Thank you for all of the ways your loving support and contributions have sustained us and our work through this year of transition.
I write with an organizational update, as many of you have expressed curiosity.
The Eco-Institute has successfully transitioned from an independent nonprofit to join a cooperative national network of mission-aligned projects via Inquiring Systems. It feels wonderful to be part of this network, collaborating for a regenerative future.
For five months, the leadership and Board, in close consultation with mentors and advisors, undertook a review of our people, programs, and operations at the Eco-Institute. We explored our strengths, weaknesses, and unique offerings to people and planet, and how we can best contribute to healing the human-Earth relationship in a way that fully supports our program participants and nurtures the quality of life and livelihood of the staff, visiting teachers, and all those served by the organization.
Thank you for your support and encouragement while we engage in a time of reflection, learning, and strategizing. Your notes have warmed our hearts and inspired us to rise to this moment. We ask for your continued support as we commit ourselves to bettering our internal structures and support systems to fully and holistically work toward social and ecological healing.
Here are some of the ways in which we need support right now…
As we gently slip into Winter time here in North Carolina, I write to offer a glimpse into this moment of The Eco-Institute from my perspective as Executive Director, including a decision to pause programs in order to engage in a focused time of reflection, learning, and strategizing.
Between lessons in community building and ecological stewardship, the Rising Earth Immersion program has afforded me time. Living in this society’s capitalistic structure, our time is commodified. The community here at the Eco-Institute tells us differently…
Take a visual tour with us through some favorite snapshots so far from this year’s Fall Rising Earth Immersion. From friction fire, to growing organic food, to permaculture courses, to heart circles, this group goes deep.
The Eco-Institute’s Policy on Vaccination for Residential Program participants.
What an honor to co-teach with Dan Wahpepah, Ojibwe Anishinaabe Kickapoo Sac & Fox Song Carrier and Permaculturist. Our students engaged with ecological design principles, while thinking critically about how the term “permaculture” is a colonizer-coined term representing knowledge from first nations peoples in relationship with their places.
Gap year accreditation means college credit and access to 529 funding for Rising Earth Immersion applicants.
The Spring 2021 Rising Earth Immersion cohort joined in and walked for miles through rural NC neighborhoods knocking on doors and spreading awareness about the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate Extension. We were participating in the 100-mile, Indigenous-led Water Walk, resisting the MVP Southgate’s threat to precious water bodies and sacred Indigenous sites across ancestral Saura, Tutelo, Monacan, Occaneechi and Saponi lands in Virginia and North Carolina.
What has it felt like for me, as a Black woman, to participate in and then lead the Rising Earth Immersion? And what is now possible for BIPOC who are interested in joining this dedicated, healing-driven, ever-evolving community?
We sang a gratitude song before the meal, thanking the Earth and each of the meals’ contributors for their acts of generosity. It felt like a homecoming. I started attending the bi-weekly garden volunteer days, buoyed by the laughter and peace that come from the simplest of tasks in community: spreading mulch, pulling out tomato vines, or struggling to build a greenhouse. I showed up to the story nights, fire circles, and potlucks, reveling in this way of being so dramatically different and more fulfilling from what I had known before…
American Roots, a poem by Rising Earth Core Facilitator Psalms White.
One highlight of 2020 for many people and organizations was the understanding that we are all interconnected, and that we do not exist outside of the political, economic and social systems in place, nor do we exist apart from the pain inflicted upon members of our society and on other-than-human beings of our beloved Earth Community.
Register now: An immersive nature-based retreat. October 16-19, 2020. Jefferson National Forest, Montgomery County, VA.
Abbey Cmiel, graduate of the Rising Earth Immersion, sends an update, asking: how can humans be a beautiful and beneficial addition to the intricate web of life that exists?
Meet Psalms White: Rising Earth Core Facilitator
The reality is, there are few people who want the rainforest deforested, or racial injustice, or the deepening of poverty. But our economic structure, in which corporations have power over both the economy and the government, allows for limitless destruction.
In this post, you will find a sample of programming for the Rising Earth Immersion. First you’ll get a sense of the core curriculum, followed by guest programming, which varies session to session. Many of these examples are drawn from 2020, a year that brought a lot of curricular articulation and response to the cultural events of our times.
We would like to offer our thoughts on why we believe that the Rising Earth Immersion plays a valuable role in the movements for collective liberation. We hope that these reflections help you discern whether this program might be a good fit for you.
