Training
Training in hunter-gatherer living and nature skills sharpens our ability to see life as it is and develop hand and eye coordination, placing us into an environment where we must observe and create what we need in an immediate and balanced way. If our assumptions are correct then there is still an enormous need to communicate information about these topics and related eco-agricultural and sustainable technological systems to students, educators, administrators, politicians, the media, farmers, architects, ranchers and the like. The dual approach of theory and practice is specifically project-based. Along with practical projects that we will tackle during the training, we will also be building communication skills, thoughtful introspection and the ability to enhance our work in the future with prospective clientele in whatever profession we choose or at our home site.
You will learn about leading trends in sustainable agriculture, i.e. Permaculture, Biodynamic Agriculture, Bio-intensive gardening, the eco-agriculture movement as purported by Acres USA, organic systems, the natural way of farming of Masanobu Fukuoka and indigenous systems of agriculture. You also learn about renewable energy systems (wind, water, solar), ecological building practices (straw bale, cob, earthbag, etc.) and everything from tool-making to animal husbandry. The curriculum includes all of these systems and merges them into a working whole.
Based on an understanding of the basic principles and ethics expounded during the course you will be able to evaluate your work in the field through an applied set of ideas that move from the whole to the specific. With astute observation and an understanding of essential and cyclical patterns found in the natural world you will be able to help yourselves and others to lift the veil of the landscape and create new ideas based on the archetypal energies and forms which give birth to all the diversified elements and interactions on the farm, in the garden, the home site, the village, suburbs and city.