Ecology
Ecology: How do we live within living systems?
Resilience is not a human-only project. The soil under our feet, the plants we grow, the animals we keep company with, and the wild communities at the edges of our places are doing essential work — work that no household or community can substitute for.
Our ecology workshops and field days explore the practices of living alongside — what it means to learn from a herd of goats, a forest edge, a row of garlic, a stream. We work hands-on with plants, animals, and soil; we read landscapes; and we develop the slower kinds of attention that ecology rewards.
Why This Matters
The other foundations build the things — shelter, water systems, energy, food. Ecology is the register in which those things actually work. A garden without soil life is a planter; a watershed without forests is a pipe; a flock of chickens without your noticing them is a vending machine. The more-than-human world is the substrate that the rest of resilience runs on.
Ecology is also where children learn the most quickly and remember the longest. A morning in a pasture with goats teaches things that a classroom cannot.
Related Foundations
- Food — soil biology, pollinators, animal husbandry
- Water — watersheds, riparian zones, beavers
- Shelter — siting in landscape, hedges, microclimates