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A big shout-out to the Farm Beginnings Collaborative for giving us basic idea of structuring stages of learning. They do this really well in their “Growing the Next Generation of Farmers” worksheet which lays out the beginning, in-training, startup, seasoned stages of a farmers journey.

This road map helps us address the challenge of educating an incoming populace with a wide range of experience, expectations, ideals, and skills. It helps us be realistic about the process of membership and creates a structure for what comes next at each step of the process.

It allows us to co-create more successful outcomes for the incoming “New Roots” and encourages them to engage for fully in their own journey. Education is always an investment in the self so whether or not new residents stay at Earthaven long-term, they are deepening their relationship with regenerative culture along the way.

Many thanks to Lena Estes for the drawing and for the fabulous team of Courtney Brooke, Garrell Bevirt, Arjuna DaSilva, NikiAnne Feinbert, and Lee Warren for pulling it all together.

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Transcript on Interview with Lee Warren on Relational Leadership

Courtney Brooke:

Hi, folks.

It’s Courtney Brooke of Earthaven EcoVillage.

And I’m here with dear friend Lee Warren, who is here to talk with us about a beautiful upcoming offering that she has called Relational Leadership.

What is the subtitle?

Lee Warren:

The subtitle is “A New Paradigm Approach to Team Building and Organizational Success.”

Courtney Brooke:

Right.

Relational Leadership, a new paradigm approach to team building and organizational success.

And I can say from experience I’ve had quite a bit of experience in team building and organizational projects, and I am always learning from Lee.

So I’m really excited that this is being offered through the School of Integrated Living.

So we could you tell us a little bit more about what relational leadership is?

Lee Warren:

Yes.

Hey, I’m happy to be here with you.

And relational leadership means in pioneering new ways of working together. Sort of The central tenant is trust.

We’re moving away from hierarchical structures and moving towards these emergent systems that use collaboration, equity, inclusivity, and mutually beneficial models of relating.

So for me, it always comes back to how trusting in my feeling of this team.

And if I’m not, how can I adjust that?

So both the end goal and the process in relational leadership is to get to really high satisfaction, really high performance teams. And we all want to live in a world where our work and our projects and our movements are even more satisfying than we can imagine.

So relational leadership is all about creating that sort of rich and rewarding engagement.

Courtney Brooke:

Beautiful.

And when you say new paradigm teams, what is that talking about? So new paradigm teams are the future.

Right.

Lee Warren:

We’ve heard so much about how dismantling some old structures, like the 40 hour work week or always being in the office or sitting in cubicles, or only bringing one aspect of ourselves to the job is actually counter to creativity.

Right.

We’ve seen. So Google and other sort of forward thinking organizations pioneer this kind of work. The idea of doing work from home or bringing play into the workplace or having onsite child care. So our lives are more integrated or redesigning our office spaces or rethinking our organizational charts, things that actually bring humans alive. It’s not only best for the bottom line, but it makes everyone happier and healthier and wealthier.

So it’s like the best of the win win win.

And how I like to think about it is, can you imagine a workplace that has honest communication, collective problem solving, transparency, and a strong sense of we’re in this together? Like, that’s the ultimate place to be, in my opinion, in a workplace environment.

Courtney Brooke:

Wow.

Beautiful.

Really bringing the vitality back into the things that we care about and bringing our whole selves to work.

I love that.

So could you tell the listeners a little bit about, like, who are you and why would we want to be learning from you about these things?

Lee Warren:

Yeah.

Thanks.

Yeah.

So, Malcolm Gladwell is the author of Blink and Outliers. He talks about how anything cognitively complex. It takes about 10,000 hours to get good at it. So 10,000 hours is about four hours a day for 10 years. And I’ve been living in a place called Earthaven EcoVillage for 20 years. And before that, I was in another land based community for five years. And within that span of time, and even before that, I have been in nothing but cooperative teams. I sort of swim in the ocean of cooperative culture. So I ran a cooperative farm for 12 years. I built a cohousing neighborhood with four other folks that still exist and have grown to 20 plus residents. After almost 20 years, I worked on a team of women who put together a large conference in the Southeast for 10 years. I ran a sustainable agriculture nonprofit as the executive director for seven years, and all of these teams were thoroughly collaborative and had very high levels of trust. And at this point, I figure I’ve bought about 30,000 hours of relationship and cooperative team buildings under my belt. So I don’t come with any big degrees or certificates, but I come with some significant experience and some really clear direction of what I like and actually sort of a model or a system of a recipe, so to speak of how to actually create it.

