In this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World it is my delight to share with you this conversation with Juan Jose Lugo Bernal from Quito, Ecuador from Pangea Regenera. Juan and I met through the Ecoversities program of Re-imagining Higher Education .
Download this list of 10 of Morag’s favourite books.
Morag’s 4 part introduction to permaculture video series.
He recently recorded an interview with me about my work – you can listen here – and we then recorded this conversation about his
– the courage it took to shift from being an engineer to a life in permaculture
– his permaculture program at the public hospital – with garden time prescribed by the doctors
– his emergent skill in dowsing and intuitive design.
I think Juan’s story is so powerful – expressing the doubts and fears many of us have felt at some time in our lives – and the possibilities to chose a different reality and work with deep purpose and joy.
Click here to listen to the Podcast on your chosen streaming service.
Read the full transcript here.
Morag Gamble:
Welcome to the Sense-Making in a Changing World Podcast, where we explore the kind of thinking we need to navigate a positive way forward. I’m your host Morag Gamble, permaculture educator, and global ambassador, filmmaker, eco villager, food forester, mother, practivist and all-around lover of thinking, communicating and acting regeneratively. For a long time it’s been clear to me that to shift trajectory to a thriving one planet way of life, we first need to shift our thinking. The way we perceive ourselves in relation to nature, self, and community is the core. So this is true now more than ever and even the way change is changing, is changing. Unprecedented changes are happening all around us at a rapid pace. So how do we make sense of this? To know which way to turn, to know what action to focus on, so our efforts are worthwhile and nourishing and are working towards resilience, regeneration, and reconnection?
What better way to make sense than to join together with others in open generative conversation. In this podcast, I’ll share conversations with my friends and colleagues, people who inspire and challenge me in their ways of thinking, connecting and acting. These wonderful people are thinkers, doers, activists, scholars, writers, leaders, farmers, educators, people whose work informs permaculture and spark the imagination of what a post-COVID, climate-resilient, socially just future could look like. Their ideas and projects help us to make sense in this changing world to compost and digest the ideas and to nurture the fertile ground for new ideas, connections and actions. Together we’ll open up conversations in the world of permaculture design, regenerative thinking, community action, earth repair, eco-literacy, and much more. I can’t wait to share these conversations with you.
Over the last three decades of personally making sense of the multiple crises we face. I always returned to the practical and positive world of permaculture with its ethics of earth care, people care and fair share. I’ve seen firsthand how adaptable and responsive it can be in all contexts from urban to rural, from refugee camps to suburbs. It helps people make sense of what’s happening around them and to learn accessible design tools, to shape their habitat positively and to contribute to cultural and ecological regeneration. This is why I’ve created the Permaculture Educators Program to help thousands of people to become permaculture teachers everywhere through an interactive online dual certificate of permaculture design and teaching. We sponsor global Permayouth programs, women’s self help groups in the Global South and teens in refugee camps. So anyway, this podcast is sponsored by the Permaculture Education Institute and our Permaculture Educators Program. If you’d like to find more about permaculture, I’ve created a four-part permaculture video series to explain what permaculture is and also how you can make it your livelihood as well as your way of life. We’d love to invite you to join a wonderfully inspiring, friendly, and supportive global learning community. So I welcome you to share each of these conversations, and I’d also like to suggest you create a local conversation circle to explore the ideas shared in each show and discuss together how this makes sense in your local community and environment. I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land in which I meet and speak with you today, the Gubbi Gubbi people and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
It’s my pleasure to invite you to join me in conversation in this episode with Juan Josè Lugo Bernal of Pangaea Regenera. He’s a permaculture designer, regenerative landscape consultant, and permaculture educator too. We talk about his journey from engineering to working in the FAO, to studying ancient patterns of design. He’s the coordinator of Huerto Que Quiero, a community therapeutic garden in the hospital for elderly in Quito, Ecuador. He started intentional communities as well as consulting with government and NGOs. He’s passionate about new forms of education that connect us deeply with place and community. It’s actually how we met through the Rethinking Education Forum earlier this year. The story Juan shares is a fascinating journey of transformation, of discovery, of creativity and a love of life. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. So thank you for joining me today on the show Juan. Juan and I have met through a program that was back in March this year called Re-imagining Education. And so we chatted recently where Juan was interviewing me. So we decided to turn the tables and now I’m interviewing Juan. So, welcome to the show, when we were speaking, there were so many different things that I wanted to explore with you about the work that you’re doing in Ecuador and in other parts through these global connections. So perhaps, maybe you could just start by introducing. Oh, perhaps the connection that you have with permaculture from the beginning, like, is that, where does that fit with your worldview?
