Over a hundred people from all over the US gathered at Earthaven, June 4-7, for “Restorative Circles in Our Communities,” a conference with Restorative Circles (RC) founder Dominic Barter and facilitator/trainers Karl Stayaert and “Duke” Duchscherer. All three, as well as others at the event, have shared Restorative Circles and other ways to come to dialog in conflict situations, some internationally, including Brazil, Nepal and the Ukraine. The conference was sponsored by Earthaven’s affiliate non-profit, Culture’s Edge, and hosted by members Steve Torma and Arjuna da Silva.

RC is a “restorative justice” approach to addressing conflict within the context of the wider community. Used in schools, court systems and other organizations and agencies in more than 25 countries, it was developed by Dominic Barter in the 1990s in Brazil to help resolve conflicts in the high crime-burdened favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

The first two days included a focus on the importance of setting up conscious restorative justice systems in our communities, and an in-depth exploration of the three phases: pre-Circles, Circle, post-Circle. ‘Semi-simulated circles’ serve as practice sessions and are a key component in the learning process. On Friday night, Dominic spoke to over 120 people in Asheville about walking toward conflict. The last two days of the conference were filled with Open Space session organized by participants.

One highlight of the conference for many was the final “Financial Co-Responsibility” meeting, called “money
piles.” While people paid fees for food and lodging, there was no fixed conference fee. Instead, sitting in a large circle in the Council Hall, surrounded by a good half of the participants, Arjuna, Steve, Dominic, Karl and Duke, as hosts and presenters, candidly described their financial situations and how much it had cost them to put on and participate in the conference. Participants were asked to contribute as much as they could toward the
expenses, given the benefit they’d each received being part of the conference —a radically transparent experience which was quite emotionally moving for many in the room.

As the total of contributions made up to that point was matched to the total costs and requests, an ever-increasing pile of cash-filled envelopes and IOUs was placed in the “money pile” in the middle of the floor. Additional online contributions via computer were also being made, as the group began allocating the “pile” to the various expenses and organizational and presentation services on the list.
As it turned out, everyone received more than they had asked for!

Dom said one of the best things about the conference was his opportunity to be a listener and a learner.

Steve, Arjuna and the conference Staff, including Jerry, Abdullah, Sara, Gaspar, NikiAnne and several others in minor roles, reported some serious levels of satisfaction at their debriefing meeting.

Comments and evaluations from participants were delightfully positive: folks felt well cared for, well nourished, and saturated with possibilities for a more just world of restorative communities. Arjuna also reports the spread of interest in RC locally, in Asheville.

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From our first annual Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference event in 2005, we quickly discovered that women in the Southeast were ready and eager for this community of teaching and connection that we were creating at the conference. We discovered that we were filling a deep need. Our first conference drew 250 women, a high number for a start-up event. By 2010, our sixth year, over 800 women attended, during a rough economic time when event after event was collapsing.

It seems that part of the draw to the conference comes from the authenticity that we bring to it as organizers. We use the weekend to give women a taste of the way we actually live. For us, green business and sustainability aren’t just buzz words: they’re the way of life. Our office and apothecary run entirely on solar and hydro electricity, our homes and offices are built and heated by wood from our land, we grow much of our own food on our adjacent farms and gardens, we raise our children in a community context and we practice herbal medicine, natural health, and women’s cooperation in our everyday lives.

Renee, Corinna, Ema, and Lee are the organizers of the SE Women’s Herbal Conference and all live at or near EH.

The Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference, ‘Bringing Back the Wise Woman Ways,’ takes place on October 14-16, 2011 at beautiful Lake Eden in Black Mountain, NC. It’s a weekend to learn, connect, and deepen into the Wise Woman Tradition: earth-based healing, local wisdom, & deep nourishment.

For more information and to register, visit sewisewomen.com

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The three conference organizers have been working together as a team for 5 years now. Corinna Wood and Lee Warren are both Earthaven members living and working in the Village Terraces Cohousing Neighborhood, and Ema Carmona is living a similar close-to-the-earth life in a neighboring community. “The conference gives us women the opportunity for a part-time living-wage income in a rural area without much opportunity for employment and allows us work that is deeply aligned with our values.”

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“In communities plagued with conflict, of course plain old interpersonal conflict is often going on. But the group is usually also experiencing what I call ‘structural conflict.’  This is where certain important ‘structures’ are missing. This alone can lead to huge conflict in communities.”

