UPCOMING EVENTS & HANDS-ON WORKSHOPS
See 2008 Summer Schedule in its entirety.
UPCOMING MONDAY NIGHT MEETINGS
**PLEASE NOTE** All 2008 Monday Night Meetings will be held at Reversing Falls Sanctuary in North Brooksville. Click here for directions.
Monday Night Meetings begin at 7:00pm. There will be a potluck dinner beginning at 5:30pm. Suggested donation is $5. Click here for the full 2008 Summer Schedule.
August 4 Rob Shetterly & Terry Tempest Williams, Mountain Top Removal and America’s Resource Wars
Painter and activist Robert Shetterly will be joined by author and activist Terry Tempest Williams for the August 4 Monday Night Meeting, sponsored by The Good Life Center and held at Reversing Falls Sanctuary in Brooksville. The subject of the talk will be “Mountain Top Removal and America’s Resource Wars”. Shetterly and Williams will speak about their experiences opposing mountain top removal and mining in Kentucky and California, respectively. Shetterly is the creator of the “Americans Who Tell the Truth” series which includes over 100 portraits and a book by the same title. He will unveil his recently completed portrait of Scott Nearing, to be housed at The Good Life Center in Harborside. Williams is the author of numerous books, including The Open Space of Democracy and Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. There will be an informal pot luck dinner at 5:30pm followed by the formal presentation and portrait unveiling at 7:00pm. The Good Life Center’s Monday Night Meetings are free and open to the public. Donations are welcome. For more information or directions to Reversing Falls Sanctuary contact 326-8211.
August 11, Ellie Kastanoplous, Gaining Ground: Buying Land in a Crazy Market
Malcolm X said that “Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality.” On Monday, August 11, Equity Trust director Ellie Kastanopolous will present ways of making that vision a reality. Equity Trust is a small, national non-profit organization committed to changing the spirit and character of our material relationships. Through technical assistance, outreach, education, and community investment, Equity Trust pursues their goal of helping communities to gain ownership interests in their food, land, and housing, and they work with people to make economic changes that balance the needs of individuals with the needs of the community, the earth, and future generations.
UPCOMING SUMMER COURSES
The Ecological Self and the World: From Fear to Action
Spend the weekend and beautiful and inspirational Forest Farm enrolled in The Ecological Self and the World, an intensive weekend designed to broaden our collective understanding of it means to be ecological citizens and what it takes on the personal, local, and global level to make the world more just and sustainable. The first part of the workshop is led by Phoebe Phelps, MA, DMin, Eco-Psychologist and Spiritual Director in Orland with a background in Transpersonal Psychology, Matthew Fox’s Creation Spirituality, and the East/West inter-religious dialogue. Phoebe will help participants deepen and clarify their understanding of the ecological self and prepare the group for taking the step from fear and despair to action.
Leading the second half of the workshop is Bob St.Peter, executive director of The Good Life Center and community activist. Bob will help the group find their “sweet spot”, the place where skills, ability, and interest meet and where we can be most effective (and affective!) on a personal, community, and global level. Inventor, entrepreneur, and humanist Buckminster Fuller said: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Cost: $150 per person, $250 per couple. Includes course, seasonal vegetarian meals, and a place to pitch a tent or lay a sleeping bag.
COURSE AGENDA
Participants are asked to bring to the workshop an item from the natural environment around their home, perhaps a leaf, a rock, some bark, maybe some soil. Meals are vegetarian and are prepared using seasonal, local ingredients. If you have allergies or restrictions please call at least one week prior to make arrangements.
FRIDAY 6:00pm Dinner
7:30pm Ingathering, getting acquainted, and self-recognition as ecological citizens. Fire circle.
SATURDAY
7:00am – 8:00am Bread labor at Forest Farm. Activities may include light garden work, gathering firewood from the forest or seaweed from the beach
8:00am–9:00am Breakfast
9:15am–12:00pm Deepening Our Awareness of Our Irrevocable Embeddedness in the Natural World
12:00pm–2:00pm Lunch & Tour of Eliot Coleman’s Four Season Farm 2:15pm – 5:00pm Clarifying Our Ecological Citizenship on an Increasingly Interdependent Planet
5:30pm–7:00pm Dinner
8:00pm Further discussion, music or chanting. A sauna will be available and a pond for swimming
SUNDAY
7:00am–8:00am Bread labor
8:00am–9:00am Breakfast
9:15am–12:00pm Finding Your “Sweet Spot” – the place where your skills, passion, and interests meet and where we can be most effective (and affective) as advocates for a just and sustainable world. The morning will conclude with each participant identifying actions they can take in their personal lives and their local and global community.
12:00pm Lunch
1:00pm–2:00pm Departure
UPCOMING HANDS-ON WORKSHOPS
August 30 Introduction to Seed Saving
9:00am – 1:00pm The Good Life Center at Forest Farm
Learn the basics of seed saving and tour the seed saving program of Forest Farm. This workshop will cover how to save seed from a number of common garden vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Includes information on annuals and biennials. The cost for this workshop is $15-$25, sliding scale, and includes a seasonal, vegetarian lunch. For more information call 326-8211. Space is limited so please register early.
See 2008 Summer Schedule in its entirety.