Juan Lugo:
Awesome. Yeah, first of all, thank you for inviting me. Thank you for turning this table. And yeah, it’s so awesome to find the spaces where we can inspire each other and like learn from each other. And I really deeply appreciate it. So I’ve been involved in permaculture for it should be eight, nine years now and I formally study agriculture engineering and I always was trying to, what I was more focused, of course, in the traditional academy system, let’s say I was more into industry, let’s say. So I was always trying to find a way different from that. I went from traditional to organic and then find it that it was not what I was looking for. Always focusing on the industry, of course. And then I turned into more agro ecological processes from Latin America all over, and I found it super, super interesting, but at the moment I wanted something more hands-on, let’s say I wanted to find more eco techniques. I don’t know if that is a word that’s well translated. Of course. If, if, if something it’s where that my pronunciation or, or I’m saying something wrong, please, correct me, my English, not that good, so, okay. So then I found permaculture and then permaculture allowed me to put it into one of the things that I love the most of permaculture at the moment and I’ve found it super enlightening for a lot of people still and I shared like that, is that when I was reading through the permaculture design course, the big book, let’s say I can find philosophy, I can find biology, I can find physics, I can find everything. And then going through and understanding the petals of permaculture. And it was like, this is it. It’s not a vision that encapsulates like the reductionism or positivism academy approach that I was like so much having struggles with. And I was trying to unlearn from that. And it was a stressful moment in my life, trying to renegotiate with myself these agreements that I had on how I relate with the world and how I really, with myself, with my relationships with everything that I am involving with so challenging that it was exciting at the same time that it was making me a lot of anger inside of myself, because I was confronting myself in so many things that I didn’t agree. And some agreements, social agreements, cultural agreements, family agreements and so on and so on. So I begin, I, at the beginning, I started to reject it because I was like, no, this cannot be but at the end I was like, this is it. But the work is on me, on my inner self. So,
Morag Gamble:
Can I just? Because it’s so interesting and I wonder, what were some of those inner arguments that you were having with yourself around wanting to like, rejected? Like what was happening in your mind? What were some of those conversations? Cause I think a lot of people would be experiencing the same thing. And it’s just interesting to hear that you just kind of like put it out on the table like that.
Juan Lugo:
It’s always super good to understand that every person has their, just like understanding what someone is going through. You need to understand the context and the moment in the lives of everyone. And at the moment of my life I was finishing my engineering career and I was still kind of bound to these agreements of satisfying my family wishes. Of course, I come from a family with privileges that allows me to study whatever I wanted. They gave me that freedom to do, which is, I don’t know, it’s difficult here in the south, let’s say, especially in Latin America. So I had that privilege and I always have this idea that I was like the guy that I, from early on, my engineering kind of thinking and way of framing things was like, you’re going to be an engineer. So this is the path that you’re going to take and you’re going to specialize and go for your masters, for your PhD, for sure. And then you were going to keep going. And I think that my family thought a lot of me as a professor or something like that. And I was not into that. Like I keep doing that because I wanted to please my family even though I had my options, the ability, the privileges I had these agreements that I put in myself, and that I agreed without knowing that was something that I had to, so the first break is like, I should not specialize and integrate in this kind of organic way of thinking, instead of like, compartmentalizing them?
Morag Gamble:
Compartmentalizing. Yeah.
Juan Lugo:
Instead of doing that and like approaching life in a way that it’s more about relationships and connections instead of like taking atoms of it and studying that. And I always had a strong call for social connections, for social arrangements, for social life, not in a kind of like social parties or something like that, but I like how we can work as a community. So mixing those worlds was a strong break from what I was learning from the university and from what my family wanted from me. So that was one of the first, yeah.
Morag Gamble:
I’m just wondering what were some of the things that inspired you or gave you the courage to take quite a big step, you know, to unpack and unentwine yourself from those agreements. What was the fire in your belly that gave you the courage to do that?
Juan Lugo:
I think I had the opportunity when I was doing this transition work on myself, I keep going, at the time I was encouraged to continue with my master’s degree. And I went to Spain and then I was able to do my master thesis in FOUN, in the Food Organization of the United Nations and for me, that was kind of in this still, like knowing permaculture and knowing what it entails and having this and at the same time, it was on the top of what I wanted to do, let’s say I’m already inside FAO and it was like, okay, this is the top. This is where I’m supposed to be, I can build a career from here but as much as you get to know how FAO was working and what people was doing there, I found a strong urge that this is not right. This is not right for me and this, I don’t believe in what people are and of course there’s so many awesome people there. There’s so many awesome, awesome, beautiful people there. So, so intelligent people. So I learned so much there, but in the whole arrangement, let’s say, I didn’t agree with so many things and I, that, I think that was the most, like, this is not right. This is not for me. I need to find a better way. And then I came back, started teaching at a rural university around here in the cold side of the country. And I didn’t agree with the academy either. And I was getting angrier and angrier with what the path that it was supposed to be like, let’s say ONG works or whatever. And then academy work, keep on going. And it was like, no, I don’t believe in this. And I started traveling around South America and I went south to Argentina and then I started to do a permaculture internship there. And then from there, a whole process started for me. I traveled around a couple of countries in South America, and I started an eco village over there and that was it. That was the rethinking, re-educating myself, deconstructing myself, which is right now. It’s kind of so weird to use these times because there’s so many things around the construction, but for me, that was it. That was it.
Morag Gamble:
So you’ve just kind of very casually through and, oh, we just started an eco village as part of that flow of your words there. You just started an eco village. Tell us about what that means and what also is part of that thread. What are some of the things that you’re noticing about permaculture in Latin America? Permaculture and ecovillages, I guess that’s kind of a lots of big questions altogether, but wherever that takes you.