Courtney Brooke:

Wow. What a wealth.

So can you give us a little bit of the rundown of what the workshop will look like and what are some things we’re going to walk away with?

Lee Warren:

Sure.

I really think that experiential learning is the way that adults integrate new material. And so we will sort of have this two hours together, and we’re going to be doing dynamic discussion, one on one dialogue, classmate engagement, takeaway exercises, and really I want… my intention is for folks to build a toolkit to enhance their already existing tool kit and to build skills. So we start out with this idea of envision a time when you had a working relationship where it was defined by high levels of trust. And what did that feel like and look like in your world? And then subsequently talk about a work relationship that had low levels of trust and what did that look and feel like?

And then we’re going to sort of go through some different components. I have this sort of whole pyramid of things that happen to create relational leadership. And one component is building a layer of solid, transparent participatory groundwork through clear agreements. What I’m calling guiding document. Other components, including include understanding human motivation and how to include our whole selves in the work experience.

Other pieces are defining our values, our expectations, and how we want to be together. So actually creating relational contracts, and then there’s things in the organization that help us stay connected to each other, give each other feedback, and build an ongoing flow of trust and good will.

And ultimately, I’m hoping that everyone can do all of these things to get to the point where we create joy, connection, fund, belonging aliveness and effectiveness in our work.

Courtney Brooke:

Beautiful.

So this is a two hour offering.

It is. Is that what I understand? Wow.

There’s a lot to come out of it, what we’re offering.

Yeah. What a treat.

Okay.

And how can people get involved?

What is the pathway?

Lee Warren:

So they can go to the schoolofintegratedliving.org or earthaven.org, where this workshop is being offered. And just a little bit about who it’s for.

I think that it’s best really, for folks who’ve done some conscious leadership, right. Who’s done some consciousness raising in their own lives, and who had some experience at leadership. So whether they’re in the nonprofit business, corporate, NGO, or government sector doesn’t really matter. But anyone who’s part of a team, anyone who manages people project groups or organizations. And it really doesn’t matter if they’re new to leadership or long term, but they have to have a sense of organizational framework and also of trying to make life better through consciousness raising practices.

So, Yeah, go to those websites and find out more. It’s upcoming this year a couple of times.

Courtney Brooke:

So thank you so much, Lee.

And if you want to know more about Earthaven Ecovillage, we offer tours every Saturday, public stores and offer also virtual tours once a month.

And you can find more information at earthaven.org about this offering and upcoming offering.

And also join our newsletter to stay in tune with other offerings that are coming out.

And to just get a flavor of who we are and how we are, have a beautiful day.

Thank you so much.

Lee.

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Transcript of Interview with Lee Warren

Courtney Brooke (CB): Hi folks, I’m here with Lee Warren. Hi Lee.

Lee: Hi Courtney Brooke.

CB: Good to be with you and we’re here to talk about an exciting upcoming offering through Earthaven Ecovillage that Lee is offering with helping us do our end of life paperwork. So yeah I just had a few questions for you Lee. One is could you tell us why you’re wanting to offer this beautiful work through Earthaven Ecovillage.

Lee: Yes, thank you, um…So from the spring of 2016 to the fall of 2018 we had five deaths at our ecovillage, Three of those folks died at home, all five of those folks had home funerals and home burials and some kind of, you know, magical evolutionary programming kicked in in so many of us and we harmoniously created uh processes for both caring for the dying, tending to the dead, and tending to our own grief in in some of the most profound community experiences I’ve ever had in 25 years of community.
And so many of us came out of that experience over the course of those two and a half years pretty transformed and realized that we wanted to offer the world some taste of that.
And because of my background in in finance and economics and sort of systems organization design, I really wanted to marry the tenderness of that process with helping people step by step go through uh thinking about their intentions and their end of life paperwork.
So it’s this interesting combination of the left brain and the right brain and we we really blend that in a powerful way during this workshop and that really all sort of grew out of a lived experience of of being with the dying.

