The Braided Pathway
>>A Spring Lifestyle Immersion<<
A 7 week in-person land-based immersion weaving together the skills of forest management for watershed regeneration, timber-framing, and garden cultivation; braided with internal healing arts practice, wisdom traditions, music and study of the stars.
The Braided Pathways will provide you with an immersive and holistic experience in land-based living, seasonal learning, and self care that will change your life forever.
March 29th - May 18th, 2025
with the week of April 28th to May 4th off (Spring Break!)
Applications due by February 1, 2025
What is a Lifestyle Immersion?
A Lifestyle Immersion is a guided seasonal experience that contextualizes the elements of land-based-off-grid-living into a reciprocal & place-based way of life.
Spring is the season of outward momentum; seeds are sprouting, sap is flowing, and the land is beginning to dry and warm. The seasonal context creates the right timing to chaperone fire in the forest, harvest & process fir poles, turn the garden for summer, potentiate the energy of spring in creating self care rituals, and foster a communal constellation.
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Our relationship to place, and what we value, create our lifestyle: spend time learning how to live in the forest gardens.
The Pathways:
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Watershed Regeneration
We are all connected by water, and relating with the watershed is a golden key to place based connection. Watershed regeneration is an active effort to enhance reciprocity between humans, forest (or ecosystems), and water. Through hard skills, observation & study we will share the applications of keyline design for groundwater recharge, how to repair creek erosion, and how to stack functions for resource management. In addition to relating these practices back to fuels reduction, moisture and fertility building, agricultural practices, and ceremony.
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The 8 Limbs of Yoga
Yoga is more than a movement class; it is a way of life. Exploring the 8 limbs of yoga provides insight and guidance into organizing ones values, practices & devotion. We will utilize this framework as a foundational container for safe and healthy community + self care practices, with plenty of room for adaptation and personalization. Yoga will help guide us into deeper connection with our bodies, values & discipline. Through exploration and practice we will center the great cosmic dance we are all apart of.
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Beyond Organic Garden Care
The rhythms of the garden are a primary pillar of the lifestyle. Knowing when to start seeds, how to build soil, and how to plan, process, and preserve are all skills that we will be exploring with the spring season. For over a decade we have been developing living soil through compost building, Hugelkulture, compost extracts, and ferments. We will explore these practices & more through hands on learning. In addition to connecting with the cycles of life/death. All the while growing our intimacy with the plant kingdom & kin.
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The Sidereal Sky
We look to the moon, planets and constellations as they are in sky as time keepers. Learning their movements is one way we connect the microcosm to the macrocosm. Studying the sky is a powerful reflection to our place in the great mystery, giving mark to other rhythms of nature that we live with in. Understanding the difference between the Gregorian calendar and the Sidereal calendar recalibrates how we relate to time and rejoins us with our ancestral connections of way finding. The stars at Wanosh are bright & the nights dark, making for epic sky viewing.
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Round Pole TimberFraming
Timber-Framing is an ancestral art of joining lumber in function and form. This way of building revolves around male and female joinery known as mortise and tenon. This technique affords a way to build elegant, artistic strucutres that highlight raw materials in their construction into well built spaces. We will give you hands on experience and build your confidence in your relationship with this technique. Eric Lassotavitch of Pole Craft Solutions will be leading us in learning both traditional and innovative techniques of this ancient art.
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Community Building
Community thrives when individuals connect through shared practices that nurture both the self and the collective. The way of council holds a space for deep connection and sense of belonging. Guided self-care fosters individual well-being, encouraging members to show up as their best selves for the group. Tea ceremony, offers moments of pause, presence, and conversation . Finally, bonding through learning and work strengthens trust and interdependence. Together, these practices weave a supportive, resilient community where each member's growth contributes to the whole.
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Forest Management
In ecosystems that have been impacted by mismanagement, such as clear cut logging and over-grazing, it is critical that we (humans) remember our roles and responsibilities as keystone species. We have a disproportionately large impact on the environment and therefore our actions define ecological health. Forest management, as we live in the forest, is a primary way that we continue to learn and practice how to live in reciprocity. Fuels reduction, native plant cultivation, and good fire (to name a few), are all ways we relate to place as an extension of ourself and how our healing is the healing of the land and vice versa.
