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A living laboratory for a sustainable human future.

Author: NikiAnne Feinberg

NikiAnne (she/her) was born and raised on a horse and cattle ranch on the ancestral lands of the Salinan people in the Central Coast of California. She currently lives at Earthaven Ecovillage on unceded lands of the Catawba and Cherokee (Tsalagi) people. Her ancestors come from Eastern and Western Europe — France, Germany, and English Isles as well as Belarus, Lithuania, and Russia, from Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. Throughout the last two decades, NikiAnne has been immersed in community and in service to a wide range of educational endeavors focused on nature connection, personal empowerment, and community resilience. NikiAnne considers herself the grease and glue – that which helps things run smoothly or holds things together. Before co-founding SOIL in 2012, she worked and traveled through much of Asia, the Americas, and Europe, which made her formal education at George Washington University in International Affairs come alive in ways that can only happen through personal experience and relationships. Collectively, these experiences have undeniably shaped her cooperative cultural values and commitment to supporting leaders to think, feel, act and design from a foundation rooted in interrelationship. No matter what she’s teaching, NikiAnne is always on the same mission: to raise awareness of our whole selves – gifts, passions, blind spots, shadows – and help those whole selves find and fill niches in their communities. This is how the web of life is woven, and the fabric of culture repaired. She’s especially eager to support those in transition – between vocations, stages of life, and stories of world and self. Within this context, she is particularly passionate about community grief tending and death care midwifery.

Village Kids Are Alive With Curiosity

The kids at Earthaven know way more local plants than they do corporate logos. I consider this a great success. In fact, when I bring friends to visit Earthaven Ecovillage, they’re always amazed at how present, enlivened, and curious the children are. Children at Earthaven are woven into the...

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My Firewood Stack

At Earthaven Ecovillage, we do a lot more “chop wood, carry water” than the average American. In some ways it makes life harder and in some ways it makes life better. Taking care of the physical world so that it can take care of me helps me stay embodied, humble, and connected to this great...

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Spend A Week At My Place

We will play, we will tour, we will work, we will talk, we will learn, we will connect, we will grow. If you’ve been thinking of visiting or moving or emulating or experiencing Earthaven Ecovillage, now is your chance. You will experience many aspects of our imperfect but valiant attempts...

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Can We Tell The Truth About Our World?

Maybe you’re a sensitive soul, like me. Or a deep thinking one. For folks like us, telling the truth about our world, like how its tendencies towards extractive, consumptive, and irreverent behaviors can be disheartening, actually brings some relief. Congruence between words and actions actually...

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Creating Community With Women

I first read Anita Diamant’s book, The Red Tent, back in 2007. A few years later, in 2012, at a women’s gathering, hundreds of us watched Things We Don’t Talk About: Women’s Stories from the Red Tent, which documented the growing movement. There was clearly a great need to share, discuss,...

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What Is Permaculture?

Our world is always looking for things to be boiled down to a soundbite. Sometimes complex things can’t be conveyed in a summary or a sentence. I recently found a phrase from an article entitled The Indigenous Science of Permaculture by Rohini Walker that, for me, conveys the essence of Permaculture: “An...

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Singing Snails And Rainbow Tails

Calling all childhood educators, teachers, counselors, parents, grandparents, and mentors. I don’t want you to miss out on this super informative (and also fun and inspiring) annual conference coming up June 18-20: Reaching Nature Connection: Singing Snails and Rainbow Tails. Singing from the...

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It Takes A Village

We recently revamped our entire outreach process. You’re hearing more from us by email. We’re making lots of videos to share with you. And we are engaging more on social media. During our first two decades on the ground at Earthaven we didn’t have much capacity for outreach. And sometimes...

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My Experiences With Permaculture

  My training with land and culture repair has fallen in the realms of deep ecology, nature connection, mentoring with the wild, wilderness awareness, and racial equity realms. Huge shout out to some of my mentors in these wisdom ways: Sobonfu Somé Warren Brush and the whole Quail Springs...

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