CB: Wow that is beautiful. So could you speak to just how the course is formatted, like what what will we be getting out of the course?

Lee: Yeah after a series of years doing this I’ve really come to a format that seems to work pretty well for adult learners.
So the workshop is eight full hours and we structure it in two half days. So we do four hours and then a week later we do another four hours. So we have a week in between and I find that this topic, because it’s slightly taboo in our culture and a lot of people don’t touch this topic very often in their lives, there there’s a lot of integration and processing time that’s needed and so we really create a powerful container where people feel safe to explore and digest and discuss and contemplate and get inspired about possibilities. So that takes a little time and I really find that this is the best of all formats for this for this particular workshop.

CB: Wow beautiful. So I hear there will be some integration of just the process of getting getting cozy with the fact that we are mortal and that our life will come to an end and making some peace with that and then also actually getting down to some practical filling out paperwork that will make that transition better more easeful more clear.

Lee: Yeah.

CB: Yeah, go ahead.

Lee: Well my intentions for the workshop really, you know at a fundamental level, are to introduce people to resources to increase our death and dying literacy and ability to articulate um and again as I mentioned contemplation and inspiration, but also to start some, you know to really start some paperwork, we have about four or five pieces of paperwork that we’re starting.
Some people finish it, some people actually identify some next steps and get a checklist and figure out what they’re going to do by what date.
And part of the beauty of the collective in this context is that we create a buddy system for accountability and support so that they don’t just sit in a pile on your desk but they actually get done by the dates that people want them to get done.
And then even more exciting for me from a collective perspective is how do we build a death literate community, how do we create comfort for this conversation, and how do we build, you know, how do we build in the long term a structure of support where we can actually help each other through not only the conversation but through the dying process.
So all of that we’re having conversations about and we’re wading pretty deeply into.

CB: Well that sounds very rich Lee. Could you share with us a little bit about like what happens when someone does or doesn’t and your experience in your life like when someone has done this preparation and then when someone has not done this preparation. Like how how that that is a seed that gets watered for different experiences.

Lee: Yeah that’s a really great question.
I find that when people actually have spent some time in their life before they’re dying to contemplate these things that they actually can go into the dying process with a little more ease, Right?
They can um they can have a they’re more likely to be able to have what’s called a good death. And how I define that is how one of my mentors defines it, which is a good death is walking towards it.
So if we’ve got some things in order we can actually settle in and surrender to the pretty sacred process of dying that not only is our process but the process of everybody around us who loves us and that can be a very liminal magical experience especially if we can put down the physical world because we’ve sort of crossed our t’s and dotted our i’s.
You know it’s never black or white or one thing or the other and death can be challenging particularly if it’s a painful death process but my experience is if we have decided to um put our intentions down it can pave the way for a process that can be pretty miraculous and and I would even venture to say beyond conscious, potentially joyful potentially ecstatic.
I think we’re we’re pioneering these realms, but my sense is preparation paves the way for those things.
And on the on the opposite side, you know, um people who maybe aren’t as prepared (and you know death can go in any mysterious ways so it’s sometimes people don’t do anything and they have a fabulous death and they do all this preparation and they have a challenging death so it’s not cut and dry) but I think one example that I can think of is that someone had actually about a month to live, a dear friend had a month to live and the doctors, the oncologists told him, “oh you have a year or two,” and he didn’t get to his paperwork and then um who was the beneficiary on one of his insurance insurance policies was an ex-partner, an ex-marriage partner and that created a whole bunch of infighting between the family and other people and it was the post-death experience for the people who were left was agonizing and painful and it went to court and it was lots of high drama and I don’t imagine that that was helpful for any of his beloveds to really sink in and be able to process his death in a pure way because there was so much conflict around it. So those are just some examples. It doesn’t have to go those ways but it is really nice to get things in order because as we do we leave instructions for the living and when the living have instructions they’re very interested in carrying out the wishes of the dying and the dead and it can create a lot of harmony and good will.