Posted by Joel | June 20, 2008
Topics: Hands-On Workshops, Monday Night Meetings, Workshops | No Comments »
THE GOOD LIFE CENTER CELEBRATES 10 YEARS WITH RELEASE OF 2008 SUMMER SCHEDULE
The Good Life Center at Forest Farm in Harborside, Maine, is pleased to announce the release of its 2008 summer schedule. This year marks the 10th anniversary of The Good Life Center and this year’s Hands-On Workshops, Monday Night Meetings, and courses in simpler living reflect its continued commitment to simple living, social justice, and ecological sanity.
Forest Farm was created in the 1970’s by pioneering homesteaders Helen and Scott Nearing. The Good Life Center was founded in 1998 to preserve Forest Farm and operate The Good Life Center for charitable and educational purposes. For a decade, The Good Life Center has been a successful living museum and educational homestead, providing over 16,000 people the opportunity to tour the one-acre subsistence farm and the Nearing’s famous hand-built stone buildings. Access to the
4,000-volume personal Nearing library is available on-site for scholars and visitors. The Good Life Center offers hands-on workshops, a weekly Monday Night Meeting speaker series, weekend retreats, and week-long courses in simpler living. Call ahead to arrange a group visit or special program.
Download the 2008 Summer Schedule here.
To learn more about Monday Night Meetings and Hands on Workshops click here.
Link to find out about our course in simpler living. Click to learn more about Helen and Scott Nearing.
Posted by Joel | June 9, 2008
Topics: Hands-On Workshops, Monday Night Meetings, Workshops | No Comments »
Seeking Sustainability Course To be Offered Again
Seeking Sustainability: An Exploration of Simple Living for Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
August 3-8, 2008 at Forest Farm
Simple living is an idea that has had a strong grip on the American imagination for at least 300 years. More than anything else, ideas of the simple life have consistently served as a counter-cultural alternative to an emerging American emphasis on individual consumption. At its heart are three related concerns: how to live well, live right and leave the world a better place than you found it. These concerns are most often expressed in three consistent practices: material simplicity, development of an inner life and civic or community engagement.
In this intensive, informed by Helen and Scott’s legacy, we will combine ideas and experiences to explore different aspects of the simple life, and attempt to answer for ourselves what it means to live well, live right and leave the world a better place than we found it. Each day, we will focus on a particular set of “critical” ideas, approaching them through hands-on experiences, field trips and discussion.. The “critical ideas” include nonviolence, community economics, food as a personal and political expression, homesteading, composting, ecological footprinting and leading an integrated life. Each of these ideas offers a philosophical concept, a set of skills and some options that can help with simpler living. We’ll talk, as well, about the challenges faced by those practicing simple living in a variety of contexts.
Taking place at Forest Farm, the final homestead of simple living pioneers Helen and Scott Nearing, this “intensive” is intended to give participants ideas, encouragement and support on their journeys to simplifying their lives. Coached by Bob St. Peter, executive director and organic chef, we’ll also prepare our food as a community – eating locally, healthy, and well on a small budget.
We can help you arrange for college credit for the seminar on a case-by-case basis. Please contact The Good Life Center for more information. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Potato Beetle | June 9, 2008
Topics: Workshops | No Comments »
2007 Monday Night Meetings
Recordings of many of the 2007 Monday Night Meetings are posted. Look for the page to the left.
Posted by Joel | June 8, 2008
Topics: Monday Night Meetings | Comments Off
A farmer in the city
I recently traveled to Washington, DC. What a change from the small peninsula I live on in Maine. I had a hard time keeping up with the pace of things. I had a hard time keeping up with the lights, consumerism, noise, power and the heat. I kept looking around at every open piece of land and thinking that it could easily be growing food. I finally happened upon a neighborhood where everyone had their front lawn covered not in grass, but in crops. There was cabbage, tomatoes, greens. These people were gardening! It was evening and I saw no one around, but I want to return one day and see if these people know show Scott and Helen Nearing were. I want to know if they’re trying to live their own Good Life. It calmed me in that crazy city.
Posted by Joel | June 8, 2008
Topics: Resident Stew: The Resident Stewards' Blog | 1 Comment »
Working for money
I’ve had the opportunity lately to work away from the homestead for someone else doing gardening. I have worked, thinking most of the time, why Scott and Helen wanted to work for themselves. When I work for money, I feel I have to be productive. When I work on my own homestead, I hope to be productive, but if I’m not, I let no one down except myself. I don’t like making money. It makes me dislike my job from the very beginning because it puts a value on me. Maybe my work is not something that can have a value put on it. I’m done with the job now. I’m glad of it , too, as I can return to the life Scott and Helen intended me to live and the life that I enjoy more. Working for myself, not for a paycheck, not for money, but for the Good Life.
Posted by Joel | May 12, 2008
Topics: Resident Stew: The Resident Stewards' Blog | 2 Comments »
The Learning Curve
I was doing some minor, minor plumbing today and I have never plumbed. I know nothing about plumbing. I began thinking about my entire generation and how little we know about living in a way that doesn’t need specialists to take care of all of the things we don’t know how to do. Now, perhaps specialists are needed and I’ll survive just fine, but I suspect that I will be better served by having a general knowledge about a lot of things and being able to do more things for myself. I then wondered if I would be able to learn all of these things. On top of that, I thought of what I do know above and beyond the “average” person my age and I began to wonder if they’d be able to catch up if the time came that it was needed. Is the learning curve too great? Have we gotten too far away from the lifestyle where you could do things for yourself? I hope not. My plumbing leaks though and so back to it I go to see how I can fix it. I keep on learning.
Posted by Joel | May 5, 2008
Topics: Resident Stew: The Resident Stewards' Blog | 4 Comments »
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