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Please consider attending what promises to be another stimulating event at Lost Valley Educational Center. We are offering discounts for early registration and for recruiting additional attendees; some work-trade scholarships are also available. We have assembled a stellar line-up of presenters and now just need to bring together participants to make this as rewarding a learning experience as May's Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering. Please forward this information to any individuals or lists who would be interested. Thanks very much!
Chris Roth
for Lost Valley Nature Center

Fall Ecology and Harvest: An Intergenerational Exploration
October 13-14, 2007 (Saturday-Sunday)
at Lost Valley Educational Center, Dexter, OR

We invite people ages 12 through 112 to join us to learn about fall ecology, indigenous tradition, and the harvest season here in the western Cascade foothills. Throughout this weekend of presentations, discussions, and activities, we'll explore how we can learn from one another and pass ecological wisdom and insights back and forth between generations. An early registration discount is available through September 15. We are also now offering a $10 discount/rebate from your registration fee for each paying registrant who first heard about the event through you, or who cites you as his or her primary influence in considering attending. See www.lostvalley.org/fallecology for updated event details, or contact Fall Ecology and Harvest Event, 81868 Lost Valley Lane, Dexter, OR 97431, (541) 937-2567 x116, nature AT lostvalley.org.


Fall Ecology and Harvest: An Intergenerational Exploration (extended description)
October 13-14, 2007 (Saturday-Sunday)
at Lost Valley Educational Center, 81868 Lost Valley Lane, Dexter, OR 97431
(541) 937-2567 x116, nature AT lostvalley.org

updated event details: www.lostvalley.org/fallecology
brochure: www.lostvalley.org/files/Fall%20Ecology%20and%20Harvest%20brochure.pdf
poster: www.lostvalley.org/files/Fall%20Ecology%20and%20Harvest%20poster.pdf
registration form: www.lostvalley.org/fallecology/registration

Cosponsored by Lost Valley Nature Center and NextGEN (the youth branch of the Global Ecovillage Network), this event will focus on fall ecology, indigenous tradition, and the harvest season here in the western Cascade foothills. We’ll explore what is happening on the land at this time of year, and how we humans can harvest the bounty from our gardens, farms, orchards, and from the wild. We’ll learn about the ways of the Kalapuya who preceded us here, as well as sustainable food growing and preservation, resource stewardship, ecological restoration, and traditional seasonal celebrations. We’ll bring together people ages 12 through 112 to explore how we can learn from one another and pass ecological wisdom and insights back and forth between generations. We’ll also learn about school gardens, mushrooms, lichens, and mosses, building community, ecovillages, and more.

Presenters:
• Esther Stutzman (Kalapuyan storyteller)
• Bill Burwell (Kalapuya researcher)
• Jude Hobbs (Permaculture teacher and designer, Agroecology Northwest)
• Jerry Hall (ethnobotanist, Lane Community College)
• Jen Anonia (Food for Lane County Gardens Program Manager)
• Heiko Koester (Permacultural landscaper, Eugene Permaculture Guild)
• Sharon Blick (former director, School Garden Project)
• Rick Valley (Lost Valley land steward, Permaculture teacher and designer)
• Alison Rosenblatt (NextGEN--Global Ecovillage Network)
• Tammy Davis (mycophile, Lost Valley Educational Center)
• Tobias Policha (ethnobotanist, Institute of Contemporary Ethnobotany)
• Sarah Kleeger and Andrew Still (Seed Ambassadors Project)
• Dave Kofranek (lichenologist)
• Dharmika Henschel (ethnobotanist/musician)
• and more.

Early conference registration fee (until Sept. 15), including four organic vegetarian meals, is $95 for students ages 12 and above, $125 for non-students. Regular fees are $105 for students, $135 for non-students. We are offering a $10 discount/rebate from your registration fee for each paying registrant who first heard about the event through you, or who cites you as his or her primary influence in considering attending. Overnight lodging is also available. A limited number of work-trade opportunities and scholarships are available; please inquire or see website for application.