CB: Wow that is really beautiful. I just wanted to share that I’ve also gone through my own paperwork for my my process and my paperwork isn’t complete but um it wasn’t because I was sick or because I was anything just because it came my way and came into my awareness and I and I did that and it was it was a really rich experience that I would highly recommend. Also to just really gave me like more life, you know, like i was being like you know, i grew up in a culture, we all grew up in a culture where it’s like “oh just don’t talk about that,” we just put that somewhere else. We just think that we’re going to live forever and have all these you know buy things that keep us young or whatever that’s gonna be like and yeah it was really rewarding to just like “how would I like to die and and where would i like to be?” and to be able to voice it to my beloveds, even to my mother and to my friends. It brought a lot of intimacy into my my life and my relationships.

Lee: Yeah really death does open a portal to the mystery and talking about death opens a portal to the mystery I think even in our eight hours together something really mysterious does open and we we have this comprehensive overview but it’s really quite a deep dive and I think people are changed because of our time together because of touching on this topic and swimming in those mysteries for a time together.

CB: Wow, well I’m feeling so excited and grateful that you’re going to bring these offerings to Earthaven and be offering them through an online offering through earthaven.org and that’s where people can go to find more information and to register and these offerings are up and coming so is there anything else you’d like to share or touch in on before we go?

Lee: Just join us for the journey, it’s you know it’s a lot of resources a lot of focus, but also playful, heartful, and frankly fun.

CB: Thank you so much Lee for helping us take care of this sacred threshold of our lives called death.

Lee: Thank you Courtney Brooke.

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Transcript from Video:

Steve: Hi folks! This is Steve Torma from Asheville, North Carolina and Earthaven Ecovillage.

Terrie: I’m Terrie LeWine and I’m from Philadelphia and I’m at Earthaven Ecovillage.

Steve: So, here we are today, spring equinox. We’re sitting here with our lovely flowers here at Earthaven. We are dreaming about Compassion Camp this summer, hoping that you all might want to come and join us. This is our third year, and we’re planning to have a wonderful time together.

Terrie: I love Compassion Camp because it brings people together from western North Carolina and beyond. It’s really a dream of people gathering in a way that they can share intimately, get to know each other, and learn a few skills along the way.
What are some of the things that are highlights for you, Steve?

Steve: Well, non-violent communication, which you and I both care so deeply about, it’s a core part of what we do at Compassion Camp. But, there’s many other things. Many other issues, related to how to create more peace, and justice in the world, and loving relationships, and inner peace. We also have a lot of fun.  We try to create a safe container where people’s needs to be taken care of are really respected.  And we do singing, and we do creative movement things.
What about walking around here? What do you think?

Terrie: What people have said (we often do tours of Earthaven, people sleep here in tents and inside indoors) you really get a sense of the life that is happening here at Earthaven. A sense of being connected to the earth and why that’s important too. So Compassion Camp, while it really is steeped in non-violent communication, it’s really morphed into all things compassion. What are ways we can care for each other? And care about each other?  And develop sustainable relationships, that feel really good? So one of the ways that has happened is through connecting with the people of the land here.

Steve: I really think of compassion as the medicine for our time. Learning how to just push out further, and further who we can care for, and care about not only the humans, but the beyond the human worlds. At Earthaven, if you’ve never been here before, there’s some really beautiful parts of nature that you can have access to, streams, trails, trees. So if this sounds interesting to you, we’d love to have you join us.

Terrie: One of the things that we’ve done, and we’ve grown into over all the years, is how we do leadership. It started out that we would have a few of these classes, NVC classes and things that are prepared by people who already teach.

It’s also an opportunity if you have something or some skill either that you want to ask for to kind of be immersed in a group, or that you really want to practice your own leadership skills or co-leading skills. So, we have open source (what we call our version of open source) technology, where in the beginning is when we decide what’s going to happen here. It’s designed and it’s decided by everybody who is here together. So it isn’t decided by us. That’s something that’s really important to me and it makes for a really interesting well-rounded group of topics that we can explore together.

Steve: To create a teaching – learning community. People who come together to share their talents with each other. So that we collectively become more connected, more intelligent, more skilled, more compassionate.  So, look forward to having you join us. Thank you, folks.