Juan Lugo:
Yeah. There are big questions. Of course, this is my experience. This is how, yeah, it’s my opinion that I have built upon my experiences. So I don’t think that it will reflect the whole point of view south America movement around eco villages or intentional communities. But it was such a strong moment in my life and going into the process of human relationships and going through that process of knowing yourself in a kind of harsh conditions with nothing really, because we needed to pick the water from the river to do everything basically. So that was the situation that was going on there and dealing with transition stages of all the members of the village in different stages, in different moments, in their lives, dealing with action and knowing, instead of thinking on really like developing the will to do things and to confront myself into these academy world that I was creating in with me and inside of me. And then, yeah, let’s do it, let’s work on it. So that was like a huge tumbling moment in my life. And also the contact with nature in it. That was a huge part of the whole process, like relating with the territory and that territory that I was involved with has a special kind of notion of shaking things. And it was not so, it’s a difficult terrain let’s say, it was not the tropics, so it was kind of so difficult, so different from my territory. So that presented a huge transition moment for everybody like breaking the soils, being a both, and then a seed, and then breaking from that cow’s process and becoming what you want to be, let’s say. So that in itself, it’s the cows for the seeds, but it’s a future flower. Your future fruits, so that was it. And then they went to different eco villages around different intentional communities. And it’s so interesting to see what the territories bring, understanding what the relationship with nature brought on people and what people and how people interact with it. It’s so diverse. So interesting that I found out it needs to be, and this is what I call it, the glue, let’s say, when I’m talking too intentional about conditional communities, you can have the techniques, you can have whatever you want, all the resources, all the tools let’s say, but what’s the glue. What is that brings people around that wants to put their energy and will to be together. So I went from religious ecovillages, with a more spiritual approach and how they relate. And when I say religious, I mean [inaudible], which is like the relationship with the more profound and everything. I’m not speaking about dogmatism, so super interesting to see that more indigenous communities related about being against the culture of the establishment, let’s say. Encounter culture and that was the bond that was the glue. Let’s say, education communities, I think that is a huge, big deal here in Latin America and how this is my part, which is something that I always try to share, like how it is when this kind of reflection comes on, how are the indigenous communities in Latin America? I will say that, one of the most inspiring and I think that is a huge habit in indigenous communities is, parents that having kids like push them into this transition mode, because one thing is what they wanted with their lives, but something changes. I don’t have kids, so I don’t know but this is what I have seen. Something changes that makes them transition and they feel the need to have that different agreements, different environments for the kids and then that is the glue. And I was like, impressed by that. And there’s so many good examples here in Ecuador. There’s so many good examples of intentional communities around education. So that is a huge deal.
Morag Gamble:
And that, so that leads me to the, sort of the question around your involvement with this, reimagine education and the Ecoversities Alliance. So taking that transition from where you were to a different way of being in education and the types of projects that you’re engaged with now, do you want to just describe some of how that fits with your, with what you’re doing now?
Juan Lugo:
So, to have a frame, let’s say to understand, I think that it’s easier, even for me to understand myself and how do I do things is that I have two big branches, let’s say social facilitation and work. That is something that I, it comes easy for me. And it’s my service. Let’s say that is one branch of what I do. And the other branch that it’s also developing them for those branch that are developing constantly. It’s the connection with the land and the landscape, and how can I facilitate that process with people through design and through understanding the subtle to the more technical points of view of the landscape, let’s say. So those branches are for me, part of what, everything that I do and how their own kind of, um, branch. And so these were two branches, even though it seems that they’re apart, they are the same, they’re the same evolving system. So to feed one and to grow one is to feed and grow the other. So they don’t, they’re not separated. They’re part of an integral kind of system, which for me, fundamental and facilitation for me is a lot of education and how we change and facilitate a process of transition for everybody. And how we open spaces for me, especially is that, which is something that I resonated so much with what you were saying for me, the sense of facilitation is allowing to open space where people can find a voice inside themselves and have the courage to express it, even if that means chaos, but chaos inside of a system that allows that chaos to grow into more life, into a new breath of life, let’s say, breathe. I’m missing that word.
Morag Gamble:
Okay. Breath of life. That sounded perfect.
Juan Lugo:
Yeah. Okay, breath of life. And from that, a new stage in the community development emerges like allowing that spirit of the community, whatever that community is, a family, a project, a group of people, a rural community, even ONGs or business can allow that to develop their own system on their own terms. So that has a lot to do with education, because for myself, for my point of view, there are two big paradigms that we confront all the time in what I do, it’s scarcity, right? Scarcity and directions like, is that I’m not, I don’t, I haven’t translated that word.
Morag Gamble:
It makes sense. Yep. Scarcity and directions. I’ve not heard the term, but I understand what it means.
Juan Lugo:
So in the traditional education system, there’s a lot of that on like, you need to do this, and this is the path and there’s a narrowing of the path. And that is like not allowing to create and to people to be whatever they are really meant to be on their own terms. So if we have that from kids from early ages, we have adults that it’s so difficult to transcend, to make this transition because they need someone to tell them what to do so difficult for people to take charge on their own terms. And this is something that I reflect on myself all the time, because I am the child that was directed like that. It was like in these terms of, so how do we create an empathic path where we, as a community can walk together and break from these directions and these points of view of a scarcity. And we create new paths that we decide to go and to learn from that, even though there are some times that we are, these paths are gonna lead us to some end points, but we know that there’s end points to that. But so we learned from that, and we keep learning of that. So how we facilitate those terms and then I found so much inspiration in education, people and people that are more related with education. And I have so much hope from that. And I learned so much from people that are related to children, related with their own way of education. So that’s why I’m related with the education transition movement here in Ecuador and in the global networks, like Ecoversities.
