2: Catch and Store Energy

Catch and Store Energy

“By developing systems that collect resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need.”

🌞 About the Principle

This principle in a food system is about harvesting food and energy sources when they are in abundance so that you can use them in times of need. We might also think about the kinds of energy that is renewable, such as solar, wind or geothermal energy. For folks in permaculture there might also be a focus on saving crops for future needs or working with the sun or the rain instead of against it.

This principle is asking us to consider where the energy is, personally and collectively and to organize ourselves around these sources of energy in our lives.

🌱 Energy in Your Life

For our personal daily lives however, this principle asks us to consider our own personal energy and how we are able to align that vitality and aliveness with the things we want to do in the world. What kinds of things renew us? What kind of energy can we store and use later on?

  • What time of day do I feel most alive? What am I typically doing during those times?

  • What activities and situations are energizing to me? Does being social energize me? Animals? Nature? Puzzles/Problem solving? Playing? Creating?

  • When have I felt calm, centered and awake in my life? What was happening that I felt that way?

  • When have I felt stressed, challenged and tired? What was happening that I felt that way?

  • What type of food nourishes and energizes me? What depletes me?

  • What type of people nourish and energizes me? Who depletes me?

🌐 Energy in Your Community

A podcast I listened to recently talked about the importance in movements for people to share food and drink with one another. That to create positive connection and collective action, we need to find ways to nourish ourselves with one another. In my mind this is a way of thinking about how we share energy with each other.

  • How might we think about energy in terms of the things that are needed as a collective? What kind of community energy might bring us together?
  • How might the arts give a place for the community to gather and share their energy with one another? Where do we see music, dancing or other parties helping to bring people together?
  • Who is in need of nourishment in our community? Who needs food? Who needs attention and time? Who needs a kind word or a thoughtful gesture?
  • Who has an abundance of nourishment and could offer what they have to others? Who has extra attention or time? Who has a kind word to spare? Who has extra food?

🌿 Examples in the Natural World

  • Preserving - While not the natural world, the human world has needed to preserve food and to learn ways to store food, liquid and methods of energy. From canning fruit to putting water in clay pots, to creating beef jerky there are thousands of ways we have learned to store and to save food. We do this as a method of storing energy and saving it for the future.

  • Sunshine - Have you ever seen a pet move themselves to the sunny spot so that they can nap in the warmth? Or have you moved your deck chair so that you can feel the sun on your face? We instinctively move towards the sunshine when we see it and have often designed both to shade from and to feel the sunlight in our buildings.

  • Honey from Bees - Bees literally create a liquid gold that takes the surplus energy of flowers and turns them into a nutrient dense food. We can use the wax for making candles or skin creams. But the energy found in the honey is drawn from the sunny days the bees spent gathering pollen.

  • Cacti Storing Water - Cacti in desert locations will store water from the rains in their flesh so that they can survive long times when there is dry weather.

  • Seeds - Most seeds are designed to wait until favorable growing conditions come about making sure that they store their energy for the next generation and to ensure survival.

🌀Integrating this Principle

  • What would it look like to chart your energy levels throughout the day/year as if it were a battery levels? When are you 100% charged? When are you at 50%? 25%? What recharges you? What depletes you? Could you make a visual for yourself?

📖 Resources for Further Exploration

Written by Beth M. Duckles. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Contact me.