Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities

In the text Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, author Diana Leafe Christian clearly lays the groundwork for anyone wishing to form an intentional community. The text is very practical, full of all sorts of nuts-and-bolts type of information about forming a group, finding and financing land, building community agreements, deciding on a legal structure for your group, and dealing with conflict in a constructive way. Lots of these details were useful for me in a general sense, great for stashing away to use later in the process. I know I will refer back to this book many times as I embark on the project of building intentional community. However, I also got clear on a few points that will help me develop myself and my ability to be a good community member that I can use right now.

First of all, I can't get by in community floating along without clearly defining what I mean. I have a tendency to create muddled communication situations when I have feelings about something, and I skirt around the issue or try to soften it if I am scared the other person or people will have feelings about it. It became clear to me that this style of communicating will not serve me in the long run in community. Also, in connection to clarity of communication, I learned about the value of vision statements. It is important to clearly define group vision, goals, and structure before you leap into a big commitment. What are you committing to, exactly? Having clarity on the outset of building community is vital to the success of the group. I used the information to discuss openly my vision, needs, and intentions with my community-building partner, Margaritte. We used the exercises in this book to help us put together a clearer vision of what we are going toward together. It is far from complete, but we wanted to have a rough common ground rather than a complete, polished document of vision and goals; that will come as we gain more people interested in community to craft that document with us. In this process I also learned about the difference between a vision, a mission, a goal, a strategy, and values. All these aspects come into play in the manifestation of your shared life together, but they express different aspects of what you are creating and are important to define separately.

I got a good sense of financial reality of this project, and though I am not sure how I will acquire large amounts of money to finance this project, I was encouraged by the stories in the book about people learning all kinds of flexible ways to finance land and development with very little money. In reality, a group of people can get mush farther when they pool their resources. I came away feeling like amazing things can happen with very little personal resource, and that in some ways it is more important to believe in the possibility of it happening. I am also aware that other members of the group will and should be more financially knowledgeable that I am, and our styles will balance each other out.

That leads me to thinking about my personal assets and skills that I can bring to the community, and some areas which I will look to other members for skill. Margaritte and I each made a brainstorm in one of our seminars titled "Skills and assets I have for building community." This is mine.

"Head" Skills
Gardening/Farming
Research Skills
Writing for Scholarships and Grants
Writing for clear communication
Math, Statistics, Computer Processing
Permaculture Design
Cooking and Food Preservation
Wildcrafting
Herbal Medicine-making
Knowledge of Local Ecology
Resourcefulness, Getting Stuff for Free
Ability to Stay On Task and Accomplish Big Goals
Chemistry Basics

"Heart" Skills
Inspiring People
Staying Hopeful and Positive In the Face of Challenges
Counseling/Listening/Emotional Healing Expertise
Ability to Witness Hardship
Loyal and Committed
Focused
Ability to Lead and Think About the Group
Training in Nonviolent Communication
Sense of Fairness and Justice
High Degree of Respect for Others
Social Networking

One of the great things about community is that we don't have to be everything. I plan to find people to round out the skills I have, so every person can contribute and feel valuable and we can have a group holding many areas of expertise. This will make the group more functional and stronger. I am particularly aware of my lack of skill in the areas of interfacing with government institutions and legal structures. I would rather leave that to someone else. Also, I don't have much knowledge with investments of making smart money choices or developing physical structures or infrastructure on land. I also need allies who don't get overwhelmed to help pull me through when details swamp me.

Building community takes a long time, and people will come and go. These are points I knew already, but really got driven home from reading this book. I feel better equipped with a picture of reality as I set forth. I have more confidence due to increased information from this book. Also, I have more of a sense of meaning about my personal connections with people. I feel a strong conviction that the community I want to live in will be built with people who already know and love each other. I am not interested in recruiting strangers. That doesn't mean I won't build relationships now in order to possibly live with them in the future. I am interested in starting relationships now with the express purpose of forming community later down the road, especially relationships that cross borders of oppression established by society. I want to foster connection with folks from all sorts of diverse backgrounds. This means specifically extending myself in places I may feel uncomfortable to connect with different people than me. However, I got a picture that these folks who I build relationships with now won't necessarily make it to the final stages of living together, and this is a natural part of the process. I guess its a lesson about the importance of the process and not the final outcome of the project.

I have built on the information I have about community and I feel better equipped to develop community as I continue living. The next steps to making this dream happen include building relationships and getting more training in sustainable living. I talk more about those steps in Margaritte and I's Community Creation Vision and Plan.

The Communities Directory

The Communities Directory is a thick book that includes lots of information on specific communities across the continent--it also begins with many informative essays by various authors on all aspects of living in community. I picked up this text to get more information from other community founders on what types of issues and challenges I might face with starting a community, and to help me contextualize my thinking and get insights and ideas I wouldn't have thought of on my own. What I found was a mix of helpful, detailed articles as well as some overly basic introductory ones. Among the most useful for me was those about decision making models, "Consensus Basics," by Tree Bressen, and "Decision Making in Practice: Leadership Decisions and Majority-Rule Democracy," by Rebecca L'Abbe; and those about community constituencies and focus, such as "Life in a Resistance Community" by Sue Frankel-Streit, and several about queer people within community. I also got a lot of insight from two articles thinking about elders and children in community, and using "Conflict as an Opportunity for Harnessing Emotional Energy."

I have assumed that any community I would be a part of would practice consensus. I've had an odd feeling about this assumption at times, but I simply could not envision another model that would not be messed up with power dynamics and hierarchies. In the past I lived in several communities that have practiced consensus, with varying levels of formality and training. In those situations, I felt a little lost by the process, a little intimidated to step into leadership, and not entirely sure how to express my opinion about everything, because I often do not have strong opinions about issues. The article "Consensus Basics" was very useful in that I got a clear outline of the steps in the process, which clarified the reasons for why the groups I was involved in operated the way we did. It made me wish I had formal training in the process at the time, as that may have made the experience less frustrating for me, and given me some tools to feel more included in it. Eventually I left the last community I was a part of because I was exhausted by too many meetings and household commitments without enough bonding and feeling of friendship with the people involved. In reading this article, I was struck by the intense moral fiber of the consensus process: the goal is complete inclusion and representation of every person involved. This seems like a daunting task. It made me wonder if the formalities would feel less tiresome in a closer-knit group than the ones I have experience with. It definitely emerged as a clear art form, a calculated process with lots of integrity and intention. I think it is good for small communities and building close relationships if it is used correctly. The article warned against "pseudo-consensus" which can occur when members are not familiar enough with the structure or when people use the form in manipulative ways for their own power or control reasons.

I was actually surprised by my excitement at the article which discussed alternative methods of decision making: leadership and majority-rule democracy. A peer counseling organization I am currently involved with uses the leadership model, which works excellently for that purpose. It is a model that relies on a main leader to make the final decision; however, the leader does not rule in isolation. the leader is surrounded by a close group of people who serve as advising and making recommendations and helping the leader make the best decision possible. This model is exciting to me because it allows individuals to really claim an active, full leadership position. Sometimes in consensus I feel an underlying attitude held by the group that total leadership is somehow inherently corrupt; i don't believe that leadership is inherently corrupt. Sometimes in consensus I censor my own power, scared to dominate or take over the space. In a leadership model, if the group is in union about supporting their leaders, this tension is alleviated because we all agree to support the person making the decisions energetically and practically. Ideally, especially in large organizations, there is plenty of opportunities for leadership. Different people would have control over specific areas that they have expertise in, such as finances, schools, farming, housing, etc. I am not sure how to totally avoid corruption in a community setting with this model, but the example of a large community in India doing it this way was very useful. I am very excited to consider alternatives to the old standby of consensus. Democracy, I admit, does not excite me very much, probably because I think there is too much room for a false sense of representation when many people get marginalized when they are not the majority. It feels too dualistic, and I don't see it working all that great in our government.

Briefly , let me mention my thoughts about constituencies of people within communities. I read several articles about queer folks in community; two of these were about the special dynamic of all-queer of all-womyn space, and the third was about the benefit of a mixed-sexuality community. As a queer person, I find I naturally surround myself with other queer people in friendships, work, school. These are the people I feel naturally drawn to, and I actually find myself wishing I had more relationships with straight people for some diversity and variation of perspective in my life. Many of my friends who are looking for community want to live in queer spaces only. I feel pretty strongly that I don't want a purely queer community. I want all types of people. I want to have a conscious space for queer people to come and be safe and welcomed, but I want straight people to feel welcomed and at home there as well.

Other aspects of my future community that I considered in reading this book was incorporating elders and children. The articles brought up some great points about the benefits of multi-generations, which I had already decided I wanted. I think of this future community as a place my parents can come when they are old, and a place to help raise the children of my dear friends.