Morag Gamble:
So what are some of the projects that you’ve been doing? You started telling me about one the other day in the hospital. And so who are you working with? Like who are the kind of groups that you work with and how does that manifest in the community? And, and I guess the other side of that too, would be or another dimension to that would be, how does that connect with local culture? So just like, does permaculture kind of make sense to people in that way? Sorry, I bundle lots of questions together. Multiple descriptions of things.
Juan Lugo:
No, I like it because it’s like, I took a deep breath because I want to make the connections and to make my words make sense because I see the connection that you’re going. Okay. So how should I approach this? Let’s start with the projects. The project that I was telling you about, which is something that I’m writing right now, and then it’s something that I am developing and something, I was good writing a long time ago and not good anymore. So this is so hard for me right now to write about the process that we have. So I have this brand, let’s say that’s got a lot of the things that I do, which is called Pangaea in English pronunciation. So one of the branches that, let’s say, like a business or enterprise is to have a social branch inside the business. So everything that collects or gains through private projects, a small percentage of that goes to the one project, one project that I’m able to be related with and be able to construct. So before I arrived to the project inside the hospital, that I’m gonna explain later, I basically take two years finding a spot where my services can be of sense, like instead of going to something and imposing something really taking the time to listen and to see, I can bring something here and everything it’s making myself to be included in this. So it took me two years to arrive to a hospital, in a moment in the hospital where the guy that was in charge of the arrangement of the space was something with an awesome heart, a beautiful, beautiful guy. And there’s also a doctor that was in charge of chronic diseases inside the hospital, which is an amazing, amazing person. And there’s so many other persons inside the hospital, it was like, oh my God, this is amazing people to work with. This is the perfect place, then also the hospital has a huge area, a green area that was unmaintained, abandoned. We are talking about a public hospital. So resources and public health in Ecuador is scarce. And this is a hospital dedicated to elderly people. So a public hospital for elderly people, we only have, I think, two or three hospitals, or was one year ago, two years ago. So in these environments, after listening to everybody’s and to being open to this space and learning that there’s a community of elderly people that was volunteering to more elderly people. And there were like even a poetry classes, free classes for the elderly, like the elderly people from the hospital came back to the hospital to give as volunteers. This is held for more eldely people and create a community. So these emerging community need was there. And it was like, oh my God, this is beautiful, I feel that I can be part of this. So, we develop these laboratory, as I say, it was called El Huerto del Cura, which translates to the healing garden. We manage the hospital even though it’s not so legal. We manage that the director of the hospital lands as land for a period of three years, and then I can manage that land and we share the use of the space and some facilities have a hospital. And then we manage to create a program with the doctor that was in charge of chronic diseases, which is something that you can have, like diabetes, for example, it’s a chronic disease. There’s so many varieties, but there are some that doesn’t require strong treatment and allows you to do physical work. So with this doctor, we created a relationship where patients that when treated to the hospital, when they were finishing their treatment, they have the opportunity to relate with the poems, with the lasting yoga, they call it also, there was a elderly people giving workshops on that, or they can choose to be part of the healing garden. And they were prescribed yeah, prescribed, that is the word. They are prescribed four sessions in the cubicle. So I came up with a design that was an introductory design, and I made us socialization to start with. And then people came to that. And from that beginning, we shape, reshape everything. This is my idea, but it is mine, we need to make these to you, to all of us. And then we managed to do that, which is a beautiful process in itself. And then we started creating the Healing Garden. So at the end, there were 12 elderly people that was part of the steady community of the, well I’m counting as an elderly guy there, I was part of also, but it was one more of them. And we were trails and we were the ones that each Friday we were for sure there, for sure were there. And then more people came and go as they please, whenever they wanted to join. And it was beautiful because elderly people brought their children, their grandchildren and also people from afar started to come because they hear about the project and started to share stories. We managed to create a, I can share the link if you want. We managed to create a visual story about, there was a girl from a indigenous community in the Amazon region that came and she was inspired by the word with what we were doing, and she was telling tales about their indigenous community. So we managed to create a visual storytelling of her story. We had a huge tree in the middle of the garden, of the healing garden. And this was the elderly tree. So around this tree, the whole community gathered, we knit. Yes, that’s the word knitted like a sweater to the tree, trunk of the tree, yes, to the trunk of the tree. And we started to share stories underneath the canopy of the tree. And we found that the healing garden started to get into something else, the story telling, sharing knowledge. So we were starting to, with the help of more people, to bring these stories into different formats. And we wanted to share that with everybody to share this space inside of a public hospital for elderly people with low, low, low, low input of money. We have managed to create this community as an example of what you can do as a private corporation or how do you call it? It’s not, I’m not, Pangea is not a corporation. It’s a private and kind of enterprise. Yeah.
Morag Gamble:
Business enterprise
Juan Lugo:
Yeah. And how you can change the relationship with a community that usually in the cities are not taken care of. So it was, for me, it was a huge, huge learning process. We created family, we were born together and so it was amazing. It was a really nice experience. Sadly. It all ended in COVID’s situation.
