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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Among the many new and exciting things life in an ecovillage exposes us to—new ideas, new diets, new techniques and technologies, new celebrations—one of the most vital are the new people we meet! Our gate is open to visitors who may come for a tour, a workshop, to visit friends or family, or with the clear intention of finding their niche at Earthaven. Some stay or return to do work trades or internships, or to get the ball rolling toward membership.

We call the newest residents at Earthaven our “New Roots.” They come from far and wide, often are under 30, and participate in a variety of ways: as work exchangers, interns or apprentices, as long-term guests of family members, or as employees of on-site businesses. Generally, they’re all here to discover if Earthaven is the place to settle.

Thirteen New Roots, including New Roots Committee member (also an Exploring Member) NikiAnne Feinberg (left, bottom row) along with Community Service Coordinator Lyndon Felps (center, black tee shirt), got to know Earthaven and each other better at a recent check-in.

The New Roots are mentored both by the individual members who host New Roots and by the New Roots Committee. At periodic check-ins, New Roots get a chance to meet and discover how each other are handling living in the woods, coping with so much that is new and different, such as staying in tiny houses or communal set-ups, using and conserving off-grid power, reusing and recycling like crazy (including their own pee and poop), and shopping at the Free Store. Their adventures are life-changing!

Almost a quarter of those present at a recent check-in said they were interested in getting on the “membership track,” which begins with an Exploring Member interview with the Membership Committee. The interview also includes suggestions about what the potential Exploring Member might need to learn about Earthaven before joining. Exploring Memberships last up to a year, and Exploring Members are encouraged to attend (and sometimes join) committee meetings to learn about work going on behind the scenes. Financial commitment also expands at this time.

Within that year, the deeper commitment of Provisional Membership (the last step before the “jump” into Full Membership) is under consideration. Although not everyone takes the journey to Full Membership, just about everyone becomes part of Earthaven’s extended family, returning for long or short visits again and again.

Arjuna da Silva, a co-founder of Earthaven, has been a writer, editor, counselor and communitarian since before she can remember. She’s been focusing on a newer passion—natural building—for the last ten years or so, coordinating courses and a natural building internship program at Earthaven, now in its fifth year.

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My mother recalls an incident when as a toddler I picked up my chair and threw it across the room. I was born this way—and now I live with a lot of folks I’ll bet threw their chairs around!

After many adventures since leaving my suburban upbringing, I’m amazed to have landed in this vibrant, life-supporting place—the closest Home I have ever experienced feeling. The learning, growth and healing opportunities are unimaginable! Earthaven is also a sort of graduate school for me, where I can pursue forgotten intelligences within heart and body through creative, intuitive, feminine means. Bolad’s Kitchen, Tantra, Goddess culture, dance, plant medicine—it’s all bringing me deeper into the mysteries of intelligence.

One thing that sometimes challenges me is my inability as a “non-member” to be more politically active within Earthaven, but I’ve found purpose here in other ways: being a leader in the Hut Hamlet Kitchen, working at Imani farm, working/mentoring with Corinna [Wood], offering yoga, dance, and massage; gardening projects and loving friendships feed so many of my needs. I hope I can give back even a fraction of the gifts I’ve received here.

Jenna Rose Payne brings gifts of beauty, dance, yoga, food and friendship to her beloved Hut Hamlet neighborhood and to many members throughout the community.

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A young man appeared at Earthaven almost two years ago with a kind of golden aura around him. He came with excitement about us and what we’re doing, and with a fair amount of excitement about his own life and experiences. Some of us may have thought he would stay a short while to add to his itinerary of hip experiences, but he surprised those folks not only by staying but by getting deeply into the matrix of our community culture, connecting in his healer-documentarian way with folks all over the land, on any side of an argument, old or young. He flowed into so many corners of the community, and now it’s hard to say goodbye.

Will Rogers is leaving us and we hate to see him go. Of course we wish him the best in life—nourishing relations, eye-opening opportunities, the ability to continue to share his multiple gifts—but you can bet that a lot of us will be hoping those adventures pale in the light of his memory of Earthaven and that in the not-too-distant future he’ll return.

Will got around to helping with so many community and individual projects, learned the permaculture plant business, split cords of wood for his neighbors, recorded memorable events for community archives, wondered along with long-time members about how to solve tough problems…. We love you Will! There will always be a place for you at our table!

Arjuna da Silva helped start Earthaven, and finally lives in her earth-and-straw home. She’s currently working on a musical about life in the ecovillage, continuing to develop understanding and hopefully some skill re group process, and looks forward to setting aside all these wonderful things and writing a book about it all.

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