Earthaven Ecovillage Experience Week
Live, Work, and Learn at Earthaven
July 31 – August 6, 2022
Earthaven Ecovillage
Near Asheville, NC
Earthaven Ecovillage Experience Week is a residential service-learning program that immerses participants in the life of Earthaven Ecovillage.
Our ecovillage provides the ideal living laboratory for a whole-life skills curriculum—a place to see regenerative systems in practice, food production in action, and community living on a personal level. Participants connect with the people, businesses, and farms of the Taylor Creek Watershed community for a hands-on, skill-building, life-changing experience.
The Earthaven Ecovillage Experience Week curriculum encourages participants to examine sustainability through social, ecological, economic, and eco-spiritual lenses. The learning journey weaves large-group discussions and classes together with intimate hands-on experiences in the village and farms alongside community members. SOIL instructors, together with the community at large, support participants to build important skills, foster awareness for global issues, empower the self, increase connection, and develop the resources required for daily life.
New for 2022:
Eco-Explorers Adventure Week
Day camp for 6-12 year-olds during Earthaven Ecovillage Experience Week. Give your kids an age-appropriate Earthaven experience during the days while you learn about the Earthaven experiment.
Curriculum
Classes, discussions and activities will explore the following:
Organic Food Production and Natural Buildings
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Green homes (tiny houses, stud-frame, cob, straw-bale, earthship)
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Small-scale farms and home gardens (permaculture gardens, integrated farms, compost)
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Service-learning projects and farm harvest work parties
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Nourishing, local, sustainably-grown, organic, and wild food
Renewable Energy and Off-Grid Utilities
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Off-grid renewable systems in practice (photovoltaic, micro-hydro, radiant-floor heating, hot water diversions, wood-fired boiler)
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Biochar, a charcoal fertilizer with energy-positive production
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Development of energy alternatives to meet the world’s impending energy crisis
Resilient Community and Regenerative Culture
- Earthaven and other successful ecovillages and land-based endeavors (both rural and urban)
- The social, environmental, and economic factors necessary for sustainable projects to succeed
- Earthaven legal structure and governance 101
Personal Growth and Empowerments
- Personal goals and resources through Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects
- Connection to yourself, others, and the natural world
- Designing an authentic, meaningful, and responsible life in the modern world
In addition to classes, discussions, and activities, you’ll enjoy meals and rituals with community members as well as the option to participate in yoga, meditation, and hiking.
Program Schedule
This week-long program consists of expert lectures, fireside conversations, community celebrations, hands-on projects, journaling, tours, and interactive activities to provide an intimate, well-rounded, and powerful learning experience.
Sunday
1:00 Arrival
2:30–6:30 Welcome, Orientation, and Village Tour
6:30–7:30 Dinner
7:45–9:30 Opening Circle
Monday through Friday
8:00–8:30 Breakfast
9:00–12:00 AM Session
12:15–2:15 Lunch and Independent Time
2:30–5:30 PM Session
5:30–6:30 Independent Time
6:30–7:30 Dinner
7:30–9:30 Evening Activities
Saturday
8:00–8:30 Breakfast
9:00–12:00 Final Session and Closing Circle
12:15–2:00 Lunch and Departure
The Group
This program is primarily designed for adults. However, mature young adults under 18 years old are also welcome. Please contact SOIL to discuss the enrollment of passionate individuals under 18.
We welcome families with children to attend. This year we’re offering a youth camp called Eco-Explorers Adventure Week for 6-12 year old children that will run concurrently with Experience Week, Monday-Friday. This camp will allow your children to have an age-appropriate experience during the day with other children while you are learning the ins and outs of the Earthaven experiment. When the Adventure Week is not in session, the Experience Week participants’ children will be with their parents and the Experience Week group.
Sliding Scale Tuition
Because some people have more financial means than others, we have created a sliding scale fee system to accommodate a range of economic realities. The high-end of the scale reflects the value we believe the program holds, and the low-end offers a more accessible entry point.
By choosing a higher price point, you are helping make the program more accessible to others for whom the low-end may be cost-prohibitive. Please consider your needs and resources to determine what might be a stretch, but not a strain.
Cost
Note: Registration is closed for 2022. Registration for 2023 opens January 1, 2023.