Morag Gamble:
Oh, that is sad. I was sort of feeling so inspired, you know, one would hope that when things change again, that with the experience of that and with how many people it was able to touch from the medical profession to the community, that you might see them emerge in different places.
Juan Lugo:
I think that one of the things that we can, like the best that I can do right now is to share this story, to share this story of how everything was, because we did it in a non traditional way. We designed the place, and even in a subtle energy movement, we created a design that was based upon that. And we built upon that and the community responded to that in a place that was designed to be a healing place.
Morag Gamble:
Can you just say a bit more about that subtle energy design that you just mentioned then?
Juan Lugo:
Okay. So this is interesting, and this is something that we, from the academy point of view, there’s so much references from psychology of how we relate with nature and how nature can be a healing process to everybody. And you can take into account different variables, color, shading, light, even the figures of the plants and how the shapes are, how we relate to different stages in different moments in our lives, in our trauma stages and so on. So there’s so many, there’s so many work on that. Yeah. But it’s based on a material point. Of course we are material, will relate upon that, but this is what the academy and the directive of education has shown, but there’s everything that is subtle that people tend to have an idea or a sense that this feels good, let’s say, and you don’t know why it feels good. And it’s so difficult to explain why it feels good. So there’s a huge, there are huge expressions of light in the subtle, let’s say again, I’m going into this academic world and more traditional way of thinking from a more spiritual approach. Right now,even though it was like, I think it was three years ago, there’s a paper with a valid number of samples that we can say now that the human brain I’m talking into this academy kind of field again, but we can say now that the brain can feel and can like perceive subtle changes, variations in a geomagnetic fields. We’re not conscious about it. We are not conscious about it but our brain registers that. This is one step into understanding how we relate into a world that is surrounded by different kinds of flows of energy. And, different approaches into that. So I, a lot of like four years, five years ago, I stumbled upon geobiology. I don’t know if you have any relationship. So geobiology is based upon the knowledge of radiestesia, which is how they match that we have, perhaps that is easy to relate is how people manage to find sources of water and wells through sticks, let’s say. So if you find in every culture, in every expression of culture, you will find someone that was dealing with these subtle energies, these subtle variations of fields that we perceive. And some people are able to perceive it more clearly. And there even are people that are, it’s like, they can see it. If you go to Japan, you will find the sauries. If you go to the India approach, you will find in the vetas, a huge, huge knowledge about how people manage to find water and even create their structures. If you go to China, you will find everything that is Tai Chi related. If you go to even earlier stages, you go to the Rome in the people that work for the roads of Rome. There was a guy that was basically dedicated to understand the flows of water underneath the roads and find a better placement of the roads. And they were doing with the sticks. In Europe, you will see, you will find the druids that we’ll find in this in America and South America, you will find the Amaltas you will find the Titus that they were of course finding water, but not only that, but they were like finding the settlement and finding the right place for your home base of conducts. And they were doing this based on the mountains and the flow of energy.
Morag Gamble:
What did you call that? What did you call the one in South America?
Juan Lugo:
They’re called like the people that have this information, this knowledge, you can find it in Amaltas, which is the guy, the one that has the knowledge or the Titus. The Titus, I’m talking in Kichwa, this is words in Kichwa , which is the word from here, from the ancient language from this region of Ecuador, this is only one, we have several different languages, but I’m only referring to one. And this is one that is related with the Incas and understanding my territory is different talk, but the Incas only have 40 years of relationship with this territory, but we have that language here and we have a different pronunciation in Peru, it’s called Quichua, in Ecuador it’s called Kichwa. So in this Kichwa language, Amaltas as the one that has the knowledge and Titus are the ones that has the people with wisdom that guides the community, let’s say, have this knowledge of how to relate with. So Radiestesia and geobiology is kind of the modernization of this knowledge. And at the beginning, I was completely skeptical. Like, I don’t believe in this at all. Like I don’t, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it at all. This is, this is not, it’s like, this is wrong. This is wrong. And along my path, I found a guy that I really, really found that he was truly, and he did that. And it was like, okay, because it comes from you. I want to approach it, explain to me. And at the time I was really close-minded about these things. And well, long story short, I was like, okay, I understand what you were saying, but it’s so hard to believe for me. I need to prove, to try it myself. And I tried it. So I took wires, like wires, like code hanging, code hangers, and tried with that and they move. And it was like, okay, okay. I’m bending something with my elbow, something with my shoulder, something is happening here. It’s like, okay, I’m going to be steady. And like, and they move in and we’re like, okay, and I leave that for a while? And it was like,, what is happening here? This is madness. And then sometime before it was like, again, curious about it and keep working on it a little bit in, there was again, a relationship of love and hate, let’s say with this knowledge. And they got to a point where it was a deep understanding of myself because it was so hard for me. Again, I come from a male with privileges and with these notion of magism of men don’t feel things. I come from that. Okay. So breaking this notion that I’m able to feel more than already my scarce knowledge of my feelings was nerve wracking racking, like how I’m feeling. And then there’s something like something popped and opened. And it was like a rush of emotions and feelings. And, oh my God, it was like, and I became ill. I became ill and I was not able to express how I was, why was I ill, fever? And then it was like these transitions inside my body that I was going through. And then I begin to step by step, find a way of understanding and accepting all of these feelings and emotions that goes through me. And as much I was going through that, these work with the wires was becoming more steady and was making more sense. So that was four years ago. And then I came to understand what these patterns, these lines of energy that comes to the Earth makes sense to me. And I was doing more research. I created my own scale to make sense of things. Again, this part of myself that is more into trying to figure things out and to make sense of things into more material