The last article I will review was titled "Committing to Community for the Long Term: Do We Have What It Takes?" by Carolyn Schaffer. The author speaks to her life-long commitment she made to a community that fell apart within a year afterward. She explains how the process of committing "without reservation" to the form of the community as it existed in that moment was a trap. It is a trap to need to rely on the physical structure to persist, because change is inevitable and good. She had to address major issues of ego attachment as she let this community disintegrate. She learned through experience how to be a "hospice worker" of sorts to her beloved home to which she had committed, literally, "till death do us part." Her worries of breaking her commitment actually gave her the opportunity to investigate what exactly she was committing to. In the end, she learned that commitment does not equal sticking something out that feels like drudgery, or holding onto a form that clearly isn't working but that you are righteously attached to on principal. The lesson is to passionately commit with both ones heart and ones logical thinking. This is a smart commitment that will see the community through transformation, change, and hold on and persist in tough times but knows the wise choice to let go when appropriate.

I can see myself struggling with attachment to form, both physical land based forms and people. A large motivation for finding intentional community for me is "finding family". Family, in my mind, means you don't ever leave each other. It's like the rigid expectation of "til death do us part." Perhaps this is a result of my family disintegrating when I was a teenager. I am an only child, and my parents were extremely loving and kind to each other my whole childhood; until I was 16. Then everything fell apart. The promise they made continually to me as a young child--that they would stay together through any conceivable conflict--crumbled under the crisis of jealousy, betrayal, shifts in desire and power. Perhaps the sadness of this has left me with an expectation that families stay together no matter how hard it gets. I am aware that this is, perhaps, an unreasonable expectation to hold for my future communitarians. An idea came to me as I read this article. I want to consciously address feelings of attachment as the group coalesces, as part of early bonding exercises; I would also do this for myself in my personal process. I see a day or several days of emotional healing and communication about our expectations and early hurts/memories around our families, friends, loss, or commitment.

Why bother with all this mess? Is community worth all the hassle? Among many other reasons, including camaraderie and feelings of closeness with people, I was reminded through these readings that forming and participating in intentional community is an act of conscious dissent from the mainstream culture of greed and isolation; the challenge is worth it because it is essential to forming a new culture and new values of cooperation, integration, mutuality. This is my revolution.

The Tracker, by Tom Brown, Jr.

The Tracker is the true story of a white American boy growing up under the apprenticeship of nature. He is guided by his own ferocious curiosity, the camaraderie of his best friend, and his best friend's grandfather, an Apache elder named Stalking Wolf. The book reads with ease, and as a reader I am taken into every mystery and detail he himself pondered over, and feel enthralled in the powerful serendipity and magic of the natural world. I came away from this book with a feeling of humility: the world around me is more great, more intricate, and more a part of myself than I ever knew. I have heard many stories about amazing coincidences and the powers of nature, and still I am left with awe and a sense that it is accessible to me, too, if I try. Knowing nature is not some far away goal only for "good" people, disciplined people, or "spiritual" people. It is just something that takes practice. Lots, and lots of practice.

Tom Brown, Jr. grew up in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey when they were still a far-reaching expanse of wilderness rarely traversed by people in "normal" society. As a young boy he was obsessed with nature, and made it a point to spend every spare moment experiencing its wonders. I am impressed with the intensity of his dedication. Every mystery must be thoroughly sought after and unraveled to dissect the secrets inside. He bonded with his best friend Rick about their common love of nature, and they were constant companions for each other from the age of five well into teenage-hood. The book takes us through their process of maturing; we witness the struggles to learn the arts of tracking, stalking, hunting, foraging, identification. These lessons were not learned in the standard school way. He was mentored in an intentional way which subtly guided his own curiosity to just the right places. Stalking Wolf provided nudges, inspiration, and the spark that kept Tom searching for answers. He also taught a way of thinking, a lifestyle. Tom states "we learned a world view in which Nature is a being larger than the sum of all creatures, and can be seen best in the flow of its interactions." (p 14) This worldview is what the modern movement of permaculture and many earth-based spiritual traditions practice. It is best acquired through direct experience in nature; no amount of learning from books can teach one this worldview.

The goal of the book is to show the magnitude of loss that human society has experienced in being separated from nature, and the route to reconnection. This point keeps returning to me as I read, in experiences that Tom has with the "outside" world in his witness of the outright greed and ignorance with which people relate to nature.

The goal of reconnecting with nature is relevant to the work of building community in several ways. Most importantly, in the principals of permaculture, observation is the place to begin all action we take in designing our living space, our culture, our relationships. Tom Brown models observation to its ultimate. He is the master of sitting and waiting and looking at the larger flow of energy that is occurring around him. He waits in a tree absolutely still, hunting a great buck for an entire day until it passes underneath him. This is only after he has spent a week tracking the deer, stalking him, watching his habits and patterns. When the deer passes beneath the tree Tom is in, he leaps onto his back and stabs it in the chest, again and again, with his knife. The kill is made for food, and every part of the deer is used in some way to benefit the whole. This is an example of the intimacy of relationships born from humans acting in alignment with the ways of nature.

Examples of humans acting in mis-alignment with nature are easy to find; examples that sink my heart with grief for the ignorance which we have been taught. I believe the only way we as humans can act with such horror and violence toward our kin is when we experience what Tom calls "true lostness." He explains that this form of being lost has nothing to do with not knowing where you are in the woods; it is when "you have forgotten the spiritual center of your life, when your values have gotten so warped with time that you do not remember what is truly important." (p 135) At the center of his life was understanding nature. When he first experienced "true lostness", it was from greed for skull collecting between him and Rick; the greed pulled him away from the goal of understanding to the goal of hoarding, finding the best for himself. It wriggled between their friendship and caused great suffering as they lost their awareness of nature around them, consumed with the narrow focus of collecting. This greed is a common theme in the larger society; it is what motivates us to take more than we need, in a way that unbalances the whole. There are many examples of the "true lostness" of our society in the book, just one of which is the story of the beavers.

Beavers are special animals to Tom; he rarely sees beaver sign. When he finally finds his first beaver mound, he also finds the carnage of an entire family of beaver skeletons, starved to death by the ignorance of greed. Nearby, a grove of aspens used to supply the family with their most favored food source. Now, there stands a cement drainage embankment: the cause of the beaver's starvation. Tom relates, "It was the first time I felt truly helpless before the web of greed that passes for human society." (p 140) The humans were not trained to observe the place and design their impacts to fit with the flow of life there.

As an adult, Tom experienced much of the oppression of the class system. He was pressured to get a job, stop wandering around in the woods, and settle down. He felt lost in a world that did not value the web of life, or his skills in living in harmony with it. He wondered if perhaps his life "really was a waste after all." (p 213) This saddens me and makes me think about how so many people are ridiculed (or simply not supported, at best) for following their true passions. I often struggle in the dichotomy of needing to make money, and feeling like all I really care about has nothing to do with money. I want to live in a world that values life; the lives and happiness of humans, and the life of all creatures around us. The world cannot value life if it first values money, because greed will always win.

I learned a lot from this book about how to pursue the development of my awareness in nature, and little details that gave me clues about certain animals, their behaviors, and how to live in flow with them. I am sad that I was not mentored in childhood as he was, but I feel hopeful about pursuing these skills as an adult and passing them on. One critique I have of the book, and perhaps this is not so much about the book, but about the author, is: where are the women??? I don't think he ever mentions a woman, or even the idea of a woman, save for the reference of some drunk guys he was watching in the woods who were wanting to rape a woman and talking about it loudly. Tom speaks from ignorance that assumes that only men have the desire and skills of nature. Women are not dismissed outright, but simply ignored. The vacancy of any female figure or thought of a female tracker left an empty disappointing hole in the story. I also would've liked more discussion of the tribe that Stalking Wolf came from and some context of the struggles of indigenous people and how white folks can be allies and learn the knowledge of nature without co-opting culture. This, however, is perhaps not part of this young man growing up, but part of a larger story that belongs in an other book.

Using Permaculture in Community Design

The Background
At the beginning of this term, I set out to gain "Comprehension and practice of introductory permaculture design concepts..." I also set the goal to "Investigate various models of community structure/design to help clarify my vision of community and steps to create it." The big picture provides some context for these goals:(from the intro to my contract) This contract begins building on a 10-year plan to establish an intentional community and education center in the Pacific Northwest. My vision for the community incorporates ethics of cooperation and deep connection with the natural environment, because sustainability must be informed from knowledge of local ecosystem function. Our community will incorporate a “freeskool” (for grassroots information and skill-share), long-term permaculture farm to produce a subsistence level of food for community members and guests, long-term internships in building a sustainable society, use of local resources (wild food and medicine, water, timber, etc.), and a documentary media collective. It will be financially sustained by our work as educators, foresters, artists, and farmers, and other diverse small industries.

