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(Transcript from video)

Courtney Brooke: Hi Steve.

Steve: Hi.

Courtney Brooke:  I was just noticing you know in my life the longing for more mentorship and elders. So I’ve been asking some people in my life who are who are more experienced and farther along the journey. If you could give yourself some advice when you were 20 years old, what would it be?

Feelings and Needs

Steve: Wow I like the question. Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is the concept of feelings and needs.

It’s the amazing realization that everything that I do is an attempt to meet a need. All of my feelings are this amazing elegant feedback system that my body mind has to guide me. So I would encourage my 20 year old self to get more in touch with my feelings and learn what the basic needs are. You know that I think that would have been incredibly powerful.

Pain Can Inform Life

I think maybe the other thing would be that when painful things happen, it doesn’t mean necessarily that there’s something wrong or that I’ve done anything wrong or anyone else has done anything wrong. When you look out in nature you see death and destruction all the time that leads to life. So I would tell my 20 year old self: yes, feel the uncomfortable painful feelings. Don’t deny those and don’t repress that. But also don’t jump to conclusions that just because this thing is painful that is necessarily bad for me. I have a lot in my own life, I had a lot of stories about that, that made everything much more difficult. That pain is a way for life, to get information about life.

Failure = Living Systems Educating Themselves

The third one is kind of similar. It is around the concept of failure. I had a dear friend who years ago told me this: “there’s no such thing as failure, there’s only feedback and learning.”  If I could have had that wisdom when I was 20; I used to beat myself up so much about having failed at this and failed at that. Then eventually adopted a more evolutionary and nature perspective of reality. Like the quote “failure things happen all the time but they’re just part of living systems educating themselves.”  That would have given me a lot of relief.  I had much more energy in my life if I had less of that failure thought and more of just realizing that “oh, this is just a living system, I’m a living system learning.”

Reclaim the Sacred…Earth, Feminine, and Relationship to Our Bodies

Let’s see the fourth one I think would be around the concept of the sacred. What does it mean for things to be sacred? What things are sacred and what things have lost their sacredness in our culture that would be really helpful if I could reclaim? The three that come to mind is something that I think I heard from Starhawk. I’m not sure exactly where I heard it.  The three aspects of life that got most damaged in the patriarchy has been our relationship to the earth, our relationship to the feminine, and our relationship to our bodies. I would I really encourage my 20 year old self to reflect on and pray and read and whatever would help to reclaim my the sense of the sacredness of earth and feminine in my body.

Courtney Brooke:  Wow thanks so much Steve. Thank you.

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(Transcript from video)

Steve:

Hey, folks..I really want to invite you to join us for compassion camp this summer, July 15 through 18  2021 at Earthaven Ecovillage.

If you haven’t heard of compassion camp before this is our third time doing it and it has some features to it that i just absolutely love.

One of the main features is that we gather as a teaching-learning community, where we invite what we want to share with each other and what we want to ask of each other. We invite this into what’s called open space technology process, where we learn. We become a learning teaching community.

The topics a lot of it is NVC based, but we also have a lot of other topics related to compassion social justice and the whole range of what it means to create a compassionate culture. There’s also a strong emphasis on community building and relational connection.

We have singing and movement, dance, story telling, a variety of different ways that we connect and celebrate and build community together and enjoying nature. Earthaven has so much beauty with all these other beings that we’re sharing here; the trees, the water, the crawling animals. There’s so much gorgeous trails and woods that it’s such a balm for the soul.

So for all of those reasons and many more… great local food especially that’s another great one.. really encourage you to come and join us this year at compassion camp 2021. Hope to see you there!

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July’s Restorative Circles (RC) Conference hosted by Culture’s Edge at Earthaven brought together about 30 Restorative Justice and Nonviolent Communication practitioners from around the world to strengthen the network of resources for deep, global societal change, starting with right where we are. Using Open Space technology, the conference sessions were collaboratively curated on site. Sessions included: “notes from the field” of RC educators and practitioners, “semi-simulated circle” practice sessions, discussions about dealing with trauma and other hardships met in this work, and using RC with children and in families. The Conference enhanced the growing connections between those who’ve been working together over the past six years and those new to the group. If you’re interested in being a part of the planning and design for the next Restorative Circles Conference in 2021, email the Culture’s Edge staff at: culturesedge@earthaven.org.

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Suchi has been living at Earthaven since 2002. She began searching for community after her partner died, hoping to find social connections and a cooperative living situation.  Now, eight years later, Suchi is intensely involved in community life.

Suchi gives tours, is on the visitors’ committee, created the Peace Garden, and has been a leader in social organizing. She also started the Coffee and Trade as well as the weekly happy hour, and helps run the Trading Post. “Hospitality is my passion,” she said. Recently, Suchi became involved in starting a workers’ cooperative to build a code kitchen that can serve guests.

When she’s not busy organizing, Suchi spends her time maintaining her share of the household at Tribal Condo. She also enjoys reading, studying, and walking the land.  “If you wanted to imagine a perfect retirement this is pretty close to it,” she said. “As a Quaker, this appeals to me because we live simply here. We are very close to nature.”

Before coming to Earthaven, Suchi was running an Independent Living program for people who were developmentally challenged. She also spent time as a librarian and an electrician. “I wasn’t passionate about any of those jobs,” she said. “If I had it to do over again I’d be a psychotherapist.”

Suchi is currently studying Nonviolent Communication, Body-Centered Psychotherapy, and Zegg Forum. Everywhere she looks there are new opportunities to learn. “This is a beautiful community,” she said. “It’s very diverse and it’s very dynamic. It’s never dull.”

As much as she loves life at Earthaven, Suchi admits that there have been some challenges. “There have been difficult times. The thing about community is that you go through it instead of flying away from it. It’s hard to imagine living anywhere else.”

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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