Adults
Tuition Sliding Scale: $650-750 per adult
Youth
- Toddlers and young children (0-5 years): free
- Children (6-12 years): $500-600 includes kids day camp Monday-Friday, materials, and all meals. Register and pay for each child separately on the Eco-Explorers Adventure Week page.
- Teens (13-17 years): $250 for food
What’s Included
Tuition includes meals, instruction, and all materials. Accommodations as well as transportation are available for an additional cost.
Note: The program is full. Sometimes there are cancellations. Please contact us if you would like to be on the waiting list.
Scholarships
We offer partial scholarships (50% of the middle of the sliding scale) to black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) with financial needs who otherwise would not be able to afford to attend. We understand that BIPOC experience more financial and institutional barriers to participation, and this is one way we are able to create more access. If you identify as BIPOC with financial needs and would like to receive a scholarship, please contact us.
Logistics
Food
Delicious, omnivorous meals are prepared by talented culinary artists from the Earthaven community. Vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options available. Snacks and beverages (tea, coffee) are provided. Participants are invited to help with meal clean-up. Many hands make light work.
As much food as possible is sourced from Earthaven and its surrounding farms and gardens, with some ingredients sourced from local grocery stores. Our meals are created with seasonal, local, fresh, wildcrafted, humanely-raised, and organic ingredients.
***If you have dietary needs beyond the ones listed here, please be prepared to bring supplemental food to support your nourishment and well-being. Our kitchen simply cannot accommodate all diets.
Program Specific Info
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are included, Friday dinner through Thursday lunch.
Instructors
Earthaven Experience Programs Faculty Diana is author of Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities, about forming successful communities and ecovillages and Finding Community: How to Join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community. She speaks at conferences, offers consultations, and leads webinars and workshops internationally on starting successful new intentional communities, how existing communities can resolve conflicts and become more healthy and thriving, and sociocracy, a self-governance and decision-making method she finds especially effective for communities.
Diana Leafe Christian
Earthaven Experience Programs Faculty Chris has cleared his own farm field, designed and built passive solar homes using the wood from the trees he has killed (including his own Microhut), held leadership positions at Earthaven Ecovillage, raised turkeys, grown vegetables, co-founded the Forestry Cooperative, designed and installed multiple off-grid energy systems, and a few other things.
Chris Farmer
Faculty
Natalee Facey
Natalee was born on the island of Jamaica, where she credits her love of nature, and her love of laughter, song, and dance as expressions of life. After living in New York City for several years, she moved to Earthaven in June 2022. Natalee has been working as a Resilience Coach and Embodiment Healing Guide, helping people to alchemize difficult past experiences so they can reclaim their inner power.
Earthaven Experience Programs Faculty Dimitri is a naturalist, natural builder, and naturopathic doctor, one who teaches that wellness comes from cultivating a deep connection to the natural world. His other passions are nature awareness, foraging for food and medicine, gardening, and supporting bonds that engender a tightly-knit community.
Dimitrios Magiasis
In-person Programs Director, Faculty Throughout the last two decades, NikiAnne has been immersed in community and in service to a wide range of educational endeavors focused on nature connection, personal empowerment, and community resilience. No matter what she’s teaching, NikiAnne is always on the same mission: to raise awareness of our whole selves – gifts, passions, blind spots, shadows – and help those whole selves find and fill niches in their communities.
NikiAnne Feinberg
Faculty, Earthaven Co-Founder Writer, editor, designer, process-oriented educator, Arjuna turned 75 in October 2021 and is celebrating having landed at Earthaven, helping to build a sustainable community and non-profit education center. She designed and helped build an amazing natural house, and is still evolving ideas and programs for The Natural Building School and other regenerative methods and tools.
Arjuna da Silva
Earthaven Experience Programs Faculty, Farmer Liz has been getting her hands dirty in Western North Carolina since 2004. She runs a small subsistence farm at Earthaven, tending to a variety of animals and plants, including milk and beef "cows," pigs, laying hens, broiler chickens, turkeys, livestock guardian dogs, as well as grasses, cover crops, and silage crops of many varieties. 
Liz Díaz
Online Programs Director, Faculty Debbie has a lifelong passion for learning, including university degrees in geography, computer science, and technical communication. At Earthaven, she has been involved in governance, promotions, and partnership culture, and was a partner in the Useful Plants Nursery for eight years. She is currently drawing on her technical and management background to develop and promote SOIL online learning programs. Her current interests include growing fruits and nuts.
Debbie Lienhart