The Ecology Within: Exploring the Interconnectedness Between Somatic Therapy and Permaculture Design Philosophy

Cultivating the Inner Landscape - Somatic Enquiry and Permaculture Design; Integrative Counselling in Fremantle, Perth

My relationship with permaculture began some time before I started practicing somatic counselling and bodywork integration. A few years back, I was living off-grid in the Sunshine Coast hinterland in Queensland, volunteering on an organic farm and spending much of my days observing nature and working on the land.

Living on the land I focused my energy in bush regeneration and permaculture design. Getting closer to the land and experiencing the elements, I began to align with natural cycles and rhythms and discover permaculture - permanent culture, observing the eco system around me and putting systems in place where human life and the environment support each other.

Permaculture teaches us to observe and watch the land before deciding what design systems can engage with the local ecosystem, for example cultivating edible plants alongside natives, water retention and protecting existing fauna species, improving the landscape with careful balance. As you observe the landscape you notice the movement of water, where the sun falls, what grows beside what, where the land holds moisture and where it dries out. Slowly, you begin to see how you can work with those relationships and create a design that allows the ecosystem to thrive, including yourself as an active part in that environment.

Later, when I began practicing somatic counselling and bodywork integration in Perth, I recognised that the very same principle that guides the permaculture design also support the somatic self-enquiry process: observing what is, first.

During that time on the Sunshine Coast, I became an educator and got interested in facilitating forest school workshops. A place where children could learn through the environment: permaculture, organic growing, bush regeneration, Indigenous perspectives, arts and storytelling and moving in the environment. Learning woven into the landscape.

Living close to the land in that way changed something in me. It helped me understand how much we are the environment.

We often talk about the environment as if it exists somewhere outside us: the forest, the ocean, the garden. But our bodies are also living ecosystems, breathing, processing, adapting, repairing, responding.

The body like an ecosystem continually respond to conditions.

In the somatic practice, we develop Interoception: the capacity to notice sensations and signals arising from within. Sometimes these are clear: a tightening, a warmth, constrictions and expansions. Sometimes they are subtle. The practice can begin with a body scan, allowing the signals to be noticed, before trying to analyse or change them. The 4 Stages of Energy in the Body and in Natural Cycles

The somatic approach describes four stages in the unfolding of a process: Initiation, Rising, Containment and Completion.

Something begins, gathers momentum, finds prime and eventually reaches a place of completion. Perhaps only “complete for now”, where we begin and witness how each energy stage influences how we experience ourselves.

These stages can also offer a way of reflecting on our everyday life. Initiation might be difficult when we feel stuck or keep putting something off. Rising can bring excitement but also preparation, along with uncertainty about where that energy might be taking us. Containment asks us how we hold events, a relationship or an experience as it develops. Completion invites us to acknowledge what has happened before reaching for the next thing.

I find this curious alongside permaculture because natural systems also move through cycles. Seeds germinate, plants germinate and yield, the moon waxes and wains and the wavews in the ocean initiate, rise, contain full capacity and complete as the curl and compete on the shore and back to the oneness of the ocean. Organic matter breaks down and nourishes what comes next. The Realm of the Felt Sense in Somatic Enquiry

There is also the realm of the felt sense, as psychologist and philosopher Eugene Gendlin coined the term: a kind of bodily knowing that doesn’t always have language yet. Something in the body already has a sense of it. When we give it time and attention, meaning can emerge rather than be forced.

This is where somatic practice begins to feel very close to permaculture. We observe, notice relationships, work with what’s present and create conditions for something fresh to unfold.

Nurturing and cultivation show up both in the somatic process and in permaculture design, within us and in the environment.

Rather than coming from a stance of asking what’s wrong, we might also ask: what needs nourishment?

That question could belong just as easily in the ecosystem as in the therapeutic container.

Nourishment can take many forms. Rest, movement, self-care, learning a new skill, making art or doing something with intention. I’m particularly interested in the small moments when an ordinary activity becomes a way of reconnecting with ourselves. Noticing posture or how we breathe moving through tasks. Giving an idea enough space to form without immediately acting upon it.

