, wine, sourdough, kimchi and E-M!

• Community living. What is community living and why could it be something for you? Including community games, energizers and a dance-party!
• Communication from the heart. Communication from the heart is very important to be able to listen and express your needs and feelings in a compassionate way, to yourself and to others. Based on Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. From now on we can speak giraffe!
• Nature’s senses. Sometimes you see more with your eyes closed
• Intuition. A happy heart is the base of a happy life. What is intuition and why is it so important to being able to listen to your intuition?
• Happiness. Let’s put our noses a bit closer to happiness. Exploring with Positive psychology.
• Morning classes. Morning classes to start the day fresh and inspired. Focusing on your mind, body and heart supports effective learning during the day.

All workshops are an opportunity for you to discover and explore, take what you can use and search your own truth. We teach from our hearts with the aim to facilitate a inspirational environment for you to learn with your heart.

For more information and to register, see the website: http://livingnatureslife.wordpress.com/