Geomancer Permaculture

The discussion was deep and the symbolism was lush today when the Lexington IOP was visited by Nachie, urban ecologist and the founder of Geomancer Permaculture, an innovative and award-winning landscaping company that mobilizes communities to transform bleak and neglected areas into flourishing, bountiful and beautiful green spaces. When were were in active addiction, we were selfish and isolated and our worlds turned grim and gray; in recovery, we connect with others and work together to build a bright and thriving world--for both the present and the future.

The Mitchell Avenue Urban Ecology Program has gone from strength to strength, as now fully four adjoining property owners in the Clay's Mill triangle have come together to remove not only invasive brush, but the very fences that had partitioned the area into artificial enclosures anathema to the ecological destiny of the land.

By stepping into the flow of what a world built on collaboration can look like, our Mitchell Avenue neighbors are demonstrating a scalable model of land management that facilitates increasingly sophisticated discussions around what other aspects of our material environment we can be redesigning towards better outcomes.

This has been an incredibly rewarding project, and we're just getting started.

We had a great time hosting 38 of the brightest young minds in Kentucky from the Governor's Scholars Program Governor’s Scholars Program at Kilrush Food Forest in Lexington.

Hailing from communities across the Commonwealth, the rising high school seniors got a chance to see how the urban food forest model can be used to tackle neighborhood-scale challenges from flooding to food access.

These exceptionally motivated students came with insightful questions that touched on social permaculture, ecological design, and decision making in the face of climate change and pessimism.

We are so proud to help facilitate these discussions, and know that this work is inevitably having a ripple effect across the state, qualitatively raising the level of discussion when it comes to what we value in land use planning and what people believe is possible.

One of the most important "crops" we produce at Kilrush is education, so if you have a group that would be interested in seeing this living example of urban permaculture first hand, we'd love to have you out for a tour sometime.

A huge thanks to the GSP and to all of our partners, donors, and supporters who have been making this work possible.

Honored to stand alongside our visionary co-conspirators at AVOL Kentucky as they were presented with an Environmental Award by the Lexington Environmental Commission for their work transforming a detention basin in the back of their property into the new Anderson Meadow food forest.

You may be asking yourself how a project launched earlier this year could have already garnered enough attention to merit an award from the city, and the answer is precisely in the visionary nature of AVOL's stewardship.

From the outset, AVOL understood that the task of reconsecrating their landscape was not a burden to be borne, but a gift to be shared.

This spring's Ecological Design workshop series at Anderson Meadow was incredibly successful, opening the management of the space to the community and creating situations in which meaningful decisions about the future of the landscape could be taken together.

Every project is like this - an opportunity to draw wider layers of people into a practice of talking about the material situation around them and how to change it for the better.

We are so proud to be working alongside AVOL, and confident that this award will be only the first of many for them in their role as guardians of Anderson Meadow.

Our amazing partners from the Mitchell Avenue Neighborhood Organization were back out today for the second planning session of our neighborhood-scale urban ecology program.

Neighbors debriefed from the walking tour that had capped off our last meeting and discussed the neighborhood's main ecological "centers of gravity" where we see the most potential for beneficial intervention (one of the key examples being the utility easement we cleared of invasive brush last week).

We reaffirmed our commitment to the direction we are heading in and made plans to reach out to wider layers of the neighborhood in the months ahead. We'll keep up this momentum through the summer and follow up with some nice tree plantings in the fall, and who knows what else we might have up our sleeves in the meantime 👀

The Urban Forest Initiative's indomitable Tree Corps joined Geomancer at Kilrush Food Forest in Lexington yesterday, marking another chapter in a fantastic partnership that has meaningfully contributed to the development of this incredible space over the last two years.

One of the most underappreciated aspects of the community food forest model is the extent to which it concentrates so many of the most relevant topics in urban forestry - soils, hydrology, community engagement - into a practical template and living classroom.