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Self Care
How we meet ourselves is how we meet the world. Developing a practice of tending to self cultivates the habits that lead to the best version of you. Through guided practice of yoga, meditation, journaling, and a community of support we cultivate self accountability for a holistic practice that nurtures your physical, mental, spatial, and emotional well-being. Self care leads too moving from your own center creating fertile ground for embodying interdependence. Caring for the microcosm of our selves is foundational to being resource to care for our communities and the earth.
Our spring, 7 week, lifestyle immersion, March 29th till May 18th (with the week of April 28th to May 4th off) will revolve around 4 weekends of round pole timber framing . The time before, between, and after will be spent learning how to live in the forest gardens through guided observation, work flows, tea ceremony, shared cooking and communal responsibilities, way of council circles, ritualized fire tending (as tool, healer, and elder) , learning medicine songs, starting seeds, tree and berry planting, learning about clay for building purposes, drumming, tuning to the voice of the forest gardens, seeing our mistakes, journaling, contemplating legacy, tool honoring, understanding and celebrating water from source to faucet and irrigation in gravity fed systems, staying warm, forest thinning, patching clothes, regularly asking ourselves what community means, preparing the ceremony grounds and spaces, making compost, group collage art sessions, conflict resolution where needed, harvesting trees in a good way, spending time on the mat in our favorite movement practices, contemplating the wisdom traditions (particularly the 8 limbs of Yoga), studying the sidereal calendar, celebrating the moon cycles, personal time, an introduction to dieta with plant allies/ teachers, and TIME OFF.
What You’ll Receive
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Off-grid living has been over romanticized in online spaces and social narratives. In this immersion you will learn the practical ins & outs of off grid systems, including but not limited to our solar system, water system, & compost/humanure system. You will gain hands on experience and be introduced to a plethora of resources all while living in homey off-grid housing & immersed in closed-loop permaculture systems.
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Learn to build with round-pole timber. From harvesting, peeling, and processing fir poles to mortise & tenon joinery, and traditional + modern timber-framing techniques. There will be three 3-day workshop weekends with professional natural builders & contractors. You will gain the foundational skills of timber framing and a rich context of how this craft is connected to forest & watershed management. In addition to the workshop weekends, there will be hands on learning with clay/earthen building.
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Spaces for guided and personalized self care will be offered daily. Communal morning movement practice, sauna, working with herbal allies, journal & self-expression practices, tea-ceremony, forest bathing, solo time, cyclical awareness, REST, and anything else the group brings forward will be regularly & ritually woven into our time together
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Relating to the ecosystems we live in with observation and reciprocity is a bridge to remembering our human responsibility as care-givers & keystone species. The hard & soft skills you will learn in this regard will give you a grounded approach to caring for the earth where ever you go.
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Learn to work with good fire through broad scale burning (if weather permits), building & lighting burn piles, and studying the intricacies of how fire moves on the landscape. Safety measures, local legalities, and the spiritual aspects of fire tending will all be explored, as well. Hands on experience with good fire has the potential to be a deeply healing process; simultaneously humbling & empowering.
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Communal living is a practice, from sharing group meals, to conflict resolution, to boundaries, needs, and desires; we will be learning how to co-exist and co-regulate through regular community councils. Through facilitation, guidance, compassion, humility and the creation of communal agreements we will practice creating a supportive & healthy environment daily. You will gain practical skills in communication, listening & speaking from the heart, fostering healthy group dynamics, & more. Living in a communal constellation is important territory to explore in our modern times, as we learn what it means to recreate village consciousness and resilience.
“…there’s something about it (fire) that spiritually connects you to the things around you. Because all things have a spirit. And there’s something about fire that makes that connection real.”
Margo Robbins
Who is a Lifestyle Immersion for?
Lifestyle immersion is for folks who are clear that care for the earth is a primary purpose in their life path. The Immersion experience is for those who are looking to dive decades ahead into a way of life that weaves the facets of watershed regeneration with place-based ceremonial healing of both land and self. Folks looking to live as good ancestors and co-inspirers in the great turning, creating the world we wish for by learning both hard and soft skills on making the connection between land care, self care, and community care.
You probably are a Multi-Faceted being and have one or more of the following callings of purpose: A(n) farmer/gardener, activist, community leader, yogi, student, natural builder, herbalist, forester, traveler, fire fighter, environmentalist, permaculturalist, healer, spiritual seeker, organizer, ceremonialist, parent, visionary, truth seeker, storyteller, revolutionary.