world also. So I created a scale and I figured out going through ancient sites that there’s more than these lines that people tells you about the Harman lines, there ley lines. There’s so many different lines, but there are more than that. There are more variables upon that that interrelate and the interrelationship with these, all of these variables make one point expressed into something that affects life, not only humans, but bees, for example, I’m going to start on kind of a small project with a friend that is a beekeeping guy. And he has already, when I was talking to them about this, he was like, it makes a lot of sense that bees choose one place to be more related with the swarms of bees. They always go to one place. We should check into that. So this is something that is going to happen a couple months from now. So I started making sense of this and going to Columbia and understanding these ancient sites. And I found a pattern that emerges, a pattern on how ancient cultures related with their sacred places, their homes with these subtle energies. And for me as a designer, was a huge deal. And it was like, oh my God, I have unlocked a new layer of design understanding how other cultures did, but I don’t want to bring that knowledge that is ancient because we live in a different age. We have a different relationship with the earth. So how do I update? So I have these questions. I value deeply the knowledge of ancient cultures, but we live in a different context, we live in a different era. So for me, updating that knowledge is essential ,learning from that is awesome. It’s unbelievable. So this is, again, a thing about being a merchant of that knowledge. And this, at least for me, is not about that, is really deeply learning and sharing that knowledge into a world that needs to relate more deeply with their relationship with nature and how to relate with everything. So I keep investigating, I keep researching and keep going to these sacred places, and I found more or less independently of the culture. If it is a culture from Columbia, it is a culture from Ecuador or wherever, they use more or less the same patterns, which makes sense, which makes a lot of sense. And it was like, okay, this is, I need to keep finding a way of like proving myself now, okay. If this is true, I need to check this. And one of the conversations that was also for me was I have an old friend and she was studying acupuncture and we haven’t met in a long, long time. And I, that she studies acupuncture is not something that pops into my mind when I see her. And we got together and talked a little bit of what I’m doing. And I tell her about the points of energy and how points are related with each other. And there’s one, at least for me, it’s female and one that is male for me and sometimes they are together and sometimes they are apart. And she was like, where you are describing, you are describing Chinese medicine about acupuncture. And then I was like, no way, really? And she was like, you are describing this. And she was explaining to me like, this is what I’m seeing. This is the pattern that I am seeing. This is amazing because I’m seeing the points of energy of the air and how we can relate to that. So these all have been a huge work for me, which I am developing still, which is the acupuncture of the Earth, which is how we’re relating to this point with trees. Of course, trees have these kinds of dual with their roots and their canopies and trunks. And there are kind of the natural needles of Earth and they balance these energies. And this is a huge branch of understanding and how the trees, some trees are more related with some points. Some other trees are more related with the native trees and how they relate with this specific territory and in different regions are different trees and so on. So this is a huge, huge understanding of that. And I was talking to you about the confirmations and I have, I remember that I was into, I was facilitating these relationships with land, with a family that brought a land and I was doing these exercises of expressing what they’re sharing and, and how the land relates for them and what is learned for them And I knew that there was one point of energy where you put kind of like a gesture to the land that you put your, how do you call that? Like an ofrenda, an offer, yes. And offer to that and I knew there was a point where you do that. So I created this whole session with them and then we went into these kind of deeply sentimental moments in their process of relating with the land, what it means for them to be a family in that moment in the world like, so I found this place of energy and we’re like, okay, this is a point where my interpretation says that we should put here an offer. So let’s do that and I start digging, and I found a vessel from ceramics, from an ancient culture there that they did exactly the same. They did offer a ceramic pot. And I was like, oh my God. Oh my God, this is, and I was like super freaked out. Then I was like, oh my God. And the family was like, what did you did? What you did? And they felt that it was like a, hit some irrigation line and they were like did you break the irrigation line? [inaudible] No, no, no. There’s nothing like that. It’s like, okay, come, come in. I show them the pottery. And they were going crazy. Like the dad of the family, let’s say like, okay, I’m going to bring the shovel. Let’s take this because there’s this idea of gold, let’s say of a treasure. Of course, of course, yes, but I don’t see it like that, but I was like, it’s not been from my like, whoa, what a moment for me? Like, this is the confirmation that I was looking and I saw the intentions of taking that offering from the land. And it was like, okay, okay, okay. Let’s have a moment, let’s breathe a little bit, what we are doing this, this emotional moment that we are having somebody else had for a long time ago. And I’m inviting you to reflect upon that and to think if you want to take that offering that they did, or if you want to join your offering with them as a way of getting into community with your territory. And I was hoping that with that, they don’t take it out hopefully, but it’s like, it’s not my decision, it’s their decision, and they took a moment and happily, they didn’t take it out. It was a super emotional moment for everybody. And at the end, they joined their offering with the offering that was already inside of there. And they completely forgot about that place, which was something super good and for me, it was a huge moment. Like I’m not crazy, this makes a lot of sense and from that, I have been having like three or four more moments like that in different moments, in different areas of Ecuador. And I was able to find a burial that was dedicated to water collecting. And that is a huge brand because the elders’ cultures also use these points to allow the flow of water. So they were doing, harvested water ancient, like in ancient times, but they were using also this knowledge to allow the flow of water and to make these water revitalized. So there’s a huge understanding that I’m developing into that, which is super, super amazing. Getting into a point where I can see the patterns of water uses of this. And it’s huge in skills. I’m super excited of trying it out, but there are like, it’s difficult to find someone that wants to do that and has the resources to do that. And it’s able to, wants to experiment with this. I haven’t found anyone that wants to do that yet, but I think that I have it more or less.