Having the largest public food forest in Kentucky right here in Lexington is an incredible resource, and it's wonderful to see all of the ways in which neighbors, students, and community organizations have benefitted from this project.

We're tearing down fences - literally and figuratively!

Yesterday, Geomancer techs joined members of the Mitchell Avenue Neighborhood Organization for the latest leg of our urban ecology project focused on getting neighbors organized to take control over the material conditions of their lives.

Previous environmental analysis had identified an overgrown utility easement at the back of several properties as a prime opportunity for removal of invasive plants and conversion into productive social space and native habitat. Thanks to some fantastic organizing by the Mitchell Avenue neighbors, three adjoining property owners all came together to help open up this previously neglected land and transform it into an asset for the community.

In the midst of clearing out the invasives and discovering this amazing new space, we couldn't resist pointing out to a couple of the neighbors that the fence dividing their properties was also serving no purpose other than as an artifact of a culture whose colonial notions of land ownership are increasingly irrelevant.

So we tore that s**t down!

If you and your neighbors are ready to get organized, then we are ready to help. Urban ecology for us isn't just about planting trees and pretty flowers but rather seriously, tangibly looking at the kind of long term political empowerment that we need to be organizing for in every neighborhood.

On the second Saturday of each month, Geomancer stalwarts gather at Kilrush Food Forest in Lexington for an event we have been calling General Assembly.

One of the most important things that we can do as an organization is to cultivate political discipline and a strong internal culture. Working together on projects that materially improve our surroundings is one of the strongest ways we have to do that.

However, it cannot be stressed enough that it is utterly inadequate to try and organize simply on the basis of "common sense" or shared values. Only a distinct philosophical framework such as Marxist permaculture can give us the clarity of understanding necessary to effectively focus our common efforts.

When we started having these monthly meetings, it was seen as the bare minimum effort towards building that kind of internal culture. As the organization has grown (a recurring book club, internships, and several other projects), the monthly General Assembly remains our anchor point where every supporter knows they can find us.

And while General Assembly has most commonly been run as something like a work day, we stress that the real purpose is to provide us with an organizational framework that is both land-based and accountable.

It's not unthinkable that at some point in the future we could find ourselves without the ability or desire to communicate on social media. But that doesn't matter, because you will still be able to find us at General Assembly.

A few days ago we were approached by the local news to provide perspective on Lexington KY's new moratorium on data center development as well as ongoing community efforts to organize around the issue.

There is a lot of information out there on the debate around data centers, and we will not add much here save to point out that this issue demonstrates just how quickly city council can move on something when the proper public pressure is applied. How can public advocates seize on this momentum to ensure that community-driven decision making remains the focus moving forward?

Paradoxically, while serving as proof of how quickly the presence of political will can shift a narrative, the data center moratorium also plainly demonstrates how not every issue in this city is some pressing emergency where the preferred outcome of a private consultant needs to be shoved down residents' throats before time can be taken to design for long term positive outcomes (see: new government center; urban service boundary expansion; luxury student housing).

What's most interesting, however, is how this appearance on the news to discuss an issue that at first glance has nothing to do with "permaculture" speaks to the continued growth of Geomancer's political authority as an organization. Whatever the new buzzword issue happens to be, we will be sticking to our patient, long term commitment to political education and an insistence on organizing in a way that increases our ability to make conscious decisions about how our city is governed.

"Ecology without class struggle is just gardening." - Chico Mendes

This morning we finished our ecological design workshop series with .ky with a discussion on social permaculture, or in other words what are the implications of ecologically-driven design when applied to the way we organize society around us?

Complex and frank conversations were had about gentrification, housing and development, and the organic crisis of the capitalist mode of production.

None of these topics can be comprehensively covered in a single workshop, but we are making sure that the work we do to build Anderson Meadow Food Forest will never be seen as "just gardening."

We will be meeting at AVOL monthly on the first Saturday of each month moving forward - come join us!