By Deborah Clark, Medicine Wheel Collective

Greetings from Medicine Wheel Collective!

As summer rolls into fall, and wave after wave of change sweeps the wider world, we find ourselves deep in a season of change at Medicine Wheel. As the pandemic prohibited us from hosting our normal summer crew of work exchangers, visitors, and renters, it’s a bit wilder in our garden than usual.

Inside the house, it’s a bit wilder too. We are living in a construction zone.

We are rebuilding Medicine Wheel’s heart and hearth: the kitchen. Having sustained and nurtured residents, students, and Earthaven visitors for nearly twenty years, it desperately needed an overhaul. Lyndon and I—along with our advisory board—have paused with gratitude to consider how many thousands of meals have been cooked and eaten here.

As we rise to meet this challenge, we’re searching our hearts for answers to a couple of big questions: What are Medicine Wheel’s most authentic expressions of service? How does that service mesh with our individual personalities, needs, and visions for the future?

Ever since Patricia Allison—Medicine Wheel’s founder, and our beloved teacher and mentor—passed on more than two years ago, we’ve been examining and refining our purpose and goals, while striving to honor the depth of her commitment.

Lyndon is enthused about continuing the Medicine Wheel tradition of hosting permaculture classes and inspirational events. I am especially excited about the interplay between the bounty of the garden and that age-old question: What’s for dinner?

One thing we’re both sure of: we desire to serve those who want to learn to live more sustainably, for generations to come. That’s what gets us out of bed in the morning.

The kitchen is the hub of the Wheel. We envision being able to serve larger groups, with more ease and grace. When we ask you to contribute to our campaign to fund the Medicine Wheel kitchen renovation, we are asking you to join us in that prayer.

Consider Donating Today  https://charity.gofundme.com/medicine-wheel-kitchen

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Hard to believe this is our first newsletter since January, but it’s been busy and intense all around. Yes, another beloved senior member has taken her last journey—Patricia Allison left the planet (as far as we know) on March 19, after a relatively short bout with cancer. What we will do without Patricia is still a doleful question. A beautiful funeral was held in her honor, as well as a memorial party and (true to Patricia’s spirit) a workday at Medicine Wheel, the neighborhood she began developing with her family many years ago. Meanwhile, long-time Medicine Wheel co-leader Lyndon Felps and not-so-newcomer Deborah Clark are at the helm of the Wheel, following the intensive gardening paths Patricia spearheaded and continuing to house, teach and inspire students and work-exchangers throughout the coming years.

Patricia came to Earthaven as a budding Permaculture teacher, teaming up with Chuck Marsh, Peter Bane and Goodheart Brown, training Earthaven members as well as quite a few folks from around the country, in the basics of permaculture design and the essentials of its application. A Texan with a passion for simplicity, she loved permaculture and teaching it, and inspired hundreds, probably thousands, of students through classes and PDCs at Earthaven, as well as at several other developing communities and conferences. She was a dedicated consensus practitioner who also taught those principles on the road and at home.

For the sake of joy and teaching, Patricia collected songs. She laughingly referred to her favorites as her “eco-feminist spirituals.” They served as a calling in and meal-blessing when folks would circle up for dinner in the Medicine Wheel kitchen, and often had a place within her classes, and daily life. The recording she made of them in 1996 is available in digital form, for free, and on a CD for the cost of shipping. To obtain a copy, please write catherinebrooke@gmail.com.

above: Patricia (left) and students at Medicine Wheel.

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above: Spillway at the new micro-hydro installation.

 At long last, the second micro-hydro station at Earthaven is up and running, serving the delighted residents of Medicine Wheel and Bellavia Gardens neighborhoods.

Through an ingenious design by neighbor Leon Birstein, each neighborhood is served differently so that their residents’ not-quite-adequate solar arrays are boosted and bolstered by the steady flow of creek water through the landscape.

Suiting the different ways our neighborhoods are set up—one with a large common house and the other with several separate homes—Medicine Wheel’s micro-hydropower is constant, while neighbors’ batteries at Bellavia Gardens are boosted at intervals during the day and night with modest but adequate backup charges.

The dream of a second micro-hydro station has been alive since Earthaven’s first micro-hydro was built in the Village Center in ’96. The first station serves the Village Center and Hickory Knob, home of the White Owl, and has been known to offer backup power to several nearby homesites.

right: Travis Robb treads carefully beside the trench that will direct more power into his Bellavia Gardens neighborhood. 

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Some Earthaven neighborhoods are balancing collective and personal ownership issues by forming housing cooperatives. While used in other parts of the country, housing co-ops are new in our region and could be a reasonable model for other ecovillages, especially in rural areas.

One of the last neighborhood “pods” to get involved in the land-ownership revision, folks at Bellavia Gardens finally took a look at the details and dimensions of this “restructuring” process, which Council has been working on for several years. Here’s what we learned.

Entrance to Bellavia Circle in the lush heart of summer.

After restructuring, our Homeowners Association (HOA), of which our neighborhood “pods” will all be members, will continue to own most of our land for us, meaning the forest all around, the Commons, and much of the agricultural areas. But instead of bearing the burdens of caring for residential parcels, the HOA will pass the baton of “ownership” and responsibility to residential pods incorporated in a couple of formats.

