A view of Maya's neighborhood in San Francisco, 2047 - Image by Jessica Perlstein

Hello and welcome everybody!  My name is Maya Greenwood, and I’ve been cajoled into being your tour guide for this special visit to Yerba Buena/San Francisco 2047.  Why me, you might ask?  Well, for one thing I’ve adored this city since my first glimpse of it in the Summer of Love, eighty years ago.  I was seventeen then—which will tell you my age, now!—enchanted by the fog concealing and revealing mysteries like the veils of an exotic dancer, delighted by the crowded streets where people seemed to be perpetually in costume: Gypsies, pirates, sorceresses skipping down the streets to the strains of the Beatles singing “Love, love, love…”

But I digress.  It’s a hazard of age.  What I want to introduce you to is the city of now, 2047, nineteen years after the uprising when we threw the bastards out.  Who were those bastards?  You know—we could call them the Mean-Spirited Party, but they called themselves the Stewards in a masterful coup of verbal greenwashing.  They claimed to be Stewards of True American Values but somehow democracy and any semblance of social responsibility went out when they came in.  And when they cancelled the elections in 2028, we rebelled, they sent in the tanks and the guns….and surprise!  We drove them out with mass popular resistance and some in-your-face gardening.

San Francisco Waterfront 2047 - Image by Mona Caron

So please, step carefully out of the boat and onto the embankment steps. If any of you use a wheelchair, you’ll note the meandering ramp to your right.  This embankment is itself a relic of the uprising.  In the face of the greatest military might on the planet, we marched out into the streets to plant a garden, with our pickaxes and a jackhammer or two concealed under the skirts of a few giant Goddess of Liberty puppets.  You’ve probably heard the story.  And after we threw the bums out, we carried on with our deconstruction projects.  The Stewards’ tactics were to isolate us, cut off supplies of food and vital materials, so we knew we were going to have to grow our own.  Luckily, we’d had a vibrant local food movement since the early part of the 21^st Century, and we’re in Northern California with a year-round growing season.  So we decided to turn our streets into gardens.  We liberated the buried streams and let them flow through the city, and planted fruit trees and food forests.

What, you may ask, did we do with the asphalt?  You’re walking on it.  We piled it up into these embankments, which also serve as levees to hold back the rising waters which continue to climb as the ice caps continue to melt.    Pisses me off—if you’ll excuse my language—no, wait, we are being challenged by our younger folks here in the city to stop using references to body parts and natural human functions as swear words.  And I’m supposed to be setting a good example for you all.  Ticks me off—nobody likes ticks, creatures of the Goddess though they might be and I’m sure they serve some vital ecological function—what was I saying?  I’m really frackin’ furious that we could have done something about the Great Meltdown forty years ago and we sat around diddling our willies and arguing with idiots instead!  So there!  At any rate, here we are with the waters steadily climbing, up to the twenty-foot level now and taking bites out of the city, which is why you are docking here at the foot of Yerba Buena Park.  Luckily the bay left us the Modern Art Museum and the carousel even as it took back the jail and the unlamented Hall of Justice where I spent many a night after many a demonstration back in the last century.

Step right up, carefully.  It’s hard to see the remnants of asphalt any more, as they’ve beautifully decomposed thanks to our special brews of beneficial microorganisms and our layers of mushroom mycelium that break down hydrocarbons.  Oh, did I mention our undersea banks that serve as artificial reefs, habitat for the returning life of the bay?

Street sculpture in downtown San Francisco

Now, we’ll be walking on this tour—it’s the only way to see the city, really, since we redesigned it for pedestrians.  Besides, it keeps us healthy and limber as well as providing infinite pleasure.  But if it’s a strain, we can offer you one of the electric scooters you’ll note parked on the side there.  Place your belongings into the electric cart on your right and they will be delivered to you at the guest-house where you’ll be staying.  And don’t worry about the energy draw.  We have abundant energy, from a number of sources which I’ll point out to you along the way.  For example—those beautiful sunflower sculptures which line the walkway?  Solar thermal!  Those graceful, colorful spinning pinwheels?  Wind generators.  Note the waving, frond-like spires that line the ridges of so many rooftops—they’re another form of wind generator that translates motion into power.  And what you don’t see is our wave generator frond banks in the bay itself, designed so that they foster sea-life while producing power from the tides and currents.

Yes, it ticks me off that we destroyed so much of our beautiful earth in our addiction to coal and oil and fossil fuel energy—when sources of energy are so incredibly abundant around us!  But I have promised not to rant and rave at you…so let’s walk along.

