Now, I am on a mission to encourage all of our community members to prepare their end-of-life papers. Creating clear end-of-life paperwork is important for all stages of life and health. Written documents help loved ones know what to expect, guide our own inner and outer processes and, when the time comes, allow us to turn our attention to the mystery and magic inherent in the dying process.

We offer you a sacred journey to contemplate your end-of-life intentions and prepare the appropriate documents. Lee is leading a five-week online workshop on Conscious Living, Conscious Dying — Preparing for the End of Life starting November 12. This workshop emerged through our own experiences, help from our mentors, wisdom from the dying, and a synthesis of the celebrations and challenges.

Many people have good intentions for getting their end-of-life papers together. I hope that you will take this opportunity to complete this sacred work in a guided, supportive group process.

• A good death is possible. In fact, it’s actually accessible.
• The dying give a tremendous gift to the living before, during, and after their death.
• Death brings the community together in a way nothing else does.

Our experiences were so profoundly positive, including learning to grieve our losses, that we’re offering some of our wisdom to you in July through a two-part, eight-hour workshop called End of Life Planning & Paperwork: Honoring Your Life and Your Loved Ones.

• Have you thought about your death?
• Are you able to talk about your death or the deaths of your loved ones?
• Have you considered what you would like if you become injured or so ill that you can’t speak for yourself?
• Have you thought about your wishes once you are gone?
• Have you shared these desires with the people closest to you?

This workshop is a beautiful way to invest in yourself and your circle of family and friends. In fact, it may very well change your life.

Here’s what some past participants have to say about this workshop:

As an incentive, we are offering our newsletter subscribers a 50% discount for this two-part workshop, making the workshop as low as $48!

To receive the discount, use coupon code ELP-EBird when you register. The discount is available through June 22.

Find more information about the workshop and register on our website.

Martin Prechtel is a mentor and dear teacher to several people at Earthaven. He says:

“Every individual in the world, regardless of cultural background or race, has an indigenous soul struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile environment created by that individual’s mind. A modern person’s body has become a battleground between the rationalist mind — which subscribes to the values of the machine age — and the native soul. This battle is the cause of a great deal of spiritual and physical illness.”

Blessings on all of our journeys to wellbeing. Whatever path we are walking.

• Sobonfu Somé
• Warren Brush and the whole Quail Springs Crew
• Jon Young and the beautiful network stemming from The 8 Shields Institute
• Lia Grippo and the entire Academy of Forest Kindergarten Teachers
• Lee Warren, Susan Hough, and Doug Elliott
• Sharon Tollefson and my beloved Wilderness Youth Project community
• James Stark and Christopher Kuntzsch, with so much gratitude for The Ecology of Leadership
• Nadia Chaney with Partners for Youth Empowerment
• All the teachers I’ve had through the Racial Equity Institute

Thank you. (There’s so many others who I’m forever grateful to as well.)

I discovered permaculture in 2007 when I arrived at Earthaven for the first time.

When I came to Earthaven, I was immediately immersed in permaculture because I was living within a village built from its principles and within a community whose residents were daily practitioners. Permaculture principles carry important messages that encourage us toward right-awareness, right-relationship, and right-consciousness with both the human and more-than-human worlds.

However, something I’ve come to understand more recently is that the permaculture movement has fallen short on the inclusion of black and brown voices, on addressing systemic injustices, and on acknowledging where most of its land-based wisdom originated.

In an effort to explore the permaculture principles through a more equitable lens we are offering a five-part workshop series entitled Decolonizing Permaculture starting Saturday, May 22.

I am super excited about it because it features three fabulous people: Amakiasu Turpin-Howze, Tyson Sampson, and Lee Warren.