Are you interested in using permaculture techniques to restore a communal garden space with native plants in Marin County? You are invited to join permaculturists Rebecca Speert and Dustin Kahn, and herbalist Cheryl Fromholzer, in their mission of transforming and tending an area at the Robson Harrington Park, 237 Crescent Road in San Anselmo!

Permaculture Marin is supporting the project by directing some of the grant money received from the Lia Fund towards the purchase of native plants for the garden.

The first work day is on Saturday, March 3rd, starting at 10:00 am. Contours will be marked so we can begin digging swales and spreading mulch. With a loving crew of folks, we can begin the transformation. Below is a more detailed explanation of the project.

For questions or to get involved, please email Rebecca at Rspeert@comcast.net

Robson Harrington Park Hillside Proposal
by Rebecca Speert

Site Assessment:
The hill oriented to the northeast of the Robson Harrington Park garden plots is untended. Plants are over grown and dried out. Excessive wood rat population reported, as well as deer traffic. Plot could benefit from clearing debris, mulching, planting of low maintenance species, and implementation of swales.

Objective:
To create an aesthetically pleasing, low maintenance arrangement of plantings, providing a cleaner, more maintained appearance in the park while increasing bird and beneficial insect habitat. The area will also act as a demonstration site for park visitors to envision what a low maintenance landscape can look like.

Proposal:

• Implement swales on hillside to capture, sink, and spread rain water. Mulch the whole area.
• Plant native plants and grasses and medicinal herbs that require little water and are low maintenance
• Possible educational signage to provide explanations of plant choices and earth works.

A corner of the Hall Middle School food forest.

Hall School in Larkspur is about to embark on the next phase of their food forest. They are fortunate to have a crew of students from the Marin Academy along with two amazing permaculturalists, Lindsay Dailey and Massey Burke, to help with this part of the project.

They would like to plant some supporting species around some of the trees and are going to have a few theme areas: CA natives, Lost Crops of the Incas, Meso-America, Mediterranean, and herb spiral. They are also looking for lots of (preferably) edible vines to cover a massive amount of fence. Two purposes there: create a visual and aesthetic wall and also to create more of a sense of place. In terms of vines, they’re thinking edible passion flowers, grapes, chayote, peas, though there could be others.

If you have any plants that fit into the above categories that you could donate, please contact Rebecca Newburn at rebeccanewburn@gmail.com. The Marin Academy students are starting on May 26th, and Rebecca would like to have a sense of what they have and what else they need to get before then.

Let’s get together on a monthly basis to talk about permaculture or watch a permaculture-related video, and make connections within the community. We can also invite speakers to talk on a specific topic that’s of interest. Let’s make this a community creation. What would you like to learn about or share?

The next meeting is scheduled for June 27th, location to be announced. This meeting is open to non-members as well. Email Kathleen at kclanphier@gmail.com to express your interests and let her know if you would like to attend.

Worries over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s), food security, loss of biological diversity, and the industrial takeover of modern agriculture, have sent people searching for long-term, sustainable gardening solutions. According to Bill McDorman, that solution lies in saving seeds.

Many gardeners, farmers, and growers purchase one-size-fits-all seeds every year when they should be saving their own seeds from plants selected for characteristics (such as pest resistance, hardiness, earliness, and taste) that work best for them. There is no other way to turn the tide on the industrialization of our food system than to think seeds first. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to say we’re going to fight the companies that own and control our food system,” says Mr. McDorman, “until we have our own system in place.”

Seed School will be held at Solstice Grove Institute, a beautiful redwood agricultural center in Nicasio, California in West Marin County, from Sunday, May 1st to Friday, May 6th 2011. This far-reaching, 5-day immersion boasts a practical, hands-on curriculum that teaches everything from basic genetics to modern database management. Seed School trains gardeners, farmers, entrepreneurs, non-profits, and policy-makers to implement long-term, self sufficient, and secure agricultural programs.

Seed School recently completed its third training in Arizona and all sessions sold out. Five more immersions have been scheduled for 2011 including 3 dates in the gorgeous Verde Valley of Arizona, one at Solstice Grove in Marin County and another in Tucson at the brand new Native Seeds/S.E.A.R.C.H. Conservation Center. Students of Seed School learn harvesting, processing, germination testing, packaging, and how to use these skills to create diversity and strengthen local bioregions.

Mr. McDorman founded Seeds Trust/High Altitude Gardens in 1984. He has over 30 years experience in the seed business and is author of Basic Seed Saving. To register for Seed School, or for more information, visit SeedsTrust.com, email belle@seedstrust.com, or call 928.649.3315.