You want to make your life a proactive devotional offering in recognition that the changes we make in the microcosm will metaphysically change the world operating by old paradigms of competition, separation, and greed in the macrocosm.
You want to contextualize your work into place based systems of reciprocity and expand the understanding of closed loop systems.
You want to want to transform protest into proactive redesign of the frontlines through place based relationships and shrink your umbilical cord to the healthfood store.
You want to explore the concepts of income-unity and the sacred abacus. You understand and are dismayed by school systems that focus on problems (as opposed to solutions), outdated systems, teach theory, and prepare you for the industrial world.
You do not want money to be your primary reference of decision making.
You want to move past the vail of being green through recycling and buying organic to a deepend relationship with source.
You want to explore your relationship with rhythm and flow state in relationship to work and play.
You want to marry the wild.
If you’ve wondered what it would be like or have already begun to integrate your sense of devotion to caring for the earth beyond recycling, buying bulk foods, and carrying your own cup to the health food store into the hands-on learning of caring for earth as self and community than this is for you.
Join us in tending the shifting of seasons on the land and in our bodies; via connection with the forest gardens, clay, tea, yoga, nourishment, crafts, skywalks, and circle.
A Permaculture experience.
FAQ
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In a lifestyle immersion we braid healing arts of different wisdom traditions into land care, self care, and community care. Our seasonal lifestyle immersions help you begin to examine the moving parts of land care and their relationship with self care. What the forest and the plants have to teach us as well as the guidance of the wisdom traditions has everything to do with both getting our basic needs met, celebrating the fruits of discipline, and deepening our relationship with spirit.
We will enjoy the do-be do-be dance as well as the ancient weather dance as a community tying together the way of council, focused experiential downloads, hands on learning in watershed regeneration, natural building, sacred fire ceremony, controlled burning (see “How is fire worked with in the immersion?” below) the sidereal calendar, beyond organic gardening, and an intro to plant dieta in a way that you will never look at the world, your place and role in it, or community the same.
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Our intensive workshops are singular discipline focused with the top of our crafts teachers purposefully packing in as much as possible into a short time. Intensive workshops barely scratch the surface of what's covered in a lifestyle immersion if at all. Whereas a lifestyle immersion contextualizes many disciplines into a cohesive picture to deepen your relationship with your self, your sense of place, and your direct connection to source. This immersion lays the groundwork for shrinking your umbilical cord to the health food store and the hardware store.
It is offered to springboard you into a new way of life that steers the boat of humanity toward the world we all want to live in.
Workshops have a cook making meals for participants and imersionaries share cooking community responsibilities like cooking and other basic chores.
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Food: All organic foods included in tuition. Additionally, during the 4 Round Pole Timber Frame weekends are 3 catered meals per day. During the rest of the immersion we will share cooking chores. for more on food Click Here
Lodging: we are offering 4 options included with your tuition choice:
Camping/bring your own mobile housing.
The Garden house with small rocket stove, small desk, and deck.
The Common Vision Bus (shared between up to two people) with wood fired stove.
The Bird House with propane heat, small counter space, space to practice, and a semi-private deck
more details on the housing are in the tuition choices.
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The Way of Council can be used in many different ways, ie, for sharing stories in order to find a deeper meaning, for grief to be witnessed, for the purpose of clearing or for coming to a decision. It is an ancient practice of sitting in circle and using a talking piece to listen and speak from the heart.
We will be also referencing the four directions of the circle to help us consider the council focus from different perspectives. For more on Council check this out..
POSSIBLE TOPICS OF FOCUS FOR COUNCILS:
what is community?
Natural rhythms
What is soul?
Microcosm/macrocosm
What does it mean to be placed based?
What does it mean to be a good ancestor?
What does it mean to do the work?
What is cultural appropriation?
What is the sacred abacus/accounting?
What is income-unity?
the 8 limbs of yoga
Holding space
Boundries
What is authenticity?
and many more
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All immersionaries have a 3 weekend Round Pole Timber-frame Workshop included in their Tuition. This includes all meals provided by a professional cook during this time. This workshop is offered separate of the immersion and thus will be the time in our container that we will be a larger group.
