TOUCH THE EARTH - A Collective Remembering of Earth-Honoring Ways

Thank you for your interest in this offering; more information will be coming soon. If you are interested in a self-paced, accessible way to explore these teachings, we encourage you to check out Earth Ways - A Study in Earth-Honoring Traditions.

Retelling the story of what community means…

Understanding our take on community is essential to understanding who we are and what we have to offer. We believe that breaking down the illusion of separation, and enforced separation, is essential to mending our world. And… while building human relationships and deepening human capacity for empathy are inherent to authentic community and to the needs of the world, community is not only about people. People have always existed within a context of the wide, beautiful, and wise family of creation. Remembering this brings relief that we seek and helps us actually find our purposeful path.

Touch the Earth is a year-long course of study that provides an opportunity to connect with earth-honoring community, teachings, and traditions. Brought up in these traditions, we have been dedicated to building earth-honoring community in a community service capacity since 1990. We acknowledge that an earth-honoring way of life is as old as creation; what we’re doing is not new, but it is remarkable and essential. We believe that restoration of reverence and respect for the earth is a practical response to the state of emergency we find ourselves in at this time and that this way of life has the inherent capacity to bring necessary healing to our culture, our communities, and our world. 

Touch the Earth is one of our Intensive Offerings; if you are interested in a self-paced, less intensive way to explore these teachings we encourage you to check out Earth Ways - A Study in Earth-Honoring Traditions.

Here’s a bit more about what Touch the Earth offers, through both the principles and philosophy that shape the offering, and the nuts and bolts of what you will receive: 

Touch the Earth offers a path out of overwhelm and into a vibrant and supportive community. Together we learn to hold essential collective intentions, including the intention of reweaving a culture of common sovereignty. Through mutual support, education, and redirection, we breathe life into a cultural model in which the sanctity, value, and contribution of each and every presence on earth is honored and welcomed for who they are, and supported in making their meaningful contributions. Being part of an authentic community has a profound impact on our ability to follow through with our heartfelt intentions, build collective momentum, strengthen hope, and make cultural change.

Deeper Relationship with the Earth

Intimacy with the earth is our natural state of being as a species in this garden in space, but we must step out of distraction to return to it. Prioritizing connection with our mama planet, wherever we live, (including the city) allows us access to the greatest love, support, and guidance we could ever imagine. A remembering that changes our lives is right here, under our feet and in the air we breathe. As we shake off the fallacy that we are somehow separate from, or smarter than, the rest of the family of creation, a radical reordering of our hearts takes place. We wake from amnesia about our place in the family of creation and learn to listen differently, and live differently with our bodies and our whole selves. This is where real change happens; it is our love for the earth that will mend the culture.

Earth-honoring cultures center relationship and nurturance over profit and acquisition. Entangled in this modern Western cultural model, we have a long way to go in this healing process. Truly embracing a way of life that honors the sanctity of all beings asks yet another radical reordering of our hearts, minds, habits, and the way we distribute access to care. Our community holds a firm commitment to dismantling racism, capitalism, systems of hate and a culture of blind consumption that inflicts endless harm on the earth. As we remember and reclaim an earth-honoring definition of what family and wealth really mean, we enter into an ethic of community care that acknowledges our inherent interconnection and collective responsibility for each other’s well-being, including the well-being of the earth. 

Support in Joyful Daily Practice

While we are absolutely here for the long-term work of reimagining and remaking the culture, we know that this most often effectively happens in the care of vibrant people who celebrate one cup of tea, one meaningful conversation, one day in the garden, or one seasonal blessing at a time. We change our lives through our repeated actions.If we have learned anything through decades of community building, it is that people need support to follow through on this. Touch the Earth offers lush, well-paced, hands-on seasonal, weekly, and daily practices to share in with your community that will help you to reconnect with what life on earth is meant to be; an embodiment of joy.

  • A beautiful printable seasonal workbook with foundational teachings, seasonal recipes, hands-on projects, and journal prompts. These workbooks are collaboratively designed and lovingly curated by our program development team: Maro, ShuNahSii, and Robin, so that you can keep a record of your journey and have this to keep for years to come.  

  • Monthly community video gatherings which will give you the opportunity, in real time, to connect with your community across the country and explore the seasonal themes and practices we are working with in greater depth.

  • Handmade seasonal care packages: filled with all kinds of seasonally relevant magic to support you in your practice. These packages will be delivered to your door in old school, old fashioned, hard copy glory...to engage your hands and delight your senses.

  • Access to recorded, written, and video teachings: These teachings allow you to go deeper into the foundation and workings of earth-honoring traditions in your own time. They’ll also offer practical instruction for hands-on seasonal projects.