Now, on our right you can see Yerba Buena park, a relic of old San Francisco.  Built in the late 20^th century, you can tell by the style of architecture that it’s a good example of its day.  We haven’t changed it much—we’re not statue-bashers, destroying the old.  All we’ve done is replace areas of concrete with porous pavement.  And the green on that tall building—it’s a series of clever, interlocking pocketed tiles that allow us to grow natives and vines on the vertical space.  I’m sure you’ve noticed the birds everywhere, and all the wonderful butterflies.  We’ve restored a phenomenal amount of native habitat, just by using those spaces which are not really suited for growing or harvesting edibles.  Falcons love the skyscrapers—we’ve got an ever-growing population of hawks, ravens and owls—even a pair of nesting golden eagles.  They keep the pigeons in check!

And those relics of skyscrapers marooned in the bay?  Seabird havens—and we harvest the guano for fertilizer!

Downtown SF, 2047 - Image by Jessica Perlstein

But if you look to your left, you’ll see the new city.  Of course, the murals and sculptures are part of a long tradition here—back in the 1970s, with the upsurge of the Chicano movement, groups of artists inspired by the Mexican muralists began transforming the urban landscape.  Mosaics caught on, later, and then in the early part of the 21^st century, we reaped a lot of—what would be the opposite of collateral damage?  Collateral benefits?—from the festival culture that grew up among young artists.  People created amazing sculptures, art cars, installations for Burning Man out in the desert and other festivals—and sometimes they ended up as permanent gifts to the city.

But there—where all those children are swarming–what you see will tell you something about us now.  You see, this city is based on respect for what we call the Four Sacred Things—air, fire, water and earth.  You’ll see them honored in sculptures and murals all over, but we have four special installations, and this is the one for water.  It’s a living, changing sculpture, constantly being played with, rearranged and reinvented by children.  They can construct new water pumps out of those modular parts lying around and create their own fountains.  They can set off jets or put together flow-forms to create swirls and eddies.  And what you don’t see is that this sculpture is also purifying the water.  It’s the last stage in the graywater treatment for all these buildings.  Oh, don’t worry—it’s quite safe by the time the children contact it.  It’s gone through that little wetland, there, with all the cattails and that collection of Japanese irises.  All of their water-play aerates it and provides the finishing touch.

And there—where the kids are bouncing on those huge mats?  They’re learning our own unique martial art—we call it ‘pacha-jitzu’.  It’s based on disarming and binding the enemy, not killing.  But the bouncy-mats, and that bouncy-castle over there for the toddlers, they are also air compressors.  Every bounce compresses a bit more air.  We run some of our heavy machinery—when we need it—off compressed air, and it works almost like an old-fashioned battery to store energy as a backup for our sun and wind power.

Bicycle pathway, SF 2047 - Image by Jessica Perlstein

But come along, come along.  The walkway leads to Market Street, our major corridor.  Note, again, the porous pavement and the low-growing natives planted in the cracks.  We have several different kinds of ‘streets’ or pathways through the city.  Walkways are like this—porous ‘stepping stones’ surrounded by tough, native plants that allow water to penetrate but still make it easy to run a scooter or a wheelchair or push a baby carriage.  Alongside—where you see all those bicycles cruising, is an area of hardscape—still porous, but smoother, designed for bikes and skateboards and the like.  Emergency vehicles can run on either surface, and they’ve been scaled down to fit through our more narrow pathways.

And this broad avenue is Market Street, our major thoroughfare.  Many’s the time I’ve marched down in back in the 20^th Century, protesting this or that.  Even blocking traffic, although traffic generally did a good job of blocking itself.  The transformation of Market Street began back in the ‘teens when an enlightened city government made it into a pedestrian avenue.  They were thinking along the lines of some of the pedestrian areas in European cities.  Busses still could go through, and emergency vehicles.  In fact, we still run busses—note the pirate ship cruising along.  And the giant birthday cake going the other way.  The art cars of Burning Man gave us the idea—why shouldn’t transport be fun?  After all, tourists used to come here from all over the world to ride our cable cars—still functioning, I might add!