In this contract I have actively pursued the above goals through readings, gaining my permaculture design certificate, networking, educating friends and the larger community about permaculture, practicing the skills of community organizing, and doing direct investigations of community structure.

The education in permaculture I received at the Earth Activist Training (EAT) was a perfect way to begin thinking about forming intentional community in the long term. People often think of permaculture purely in the sense of agriculture, but it is actually a way of thinking in a holistic way that can be applied to any aspect of life, including community design. Permaculture looks at the entire system and assesses how to aid and enhance the energy flows that already exist, creating balanced, regenerating systems. This works great in agriculture, because you get to use the natural patterns of nature to your advantage instead of fighting them. The same ideas can be applied to social situations. We can intentionally plan our organizations, community agreements and social behaviors, clubs, and personal relationships with a conscious eye to what would contribute to their self-sustaining, abundance-generating continuation.

At the EAT we focused on skills we can use to consciously design community, such as consensus, giving and receiving constructive feedback and dealing with conflict, addressing issues of power imbalances and learned behaviors inherited from the larger oppressive society, and doing bonding activities like intense emotional and spiritual processing.

Permaculture contains a set of principals which act as a guiding force for anyone seeking to design sustainable systems. I looked over my list of 27 principals and picked out a few of my favorite that I think are most applicable to social permaculture. Here are some examples of how I think we can apply these concepts.

The Principles, Socially
"System Yield" is the total surplus of energy produced by a system, after the system uses what it needs for maintenance, growth, and reproduction. A group of happy, well-rested people who feel close to each other can consciously generate extra energy to give away. This could be a community group helping in a societal crisis. A group generating energy from ritual or singing together uses it to "recharge" individuals first; excess is given away to the universe in intention and prayer.

"Resource." A resource is "any energy storage which assists yield." This is particularly pertinent in social application. If we focus on storing and conserving our personal energy there is more abundance in the group as a whole. Self-care prevents burn out, and makes the work we do more effective and efficient, so less work equals higher yield.

"The Problem is the Solution." We can turn our social constraints into resources--differences in communication or working styles can be used to add dynamism to group systems, conflict can be harnessed to add needed motivation for change and growth.

"Use Onsite Resources." In most cases, we need not look beyond this place and time to meet our needs. In designing, first use creativity to use what you have. In social application, look to the friends, community, and group members to meet the needs of the group before looking for outside "experts". This increases local bonding, trust in each other, and encourages skills development and sharing between people. This could also be applied to local organizing. Instead of relying on outside, far away governments to dictate laws for us, lets use the resources of the land and the intelligence of the people who live in our community to make our own decisions about how we want to live.

"Pollution is an unused resource." When a resource is present in a higher level than the system can use, it creates chaos and disorder. An example is that too much fertilizer in a garden can contribute to nutrient overload, making the nutrients inaccessible to plants. Children are wonderful, necessary members of a human community. However, if there are too many children compared to the number of adults, the joy, spontaneity, play, and wisdom of the young people go unappreciated because the adults are tired and worn out from too much giving.

"Stacking Functions." Let everything you do fulfill multiple functions--when having to do nasty housecleaning, organize a cleaning party and enjoy social bonding while you do an unappealing job. Let each person in an affinity group contribute multiple aspects of themselves to increase their feeling valuable and whole.

"Every Function is Supported by Multiple Elements." If one element in the system fails, another that serves the same function will be there to take up the slack; it's another way of saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket." An example could be a family or community's livelihood. It is better to have multiple income pathways, such as small businesses, to ensure that if one fails, money will still flow into the system.

"Succession of Evolution" looks at the dimension of time within a system. Change is inevitable and should be welcomed as a healthy aspect of a working system. Each current manifestation of the system prepares and develops the system for the next stage. Group membership will always change and develop; each new configuration of people grows from the last, building knowledge, experience, and relationships toward the collective future.

"Diversity." All biological communities, including human communities, rely on diversity for resiliency (the ability to repair itself from disturbance). As systems mature, they become increasingly diverse over time. Rely on many different people; the more individual relationships you have, the stronger the group. With time, these bonds develop and strengthen. Disturbance that may occur in the group becomes a stimulating catalyst for change, but does not crush the system because there is a strong web that absorbs the impact.

"Observation." April Cotte, a teacher at EAT, does solidarity work with indigenous people on the US-Mexico border. When we interface with different cultures, she said, we must be very conscious if we are members of any oppressor group (such as a US citizen relating to non-US citizens) to observe for a very long time before asserting cultural assumptions in the situation. She has offended people by coming into the situation with too much arrogance about what she knows. Sometimes sitting back and not asserting change immediately can be an intense challenge; I know I was not raised with that kind of cultural sensitivity. But we may not be able to notice the intricacies of interaction in a new culture right away, and it might take a long time to understand how to act appropriately in that group. When in doubt, observe.

Thinking About the Whole Group
In community, if I walk into a meeting with my own agenda, not noticing the energy of others or the group needs, I could end up dominating a space and walking all over people, creating a sense of anger and alienation in the group. That group would not likely return easily to a feeling of relaxed cooperation. However, if I walk into a meeting with observation, assess what is working well and what isn't, I can act intentionally to help the group come away feeling closer, more empowered, and relaxed. The solution could include me acting in any number of ways, including opinionated and strong, or quiet and peaceful, as an ally or conflict-resolver; in essence, I would be adapting and cooperating with the existing environment.

Thinking about the whole means being aware of social interactions that are informed by our positions in society. We cannot deny that each of us were raised within oppression, and we carry the messages from that system, even if we are seeking to heal them. Part of social permaculture for me is noticing and addressing how I may be acting out racism unconsciously, or playing into my own internalized sexism. Oppressive behaviors are not regenerating, they inhibit our true selves and prevent us from realizing our full potential as individuals and a society.

Sustainability also means thinking about how we treat each other and making conscious decisions about what kind of relationships we want, including with ourselves. The way we treat each other and ourselves, whether it be with loving kindness or harsh criticisms, creates large waves of impact around us.

How Can My Current Communities Become More Intentional?
A couple of weekends ago I attended a skillshare campout on some undeveloped land hosted by dear members of my loose-knit anarchist, queer, back-to-the-land community in the Northwest. The event held the purpose of sharing skills of wilderness survival and cooperative living with the land in an open, non-hierarchical environment. I got to thinking about this loose-knit and rebellious group of folks with whom I have been involved for almost a decade. I got to thinking about the amazing intentions of this community to create a just world free from exploitation, where local communities are free to govern themselves in autonomy. I also got to thinking about some of the problems we face as a community as we surge forward toward this goal, and I wondered, "How can anarchists create more of an intentional, self-regenerating culture?" Not all anarchists would proclaim that they want this, but most of my friends, I believe, do. We want to see this world out of misery, and we want to create a world that is good for ourselves and all life. (By the way, I fully include myself as a member of the group to whom I am addressing in the following statements, not at all above and beyond these challenges.)

1) We have to recognize that structure in itself is not the enemy. Many of us rebel against any social structure because, I believe, it reminds us of the hated oppression of enforced class and race hierarchies. In reality, form and pattern and structure are found in countless layers within nature. In fact, on a cellular level, life itself is a complex and extremely organized structure; it's what keeps everything in place. Without structure, we'd be floating particles in the void. So, we have to learn to harness and use structure and organization for our intentional uses. Many anarchists struggle with social and political organizing from what appears to me to be fear of recreating hierarchies, or by attempting to create other models but reverting back to our learned behaviors of domination and separation. We must consciously replace structures of oppression with flexible, yet solid and well-defined, structures of mutuality, respect, and regeneration.

2) Self care is not just for sissies (but we love sissies, and they need it, too)! Okay, many active, caring, people struggle with this. Under the constant desire to fix the world we forget to care for our basic needs and we burn the candle flame at both ends. This is actually NOT creating the revolutionary culture of the future, but is just a reflection of the dominant paradigm of which instructs us clearly to disregard the needs of our bodies, emotions, and spirit to produce for the machine. Producing a revolution under the same model will not yield a result that we would want to live in. Rest, people! I say no more, as this is something I over-discuss frequently.

3) Taking on leadership roles is good. For the 'under-confidenced' ones of us, being in leadership makes everything go better around us. If you are born and socialized male and forced to be in charge and given all the encouragement to be big and loud your whole life, then leadership may be something better to put on the back-burner. But for the folks born with identities that made them a target for the esteem-damaging oppressions of sexism, racism, ableism, etc., leadership is a powerful gift and taking it on will help everyone around you. Think of leadership not necessarily like you have to be the one giving the directions; instead, let it be a state of being where everything you do is self-empowered, done with a mind on what will help the whole group and world move in a positive direction. This will absolutely make it impossible to wallow in victimhood or fear, and your world will change around you to reflect your emanating power. I know this is true because of my own experiments. When I lead, things go better.