Two neighborhoods have decided to pursue becoming religious societies, finding those more aligned than housing co-ops with their values and needs. Bellavia Gardens will have just enough Full Earthaven Members (five) to comply with the requirements for cooperative associations in North Carolina. Other neighborhoods with fewer members are joining together to start their co-ops and may branch off in the future.

left: Medicine Wheel Collective will become a religious society.

Not everyone has been excited about these changes (putting our NVC education into intensive practice!). In addition to slowpokes like the Bellavians, other challenges to accomplishing restructuring included determining which agreements would have to be amended and which can remain the same. Our commitments and understandings regarding residing on, sharing and co-owning Earthaven land have had a searchlight review and updating in preparation for becoming a federation of neighborhoods.

Earthaven Association comprehensive site map before restructuring

Much intensive and dedicated work was accomplished by Council’s Strategic Transition Group (STG), which Kimchi Rylander organized and nurtured these last few years, and which has guided the process to its maturity. Hats off also to Patricia Allison, Bob Lienhart, Debbie Lienhart, Martha Harris, Sue and Geoff Stone, Alice Henry, Norm Self, Carmen Lescher, and with a great bow to Dimitrios Magiasis, who kept interpreting for the rest of us what was happening in conversations between legal counsel and the STG team!

All in all, what has been a laborious and sometimes bewildering process has created a new way of organizing ourselves that we think will be more appropriate and supportive of our similar but also distinct neighborhood personalities.

      Visitors Map showing some Earthaven neighborhoods.

Stay tuned for updated information here and on our website about ways to continue to connect with us, including visiting and tours, work exchange and other short-term residency options, educational and economic opportunities, and membership exploration. To twist the African Ubuntu saying just a little bit: “we are because YOU are!

Arjuna da Silva helped found Earthaven in 1994 and is a member of Bellavia Gardens Neighborhood. 

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Before River Otter came to Earthaven, she was creating her own lifestyle in New Orleans. She was busy gardening, developing her healing skills, and giving tours of the city. Then Hurricane Katrina struck.

“The storm was really a turning point for me,” she said. “I survived the storm but a lot of people didn’t. It made it clear that if there was something I wanted to do, I had to do it now.”

In the aftermath of the hurricane, activists and relief workers moved into River Otter’s neighborhood. “It was joy beyond belief that my people had come to my neighborhood, but I couldn’t be involved the way I wanted to because I was focusing on my health.”

River Otter was in her late 30s, recovering from a major illness, and her marriage was falling apart. At the same time, she very much wanted to be somewhere where she could start a family.

Then one day, Patricia Allison came to New Orleans to visit her daughter, and someone told her there was a permaculture student living in the neighborhood.

“Patricia knocked on my front door and told me about Earthaven and Medicine Wheel,” she recalled. River Otter visited for a week in 2006 and moved to Earthaven in March of 2007 to apprentice with Red Moon Herbs.

Living in community was challenging at first. “There were times especially in the first year or two that I thought of leaving, but I realized it was really just my own issues. The fear of putting down roots, the fear of commitment.” All in all, it seemed that turning back was not a reasonable option for her anymore. “So I just walked myself through all of that.” River Otter became a full member in 2008.

River Otter gives tours of Earthaven, manages the campground, teaches yoga, organizes rituals, and helps new people integrate into the community. “I’m a really service-oriented person and I’m in a place where I can do what is needed. I feel like my being here has created positive change.”

As for the future, River Otter is committed to learning more about herbal medicine, healing arts, naturopathy, meditation, and yoga. She also hopes to start a family and learn how to achieve more balance in her life.

“My skills are being valued here,” she notes. “Even the skills I’m developing are being valued.”

Being at Earthaven has proved to be much more fulfilling than the life she left in New Orleans. “I felt lonely. I would do all the harvesting and everything and then I’d go to a Vietnamese restaurant and get a bowl of noodle soup ’cause I couldn’t bear to be alone. I can get my needs met in community.”

Davene Wasser came to Earthaven in April 2010 with her son Eli and husband Jamie to simplify her life and live more closely to nature. She is a writer, editor, educator, and artist. After ten years of researching community, Davene is thrilled to be living her dream.

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Our newest Provisional Member is Rae Jean. At our Sunday, March 25th Council meeting, she celebrated her leap over the candle with a full-on cartwheel and much applause before we lifted her up high over our heads and sang. Rae Jean has always loved nature and felt close to the Earth, and lived for many years in the mountains of Colorado, where she was a farmer-homesteader and herbalist. She’s been visiting Earthaven since 2004, and became an Exploring Member in 2006. She works as operations manager and customer fulfillment at Red Moon Herbs and serves on the Forestry and Agriculture and Membership committees. She and fellow Earthaven members Clark Goslee and Peggy Austin recently purchased Brandon Greenstein’s house and homesite Settler’s Creek neighborhood. (Brandon, his wife Tanya, and their three girls are moving to a homesite in nearby One Stone community, and Brandon will still be involved in Earthaven.) Rae Jean, Clark, and Peggy intend to micro-farm their new homesite extensively, and to develop the Settler’s Creek neighborhood.

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