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Permaculture Design Certification Courses

Re-design your life, re-envision the world!
Open for registration:
Bolinas: Four Seasons Permaculture Design Certification
Santa Cruz: Four Seasons Permaclture Design Certificaiton
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?
Earth Café Program
Celebrate the beauty of the world we eat!

Earth Cafe – Spring Series 2010
Offered: April 3, May 1 & June 5 – 9:30am to 5:30pm
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
Four-Seasons Permaculture Design Certification - Santa Cruz
Weaving the Village through Nature Connection and Permaculture Design
An exciting new workshop series in collaboration with Jon Young
Permaculture Design Certification Intensive

Four Seasons 11 - Permaculture Design Certification - Spring 2010
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
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
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: February - June, 2010
Location: Bolinas, CA
Instructors: James Stark and Christopher Kuntzsch
5-Day Ecology of Leadership Immersion
Offered: August 1-6, 2010 – residential program
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.
Bolinas: Exploring the roots of the Great Turning

Weaving our new dream through the Ecology of Leadership and inner permaculture
Offered: January 10, 9:00am – 5:30pm
Location: Commonweal Garden, Bolinas, CA
Hosted by the Regenerative Design Institute
COURSE IS CLOSED FOR REGISTRATION
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.
The Ecology of Leadership

Open for registration:
5-Month Ecology of Leadership Program
Offered: February - June 2010, meets one weekend per month
Location: Commonweal Garden, Bolinas, CA
The only way to predict the future is to create it.
–Peter Drucker
Many of us are searching for ways to make a difference, to transform our families, communities and the world we live in. And each of us can make a difference - we all have the seeds of leadership and service within us. We can nurture these seeds, learning the skills and tools we need to transform ourselves and embody our highest potential.
Whether you have prior experience and training, or you have recently felt called to step onto a path of leadership for the first time, this program is a unique opportunity to deeply explore who you are, who you wish to be, and what your specific offering is to others.
Through the Ecology of Leadership courses, you can learn to articulate your vision, get in deeper touch with your gifts, and develop new tools, routines, mindsets and skills to be more effective in manifesting what you see for yourself and the world.
Hear Ecology of Leadership directors James Stark and Christopher Kuntzsch talk about the Ecology of Leadership program on a Sustainable World Radio podcast.
Ecology of Leadership - Alumni Summer Convergence
Offered: August 6 - 8, 2010
Location: Commonweal Garden, Bolinas, CA
Regenerative Youth Project

Offered: To be announced
Location: Commonweal Garden, Bolinas, CA
Instructors: Larissa Conte, Ian MacLaird, James Stark
Being the Change We Wish to See in the World
The Regenerative Youth Project (RYP) is a nature-based leadership and rites of passage program for teens and young adults in the Bay Area. This mentored experience expands participants’ awareness, empowers them with holistic skills for sustainable living, and deepens their connections to nature, self, and community over the span of 8 months.
We believe that when young people are opened to living as a part of nature and living purposefully, they act on inspiration and become leaders of change. RYP is an invitation to young people to find firm roots in themselves, deeply connect to the life around them, and offer their gifts to the world.
RYP is a three-part journey of expanding further outward into the world and further into oneself. Cumulatively, the program is intended to serve as a rites of passage experience, where students may hear the call of their higher self, face challenges on the journey, and ultimately return home with greater understanding of their gifts and true power.
Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness (RDNA) Program
Creating Resilient Leaders and Community
Are you ready to build a more meaningful relationship with the earth, your community and yourself – and make clear your role as a community member and an integral part of the natural world? The Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness (RDNA) program is an advanced 9-month program that extends hands-on, skill based training to help you develop the leadership skills you need to bring sustainability and regenerative practices into your personal and professional lives. Through RDNA, you can learn to design powerful communities, regenerate ecosystems and facilitate positive community change.
Our instructors are fully engaged visionaries working in regenerative design, nature awareness, cultural mentoring and leadership. They bring the tools they have gathered through years of experience, working locally and around the world, to create resilient leaders, cultural systems and landscapes. They weave these tools together into the dynamic and lifestyle that makes up the RDNA program.
Using the teachings of regenerative design, nature awareness, 8 Shields Culture Mentoring and the Ecology of Leadership, RDNA offers a comprehensive exploration of where we came from, where we are now and where we are going.
Gaia University Orientation Workshop
The Regenerative Design Institute is excited to announce a growing relationship with Gaia University International!
Gaia University focuses on the relocalization of higher education and offers accredited degree programs for real-world action in self and planetary transformation. These programs cultivate world changers working for local and global sustainability, justice, and peace. Associates have access to a powerful global network of leaders, advisors and peers offering support and guidance in the development, implementation and documentation of their self-directed project work.
Orientation Workshop: next offered in 2010
Extension Workshop: next offered in 2010
Location: Commonweal Garden, Bolinas, California
Instructors: Andy Langford and Liora Adler
4 Seasons VII - Permaculture Design Certification Course
4 Seasons VII - Permaculture Design Certification Course




