A living laboratory for a sustainable human future.

Author: NikiAnne Feinberg

NikiAnne (she/her) was born and raised on a horse and cattle ranch on the ancestral lands of the Salinan people in the Central Coast of California. She currently lives at Earthaven Ecovillage on unceded lands of the Catawba and Cherokee (Tsalagi) people. Her ancestors come from Eastern and Western Europe — France, Germany, and English Isles as well as Belarus, Lithuania, and Russia, from Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. Throughout the last two decades, NikiAnne has been immersed in community and in service to a wide range of educational endeavors focused on nature connection, personal empowerment, and community resilience. NikiAnne considers herself the grease and glue – that which helps things run smoothly or holds things together. Before co-founding SOIL in 2012, she worked and traveled through much of Asia, the Americas, and Europe, which made her formal education at George Washington University in International Affairs come alive in ways that can only happen through personal experience and relationships. Collectively, these experiences have undeniably shaped her cooperative cultural values and commitment to supporting leaders to think, feel, act and design from a foundation rooted in interrelationship. No matter what she’s teaching, NikiAnne is always on the same mission: to raise awareness of our whole selves – gifts, passions, blind spots, shadows – and help those whole selves find and fill niches in their communities. This is how the web of life is woven, and the fabric of culture repaired. She’s especially eager to support those in transition – between vocations, stages of life, and stories of world and self. Within this context, she is particularly passionate about community grief tending and death care midwifery.

What Can We Let Go Of?

This time of year in Southern Appalachia the waning heat and waxing cold converge to produce sights, sounds, and smells unlike any other season. This weekend’s convergence was resplendent here in our village, with the red leaves of the sourwood trees and the yellow leaves of the oaks and hickories...

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Books we’re reading

This time of year, I love a good book. I’m currently reading a book about a beloved ancestor — Walking with Sobonfu by Susan Hough. It’s an intimate read about Susan’s journey as student and friend of Sobonfu Somé, one of my teachers and a former SOIL instructor and grief ritual...

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Is Place Important? – Virtual Tour

Back in the winter, I attended my friend Lee Warren’s workshop on “Place-Based Living at Earthaven Ecovillage.” She talked at length about place. Specifically, she suggested that “we are cosmological orphans” in part because we aren’t connected to place. I’ve been sitting with that concept....

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Autumn Equinox And End-Of-Life Workshop

As we pass through the autumn equinox, we can see the seasonal change in our Appalachian forest home. Bees are feasting on the goldenrod flowers, sumac leaves are turning red, and acorns are falling. At autumn equinox, we celebrate our harvests of squash and corn, and also the ways we have...

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Healthy Relationships

I believe many of us desire healthy, engaged, dynamic, alive, and supportive relationships. I know that I do. I’ve noticed that when I have a strong sense of self and can name what I want and need, things tend to go better in my relationships. And yet, I still do those all too human things,...

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We Learned So Much From Death

It’s hard to convey just how much we have learned from the deaths of a few of our beloved community members. Over a two-year period from spring 2016 to spring 2018 we had six deaths in our community. These beloveds all had home funerals and home burials. And several of them died at home after...

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Meet My Friend Steve

Have you ever met one of those people that lives for the good of the whole? Someone that does everything with the collective in mind? It’s actually very rare. And I can only think of a couple of people in my life that fit this description. And for sure, that’s my friend Steve Torma.For his...

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Upcoming Events

Virtual Earthaven Tour

Recording available now

There’s nothing like experiencing ecovillage life first hand, but taking a virtual tour of Earthaven is a close second! 

The tour highlights ways in which Earthaven is striving to be a holistic, sustainable culture. The introductory overview tour examines the concept of sustainability at Earthaven through social, ecological, and economic lenses. Not only will you get a glimpse of what has worked through time, but also hear about what has been challenging. And you will have a chance to ask questions!

Earthaven Ecovillage Experience Weekend

May 25-28, 2023

Do you want to learn skills, gain insights and get to know the Earthaven community? Get an inside look at the radical social and ecological experimentation that has taken place in this land-based community for over 27 years.

Compassion Camp

July 13-16

Our annual event focused on Nonviolent Communication, featuring classes and experiential learning. An experience designed to foster compassion and connection in our hearts, communities and world, and to spread the seeds of justice and love.

Earthaven Ecovillage Experience Week

July 30 – August 5, 2023

Join the homesteads, farms, and businesses of Earthaven Ecovillage for a hands-on, skill-building immersion in sustainable and climate-resilient community life. A residential service learning immersion in our unique community laboratory.