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A living laboratory for a sustainable human future.

Author: Courtney Brooke

Courtney Brooke (she/her) is an ancestor who was a Social Ecologist, Regenerative Designer, and educator whose work aims to reconnect people with a sense of belonging to place. Her work in the world aims to address the root cause of today’s overwhelming ecological challenges – that humans are starved of a sense of belonging to the places they live. Courtney Brooke was raised on a small farm in North Georgia, and has been guided by a lifetime of living close to the land. Her greatest teachers have been the Appalachian Mountains, the land of Aotearoa, and Selu, the Corn Mother. She holds a degree in Ecology from the Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, and has 10 years of experience facilitating earth-based education, ecological landscape design, women’s rites of passage, and cultural healing. Courtney Brooke has taught and facilitated environmental education curriculum, Deep Ecology, Permaculture Design Courses, hands-on craft and farming workshops, and Holistic Management to a wide range of audiences in nine countries from toddlers to adults and everyone in between. Deeply committed to spreading the healing that comes from belonging to the places we live, Courtney Brooke is passionate about designing learning opportunities that celebrate life. She lives at Earthaven Ecovillage where she tends the land, raises food, participates in communal ritual agriculture, swims in wild water, enjoys the mysterious blessing of being alive, and tends her own wild Hearth. She loves cooking home-grown and wild foraged foods, playing her flute to the sunrise, running on mountain trails, making compost piles, crafting from natural materials, and bringing people together to create beauty that feeds the holy.

AlnoCulture; Alder Tree as a living trellis with Courtney Brooke at Earthaven Ecovillage

Transcript from video: Courtney Brooke: Good morning, it’s Courtney Brooke here. I wanted to show you another exciting plant in our landscape which is called an Alder. It’s a tree; it’s these trees here. This is a baby one. It was planted about …maybe two years ago. Here’s...

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ClubCar: Our golf cart with a solar panel on top at Earthaven Ecovillage

  Transcript from video: Courtney Brooke: Here’s our new ride, the club car. It’s a golf cart for cruising around Earthaven, but the news about it is that it’s got a solar panel on top so you can charge it with electricity.   But that’s pretty challenging to do when...

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The Lumber Yard Gets a Design Upgrade at Earthaven Ecovillage

Transcript from Video: Paul: Then the trailer is going to be over in there next to the tree. Zev: Oh, OK, Good. Paul: So, Yeah, if this is sloped enough, there will never be any wet pools. Zev: Yeah, it looks kind of like there needs to be a little more digging out right through here to get a little...

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Stabilizing the Creek Bank at Earthaven Ecovillage

Transcript from video: Courtney Brooke: Here we are on the creek bank, of Earthaven EcoVillage, where there’s been some major erosion, since before we got here. The road before Earthaven was here was already very near the creek, which is understandable, but also a problem. So now there’s...

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Grating Black Turmeric from our neighbors at Earthaven Ecovillage

Transcript from Video: Courtney Brooke: Good morning, Zev. Zev:  Good morning. Courtney Brooke: What are you doing? Zev: I am grating this incredible black turmeric grown by Leon with his mad, passionate devotion to beautiful food and medicine plants at Full Circle Far next to Earthaven Ecovillage. Courtney...

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Retaining Wall Made of Tires at Earthaven Ecovillage

(Transcript from video) Sue: So this is a tire retaining wall. We made it by taking off one of the walls, one of the sidewalls of the tires, and then turning them inside out. So they look more for the same. And I planted them with succulents and various kinds of herbs, like Thyme and Rosemary and...

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Creek Repair Using Cement Blocks as Sediment Bars at Earthaven Ecovillage

(Transcript from video) Courtney Brooke:  Hi there. Coming to you from the sauna at Earthaven EcoVillage. And the Sauna is right by the swimming hole, which is in the creek. The thing about that is that the Creek, when it floods, erodes away the bank. Then if it erodes away too much more than it...

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Moving the Mobile Coops for Pastured Chickens with Andy at Earthaven Ecovillage

Courtney Brooke: Hey Andy! Andy: Hey! Courtney Brooke: What are you doing? Andy: Well I’m moving the chickens to a fresh spot. Courtney Brooke: Oh; good morning chickens! Well, that’s quite a lot of chickens. How many chickens is that? Andy: Well, we started with a little over a hundred...

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The Candle Factory at Earthaven Ecovillage

(Transcript from video) Paul: You can see how it shrinks down. This one here didn’t. The thin ones don’t shrink down so much, the deeper ones do. Courtney Brooke: What are you all doing? Paul: We’re talking about candles wax behavior. Courtney Brooke: Wow! Look at that candle. Paul:...

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