Earth Responders
A Look At Farm Training for Food & Plant Medicine Gifting
Resilience Activism at Work
Earth Responders has empowered activists in finding pathways for social justice and ecologically restorative land stewardship, regenerative community, and resilient cultural renewal. With richly experiential earth centered learning, community service, support for innovation, this project was an emergent and emergency response to the immense challenges now present on the Earth.
Earth Responders was engaged in a primary focus on regenerative agriculture, food growing, food security, food sovereignty, and plant medicine.
Metta Earth has networked with other organizations to provide greater food security. See the ways in which Earth Responders made food and plant medicine donations.
“My time at Metta Earth was expansive in ways that I could not have imagined. Gillian and Russell offer the rare opportunity to engage in farming as spiritual practice in a loving community. They have so much experience and knowledge to share with anyone ready to learn how to live in harmony with all beings. These are genuinely selfless people doing work for the good of the collective. I spent ten weeks tending plants and animals and came to understand that in caring for all the beings around me, I care for myself.
There is an inevitable awakening that happens when interaction with land and people is heart-centered. If you are seeking a shift in your life, this is the place for you. Be ready to work hard, be vulnerable and nurture all around you. You will be nurtured in return.”
The intersectionality of climate and ecological restoration is intricately interconnected with social restoration and justice.
Rotationally Graze for Carbon Farming
4 Tenets for Metta Earth
Earth Responders was a project engaged in
expressing, innovating, and actualizing these tenets:
- New Farmer Education…MENTOR FARMERS
- Regenerative Farming…GROW FOOD
- Food Justice Donations…DONATE FOOD
- Land Access…CREATE NEW LAND MODELS
“Social movements require strong, open communication in solidarity. At Metta Earth the intentional moments of cultivating community have given me the tools to navigate group processes in future challenging environments. Being a listener and advocate and mediator are all crucial to creating strong cohesive movements.”
Earth Responders Practices
Regenerative Agriculture
Regenerative agriculture is a central focus of Earth Responders.
- Carbon Farming
- Essentials of Soil: Composting, Cover Cropping, & Fungi
- Bee Keeping
- Animal Care
- Rotational Grazing & Holistic Management
- Biodynamic & Organic Farming & Gardening
- Companion Planting
- Wild Edibles, Foraging, & Sustainable Wildcrafting
- Farm to Plate: Food Harvesting, Preparation, & Preservation
- Raw & Fermented Foods: Kombucha, Kimchi, Pickles
- Dairy, Kefir, Yogurt, & Cheese
Plant Medicine
As essential in the global crisis as food security, plant medicine and herbal healing hold a core place in alleviating suffering. As economic and social systems destabilize, collapse, many traditions of plant medicine knowledge bring great healing potential and offer an abundant contribution to well-being.
Earth Responders are engaged in growing, harvesting, and creating plant medicine to distribute to those in need.
- Wild Herbs, Foraging, & Sustainable Wildcrafting
- Cultivation of herbs in gardens
- Mushrooms & fungi
- Herbal Tea Harvest & Preparation
- Herbal salve and oil preparations
- Vinegars, infusions, decoctions
Holistic Permaculture
Permaculture is an emerging worldview and multidisciplinary design science that addresses global issues with a holistic, systems approach.
Earth Responder sites embody sanctuary for shifts in thinking and practical solutions.
- Permaculture Ethics & Principles
- The Permaculture Flower as a World View
- Designing with Nature
- Pattern Recognition
- Site Analysis, Assessment, and Design
- Polycultures & Guilds
- The Use of Tools, Techniques, and Technologies in Balance with Life
The Arts
The Arts teach us how to access flow states of awareness. Becoming comfortable with improvisation, spontaneity, and surprise expand our options for creative problem solving. These are essentials in innovating solutions for the tough challenges of our times.
- Authentic Movement
- Wild Sculptures
- Earth Mandalas
- Poetry & Wild Mind Writing
Wilding
Deep connection with nature and re-skilling in regenerative processes brings greater sensitivity and healing into agricultural enterprises.
