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 a solution.
Brandon: So, we put these concrete blocks into the edge of the creek, not really disturbing the creek too much. What we’re hoping is that on this outside bank and in flood conditions, sediment will get deposited on the edges of these blocks.
When the water is high, that there will be a bunch of turbulence and slowing down of the water, which will hopefully prevent the creek from eating in as it has been here in the past. That’s our hopes.
Courtney Brooke: So what are we going to do here? We’re going to spread cover crop?
Brandon: We’re going to spread some seeds, some annual rye grass and some rye grain to stabilize it temporarily. And then we’re going to plant some live stakes of a variety of different plants in there. It’s possible that we’re going to put some bamboo in this area to really stabilize the Creek so that we don’t lose any more sediment, which helps the Creek and helps us to protect the roads.
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.