Click here to download a pdf flier about Seed School.

The Economics of Happiness is a new documentary film by the International Society for Ecology & Culture (ISEC) about the worldwide movement for economic localization. The film is “a persuasive explanation of our ailing world,” according to Bay Area author Joanna Macy. “It connects the dots between climate chaos, economic meltdown, and our own personal suffering. . . . It presents localization as a systemic alternative to corporate globalization, as well as a strategy that brings community and meaning to our lives.”

Both hard‐hitting and inspiring, The Economics of Happiness demonstrates that millions of people across the world are already engaged in building a better world — that small-scale initiatives are happening on a large scale. The film shows that countless initiatives are united around a common cause: rebuilding more democratic, human scale, ecological and local economies – the foundation of an “economics of happiness.” The film features a chorus of voices from six continents calling for systemic economic change, including David Korten, Bill McKibben, Vandana Shiva, Rob Hopkins, Richard Heinberg, Juliet Schor, Michael Shuman, Helena Norberg‐Hodge, and Samdhong Rinpoche — the Prime Minister of Tibetʹs government in exile.

Sunday, March 6, 1pm
Presented by: Unity Marin Ecos Circle
Unity in Marin, 600 Palm Drive, Novato (Hamilton Field)

Monday, March 14, 7pm
Presented by: Sustainable San Rafael and Pachamama Alliance
Marin Youth Center (MYC), 1115 Third, San Rafael

Tuesday, March 29, 7pm
Presented by: Transition Mill Valley
Mill Valley Community Center (Cascade Room), 180 Camino Alto, Mill Valley
Special Musical Guest Matt Jaffe

$10 donation for all events

In the wild edges of Marin County, California

Tracking is a cultural art form, experienced alone and in community, that truly deepens connection to ourselves, each other and to all the life that surrounds us. Tracking is a state of mind that fosters awareness and connects us to the animals and all life on the land. It changes how our body moves, and ultimately what path we walk on the Earth.

Tracking and Nature Connection can help you learn:

• Awareness routines and tracking techniques
• Track and sign identification
• Bird language – the tracker’s eyes & ears
• Gaits, body types & movement
• Ecology and Habitat

Please join us this spring for this fun and enriching series! Each class is from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm and is
held in the field at different sites throughout Marin County.

• Saturday, Mar 19
• Saturday, Apr 9
• Saturday, Apr 30
• Saturday, May 21

Cost: $300 for the four-part series

Instructors: John Brossard and Scott Davidson are co-founders of the Marin County Tracking Club and certified in track and sign interpretation by CyberTracker Conservation International.

For more information: call 415-868-9681, or visit: www.regenerativedesign.org

The Red Tent Retreat is a weekend of renewal, inspiration, and connection.

One step toward resilient communities, is nurturing resilient women! This workshop will provide you with tools to empower yourself and other women in your life to engage with the Earth and each other in the most intimate way we have access to, through our blood cycles.

Women are often fed a diet of negativity about their menstrual cycle from a very young age. Since most women were never welcomed into womanhood, their “Inner Maiden” is left inside, often embarrassed, ashamed, or afraid. As a result, many women view menstruation as a “nuisance,” “bother,” or “the curse,” thereby giving way to the development of PMS symptoms.

Uprooting any negativity about menstruation stored in your body since adolescence is the beginning of an empowering and healing journey, which ultimately dissolves and reverses PMS symptoms. Additionally, reclaiming our “Inner Maidens” is a necessary stepping-stone to empowering our daughters as they enter womanhood, preventing yet another generation from suffering needlessly.

This journey is for women of all ages! You will:

• Receive the coming-of-age experience you never had
• Reclaim your cycle as source of inner guidance & spiritual renewal
• Dissolve PMS symptoms
• Be guided by your cycle, rather than at its mercy
• Become an empowering role model for your daughter, or today’s girls!

Join us for a deeply nourishing weekend, and find the last missing pieces of your womanhood’s jigsaw puzzle!

When: Saturday-Sunday, March 26-27, 10:00 am – 4:00 am daily
Where: Marin County (directions provided upon registration)
Fee: sliding scale $195.00 to $245.00
To register or for more information: Rebecca Speert  at (781) 820-4539  or by email at rspeert@comcast.net

Click here to download a pdf flyer about the retreat.