4) We need to look to traditions, as well as create traditions, because re-inventing the wheel constantly is exhausting. A multi-generational community is a stronger community, especially with strong, respected elders. There is a certain amount of arrogance in the rejection of old people by the younger generation--but we actually need them. However, we cannot take advantage of other cultures traditions because they are pretty, convenient, or comforting to us. Look to our own histories, or traditions held in common by all people, or traditions made up by your grandparents.

Those are my insights about my community, and I hope the preachy side of me didn't dissuade the ability to absorb the conviction of my thoughts. I feel a deep sense of possibility around conscious efforts to change our culture and society, and I, for one, am psyched to start with my upcoming intentional community, my current community, my individual relationships, myself.

Permaculture in Practice: Seed Balls Project!

Uses
Seed balls are a no-till method for vegetating an area, especially well suited for disturbed areas, compacted, or barren soils. Seed balls create a protected venue to keep seeds safe from blowing away, drying out, or being eaten by animals while they germinate and get established. The clay provides protection and the compost provides beneficial nutrients and microbes to help the seeds thrive. When seed balls are spread on a site, they don’t seed any irrigation, because they wait patiently until the rains come to wash away the clay and germinate the seeds.
You can use seed balls in your driveway, the barren lot next door, construction areas, in your garden, native habitat restoration, or to spread edible plants around the city guerrilla gardening style. It takes less time, effort, and money than more traditional till-methods of farming.

Seed balls have been used by some First Nations indigenous peoples, and developed into this current form by Fukuoka Masanobu, a Japanese ecologist and founder of the ideas of “natural farming.”

Recipe
Recipes available online are specific. I’ll say that at the Earth Activist Training our method was much more casual. Throw together some compost, some wet clay dug from the ground, and whatever seeds you have lying around. Don’t get too worried about getting it right! The seeds that are right for your location will flourish, and the others will struggle and not last, and that’s OK!

-One Part Seed Mix
-Three Parts Compost (not animal manure)
-Five Parts Clay (red or brown clay provides more nutrients, use local if you can)
-Water as needed (especially if you are using dried clay or compost, you will add enough water to make the mixture stick together)

Take out any rocks or clumps from compost and clay and mix together. Lay out in a layer on a tarp and sprinkle seeds on top. Add enough water to make the mixture sticky. Roll into calls about the size of a marble. Let the balls sit in a shady place until dry (a few days). Don’t store in plastic.

Distribute your seed balls at any time of year at about one seed ball per square foot.

Selecting your seeds: Plant Guilds
The key here is OBSERVATION, as in all aspects of working with nature. Think strategically about where you are sowing the seed balls and the seeds’ particular habitats before you sow. If you are using non-native or cultivated varieties of seed, only use them in areas that are close to human habitation, in the thick of the cities. Lots of damage to ecosystems has been done by spreading introduced seeds from other places in natural areas where they can potentially become weedy and out-compete native plants. Native seeds can be sown anywhere, because if they are not suited to a particular site, they simply will not grow there.

Plant guilds are a group of plants which grow together in a self-sustaining system of mutual support. Plant guilds could be seen as a loose associated community. They are not the same as companion planting, which combines specific species of plants which work well together. Plant guilds emphasize the functional roles of the plants instead, as well as the overall function of the guild as a whole. Functional roles include nitrogen fixers, dynamic accumulators, and insectary. Diversity is emphasized as important because species diversity strengthens the resiliency of the system and adds more interconnected beneficial relationships. We chose one plant from each functional category to highlight these roles, but ideally one could have dozens of plants that filled these roles, with many that have overlapping functions! We chose three native plants so that you could use these seed balls to spread beautiful native seeds anywhere you want, especially wild, disturbed or degraded areas (think areas around the housing developments on the Westside!). Within the overall function of your guild, design to have representatives from each functional category.

Some examples of plant guilds:
Prairie restoration (native grasses and wildflowers)
Pizza garden (basil, tomatoes, zucchini, onions, garlic, oregano, etc.)
Greywater filtration
Erosion control

Insectary
Insectary plants are attractive to beneficial insects, providing important habitat, nectar, pollen, or other resources to pollinators and predatory insects which will help control the population of insect pests, such as aphids. Insectaries are also plants which repel unwanted insects. They are also pretty!
Some examples: Anything in the carrot family (Apiaceae), anything in the sunflower family (Asteraceae), the mint family (Lamiaceae), roses, yummy smelling and bright colorful flowers!

Nitrogen fixers
Nitrogen fixers form a symbiotic relationship with soil bacteria on their roots that capture nitrogen from the air and transform it into a form accessible to plants. Nitrogen is essential for healthy plant growth, especially leaf and stem development! Nitrogen fixers help build healthy fertile soil, especially important for depleted or eroded areas.
Some examples: Anything in the pea family (Fabaceae; Acacia and carob trees, vetch, garden peas or beans, lupine, scotch broom), Ceanothus (red root), alders.

Dynamic accumulators
Dynamic accumulators are deep tap-rooted plants which reach far into the soil layer and draw up micronutrients from the lower soil, making those nutrients more available for other plants to use! This restores depleted soils. Also, the hearty thick taproots help break up compacted soil and return oxygen and organic matter after they decompose, building fertile topsoil.
Examples: Any deep tap-rooted plant! Comfrey, dandelion, plantain, mustards (any Brassicaceae), dock, borage, Echinacea.

Our Seed Mix: Yarrow, Lupine, Lomatium

Insectary: Yarrow!
Achillia millifolium
Asteraceae
-grows in nutritionally poor soil
-attracts wildlife
-pollinated by insects
-flowers from June to August,
-seeds ripen July to September
-Adaptable to many soil types
-Drought tolerant, semi-shade or sun
-Edible and medicinal
-First aid- stop bleeding,
-increases body temp for fevers and colds,
-Bitter and aromatic digestive stimulant

Nitrogen fixer: Lupine!
Lupinus Polyphyllus
Fabaceae
-flowers July to August
-seeds ripen July to October
-Bee pollinated
-grows in nutritionally poor soil and a variety of soil types
-requires sun, drought tolerant
-Seeds may be marginally edible; some contain a bitter toxic alkaloid which can be leached out through soaking, draining, and cooking

Dynamic accumulator: Lomatium!
Lomatium nudicaule
Apiaceae
-Needs sun, tolerates a range of well-drained soil types
-Insect pollinated
-Edible raw or cooked
-Young plants high in Vit C
-Leaves, seeds, or dried root as a spice
-Root roast
-Seeds medicinal to end pain, increase sweating, reduce fever, as a laxative, and for respiratory ailments.
-Many plants in this family are deadly poisonous!!


Resources

The Earth Path, by Starhawk.2005. HarperSanFrancisco.

The Earth Activist Training
www.earthactivittraining.org
The Permaculture Activist
www.permacultureactivist.net

City Repair in Portland, OR
www.cityrepair.org

Resources/References for Seed Balls

Television Trust for the Environment
http://www.tve.org/ho/doc.cfm?aid=1401&lang=English

Path to Freedom
http://www.pathtofreedom.com/pathproject/gardening/seedballs.shtml

www.seedballs.com
(Although I could not find this site, many other sites reference it, and it may be temporarily down)

Plants for a Future
http://www.pfaf.org/index.html

Ryan Drum on Lomatium and Yarrow:
http://www.ryandrum.com/threeherbs2.htm#icp

Leading and the Report-Back from the Earth Activist Training

On Wednesday Feburary 20th a momentus thing occured: I co-lead a fantastic event detailing my experiences from the recent two week Earth Activist Training (EAT) in permaculture, activism, and magic. My goal for the evening was to bring back some of the inspiration and practical knowledge of living close to the earth to my community from my experiences. I wanted to push myself, against all feelings of insignificance, into leading what is important to me. I wanted to participate as a member of my community in the responsibility of each others earth-education. I wanted live the things we learned at EAT, to have them sink into my life.

In preparation for the event I created tantalizing flyers and distributed them at all social/educational/political gatherings I went to for two weeks prior. I emailed my entire email list, posted on myspace and Olyblog, and personally invited friends. We had a great turn-out of about 25 people.

Margaritte and I also did a radio interview before the event with the Radical Freeschool Radio Show (see link on sidebar). We talked about our vision for a world free from industrial agriculture, about how to work with nature in designing human resource support-systems, and how to build a long term connection with place as a radical act against the capitalist patriarchy. Talking on the radio really helped me think through my ideas and gain confidence in my ability to speak articulately and passionately. I went into the event on Wednesday feeling stronger because of it.

I also spent a lot of time re-reading all my notes from the training and researching seed balls, which we led as a hands-on activity at the report-back. See previous blog entry for my seed ball research.

I am including a group email which I sent out to my fellow members of the Earth Activist Training because it shows my thinking around how important the step of sharing my knowledge was for my personal growth. And I share the letter specifically, because it too was an act of personal growth in a similar way to the report back.