          Earthaven member Diana Leafe Christian was telling me about her work as a traveling consultant to communities. Diana is author of two books: Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities and Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community. For many years she edited Communities magazine, and now publishes a free online newsletter, Ecovillages. She travels internationally to talk about ecovillages in conferences and workshops, and to help community groups that call on her for help and advice. In her experience, there are only a few typical problems that come up communities, usually the result of what she calls “structural conflict.” If these important structures are absent, she says, conflict often results.

          Here is the rest of our interview:

Diana: “For example, in some communities not all members know what the group’s agreements are. Or they might not have access to information on recent meeting decisions. Sometimes there are no published minutes, or no minutes available online — the group could be six months behind in posting minutes. Some community members might have this important information and know what’s going on. But not everyone does. This creates a power imbalance. The solution? Even if you have to pay money or labor credits to get your meeting minutes up to date, do it! Make sure this information gets out to everyone!”

           “Another common problem is having no system of labor credit or no way to manage and track the labor system. With no system, only those people who feel moved to volunteer time and energy to the community end up doing everything — and they often get burned out. Sometimes, even when most people want the community to have labor requirements, one or two members object, believing, ‘If it’s really community, people would just want to work!’ Or they object to tracking people’s labor through some kind of labor-tracking sheets, like our ‘Leap Sheets’ here. Those who do want to have labor requirements, and to track it, are often accused of acting like corporations!  But in fact, communities that have labor requirements, and a method to manage and track people’s work hours, tend to have higher morale and lower burn-out.”

          Alice: What else do you see in communities?

Diana: “Well, sometimes a group doesn’t have a clear and unambiguous mission and purpose. If their mission and purpose statement is vague, conflict can arise when people interpret it differently. This shows up with proposals. One person can argue that a proposal is not in line with the community’s mission and purpose, and perhaps block it. But advocates of the proposal are sure it does express the group’s mission and purpose. These disagreements are exacerbated if the group uses pure consensus. In pure consensus everyone must agree for a proposal to pass. What an awful Catch-22! One of the requirements for using consensus in the first place is having a clear, unequivocal mission and purpose!”

          “A related problem for groups that use consensus is too-frequent blocking or blocking to express personal values, rather than the group’s shared, agreed-upon values. Some communities follow the advice of consensus trainer CT Butler and have criteria for what constitutes a principled block. An ecovillage in British Columbia, EcoReality Co-op, and three cohousing communities in the US: Eastern Village, Wild Sage and Silver Sage, all have agreed-upon, written-down criteria for what is a principled block. In addition, they have clearly agreed-on procedures for how their facilitators can test whether or not a block is principled.”

          Alice: Anything else groups can do about this?

Diana: “N Street Cohousing in Davis, California reduces this kind of structural conflict by requiring anyone blocking a proposal to be part of the solution. Someone who blocks has to come up with a new proposal, working in small-group meetings with advocates of the proposal.  If no new proposal is created within their series of meetings, the first proposal is brought back,  and it only needs a 75 percent supermajority vote to pass. N Steet has used this method for 22 years, and there’ve only been only two blocks, with two small-group meetings each, in the whole time. Only four small-group meetings about blocks in 22 years! I like this method because it deters frivolous blocking while still respecting anyone who blocks. It respects the blocking person by giving them many meetings and a relatively long time to convince others that the original proposal was a bad idea and to suggest a better idea. And it respects the advocates of the original proposal too — all they have to do is wait.”

          Alice: Could you say more about “structural conflict”?

Diana: “New-member orientation courses are another way to reduce this. Twin Oaks, Dancing Rabbit, and The Farm all have orientation courses for incoming members. These give new folks much-needed information about the community’s history, purpose, and functioning. I’m so happy Earthaven is doing this too, with such as our consensus training, our new “Land Use/Permaculture” workshop, and our new “Sustainable Economics at Earthaven” presentation.”

          “Another conflict reducer is creating agreements for how people communicate in meetings. Typical communication agreements often include ‘No interrupting’ and ‘No pejorative comments about people in the meeting or their ideas.’ The facilitator reminds the group when a communication agreement is breeched, and participants encourage each other to comply.”

          Alice: It seems like many of your contributions here have been a result of your experience in the wider communities movement, all the places you’ve been. So tell us a little more about your travels.

