Subject to change. Check back for updates.
Cost is $50 for workshops and food. For more information, contact Jan Spencer
We'll discuss how weather works in Permaculture in our bioregion, How Peak-oil pollution & Solar storms arecausing Global warming & Climate crisis. How toreduce our 'Cabon footprint' & waste, with conserving,recycling, efficiency, growing food, bicycling,cooperating & weatherizing our bodies & homesteads naturally. We learn energy patterns of weather - are spiraling fractal geometry of natural chaos.
Micheal Sunanda was trained in whole energy systems with Bucky Fuller in the 1970s, he has been learning, traveling, writing & teaching Permaculture since mid '90s & now expert on global warming & climate crisis solutions.
Every person's metabolism is unique, so foods that are ideal for one person may be detrimental for another. This workshop introduces an autumn 2006 course at Dharmalaya that will teach skills for intelligent self-care. You will learn to evolve an individualized personal diet based on the successful "low tech" methods of muscle testing and Ayurveda (the ancient, comprehensive science of health care from India). Presenters are from the International Integrative Educational Institute in Eugene.
Krishna Singh Khalsa has been teaching yoga, meditation and lifestyle evolution for more than 35 years. As a Sikh involved in small business, he has had interest in how true leaders lead "from the bottom up." He offers a vision of community development characterized by service and generosity, and a realization that authentic, personal spiritual practice is important for moving our ego concerns out of the way and for resolving interpersonal misunderstandings. He feels that without personal spiritual development, the true potential for humans to evolve socially and collectively seems doubtful.
For each of ten permaculture principles, we'll give the principle and an example of how it might be applied to the exterior landscape. Then we'll apply that principle to the "inner landscape" of humans, describing how these principles can improve our relationships with self and others, becoming more joyful and effective in our lives.
We'll share the content using creative means such as skits and songs. Finally, for each principle, participants will use what they've learned in an interactive manner.
Since 1979, Joshua has been designing and installing permaculture landscapes, farms and ecovillages. Since 1988, Joshua has also been teaching permaculture design.
Workshop includes:
Ryan Woolverton is a board member & teacher, Cascade Mycological Society
This multi-faceted workshop will offer students the opportunity to explore the generative power of words and the power of spoken word poetry as an art form. Students will be presented with multi-faceted research on the psychological and physiological impact of words. Concordantly, we will take a brief look at what has been written by great thinkers and ancient scholars about the relationship between language and reality.
This workshop will also provide an overview of spoken word poetry as a highly accessible contemporary art form. We will investigate the history of the modern spoken word movement in the U.S. with links to other spoken traditions across time and cultures. Students will be offered several innovative writing exercises and an opportunity to share their work in a spoken word format.
Biography & Artist Statement: Passonate, insightful, and dynamic, Jorah LaFleur is a spoken word poet whose primary focus on stage is the formation of an intimate connection with the audience. Through her powerful presence she offers a widely varied content that inspires, educates and entertains. Many of Jorah's poems fuse the personal and the political, while others play with mythological, psychological and spiritual themes. She champions the use of spoken word as a means for making social commentary, and as a tool for personal growth.
In addition to performing, Jorah is committed to offering workshops which help others to access their own poetic voice. She is particularly geared towards empowering youth and encouraging them to use spoken word as a tool for positive self-expression. For three years she worked with the non-profit Gateways for Incarcerated Youth conducting various poetry workshops and talent shows with young men incarcerated in maximum security juvenile facilities.
Subsequently she worked at Avanti Alternative High School which also afforded her the many opportunities to guide and inspire teens in writing and performing poetry. Over the last seven years, Jorah has been honing her poetic skills performing at numerous venues and events throughout the Northwest, participating in several innovative theatre productions and continually hosting and frequenting a myriad of open mics. Her debut cd, I-opening U-nification, was released in 2004 and she is currently at work on a second album.
Artist Statement: "Performing spoken word poetry is an act of alchemy. Within a matter of minutes, emotions and ideas are transformed into words; printed symbols on a page transmute to rhythmic, vibrant sounds; and strangers (audience and performer) suddenly become intimates. One piece of spoken word can move seamlessly from humor, to pain; from being cynical and witty to deeply moving and profound. Both performing and witnessing spoken word can be truly cathartic. When I speak to a complete stranger after a performance and recognize that we share a certain value, vision, experience, or sense of humor, it's incredibly validating and heartening."
