2026 Courses + RECAP of Summer PDC & Internships
Social Forestry camp: Feb 20-23 & Feb 23-27
Inspired by Hazel Ward of Siskiyou Permaculture, Social Forestry is a framework for culture tending that weaves ecological stewardship with ritual, seasonal work, and place-based living. This camp is a co-created gathering of land tending, play, practice in salon conversation, ecological knowledge, and skill share. Click here for more information.
Community Experience Week: May 3-9, July 19-25, & Oct 18-24
Join one of the three sessions offered in 2026 to learn about the principles, systems, and practices that make life at Lost Valley possible! This is an opportunity for those who are curious about living in an intentional community and want to learn more about the tools, skills, values, and attributes that are useful when engaging in any sort of community with others. Click here to learn more.
Permaculture Design Certificate Course (PDC): June 27 - Aug 16
The Lost Valley PDC will introduce you to a wide range of subjects, including water management, farming, forestry, composting, animal husbandry, governance techniques like sociocracy, and community organizing. Design your current or future property, or pursue an ethical livelihood in environmental or land-based jobs. Click here for more information.
Eco-Resilience Leadership Training (ERLT): June 15 - Aug 16
This training offers us the opportunity to develop our inner strength, grow as teachers and guides, and become more consciously attuned to the subtle, profound teachings of the more-than-human world. Learn ancestral skills such as friction fire, ethical wildcrafting, tracking, sensory awareness, hide tanning, council, and more as you live and grow in community. Click here to learn more.
Cob Camp: May 22-25 & June 5-8
Join us for a hands-on immersive workshop in natural building for people with little to no prior experience! Join one or both sessions to learn how to create functional, beautiful structures using just three simple materials: clay, sand, and straw. Click here for more information.
Uywanakuy Ancestral Arts Workshop: Dates TBA
We are excited to invite our Andean-Amazonian teachers back again in Summer 2026 for another exploration into the recuperation of place-based ancestral arts and culture! Explore stewardship and regenerative agriculture through symbol, story, song, dance, traditional calendars, and more. Inquire here to receive direct updates.
Internship Program:
Spring Term: March 7 - May 30
Summer Term: June 15 - Sept 4
Fall Term: Oct 5 - Dec 18
Apply for a 3-month internship to develop skills and experience in ecological land stewardship and regenerative agriculture. This is a hands-on, in-depth, experiential learning opportunity in the practices of permaculture, equitable community governance, and cooperative living. Learn more about internship opportunities here!
Testimonials:
Take a look at what our students are saying about these opportunities…
Mary, 2025 Permaculture Design Course Student:
"I definitely feel better equipped to address the challenges of climate adaptation and food access. One of my favorite sections of the course had to do with specific techniques for emotional processing of the anxiety we all feel when it comes to processing and dealing with the daily assault of ecological crisis on our psyches."
Aspen, 2025 Summer Intern & PDC Student:
"My ability to read the landscape and think systematically about solutions has expanded drastically…I feel comfortable making stewardship decisions in regenerative work in ways that I have never felt empowered to do so before. I also have gained practical skills, like how to use a chainsaw, how to select for tree removal, how to coppice, how to prune, how to graft, how to plant trees, how to care for a garden through the seasons, plant identification, ecological relationships, movement of water across a landscape, and much more…the despair that has gripped me for most of my life has loosened its grip.”
Sean, Summer 2025 Permaculture Internship:
“I learned land tending techniques, how to use tools such as chainsaws, loppers, broadknife, and axes properly, as well as trail maintenance, wood stacking, and more. In the garden, I learned how to weed, harvest, wash produce, prepare beds, identify different plants, and more…A strong part of this internship was how it cultivated a healthy work environment. I felt a prioritization of my emotional health and personal needs.”
Vanessa, 2025 Education and Outreach Intern:
“I learned how to organize events, bring people from different backgrounds and life experiences together in co-creative and collaborative containers, along with the logistical and administration skills that make all of these opportunities possible. Within the container of intentional community living, I learned about many of the structures, processes, and personal dispositions that allow for deeper co-creation among diverse individuals and interests. It felt fulfilling and balanced in the ways that I was able to pursue my passions, creativity, and purpose in collaboration and reciprocity with the greater vision of the community and education center.