          Diana: “One of the more exciting trips I’ve taken lately was to the Philippines. In April I taught in the first Global Ecovillage Network-sponsored EDE (Ecovillage Design Education) course there. I’ll be doing it again in August with students from mainland China! I also just got back from speaking at the first-ever communities gathering in Quebec — which I loved. And I basically had the time of my life in 2007 as a speaker at the Japanese Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo. But as much as I like meeting ecovillagers in other countries, I always love coming home to Earthaven.”

Alice Henry is an Earthaven member and water and sanitation expert who serves on Earthaven’s EarthDelver committees. Diana Leafe Christian has formerly served on Membership, Promotions, and Land Use committees. dianaleafechristian.org http://www.EcovillageNews.org

The post On “Structural Conflict”: An Interview with Diana Leafe Christian appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

          In November, the Useful Plants Nursery hosted a fall sale and Plant Jam. This was the first UPN event hosted at Earthaven and many people came out to see the nursery, hear local speakers, and take home some useful plants!

          In December Earthaven hosted a tour from the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) annual conference in Black Mountain. Here they are hearing about Yellowroot farm from Julie McMahan and Andy Bosley.

Join us Saturday, December 12, 10-6 for the Bizarre Bazaar. We’ll have supervised craft making for children of all ages (dry felting, holiday decorations, snowflakes, etc) and a snack and drink table – have some/leavesome. Bring a musical instrument and make a joyful noise. Vendor tables available by donation and reservation. Call 828-669-2073 to reserve a table or for more information.

The post News Notes – Winter 2009 appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

The Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference is the sister company of Red Moon Herbs –  sharing the same mother, owner and director, Corinna Wood. Corinna, a long-time Earthaven member, runs these two businesses here at Earthaven, employing not only herself but other local women, bringing much-needed income to families in our economically depressed Appalachian region.

Two Earthaven women, Corinna and Lee Warren, as well as a neighbor, Ema Carmona, work year round to organize The Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference, which offers hundreds of women the opportunity to learn, connect, and deepen in to the Wise Woman Tradition. This year marks the 5th anniversary of the conference which will take place in Black Mountain on October 2-4

The Wise Woman Tradition is very close to many of the values embodied at Earthaven. In brief, it means simple living, earth-based healing, and local plants. It encourages connection to place, honoring of cycles, nourishment of the body–of the human and of the earth, and community with each other. The conference is an opportunity to introduce these ideas to women from many different walks of life in a format and style that is empowering and deeply transformative.

The conference draws hundreds of women (expected participation this year is 500) from around the Southeast coming for classes taught by more than 30 teachers, herbalists, wise women elders, and gifted healers. They will teach more than 50 classes on topics such as: Herb Walks, Tea Blending Secrets, Herbal Skin Care, Herbal Baths, Menstrual Health, Menopause, Women’s Wellness, Nutrition, Phytochemicals, HPV, Shamanic Breathwork, Talking Stick, Self Esteem, as well as art, dance, yoga, poetry, and more.

The post The Wise Women of the Blue Ridge Are At It Again appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

Suchi, Kimchi, and Gaspar have been facilitating forum at Earthaven for the past couple years.  Arjuna, Debbie, Mana, Steve, Clark, and Red Moon Song are joining them as a forum facilitation team with community forums scheduled twice a month.

Our abundant spring rains have turned into hot summer sun, and our gardens are growing! We harvested garlic, squash, beans, greens, and lots of berries, and even our first few tomatoes.

We celebrated the summer solstice with yoga, meditation, a ceremony at Hidden Valley, and a work day to deepen our swimming hole!

Earthaven hosted our third group of college students over summer solstice weekend. This group, from Wake Forest University, was on days 19-21 of a 27-day field trip throughout the Southeast. During a break from their studies they built a grape trellis and mulched paths in the Forest Garden.

Our teachers have been busy preparing for their summer programs. Andrew Goodheart and friends are hosting a permaculture certification course at Earthaven in August (see article later in the newsletter), Corinna is preparing for her August Wise Women Immersion course, and the women at Red Moon Herbs are preparing for the fifth annual Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference.

Diana has had a busy spring and summer traveling around the world teaching and speaking about intentional communities and ecovillages. Her travels so far include teaching the Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) course of GEN’s Gaia Education program in the Philippines (see photo), being a keynote presenter at Portland’s Village Building Convergence, and participating in the International Cohousing Summit as one of the few Americans invited. Between speaking engagements she edits the Ecovillages Newsletter.

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