Courses
Financial Permaculture (Gaia University Green Business Content Course)
Bioregional Congress (Gaia University Relocalization Content Course)
WATER: Women's Activist Training for Earth Regeneration
Other Courses
Relocalization Course/Conference
Growing and Crafting Bamboo
FINANCIAL PERMACULTURE:
GREENING A RURAL AMERICAN COMMUNITY
SEPTEMBER 22-28TH, 2009
Hohenwald, TN
Event Website: www.financialpermaculture.com
Attend our 5-day regenerative business and community development course and design simulation with the citizens of Hohenwald, Tennessee.
Engage in this participatory event to develop and prototype the tools and skills you'll need to launch regenerative businesses or encourage localized investment in your community.
Our course and design simulation will be guided by leading sustainabilty entrepreneurs:
Catherine Austin Fitts, investment advisor, founder of Solari, Inc.
Andy Langford, permaculutre designer and co-founder of Gaia University
Liora Adler, bioregional and community facilitator expert and co-founder of Gaia University
Albert Bates, ecovillage, peak oil and climate expert and founder of Global Village Institute
Jennifer Dauksha-English, permaculture designer and founder of Center for Holistic Ecology
Greg Landua, permaculture designer and director of Ecovillage Training Center
Thomas Hupp, eco-entrepreneur and founder of The Leadership School
Click this link for a full list of our 15+ instructors.
You'll learn to:
* map the financial ecosystem of a rural community
* start and finance a regenerative business,
* attract and engage with local investors
You'll be part of:
* designing the business, plan for a local ethanol plant and station, including:
- permaculture design
- legal structure
- financing plan
* pitching the plan to the local banking and business community.
Throughout, you will integrate amazing insights on communication and collaboration:
- Across cultures
- Across disciplines
- Across generations
Who Should Attend: Course is open to students, entrepreneurs, green business owners, bankers, philanthropists, investors, permaculture designers, community organizers, social entrepreneurs, attorneys, financial planners, accountants and local officials. While Permaculture is not a prerequisite, there will be a recommended reading list for the event.
This year the 5-day course can be applied towards a MSc degree in Green Business through Gaia University.
For further information:
e-mail info@financialpermaculture.com
call: 888-878-2434 ext 2
-be sure to check out the complete details for the event at:
www.financialpermaculture.com
-read our Financial Permaculture blog at:
www.financialpermaculture.com
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Tenth Continental Bioregional Congress at The Farm in Summertown, TN
OCTOBER 3-11, 2009
During a time of environmental devastation, social injustice and economic upheaval, CBC X promises to be another landmark event, bringing together activists, artists and writers, permaculturalists and farmers, entrepenuers, public policy-makers, community leaders, scientists and researchers, homesteaders and ecovillagers, children and adults, and all concerned about the state of the planet. In the ceremonial village of the congress that links us across the artificial boundaries of state, province, and nation, we will gather to share and celebrate stories of place, model the communities we wish to support and create, and replenish ourselves for the ecological and cultural restoration. The congress will also pilot the emerging bioregional curriculum -- a toolbox of workshops, approaches, and practices for generating, reclaiming and re-energizing our culture - which began to take shape at the CBC IX at Earthaven Ecovillage in 2005. Holding this event at a successful ecovillage allows us to experience life in a permaculture-designed village full of earth-friendly housing, cooperative forestry, and consensus-based decision-making.
Bioregionalism offers us a glimpse of a sustainable and just human culture that is firmly grounded on earth, and woven intotheinterdependent tapestry of life. This event will weave the traditions and culture of the bioregional movement with emerging global practices and tools for creating and sustaining local culture. This regenerative vision has been in the vanguard of the American Green Movement (which was largely inspired by the bioregional movement), and its influence can now be seen in the rapid spread of re-localization and transition movements across the globe. In calling together these movements during a time when public opinion is shifting toward a more sustainable outlook, we embrace the many-voiced, regenerative culture on the cusp of catalyzing global awareness and action. reaching out to other groups and including them in the Congressional discussion we are opening the doors to fresh new energy and creating alliances that will further actualize the vision and mission of bioregionalism in the 21st Century.
Check out the event website for full details:
http://www.bioregional-congress.org/CBCX/CBCX.html
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WATER: Women's Actionist Training for Earth Regeneration
(this course has been postponed until a later date in 2010)
Come into your own as a powerful female force for change by attending our Women's Actionist Training for Earth Regeneration (WATER). Women have been linked throughout history to the nurturing energy of Gaia and nature-and both have been suppressed for the past several thousand years. Our time as women has come: we must take back that which is sacred, and hold dear to that which creates and sustains life. The eternal wisdom to do so exists within each of us, and our course will help you to access this wisdom. WATER is the empowerment of this feminine creative life force. Together, led by earth activist Starhawk, we'll cultivate WATER for a deep, rejuvenating, healing cleanse that will wash over the earth through our uniting energy.
Starhawk is one of the most respected voices in modern earth-based spirituality. She is also well known as a global justice activist and organizer, whose work and writings have inspired many to action. She is the author or coauthor of ten books, including The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess, long considered the essential text for the Neo-Pagan movement, and the now-classic ecotopian novel The Fifth Sacred Thing. Starhawk's newest book is The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature.
