✨ THE PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE ✨
This fully certified course (accredited by the Permaculture Association Britain and Roots n Permaculture) will teach how to:
🌱 Create harmonious relationships between people, communities, and nature.
🏡 Build houses, grow food, and create sustainable economies.
🌍 Learn practical tools for enriching the planet while supporting human activity.
Special focus will be on building a temporary community using social permaculture tools, especially sociocracy, ensuring everyone’s needs are met for a joyful and supportive learning environment.
WHAT IS SOCIAL AND VEGAN PERMACULTURE? 🌱
🌿 Permaculture is a design system for creating abundance in all aspects of our lives. Permaculture teaches us how build natural homes, grow our own food, restore diminished landscapes and ecosystems, catch rainwater, build communities, take care of waste and much more.
🌿 The word 'permaculture' historically comes from 'permanent agriculture' and has evolved into 'permanent culture' - it is about living lightly on the planet, and making sure that we can live in harmony with nature while sustaining human activities for many generations to come.
🌿 Permaculture is a rigorous and systematic set of tools, ecological principles and methodologies, underpinned by ethics, which help us to design and create this culture of permanence. A culture that allows us to design how we cater for all our needs and the needs of the planet and all its creatures, without exploiting or depriving other humans or creatures of their needs.
The ultimate goal is to create systems that create abundance for all humans, creatures and mother earth, without exploitation of humans, animals or earth’s non renewable resources.
With permaculture insight we can design our inner tranquillity, it can be applied to creating integrated and supportive communities, building or retrofitting houses to be more energy efficient, creating ethical businesses and livelihoods, as well as creating rich abundant low maintenance food growing spaces.
🤝 WHAT IS SOCIOCRACY?
Sociocracy ensures:
🔄 Transparency, equivalence, and effectiveness in decision-making.
🗣 Everyone's voice is heard, and collaboration thrives.
💡 During the PDC we will put sociocracy into practice on a daily basis. The first day of the course we establish what every person wants form the course, form which we derive a common vision. We then create a mission and aims on how to achieve our vision. We then embed a feedback mechanism to check if we are meeting these aims, so we can keep adjusting our collaboration every day.
📚 PDC Course Syllabus 📚
The course will from day one put into practice social permaculture. We will larn sociocracy to create a community and practically explore how we ensure everyone's needs are met, and how everyone can safely express themselves, without conflict. Having found our inner balance and balance within our newly forged community, we then move into exploring the traditional permaculture syllabus, including environmentally friendly food growing; soil generation; water management; house building; alternate economics and livelihood, etc.
Having explored the theory of permaculture ethics, principles and approach to challenges, we will then move on to in depth design work and practicals (hands-on work), which solidifies the theory.
The emphasis remains on learning the patterns and concepts that are applied in permaculture, so you can apply this to all aspects of your life after the course has finished. Hence the practicals will be a way to reinforce the theory and design work that we cover.
Where and when appropriate we will visit nearby intentional communities and projects that integrate permaculture in their design (subject to consent by the students).
The syllabus will cover the following areas
- Principles of Natural Systems
- Sustainable Design Methodologies
- Patterns in Nature
- Reading the Land & Understanding Natural Processes
- Water Harvesting Techniques
- Design Principles of Sustainable Human Settlements
- Grey Water Recycling
- Natural Building Design Strategies
- Food Forests, Plant Guilds, Gardens for Self-Sufficiency
- Energy Conservation Technologies
- Urban Permaculture and transition towns
- Wildlife Management and Biological Pest Control
- Community Activism
- Invisible Structures: People, Community, Economics, EcoVillages
- Sociocracy; Good community governance
- Community Supported Agriculture
- At the end of the course, students engage in a group design project.
🏕 VENUE 🏕
Ananda Gaorii Ashram, Farm, and Learning Center is a peaceful meditation-based community nestled on 13 hectares of farmland near the small town of Vig, just an hour from Copenhagen. There is a range of amenities, including a small orchard, vegetable garden, organic bakery, sauna, meditation hall, dining hall, small gym and a developing forest garden project. Guests can participate in the daily routine of yoga and meditation and enjoy fresh bread and cakes from the on-site bakery.
(For more details and photos, visit www.anandagaorii.dk.)