Hey my dear magic permaculturist friends!

I have been thinking about you all lots since our
training, and meaning to write to you!  As many of you
know, Margaritte and I are doing independent study
this term at Evergreen, and EAT was the beginning of
our term.  We have continued learning about nature,
awareness, community, and connection to place since
then.  As part of our program, last week we gave a
public two hour event to share what we learned at EAT!
We had a great turn out of at least 25 people!  I
wanted to tell you all about it because the experience
of sharing this knowledge with my community at home
was very powerful.  It really brought all the new
knowledge into the forefront of my life and gave me
something to immediately apply it to: teaching!  I
was, of course, scared out of my wits!  But, it went
well anyway!  Both Margaritte and I have received tons
of gratitude from friends and folks who attended who
say they understand permaculture better than before,
and feel more hopeful about creating change.

For me, going to EAT was a major act of stepping into
my power.  In areas I often feel powerless (like
changing the world, my relationships, and my
relationship to nature), I took charge and decided to
live in the reality of how influential I am.  Teaching
the report-back for my local community was even more
of an act of magic in living my power.  Though I
doubted my ability to be interesting, intelligent, and
clear, I did it anyway! We taught about observation,
patterns, and basic permaculture concepts, as well as
sang songs from EAT, gave a slideshow, and did a seed
ball making project!

I want to encourage any of you who may be feeling a
little listless after the training--perhaps feeling
like "what was it all for?" or just stuck in the
routine of everyday life and feeling the burden of the
oppressive society hanging over you--Share your
knowledge!  Even though we are not experts in this
area (yet), we have skills and an experience of
learning about change in a magical learning community,
and that is so valuable to other people!

In my process I am learning about my own significance,
which is part of the act of this email I am writing to
you all.  Keeping you all in my life by sharing about
my ongoing experiences and learning pushes me to be
bigger than I have previously been comfortable with.
How can you be bigger in your life than is
comfortable?

You all are a dear dear group of people; I am
immensely glad to have been through EAT with you, and
I look forward to many more experiences building a
just, vibrant world with each of you!

Loves,
Heron

I have gotten lots of feedback from participants, which has helped me reflect on what I learned from the experience. We passed out feedback forms, which got great responses such as these answers to "What did you learn from the report back?": "People want similar things," and "healing the land and ourselves is easy." These answers point to a key desire of mine to lift up my fellow people from the despair which so easily plagues us and help us feel something good about our world and our power.

One friend said to us "You are like a lightning rod for this community." Wow! Another friend specifically appreciated the way that Margaritte and I worked together in presenting information. He noticed how Margaritte had the knack for giving detailed stories and examples, and my skill at tying the details in with the bigger picture to show overall themes and concepts. I noticed that dynamic in our presenting as well, and it was nice to hear that it was a good thing. I was worried about it being a problem!

But not all feedback was sugar-coated. One friend commented that the whole thing felt like an infomercial for EAT. He said there wasn't enough specific learning, and we talked too vaguely about things that felt like an inside experience. I think he wanted more skills-building. When prompted he said that he did learn a lot from the discussion on patterns and observation, and the seedballs project. That feedback was hard to hear, mostly because I already carry so much self-criticism inside that I battle all the time. It is hard to hear things that reflect a little of that self-criticism, because it always sounds worse from that lens than the person actually intended it.

It took me several days of suffering under my own negative blabbing about how embarrassed I was and how I would never set foot out of the house again to realize that the event was actually spectacular. Sure, we could use some improvement, but so can most teachers. I am taking the stance of appreciating all the courage it took to put myself out there. Specifically, I think we did great at advance curriculum planing, and at pulling in people's inspiration and ideas during the event by getting group brainstorms and giving people a chance to share a little bit of themselves. I liked how we planed the event with the awareness of balance around hands-on, lecture, and discussion. We pulled out the juicy pieces from the training.

Things I think could be improved: I didn't think about being true to the flier in the material presented at the report back. I put on the flier "regenerative activism," but when someone asked a question about it, I realized I felt awkward addressing it and like I didn't really know what I was talking about. Also, I think we could've used some help with transitions. And often I felt like I didn't have everything planned with margaritte. Would it have worked better to be even more separate in our presentations? I sometimes felt a sense of panic at being perceived as boring, and when Margaritte was talking I didn't have the control; I was scared margaritte was going to be boring. In reality I know this isn't the case, so maybe the answer is just to feel the feeling and focus on relaxing.

Honestly, though, I think that ease and interest in teaching comes with practice and that is the key to improving on this skill. I think that the act of sharing this information in whatever way is radical and I am so glad to push myself headfirst into my own BIG LIFE!

The Challenge That Will Kick My Ass

I have been going to my Secret Spot, or Sit Spot, on a regular basis for the past three weeks. The first week I went four times, last week it was three, and this week it will be four again (if I can muster up all the self discipline I have). This is a spot I developed a relationship with last year around this time. I picked it out in the dead of winter (January), and went as often as I could until July. July is when my stamina snapped and I lost all focus to summer spontaneity. But, as I was going, I watched the spring hurl everything into action. I watched my clear view from atop a fallen log become frustratingly limited as all the understory shrubs regrew their foliage. I watched the song sparrow play almost daily in the little waterfall below my log, heard birds sing from perches eerily close to my head, and even saw a coyote as it ambled up the creek, under the log where I sit, a piece of meat in its mouth, it's fur mangy and patched. Usually I went before work, around seven in the morning. It was a sheer act of will. Why? I'm sure some people naturally are drown to meditation, to peaceful moments alone to let their minds clear. I'm sure some people are drown to this practice because they are filled with wonder and excitement, like little children. Well, not me. When I go to my secret spot it is like battling an army inside my head. It is like standing my ground and focusing on peace and love when a thousand skilled warriors slash at my mind with sharpened swords and screaming battlecries. The thoughts are maddening. There is no peace. There is no gentle wonderment. I feel lucky if I can stay focused on my senses enough to notice the scent of woodsmoke every once in a while, or catch the faint twitter of the kinglets in the maple branches.

I got an email about this challenge today. The 30 day sit spot challenge. It made me feel OK about my struggles. I noticed, hey, maybe I'm not the only one with screaming warriors in my head. And maybe I'll just keep going and sitting anyway, even though everything inside tells me I'm doing it wrong. If I get tired of the battleground, I'll...well, I'll just walk around. When I walk I think the warriors have more to entertain them so they stop assailing me quite so voraciously.

Why even submit myself to the warriors? Why bother, you ask? Why not stay in and watch some nice home videos on YouTube?

I'll tell you. And hopefully you'll hear it from my genuine self, not my ego or your ego or judgment.

It's an act of resistance. It's an act of liberation. It's an act of decisive strategy.

Because I was raised inside a capitalist culture, I was raised with the values of production, market, growth. I was taught skills in communication, working hard, detail management, changing and manipulating systems, serving the needs of people and society. Granted, I got some good things from this system, mostly, relationships with people. But those, I struggle to maintain under the pressure to work and produce. People are not the bad part of this set up. The bad part is that I was never taught to value existing, observing, witnessing, feeling. I was never taught skills of observation, extra-sensory perception, stillness, survival, cooperation. I was not taught to notice nature at all! Even me, raised in hippie alterna-culture going to nature camps since I was old enough to poop! Yes, even I find that my senses are extremely dulled to the ways of nature.

I am going to my secret spot to change the way that I interact with nature. I am sick of living inside my own head filled with the warriors of the free market yelling thoughts at me all the time. I want to sit and witness what the winter wren is chatting about in the sword ferns over there. I want to notice when exactly that first nettle sprouts and what path the deer use most frequently to get down to the creek.

Perhaps the most devastating reality of the human society and nature right now is our disconnection with the our life support systems. I actually have no idea where the water has traveled from to come rushing conveniently out of my tap. I wouldn't have the slightest notion of how to grow the pineapple which I eat in my smoothie in the morning. What I want is a direct, intimate connection between the day-to-day realities of my life and how I keep alive from the land all around me. I want to be as dependent on this place for my life as every little critter who scavenges from these woods and drinks form these creeks. I want to learn about this place so I can untangle myself from the infrastructure that keeps me participating in the game of disconnection with place. Enough pseudo-reality! It's not OK that people who live in Pheonix can have long cold showers every day of the summer. Or that those in Olympia can have 70 degree houses all through December. At what cost?

