Earth Craft CurriculuM

We gather in the forest to immerse ourselves in intentional living — an experiment in ecological community, where everyone belongs, contributes, and is supported in inclusive, loving, healthy ways.

Our days will be spent embedded in the wildlands of Spirit Hollow, learning and wandering, building and crafting, planting and tending, wholing and healing, and most of all discovering what lights our deepest fire.

Your shared living space is just down the road at Pompanuck Farm, where, as a cooperative, you will plan, shop and cook meals together, and participate in functional and harmonious community living.

Learning at Earthcraft is grounded in hands-on experience and designed to evolve organically according to student interest. Our team of guides collectively has decades of experience in a diverse range of skills that we will adapt to meet you where you are and support you in your unique unfolding.

Our guide-to-student ratio is no more than 4:1, providing each participant with ongoing individual support during the program. We provide mentoring for up to six months after the program ends.

We are a member of the Gap Year Association.

Join our vibrant community nestled in the heart of Vermont's Taconic Mountains for a transformative gap semester at Earth Craft. Immerse yourself in intentional living—an extraordinary experiment in ecological community. Here, everyone belongs, contributes, and is supported in inclusive, loving, and healthy ways.

Individual Unfoldment

Tending our Body, Mind and Spirit

In order to show up for our people, the earth or our own deepest calling, we must cultivate wholeness in our own body, mind and spirit. At EarthCraft we use Animas Valley Institute's Wild Mind Model of the Human Psyche to understand who we are, heal our wounds and more fully embody our strengths. We learn and practice the spiritual arts of meditation and connected movement such as Yoga and Tai Ji to clear our minds and gather our energy for the psychospiritual journey of self-actualization we are embarking on. And we ground our efforts in rest, taking space to digest and time to integrate through lightness and fun.

Meditation
Connected Movement Yoga/Tai Ji
Wild Mind: Developing Emotional Resilience
Individual Reflection and Inquiry/The Journey of Self-Discovery
Rediscovering Rest, Ease and Play
Nature-based Physical Activity
Support During — and after — by Personal Staff Mentors

Exploring our Life Purpose

As we cultivate our wholeness, we venture into the mysteries of Soul. Through the art of Soulcraft pioneered by Bill Plotkin and Animas Valley Institute, we listen to the Earth and to the whispers of our own heartfelt callings. We enter the wild with our questions and listen to our dreams, uncovering pieces of our purpose and discovering our greatest gifts. In our wanderings, we catch glimpses of our personal mythos and learn ways of sharing this story with others. At the close of our journey, we have the opportunity to undertake a Wilderness Solo, gathering and confirming all that we've discovered about ourselves before re-entering the wider world.

Dreamwork
Soulcraft: Discovering Purpose through Nature Immersion
Development of Personal Mythos
Storytelling
EarthCentric Artistry: Creative and Ceremonial Arts
Individual Rite of Passage and Wilderness Solo

Soul-Centric Community

Cultivating Community

Living together in a good way, celebrating individual gifts and co-operating for collective purpose, is more than just learning to meet our physical needs. At Earthcraft, we take up the ways of respectful communication, brave sharing and heartfelt listening, receiving and offering feedback, deepening relationship through conflict, working collaboratively, and collective visioning. We won't just be sharing space, but learning to share life together.

Shared Community Responsibilities: Cooking, Cleaning and Maintaining our Physical Space
Community Fundamentals: Co-operative Leadership, Life-Affirming Communication and Moving through Conflict
Collective Visioning and Conscious Culture Creation
Brave Feedback Space
Deep Sharing and Listening Practices -The Way of Council

Practical Skills and Our Own Particular Place

Knowing ourselves, we consciously come into relationship, bringing our whole self to our community. We develop the practical skills needed to keep the fabric of our village alive and well, ensuring that our people are fed and healthy, with proper shelter. We do what needs to be done (all hands are needed to harvest) and we follow our calling - learning and practicing the crafts to which we are most drawn. In this, we find our particular place, in reciprocal relationship with the land and other-than-human ones with whom we share it.

Carpentry and Woodworking
Cooking and Food Preservation
Natural Building
Organic Gardening and Permaculture
Drum Making and other Crafts
Herbalism and Wildcraft

Other-Than-Human World

Relationship with the Animate World

Humans are but one species in the complex and intricate Earth Community. To truly survive and thrive, we choose to return to our deepest belonging in the wider wild world. We cross the threshold between "human" and "nature" by adopting an attitude of curiosity, wonder, and reverence for the trees, rivers, four-legged, winged, and burrowing ones with whom we share the land. We recognize the interconnectedness of all beings and that we inhabit an interdependent, rather than independent, reality. Recognizing that intelligence is expressed differently throughout the natural world, we open ourselves to listening from a deeper place and accessing other expressions of intelligence and knowing.

Deepening our connection to the Earth and all beings therein
Exploring the wisdom of our innate intuition and instincts
Ritual Arts and Ceremony
Wilderness Wandering and lots of solo time in the forest

Wilderness Awareness and Survival Skills

We enter right relationship with the natural world, coming to know the land around us as well as we know our hearths and homes. We follow tracks and signs through the forest, come to know the ones who make them and discover the living story of the place we live. We learn how to read the land, to move through it with care and grace, and we hone the skills necessary to feel at home in the wild.

Friction Fire Building, Knife and Survival Skills
Minimalist Backpacking and Campcraft
Map Reading, Orienteering and Backcountry Navigation
Animal and Plant Identification
Tracking
Medicinal and Edible Foraging

Deep Time

Born for These Days

We are living in unique times - times of crisis and times of opportunity. The challenges of stepping into adulthood can feel overwhelming on their own without adding climate change collapse, economic uncertainty and systemic injustice to the mix. Amidst the pressures and expectations of modern culture, it can be hard to discern what is truly important to us. And, at Earthcraft, we believe that each of us, you in particular, have crucial gifts and an important role to play in what eco-philosopher Joanna Macy calls "The Great Turning" towards a life-enhancing world. As 'olders' your guides will track, mirror and affirm your unique gifts - existing and emerging. Through "The Work that Reconnects,” we return to gratitude, feel our grief and open to the web of relationship that connects human, earth and all life. we ground in the the web of relationship that connects human, earth and all life.

The Work that Reconnects
Working with Dreams and our Deep Imagination
Guide Tracking, Mirroring and Support of your Personal journey, passions and gifts.

Ancestors and Future Ones

Knowing that we were born for these days, we extend our awareness beyond our ourselves - understanding that what we choose to do matters not just for our own life but for the lives of others present and future who we maynever meet. We open ourselves to deep time, a sense of our place at the forefront of an immense evolutionary journey, honoring our ancestors and considering to our descents. Acknowledging all that it's taken for us to be here breathing and to all that will live or die based on what we choose to do with this "one wild and precious life."

Ancestral Connection and Healing
Deep Time Perspective
Soulcentric Activism and Collaborative Service Projects
Engagement with Historical and Existing Movements for Change

Remembering Lightness and Play

EarthCraft is a holistic approach to living, which includes inviting our wild, playful, and creative selves to revel in the beauty and magic of existence. We belong to this Earth and have been gifted with a physical vessel with which we can explore, play, and learn through experience and experimentation. Getting outside of our conceptual/intellectual mind, we reconnect with an aspect of our being that is light-hearted, completely comfortable inhabiting this Earth, and has myriad creative ways to engage with Life in a playful and transformative way