On November 14 & 15, a cluster of our village family and friends joined over a hundred people in Asheville for a Grief Ritual with Sobonfu Somé, sponsored by the School of Integrated Living (SOIL). Sobonfu is a gifted spiritual teacher from the Dagara tradition of Burkina Faso. This was the second time we were able to work with her.

It was especially enriching this year to share the ritual space with over 20 people from our extended village. We have woven together a life complete with broken dreams, shared losses, the hardships of living together, and the collective longing for a better world.

Sobonfu led the drumming and song that announced it was time to grieve. We created three altars: one for the ancestors, one for forgiveness, and one for grief. Each of us placed something on the grief altar to symbolize our grief. While grievers mourned, witnesses stood near and supported each one, as did the musicians and singers. Together we became a village with specific roles that made the grief ritual as powerful as it was. All in all, the message was—we cannot do this alone.

During the day, some of us reached out to each other, feeling the comfort and safety of being held in another’s arms. Being witnessed as we grieve is a powerful medicine, which breaks the spell of entrenched isolation and separation in modern culture that so often keeps us from reaching out. At the close of the ritual, Mana McLeod and Chris Farmer, both of Earthaven, had the honor of burying the grief bundle. I burst with emotion as the group thanked and welcomed them back in. It left me dreaming of a time when we are all welcomed with the same collective gratitude!

At the close of this ritual, my heart was so open; I felt such gratitude for the experiment called Earthaven.

Kimchi Rylander is an artist, deep ecologist, and permaculture activist who has been Earthaven’s Firekeeper for the last two years. Her grandest artistic endeavor is building a resilient ecovillage with 60 other cultural creatives at Earthaven. When she is not chair caning, you’ll find her in the forest harvesting a fresh batch of nettles and chickweed. Connect with Kimchi by email at kimchi-at-earthaven.org.

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As Firekeeper (aka President) of Earthaven for 2014, I am excited to announce that we will be turning 20 years old this year! Earthaven has been an intentional community seed bed all these years, attracting villagers to settle and explore what it means to take responsibility for the care of our land, our natural resources, and each other. Over the past two decades, we’ve gathered some magnificent things to share—harvested from our experience developing practices and norms for stewarding what we share in a way that will benefit its future stewards.

This week I read an inspiring work by activist and writer David Bollier, who looks at the study of “the Commons” as a new paradigm of economics, politics and culture. These days, when most of us think of “the Commons,” we are likely to be referring to open source software or Wikipedia or even the Internet. However, Bollier says that “…a commons arises whenever a given community decides it wishes to manage a resource in a collective manner, with special regard for equitable access, use and sustainability.” This touched me deeply in my core, as it dawned on me that building Earthaven is a vibrant expression of commoning!

Visitors on a tour of the Earthaven Commons, which includes hundreds of acres of forest.

“Commoners are determined to open up new social and political spaces in which people can make their own rules, negotiate their own governance, and craft solutions that are tailored to their local circumstances.”

Some of our recent news highlights what friends and neighbors have been up to recently to make life more meaningful, common resources more accessible, and the future more abundant. Earthaven is commoning all of the time…!

I invite ya’ll to explore your Commons. Just start small. It can begin with organizing a neighborhood work party. Bring snacks to share. Build relationships in your community one neighbor at a time. And, as most of us learned in kindergarten, it turns out to be true that—to have a righteous good time—“You gotta share, and… everybody gets to play.”

Kimchi Rylander, an artist and permaculture activist, has been practicing sustainable living for decades. She’s lived at Earthaven for the past 13 years and when she’s not organizing a work party in her neighborhood, she’s out with her rabbits, or tending her compost shrines.

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Steve Torma is guiding Earthaven through the awkward teen years as Earthaven’s FireKeeper. As FireKeeper, Steve seeks to honor and value the community history while accepting change and valuing transformation.

