Permaculture: One way to help mother earth heal herself

Into the heart of mother nature

After dedicating all her time to raising her daughter, it was time for Corinne to focus more on pursuing her professional dream.

Mother earth

Her passion lies in permaculture, a design system that mimics the patterns in nature to create diverse and balanced productive ecosystems. She was a biology teacher with a love for the environment and everything related to plants and ecology that started in Horsh Ehden. When her daughter started school, Corinne worked on environmental projects with Jibal ,a non-profit on environmental projects.

Training farmers with Jibal at Buzuruna Juzuruna farm in Bekaa

Agriculture can damage the environment, and permaculture flips the situation.

Industrial agriculture and permaculture

She only left her daughter after four years of raising her 24/7 to attend a two-week training in Jordan with Geoff Lawton, a renowned permaculture consultant.

Receiving the PDC permaculture Design Certificate from Geoff Lawton

Before permaculture, she felt that we humans are harming nature and our future is dark.

“Which is one of the reasons I didn’t want children at all to begin with. It’s because I felt that what is this world we are bringing them into? They’re coming to witness the apocalypse.”

Her experience in this course was more of a conversion than a training. Her pessimism on how we are treating Mother Earth changed when she started working in permaculture. The beauty of it all is that there’s no secret. Our ancestors practiced gentleness with the Earth. They were not passive or neutral toward the environment. They were not afraid of working with nature. She believes that we can become part of the solution. We can capture carbon, increase biodiversity, produce food, and provide people with food safety. We can do all this by simply adopting simple, proven design strategies. It’s beautiful and inspiring.

“I feel that we can reverse the damage.”

Planting at sunflower

But we need science, technology, and traditional methods to do precisely that. There’s a lot to learn from native people all over the globe, from how they designed and placed their homes to how they managed fire. All of us are paying the price for dismissing the information that has been tested for thousands of years because it’s ancient. Going back and scientifically understanding and embracing what they did is beautiful and magical.

Teaching about vermicompost

This approach creates a mother Earth and lets nature do what it does best. Let us work with her, allowing her to repair herself. We humans will ultimately gain. Corinne advocates our gardening and planting whenever and wherever we get a chance. This activity brings us back to our humanity, allows us to share, spend more time with nature, become more communal, get our hands muddy, and contribute to our food safety.

“Being in a community is what we used to have that we lost touch with. We are becoming isolated individuals behind our screens. Permaculture combines so many good things. It makes sense to me.”

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Wild, motherly, and fierce

She grew up as a typical middle child with extended rebellious teenage years. She came to terms with her wild side and her identity as a woman when she hit her thirties.

“I don’t know how to describe it, but when I was younger, I always thought I had masculine traits. How I sat, how I spoke, and the things I liked. I used to feel like they were masculine traits.”

For example, as a young woman, her drive and internal fire to be free felt masculine. She now understands that feeling strong, angry, and passionate about things and her inner fire to have her freedom as a priority is actually very feminine.

The fact that a woman is very intense and in touch with her emotions is powerful. Along with reason, emotions are a compass that you should listen to. She is tender, gentle, nurturing, and caring. At the same time, she is fierce in defending her children and what she believes in.

“There’s this power and how you protect your child’s freedom, independence, growth, and individuality. I like it.”

She was learning from her older sister

Watching her older sister, Corinne learned a lot. She realizes how fast her sister learned about life and sees the wisdom she’s acquired in life. She became more open, accepting, and less judgmental before Corinne did.

“I used to have clear definitions of right and wrong, irrespective of emotions, feelings, situations, and the environment. I was strict about it.”

Then you grow up and learn that life is mostly grey. You cannot be judgmental because we are a product of where we are born, how we are raised, what we have been subjected to, and how people look and talk to us.

Lebanon’s recent crisis

In addition to her work with Jibal.org, Corinne works on permaculture design projects with people she finds inspiring. She is part of an international permaculture design group called The Kaki Crew. She’s recently connected to like-minded people in Lebanon to create a Regenerative Network — a community of organizations, specialists, and activists in regenerative agriculture collaborating to address Lebanon's ecological and livelihood emergency. One of her goals is to create awareness and offer support to change how food is grown and how to protect the environment in Lebanon.

I guess all tattoos are unique.

Check out her LinkedIn

Corinne’s favorite Starbucks drink: Tall Americano with an occasional butterscotch cookie.

Working from Starbucks