Staff
Indigo Dyes
Offered: October 30, 2010
Location: Commonweal Garden
Instructor: Rebecca Burgess
Sacred Healing Plants
Offered: TBA
Location: Commonweal Garden
Instructor: Kyra Epstein
Herbal Body Care
Offered: Septmeber 19, 10:00 – 5:00
Location: Commonweal Garden
Instructor: Rachel Berry
Soapmaking Basics
Offered: August 21, 10:00 – 4:00
Location: Commonweal Garden
Instructor: Allysyn Kiplinger
Mushroom Cultivation
Offered: October 31, from 10am- 4pm
Location: Commonweal Garden
Instructor: Tammy Davis
Natural Dyes
Offered: September 18, 2010
Location: Commonweal Garden
Instructor: Rebecca Burgess
Weaving A Tule Water Bottle Carrier
Offered: Aug 21, 10am – 4pm
Location: Commonweal Garden
Instructor: Edward Willie
Earth Café Program
Celebrate the the beauty of the world we eat!
Offered: Fall 2010
Location: Commonweal Garden, Bolinas, California
Instructors: Carin McKay, and special guests
Eating for the well-being of ourselves and the planet
• Deepen your connection with nature
• Celebrate the bounty of homegrown and local food
• Create healthier eating habits
Eating may be the most intimate relationship we have with the natural world. When we make conscious and well-informed choices about the food we eat, we can create health and well-being for ourselves and for the planet.
For many of us, simply creating healthy eating habits is overwhelming. How do we create eating habits that give nourishment back to the earth, as well?
The Earth Café is a practical, interactive, personalized program that will empower you to build a healthier lifestyle, for yourself and for the planet, through the exploration of food. The program weaves together hands on gardening, culinary and food-crafting skills, nutritional education, as well as nature based personal wellness practice. The program will inspire you to deepen your relationship with food, strengthen your personal health, and develop a deeper connection to the natural world.
Key elements of the Earth Café Program include:
• Seed to Table: Want to begin growing some of your own food? We will explore basic techniques of home-scale vegetable gardens, urban homesteading, honey cultivation, caring for goats and chickens, and more.
• Regenerative Kitchen: Discover traditional food culture integrated with modern nutrition. Participants will harvest directly from our gardens, as well as forage wild foods. You will learn to choose the highest quality cultivated foods for your health needs. There will be cooking demonstrations and hands on skill building – from meal planning to food preparation.
• Traditional Food crafting: Prepare delicious high quality products like sourdough bread, cheese, pickles, preserves, and other traditional, naturally processed foods easily at home.
• Inner Ecology: Learn nature-based practices to strengthen your health and overcome common ailments at home. Design a regenerative health plan for yourself, and receive support in paired sharing exercises to help you implement your food and wellness plan during each three-month program. Explore plant medicine, simple remedies and home care, healing with the seasons, movement and energy practices skills to understand and balance your health.
• Study: There will be a list of recommended books that you can read along as you take the course to help inspire your food adventures.
Video: See Carin McKay making Nettle Goat Cheese Quiche!
Example Curriculum from Spring 2010.
Content and activities may change for Fall 2010 series. More details coming soon.
April 3 – Foundations of Regenerative Food and Wellness
• Food-growing basics, part 1
• Personal regenerative design and daily self diagnosis
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Basic skills: cutting styles and knife care
• The gift of greens: wild food foraging and preparation
May 1 – Kitchen Traditions
• Food-growing basics, part 2
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Urban homesteading with K Ruby Blume
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Basic cheese making and lacto-fermented drinks with K Ruby Blume
June 5 – Healing Foods & Remedies
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Food-growing basics, part 3
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Natural health care and remedies, herbal first aid kits
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Cooking in the raw with Savrah Kramer: learn to prepare five delicious raw, vegan recipes
Food-Growing Basics
Part 1 – The program will cover the basics of getting your garden started with seeds. Identifying the materials used for appropriate soil mixes for seedlings and building a nice mix together. We will learn about proper seed storage and germination of various garden vegetables and then plant some. Participants will be able to take home some seedlings to nurse along until planting time.
