Wild Honey Collective

Ecovillages. Intentional Communities. Communes. Cohousing communities. There's a whole world of communal living structures that seek to reimagine what it means to find home...together! There are many different definitions of these kinds of communities, but today I speak with Emiliano Espinosa of NextGEN North America (NextGENNA): a youth-focused ecovillage network that focuses on connecting young people with communities whose structure helps them live out their commitment to integrated sustainability. Integrated Sustainability is defined here as "whole systems thinking rooted in a holistic worldview that invites a broader range of individuals to become inspired by and contribute towards a socially, economically, ecologically, and culturally sustainable future" (1). We get into some exciting angles on this idea, including communities as social laboratories and playgrounds for collective imagination, ecovillages as experiential education opportunities, and challenging cultural ideas of self, success, and security. Enjoy this very last episode of season 1 of the podcast!

Conversation Outline

How does an ecovillage function (8:30)

What stereotypes around this idea exist? (9:30)

Integrated Sustainability: the shared value system of the Global Ecovillage Network (11:00)

Pros & cons of communal living (18:30)

Opportunities to explore: scholarships and connection hubs (21:00)

Building an alternative to a culture of individualism (27:15)

Social Laboratories: how alternative communities foster a culture of innovation (29:00)

Storytelling (33:00)

1. Integrated Sustainability. https://www.nextgenna.org/integrated-sustainability.html

2. Global Ecovillage Network. https://ecovillage.org/ 

3. Alexis Pauline Gumbs. https://www.alexispauline.com/

*Sound warning* there are times in our recording where the wind or passing background noise interfere a bit with our sound. Think of it as the wind adding its voice to the conversation.

Where does collective growth begin, if not with fertile, living soil? My guest today is writer, facilitator, teacher, and farmer Jonathan McRay, of Silver Run Forest Farm here at the foot of Massanutten along Cub Run, a tributary of the Shenandoah River. Silver Run Forest Farm is a riparian nursery and folk school rooted in love and living soil. These roots sprout out as agroforestry, watershed health, and restorative justice. They tend the silver waters of the Shenandoah - Cub Run, Blacks Run, and downstream - by farming in the image of the forest and remediating the toxins that pollute our souls, society, and soil, from chemical leaching to white supremacy.

This conversation gets to the heartwood of what it means to cultivate the wealth of growing, sharing, and valuing our gifts in a web of unique contributions, through the practice of agroforestry. As a trio, the caretakers of Silver Run Forest Farm propogate beautiful and useful plants that are food and medicine for people and land. Trees are multifunctional creators; they give a multitude of life-sustaining gifts, just by being who they are and meeting their own needs. How can I learn from this way of being, and give myself full permission to be who I am, and in that process share a wealth of gifts that nurture life? How can I feed more life by living my most authentic life? "We see this as an expression of restorative justice, a way of transforming harm and injustice by respecting needs, holding ourselves accountable for healing, and making relationships and conditions as right as possible so that all creatures can be fully themselves!"

Conversation Outline:

Silver run forest farm: a way of being in the world (00:00)

Learning from the underground economy of connection that the root systems of forests teach us; Photosynthesis as mutual aid: trees give __% of the energy they produce away as oxygen (that we breathe) (5:30)

the gift of being oneself: how the trees show us (10:00) "breathing the world for us"

Woodland collectives of the future: dreams of growing and tending trees, harvesting nuts and crafting them into flour and oil, fertile grounds for future livelihoods and economies of earth crafts.

Jon's origin story: (17:00)

Care work, farming, and parenthood (31:20)

The Cambium Collective: (33:40)

Land as a sacred text: (35:30)

"Photosynthesis Fund": redistributing revenue (44:30)

Moving at the speed of trust (50:00)

Community Solidarity Agroforestry model (mycellial mutual aid) (54:12)

Folk School: seed bank and nursery for propogating our skills and gifts-a place where we learn to be who we need to be for the time in the world that we're in; rooted in education as waking up our conscious (paolo freire), education as knowing and being known (parker palmer), and education as the practice of freedom (bell hooks RIP) (58:15)

Learn more about SRFF: https://silverrunforestfarm.org/

Read from SRFF's Library: https://silverrunforestfarm.org/library

Contribute to their CSA to move more mycellial mutual aid through their agroforestry networks! https://silverrunforestfarm.org/nursery/community-solidarity-agroforestry

Children are hard-wired for play. And approaches to early childhood education that create nurturing spaces for learning through play are taking new shapes in the spectrum of options increasingly available for pre-school and elementary education. In this conversation with Kristen Drake, lead-teacher and director of Fern Hollow Forest School, we explore the ways that traditional education models, especially for young kids, can be reimagined and reclaimed from what most people today think of as structured learning for kids ages 3-6. We also follow the thread of the natural curiosity we see in children, when encouraged and given a safe space to flourish, to the adult humans they grow into-and how we too need rich environments that awaken our senses and imaginations, as well as our drive to innovate and craft-ethically-from the forest, when we find ourselves there.

More on Fern Hollow Forest School: https://fernhollowforestschool.com/

Conversation outline: 

Mill Song Bakery bakes naturally leavened breads stone-milled on site with local grains from the Chesapeake Bay watershed. 80% of their grains come from Rockingham County, right where they bake their delicious bread. Stone-milled, naturally leavened bread was once a specially curated art that was passed down over generations and regionally adapted to the conditions of a certain place. People would quite literally wear their sourdough culture around their necks in jewelry in some places to protect their cultural inheritance of a staple food that was co-adapted to your people’s microbiome. Now, for bakeries, it is often considered a more labor-intensive alternative to baking with commercial yeasts and roller-milled flours. The problem with this is the commercial milling process separates out some of the most nutritious components-the wheat germ oil, for example-from the flour; and leavening the bread with commercial yeast speeds up the baking process, eliminating the fermentation element that makes the grain more digestible and probiotic.

Nico Melas apprenticed as a baker in the Community of the Ark of Lanza del Vasto, a spiritual commune in southern France dedicated to embodying the principles of Gandhian nonviolence by bringing the hands, the head, and the heart into closer communion with the land and the belly. Now, you can taste the spirit-infused respect for tradition and the slow process of stone-milling flour fresh, on-site, to make Mill Song's uniquely crafted, naturally leavened breads.

Subscribe to their Community Supported Bakery: the number one way you can support a small artisan business trying to make it in a world of sliced bread. When you sign up, you let them know which bread you’d like, and they have it ready for you every week for pick up at the bakery on Lincolnshire Rd, or at the farmer’s market. Some lucky neighborhoods even have drop off hubs, so if you are an organizer, get your neighbors together and make yours one of them! Call them up to start your CSB subscription (540)-434-1001, or you can always pick up a loaf at the Harrisonburg Farmer’s Market-where you’ll find Nico and his son Moises every Saturday from 8-1.

Find Mill Song: https://www.millsongbakery.com/