  • Online Learning Space: This learning space will both house all of our materials in one, easy-to-find place, and provide access to facilitators and a community of like-minded people to ask questions, share experiences and reflections, and support each other in these explorations.

  • In-Person Community Weekend Intensive: Our gathering in September for everyone in our core offerings is a remarkable opportunity for us to engage in these earth-honoring traditions and go deep together over the course of the weekend. It is a chance for us to build relationships, connect with the land, and do the kind of beautiful sharing of these traditions that simply isn’t possible through the rest of the year. It helps us to strengthen our roots and stay with the important work we are each doing in the world. 

  • Weekly Supportive Email Reminders: Over the decades of community organizing, we have learned that people benefit tremendously from consistent support and easy ways to stay in touch with intentions and practices in daily life. We will be sending out regular emails with tidbits, links, reminders, and support that turn your gaze back in the direction of your practice and keep you in the flow.

Our Ethic of Community Care - How Cost Breaks Down

Touch the Earth asks a sliding scale contribution of $125.00 - $400.00+ per month and a one-time Gathering Fee to cover the cost of lodging, supplies, and meals for our September in-person weekend.

Our True Earth community is dedicated to redefining wealth as a well planet and a well community; in this spirit we hold a firm ethic of community care. Living this ethic means redistributing access to care (often determined by access to money) in the work that we do. We are continually making strides in our ability to speak more clearly to this ethic and are thankful for the support we continue to receive. To those of you who are considering coming into the community and/or our intensive offerings this year, we want to thank you for showing up to these important conversations about effecting cultural changes with an open heart. For those of you already standing in community with us, thank you for being a part of laying to rest violent systems and being dedicated to reimagining and remaking the culture together. In practical terms, this most often breaks down to giving generously in this active reimagining.  This consciousness is something that we ask explicitly of all participants in our core offerings. True reimagining and healing of the culture must address who has access to what. This is the function of our Community Care ethic. 

Those of us who make up the True Earth workforce demonstrate our consistent commitment to actual repair and redistribution in many ways: 

  • by putting hundreds of volunteer hours each year into our community resilience projects and earth-honoring collaborations,

  • by accepting a modest salary within the organization, as this is how things shake out when we prioritize principles over profit,

  • by sharing our services, time, medicines, and offerings with family/community members who need such support but whose access to resources is diminished by cultural violence.

Approximately 40%-50% of participants in our core offerings are supported by partial to full scholarships. In order to be here with us, and for us to be able to keep doing this work, our culture/community must commit to a climate of generosity. We believe that these are the same changes that need to happen in the wider world and we’re just doing our part by learning to generously share what we have. We prioritize our community members most deeply targeted by cultural violence in these scholarships, and ask community members with more financial breathing room and/or access to resources to participate in this ethic of Community Care by helping to fund these scholarships. If you are Indigenous, Black, trans/non-binary, disabled, or genuinely need relief from cultural violence, know that you have a place with us, and that we are doing our best to make this community safe and accessible for you.

Giving as generously as we are able, in this work and on the sliding scale, is an embodiment of Community Care that makes it possible for others to be here. If you are interested in being a part of authentic, earth-honoring community (which is the point of intensive study with us) true participation in such community asks willingness to sit with the big, sometimes uncomfortable questions that cultural reimagining unfolds and requires. We must all take practical, daily steps toward dismantling harm. We are so grateful to community members who have worked hard to pull together resources, stories, ethical considerations, and guidelines to help you decide where to pay on the sliding scale, should you need support.

Optional Seasonal Sessions Add-on:

One-on-one sessions give community members the opportunity to practice and hone deep listening skills in real time through personalized attention and support. Many people find the combination of community support, solo practice, and individual sessions to have a profound impact on their ability to truly shift habituated patterns and make lasting change. We are offering the optional add-on of seasonal sessions to allow folks to integrate this version of personalized support into your experience. 

As with all we do, we offer session packages in the spirit of Community Care - asking that our whole Touch the Earth community share responsibility for reasonable distribution of access to care, resources, and support of this nature. Our hope is to be able to extend sessions to members of our community who could not otherwise afford them, by paying on the high(er) end of the sliding scale you support this effort. The sliding scale for a seasonal session package is $35 - 105 a month above and beyond your TTE financial contribution - this covers one session per season (or four per year). The fee for sessions will be added to your monthly contribution on auto process.

To Register

More information about entry into this offering coming soon. If you are interested in a self-paced, accessible way to explore these teachings, we encourage you to check out Earth Ways - A Study in Earth-Honoring Traditions.

If you have any questions or would like to join our mailing list to be updated on future offerings, please contact us here.