The workshop teaches students the basics of round pole mortise and tenon joinery using both traditional technique and modern techniques that teacher Eric Lassotavtch of PoleCraft Solutions have been innovating.
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We relate to fire as elder, teacher, and healer. We approach fire with respect, and humility.
We share how our relationship with fire is intricately related to the well being of humanity and the planet. By preparing for, tending and chaperoning fire we begin the cycle of reciprocity. Doing this in a good way Is guided by reading the watershed and communing with plants and animals. In this, we begin to understand our place in the watersheds, begin to remember what the village is, and how to read the language of spirit.
We imagine sharing with you at least one chaperoning of fire through the forest, weather permitting, we will have more than one opportunity. This is done in a ritualized way where we observe noble silence, (the act of staying silent outside of speaking for safety reasons, prayer and song.) We encourage participants to work with their intentions and make offerings. We will be tending fire regularly through out the entire immersion, including a vigil with a designated sacred fire. These fires will be a place to council and celebrate with.
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Some of the focus groups a teaching points are listed here. This is not an all inclusive list.
-round pole timber framing
-working with fire for healing land, self and community
-defining community
-production vs legacy
-cultural appropriation
-looking at life through a devotional lens
-what is good ancestry
-cultural appropriation
-The subtleties of place
-Sidereal and seasonal calendar/ place based star rythem
-the 8 limbs of Yoga
-shadow work
-paradox
-all things compost
-water from source to sink and irrigation
-fire culture/ cooking with and controled burns as time calander refernces. Fire as a rights of passage/ innitiation
-setting rhythm in workflow and play
-reading the watershed, keyline design and considering holistic management
-Growing gardens and forest gardens defining food security
- What is successional what is sequential ? dispersal patterns?
-tree planting and tree care
-The way of council
-intro to Plant dieta
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Required Prerequisites:
the ability to lift 50 lbs
comfortable using a chainsaw and power tools ( or comfortable learning)
tolerant of being in rainy conditions with dryout time
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With full respect and honor of our teachers and guides we will be braiding the wisdom and continued humble learning of many different lineages. We will be looking to these traditions, practices, histories and stories for tools and guidance to expand our connection with the internal landscape and support a community container of growth and healing. Although we may go in depth at times, this facet of our offering is meant to be introductory and a starting point for vocabulary and conversation to better understand ourselves, our communities, and the world we live in.
The way of council
Ayurvedic Traditions
Traditional Chinese Medicine perspectives
Western Herbology
Toaist Practices and Philosophies
Yoga
Drumming traditions (particularly agricultural rhythms of West Africa).
Latin American histories and practices.
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Primary Leadership (read bios on our instructors page)
Blair Phillips
Cheyenne Clarke
Guest Facilataors : check back for updates as guests are confirmed)
“From one seed comes a thousand more seeds”
-Blair Phillips
Schedule & Rhythm
Spring is a dynamic time in Northern California ranging from cold, dark and damp to warm breezes and warm soils. April is the last month that we can work with broadscale fire which we prep both you and the land to receive.
Typically we are in deep communion with the weather aiming to work when the weather is inviting and retreat to tea, self care and learning when it is not. That being said, every year is different and some years ask us to be more present in the rains. We will have at least one excursion into heavy rains (if they come) to learn directly from the meeting of the water and earth elements, and our relationship with them. Participants have access to the communal center if there are extreme events, or need to dry out gear in an emergency.
The immersion will have three weekends (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) carved out for round pole timber framing that will only shift if there is extreme global weirding.
Our schedule is subject to shift to prioritize working with fire. The following itinerary is a sample to give you an idea of the time. Each week will have at least one day off to rest.
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7am morning practice
9 am breakfast
10 am tea sit/ council
11 morning class
1pm Lunch
3-6 afternoon hands on session
7 dinner
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7am morning practice
9 am breakfast
10 am morning hands on session
1pm Lunch
2pm tea sit /council
3-6 afternoon hands on session
7 dinner
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7am morning practice
9 am breakfast
10 am Tea Ceremony
1pm Lunch
2pm tea sit /council/
3-6 personal time
7 dinner
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7am morning practice
9 am breakfast
light fire when the humidity and other conditions are most supportive
1pm Lunch
fire tend..