Morag Gamble:
It sounds absolutely amazing, you know, lots of things going through my mind, as you’re saying this, there’s a whole tradition of dowsing that comes from the culture that I’m from. And, I remember as a child, my mom used to talk about it all the time. And I remember as a child doing exactly what you said with the bits of wire and my brother and I would, we’d go around and we’d see what we could find and we’d end up digging up all these bits and pieces around the garden. It was kind of amazing. And then I’d forgotten about it. I hadn’t really given it much attention, but now that you’re speaking about it, I think tapping into that feeling of it, like, I don’t use a tool, but there’s a sense that, that I get about places and when the there’s something else that happens when I’m doing permaculture designs, there’s this sort of intuitive, connective force that happens. So I’m wondering whether this is something that you’re developing and fine-tuning and researching, connecting and as you’re saying evolving into a contemporary form, we’re just spending a bit of time talking with indigenous elders. And there’s this sense that indigenous people in this land are the custodians. And we’re part of the, kind of the colonizing group that’s landed here. And so where we’re at now, we’re saying we’re kind of aspiring contemporary custodians and together, we’re finding a new way forward, and it’s not that sense of going back. And so what I hear you talking about too, is it’s like, there’s a forward movement of acknowledging this deep history and wisdom, but finding a way to be present now, to connect through time and space and to find a way forward. That’s really what we need in the world right now at the scale that we need right now. And I’m wondering, you know, the kind of skills that you’re developing, remembering, evolving, is this something that you’re offering as part of any kind of permaculture education or an educational program, like teaching other people how to do this, see this, feel this what’s your, when coming back to the whole education, how is this something that, or are you still playing with it yourself?
Juan Lugo:
I’m always playing with, I’m always playing and I think that the world is playing really, that word is like who got it in Spanish and to play, I think that it’s essential. Like sometimes, that is the way there’s so many implications around them, but yes, I keep doing with that. There’s so much on what I’m doing somehow is trying to make it sense in, to make it conscious. But there’s so many people that has a lot of fine-tuning with themselves. They’re already doing what I’m doing. Let’s say not the way that I’m doing, but they have developed this sense on themselves and they’re super accurate. I have one and they don’t about that. I don’t know if we have time to, like, I will make it short. I was doing in an eco village there. I was doing some research on their property, but this is my, I didn’t, they didn’t ask me to do that. I was doing that by myself. So they find out that I was doing that because some people tend to be more even aggressive into this knowledge like, what the fck are you doing? Like get out of here, like, don’t do that. Like, or some people are more open to it, or people are like, well, you’re crazy. Keep doing what you’re doing, whatever you’re doing, you’re not harming anyone, keep doing what you’re doing. So you’ll find diversity in this whole world of course, and in this eco village I wasthey saw that I was doing that and he was like, you do this. And I was like, yes. So one, there’s a bunch of couples, but one of the couples, the wife was like I deeply believe of what you’re doing. Like, can you tell me more about it and explain everything, my path and everything and he was like, can you measure our room? And of course you can measure your room and you can find a good place where you can rest and put your best and so on and so on. And I was like, yeah, I can do that, sure. But remember that it’s not yourself you are with your husband, and this is a decision that you have to make, yours both, like, I cannot go into a space that is yours. Like, please check with your husband. So she went and checked with her husband. And of course her husband is so skeptic. And he was like, I don’t believe in that at all. Like, I don’t really believe in that, but if you want her to do it, do it, I was like, okay, I have your consent,et’s make this. Okay. And I went and I was like, okay, your bed is really, really well placed in between some flows that are not really good, but it’s well put, like, this is pretty good. Okay. Let’s keep going. And I found that everything in the room was in the right place. Like someone did the job already. Like they created the room with this knowledge and it was like, whoa, like, and the wife was like, you’re getting surprised, we need to change everything, don’t we? We need to move everything around it. Like, no, no, you don’t need to do anything. It’s perfect as it is, who did this? Do you bring somebody like me to design this? And she was looking at me and she was like, no. And it was like, who arranged the whole room? And she went like, okay, even though my husband is someone that is a skeptic, I pronounce it. Right. Yeah. Even though my husband is someone that is skeptic, he has so well tuned. Their kind of notions of how things are in the right place. He is the one that brought all of the things in this room, in the right place. It was her, not him. No. It was him. And I was like, okay, we need to talk. You have done it more accurately. Like you have done it on the spot. You are amazing. You don’t need anything else. This is perfect. As it is even the way that he has a spot there, where he was sitting in the computer. And there’s one spot of energy that allows imagination and creativity allows this flow, mood flow. And he was in the spot there. And I was like, oh, this is amazing. This is amazing. You aren’t a skeptic, but you have this. And this is one of the, of course, everybody has this is not that I am the weirdo. Everyone, everyone feels these things, but the way that we relate with this information, it’s different. It’s super interesting.
