Building bridges for Community Resilience
June RECAP & Upcoming offerings
We're still buzzing like busy, creative bees from recent events at Lost Valley, gathering nectar, seeds, and building bridges for regenerative, resilient ways of being with Life & each other. We'd like to share with you some major highlights from June as well as update you on upcoming opportunities to plug in, in case you missed out!
We also recently welcomed our newest resident to Lost Valley, a healthy happy baby girl born June 23rd! May all our children and grandchildren receive the inheritance of a coherent, resilient, and peaceful community, and may all these bridges we are building be but stepping stones for them to achieve far greater heights than we can even dream of!
What kind of bridges are we building, do you ask?
Bridges between cultures, weaving both local and intercontinental relationships.
Bridges between times and spaces, linking past and future, ancestral, Indigenous, and modern life-ways…bringing together different generations to share and enjoy the land.
Bridges between hearts and minds, cultivating containers for deep connections and alliances to form and grow.
Bridges between the human and natural world, as we practice opening our eyes and ears to the wonder and wisdom of the non-human world, the elements, our plant and animal relatives.
Bridges for individual and collective transition, as we learn how to become better stewards of our body, the land, and the greater weaving of relationship that we exist within and through.
And now, here's what bridges for community resilience look like in action!
One week ago, with deep gratitude, several new self-made crafts in hand, and many a teary eye, we closed this year's ancestral skills conference, Echoes in Time, at Lost Valley. Over the course of a week, over 300 people of all backgrounds and ages busied their hearts, minds, and hands to learn and teach ancestral skills. This included a wide variety of hands-on crafts and tools, as well as social technologies for conflict resolution and communication. Children roamed and played, sometimes appearing with berries from the land, absorbed in a personal carving or craft project, or drenched neck to toe in fresh clay from the natural building station!
The group was respectful to the space as well as to each other, cultivating an environment of tolerance, safety, and enjoyment for all. Many participants expressed profound gratitude for the sense of belonging they felt within this community and the way they were received with such kindness and respect from others. Thanks to everyone who made this event a success!
Andean-Amazonian Lineage Keepers arrived at Lost Valley in Mid-June to share the art and practice of uywanakuy: mutual upraising within relationship. We studied together universal ancestral tools for community cohesion and connection to Place through dance, story, song, fermentation, regenerative farming, and ceremony. We tapped into deeper wellsprings of resilience through the cultivation of joy, celebration, and the memory of our origin. With each step of the dance, our force of will and commitment to life was affirmed and strengthened. And like good teachers do, NuhJay left us with more questions than answers…
What happens when we invert paradigms founded on competition and scarcity, to systems of abundance rooted in relationship? What happens when we invest in the growth of the other, and make time for the cultivation of our he(art)? What happens when we mutually upraise one another in friendship, love, parenthood, business, community, and in our relationship to the land? Does not our food raise us, as we raise it, and the lend tend us, and we tend it? What happens when remember and align ourselves to the natural governance of cycles, water ways, mountains, laws of reciprocity and mutual care?
The sounds of flutes, harmonicas, and joyful marching feet still echo in the forests and hearts of Lost Valley as we continue to integrate the gifts of this exchange. We also look forward to welcoming our family from the South back again in the future! If you would like to be notified directly about future opportunities to connect with NuhJay, please send an email to vanessam@lostvalley.org.
The Permaculture Design Course at Lost Valley Education Center is more than just a class – it's a catalyst for individual, community, and land regeneration. This is where the rubber hits the road when it comes to holistic sustainability and resilience!
By learning how to grow and harvest their own food, students can help build resilient local food systems that can withstand economic and environmental challenges. By applying Permaculture principles and forming cooperative partnerships, students can help restore degraded lands, conserve natural resources, and promote biodiversity. The course also fosters resilience through relationship; students have an opportunity to develop a deeper relationship to local ecosystems, watersheds, and to one another.
Check out some of our free community resilience workshops below for some awesome overlapping opportunities with our PDC instructors, such as Dan Wahpepah tomorrow, July 5th!
You can read more about our PDC here.
After a 2-Day Cob Camp in Mid-June and another 2-days of workshops during Echoes in Time, Lost Valley's sauna has been both beautified and fortified! Mud was mixed and foundation rocks were placed by all ages, skill sets, and experience levels. Other community members and interns also pulled through when our Natural Building instructor, Bryan Burnoski, injured his back. It certainly takes a village to make these wonderful events and learning opportunities possible!
“Joyful play and freedom is what kids like. I like the smiles. I was really amused by the little girl putting on a muddy sock in the muddy clay pit I created just for kids (photo below). Young and old…great fun was had by all! I am always amazed at how cob is the great equalizer. It's so very democratic and inclusive, meaning anyone can join and there will always be a place for you.” - Bryan
July 2025 Community Resilience Workshops:
ENJOY!
Wherever and however this message finds you, may you find resilience and abundance in the many threads of relationship and possibility alive within and around you this season.
We wish you peace, joy, and harmonious communication to rise above all the noise, distraction, and division of today's world. Life is constantly offering incredible gifts and ample opportunities for learning, growth, celebration, and service…for those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to receive!
Thanks for reading!