Public art and cable car along the Market Street corridor

Back in the ‘teens, this area was blighted, full of porno theaters and pawn shops.  But the city decided to ban the cars and make it a green corridor—and when they did, it came alive.  It’s still lined with sidewalk cafes and you should see it at night—you will see it!  All lit up, and music playing in dozen different venues, and people dancing in the street.  And while we’re heavily into edible landscapes, as you’ll see throughout the city, we decided to make Market Street the corridor of flowers.  There ought to be some place in every city that’s just for fun and sheer beauty.  So, note the islands of flower-gardens—and the trees that line the avenue, well, they do give fruit but in the spring when they burst into bloom, I tell you, it makes you almost cry.  And those little benches under the arbors of roses—makes me want to fall in love all over again.  But in case you do, and get a bit carried away, here’s the Monument to Heroic ChildCare Workers to remind you of what results!

You see, when we sat down after the Uprising to redesign the city, we started asking some key questions.  We were reacting against a militarist invader trying to impose upon us restrictions and controls.  We’ve always been a bawdy, rowdy, pleasure-oriented city from the days of the Forty-Niners—the gold rush, not the football team—and with the yoke of the Puritan ethic thrown off, we could contemplate a city based on the pleasure principle.

What would the city look like if we believed pleasure was a good thing?

Rooftop view of SF 2047 - Image by Jessica Perlstein

How might a city’s design further opportunities for people to meet and fall in love?  How could we make a city safe for children to roam freely, to explore and play and create?  How could the city’s physical design deter violence and crime and further connection and cooperation?

I’m sure you’re all hungry and thirsty, so we’ll pause for refreshments.  Just grab a table here and come on inside to help yourselves from the buffet.

Starhawk, Paradox, and Mouse enjoy a sun-soaked day atop San Francisco's Bernal Hill

I know that if you’re reading this in the Midwest or the Northeast, you may be slogging through snowbanks and shivering in the cold, but here in Califia, it’s spring.  The trees are blossoming, and the bulbs pushing up through the earth.  And with the energy of the new year and the new season, we’re preparing a big push forward for The Fifth Sacred Thing movie.

I know we’ve been quiet these last couple of months, but a lot was happening underground.  We’ve been busy fulfilling all those Kickstarter awards we promised our donors—thank you!  And we’ve put the money we received to work, preparing all the elements of our investment pitch to bring in the financing we’ll need for the next stage.

Now, we’re on the verge.  We’ve got new art, new music, a screenplay and a line item budget for what it will cost to produce it.  We’ve also got fluttery, squirrely feelings in the midriff as we contemplate the next step.

All this last week, we’ve been meeting, meeting, meeting!  Weaving threads together…writing, writing, writing…some great and inspiring meetings.  We met with Ohlone Profiles who are bringing back the ceremonies of the First People of this land. Louis Fox of Free Range Media (and also, I’m proud to say, a graduate of Earth Activist Training) will help us make some new, short video teasers in the next few months.  Jay Rosenberg, who started Hayes Valley Farm in San Francisco on an abandoned freeway offramp, will direct the first of our green projects which we’re hoping to get underway in the next weeks.  Jen Zariat is continuing to guide our social media.  And lots, lots more…

Paradox and I heard anarchist anthropologist David Graeber’s lecture on his new book, Debt: The First 5000 Years.  Over dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant (Suriya Thai on Howard, in case you’re wondering) we got to hear his thoughts on what a truly relational, regenerative economy might look like.  The next night, we heard game designer Jan McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken, talk about games with social impact.  We also got to play massively multi-player thumb wrestling!

Now, all the pieces are pretty much together and gone off to the person who can make them look pretty.  Here’s where we find out – can it really happen?  Can we make a big, feature film out of The Fifth Sacred Thing?  Can we do it in a way that stays true to the values of the book?

You can help – in a really easy, simple way.  We know how many people want to see this movie made.  Help us make that visible – by going to our Facebook page and clicking Like, and asking your friends to do the same.  You might also want to Like the page for the book itself, and Starhawk’s personal page.

And with the new energy of spring, expect this space to come alive with lots of exciting new material!

We’re so thankful to all of you who have helped support us to get this far!

The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups

Now I want to give you all back something—and conveniently enough, I have a little thing to give.  As you know, besides writing movies and Kickstarter updates, I also write books.  And I’ve recently written a new one which will be out this fall from New Society Publishers.  It’s called The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups, and while it may not have the sex and drama of The Fifth Sacred Thing, I wrote it because I felt we really, really need it.  Why haven’t we already transformed the world into the haven of beauty, compassion and creativity that it could be?  Well, partly because of powerful forces ranged against us, but often because our own allies are so pig-headed, stubborn, irritating, short-sighted, whiny, weird and damn difficult to get along with.  Yes, I mean you—and me!  Put us into groups and sometimes we create miracles but too often we end up imploding with conflict.

