Hello friends and loved ones,
it’s been a long while since you’ve received an update from us, as we’ve been deep in the throes of a major move across state lines to Southern Oregon. Leaving our dear Emerald Village community to forge a forest outpost has been nothing less than immense. This process began over a decade ago when we fell in love with this bioregion and it has been calling us back ever since. The road has been anything but linear and rational…it’s involved epic amounts of internal guidance, external support and trust in the process.
And this month, we are happy to say that 2 years after our initial move, that our family has landed in a beautiful home at the base of a former Buddhist retreat hermitage. In tandem with our community partners Rebecca and Jonah Mesritz, we have endeavored into the steep learning curve involved with caring for 160 acres of extremely biodiverse land. From failing infrastructure to refuse removal, from waterway to forest management, we have been humbled by this earth school and all that it takes financially, emotionally and spiritually to steward sacred land that needs so much care. And though it was audacious for our city-slicking group to think that we could take on such a charge, we always intended to do so as students engaging in lifelong learning and using this as our backdrop to rehabilitate land and live in more natural, wholesome ways.
As such, with some generous support, we established a 501(C)3 entity called Seeds of Light as a container to host some of the learning opportunities that we intend to curate and is dedicated to nature-based, regenerative life skill learning.
Because this land is located in a remote valley, we intend to serve established and budding local community leaders here who are facing economic depression and are underserved in the areas of access to physical and mental health resources. We are also using this place as a serene backdrop to broadcast digitally to students from afar in our expanded networks who are seeking to learn holistic regenerative practices within a land-based project.
We definitely don’t have all the answers nor are we saying what we are doing is THE answer to the dire state the world finds itself in. Rather, we’d like to think that taking care of our bodies, minds and spirits as we endeavor toward mindful, ecologically sound earth stewardship in a beautiful way is doing some good on the planet.
There’s much more to share in the times to come, but for now, we want to let you in on some of our initial offerings and ways for you to stay connected to what we’re up to.
In collaboration with master seed farmer and permaculture expert, Don Tipping, we are co-hosting a Homestead Permaculture Course April 28-30. This is a survey course and great for anyone who currently has (or is dreaming into) their own family homestead and how to design it in an elegant and efficient way using applied permaculture and social permaculture theory. This will take place both at Don’s homestead and home of Siskiyou Seeds and the 160 acres of land we call Terra Lumen.
In June, we will co-host another workshop focused on Waterways and how to design and scape land with watershed health in mind and in practice. You can learn more about Don’s expertise in this area in this viral video…
Also, some of you may know that COVID greatly impacted healthcare workers and those in direct care severely. For Kyle, this meant rapidly pivoting his acupuncture practice into an online teaching format and he’s been sharing his Daoist wisdom with a dedicated group of loyal students ever since. We’re creating a portal for students to participate virtually and receive live and recorded qi gong classes that are packed with Five Element and Daoist applied tools for longevity and health. Stay tuned for details…
There’s more to come – like a Qi Gong retreat this fall with other Daoist masters here on the land and in-person classes and workshops for those who are local.
Sign up HERE if you’d like to stay in touch with us and receive updates as they emerge.
Thank you so very much for your continued support and cheering us on from afar…
With heart,
Jessica and the Fierce Grace Team