Steve has a strong appreciation for “the value of the group mind and synergy of the collective intelligence.” As FireKeeper, he is the leader of the FireKeeper Orbo, which is responsible for the overall well-being of the community, including peace, safety, spirit, and community process, and he is also the President of the homeowner’s association. He is supported in this role by his co-FireKeeper, Kimchi Rylander, and a committee of FireTenders.

See the full blog entry.

Steve offers classes and consulting through the REAL Center.

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“My whole life has been leading toward me doing this role.”

Steve Torma is guiding Earthaven through the awkward teen years as Earthaven’s Fire Keeper. As Fire Keeper, Steve seeks to honor and value the community history while accepting change and valuing transformation.

Steve sees Earthaven as one of the places on the planet that’s grappling with what humans need to do to evolve as a species. Steve believes that for Earthaven to thrive, we need to balance our attention between developing the physical and cultural aspects of the village. To keep this balance, he uses the four-quadrant view of the Integral Model:

• I quadrant – how I view reality, what I like and don’t like
• It quadrant– my body and things, such as food and housing
• We quadrant – relationships between two or more people
• Its quadrant – systems that we are part of, such as collective buildings, the ecosystem, and external governing bodies

During the first 15 years of the community, Earthaven placed most of its attention in the It and Its quadrants — developing the roads, water systems, community buildings, housing, and farms needed to house the village. With some of those completed, Steve sees “my role is being a catalyst in the I and we quadrants so we can evolve more successfully – be more creative and productive.”

Steve explains more about the Integral Model at Earthaven in a series of videos:

• Introduction to the Integral Model at Earthaven
• Example of the Integral Model at Earthaven
• How the quadrants relate to each other

Steve has a strong appreciation for “the value of the group mind and synergy of the collective intelligence.” As Fire Keeper, he is the leader of the Fire Orbo, which is responsible for the overall well being of the community, including peace, safety, spirit, and community process, and is also the President of the homeowner’s association. He is supported in this role by his co-Fire Keeper, Kimchi Rylander, and a committee of Fire Tenders.

Steve’s personal transformation mirrors Earthaven’s. When he came to Earthaven Steve was in poor health and made his living selling books at conferences. After rebuilding his health and co-creating the Village Terraces neighborhood, Steve turned his attention to developing a teaching and coaching practice. Steve teaches through the REAL Center where he offers courses on compassionate communication and the art of intimacy. He also offers personal coaching and mediation services, and is available for workshop and consulting for groups and businesses.

For fun, Steve likes to build and fix things, enjoys lifting heavy objects, and gets deep satisfaction out of seeing the richness of life at Village Terraces and Earthaven. “With each passing year we become more of a village. I enjoy watching the children being able to walk around and knowing that they are held in the safety of our village. I also like having our own cow and chickens.”

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Unplugging from consumer culture, living simply and building community . . . it’s not an easy path! As I review my past ten years here at Earthaven, I’ve discovered that letting go of efficiency may be a shortcut to village togetherness and happiness.

I owe so much gratitude to the Tribal Condo, one of the earliest timber framed, hand built structures at Earthaven and a place that I call home. While the original builders gained much needed skill, building with lumber hand harvested from the land, the house has minimal plumbing, salvaged leaky windows, and no inside insulation between floors. In essence, it’s a house that needs constant maintenance and care. In 2001, I took a leap of faith and bought into the 1000 sq ft “apartment” house.

In the early years, I wondered if I had made a poor decision. Clearly, this house was inefficient and likely to decay sooner than other homes. However, as Suchi (my house partner) and I began to maintain and repair it, we noticed how each episode offered a tremendous opportunity to connect and relate within the village.

One year, our roof blew off when a strong wind funneled down the mountain and pulled out purlins that had only been nailed (not screwed) in. Torrents of rain came down, and all the residents of our home crawled out on the roof at two o’clock in the morning to pull the tin back on. The next day, villagers offered to provide lodging for us and repair the damage. It was awesome how the community helped us through our “disaster!”

