Marie-Pierre Bilodeau
Project Manager, East Africa Permaculture Project - Vancouver, BC, CanadaBusiness, Client, Education, Holistic Life Context, Life DesignJavan’s course (Holistic Life Context) helped my team and I discover our “why” and coached us in developing our core values. It helped us find order in the chaos that we were headed toward.
I recommend this course to anybody who is starting a business or non-profit to make sure you and your team are all on the same wavelength and to avoid any future catastrophes.
Figuring out the inner workings of your future organization can help you avoid major breakdowns or even burnout when it is already too late to change anything.
This course is an indispensable investment to any organization. It will get you on the right track with proper habits, goal setting, communication, progress tracking and will allow you to create the infrastructure you need for success.
Javan is an encyclopaedia of information and his wealth of knowledge is priceless. He will go above and beyond the call of duty to recommend books, resources, websites, people to connect with etc.
This course is a gift and will leave you inspired, confident and ready to face any challenge that comes your way.
Jessica Levine
Visual Artist and College Professor - VA, USAOSU PDC Student, PDC StudentThank you for your work in the world. This course has been thrilling, grueling and most points in between. I feel well prepared to go forth and let a food forest come into being on the little piece of land 1/10th of an acre, of which I steward.
Many thanks to you, the teachers, graders, students, permaculture colleagues.
Dave Andrews
Professor of Horticulture and Sustainable Agriculture at Cosumnes River College, CaliforniaLand Design, OSU PDC Student, PDC StudentThank you so very much for this wonderful course! One of the best online experiences that I have had. This course has allowed me to grow as a professional and as an educator. Thank you for the tremendous amount of time you all have put in to this program, and for all of your teaching, mentoring, and support!
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Graham Teeple
Professional Gardener, Toronto, CanadaLife Design, Limiting BeliefsJavan and I connected for 10 sessions around personal resistance work. His approach was supportive, adaptable, and highly practical. I have noticed tangible changes in my inner and outer life months after completing these sessions, and I look forward to working with him in the coming years for his expertise in personal and professional development.
I originally approached Javan as a regenerative business mentor, and he was quick to identify the personal root of my professional challenges. Our first “good fit call” was really a wake-up call for me. In the past I have turned to talk therapists, a life coach, and self-help books/podcasts to help tackle the ol’ demons. I am confident that working with Javan has been the most influential in this regard. I now have access to a number of tools that we tested together, with concrete evidence that they work for me. As someone who values a good, lean toolkit, this is awesome.
Javan is the real deal. He will help you develop a foundation of the right skills for your journey. He will call out your bullshit in a respectful and gentle way, guiding you closer to the truth. Most importantly, he will genuinely care about what you are working on together. My advice for anyone who embarks with Javan is to do the work, be as open as possible, and enjoy the process. And be silly when you can, it’s way more fun!
I feel so thankful to have connected with Javan. In a dark time, our weekly sessions were brilliant.
Amy Rougler
Manager - FranceEducation, General, Land Design, OSU PDC Student, PDC StudentThank you for your support and instruction for the Permaculture Design course. The course was incredibly challenging, and each week I would wonder how I was going to do the homework. Then I somehow did thanks to many hours of research, redos, and support.I found the videos you and Neil made to be essential! So essential that I’m not sure how students in other groups get the homework done!It really helped to see examples and clarify expectations. I think if I didn’t have the videos, I might have found the course to be frustrating. For an online course it was rigorous and I am glad I had the time to dedicate to it and I am really proud of myself for completing it.I appreciated you encouraging us not to focus on grades but on learning, since I was definitely that student in school that cared way too much about grades. Since it was such a challenging course for me, it was validating to see that I was understanding the essentials and able to apply it to a real place.I really enjoyed the format of the course – each week using a different lens to go through the design process. I feel as though my observation and analytical skills have been sharpened and I see the world in a much more interconnected and complex way. I am excited to build on what I have learned now that I know all the things I need to learn more about!Thank you again for your support, teaching, and time.
