What is Earthaven Ecovillage?

[Music] so Earth Haven is nestled in the southern appalachin mountains particularly the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North [Music] Carolina and so many ways it's magical it's like that forest in the story books of where Hansel and gredle lived and you know like that mysterious place um so we have yeah we live in a lot of forest and there's there's Sunshine where we have cut the trees down to create home sites or places where we can gather and then we have neighborhoods so Earth Haven is about 100 plus people in this moment so we'd like to say that Earth Haven doesn't exist without the people who are here so when you say Earth Haven does this well it's like who's Earth Haven that's [Music] [Applause] us I'm Chris farmer and I've been living here at Earth Haven Eco Village since January 1st 1998 so over 25 years Earth a Eco Village is a livering laboratory educational seab bank for a regenerative human future at first we were calling ourselves one of North America's first permaculture based Eco Villages but then over years we kind of found out that people had different ideas even though everybody was clear on what that definition was people had different definitions and so we finally we're just like you know we should just name the fact that we're a living laboratory and so we're kind of running experiments different experiments on living off the grid different experiments on having self-governance using governance styles that promote consensus building and agreement building experiments in natural building and alternative building and passive solar building experiments and different ways of living together and having mixture of private ownership and Collective ownership and trying to get the best of both worlds on those fronts and the idea here is that we're not here to be like no meat eating is not right or veganism is not right it's like oh if you want to have your vegan experiment have at it and if you want to raise cows or chickens or turkeys and slaughter them eat them yourself have at it when our 16 co-founders were were looking for a place to to build out an Eco Village in the '90s they they searched for some three years um the purchase of this land was made in 1994 when when they got here to this land there were only two pieces of infrastructure there was the road it certainly didn't look the way that it does now and didn't have a bridge it just drove through the water and then there was this old cabin this what we call the hunting cabin and that was it for infrastructure so everything else in this Village has been built and created over the last Almost 29 years so here we are in front of our beloved Council Hall this is a place where a lot of magic happens it's kind of the Hub of social Community activity everything from our twice monthly councils to in the colder months we have a market here on Tuesday mornings and a hot luuck in the evening we have rituals weddings and funerals Dan weekly dances yoga this is really the the center of the community there's so much about this place that was uh thought out well-intentioned including modeling it after the shape of a yurt so that when we're sitting in Council together more than 60 people can see each other's eyes across the circle so these beautiful placards that you see Gracie the top of the council Hall here these these are our mission goals there are 13 of them this is what what brings us together to nurture personal growth interpersonal understanding and mutual trust as the foundation for a deeply connected human Community to catalyze local and Global change through learning teaching and networking to create a culture of Celebration Beauty and pleasure to shift from wasteful to regenerative use of resources to develop and support a thriving local economy to grow raise trade and use our own food fiber medicines and forestry Products and an ecologically regenerative Biore Regional culture and network to tend the land in a way that optimizes for diverse ecosystem health food and resource production and Soil and Water Quality to practice healthy holistic Lifestyles that balance self-care with care for others to encourage diverse spiritual practices and awareness of our interconnection with all beings we recognize Elders as the trunk and children as the fruit of our village tree and collectively prioritize what all parts of our tree need to thrive to practice Fair participatory and effective self-governance to work towards partnership culture towards racial and gender equity and against oppression in all its forms to attract cultivate and Inspire residents and members whose presence contributes to vitality and functionality in our [Music] community yeah Earth Haven's mission is to be a living laboratory for a sustainable human future you know I love that one of our Founders says that Earth Haven doesn't exist yet like it's this thing out there that we're like attempting to manifest and like aim towards people are coming for day programs or residential programs through the school of integrated living that is Earth Haven's education arm uh John Michael Greer has a one of his famous lines is you know collapse now avoid the rush so practice using less now while you can and it's not live or die if you make a mistake but what I would dream of is that what we have learned would allow people to kind of reinhabit Rural America in a way that they can afford in a way that they find Social Community engagement and fulfillment in their lives with and can live out in the woods with her [Music] friends

Channel: Earthaven Ecovillage

Views: 4,407

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Id: ybFE15LM1h8

Length: 7min 23sec (443 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 04 2023