Dani, Spring 2025 Permaculture Internship:
"This experience deepened my understanding of what community resilience and ecological health truly mean in practice not just as concepts, but as living systems that require relationship building. I now see how sustainability can't be separate from culture and community, and how addressing climate change and food access involves both ecological land tending practices and social/governance systems that support collaboration and care. I’m coming to really understand that humans are meant to be an integral part of the land, and we can benefit the land!"
Amali, Summer 2025 Permaculture Internship:
"I believe the most valuable skill I have developed in this community-based permaculture internship involves growing my sense of self-awareness and self-agency within the context of navigating adversity in relationships. Lost Valley's focus on open and compassionate communication and consensus decision-making, coupled with the internship’s structures for social-emotional processing (e.g. regular intern meetings for check-in and feedback), supported the development of these fundamental social resiliency skills."
Summer recap: PDC & Internships
As we embrace this Fall season, we'd like to take a moment of appreciation for our Summer 2025 interns, students, and teachers from this year's Permaculture Design Certificate Course (PDC) and internship programs!
We had a great cohort this year of both PDC students and interns – beautiful people of all ages who are now more equipped to affect regenerative changes in their communities and environments. Whether that means taking this knowledge back to their family and community gardens, or pursuing any number of careers in consulting, education, and ecological restoration, we trust that these seeds of knowledge will find their place and be multiplied!
From the garden to the forest, to the classroom and the community, Permaculture is a comprehensive design philosophy that mimics nature’s patterns to create sustainable, self-sufficient systems for living together, growing food, and stewarding land. Students had the opportunity to apply this knowledge to real-world permaculture projects across our 87 acres of land in the lush Willamette Valley, gaining valuable experience in design, implementation, and project management. Permaculture is not without its biases and historical flaws, but it is certainly an important step in the right direction towards communities, cultures, and relationships of greater integrity and thriving!
And of course, a huge thank you to our world-class educators for guiding this course and giving their ALL to the work of ecological and cultural regeneration. Here are some of the amazing teachers and lessons we got to share this year:
☀️ Dan Wahpepah on patterns in nature, decolonization & re-indigenization
⛰️ Hazel Ward on Social Forestry, trees & forest ecology, and broad-scale land design
💧 Abel Kloster on earthworks, water cycles and systems, and regional watershed management strategies
🌱 Andrew Millison on large scale community water harvesting within and beyond the Cascadia bioregion
🦔 Jude Hobbs on multifunctional hedgerows
🏡 Bryan Burnoski on natural building and design
🏙️ Monica Ibacache on ultra-urban permaculture for future generations
🍎 Kara Huntermoon (lead instructor) on wetlands permaculture, micro-climates, Social Permaculture, Liberation Listening, microbiology, waste & bio-remediation, animal integration, & more!
🌳 & Brian Byers holding it down as our resident lead instructor and Land Steward at Lost Valley, orchestrating this awesome possibility for us!
PDC design project presentations at Lost Valley’s classroom!
Lost Valley Summer 2025 Intern Meeting
Summer 2025 Internships
Most of our Summer intern cohort also participated in the PDC through scholarships and work trades, as well as other opportunities provided during the Summer, such as the Echoes in Time primitive skills gathering and ancestral arts workshop with Andean-Amazonian lineage keepers.
We are so grateful in so many ways for these bright hearts and minds that make so much of what we do here at Lost Valley possible!
Now, Fall internship is well underway as the land transforms once again with the return of the autumn rains and cool winds. We are celebrating the slower rhythms and spaciousness of these darker months with cozy community gatherings, reflection, art, and connection…preparing our vision for the return of the Sun and new cycles of growth.
We wish you joy, grace, and restfulness in this new cycle. May your harvests be plentiful and your hearth fire burn bright!
“May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.”
― John O’Donohue from To Bless the Space Between Us
In Gratitude,
Lost Valley Education Center