7 dinner
fire tend
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Introduction to connecting with place and our constellation of community: we will be covering the primary concepts of watershed regeneration, council, fire, rhythm, song and self care. This week will set the stage to do the do-be do-be dance and the ancient weather dance, orienting us to all the moving parts that constitute the lifestyle. We will finish the week off with our first weekend of Round Pole Timber-framing. Before the weekend we will have at least one day off.
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This week, if weather allows, we will begin to work with fire. We will spend time relating to the forest through observation, offerings, and preparing for good fire. We will also approach the gardens, relating in much the same way we relate to the forest, with observations, offerings, and operations. We will balance out our time in the forest gardens with community and self care. We will finish the week off with the second weekend of round pole timber-framing.
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We will continue the Do-Be Do-Be dance, and the Ancient weather dance, keeping our finger on the pulse of place and flow state. In week three we anticipate being well settled into Wanosh Forest Gardens and Healing Grounds. At this point we will have established a momentum of practice that begins to bridge self care with land care, and community care. We envision continuing our work with the transformational power of fire, and continuing our practice of maintaining land based systems. We will finish this week out with the third weekend of round pole timber framing. Before the weekend we will enjoy at least one day off.
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We all know that Earth Day is every day, however we will be commemorating April 22nd with a fruit tree and berry planting. This will be our last week for the profundity of chaperoning fire through the forest. Depending on the intricacies of the ancient weather dance we will be leaning heavily into the window of time that demarcates both the closing of our permit to burn and the coming of Beltane, the day that accentuates the half way point between spring equinox and summer solstice.
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Mendocino, and as well as Sonoma, Humboldt, and Lake counties have unparalleled beauty to explore in the coasts, old growth Forrests, lakes, and hot springs. This will also be the same week as the Buckeye Gathering. You will be welcome to stay on site as you wish, with full access to the kitchen and other amenities. We trust that your time off will be supportive to finishing out the immersion Joyfully.
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After a week off we anticipate some of the implied and more transparent learning of our time so far to integrate, bubbling up insights that we will spend an our first day back together sharing. if by this point we have not gotten in to the sticks and stones of healing erosion cuts in waterways we will surely be getting into the creeks that need our hands and tools to restore their healthy drainage. Additionally, we will be bringing you into complete fluency with gravity fed water systems, from spring to sing and irrigation. This will be our final weekend of Round Pole Timber Framing.
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Bringing all learning to a close, we will be turning to the Earth element for what you need to know to harvest clay and other earthen materials to build and decorate with in a good way.
Our final weekend together will be for closing ceremony. Depending on the weather and our preparation of the ceremony grounds we will likely fire up the grand father stones in a lodge that we build together. Each step of this process will support deeper meaning in our relationship of all we have explored together. This lodge will not be of a particular tradition, rather created from a culmination of the understandings we have developed together.
Immersion Tuition is Based on Housing Choice
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Camping
Enjoy The Campground at Wanosh. A rustic option to be close to the land and the elements. There will be access to indoor wood fired heat for extreme weather event and to dry out equipment.
Campers tuition for 6 weeks, all organic food included : $3900
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The Garden House
The Garden house is a 10×12 cabin with a bed, rocket stove and a deck. There is an option for a desk. Although insulated the abundance of windows keep this space appreciating the rocket stove.
Garden House tuition for 6 weeks all organic food included: $4400
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The Original Common Vision Bus
This is a shared housing option for 2 people, it has lounge benches, a rustic sink, counter space, shelves, and a wood stove. like the garden house its abundant windows encourage warm fires.
The shared Common Vision Bus for 6 weeks all organic food included : $4400 each
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The Bird House
The bird house is a wood paneled studio with a bed, room to focus on your practice, a small desk and a ceramic propane heater. it is up one flight of stairs above the barn. The Bird house could be shared.
The Bird House tuition for 6 weeks all organic food included : $4900
The immersion is offered for a small group of 4 to 6. Applications are due February 1st and will selected and announced by the Full Moon of February (12th) to give time to make proper arrangements and prepare with recommended readings/videos and intention setting.
Partial Scholarship application
We are actively seeking support from the community to offer a partial scholarship. If we can offer a Scholarship it will be awarded based on 1) need 2) intention for community reciprocity 3) diversification.
You can apply here.
Payment Plan
Plans are available on case by case basis due in full by the first day of the immersion. If you wish to request a payment plan please indicate this in your application.
(Ask for what you need and we will do our best accommodate)