While efficiency offers a way to make the most of the available energy, time, and money we have on hand, it doesn’t always maximize opportunities for relationships in a community. Take a look at Nature: at one level it’s very inefficient, but at another level, it provides myriad opportunities to weave a tapestry of dense interdependency within a locale.

“If a house is built too well, so efficiently that it is permanent and refuses to fall apart, then people do not have a reason to come together. Though the house stays together, the people fall apart and nothing gets renewed. Coming together … to do communal tasks gracefully—tasks that a machine could do in an instant anonymously—or to repair rickety houses ensures the very smiley togetherness so missing in the pre-planned, alienated lives of modern civilization.” (Secrets of the Talking Jaguar: Memoirs From the Living Heart of a Mayan Village, by Martín Pretchel.)

Suchi and I chuckled after discovering yet another item to be fixed in the house. “Please pass the bottle of inefficiency,” I decided. “I’d like to sprinkle some more of that on my plate of life.”

Kimchi Rylander was a longtime member of Earthaven Ecovillage. An artist, deep ecologist, and permaculture activist, she was continuously building delicious new cultural topsoil beginning in “her own backyard.” She passed to the spirit world in 2017.

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This past fall, we harvested a beautiful collection of fruits and vegetables. As any harvester knows, Ma Nature produces bountiful amounts of food and there’s always enough to share.

One morning, Suchi and I were walking in the Hut Hamlet neighborhood and came upon a Crabapple tree that was dripping with fruit. . . 45 pounds, to be exact. We dashed for our buckets and harvested the tart apples, noticing that there was hardly any insect or mold/mildew rot. This tree was one of the early perennials planted at Earthaven about 12 years ago. Some folks believe that crabapples are the only wild survivors of our domestic apples.

After 20 pounds, we decided to carry our harvest to the kitchen and find a way to preserve these “mini-apples”. We decided to make “Spiced Crabapples” by placing the cleaned fruit in a crock with apple cider vinegar, honey, and spices.

After a few days, on a cool fall evening, we heated up the crabapple brine and packed it in 24 one-pint jars. What a fun way to warm ourselves and appreciate our fall harvest!

Here’s to your happy harvest!

 Tribal Condo Clan is a co-housing exploration dedicated to simplicity and preservation of the commonwealth. Currently, Kimchi Rylander (pictured left) and Suchi Lathrop (pictured right) live there with three other residents

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Culture’s Edge

We have also become the umbrella organization for independent educational projects, including the Forest Children Program, Camp Katuah, The Natural Building School, Patricia Allison and Friends’ Sustainable Living Skills internships and classes, and a program we simply call Earthaven Ecovillage, our volunteers who host tours and facilitate long-term on-site work study opportunities.

This year we are planning to sponsor workshops in Qigong, The Power of Manifestation, Homeopathy, and Plant Wisdom.  See www.earthaven.org for a listing of current classes.  Tax-deductible donations of any size can be earmarked for any of these programs.  You can support scholarships for education, or tell us that you want us to use your donation wherever it’s most needed for education and outreach.

Culture’s Edge was established as a not-for-profit company in 1996, shortly after Earthaven was formed. Culture’s Edge was a way to focus our passion for education and create opportunities for livelihood.  At first we offered courses in the three areas central to our own development: permaculture, natural building, and consensus decision making.  Over time, training in the agricultural arts, building arts, communication arts, and healing arts were added, filling almost every weekend from May through October for several years running.

While focusing on internal reorganization in 2006, we slowed down and most of the classes held that year were privately organized.  This past year, the introduction of Health Dept. requirements into Earthaven’s midst (see article, Are You Hep?) cut short our educational calendar for the season, which, though hard on the village economy, did give us the opportunity to consider how our future plans might branch out.  In particular, we feel excited about expanding longer-term internship programs, in which the opportunities for life changing experiences are the greatest.

This year, Culture’s Edge is offering the courses and programs that nurture a healthy & sustainable world and offer you practical solutions.  Our programs are taught by a dynamic team of instructors and contribute to Earthaven’s village economy.

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