This is why I go to my secret spot. To take down capitolism. To live more peacefully. To get more skills in the things I was never taught in school, or even in nature camp. It is infuriatingly hard to sit still and watch nature. I want to die half of the time because I hate that I am so bad at keeping my mind still, that I don't already have these skills, that I can hardly ever see even a damned deer or raccoon, that I am plagued with guilt every time my steps contribute to the quickly eroding action of the ivy-covered hill I visit. But I do it anyway. And I will join the sit spot challenge to commit to gentleness with myself, to contribute daily reminders to myself that this is not a contest or another excuse for me to think I need to be a good capitalist producer, but to affirm my connection to all living beings and the journey of healing for each one of us collectively. I invite you to join the challenge as well, and write to me about it. We'll be revolutionaries together, quietly observing.


This is a write up about the challenge from:

http://www.wildernessawareness.org/home_study/30day_challenge.html


The 30 Day Sit Spot Challenge

What is the challenge?

The Sit Spot (also known as the Secret Spot): a surefire way to get to know nature and yourself more intimately. (What's a Sit Spot?). For some of us, going to this place is easy, like breathing. For others, we really want to visit a secret spot regularly, but it is a struggle, and we give up. No matter where you fall on this spectrum, I invite adults and youth of all ages to join Wilderness Awareness Schools' first 30-Day Sit Spot Challenge! Join the Challenge

How does it work?
Go to your Secret Spot every day for at least 20 minutes. The starting date is Friday, February 15, 2008 and will continue to March 15, 2008 (NOTE: If you just found out about the challenge and are late getting started, that's OK. Just make up the missed days at the end of the challenge if you can).

Rain (or snow), or shine, night or day, blindfolded or sighted, go to that beautiful place and the sky's the limit. Do a sense meditation. Stalk up on the black cat that stalks the winter wrens. Dance. Build a fire. Whatever it is that you do when you go there, just do it! Even if you're traveling, sit somewhere each day.

Now, I want to let you know up-front that it is perfectly normal to experience a wide-range of emotions when sitting in silence for 20 minutes many days in a row. You may feel peacefulness and calm, intense joy, frustration, or even sadness or anger. While this may seem challenging, just know that it is a chance for healing to happen. Remember that there are many people out there who are also doing the challenge, including me, supporting you. And so is nature. You are not alone! Read a sit spot story from Kat

How to join our 30 Day Sit Spot Challenge!

* To join, send us an email saying "I accept the challenge! and I live in..." (closest city or town and state/country),
* OR, you can post your location in our forum.

We'll put you on the Challenge list, and add you to the map so we can all see where everyone is sitting around the world. Share your experiences with us along the way and we'll highlight them in the next issue of Foxprint!

Share your Sit Spot Challenge experiences...
Share your experiences with us, and others!
During the challenge, there will be 3 ways to share your stories, thoughts, photos, drawings, etc...other people will appreciate hearing about your experiences!

Share your experiences with others...1. Post your experiences on our forum! Go to our new Sit Spot Challenge forum on NatureTalk.net where you can post your own stories, read how other community members' Challenge's are going, and encourage each other!

2. Email us. Email Kat Koch, who his coordinating the Challenge. Email your stories, photos, drawings, and more... We'll include some of your experiences on-line and in our e-newsletter, as well as in a future issue of our Foxprint donor newsletter.

3. Map of Challenge participants! We've created an interactive map showing participants in the challenge. When you post your location in the forum or email us your location, you'll be added to the map!

We're very excited about this...sign up today and please let us know how it goes for you! If you have any questions, email Kat.
A Sit Spot Story from Kat
I'll leave you with a story. I was sitting at my Spot this past fall, thinking. (It happens, you know, when your mind chats away, interrupting your quiet with all kinds of stories.) Then I began to relax, I took a deep breath and as I exhaled, I felt myself glued to the cedar tree. I thought, maybe I am doing enough in my life. Maybe all I need to do is continue to strengthen and tone my body and mind like I've been doing.

Immature Coopers Hawk - http://www.thebirdguide.com/Then, I heard a scratching noise above me. As I turned to look, an immature Cooper's hawk flew right past my face and landed in an apple tree 15 feet away, obviously agitated. I looked above me and there sat an eastern grey squirrel. I was floored with the energy of the moment. I studied the intricacies of the hawk's feather colors. And then it flew away and I began breathing again.

Questions about what happened jumped like sand fleas in my head. And I kept on sitting and wondering and sensing and smiling.

What is a Sit Spot?
A Sit Spot (also known as a Secret Spot) is simply a place to go in the woods, or even your back porch, and sit. It doesn’t have to be all that special to start with. You make it special, and secret, by sitting in it – time after time.

Find one place in your natural world that you visit all the time and get to know it as your best friend. Let this be a place where you learn to sit still – alone, often, and quietly -- as well as playfully explore beyond. This will become your place of intimate connection with nature.

The Best Teacher is One Place
by Jon Young

People who know me well have heard me give this same answer to many different questions – not because I am losing my train of thought, contrary to what some might say, but because there is truly only one good answer to the many questions about the deep learning of naturalist skills. The foundation is the same for all:

* What makes a great naturalist?
* What makes a great tracker?
* How did they become “natives”?
* How did they become good teachers?
* How did they become good storytellers?
* How can we become great outdoor instructors?
* How can we learn to understand the language of the birds?

In one way or another, my answer always contains something of the following:

“Find one place you can get to know really, really well. This is the most important routine you can develop.

Know it by day; know it by night; know it in the rain and in the snow, in the depth of winter and in the heat of summer. Know the stars and where the four directions are there; know the birds that live there, know the trees they live in. Get to know these things as if they were your relatives, for, in time, you will come to know that they are! That is the most important thing you can do in order to excel at any skill in nature. Nature and your own heart are the best teachers, but your body, mind and spirit all have to attend the class, and do the homework. There is no replacement for this experience!”

One of the most critical elements in the routine of visiting a single place and getting to know one area well is really just taking the time to listen to the wind, to check in with your heart – that is, your feelings – and allow yourself to just be.

From Kamana 1: Exploring Natural Mystery by Jon Young, page 98.

You never know what you'll see at your sit spot... Photo by Dave Moskowitz

The Earth Path, by Starhawk

In The Earth Path, Starhawk presents strategies, ideas, and inspiration to develop a new way to live holistically with nature. It is a manual of understanding how to decolonize your mind from westernized mechanistic thinking, to literally observe and reflect the patterns of nature in your life. Many humans have realized the need for overarching change in the current world. Rampant injustice, suffering, and abuse take place to fellow humans and the earth. In order to change the situation, we must first be able to articulate what world we wish to create. This is the magic and power of intention: the act of defining and stating the future you wish to see.

The book is also like a manuscript of much of what we learned at the Earth Activist Training. It feels almost like a textbook to remind and reinspire me when I will inevitable forget the energy and information from the training. Starhawk covers evolution and the roles of bacteria in the genius of photosynthesis, as well as the attributes of the four elements earth, air, fire, and water and thier core teachings. Patterns in nature and observation are covered in depth.

The main technique for grounding your spirit in nature is to find a special spot in nature and go there as often as possible and just observe. This is the foundation of the Kamana Program which I am doing concurrently in this term. The more I hear this idea expressed, through many teachers, writers and thinkers, the easier it is to actually put this practice into being. I find I am extremely resistant, not to the idea, but to actually carrying it out. What happens is an extreme level of self-criticism comes up when I go into nature just to observe. It is so uncomfortable to experience this harshness that I avoid the act that brings it up. In reality, the more I do it the easier it becomes and the little voices are getting quieter.

There are many experiential exercises in the book. I am touched by the exercise "A Sacred Intention," which guides us through identifying our core values, the things that we truly cherish dear to our hearts. What would it be like if the institutions of government, education, etc., all supported and worked toward the thing/s that you cherish? How would the current system change if it implemented your core value/s as a central guiding point? If we would like to live in a world where our core values are cherished, we say "It is my sacred intention to create a world that cherishes _____."

Later, sacred intentions are suggested as a way to help guide decision-making processes. I find this exptremely relieving. How many times have I stuggled to make a clear decision? Well, she suggests simply asking "does ____ serve my goal toward my sacred intention?" The simplicity of this excercise guarantees it's effectiveness for me. I have tried it several times since then, and the effect is that it feels as though I have installed a tuning fork into my decision making process, and I get to check how closely the resonance of any given decision matches the tune of my sacred intention.

Throughout the book I found myself crying, touched by the truth and heartfelt inspiration in her words. The book begins with the story of Starhawk and her fellow community members doing a ritual to honor the fire ecology of the Cazadero Hills of Sonoma County, California, where they live. The hills there have evolved for thousands of years with human burning, which kept brush down and food plants plentiful; the frequent burning ensured a lower burn temperature because there was less fuel to heat the flames, and life would return quickly after these much-needed and healing disturbances. The ritual was to ask the fire to stay at bay, since the land is choked and surpressed from a century or so of western settlement and an end to indiginous burnings. If a fire came through the country now it would be devastating. The ritual was also to express an intention that the land my once again return to a comfortable cycle where humans may live in balance again.

