Fall Ecology and Harvest Festival : An Intergenerational Exploration

On the weekend of October 13-14, 2007, the Nature Center hosted its second major event of the year, co-sponsored this time by NextGEN (the youth branch of the Global Ecovillage Network). Our thanks to the forty-three people who participated in the Fall Ecology and Harvest Gathering. Every attendee and presenter we've talked to seems to have had a high-quality experience. What the event lacked in numbers of people and in intergenerational mix (we'd been hoping for more of both) seemed compensated for by the quality of what happened: a rich mix of presentations, discussions, walks, and activities.


Esther Stutzman started us off Saturday morning with an hour of Kalapuyan storytelling, history, reflection, and answering questions. Bill Burwell, Jerry Hall, Dharmika Henschel, Jude Hobbs, and Rick Valley then gave presentations and led the rest of the morning's discussion of indigenous tradition in this region and how it can intersect with and be reinforced by modern approaches such as Permaculture. The group continued the explorations of indigenous land management that started at May's Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering (see www.lostvalley.org/nature2007may), and Jerry and Dharmika also described their work with the Ethnobotany Resource Area Project in the West Eugene Wetlands (www.ifcae.org/projects/wewera). Jude and Rick will be co-teaching our upcoming Permaculture Design Course (see below).

Saturday afternoon, Rick Valley, Marcus, Lorusso, and Chris Roth facilitated a tour and harvest activities on the land, followed by a NextGEN presentation by Ali Rosenblatt (see http://ecovillage.wikia.com/wiki/Nextgen). The evening featured music by Dharmika Henschel, followed by a small-group singalong.

Sunday morning was also rich. Sharon Blick (former director, School Garden Project--see www.efn.org/~sgp), Jen Anonia (Food for Lane County Garden Programs Manager--see www.foodforlanecounty.org/Programs/Gardens/index.html), and Sarah Kleeger and Andrew Still (the Seed Ambassadors Project--see www.seedambassadors.org) all talked about their projects, which seek to increase the connections with food that youth and adults alike experience through gardening and through the vital acts of seed-saving, -selecting, variety-preservation, and plant breeding.

On Sunday afternoon, ethnobotanist Tobias Policha (see www.foodnotlawns.com/contemporary_ethnobotany.html) and lichenologist Dave Kofranek co-led a fascinating walk through our woods, focusing on vascular plants, nonvascular plants, and lichens, all of which thrive here in great abundance and diversity (see www.lostvalley.org/files/Lost%20Valley%20Native%20Plant%20Species%20List%200407.pdf and www.lostvalley.org/files/Nonvascular%20Plants,%20Lichen,%20Fungi.pdf). We gave thanks for a sunny weekend and the harvest of learning, connection, and discovery that it brought.

Again, we are grateful to everyone who participated in this event or who helped us spread word about it!

Cosponsors:
Lost Valley Nature Center
Lost Valley Educational Center’s 87 acres include oak savanna, natural meadow, stream and riparian areas, ponds, extensive forest lands in various states of maturity, gardens and orchards. Our diverse habitats and several miles of nature trails offer unique environmental education opportunities. Lost Valley Nature Center sponsors walks and public events (like May’s Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering) to help nature-lovers learn from the land and from one another.

NextGEN
NextGEN is a global network organized by young adults concerned with issues of sustainability. We hope to inspire you with examples of viable and positive choices for the future. We offer opportunities for action through conferences, educational workshops, and direct experience in communities. Our international support network develops connections among activists and encourages resource sharing.


Excerpts from May’s Native Plants and Permaculture Conference Proceedings:

Bill Burwell: At the start of each harvest season the Kalapuyans would have a first gathering ceremony. The spiritual leader of each winter village site would harvest a few articles of each resource, bring it back, prepare it in a ceremonial way, bless the plants or animals that were responsible, and then the regular harvest could begin. The first gathering ceremony was very important to them, and it was practiced all throughout the Kalapuya culture, religiously. Their belief was that all plants and animals, including humans, were part of the same format. As above, so below. Just like humans, plants and all animals had families, and then beyond the families they had communities.

There’s one word I know of that was utilized all the way up and down the Willamette Valley, the lower Columbia, and into the Salish area in Washington: Tamanawas. It’s been translated as spirit power. People who went out on a vision quest were looking for their Tamanawas. I think what it really related to was a person’s ability to interconnect with all the rest of nature. I’ve collected a number of tales of the people going out into the woods to find a particular medicine, and their ability to find this medicine came from the ability to plug into that certain plant and interact with it. The plant actually was the teacher of the person who was going out on the search.

Jerry Hall: When we started learning our language, songs began coming to us. There is the belief that songs are just in the ether or in the air, and they select somebody to come to at a time in that person’s life. … My experience is that singing evokes something from us that is beyond talking and gives expression to prayer.

I feel that nature is really part of the home and that people related that way five hundred years ago. People knew where everything was and they took care of it.

Attachment	Size
Fall Ecology and Harvest brochure.pdf	643.65 KB
Fall Ecology and Harvest poster.pdf	816.15 KB