Earthaven Ecovillage Visitor's Week

If you are interested in living more sustainably or potentially joining Earthaven, our program will help you get taste of life in our ecovillage.

You’ll experience extensive tours of natural & green buildings, Earthaven member owned businesses.  You will participate in special presentations on Earthaven governance, homesteading, membership, & history, Council meeting, Member Panel Discussion.  You will have the opportunity to attend community work parties, village potlucks, yoga, a game night & more!

The week includes lodging, food, and presentations. The price is $800 for camping and $875 for dorm-style lodging.  Very limited private lodging is available. The program will be limited to 10 to 12 people. The deadline for full payment is August 17, 2011.  To apply, please contact us with a letter of introduction—see website for specifics:  www.earthaven.org or email visiting (@) earthaven.org



More about Earthaven taken from our website:


Imagine it's summer at Earthaven, an aspiring ecovillage settlement nestled in the forested slopes of the Southern Appalachians. Along with murmuring streams and birdsong, you hear the sounds of human activity, of people building their common future together, of children at play...

You hear the sound of power tools and home construction, often with lumber from trees felled on the land. This is the sound of liberation. Using our own lumber and hiring each other to build our homes frees us from banks and the timber industry while keeping materials and money within our village economy. These are radical acts. We're learning to practice ecologically responsibile forestry and agriculture; to develop natural building systems that sustain forest health, create jobs, and generate renewable energy through good design. We intend to become empowered, responsible, ecologically literate citizens, modeling bioregionally appropriate culture for our time and place.

Founded in 1994, Earthaven is located on 320 acres in culturally rich, biologically diverse western North Carolina, about 40 minutes southeast of Asheville. We are dedicated to caring for people and the Earth by learning and demonstrating a holistic, sustainable culture.

Lying between 2000 and 2600 feet elevation, our forested mountain land consists of three converging valleys with abundant streams and springs, flood plains, bottom land, and steeper ridge slopes.

We intend to become a village of at least 150 people on 56 homesites. In recent year's Earthaven's membership has been around 60 members, with about 50 living on the land. Our permaculture site plan includes residential neighborhoods and compact business sites, as well as areas suitable for orchards, market gardens, and wetlands.

Much of Earthaven is still under construction. Physical infrastructure so far includes roads, footpaths, bridges, campgrounds, ponds, constructed wetlands, off-grid power systems, gardens, our Council Hall, a kitchen-dining room, many small dwellings, and several homes.

We govern ourselves with a consensus decision-making process and a Council and committee structure. We own title to our land, which we financed with private loans from members. Members pay their share of the cost of the land by leasing homesites from the community.

We value sustainable ecological systems, permaculture design, elegant simplicity, right livelihood, and healthy social relations. We are spiritually diverse. We have both vegetarians and omnivores; some members raise livestock.

Our small ecologically sound businesses include a permaculture plant nursery; carpentry and home construction; tool-rental; solar system installation; plumbing and electrical installation; candle-lanterns and other wooden craft items; and consultants and courses in permaculuture design, natural building, creating new ecovillages, herbal medicine, and women's health.

Morganic wrote:
The week includes lodging, food, and presentations. The price is $800 for camping and $875 for dorm-style lodging. 

Wow, that sounds really expensive!  Does that come with a certificate of some sort?  >$100/day for camping?!?

Chad,

I can understand if this is more than you are comfortable investing in a community experience.  Earthaven started their immersion week last fall because of the overwhelming desire people have to experience life at an ecovillage.  The costs for the immersion reflect 3 meals per day, camping or lodging while on site, workshops, community meetings, tours and much more.  Attendees of the immersion are not required to work while at Earthaven, the week is filled with activities, and workshops that will fill your time.  The spring 2011 event was full, and people were placed on a waiting list for the fall immersion. 

Earthaven also offers work exchange opportunities as they come available for little cost.  These are through specific members, and not directly offered by Earthaven.  Work exchangers must fulfill their duties to their host as well as the community in addition to any activities they desire to attend.  Here is a bit more from the website:

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Live and Work at Earthaven positions are by arrangement with various hosts—Earthaven members who are working on their site development, buildings, businesses, or gardens. Positions are arranged privately between you and the host (at this time, Earthaven does not have positions sponsored by the community). We also sometimes have rentals available that involve less work and more money. Workers and renters are part of Earthaven's New Roots program, which includes orientations, regular check-ins, and other activities for support and accountability.

Earthaven members expect a lot of themselves and they expect a lot of you too. Earthaven is a working, building, living environment, and most of the work is hard, physical labor outdoors—digging, hauling, building. Learning by doing, in a service role, is very different from today’s formal education. Like many hands-on experiences, you may not realize what you have learned and the value of your experience until months or years later!

A standard position at Earthaven is 24 hours a week: 20 hours a week in exchange for hosting, food, and camping, plus 4 hours a week for Earthaven. There are, however, a wide variety of arrangements, depending on what the host expects and offers. See below for positions that may be currently available. If you are interested in one of these opportunities, please contact the host directly.
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Cheers,

Morgan

Chad wrote:
Wow, that sounds really expensive!  Does that come with a certificate of some sort?  >$100/day for camping?!?

Sorry for the unclarity -- It's not $100 a day for camping, that is for the entire program, including food, events, classes, entertainment.