A foundation of healing the human relationship with nature is recentering our values to be earth-based in essence. Starhawk presents a way of seeing the world where all entities of the universe become sacred at all times.

I am inspired to create the life that I want to live right now. This is the ancient magical technique of creating your own reality. It means visualizing the way I want it and actively making it happen. This could even come out in small forms, such as improving the living systems at my house to make it livable and easy to do household chores. It means designing systems around me that flow, that work with my rhythms and the rhythms of nature to create a working easy flow. An example that would support my value of conservation and living simply could be changing the placement and improving the technology of our clothsline to improve the likelihood of using it. There is no excuse to not make life easier and flowing better right now. That is permaculture, and that is working with nature by creating sustainable systems.

Garden Volunteer Day at OAEC

Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, Occidental, Sonoma County, CA
Wednesday January 24th, 2008

Margaritte and I have had our eye on this place for at least a year because of its unique organizational structure and its apparent functionality as a combo education center business and residential intentional community. After finishing our two-week permaculture training, we take advantage of our close proximity to the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) to show up for garden volunteer day to pull weeds and pick the brains of any community member who will talk to us.

We arrive in the morning from the wild concrete mess of San Francisco, where I drove back and forth across the tangled, crowded city streets early that morning in search of lost items, and the night before, a quiet place to sleep. Tanoaks and madrone, not yet affected by Sudden Oak Death**, line the short driveway and hand-painted colorful signs bid us to slow down and warn unwanted visitors to not drop by unexpected. The rich green gardens cascade in terraces down the hill, vegetables interspersed with fruit trees, winding trails and quaint natural wood buildings. It is obvious upon looking around that this land has been lived on with love and attention for a long time. It shows up in the care of design and detailed art weaved into things functional: a dragon shaped cob bench, a shed with a metal sculpture of a face with lightning bolts on it's side, a wooden stage set into the backdrop of the creekside forest, carved intentionally for flow and beauty. I think of how my dad would love the buildings here, how his eyes would light up with fire and dreamy ambition to create spaces such as these for the development and nurturing of community spirit.

In the garden our first task is weeding and mulching the garlic. Doug and Michelle are the two main gardeners whose full time job is managing this lush system of food- and beauty-producing gardens that provide year round for community and guests to the center. The kitchen feeds community members, which number around twenty, and whoever else is present for workshops or events, such as our workparty crew. We squat in the rich built-up beds with a small crowd of other volunteers, delightedly chatting and pulling the tiny weeds away from the maturing garlic leaves. I am struck by the feeling of peace and communal ease on the this land, and I mention this to Michelle, a short middle aged woman with long curly brown hair and a round amiable face. She reveals that, in all the time the land has functioned in its current legal entity (since the early nineties), no one has left the community permanently. No one has left!!! Turn over = zero. This is incredible! Longevity is the main problem I see in the intentional communities I have been a part of and it is the key issue I have set out to understand on my personal journey of creating a land based intentional community. To me, this land looks like a model utopia. I am aware of my naivety, and ask her to define what she thinks creates longevity in community. How do you create this sense of family? What makes people want to stay? Is is possible to define? Much to my delight, she busts out with a simple three point program. It's as if she has been asked this question countless times by young idealistic community-seekers, thus developing the perfect answer to feed their hopeful idealism; her answer is exactly in line with my own thinking, and I feel a surge of creative energy within me as my wildest hopes are confirmed with her clear, experience-informed wisdom.

Michelle's Magical 3-Point Program for Community Longevity (unauthorized).
1) Begin with prior relationships with the people you wish to live with. At the very least, have an extended trial period before accepting new people into the community.
2) Have an established structure for emotional process that the community has agreed upon and is employed regularly. This foundation is invaluable for avoiding emotional build-ups of resentment and miscommunication. Michelle prefers Naka Ima as a model.
3) Create a land-based culture that is a built-in bonding system for people to feel connected to the place where they live and the natural rhythms of the ecosystem. Many community-seekers were raised in the city, or in the mindset of the city, and living with natural rhythms is not ingrained; it must be harbored and developed through regular activities that connect our life cycles with the land, i.e. growing food and eating it. We must re-create the need for local knowledge by linking our needs to those of the land.

At OAEC people also get to do their own thing; the structure is set up to allow people to follow their own inspired life's work, not restrict it. "Why would they leave?" Michelle says matter-of-factly. She herself has come back and forth several times, and no longer lives on the land but is employed by the center as the gardener and is very connected to the place.

After weeding we move on preparing a bed to plant some late-season garlic. We spread compost and manure on the dark earth; then Michelle teaches us the wonders of Tai Chi Gardening. It seems that every system in this place is designed to prevent burn-out, including the use of your body as a valued, irreplaceable, lovable tool. She instructs: your strong hand goes in the middle of the fork handle, your non-dominant hand on end (just for support-don't use the muscle on that hand). Take a wide, low stance; knees bent, one foot in front of the other with your pelvis tucked in to protect your lower back. As you turn the top layer of soil backwards you rock your body by shifting the weight from front leg to back leg; don't use your back to pull and don't exert your arm muscles. The movement is all in your legs, not your upper body or back at all.

As I practiced this extremely awkward new way of moving I noticed my chronic feelings of disregard for my body, how I use it like a cheap tool able withstand a lot of abuse for the sake of production. (For a self identified anti-capitalist, how capitalist is my own mind-frame about my own body?!) Michelle is adamant about garden workers respecting their health and bodies and not burning out in farming as we age. New radical concept! Farming (or, working in general) as a practice in body mindfulness meditation!

I left the day at OAEC with an increased sense of possibility about my own dreams, and an ambition to pursue a possible internship there. Something about the way the structure functions by keeping the legal entities of community (a Limited Liability Company) and business (a non-profit) separate from each other yet linked through the people and the land seems to create a flexible and clear situation that leaves room for community bonding and functional business like I have never seen. Could the community I want to create function like that, I wonder?




**Sudden Oak Death. Once a staple food for the indigenous peoples of this land, and still a foundational species to the wildlife of the area, the tanoaks of northern California are dying at an extreme rate due to sudden oak death. Michelle tells us that it is caused by an algae that spreads through mud and waterways. It constricts the vascular system of the trees, stressing them to the point where they are vulnerable to beetle invasion, which moves in to finish them off. Humans haven't found a way to stop it. The forests in this area are visibly affected: crispy brown tanoak leaves, which normally remain on the tree year-round, are littered thick on the forest floor. Looking across a valley, large brown patches in the hillside vegetation point to the extremity of the loss.
Once, salmon returning to spawn in the clear waters left their dead bodies as offerings of nutrients to this ecosystem. Now they are mostly gone, and their missing presence is one possible link to the cause of sudden oak death. According to a Native friend of Starhawk's, the tanoaks need the humans to tend the land just as the humans need the tanoaks for food. The loss of the human interaction with this species through food foraging and fire management could be creating its mass extinction.

Winter '08 Syllabus

“Building Intentional Sustainable Communities” ILC
Sponsor: Karen Gaul
Heron Heartsun
Winter 2008

Weeks 1 and 2 Jan.7th-19th
∑ Jan 5-19thrd: Attend the Earth Activist Training in Cazadero, CA. Basic permaculture design, agroforestry, vermiculture, earth based ritual, natural building, sustainable energy, political activism, community dynamics and power structures, water catchment/conservation and greywater systems, bioremediation, animal husbandry, and more.
∑ Completion of group permaculture design project and presentation. Earn permaculture certification.
∑ Document experience at training through photography, journaling and audio recordings.

Week 3 Jan 21-27
∑ Jan 22: Begin academic blog on EAT
∑ Jan 23rd: Visit Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Occidental, CA
∑ Write complete syllabus
∑ Jan 24th: Seminar
∑ Jan 27th: Blog on readings and OAEC
∑ Reading: The Earth Path by Starhawk aloud
∑ Reading: Creating a Life Together chapters 1, 2, and 3

Week 4 Jan. 20th Feb. 1st
∑ Tues/Wed/Thurs/Fri, one hour sitting at Kamana secret spot
∑ 4 kamana journals
∑ Kamana field inventory
∑ Publicity for EAT report back
∑ Seminar
∑ Blog
∑ Reading: Creating a Life Together chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
∑ Reading: EAT reader

Week 5 Feb. 4th-8th
∑ Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri, one hour sitting at Kamana secret spot
∑ 4 kamana journals
∑ Kamana field inventory
∑ Publicity for EAT report back
∑ EAT report back curriculum planing
∑ Seminar
∑ Blog
∑ Reading: Creating a life together chapters 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
∑ Reading: EAT reader

Week 6 Feb. 11th-15th
∑ Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri, one hour sitting at Kamana secret spot
∑ 4 Kamana journals
∑ Kamana field inventory
∑ Publicity for EAT report back
∑ EAT report back curriculum planing
∑ Seminar
∑ Blog
∑ Reading: Creating a life together chapters 17, 18, appendix’s
∑ Reading: The Tracker