- Forest Ecology
- Edible Food Forests
- Mushroom Cultivation
- Natural First Aid and Wild Medicinals
- Wild Food Foraging for Edibles
- Tool Sharpening and Use
- Natural Fiber Crafting: Cordage & Baskets
- Knots, Tarps, & Wild Encampments
- Bow Drill Fire-making
- Backcountry Food Preservation
- Wilderness Ethics
- Ecopsychology Principles
- Wild Questing Process
- Chaos & Creativity
- Wilderness Leadership
- Plant & Animal Communication
Regenerative Community Living
Community resiliency is a response to the growing social and environmental crises facing our world. Sustainable community design and practice provides a rich immersion experience to explore whole and healthy communities. Activating systems of economics and governance, biomimicry and natural design, land stewardship, and social justice rejuvenates our communities with deeper sustainability.
- Cultural Cosmologies: A Study of Past & Present Cultures in Deep Connection with Nature
- BIPOC Perspectives *
- Land Access Issues for Regenerative Community (Reparation, Rematriation, & Pathways for Healing Land Oppressions) *
- Designing with Nature
- Core Processes Of Community Building
- Visions, Missions, & Covenants: Refreshing Social Structures
- Intentional Community Models: Ecovillage, Community Land Trusts, & Cohousing
- Transition Towns
- Regenerative Economics: Coops, Barter, Guilds, & Gift Economies
- Creating Authentic Ceremony & Ritual
- Creating Sanctuary, Group Safety & Ethics
- Communication Processes: Co-Listening, Non-Violent Communication, & Way of Council
- Leadership Models
- Forms of Activism
- Power, Privilege, Oppression, & Rank
- Cultural Safety *
Yoga Meditation
Yoga is rooted in the understanding that everything is interconnected – earth, water, fire, air, space, soil, animals, plants, cosmos, and all beings. Activists stretch body and mind to soften and expand edges, building resilience and flexibility. Practices of yoga and meditation at the river, in the forests, the gardens, and with the animals bring integration of person with Earth. These practices enrich the experience of life. When we are quiet inside, our eyes are open to the vibrancy that surrounds us. This is an opportunity to embody these practices and the contemplative ways of nature, wildness, and farm life.
- Morning Yoga & Meditation Practice
- Embodiment Principles & Processes
- Breathing Practices: Hive Mind, Breath of Joy, & Sounding Breath
- Sitting, Walking, and Work Meditations
- Drishti Eye Gaze, Earth Savasana, & other Metta Earth Yoga Practices
- Deep Ecology & Yoga Philosophy
- Green Yoga as Environmental Activism
- Circle Yoga & Partner Yoga
- Posture Practices with Nature: River, Trees, & Rocks
*NOTE: The bolded topics are essential and need to be taught by BIPOC facilitators.
“Being an Earth Responder has taught me to heal from a place of wholeness. Working both on the land at Metta Earth and remotely has helped me to identify my unique gifts and cultivate them to be of service to my larger community and my planet.”
With Gentle Cultivation of the Earth, Cultivate Leadership
“Gillian and Russell… so much love, respect, reverence. Infinite gratitude for you. Do not underestimate your positive effect on the world—the evolution of humanity.”
Earth Responders was an initiative with deep regard and connection for the spiritual intelligence of Earth.
Celebrate the Harvest for Gifting
Earth Responders Organizational Network
For Food and Herbal Donations
Our intention is to contribute to a growing movement of resilience activism through land stewardship, regenerative community, and cultural renewal. Earth Responders were engaged in regenerative agriculture and permaculture for food production, growing plant medicine, wildcrafting, medicine making, and gleaning processes. All of this has supported food and herbal donations.
Metta Earth is dedicated to growing organic produce and plant medicine to contribute to food and wellness sovereignty in our local community, especially now with the challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. The Earth Responders project was able to increase our capacity to grow, harvest, and donate food and plant medicine to organizations in our bioregion. In 2020, the Earth Responders program at Metta Earth donated over 200 bushels of fresh, organic produce to the community. With such abundance of plant medicine, we are committed to developing more pathways for plant medicine donation. One of the most accessible and important donation pathways right now is through mutual aid.
“Being part of the Earth Responders team has restored my faith in humanity; I feel like part of a collective of incredible like-minded people, learning from and growing with each other. This experience is giving me the confidence to share my passions and be able to make a difference!”