I am Wesley Alonzo, I am 19 years old and just started to venture into the world of Permaculture, and have chosen this as my first form of "Formal" Education outside of High School. In the past 2 years, since High School, I have been taking some time off trying to discover where I fit in to this mess of culture that has been evolving for the past few hundred generations. I started getting incredibly frustrated with the immensely inefficient systems that we have in place within our culture, which really sparked within myself around November of 2011.

During this time, I have been having many revelations and many ideas for opportunities to pursue in order to begin helping to create the change that I want to see in the world, and Permaculture pulled me in with little persuasion. The fact the philosophies apply directly to many of my own is enough to begin to immerse myself in this practice. To slow down and begin to truly observe an environment in order to make the most efficient model for design only makes sense to me, compared to our widely accepted current practice, where we rush into every design and consumer product without truly observing how it's environment might effect it, or testing product systems for longevity.

I was first introduced to Permaculture at a community space in Fort Collins called Hammer Time, about a year ago. It all was quite intriguing but I did not consider it the be a part of my near future. Even after this Free School Event, I was unaware that I would in just 9 months be part of a 7-Month Permaculture intensive course. I have been reintroduced to Permaculture since this Free School class through conversation with local environmentalists and activists around town, as well as many who have lived on a close by community called Sunrise Ranch. After a few months of feeling unfulfilled with my drone life of working in the corporate world of Whole Foods, I decided it was time for a change, a change that would help shape the vision I see for the future of our culture and animal cultures alike. I signed up for a PDC/7 - Month Work Trade at Sunrise ranch to begin my study of Permaculture.

I am currently taking my First PDC here at Sunrise, and will shortly be practicing Permaculture with Patrick Padden. I intend on making this a large part of my future focus, hopefully taking up many more Permaculture course opportunities and applying Permaculture to use within urban designs.