Inner Landscapes: Designing Your Life with Permaculture Ethics

Long before I designed garden beds or mapped zones on our property, I began designing something deeper: my inner landscape.

Permaculture is so often seen as external to us— the sun, wind, water, food forests, swales. But its most powerful application I believe is the way it teaches us to live. To make decisions each day. To care for ourselves, others, & Mother Earth. To be a human being not a human doing.

This article will touch on how the three permaculture ethics, Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share can guide not just our gardens, but our lives.

Earth Care: Your Nervous System is an Ecosystem

We are not separate from nature, we are nature. Our bodies responds to seasons, cycles, and soil, and just like ecosystems our nervous systems need balance. We thrive with rhythm, diversity & rest (lots of rest). For me, Earth Care means slowing down to the speed of seasons, eating what we grow or buying locally and in season, walking in nature to admire her beauty and imperfections rather then to exercise, and composting both food scraps and old patterns that no longer serve me.

Ask yourself: What do I need to prune in my life? Where do I need to water?

People Care: Starting With You

So many of us especially as mothers, health practitioners, and nurturers have been conditioned to pour endlessly into others. People Care reminds us: You are a person too. Your needs matter. Rest is productive & regenerative. Nourishing yourself is a non-negiotable. Your health and well-being is foundational. And our community isn't just a bonus, it’s our trellis that holds us up when times are tough.

Ask yourself: Where am I supported? Where am I stretched too thin?

Fair Share: Rebalancing, Redistributing, Reimagining

In nature, excess becomes resource, everything cycles back to into life, there is no waste, just food for another. Permaculture teaches us to create systems where there is no waste, there is no greed, there is no burnout. Fair Share in my daily life means creating strong boundaries around my energy, time, and attention. It means saying no as an act of sustainability, sharing generously from my overflow not from an empty cup, and reminding myself we’re all in this together.

Ask yourself: What am I giving too much of? What could I offer joyfully?

Designing a Life You Don't Need to Escape

Permaculture isn’t a checklist or about perfection, permaculture is a compass to align us to our values, our rhythms and our desires. Designing our lives using permaculture means listening to our bodies natural cycles, letting go of over-scheduling and creating more spaciousness, honouring slow progress over the hustle culture, and embracing the beauty and the imperfections of life as we do in nature.

Life is an ecosystem- Tend to it with attention, design it with care, and let it be wild x