Ryan Woolverton is a board member & teacher, Cascade Mycological Society
A demonstration of building a simple rustic bench from sustainably harvested wood.
Greg has lived on a forested homestead and in an ecovillage. He has been a practitioner of ecoforestry, natural building, and permaculture. Currently Greg is the land steward of 60 forested acres.
The old energy stories we tell ourselves don't work anymore. We need new stories, maybe rediscovered old stories, to give us hope. What are our realistic options for the future? Won't technology save us? This session will explore connecting the dots and filling in the blanks with respect to the complex relationships among climate change, peak oil, other energy sources, and sustainability.
This panel will have a look at 3 exciting examples of rural Permaculture
Presenter Rick Valley is a permaculture teacher and designer, landscape contractor and land steward for Lost Valley Educational Center. He has been teaching Permaculture since 1987 and has been designing and implementing Pc systems since 1982, both urban and rural. Rick has lived in Portland, Quito and Boston, and rural places including Olga, WA and Summit, OR. Rick is currently "splitting the difference" in Dexter.
Workshop description: Heart of Now is a set of structured exercises and individual and group interactions in which we explore how to be fully and authentically ourselves: alive, in the moment, and deeply connected with others in our community and with the earth.
Karen Suwinski has been involved with Heart of Now for over 5 years, and has served as a member of the facilitation team since October 2004. She is constantly inspired by the growth and transformation she witnesses in students of the Heart of Now, and appreciates the expansion she experiences in her own life through connections made in the program. She is extremely excited to share Heart of Now with intentional communities, social service organizations, and grassroots environmental and community activist groups.
As the effects of Peak Oil continue gaining momentum, machine intensive agriculture will necessarily become a much more labor intensive agriculture. How will labor organize itself to avoid the exploitive and socially destructive qualities of capital intensive "hire and fire" employment? This panel will explore ways in which some of the most disadvantaged workers in our society (Latino immigrant farmworkers) can be supported to create stable, worker owned cooperatives (organic CSA's) as an integral part of a new society based on social justice and worker equity.
Panel includes Jorge Navarro (Director of Centro Latino Americano, Eugene), a representative from PCUN (Campesino Migrant Labor Union from Woodburn, Oregon), and Jason Schreiner (Environmental Studies teaching fellow at UO, focusing on ecological sustainability, economic development, and social justice), and Krishna Singh Khalsa, moderator.
Grow local economies while restoring old growth functions and character to second-growth forests.
Joshua has planned and managed ecoforestry projects in Oregon and Colorado. He has been designing permaculture projects since 1979 and is currently a permaculture instructor at the Lost Valley Educational Center and an instructor with the Cascadia Commonwealth Institute.
Join residents of Aprovecho to learn about a variety of small scale appropriate technology tools for simple living. Apro will have on display a number of their artifacts made from minimal materials for maximum output.
Aprovecho Research Center is a forty-acre land trust operated since 1981 by Aprovecho, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership corporation formed "to provide a basis for scientific research on appropriate technologies and techniques for simple and cooperative living, and to serve an educational role in disseminating information on such technologies and techniques."
Our initial mission has expanded somewhat, to emphasize sustainable forestry, food production, and related skills as well as appropriate technology, but the spirit of our work remains the same: to learn how to live together sustainably and ecologically, and to help others to do the same, in this and other countries.
Skeeter Duke is a 22-year resident of East Blair Housing Co-op. A former resident of the Bay Area, he attended San Jose State in the late 60's where he was active in peace and justice issues before moving to Eugene. Skeeter has maintained an interest both academically and professionally in child hood development. He has teaching experience and also has developed curriculum. He also was on the Board of Directors of the visionary Edible City Project in Eugene in the early 1980's. Edible City was an expansive set of ideas and strategies to bring about a much greater level of urban food production. Skeeter was active in the movement to oppose the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant and has many other good works to his credit.