Cosponsors:
Lost Valley Nature Center
Lost Valley Educational Center’s 87 acres include oak savanna, natural meadow, stream and riparian areas, ponds, extensive forest lands in various states of maturity, gardens and orchards. Our diverse habitats and several miles of nature trails offer unique environmental education opportunities. Lost Valley Nature Center sponsors walks and public events (like May’s Native Plants and Permaculture Gathering) to help nature-lovers learn from the land and from one another.

NextGEN
NextGEN is a global network organized by young adults concerned with issues of sustainability. We hope to inspire you with examples of viable and positive choices for the future. We offer opportunities for action through conferences, educational workshops, and direct experience in communities. Our international support network develops connections among activists and encourages resource sharing.


Excerpts from May’s Native Plants and Permaculture Conference Proceedings:

Bill Burwell: At the start of each harvest season the Kalapuyans would have a first gathering ceremony. The spiritual leader of each winter village site would harvest a few articles of each resource, bring it back, prepare it in a ceremonial way, bless the plants or animals that were responsible, and then the regular harvest could begin. The first gathering ceremony was very important to them, and it was practiced all throughout the Kalapuya culture, religiously. Their belief was that all plants and animals, including humans, were part of the same format. As above, so below. Just like humans, plants and all animals had families, and then beyond the families they had communities.

There’s one word I know of that was utilized all the way up and down the Willamette Valley, the lower Columbia, and into the Salish area in Washington: Tamanawas. It’s been translated as spirit power. People who went out on a vision quest were looking for their Tamanawas. I think what it really related to was a person’s ability to interconnect with all the rest of nature. I’ve collected a number of tales of the people going out into the woods to find a particular medicine, and their ability to find this medicine came from the ability to plug into that certain plant and interact with it. The plant actually was the teacher of the person who was going out on the search.

Jerry Hall: When we started learning our language, songs began coming to us. There is the belief that songs are just in the ether or in the air, and they select somebody to come to at a time in that person’s life. … My experience is that singing evokes something from us that is beyond talking and gives expression to prayer.

I feel that nature is really part of the home and that people related that way five hundred years ago. People knew where everything was and they took care of it.


Fall Ecology and Harvest Event Registration
October 13-14, 2007 (Saturday-Sunday) at Lost Valley Educational Center, Dexter, OR

Name:____________________________________________________________
Address:__________________________________________________________
Phone(s):_________________________________________________________ _
Email:____________________________________________________________
School (if student):__________________________________________________

Name #2:_________________________________________________________
Address:__________________________________________________________
Phone(s):_________________________________________________________ _
Email:____________________________________________________________
School (if student):__________________________________________________

Conference and Meal Fees (including four organic vegetarian meals, Sat. lunch and dinner, Sun. breakfast and lunch):
__$95 early registration, students ages 12 and above, until Sept. 15, 2007
__$105 regular registration, students ages 12 and above
__$125 early registration, non-students, until Sept. 15, 2007
__$135 regular registration, non-students
A limited number of work-trade opportunities and partial scholarships are available; please inquire or see website for application.

Lodging: __$30/adult dormitory accommodations, Saturday night
__$20/minor dormitory accommodations, Saturday night (under 18; must be accompanied by parent or guardian)
__$10 camping per person, Saturday night

Nature Center Membership Contribution (receive e-newsletters and other member benefits, and help support the Nature Center):
__$25 __$50 __$100 __other: $____

Scholarship Donation (help others with limited funds attend this gathering):
__$25 __$50 __$100 __other: $____

Total Payment (pre-surcharge): $____
Payment method: __check (payable to Lost Valley Center)  –or–  __credit/debit card:
Type:________ Expiration date:_________Number:____________________________
Name on card:_______________________
Please add 5% surcharge for credit/debit card payments: $____    Total: $____


Additional Questions:
How did you hear about this event?__________________________________________
Can you offer a ride? (if yes: when, and from where?)_____________________________
Would you like a ride? (if yes: when, and from where?)____________________________
Do you have any additional suggestions or questions?_____________________________


Please send completed form to Fall Ecology and Harvest Gathering, LVEC, PO Box 55, Dexter, OR 97431 USA.
You may also call 541-937-2567 ext. 116, email nature AT lostvalley.org, or register and pay online by following the links at www.lostvalley.org/fallecology