Today we talk about How permaculture changed my life, a book by Karmela Kiš published with our publishing house Europe Books.
Europe Books had the pleasure of interviewing the author, Karmela Kiš, to get to know her better, what is the message she wants to send out with her book How permaculture changed my life, as well as how our contact with Nature is so important today.
Below you can find our interview. Take a seat and enjoy your reading!!!
- Where did you find the inspiration to write about “Permaculture”?
Inspiration is found in Nature. There are lot of wonders in the Nature that I became aware of while growing my own vegetables, preparing them for my food, and I wished to share my experience with other people. Nature totally impresses me (the way nature functions and creates). Nature is an infinite process of wonders on this globe. Ethics of Permaculture are also very important for me, so I thought if people could read about it and implement it in their lives, we would live with less frustration, lives would be healthier and happier, and quality of life would be on the first place. We forgot we are only one of the species on this planet. I emphasise it often in my courses. These three ethics (quote from Bill Mollison’s book “A Designers’ Manuel” are:
- Care of the Earth (Provision for all life systems to continue and multiply)
- Care of people (Provision for people to access those resources necessary for their existence)
- Setting limits to population and consumption (later replaced with “fair share”)
- What is the message you want to send out to your readers?
I wish that readers find out there is the different way of life, and that production of your own food gives quality food, your life can change as well as you change too. We are getting too uniformed in our lives, and this includes our diet. Our bodies need various food, grown without pesticides, fungicides and artificial fertilizers. Also, the thought that we live on a planet with limited resources. Our civilisation produces more material goods than we need and in that way we destroy planets resources. Our food is grown in mono cultural fields where chemicals are used a lot. The only drive in such a way of life is profit, and it seems that greed for money is limitless. Permaculture talks about needs, not about our wishes. Needs are basic needs for life. Quantity is more appreciated than quality.
- How much can contact with nature help us today in facing our life in a better and healthy way?
Once you produce your own food, and spend time in the garden, connected with the soil that you enrich than explore, your life is different. The more your garden soil is enriched with your actions (e.g. compost, natural fertilizer), the more you use natural preparations to protect your plants, your food is healthier for your body. You inhale pollen from your garden, orchard, vegetable plants, you hear natures sounds, your tension is gone. You are surrounded with other species that support your life. There is no “time” in your work. You eat when you are hungry, not when the others tell you to eat, you have more holidays than when you are employed in some company or factory, you are master of your time and life. It means that you like what you do in your life. For me it is gardening and preparing my own food.
- How did it feel to see your book published?
It is interesting to hold your book in your hand and realise your thoughts and ideas can reach so many people. Courses I give are for fewer people. Each course gives me new ideas and I enjoy it very much in a different way, than having book in my hands. Simply, it is different media.
- Are you working on a new writing project you can tell us about?
For the moment I am gathering my impressions about the book and life change that happened a year ago when I experienced strong earthquake and decided in hour and a half I will leave my house, garden and everything. Now I am in totally different environment, including climate and I am learning about nature here, on the island of Vis. I would call it a total reset of my life which is a process and time demanding, and if there will be a new project it will be on a different topic.
Europe Books thanks the author Karmela Kiš once again for taking the time and answering our questions. We are really pleased to have walked alongside her on the editorial path that led to the publication of her book How permaculture changed my life. We wish her the best of luck for her future works.
To you, my dear reader, I wish you to strongly appreciate the purpose behind Permaculture and if it is not possible to live it fully, start trying to experience a new way of understanding nutrition, more of quality, which follows more our desires than our needs. That this may be the beginning of understanding a new form of life through nature and the fruits that it can generate for our better feeding, also with a consequent reflection on the well-being of our planet.
So, my dear reader, I just have to wish you to enjoy this very interesting reading!!!
Your editor!