🛌 ACCOMMODATION 🛌
At Ananda Gaorii, we offer a variety of accommodation options to suit your needs. Separate dormitories for men and women can comfortably accommodate up to 10 people, with bunk beds. For those seeking more privacy or a closer connection to nature, grassy fields are available for camping. We will also set up a limited number of tents for participants, but guests are encouraged to bring their own tents if they prefer. Please bring your own fitted bed sheet, duvet (comforter) cover, pillowcase, bath towel, toiletries, and comfortable, warm, loose-fitting clothing for both indoor and outdoor activities. A pillow and duvet will be provided. If needed, a set of sheets and a towel can be rented for 50 DKK.
🍽 CUISINE 🍽
Our cuisine follows a yogic vegetarian diet, designed to nourish the body and calm the mind. Meals exclude seafood, fish, eggs, onion, garlic, and mushrooms, as these are believed to disturb meditation. Tea and light snacks will be available at various times during the day.
🌍 LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATIONS
All classes will be in English however If there are a number of people who require a translator please let us know and we will work to accommodate this.
🌐 As part of our community culture we will create a process which ensures if there are words or sentences you do not understand we will address it immediately. Also at the end of each day you wok in a small group to review the day, so if there is something you misunderstood this is your chance to catch up.
📖 To help prepare for the workshop, you are encouraged to use this list of permaculture, forest gardening, sociocracy and plant names that have been translated into many languages
https://tinyurl.com/RnPTransPC
🌍 REGISTER NOW
🔗 Fill in the registration form: https://tinyurl.com/PDCAGDK2025
📧 Contact Rakesh: [email protected]
📱 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rootsmanrak
🌟 Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn, grow, and connect with like-minded individuals!
💬 FEEDBACK AND TESTIMONIALS
Read what past participants have to say: https://tinyurl.com/RmR-Feedback
I feel truly blessed that I was introduced to the world of permaculture by Rakesh. In addition to his remarkable lexical knowledge, he also has impressive experience in his field. He is using his tools brilliantly to accompany the group, allowing everyone to discover and experience the "permaculture eye" in their own individual way and rhythm. Thanks to his experience and wisdom, he trusts and navigates with confidence even in the midst of conflicts and tensions. With his authentic, warm-hearted, kind and honest personality, which is nourished by his spiritual path, he is able to maintain a safe and supportive space in which the group has the opportunity to immediately apply and experience the principles of permaculture and sociocracy. Rakesh is a very dedicated, passionate facilitator who not only talks about the path, but walks it every minute of his life. I whole-heartedly recommend his courses to anyone who is hungry for intellectual and spiritual nourishment in addition to the theory and practice of permaculture.
(Adrienn)
👩🏫 TEACHERS 👩🏫
Lead Instructor
Rakesh Rootsman Rak – An experienced Permaculture designer teacher, forest garden specialist, yoga teacher, homeopath and reggae DJ. Rakesh has been designing and teaching permaculture to individuals and communities since 2009, and has taught over 500 permaculture, forest gardening, eco village design and related courses. His design portfolio ranges from a forest garden on part of a 30-hectare ecovillage in Croatia that he co-owned through to many urban community food growing gardens, private farms and back gardens as well as designing collaborative businesses, urban water retention systems and even computer software and documentation systems. Rakesh is also passionate about sharing his journey of self empowerment (learning how to make all the things you need for yourself rather than relying on the system to provide for you), this includes eco architecture (low impact housing); capturing and storing energy (electricity, heat, lighting, etc); fuel efficient heating systems (rocket heaters and stoves); water capture, purification and recycling systems and so on. He is one of the founders of the Children in Permaculture project which was launched at the international permaculture convergence in this year. So be prepared to go off on inspirational tangents occasionally.
http://rootsnpermaculture.com/
Yoga and meditation teacher
Dada Krsnasevananda, a senior monk and meditation teacher of Ananda Marga, has dedicated over 30 years to teaching yoga and meditation across various continents, including India, Australia, East and Southeast Asia, Russia, Europe, and the Middle East.
At Ananda Gaorii Ashram in Denmark, he leads weekly meditation circles featuring kiirtan (devotional chanting), guided meditation, and spiritual sharing.
Dada emphasizes the transformative power of meditation, guiding individuals to find inner peace and purpose. He has shared insights on topics like "What is Meditation and Why Should I Practice It?"
His teachings often explore the intersection of spirituality and personal growth, encouraging individuals to embark on their own spiritual journeys.
In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Dada Krsnasevananda contributes to the ashram's online presence, offering meditation guidance and spiritual insights through videos and social media.
Dada Krsnasevananda will be available for personal meditation guidance during the event.