Part 2 – Compost happens! We will be discussing various composting methods and then build a pile together using on-site materials. We will explain the needs of the compost pile and give suggestions for various styles compatible with rural to urban environments. We will also look at our vermiculture system and how to design a worm bin for your food scraps.
Part 3 – Time to transplant seedlings and get the starts planted out into the soil. We will practice garden bed preparation and proper spacing for various crops and then plant some crops out into the garden beds.
Urban Homesteading with Ruby Blume
What is Urban Homesteading? Can it save the world? Or even just save us some money? What is the relationship between homesteading and permaculture? Some of these questions and more will be addressed in a slideshow surveying some of the possibilities, followed by discussion. We will talk about urban agriculture including integrating animals, greywater systems, urban food forests, rainwater catchment and more.
Beginning Cheese Making
This segment will introduce participants to concepts and techniques of milk transformation and preservation. We will learn about equipment, ingredients and cultures used and get hands-on practice making a simple fresh cheese and a mozarella. Time allowing we will talk about the hard cheese process, uses for whey and the history of cheese making. We will be working with fresh goats milk from the site.
Ferment! Lacto-Fermenting for Flavor & Health
Fermenting foods is a healthful and amazingly easy way to preserve and enhance the flavor and nutrition of food. Sadly some of the healthier ferments have passed out of common usage because they are impractical for commercial production. In this class we will learn about different types of fermentation and cultures including pickling vegetables, ginger beer, traditional sodas and more. We will learn how to preserve food with lactic fermentation, a technique that requires neither canning nor vinegar (includes fresh sauerkraut and kim chee) and will prepare one lacto-fermented soda and one fermented veggie medley.
Cooking in the Raw with Savrah Kramer
Raw Foods That Heal Your Soul – In this segment, participants will learn to prepare five simple raw, vegan recipes that are deeply healing to the body and soul, not to mention, absolutely delicious! On the menu is kale salad, sea palm-macadamia nut alfredo, green smoothies, chocolate macaroons- and Savrah’s special recipe for delectable sauerkraut.
Location
The course takes place at Commonweal Garden, our 17-acre permaculture demonstration site in Bolinas, on the northern California coast. Nestled into its own quiet valley, the site features multiple grey water systems, production green house, ponds, seasonal stream, springs, a yurt classroom, goats, sheep, and chickens, and a Registered Organic production garden.
What To Know
Our What To Know page has information on things you will need to know for your time at Commonweal Garden, including directions.
Course Fees
All fees must be paid in full prior to the start of class.
$375 for three part series
Early bird discount:
$325 for three part series, paid 6 weeks in advance
Registration
Registration information coming soon.
Regenerative Design Institute
P.O. Box 923
Bolinas, CA 94924
For questions or additional information, contact:
415·868 9681 voicemail or email us
Refund Policy
Cancellations up to 2 weeks before the workshop will be refunded, excluding a $50 processing fee.
Four-Seasons Permaculture Design Certification - Santa Cruz
Offered: September 2011
Location: Santa Cruz Waldorf School, Santa Cruz, CA
Four Seasons Permaculture Design Certification - Oct 2010
Offered: October 2010 - September 2011
Recommended Reading for Permaculture Courses
Recommended Reading and Bibliography
Permaculture & Ecological Design
Permaculture: A Designer's Manual, Bill Mollison
Introduction to Permaculture, Bill Mollison
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture, Toby Hemenway
Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, David Holmgren
Permaculture Design Certification Courses
Upcoming courses:
• Peacemaking and Permaculture: Design Certification Intensive, Sept 3–18, 2010
• Four Seasons Permaculture Design Certification, Oct 2010–Sept, 2011, Bolinas
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Re-design your life, re-envision the world!
Are you looking for an empowering and sustainable way to create change in yourself, the land you live on, and your community?
