Nature as Metaphor: A Permaculture-Inspired Journey to Grow Your Writing and Your Life
10 weeks: April 22nd to Online.
Harness the wisdom of nature to nurture your stories and your life.
Nature’s patterns hold deep wisdom—not just for growing food and sustaining ecosystems, but for the way we live, create, and evolve.
Permaculture is more than a system for sustainable design; it is a way of thinking, a lens through which we can understand the rhythms of creativity, growth, and transformation. Each principle reveals insights into nature and the cycles operating in our own lives.
This class will use the Ten Principles of Permaculture as metaphors for exploring how creative growth and the creative process work in our lives. Through guided prompts, participants will explore storytelling, poetry, and personal essays inspired by natural cycles and sustainability. You’ll overcome obstacles and cultivate your creativity in a way that feels rich, resilient, and regenerative— just like the natural world.
What You’ll Gain:
A deeper understanding of your individual growth and your creative process
Tools to cultivate meaningful, evocative writings and a meaningful life
Inspiration to let your writing flow
A creative practice that nurtures resilience, clarity, and connection
A supportive community where you can share your voice and reflect with others
Why This Class? Why Now?
As permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison wrote: “Work with nature, not against it.” This principle applies not just to ecosystems, but to how we approach creativity, growth, and change.
We already have the knowledge to live more sustainably, but the challenge is making it a way of life. The same is true for creativity. What if we approached writing the way nature approaches growth—organically, sustainably, and in harmony with natural cycles?
This class will help you generate writing with ease. Through a curated selection of readings paired with evocative writing prompts, you will gain inspiration and a deeper connection to yourself, your creativity and your surroundings that can keep you grounded even during challenging times.
For writers and non-writers alike—anyone curious to explore, reflect, and grow.
For anyone who loves the natural world, storytelling, and deep reflection.
For anyone curious about using metaphors from nature as tools for inspiration and insight.
No gardening experience is needed. I’m not a gardener! I call myself a garden appreciator.
No permaculture knowledge is needed. Just bring a curiosity for learning how nature’s wisdom works in our lives.
Explore the ideas behind permaculture as a metaphor for cultivating a sustainable and creative life.
Class Structure
Duration: 10 weeks (Starting Earth Day—Tuesday, April 22)
Time: 1-hour weekly live Zoom sessions (recordings available)
Format: Readings, reflection, writing, discussion.
Readings will be posted weekly— you can read them before class or whenever you wish.
Recordings will be posted within 24 hours.
Price: Special Offer (because the world is upside down and everybody needs something uplifting now.)
60% off my regular rates! $350 for 10 weeks if you register and pay in full before April 1st.
For just $35 a week, you’ll have access to all the live sessions, resources, recordings, and an amazing supportive community. Sign up now and let your writing take root!
Sample Outline
Below is a sample of our outline for the first three classes, followed by a list of the other 7 principles and correlating writing practices. You will be sent a full outline and resource list with recommended reading after you register. All readings are optional. You can still benefit from each class session without having done the readings.
Class One
Tuesday April 22, 2025
6:30 to 7:30 ET
Permaculture Principle 1: Observe and Interact
Writer’s Practice: The Art of Paying Attention
Deep listening and observation reveal patterns, cycles, and truths that might otherwise go unnoticed. Like a permaculture designer observing a landscape, writers must notice the world around them.
Good writing starts with deep observation. Learn to recognize the subtle influences internally and externally that are shaping your creative process.
Using writings from Leslie Marmon Silko and Mary Oliver, this class will offer writing prompts that will inspire you to see through new eyes and deepen your awareness of the world around you.
Class Two
Permaculture Principle 2: Catch and Store Energy
Writer’s Practice: Gathering Inspiration
Nature captures abundance—leaves store sunlight, rivers gather rainfall, trees hoard nutrients for winter. This is about the practice of gathering inspiration before it fades.
Creativity is like the natural world—ideas come in bursts, and if we don’t catch them, they may be lost.
Using writings from Rachel Carson, Robert McFarlane and Sigurd Olsen, this class will offer writing prompts that inspire you to capture fleeting moments and take action when we sense a stirring inside.
Class Three
Permaculture Principle 3: Obtain a Yield
Writer’s Practice: Harvesting our Work
In nature, nothing grows indefinitely without bearing fruit. If a tree produces no seeds, a river never feeds a field, or a bee gathers pollen without returning to the hive, the system collapses. Every natural system produces something—a harvest, a habitat, a renewal of the land.
Our writing also needs to offer something. What is the yield of your creative work? Perhaps it is a story or poem, or it is joy, clarity, connection, and the act of making something that feels true.
Using writings from Terry Tempest Williams, Lauret Savoy and Toni Morrison, this class will offer writing prompts that inspire you to explore how whatever might come from your writing.
Class Four:
Permaculture Principle Four: Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback
Writer’s Practice: The Art of Pruning
Class Five:
Permaculture Principle Five: Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services
Writer’s Practice: Honor What Replenishes You
Class Six:
Permaculture Principle Six: Produce No Waste
Writer’s Practice: Transforming Writer’s Block
Class Seven:
Permaculture Principle Seven: Design from Patterns to Details
Writer’s Practice: Finding Structure in Chaos
Class Eight:
Permaculture Principle Eight: Integrate Rather Than Segregate
Writer’s Principle: The Power of Connection
Class Nine:
Permaculture Principle Nine: Use Small and Slow Solutions
Writer’s Principal: Trust the Process
Class Ten:
Permaculture Principle Ten: Use and Value Diversity
Writer’s Practice: Embrace Different Perspectives
BONUS CLASS:
Principle Eleven: Use Edges and Value the Marginal
Principle Twelve: Creatively Use and Respond to Change
Final Reflection: Cultivating a Creative Life (Date and time TBD)