Gary Delfiner, a Seattle transplant, lives in the River Road Neighborhood of Eugene. He was a building contractor in a "previous lifetime." Thoughtful soul searching has lead Gary and partner Mimi to substanially downsize thier lifestyle. Their family, including two children, have undertaken an ambitious suburban conversion project where they live turning grass to garden, incresing residential density, installing a sizable solar electric system, home schooling, front yard conversion into a small orchard, building community and more.
Tammie will discuss water issues from the global to the local. She will touch on conservation, water catchment systems, rainwater policy and water quality.
Tammie Stark, M.A., an American Rainwater Catchment System Association member, leads the Rainwater Catchment Pilot Project for the Eugene Water & Electric Board to test the feasibility of rainwater harvesting in Eugene. She installed a demonstration system at Lane Community College, designs and installs rainwater harvesting systems, organizes community workshops and wrote a master's thesis on the subject. Her current projects include creating a community resource for rainwater harvesting activities; writing local articles as well as designing & teaching a water-based course for LCC. She presented her work at an ARCSA sponsored conference in July 2005. Tammie's business, Eugene Rainwater, focuses on rainwater utilization and water education in the southern Willamette Valley. Her company (www.eugenerainwater.com) will focus on providing local resources, educational information and instructional materials.
Forestry practices that integrate the world view of native peoples of the Western Cascades.
Bill has lived and worked in the forest over fifty years and his family has been involved with the forest for generations. Bill possesses extensive knowledge of ecology and local native cultures that he brings together to create a unique vision of living in harmony with the land.
Yotokko Kilpatrick, founder/Operations Director, Walama Restoration Project
will show different permaculture techniques biking to:
Maury Jacobs Park (Whiteaker neighborhood at Willamette River)
Skinner's Butte City Park
East Alton Baker Park (aka Whilamut Natural Area)
Marilene Richardson's passion for bringing sustainable living information and community-building skills to people of all ages prompted her to create the Foundation for Sustainable Community. She considers herself a student of life and is always eager to learn more. As a child, Marilene developed a deep reverence for the natural world, while running free in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. In 2003, she co-founded the Lynnwood Multi-Cultural Fair, which continues to be an annual community event.
Marilene has worked extensively on building intentional community and has organized or taught classes on topics ranging from biodiesel production to gardening and food preservation. Her six years as a volunteer at The Root Connection Farm grounded her belief in the importance of local, healthy food. Her desire to make organic meals more readily available, while supporting local CSA farms, led her to found and direct an organic catering business. Marilene enjoys raising chickens and keeping bees as well growing and preserving much of her family's food. She also serves as Chairperson for the Polishing Stone Foundation, publishers of the educational magazine The Polishing Stone. She is half-side to her sweet love Brian and homeschooling mother of two energetic children.
An exploration of seeds and seed saving as a path for nurturing and harmonizing with the life force of the plant kingdom. Appreciation for the spiritual qualities of seeds will enable us to realize that we humans are also seeds.
Melinda McComb is a marine botanist and ocean activist from Newport, Oregon.
What is the nature of prana? Where does it come from? What is its role in animating life? How does it effect health and vitality? How is it effected by culture? How does it impact the mind? What is its importance in the health of plants and ecosystems? How is it catalyzing planetary transformation?
Ravi Logan is a meditation teacher who is trying to create hope, empowerment, vision, and solution-oriented approaches at a time of difficult planetary transition, so that inner peace, compassionate connectedness, uplifting culture, and spiritual fulfillment can become accessible to all.
A talk with some of the pioneers in transforming forestry so it better serves the forest, the people and the planet. Audience participation in a dialogue invited.
Biography: Mike Barnes was born in Portland, Oregon. He attended High School and College at Mount Angel Seminary in Mt Angel, Oregon. He completed two years of graduate studies at St. Thomas Seminary in Seattle, as part of his preparation to be a Catholic priest.
He went to Columbia, South America, to study language and culture in 1966. Then went to live and work in Panama with Catholic priests involved with "liberation theology" during 1966-67. He traveled through Central America to Cuernavaca, Mexico, to live and work with Ivan Illich at the Center for Intercultural Communications.
He then traveled to Chicago, Illinois, where he began work as a community organizer. In 1968-69 he studied and worked with Saul Alinsky. He spent the decade of the 1970s directing community organizing projects in Indiana, California, Massachusetts and Oregon, where he was a founder of Oregon Fair Share. This organization has evolved over the years and continues today under the name, Oregon Action.