Jonathan and Christina Davis
Farmers - USABusiness, Client, General, Holistic Life Context, Life DesignWe called Javan as we listened to his podcasts for years about making better decisions. We were at a cross roads with our farm and family. The time was very valuable to us. You’re really good at this.
We needed attention and someone to hear us out. You listened in a very non-judgemental way to very judgemental stuff! The homework you provided gives us something solid to work on instead of being lost in fatigue.
We’ve been looking at context work for years and we get it now. We can’t get bogged down with our stuff. Thank you.
Sophie Strobele
Gardner - GermanyEducation, General, Land Design, OSU PDC Student, PDC StudentI’m so grateful for your detailed response, feedback and the great input! Really motivating to get the design started.
I noted all the points you mentioned and would love to keep in touch over the design process. Your and Neils idea of the support group is really wonderful!
All the best to you and good luck for upcoming projects, looking forward to staying in touch.
PS – And as a little extra to my euphoria of finsihing the PCD course, i gave birth to my daughter last week, just on the finishing day of the course. She waited for me to finish the master plan 🙂 Very excited to bring up this child in the permaculture environment and mindset. Thank you so much for teaching and guiding us so patiently and professionally.
Ben Garrett
Tiny House and Earthship Building - Healthy Homes - Canada, New Zealand, AustraliaClient, General, Land Design, Pre-Purchase Land AssessmentYour guidance through our property search has been invaluable. The quality of research and attention to detail that you provide has been outstanding. With climate change, food security, fire, water management, geotechnical data, noise and views in mind, you have saved us from buying a property that did not suit us, and above all suggested incredible alternatives.
Our family has so much appreciation and gratitude for how you have helped with this process.
Jaqui Aubert
Gardner - Life Coach - Performing Artist - FranceEducation, OSU PDC Student, PDC StudentI loved this course!
I feel I got a full spectrum of the basics of Permaculture and I understand them very well.
The course is really well organized in a way that one can learn by gradients and it all fits perfectly together in the end. Now that the course has been restructured, it is even better. Once all the assignments are done and all together in one portfolio, you feel like a pro!The way the course is set up to give and get feedback from the other students is fantastic. It really helped me to see the work other students were doing, and what kind of sites and climates they were working with. It often helped me get new ideas to do my own work even better.
The instructors were always available and answered any questions right away. This is a great support.The intensity of the course pushed me to really work and learn. I think many PDC courses can be quite simple, but this one is very much a university level and it pushed me to be at a high level. It also inspired me to go even deeper and do more research. I didn’t do the course just to get a certificate, but rather because I wanted to get as much knowledge as possible about Permaculture from experienced people, so this PDC from such an experienced person as Andrew Millison and all his other also very experienced instructors was perfect.
I did it in two semesters. I planned originally to do it in one, but I had to start late so I needed more time and that was actually lucky because doing the course in two semesters gave me more time to go slowly through the material and go deeper with my assignments.
My primary instructor was Javan Bernakevitch. He was always very helpful, gave great feedback and always answered any questions or emails right away.
He has done great instruction videos for every assignment with Neil Bertrando, and this was a huge help for me. They also did some webinars to help us more with specific topics and those were also a great help for me, besides making it feel like an even more interactive course.
For my second semester Javan is now giving assignment feedback in videos where we can see our assignments and he points things out to us or shows how to make a correction. I love this. It is really like being live with the instructor and getting great feedback in person. It gives him also possibility to be much more precise and detailed with the feedback.
My favourite thing about Javan is how he was very complimentary and supportive. This gave me incentive to keep doing my best work and strive to be even better.
Ryan Grabe
University Student - Gardener - Ontario - CanadaEducation, OSU PDC Student, PDC StudentI really loved the course. The step by step learning about my land and designing zone by zone slowly and thoughtfully was key for me to come up with my final plan. I don’t think I would have been able to come up with nearly as good of a design for my yard on my own. The readings and videos were helpful in this learning process, but your commentary was the most valuable to me.