O.U.R.Ecovillage: Kids Camp!

I got a call Saturday night, 9pm, 2 weeks ago.

Brandy said "the person who was supposed to be running kids camp on monday cant anymore. If you still want to do work-trade for the E.A.T. course, can you come out? tomorrow?"

GUH.

I ran home, hyperventilating and sweating. I had applied months earlier to do work trade at OUR Ecovillage for the  EAT Course. EAT = Earth Activist Training, and it is the Permaculture Design Certificate course that Starhawk started and teachers. Why was i so rabid for this course? instead of re-capturing how i had been feeling, heres the blurb i sent my new permaculture friend Nicole in the UK describing my desires (sent months ago) :

"I am hungry for all permaculture skills (I have a lot of experience with
natural building, composting toilets, and rainwater catchment systems,
less experience with gardening), but what I'm looking for specifically is
a permaculture practice that places social justice at the center of the
work. I am very interested in permaculture as a lens on liberation. I am a
queer, feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist individual, and all of
these things are very tied in to permaculture for me. I believe that
permaculture has the ability to transform how people organize, how we
create self-sufficient alternatives to dominant structures, how we achieve
liberation of oppressed people, and how we shift activism from an
"anti-domination" stance to a "pro-liberation" stance. To me the
domination of women, of queers, of people of color, and of the earth are
all part of the same nasty mindset. I am most interested in projects that
have strong racial, gender, and economic diversity. I'm super excited
about learning from women and transfolk."

So basically i was searching for permaculture that had social justice at its core. i searched and searched, but was having a surprisingly hard time actually finding groups that were doing this work. lots of people sprinkle it on top, but really focusing on social permaculture? it was often an afterthought.

Starhawk is one of the founders of Eco-Feminism and modern Paganism; she is a huge social justice activist and one of the most important nonviolence advocates, particularly during the anti-nuclear movement of the 90s.nAnd I didn't know this at the time, but she's also super involved with, basically, organizational theory. How groups of people work. What sort of organizing is empowering, inspires action. What meetings make us sing and what meetings make us glaze over. How to achieve non-hierarchy, easier said than done. And ths is basically all of the stuff i think about all the damn time (thus, this blog.) Social Permaculture. give it to me.

ok ok ok ok ok okok okokokokokokokokok,
there needs to be more conversation about this class, which actually started a week ago. Spirituality, building, solutions, direction, acceptance, expansiveness, ritual, forgiveness, coalescence, magic, challenge, etc etc all come to mind. seriously folks, this shit is poppin off and we gotta chat. but for now, let's get back to that phone call.

Basically, it was ridiculous and meant taking a plane, but i couldn't turn away from this. i had been holding this in my heart for months. i found out a had a bunch of miles that would expire unless i used them, and on monday morning i was on a 6am plan bound for Victoria, BC, Canada. Tuesday morning, Kids Camp! began!

and it was great. no one involved knew they would be earlier than the thursday before it started (thats 4 days). there were 16 kids, ages 5-10. 3 counselors. Us counselors joked often about how crazy it all was - all thrown into it, no schedule, everything and i mean just about everything off the cuff. but the kids were so creative and amazing, kind and ready to learn. and this place, this place. this place is an endless well of fun stuff to do, cause guess what, that's what happens when communities come together and decide to do stuff. this ecovillage is full of projects, from farm work and animal care to building with mud and clay and making your own butter and wandering in the woods. we actually pulled it off because the community held space for the kids, because us counselors were badass at checking in about each others needs and boundaries, and because this sort of place is ripe with spaces to learn. oh, and mostly cause the kids were amazing. if anything our realization that it was actually chaotic was the most negative part of kids camp, cause the actual days went very well.

it's a funny thing. Brandy, the director of OUR Ecovillage, kind of irresponsibly dumped a huge load on 3 unknowing people, assuming theyd figure it out. And we grumbled that it was irresponsible, but you know what? She was right. We figured it out. And it was great. Learning can be funny.