Mike left community organizing in the early 1980s and went to work with Sunflower Recycling, the first curb-side pick-up recycling program in the US at the time. Sunflower was a worker-owned and operated cooperative. Mike worked there part-time, while he undertook part-time organizing projects, including The Buckman Community Congress and Neighborhood Development Corporation for the Buckman Neighborhood Association, and the Alliance for Social Change. The Alliance newspaper was a project of the ASC. When the ASC lost its funding and the organization and newspaper collapsed, Mike began publishing it out of his house. He helped develop the Alliance newspaper into a bioregional publication with local/regional editions in Eugene, Corvallis-Salem, and Olympia, Washington. The Alliance newspaper continues today as a voice of the progressive community in Portland and surrounding communities.
In the late 1980s Mike became the director of the Global Forum at the Campus Ministries at Portland State University. The Global Forum focused on linking global issues between the University and the Portland community. He taught courses through the Political Sciences Department in such subjects as "The Earth Summit", "Bioregional Solutions", and he facilitated an annual "Peace Studies Colloquium" which involved professors from a variety of departments.
Mike also worked with Thomas Banyaca, a Hopi elder. He raise funds and accompanied Thomas to the United Nations to assist him in securing an invitation from the UN to the Hopi Nation to speak at the UN in fulfillment of the Hopi prophesies.
At the beginning of the 1990's Mike accepted a position as co-director with his wife and partner, Tiwla Jacobsen, of the Ecoforestry Institute, which was involved in policy issues regarding forestry, and conducted education and training courses and apprenticeships in ecological forestry and restoration. EI was active with other ecological forestry organizations on the West Coast of the US and BC in forming the Cascadia Certification Council, which established standards for the certification of forests and the wood products coming from those forests. He was inivolved in the development of the Forest Stewardship Council. And eventually the CCC joined forces with SmartWood, as a non-profit certifier for the FSC.
In 1997, recognizing that the success of the Forest Stewardship Council depended on getting wood products from FSC-certified forests to markets, Mike started the Cascadia Forest Goods, LLC. For the past decade he was worked with FSC forestland owners and foresters to purchase their FSC logs, often remanufacturing them into an array of products, and selling these products to buyers who understand the importance of purchasing wood products which come from "wll-managed" forests. He continues to do this work today, last year selling close to $400,000 worth of FSC-certified, recycled and slavaged wood products.
Energy-efficient renewable energy design.
All are welcome at this event that explores the cultural changes happening in rural areas and small towns. We'll review initiatives and projects.
Inspiring descriptions of Culture Change initiatives from small towns, rural areas, urban areas and neighborhoods.
After the evening plenary session presentation, we'll screen "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil."
In this documentary, ordinary Cubans talk about the immediate hardships they faced when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, stopping all economic support. With the sudden loss of trade and over 50 percent of their oil imports, Cuba's Gross Domestic Product dropped by more than one third, transportation halted and food became scarce — on average Cubans lost 20 pounds during the first 3 years of the economic crisis. Yet Cubans triumphed over adversity through local solutions. The film visits urban gardens and organic farms, explains the relationship between food and fossil fuels, and shows how a society can change from an industrialized, global focus to a local, community based one. It is a rare view into this island culture, using firsthand reporting that focuses on what Cuban's have learned and can share about adapting to living with less.
The documentary drew rave reviews at a pre-release screening with such comments as "A great testament to the human spirit!" and "A must see for survival in the next energy age beyond oil." Viewer Joshua Lockyer, of Atlanta, GA said, "If we want to know how we as a nation are going to survive the peak oil crisis we need to have models...This film begins to show us how."
"Everyone who is concerned about Peak Oil needs to see this film," said Richard Heinberg, author of The Party's Over and Powerdown. "It is a story not just of individual achievement, but of the collective mobilization of an entire society to meet an enormous challenge."
Length: 52 minutes, with 10 minutes of additional chapters
Solar, gardens, water catchment, concrete removal and more.
Event details to come.
This program is an opportunity for permaculturists having a spiritual orientation to life to come together for an open dialog on how they see their spiritual world view informing and motivating their involvement in creating a sustainable culture.
