The Amazon Is Burning.

All summer, I’ve been traveling and teaching regenerative approaches to our current environmental and social breakdowns, showing people how we can redesign our way of living to meet our needs while healing the environment around us. It’s been an inspiring but very packed trip, with few days when I haven’t been working or traveling, […]

Gifts for the Earth

The Earth, She Is Changing…

Just a few weeks ago, Northern California was covered with what felt like the smokes of Mordor. The most destructive fire in California’s history—still not fully contained—continues to burn in the north—and for the second autumn in a row we have endured over a week of smoke and […]

Why Permaculture?

The Dirt On Our Climate Future

The news cycle is so constant, so outrageous and often so distracting that it’s hard to tear our eyes away from the meltdown of our social and political worlds. But there’s another meltdown going on, one that will affect us and all of the planet for […]

Can Social Permaculture Change the World?

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead

 

Small Groups Can Indeed Change the World—

—but to do so, they must work together effectively and nourish their relationships. Sadly, there’s a pattern that repeats again and […]

A Vision for the New Year

At the Dawn of 2018

A new year is beginning, and many of us are relieved to leave 2017 behind, as if the change in the calendar date could signify a change in everything. For me, last year was a strange mix—politically disastrous, personally full of satisfying work and some incredible experiences.

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Support Earth Activist Trainings for 2018!

Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Wildfires…

…Nazis marching in the streets and open sexual predators running for office—and that’s not even talking about who is holding the highest office of the land! 2017 has been a year of disasters, on every level.

Now, at year’s end, I’m sure you have a hundred good causes asking […]

Where Water Flows Through the Cracks: A Visit to Aranya Farm, India

Today We Visited the Aranya Farm

It’s a beautiful example of food forests, inter-cropped annuals and biodiversity, a paradise on a plot of land that was a barren crust of thin soil over rock twenty years ago. Now it is rich with mangos, bananas, papayas, soursop, acacia, mulberry, pigeon pea, sorghum, tomatoes […]

A Birthday Gift

Dear Friends,

In just a few days, I’ll be sixty-six years old. Maybe I should be retiring—but with the Arctic melting and a climate change denier in the White House, it doesn’t seem like the moment to sit back and crochet afghans. Climate change is not just carbon—it represents massive ecosystem degeneration—and ecosystems include people, […]

Facilitating Diversity

As I sit down to write this post, I’m taking a break from preparing for our Passover Seder here at the ranch—a ceremony that’s an amalgam of my Jewish roots, Pagan practice, and our very down-to-earth desire to give thanks and celebrate another season of baby lambs and kids. The goat kind, that is. I’m […]

A Wild and Diverse Earth Activist Training!

Pandora Thomas on our site visit.

 

 

 

 

 

Our January Earth Activist Training opened with the sound of clapper sticks and flutes, and the steady beat of a Pomo drum. Our old friend Neil, who has spent many years doing solidarity work with local tribes, had arranged for two […]