Permaculture asks us to recognise the resources already available within a system before continually importing from outside it. Somatic work can offer a similar inquiry.

What resources are already here?

Perhaps it’s something small: the feeling of our feet against the ground, the support of the chair, a memory of somewhere safe, a relationship, a part of the body that feels settled. A capacity that has carried us through before - our innate resources.

Sometimes our attention naturally gravitates towards what is painful or unresolved, and that’s understandable. But the wider ecosystem is always larger than a single point of struggle.

An ecosystem isn’t defined entirely by one struggling plant. Neither are we. And that's where parts theory comes in too. Re-Defining Relationships Between Parts of Our inner Landscape

In permaculture, design considers communities of fauna and flora. Different parts and elements support or affect one another. The somatic practice can feel as if we’re tending to our inner ecology, inviting different parts of ourselves into relationship and exploring what supports balance between them.

We all have different aspects of ourselves. A part may want to move forward, while another wants to stay safer in stillness. One part may be loud and anxious, another exhausted. One may long for intimacy, while another remembers past hurts.

From the outside, these can look like contradictions. From an ecological perspective, they begin to make sense.

Each part has developed within particular conditions. Each has learned something. Each may be trying to protect us in the way it knows.

Rather than removing the difficult part, we can become curious about the role it’s been playing.

What is it protecting? What does it need? What happens if it realises other resources are available now?

A protector can be loud or relentless. It may have learned that being vigilant, pushing harder or withdrawing was necessary. Meeting it with curiosity gives us a chance to understand that history and recognise the capacities we have now for it to relax.

In this way, change can emerge through relationship. Diversity is part of an ecosystem’s resilience. Different needs can coexist, and the relationships between them influence the whole.

This is where the idea of Body Permaculture began to make sense to me.

If permaculture is about creating sustainable relationships within living systems, maybe we can apply that curiosity inwardly and interpersonally.

Instead of asking, “How do I get rid of this?” we might ask, “How does this belong to a larger system?”

Before dividing experience into good or bad, useful or useless, we can become interested in what it is doing and how it developed. Non Duality in the Somatic Approach

This also touches on something I learned from Zen Budhism teavhings, the non-duality: meeting experience without immediately splitting it into sides. Ecosystems include decay as well as growth.

A fallen leaf becomes part of the forest bed, compost, and ultimately nutrient supply for the ecosystem.

This means recognising that experiences we might initially reject or avoid can sometimes carry resouircerful information. We can listen while also making choices about boundaries, support and what needs to change.

Somatic inquiry gives us a way of becoming more familiar with our own landscapes.

The relationship between client and practitioner belongs in this frame too. I think of companion planting: what becomes possible through the conditions we create together? There is room for curiosity, feedback and adjustment. We notice what supports, enrich and empower at eassy-to-process pace.

These principals lay substantial foundation: observation before intervention. We are remind that growth has its own timing.

We work with conditions. We tend the landscape, work with water and light, and pay attention to what wants and ready to unfold next.

For me, somatic inquiry offers a similar invitation: creating space to meet what’s present with curiosity and a welcoming attitude, allowing parts, sensations and experiences to come into relationships that cultivate fresh neuroplasticity.

Integrative Counslling Guided by Wholesome Philoshophies At my Fremantle, Perth clinic, and through my online somatic counselling sessions, these ideas continue to guide my practice. We learn to observe and listen to the ecosystems within us, recognise our gifts and resources and explore conditions that support balance, autonomy and connection.

My sessions in clinic integrate somatic counselling with bodywork, breathwork, movement, massage and somatic practices that support posture, core awareness, inner rhythms and potentials. The work via Zoom has also guided somatic, movement and body based practices that go along well with the process of self-enquiry and healing. Connect with me today. Expand. Thrive. Book online: www.elijahforest.com Location: 130 Hampton Rd, Fremantle, WA