place-based living Archives - Earthaven Ecovillage

The Art of Receptivity

Jill Lacasse — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 16:58:06 +0000

There I am. Arms, back and legs sprawled out on the yoga mat, with a blanket over me, and a bolster under my knees. I would say this posture is as vulnerable as it gets. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Just my body, my mind, and the many sounds enveloping me. I hear the birds chirping in the distance. A sweet soft wind subtly liberates the leaves on their branches. Children laugh and dogs bark in the distance. And then come the instruments.

The sound ceremony begins.

As we drop into the presence of the moment, we enter into a deep space of receptivity. What I’ve learned is that this experience is called nada yoga — the art of deep listening. The art of getting out of our own way and getting quiet. It is the yoga of remaining open as a vessel to what wants to re-emerge from the past, what wants to come into the present, and what has yet to be in the future.

To practice this type of yoga, first, we must pause and take in our environment. Pay attention to the nuances and observe the interactions among beings. And then come back again and again. Only then can we approach our relationship in the most aligned way possible for all involved. You wouldn’t go up to a stranger and say “wanna get married?” It’s the same kind of thing. We need to court the creatures, the spirits of the land, and the ecosystem that is weaving this web on the foundation of the mountain, the ocean, the forest, and the river.

And when we say YES to allowing our environment to wash over us, we build rich and nourishing relationships with the beings in our energetic field and we allow our place and space to shape our experience and perspective in this life. We become healing agents for the earth and all that walk on it.

This is the dance of receptivity and action at its finest.

How can we use the power of receptivity to live and move in a way that supports the ecosystems of the land and people around us?

How can we choose to attune to our environments while also supporting our own needs and desires?

And how can we live in right relationship so that we become tuning forks for the earth and its creatures?

I encourage you to check out Place-Based Living, our new, self-paced online course that details the journey of Earthaven, moving from a consumer culture to a land-based, place-based life. This course looks at the geographic and cultural context for the Earthaven project, and then examines how creating Earthaven in this context influenced the building of our systems, including our homes, roads, agricultural fields, and power, water and waste systems.

I invite you to take a few minutes today to be still, to listen, to learn, and to respond from a place of attunement and connection to the people and land around you.

Your evolving tuning fork,
Jillian xx

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Is Place Important? – Virtual Tour

NikiAnne Feinberg — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 15:33:07 +0000

Back in the winter, I attended my friend Lee Warren’s workshop on “Place-Based Living at Earthaven Ecovillage.”

She talked at length about place. Specifically, she suggested that “we are cosmological orphans” in part because we aren’t connected to place.

I’ve been sitting with that concept. Mulling it. Contemplating it. Considering it.

At Earthaven, we use the phrase “place-based” to describe our educational programs partly because we reside at Earthaven Ecovillage and all of our learning and teaching are born in that PLACE.

But also because we’re trying to become deep, respectful, and integrated inhabitants of this place.

Lee also went on to say, “In our culture, we seem to not know who we are, where we came from, where we are going, or who it’s for.”

So I’ve been asking myself some questions:

What does it mean to become familiar to place? To humble ourselves to place? To learn from place? To steward place? To become indigenous to place? To learn about the gifts of that place?

I’ve been settled in this particular place for almost fourteen years, even though I hail from a far different place (California). And I realize that I’m just starting to touch on the deeper understandings of the cycles, mysteries, and wisdom of this place.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes about place:

“Sometimes if you move carefully through the forest, breathing like the ones in the old stories, who could cross a shimmering bed of leaves without a sound, you come to a place whose only task is to trouble you with tiny but frightening requests, conceived out of nowhere but in this place beginning to lead everywhere. Requests to stop what you are doing right now, and to stop what you are becoming while you do it, questions that can make or unmake a life, questions that have patiently waited for you, questions that have no right to go away.” – David Whyte

“A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other’s lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.” – Wendell Berry

If you would like to know more about the place we call home, please join me for our next Earthaven Ecovillage Virtual Tour next Wednesday, October 13, 2-4 pm. Find out more and register here. I look forward to meeting you and sharing this special place.

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New Online Courses

Lee Warren — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 17:11:56 +0000

In December, we announced that Earthaven’s non-profit, Culture’s Edge, and the School of Integrated Living (SOIL) had merged, and announced a new program of online workshops.

Interested in learning more about Earthaven?

Join our series of workshops about Earthaven infrastructure with Lee Warren. Each two-hour workshop will explore one of the permaculture ethics — earth care, people care, and fair share.

Place-Based Living: An overview of the regenerative systems that provide our homes, power, water, food and medicine. January 30
Village Economics: The ins and outs of money and wealth at Earthaven Ecovillage. March 20
People Care: An overview of the social, emotional, and relational aspects of village life. April 17

Considering joining Earthaven or another ecovillage or intentional community?

Learn how to research, visit, evaluate, and join the ecovillage or intentional community of your dreams with Diana Leafe Christian. To meet Diana and get a taste for the workshop, sign up for the FREE overview.

FREE overview: Thursday, January 28
Two session workshop: February 11 & 18, $65

Want easier and more satisfying relationships in your life?

Improve your interpersonal communication skills through the practice of nonviolent communication. Steve Torma provides a safe environment for learning and practicing key NVC skills. To meet Steve and get a taste for the workshop, sign up for the FREE overview.

FREE overview: Monday, February 1
Eight session workshop: Mondays, February 8 – March 29, $280
For even better relationships, bring a friend, partner, or lover for half price!

Meet the instructors

Diana Leafe Christian

Diana is author of Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities and Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community. She speaks at conferences, offers consultations, and leads webinars and workshops internationally.

Lee Warren

Lee is a sustainability professional with 25 years of experience envisioning, designing, and living innovative solutions to organic food systems, intentional community, and sustainability education. She’s been living in rural, land-based community since 1995 and at Earthaven Ecovillage since 2000.

Steve Torma

As a lifelong peace, justice, and ecology educator and activist with over 40 years of community living, Steve has sought to integrate personal and social transformation in his own life, in the communities in which he lives, and in the larger society. He is passionate about integral living and thinking to create a more just and sustainable world.

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