Morag Gamble:
Hmm. That’s fascinating. So I wonder whether, I know we’re getting well, we’re actually at the hour and I’m wondering whether we could maybe sort of bring this back to a close by somehow describing how this relates to you in your permaculture work maybe, or where you and generally where you see permaculture emerging in Ecuador. So there’s two big questions to wrap up, but just as a sort of a summary. Yeah. I suppose.
Juan Lugo:
I think that one of the most beautiful proposals of permaculture is on how we relate with everything and permaculture, like the way that I see, which is something that I know that everybody has their own points of view, and this is just my point of view. The best teacher of course is nature. And this is how I see it, permaculture like proposes a lot of the learning process inside nature, inside our garden, inside our more nature-y space that we have around. But these has to do a lot with some people have call it like a Eco- alphabetization, which is this organic way of thinking. And this is more than the garden. And this goes through and projects into everything that we do, into our relationships, which is again with nature, with everybody, with our family, with each other. So creating and healing our connection with nature allows us to reshape the way we think and the way we relate with everything else in our world and how we relate with life. And this is essential for me because permaculture gathers a lot of eco techniques again, let’s say, which is amazing. And it’s awesome to understand that into late seventies, beginning of the eighties, of course, remember where permacultural comes from and how we developed that knowledge from permaculture into these days is I think that this is it like this way of organic thinking and how we can move forward from these organic way of networking, thinking that we developed through our gardening and relationship with nature. And we put it into our social scheme of things on our community level, because yes, we can go and create a beautiful piece of land with all the containers that we have, but we are [inaudible]. And some people tend to do that. So for me, at least here in Ecuador, I can talk about my, like from me and what I do. I can not talk from the perspective of different people, I’m trying to make that use of permaculture, let’s say allowing that knowledge and that organic way of thinking, which takes a lot of time, but that I think that helps community and we can push permaculture into a next step let’s say. And I nurture a lot of the way of thinking of regeneration and there’s a lot to talk about that and how permaculture bonds into that let’s say, and allows that regeneration thinking and listening, deeply listening, because I feel that in the permaculture movement, we don’t listen too much. Sometimes we impose sometimes, and this is the call to listen, to deeply listen to our land, to these people, listen to our community and to make sense with this organic knowledge into our relationships and to everything that we do. So, yeah, I’m always trying to push things forward. I have been doing permaculture and surf classes, permaculture and acupuncture of the air classes. And most recently I have known permaculture for entrepreneurs, allowing them to make those connections of nature and organic thinking into the enterprises. And then what you call small enterprises?
Morag Gamble:
Small enterprises, might be small enterprises. Like that’s always.
Juan Lugo:
Yeah, because that is the way that, this is the word that I’m related with. Let’s say, this is the branches that I have, even though sometimes I’m able to reach into more organizational level of ONGs and so on, but I’m always trying to, this is what I have at hand. This is what I can do with what I have in this environment that I am in right now. So that’s pretty much how I see it. And this is how I’m trying to do things here in Ecuador. Yeah.
Morag Gamble:
Thank you so much for sharing that, it’s inspirational in just so many different ways and, and peeled back the layers. We just went deeper and deeper into areas of, I think, of the permaculture world that don’t really get talked about that much, but there’s a kind of a sense of it there. I think. So thank you for bringing that kind of unseen world into the visible world during this conversation, because it’s there all the time, whether we acknowledge it or not. So I really appreciate you going into that space and describing it and sharing your experience. It’s incredibly powerful, those stories you shared about the deep time connection and that deep connection to place and culture and how that helps to heal our own selves and how we are in the world. And that’s where the regeneration is going to stem from. It’s when we actually enter into those spaces. So thank you so much. I would like to say to listeners that we’re going to pop some links down below to Juan’s work. So if there’s anything that you’d like to share with us, any links that you mentioned or references or ways people can get in touch with you, you’ll find all that information down below in the show notes. So thank you again so much for being here. It’s been, well, look, I’m getting all those of you who are listening to this, won’t see this, but on the video, I just, I’m getting completely blown out by the light and I’ve turned into a ghost. So I have to find a bit of shade here. There we go. Yeah. So thank you so much Juan, it’s been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show.
Juan Lugo:
Thank you. Thank you too, for opening these spaces and for listening. I think we’re to talk so much for me, I always try and make everyone talk, but this is the form of the work that we’re doing. We are turning the tables, let’s say, but thank you. Thank you. I feel really comfortable. I think that I share, yeah, this sharing entails this comfortable. How comfortable I feel with you, with your thoughts, thank you so much for that.
Morag Gamble:
So that’s all for today. Thanks so much for joining me. If you like a copy of my top 10 books to read, click the link below, pop in your email, and I’ll send it straight to you. You can also watch this interview over on my YouTube channel. I’ll put the link below as well, and don’t forget to subscribe, leave a comment. And if you’ve enjoyed it, please consider giving me a star rating. Believe it or not, the more people do this. The more podcast bots will discover this little podcast. So thanks again. And I’ll see you again next week.