Facilitator: DeAnna L’am (B.A.) speaker, coach, and trainer, is author of Becoming Peers – Mentoring Girls Into Womanhood. Her pioneering work has been transforming women and girls’ lives around the world, for over 20 years. DeAnna was the first to bring Rites-Of-Passage work to Israel/Palestine, her country of origin, where she helped Jewish and Palestinian women surpass political and religious differences by deeply bonding as cycling women. DeAnna specializes in empowering women to reclaim menstruation as source of inner guidance and spiritual renewal, coaches moms to welcome their girls into womanhood with ease and comfort, and trains women to hold Red Tents in their communities. Visit her website at: www.deannalam.com

Registration is open for the next West Coast Women’s Permaculture Gathering: Sowing the Seeds of Women’s Leadership and Growing a revolutionary paradigm.

The themes include Women’s leadership, social permaculture, self-care and growing a revolutionary paradigm.

It will happen May 20-22, 2011 in Cazadero CA at the Black Mountain Preserve and Retreat Center (http://www.blackmountaincenter.com/). Stay tuned for more info as we solidify the schedule.

Confirmed speakers:

Nina Simons (Moonrise, Bioneers & Cultivating Women’s Leadership),
Starhawk (The Last Wild Witch & Earth Activist Training),
Jude Hobbs (Cascadia Permaculture Institute & PI USA),
Kat Steele (Urban Permaculture Guild & Esalen Institute),
Jenny Pell (Community by Design & Permaculture Now!),
Carla Perez (Movement Generation & Permaculture for the People),
Pandora Thomas (Grind for the Green & Earth Seed),
Deborah Eden Tull (The Natural Kitchen: Your Guide to the Sustainable Food Revolution),
Heather Flores (Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community)

Also Rebecca Newburn of Richmond Rivets will coordinate a seed swap! There will be room for all to speak and share ideas and projects through an Open Space format, so come ready to share and participate.

We will update our website with other important details as they become available.

The site is a breathtaking space surrounded by nature. The weekend will be full of strong, powerful, committed women who share a vocabulary about planetary consciousness that sets us apart. This weekend will juice you up, connect you to other extraordinary women, and inspire you to continue to create the world we all know is possible!

We are creating a weekend of connecting, inspiring, playing and conjuring with other women dedicated to a vision of the world where resources are precious, relationships are priority, and beauty abounds! Spreading what’s possible by implementing permaculture designs and principles throughout our lives. We will share what’s happening in the various cities we live. We will inspire each other with the great projects we are spear-heading. We will support and offer resources and guidance to each other throughout the weekend.

The first gathering was amazing. This one is sure to be equally incredible. A bunch of permaculture minded rock star women all together for the weekend! How could we go wrong?

We’ve tried to make it as affordable as possible while still covering expenses. Tickets prices range from $165-$350 depending on accommodations and income. Please pay at the highest level you can afford. This helps us offer work trade options and makes the future of this gathering sustainable and not subsidized!

To Register for the event please visit our website at www.westcoastwomenspc.weebly.com or use the following link: http://womenspermaculture.eventbrite.com/

**If you have the means to contribute financially to help create this event that would be appreciated (to help us support key note speakers travel, provide scholarships, and make the event more smooth)

We are delighted to be creating this gathering and are looking forward to sharing it with YOU!

Please spread the word! Please forgive cross posts.

Thank you for what you do and how you be!
Love,
Joan, Camille, Kat, and Melora

“There is one, and only one, solution, and we have almost no time to try it. We must turn all our resources to repairing the natural world, and train all our young people to help. They want to. We need to give them this last chance to create forests, soils, clean waters, clean energies, secure communities, stable regions, and to know how to do it from hands-on experience.”

“…the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.”

- Bill Mollison

Where: Fairfax Theater, 9 Broadway, Fairfax

Admission: $10 (or free if necessary)

Join filmmaker Miguel Elliot for the premier of his film Earth Building. Adobe is Alive! at the Fairfax Theater.

The movie demonstrates the many advantages of earthen construction, such as helping to build community (CobUnity), using local available resources, and enjoying the often playful process.

Some basic instruction is included on how to build an earthen dome, such as the one behind the Crystal Chalice in Fairfax, benches, such as the bench outside Lydia’s Organics, and ovens, such as the oven at San Domenico School. The film celebrates the possibility of incorporating natural building into the school curriculum, giving children the opportunity to construct something functional for their school using their bare hands and feet.

To see a trailer of the film, click here.

Prepare to be inspired, educated and entertained! Following the film, we will be doing a tour of the cob projects in Fairfax, starting with the dome behind the Crystal Chalice, the tree in the Circle Center, and the benches inside of Lydia’s Kitchen.

For more information, visit filmmaker Miguel Elliott’s website, Living Earth Structures.