Permaculture is a design science rooted in the observation of natural systems. The principles of permaculture teach us how to design ways of living that have the stability and resiliency of natural ecosystems — they show us positive solutions for creating and managing systems for food, medicine, and building materials, as well as relationships with ourselves, animals, and our communities. Permaculture always keeps in sight three ethics: care of the Earth, care of people, and sharing the surplus.
Permaculture is good news! We have solutions that are available on any scale, and we can make a change that will reach out to future generations.
See our new permaculture design video: Permaculture Design
See Penny Livingston-Stark in the video: Permaculture 101
Find out more about permaculture: What Is Permaculture?
Southern California: Exploring the roots of the Great Turning

Weaving our new dream through the Ecology of Leadership and inner permaculture
This 1-day workshop offers you a high-value gateway to the essence of the unique and transformative Ecology of Leadership model. Throughout this rich day, you will have opportunities to explore the core principles and practices of the EOL approach for yourself – engaging leadership development through the integration of deepened self-awareness and connection to the natural world, coupled with principles of regenerative systems thinking and permaculture design. This workshop is for you if you want to step more powerfully into your gifts and passions and onto your path of service in the world.
Santa Barbara: Exploring the roots of the Great Turning

Weaving our new dream through the Ecology of Leadership and inner permaculture
Offered: Fall 2010
Tammy Davis
Tammy is the farm manager at the Regenerative Design Instititute, coordinating food production and teaching and facilitating the 6-8 farm crew staff work-traders.
What to Know: Your Course at Commonweal Garden
Commonweal Garden
Commonweal Garden is the home of the Regenerative Design Institute. The following information about Commonweal Garden is for course participants. Please read this carefully.
Cultural Mentoring Series

Cultural Mentoring Series
with Jon Young, Mark Morey and the 8 Shields Team
C O U R S E I S F U L L
In response to many requests from you, the people who make this work happen, we have decided to consolidate Mind of Mentoring and Mentoring Nature Connection into one.
It has become clear that the information from both these weeks is valuable and that many people were having a hard time deciding which program to attend. We also were feeling the need to bring these two programs together as they weave so beautifully with one another.
We will still offer all the nuts and bolts behind the 8 shields model. In addition, for those of you who are wanting more depth of experience in actually mentoring nature connection with young people, there will be break out sessions offering just that with experienced nature mentors.
Thank you to everyone who shared their needs whether financial, energetic, or timely. We hope to see you August 29-September 4.
Read more about Mind of Mentoring and Nature Connection!
5-Month Ecology of Leadership
Offered: October 2010 - February 2011
Location: Bolinas, CA
Instructors: James Stark and Christopher Kuntzsch
5-Day Ecology of Leadership Immersion
Offered: To be announced
Location: Commonweal Garden, Bolinas, CA
Instructors: James Stark and Christopher Kuntzsch
The Ecology of Leadership Immersion provides a focused and powerful experience of the core EOL curriculum in a dynamic, 5-day, in-residence format. This program is ideal for people living out of the area, unable to commit to being in either Bolinas or Santa Barbara one weekend each month, or those simply drawn to an intensive 5-day course flow. This format provides the benefits of consistent, daily nature immersion at Commonweal Garden – a vibrant permaculture demonstration site surrounded by the wildlands of Point Reyes National Seashore – empowering our exploration of leadership as sourced from our relationship with the natural world.
EOL Free Introductory Workshop

Weaving our new dream through the Ecology of Leadership and inner permaculture
Offered: September 18, 1–5pm
Location: Commonweal, Bolinas, CA
This 4 hour workshop offers you a high-value gateway to the essence of the unique and transformative Ecology of Leadership model. Throughout this rich afternoon, you will have opportunities to explore the core principles and practices of the EOL approach for yourself – engaging leadership development through the integration of deepened self-awareness and connection to the natural world, coupled with principles of regenerative systems thinking and permaculture design. This workshop is for you if you want to step more powerfully into your gifts and passions and onto your path of service in the world.