Terrie: Oh, a couple other things that you might want to know: One is that your kids are welcome here. We have a robust program for young people. And one of the things that people report is the food here is so good.  A lot of the food is off the land, it’s grown off the land. Most of it is cooked by people here on the land. So it’s a nice place to come to get a good meal as well.

Steve: Thank you folks, thanks for watching this. see you soon!

The post Looking forward to Compassion Camp 2021 with Steve & Terrie at Earthaven Ecovillage appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

Transcript from video:

Laura:
Hi, I’m Laura. I just want to speak about my experience at compassion camp 2019 because I’m definitely going back to 2020!

It far exceeded all my expectations. It was amazing; learning, food, we did dancing, and singing, we had a fire at night.
Singing around the fire, I made so many great friends.

It was at Earthaven ecovillage, which was amazing. That’s just like this little hidden gem in the mountains, you would never know was there.

It was just an amazing experience and I’m still savoring it to this day.

The post Laura, a Compassion Camp at Earthaven Ecovillage Participant in 2019, Impact Statement appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

Transcript from video:

Alan: I’m Alan Muskat and I’ve been to the first two Compassion Camps.
I can’t wait for the next because I haven’t experienced anything like it-  besides going to the actual international NVC training when, for days at a time, I felt completely accepted and I couldn’t do anything wrong. I can’t say we’re quite there with this one but we’re building it each time. I know that I could ask any question or say anything and have time to talk about it with folks on our own or in groups. Even the food was great. The location is beautiful and I make friends. Real friends that I can have throughout the rest of the year because everyone is local or nearby.

Thanks!

The post “I couldn’t do anything wrong” Compassion Camp at Earthaven Ecovillage with Alan Muskat appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

(Transcript from video)

Steve:

Hey, folks..I really want to invite you to join us for compassion camp this summer, July 15 through 18  2021 at Earthaven Ecovillage.

If you haven’t heard of compassion camp before this is our third time doing it and it has some features to it that i just absolutely love.

One of the main features is that we gather as a teaching-learning community, where we invite what we want to share with each other and what we want to ask of each other. We invite this into what’s called open space technology process, where we learn. We become a learning teaching community.

The topics a lot of it is NVC based, but we also have a lot of other topics related to compassion social justice and the whole range of what it means to create a compassionate culture. There’s also a strong emphasis on community building and relational connection.

We have singing and movement, dance, story telling, a variety of different ways that we connect and celebrate and build community together and enjoying nature. Earthaven has so much beauty with all these other beings that we’re sharing here; the trees, the water, the crawling animals. There’s so much gorgeous trails and woods that it’s such a balm for the soul.

So for all of those reasons and many more… great local food especially that’s another great one.. really encourage you to come and join us this year at compassion camp 2021. Hope to see you there!

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Transcript from Video:

Hi folks, my name’s Steve Torma, and I’m coming to you from Earthaven Ecovillage. I’d like to share with you five of my favorite moments of being here at Earthaven since the beginning really.

The probably the first one that comes to my mind is the first day that we as a group ritually entered the land on September 11th 1994. We formed like a bird as we all walked in and it was just really special moment that I will always cherish.

The next one that comes to my mind is working on building the council hall. We did it all ourselves. We were kind of figuring it out as we went along. It was a lot of fun . It was very exciting; a lot of both playful and creative energy going on.

Another one for me is playing sports on the village green. Kickball has been one of my favorites because it’s so inclusive of people of so many different ages and skill levels. Especially watching the kids learning the rules and having fun. Making sure that we don’t keep score so that people feel bad and all that kind of thing. I just really have a lot of fun just being out there running around playing.

I’ve also had some great beautiful moments in the stream near the neighborhood where I live, Village Terraces. There’s this gorgeous stream and a little waterfall and it’s such, especially in the hot weather, it’s such a beautiful cooling nourishing sensual experience. I just so, so love that!

Then the last one is the most recent one.  We just had a an NVC class so I call it a level three class and the level of connection between people was so sweet and nourishing to me. The depth of learning. All of us kind of learning together these beautiful principles that help make our lives more wonderful. On our final day we had a gift exchange kind of process where people just offered and asked for all things that they wanted to make our lives more wonderful together. That was a really nourishing experience for me as well the whole class was but especially that last day.

So thanks for listening and look forward to talking to you some more…

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