During the course you'll meet a network of other women who, like you, are engaged in projects in their communities toward the larger goal of earth regeneration-and you'll be inspired and catalyzed by Starhawk as she shares stories from her life as an activist, permaculture designer, earth-based spirituality pioneer and visionary. She will share her various visionary and pragmatic tools of magic, visioning, empowerment, ecological design, earth-connection, and political action strategies-to help you tap into your inner greatness and act in your community with increased personal power, presence, and effectiveness as a world-changer in service to Gaia.
Our event serendipitously includes a powerful earth healing ceremony in celebration of the Autumnal Equinox. We'll ceremoniously gather at the Gray Bear Lodge, nestled within 150 acres of rolling hills with abundant forests, natural springs, and a gorgeous waterfall. We'd love for you to join us at Gray Bear for this special moment of reconnecting with the earth.
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Other Courses:
Permaculture is focused mainly on permanent agriculture and integrated living systems but encompasses all aspects of human culture as it interacts with the world as a whole. Its aim is to bring balance back into our lives and the ecological environments within which we sustain ourselves.
Permaculture principles and tools help us learn to integrate rather than segregate ourselves from our needs and resources, since everything in life is connected. We learn to live more harmoniously within our environment first through observation—and lots of it—followed by analysis of natural systems and proposed or existing human-made systems. By cultivating a habit of ongoing, careful observation and analysis, coupled with informed action, we are constantly monitoring what works well and what does not—for human needs and those of the surrounding ecosystem.
We offer a variety of permaculture courses and consulting services. We can help the beginning student understand the basics of permaculture principles and techniques, assist a homeowner in designing their backyard, or offer guidance in more comprehensive, broad-scale home and farm designs.
Appropriate technologies are tools, equipment, processes, ideas, or practices that are compatible with local materials, labor, and energy resources while offering the fulfillment and satisfaction of human needs. At Solar Springs Research Farm use of and research into appropriate technologies is a leading focus. While many appropriate technologies have been developed for the developing world they are equally adaptable to many situations in the developed world—especially for small farms.
Appropriate technologies currently in use at Solar Springs include rainwater catchments; solar electricity for energy production and water pumping; wind power for energy production; and natural building with local clay, straw and timber. New technologies in process of integration this year include solar water heating, solar food dehydration, biofuels (home scale ethanol production) use of waste vegetable oil to run our vehicles, and micro-drip irrigation. We offer support, consultations, and information on building, purchasing, selection, and implementation of appropriate technologies.
Natural building is the use of locally or regionally available natural materials like clay, straw, stone and wood to build our homes. Most natural building techniques can be traced back many thousands of years to early human settlements across the globe, but they are resilient and adaptable to modern aesthetic tastes.
The current industrial model of house building using concrete, stick frame, and chip wood panels has only been around since World War II and has introduced hundreds of industrial chemicals and products into our homes and environments. As a result, many people now suffer from toxic home syndrome and are affected by the off-gassing of modern building materials.
Natural buildings like strawbale, cob, and timber frame with light clay are becoming increasingly popular as more people want homes that are environmentally conscious, use local materials, are healthy to live in, and can be built by the homeowners themselves.
The Lodge at Solar Springs is naturally built with local timber and various mixtures of clay, sand, straw and wood. The walls have been finished with natural plasters and the entire structure has a living, breathing feel to it. Drawing on our experience building the Lodge as well as multiple natural buildings in the state, we offer consulting, support, resources and workshops on natural building techniques that work well in Tennessee.
Relocalization Training
October TBA
We are planning a Transtion Town Training to coincide with the National Bioregional Congress dates in October TBA.
INFO COMING SOON
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Growing and Crafting Bamboo
2009 date TBA
Instructor: Bamboo Artisan Matthew English
Earth Advocates Research Farm
Summertown, TN
Here in the U.S. we are just beginning to understand what others across the globe have known for millennia-bamboo is a miracle plant that can produce food’ shelter’ clothing’ furniture’ and much more. Bamboo is quickly gaining ground in the U.S. as a green flooring alternative’ and is now being manufactured nationally for paper and clothing’ among other uses. This is a very hopeful trend to counter global warming and protect precious nonrenewable resources as bamboo is truly renewable-and it can be grown locally’ rather than being imported from many thousands of miles away.
Join bamboo artisan Matthew English to learn how to cultivate bamboo from propagation to harvest and how to utilize it-from curing to its use in construction of furniture as well as homes. Learn about the multitude of species that grow in varied climates and their many uses-from valuable ornamentals that can produce a cash crop to species that are better suited for construction. The specialized knowledge you´ll gain from this workshop can help you get started establishing your own small grove’ or a thriving bamboo nursery in your own community.
Cost includes meals from Friday dinner to Sunday lunch. Reduced price for Tennessee residents. Camping and limited dorm space available on-site for $8 per night. Other local accommodations are available. Contact info@holisticecology.org or (931) 796-4874 for more information.
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