Krishna Singh Khalsa has been teaching yoga, meditation and lifestyle evolution for more than 35 years. As a Sikh involved in small business, he has had interest in how true leaders lead "from the bottom up." He offers a vision of community development characterized by service and generosity, and a realization that authentic, personal spiritual practice is important for moving our ego concerns out of the way and for resolving interpersonal misunderstandings. He feels that without personal spiritual development, the true potential for humans to evolve socially and collectively seems doubtful.
This workshop will focus on the development of the Forest Stewardship Council as one of the most significant environmental achievements of the last decade, and as a strategy for making the transition to sustainable forestry management of the Earth's forests. I will show a new DVD, entitled: "Buyer Be FAIR: The Promise of Product Certification" and then discuss how to mobilize consumer power to change forestry practices from the current industrial, monocultural model to an ecosystem model focused on ecological restoration forestry and putting more people back to work in forests.
Heiko Koester is one the most skilled permaculture designers and installers in the Cascadia bioregion. His permaculture service is called Urban Ecogardens. He is the person most responsible for popularizing edible berry landscaping. His knowledge and experience with soil building techniques are exceptional. His forest garden designs make effective use of nut trees. He has recognized expertise on the use of native plants in landscaping. Heiko's workshops and permaculture classes are known for the clarity of presentation, the usefulness of information, and Heiko's authoritative command of his subject matter.
Learn basic permaculture design skills for assessing "where to put what" edible plants within your landscape. The workshop will also consider placement of water catchment systems. You will be able to create a rough plan for placing landscape elements in your yard.
Janaia Donaldson and Robyn Mallgren will be part of a lively discussion about media and sustainablility. They will show clips from their TV show "Peak Moment"
Peak Moment: Using Television to Energize the Sustainability Movement.
This summer the "Peak Moment Television" team of Janaia Donaldson and Robyn Mallgren is taking two road trips in the Pacific Northwest to videotape around 50 groups and individuals working towards sustainability and relocalization in the face of Peak Oil and climate crisis. Peak Moment host Janaia will show video highlights and present activities "on the ground" from Northern California to western Canada including car coops, permaculture gardens, and renewable energy alternatives.
"Peak Moment: Community Responses For a Changing Energy Future" are half-hour video conversations and on-site tours. The series is cablecast on community-access TV stations nationwide and streamed online at globalpublicmedia.com (search "Peak Moment").
Janaia and Robyn live in Nevada City, California and have been off the grid for 15 years.
Event details to come.
What Reiki is, how it works, its benefits, and how to integrate it into your personal and social wellness system. Will include hands-on demonstration and time for Q/A and discussion.
A discussion and slide show on restoration forestry and using small diameter thinned logs in building.
Greg has lived on a forested homestead and in an ecovillage. He has been a practitioner of ecoforestry, natural building, and permaculture. Currently Greg is the land steward of 60 forested acres.
The sustainability buzzword is "community." But, how does each person get there? Both the community and the individuals in it must learn to live sustainably. Tall order!
We'll discuss:
Just as the "journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step," the overwhelming task of erasing the "path of too many feet" must be undertaken footprint, by footprint. How can each of us begin, how might each of us prepare, so that what we create in community truly transitions us to the future we're hoping for?
Caren Black , MA, MEd, Educational Director
With 14 years' professional teaching experience and 11 years in
administration, Ms. Black holds a valid California teaching credential
and California Administrative credential. She also holds a Master's
degree in Administration and Higher Education, a BA in music, an MA in
theater, and professional experience in dance. She founded a private
performing arts school and nonprofit in 1975. While a public school
teacher, she researched cognitive learning theory and systems studies.
She has authored two books on education as well as two children's
musicals.
Checking in at Sunday lunch with others having similar topical interests is encouraged. We will facilitate reconnecting with others met at Friday evening's topical networking breakouts to help strengthen those regional networks.
This closing plenary is discuss the connections between the many elements of a sustainable culture and our way of life. We will encourage making our ideals more a part of our goals. This will be a fascinating synthesis of the many perspectives regarding what we might expect in the coming few years and what to do about it. We will continue to strengthen our topical networks and touch on planning for next year's Gathering.