But I believe we could do it better.  And when we do, we’ll be unstoppable!  Hence the book, which contains much of what I’ve learned in forty years or more of working in collaborative groups and collectives of all kinds.  In fact, there was so much I thought of to say that the book got longer and longer—nearly twice as long as it was supposed to be.  Now, you’d think that would make a publisher happy—nearly twice the words at no extra cost—but alas, it makes the book too expensive to produce.  So, we had to take out a big chunk—and we took out the section I called The Five-Fold Path of Productive Meetings.  Not because it isn’t important, but because I felt it could stand on its own as a slim little pamphlet of 60 or so pages that’s basically my short course on meeting facilitation.  And that’s what I want to give to you all—as a thank you, and because I just know that a whole lot of you are out there working and conspiring to make the world a better place and that work will go more smoothly if your meetings are even more productive than they already are.

So, this if for all of you, whether you’ve kicked in money or simply given us your moral support by Liking this page—thank you!  Here’s the link where you can download a pdf, which New Society was kind enough to design nicely and typeset.

Starhawk

http://www.starhawk.org/Five-Fold_Path.html

And yes, of course, we’d love it if all of you who Like us would become active backers before Sunday, 10:21 Pacific time when this campaign comes to a close.  Whether it’s for a little or a lot, all of it helps us bring more to the bargaining table as we prepare for the next phase.

But the gift is truly a gift.  You don’t have to pledge to get it, it’s yours!  We are deeply grateful for your interest and support for this project, and so glad that you are part of it as we go forward.

Starhawk

Bird in battle attire. Concept art by Layil Umbralux.

In the world of The Fifth Sacred Thing, the residents of San Francisco agree to resist the Steward Army with non-violent tactics.  Even among those who do agree to engage in active resistance there is a consensus that the machinery of warfare and domination may be sabotaged or destroyed, but not at the expense of taking lives.  It is a shaky consensus, especially among those most committed to liberating the city with direct action, such as Cress, the Water Guild, and even Bird.

When Starhawk and I originally spoke about the project I asked her about the aspect of facing the violent invaders, and how to create a form of engagement with the weapons and violence of the invading Stewards and their drive to exploit the resources, claim the water, and destroy the peace that San Franciscans had created through 20 years of living in harmony with nature and honoring their diversity of culture.

How do we defend against violence without becoming violent in our actions?

I began working with Ethan Minor and a group of stunt actors and martial artists to develop an earth based practice of non-lethal combat and self-defense.  We have named this practice Pacha Jitsu – which is translated as the “art or technique of Mother Earth”.

Working together we created a form of self defense which is more of a dance, uniting elements of Aikido, Parkour, and Capoeira with dance forms like tango and contact improvisation.  The student of Pacha Jitsu redirects the force used by the opponent to incapacitate and bind the attacker, rather than to wound or hurt them.

We are committed to developing and showing in the film a new way of thinking about non-violent resistance, and generating a model for how to respond when faced with an oppressive power that uses violence to stop the action of the people to effect change.

Please take a moment to enjoy these videos of the stunt team working on the development of Pacha Jitsu:

Permaculture is not one technique—rather, it’s an approach to almost any problem or project that draws on a set of ethics and principles.

Permaculture has three core ethics:  Care for the earth, care for the people, care for the future (sometimes framed as sharing the surplus and reducing consumption.)

San Francisco 2048, Concept art by Jessica Perlstein

In The Fifth Sacred Thing, we show permaculture in action in the design of the city in 2048, the systems of gardens and local food growing, the concern for harvesting, conserving and re-using water and other resources, the renewable power systems and transport systems and many other ways.  We’ve already held three permaculture visioning sessions to gather ideas from some of the most creative designers and teachers on the West Coast, and we plan to involve permaculture designers in creating sets and gardens for the production.

We are also using permaculture principles to help us make the film.  For example, perhaps the overriding principle in permaculture is that abundance springs from relationships.  True wealth is not about stuff, but about connections.  In a design, we’re not so much looking at each separate element, but about how they fit together.

Food Not Bombs! hosts a garden lunch

Starting this project, we had very little money.  Mouse, (Philip Wood) financed the beginning steps from his own paycheck.  Starhawk and Paradox deferred payment for their work.  But though poor in cash, we were rich in relationships—from Starhawk’s networks of readers, Pagans, activists and permaculturalists, through Paradox and Mouse’s connections in the film, art and music worlds.  Drawing on those relationships, and reaching out and building more and more connections to community groups, civic organizations, green businesses and creative people gives us a strong network that will allow the money to manifest, as we’ve seen already in our Kickstarter campaign!