Week 7 Feb. 18th-22nd
∑ Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri, one hour sitting at Kamana secret spot
∑ 4 Kamana journals
∑ Kamana field inventory
∑ Seminar
∑ Blog
∑ Present evening report back on EAT for general community
∑ Reading: The Earth's Blanket chapters 1, 2, 3, 4
∑ Reading: Communities Directory

Week 8 Feb. 25th-29th
∑ Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri, one hour sitting at Kamana secret spot
∑ 4 Kamana journals
∑ Kamana field inventory
∑ Seminar
∑ Blog
∑ Workshop publicity
∑ Reading: The Earth's Blanket chapters 5, 6, 7, 8

Week 9 March 3rd-7th
∑ Mar 2nd: Visit Emma Goldman Finishing School
∑ Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri, one hour sitting at Kamana secret spot
∑ 4 Kamana journals
∑ Kamana field inventory
∑ Kamana final reflection
∑ Workshop Curriculum planning
∑ Workshop publicity
∑ Seminar: Community Creation map/plan
∑ Blog

Week 10 March 10th-14th
∑ Teach workshop on sensory awareness and relationship with place
∑ Seminar: Community Creation map/plan
∑ Blog
∑ Final reflective essay due
∑ Kamana portfolio due
∑ Community Creation map due

Week 11 March 17th-21st
∑ Evaluations

Booklist:
Nature Awareness and Permaculture
∑ The Tracker, by Tom Brown. 1978. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
∑ The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature by Starhawk. 2005. HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco, CA.
∑ EAT reader, selected articles
Community Vision
∑ The Earth's Blanket: Traditional Teachings For Sustainable Living (Culture, Place, and Nature: Studies in Anthropology and Environment) by Nancy J. Turner. 2005. University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA.
∑ The Intentional Communities Directory: A Guide to Intentional Communities and Cooperative Living, 2000 edition (selected essays). Fellowship for Intentional Community, Rutledge, MO
∑ Creating a Life Together by Diana Leafe Christian. 2003. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC.

The Earth Activist Training

The first day began as all fourteen days at The Earth Activist Training (EAT) would begin: with ritual. We are instructed to close our eyes and reflect for a moment on why we came to this intensive permaculture, activism, and community building training. At the beginning of any event, we are reminded, always make your intention clear. What do we intend to create together? Why have we come? Someone begins, stating their affirmative purpose, and joining hands with their neighbor. We continue clockwise around the circle in such a fashion, twenty eight people linking hands and speaking our truth as a magical act to bring each member into the circle and create a sacred energetic container. The circle is cast.

All ritual begins with casting a circle--symbolically establishing the energetic space to do work together as a group. Casting a circle for the entire training allowed us to all arrive in the same location, leave behind the burdens of wherever we had come from, and recognize the common work we had come here to do.

After arriving into ritual space together, we begin with observation. Observation was to become the single most overarching theme through all the work we did in the coming weeks. In this westernized culture we often over focus on our visual sense, sometimes to the detriment of our other input systems: touch, hearing, smell, extra-sensory energy. We close our eyes. We become completely immersed in awareness of our surroundings; our chattering brains quiet; we become fully present, observing the moment.

At least, this is the theory. I find this hard. Mostly, I want to criticise my way of observing, feeling that I should be more skilled at intuitive perception and quieting the constant yabber of internal dialogue. I am already familiar with this process and the inevitable criticisms that arise. Yet, I sink into it again. It is the half-dream, half-quiet realm of sensing.

Before I came to this training I had undertaken this goal: to calm the habit of thought-addiction and reconnect with nature through my awareness, as a member of it, not an outsider. I am glad that we start with observation; as a skill it ties together community building, awareness and sensitivity to nature, and designing of sustainable systems for human living. It is the foundation of my education strategy and future goal of living in land-based intentional community. Who knew that such a task would provide me with a continuing sense of failure and challenge! Every time a thought jerks my mind away from my senses I despise the task of making the thought retreat--I want to indulge it, rest in the comfort of busy-to-do-list-fantasy distraction.

Observation informs all choices related to designing permaculture systems, both in physical and social structures. Throughout the training we talk at length about how to assess a physical site for its attributes, based on what we notice and interpret about its preexisting state. For example, let's take water systems--before one would install a rainwater catchment, one needs detailed information gained through observation about the quantity and timing of the rains, how much water is needed for use versus how much is expected in precipitation. If one went and built a huge system without taking these simple facts into account, one could end up with a design inappropriate for ones needs, such as too much storage space, etc.

Permaculture is the art of systems thinking applied to design. It is the active participation with your environment to create self-sustaining relationships of abundance and regeneration. It is the act of taking information gathered from our own thoughtful, protracted observation and traditional knowledge of the land and applying it to modern westernized society. Using these skills, our relationship with nature can change from one of abuse to one of cooperation and positive participation. The word comes from "permanent culture" or "permanent agriculture," and was coined by the originator Bill Mollison in 1970. In this sense, "permanent" does not mean stagnant and rigid, but means consistency within adaptation. Three main ethics form the foundation of permaculture: 1) Care of the Earth; 2) Care of the People; and 3) Fair Share (surplus is returned to the whole system, not horded by individuals).

The final group project earned us our permaculture design certificate. We worked in small groups to design a holistic permaculture plan for one of several options presented to us by the instructors. I chose to work on a design for Starhawk's property, for its similarity to my goals of owning and designing land in the future. It is about 40 acres large, situated on sunny hillsides of the Cazadero hills in Sonoma County, CA. There were several structures in place, some marginally functional gardens with chickens and some permaculture aspects, forests, powered off the grid from a micro-hydro system, a misplaced wind turbine, and solar panels. We were to design the fantastical image of Star's Ranch with no holds barred on our imaginations or the practical constraints of reality such as funding or labor. We were to dream big and place our designers mind on full blast.

Our ultimate product was a redesign of the gardens and buildings in what is referred to in permaculture as "zone 1", the location immediately surrounding your most-used dwellings, the place where all your immediate needs are provided for. During the process of assessing the site, brainstorming, and designing gardens, fruit orchards, social community building techniques, water catchment for rainwater and greywater, I realized a key piece about myself as a designer. Before presenting the project, I was convinced I had vast shortcomings as a permaculturist. But our presentation to the group was received with so much appreciation, including from the owner of the land, that I began to wonder if these shortcomings were actually attributes of my personality I could just accept and not judge myself for, and might in fact be assets.

Of all the project groups that have created a design for Star's land every year of this course, our project was appreciated as being the most practically useful. This highlights what I was most worried about in our project and in my own style--that we focused on the reasonable, the small changes, the ways to work with forms already present on the land. I was worried there wasn't enough grand alterations; we hadn't visioned the ultimate design that would be the utopia of permaculture sites for all generations in Sonoma County. I learned that small changes are good. My tendency to assert minimal change on my situation, be it social or physical, is not necessarily a shortcoming from lack of confidence, but an asset that allows me to see a situation/place with acceptance and humility. I think change is much more effective on small scales over long term. This idea is stated in the several permaculture principals, which are 27 ways to think about designing systems. The principal "least change for the greatest effect" says that the best change is the least change. It says we should avoid drastic alterations in present systems because then you are less likely to alter it beyond repair if you make a mistake, and you are working in harmony with the energy flows which already are in place.

I am inspired to bring back the knowledge I learned at EAT in many ways. For my dumpy well-loved rental house, I imagine a new garden in front where the land is degraded and compacted from being used as a parking spot. Special plants and fungus will bioremediate the toxins add nutrients, sheet mulching will kill weeds and build the soil without tilling the ground. I imagine a worm composing bin and a rudimentary greywater system in the bathroom. Our veggie garden in back could be designed to support a diverse community of insects and wildlife as well as producing food by using functional plant guilds: groups of companion plantings that combine the attributes of micronutrient uptake from the soil, beneficial insect attraction, and nitrogen fixation.

For my community, I see myself taking the information and skills from EAT and reaffirming my commitment to leading a big life as a leader in nature awareness and sustainability. I need constant reminding of this commitment because of my tendency to sink into feeling overwhelm or powerlessness. This training was another chance to remember my true self as powerful and equal in creating the world I want, surrounded by a loving community of people and nature. I felt like I could create anything I set my mind to. I have plans to teach a class this spring in developing stronger relationships with nature using the tools of botany, wildcrafting, and nature awareness. This summer I plan to facilitate a collective in organic farming, small business management, communal living, and ecological restoration. These are not roles I take on with ease; I take them on with a sense of purpose, a choice for struggling against messages that say I cannot make the world I want. I do not choose this path to feel "good." I choose to fight for myself and the world and my community because it feels right, and it needs to be done.

The future is a world waiting to be created by our intentions.