Harvesting from our Sovereign Power

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Hello Earthseed Community! 🌱

We hope that you are soaking up all of this late summer sun and storing it up for the days ahead. We have been taking a little break from hosting at Earthseed to get aligned and organized for the winter. This has included splitting and stacking wood under a new solar panel wood shed built by Bob, moving in to the yurt and prepping the bell tent for a stove, sawmilling for a winterized timber frame kitchen-sauna that will go up in October (fresh home-made pizza delivered directly into steam room, anyone?!) , and leaning into some of our pleasure work: pizza nights, contact improv dancing, swims at the river, reading stories.

We are also preparing for a few potential co-founders and their felines to join us on the land in early October. We are reflecting on the summer and feeling into how we want to navigate the fall as the Earthseed project continues to grow and take shape. 

With all this late summer activity two themes arose that I (Marissa) have been playing with and exploring. The first one is the idea that “relationship building” is really about trust building. I have been questioning and reflecting on how we are all in a process of building trust with each other, how it is a slow process and a rather delicate one. Trust building feels like time spent together, in work and in rest. Trust building feels like listening and leaning into vulnerability. Trust building feels to me intuitively feminine, soft yet strong, as we weave our stories together and cultivate interdependence.

With that note of feminine, I come to the second idea of stepping into sovereign power, not from a governmental lens, but from that feminine perspective of self-trust, self-love, connection to earth as the mother of all of us. This came to me at a red tent event this past weekend and appeared as the theme for multiple people sharing the space. I returned to Earthseed thinking deeply about how it relates to this community. How can we bring more tenderness to this project? Where do we need to be more fierce? What do we need to let go of in order to fully step in to our Sovereign power? 

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You are invited

So, here we are. And here are our current offerings for us to connect, build trust, and deepen our relationships with the community and with ourselves:

• Apple Harvest & Processing Days 🌻🍎🍂 Saturday September 21 and 28. We will press cider on the 28th, if all goes well, and have a potluck meal in the early evening. Alternative ideas are making apple cider vinegar, apple jack, tons of apple pies in our pizza oven (we don’t have all of you here to eat them though). Please RSVP to [email protected] with “apples” in the subject. We are deeply grateful for such an amazingly abundant harvest of apples this year after literally 3 apples last year. Maybe our Wassailing songs in the deep of winter for Winter Solstice helped!? Consider yourself invited for that this December, and in the meantime – send us ideas, and help if you can, to put these apples to good use.
• Developing Earthseed Values Document – Zoom Call Series 📜🪶🧐 Join us for a weekly 1.5hr-long exploration of the Earthseed Values Document. Initially written up by Bob, others have been contributing individually, and we are inviting the group wisdom to take it to the next level. We will aim to look into looking at 2 or 3 values each week, with room for reflection on how each of us individually could live this value in our own lives, and how the community here can create practices to live this value on the land. No commitment necessary. Email [email protected] if you are interested. We plan to start in October, perhaps Monday evenings. If you wish to join and Monday evenings just don’t work for you – let us know, and we can re-shuffle or alternate days/times Earthseed Values Document is intended to be a forever-living document, and all interested voices are invited to contribute to the current evolution of it.
• Fall Workshop Series with Linda Longtoe Sheehan of Two Otters Native American Arts. We still have 2 spots for this weekend’s brain tanning Workshop: Sep 19 through 22 here on the land! Email Marissa at [email protected] ASAP to join. We are also hosting a medicine bag making workshop on October 19-20 and a moccasin making workshop on November 16. Learn more and sign up here.

• Forest Alchemy’s Summer Menu is open! Order land-based products made by our community, and thus directly support our work. See the attached PDF for our offerings.

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Supporting Earthseed

Many thanks to those who have become monthly contributors via Patreon and to those who gave gifts via Venmo. We have had contributions ranging from $50 to $2,000 and everything has helped us focus on building while being able to cover our monthly costs. Also thanks to our neighbor Erik for loaning us his wood splitter – our garden beds and experimental mushroom patches couldn’t be happier!!!

• We still have less of a need for materials at this moment, but if you have a cider press, or other larger equipment you want to lend or gift us, please reach out!
• Right now, our biggest needs are funds to support our monthly costs and tax bill that is due in October, until we can build up our population and in turn the businesses operating on the land. If you have enjoyed visiting the land and connecting with us on zoom, consider supporting us with a one-time donation on venmo or a monthly donation on patreon. Want to send funds another way? Email us!

And if you are not able to help us financially at this time – no worries, just send us some good vibes, share about us with awesome people you meet and spaces you attend. We never know what kind of random encounters may lead to what kind of synergies. We want Earthseed to be a template, and we want other places like this, and we want a vibrant network of people, communities, co-creators, co-habitators, co-dreamers – all dreaming up how to break through the rigidity of our Western Educated Industrialized Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. Let’s keep spreading our seeds and growing our grassroots!

In Community,

Marissa, Bob and Earthseed