Solar Panels atop the Black Cat house

Another permaculture principle is “Catch and store energy.”  You can do that with solar panels—I have them on my house!  But we are also harvesting the amazing creative energy of so many people who want to support this project.  You can sign up on our website and become part of our database of people who may have specific skills, art or music to offer, or just want to be on our call list for extras, when we get to that point.

One more principle—“stacking functions”—making sure that every piece of a system serves more than one function.  All of the things we are doing to build support for the project and connect people help us build our case to investors that there’s a groundswell of popular support and interest for the film.  It will help strengthen our argument for all the non-traditional ecological and social justice aspects of the production.  When the film comes out, it will have a built-in base to help launch it.  And of course, our ultimate function-stack is that the things we put in place to make the movie are actually part of building the kind of future the movie depicts.

See our companion piece: “Starhawk’s Common-Sense Permaculture Principles” to learn about more of the principles.

Hunter's Point Family Garden, San Francisco

Permaculture is also a global movement and network.  Permaculture  practitioners are involved in projects all over the world—we have more on-the-ground projects in the third world than the U.N. Vietnam adopted permaculture as its core agricultural system, and increased production over 15%.  Cuba turned to permaculture after the Soviet Union collapsed, taking with it their major oil supplies and markets, and now feeds its people with organic crops, many of which are grown in and around cities.

Permaculture is a set of tools for shifting our thinking—from separation to connection, isolation to interdependence.

To Learn More About Permaculture:

Earth Activist Training

Fiona, Brooke and Willow build a cob oven at the June 2011 Earth Activist Training

www.earthactivisttraining.org

These are the courses and programs Starhawk teaches.  A two-week residential Earth Activist Training includes the 72-hour, globally recognized permaculture design certificate course, but we also have a grounding in spirit and a focus on organizing and activism.  Our next course is in northern California, January 7-21.

Permaculture: The Growing Edge is a documentary made by Starhawk and Donna Read that is a great introduction to permaculture.  Find it at and watch the trailer at http://www.belili.org/

There are courses offered now in many, many areas—for the US and Canada, a great overall resource is Permaculture Activist Magazine, who have an online calendar:

http://www.permacultureactivist.net/

For England and globally, there’s Permaculture Magazine, which is also linked to Permanent Publications, who produce some vitally important books on permaculture.

www.permaculture.co.uk

The Permaculture Research Institute in Australia is Bill Mollison’s direct inheritors and do much global organizing as well as producing videos and publishing:

http://permaculture.org.au/

David Holmgren (permaculture’s cofounder) has a website at:

http://www.holmgren.com.au/

Penny Livingston-Stark, a cofounder of Earth Activist Training, and her partner James Stark run some of the best long-term training programs through their Regenerative Design Institute:

www.regenerativedesign.org

City Repair, which does transformative urban permaculture and natural building projects in Portland, Oregon, can be found at http://cityrepair.org/

Earth Action Mentor is a membership website providing articles, webinars, classes and mentoring online:

http://www.earthactionmentor.org/

A Few Good Books:
There are thousands—but these will get you started!

Toby Hemenway.  Gaia’s Garden.  (maybe the best overall intro!)

David Holmgren.  Permaculture Principles: Pathways Beyond Sustainability

Bill Mollison.  Introduction to Permaculture.

Bill Mollison.  Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual  (the classic text for designers!)

Starhawk.  The Earth Path. (Earth-based spirituality informed by permaculture.)

Patrick Whitefield.  The Earth Care Manual.

And finally, here are links to some short permaculture videos made by Starhawk:

Eric Ohlsen's permaculture garden

Permaculture Principles at Work:

An introduction to permaculture principles, featuring the work of Erik Ohlsen of Permaculture Artisans and Earth Activist Training.  This  version features one of Erik Ohlsen’s projects.

A longer version, featuring two amazing projects, can be found here.

Tabor Tilth:  Permaculture in the City

Connie Van Dyke’s inspirational urban garden in Portland, Oregon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YYZTw_xBBs&feature=channel

and at:

http://livingmandalas.ning.com/video/permaculture-principles-at

Hunters Point Family Garden

Inner City Permaculture:

Earth Activist Training’s project in the inner city neighborhood of Bayview Hunters Point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bdKgBt6LbE