The GROW BIOINTENSIVE method works to stabilize both current and future food systems by producing a complete diet and growing soil fertility 60x faster than nature with 90% fewer inputs, organic methodology, and appropriate technology. In doing so, we are able to inspire and empower communities to regain their food security; managing a strategy to grow more food in their Zone 1. This workshop will provide participants with the eight principles which guide immediate garden planning and implementation, as well as long-term sustainable food raising techniques. Through the use of our eight principles as presented in both a presentation and a hands-on activity, we hope to empower participants with the tools to create abundant, low-cost, low-tech, self-sustaining farm designs which feed both people and soil.

Presented By: Matt Drewno

Learn More About Matt Drewno

Participants will learn collaborative design through modeling and voicing crucial elements and principles involved in creating an intensive garden in minimal space.

Participatory learning around a basic common denominator of permaculture (the intensive front-door garden) with the power of collaborative design in real space

Presented By: Rick Valley

Each choice we make is a vote for the kind of world we want to live in. The mission of ‘Adapt – A Permaculture Game’ is to educate individuals and groups how to design in the ethics and principles of Permaculture to each aspect of our lives. We will play through the creating of a world to thrive in by applying principles, patterns, and collective knowledge pools to cultivate caring choices for our communities and our own self-care needs.  This playshop will provide you with the inside scoop on the evolutionary teaching tool – ‘Adapt’ – while participating in a few rounds of game play. Explore with us the many ways in which this game and its pieces can be used through out a multitude of educational environments and community development.

Presented By: Bridget O’Brien

Sunday September 18th | 12:30 – 1:30 PM | Bioregional Hub

Alegra was born in the Arizona southwest desert and has always had a deep love of nature, art, and passion for learning. Her grandfather was a green thumb and a cherry farmer in Oregon.  She loves to grow and propagate things everywhere she goes, from Native Reforestation to Permaculture food forests, to backyard gardens, CSA’s and farmers markets. She has been working in the magical soils from California, Hawaii to Brazil and Mexico. Exploring sustainable ways of living and being that we may be in harmony with the biosphere. She loves helping people discover and nurture the artist in nature and in themselves. She also has studies in World dance, Sports Thai massage and Yoga. Dedicated to sharing, Knowledge, Skills, Creativity  to birth a healthier world. She is  a visual , performance artist, movement alchemist, painter, maskmaker, dancer trained in various cultural styles  Haitian, Brazilian, Congolese, Afro- Cuban, Modern, & Fire. She has deep studies in Expressive healing arts, Dance therapy, N.m.t. Sports/Thai massage, Organic Gardening/ Permaculture and Somatic Psychology. She has worked with multicultural drum and dance ensemble, ‘ Cuero a Cuero.” danced  as fire artist with International circus troop in Playa del Carmen  -”Atomic Weight.”   As well she has assisted in production/performance of –  Next Level Theaters’ Black light Burlesque and Body painting shows. Her passion is to release the  universal rhythm through her, and to use art as a shamanic tool to inspire, heal and reveal creations tale.

To her Dance  is a play and a prayer of mystery and hidden treasures and can create transformation bridging inner and outer worlds.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Dancing Freedom: Regenerate Zone Zero- Vision, Movement, Action

2016 Convergence RED Talk Presentation: Gaia U: 10 Years of Supporting EcoSocial Designers. What’s Next?

2016 Convergence Panel: Our 200 Year Plan: Designing our Future Together

Alexa has studied consciousness research in college, with a focus on the evolution of consciousness. gained political awareness and activation on the streets of Eugene, and embraced her true calling in the discovery of permaculture. Weaving her experiences and passions together to help develop social permaculture as a shared tool box, conceptual framework for culture design and as a synergy filled social movement.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Catalyzing the Evolution of Collective Consciousness & Culture Through Design

Chinese Galactic Cosmonaut

Alpha Lo is co-editor and co-author of the Open Collaboration Encyclopedia. He also helped to found the Gift Circle Network, and has created a number of social and economic architectures, amongst them Facilitator Improv, Empathic Dashboard, Sorry Circles, Coupon currencies, and the Participatory Commons.

Friday, Oct 6| 4:30| Bioregional Hub

How to Design New Social Architectures

2016 Convergence Panel: Permaculture and the Indigenous Contribution: A Courageous Conversation

Come learn how to use appropriate cooking technologies such as solar cookers and fuel-efficient rocket stoves to cook a completely fossil-fuel-free meal!

Everyday enough sunlight hits the earth to exceed world annual energy demand several times over! Solar thermal energy is a readily available and renewable way to cook our food; dehydrate our fruits and vegetables; and pasteurize water. Come check out a variety of appropriate cooking technologies and discover the multitude of benefits of solar cooking and fuel-efficient rocket stoves – both for our health and the health of our planet. We will discuss the design and construction of these technologies and enjoy a delicious and completely fossil-fuel-free meal! We will also discuss the vision for SolutionCraft – a permaculture food truck!

Brennan is purchasing the world’s largest mobile solar oven, the Villager Sun Oven. This oven can cook 100s of loaves of bread / over 1000 meals a day with no fuel costs, using energy directly from the sun. Being able to offer an ecological kitchen that doesn’t depend on fossil fuels is critical to Building Resilient Communities! And helps build bridges under our common SOLution, the source of all our energy, the sun!

Presented By: Brennan Bird

One of the most important skills of a trained Permaculture designer is observation. Over the last 11 years, Weaving Earth has been focusing heavily on the practice of Bird Language – listening and watching what the birds are telling us about the eco-system. To truly understand what the birds are telling us requires an acute level of observation, which has ultimately served us well as designers. This experiential workshop will be an introduction to Bird Language basics, and a conversation about how it has served us as Permaculture designers. And possibly most important, Bird Language is also a lot of fun!

Presented By: David Hage and the Weaving Earth Team

2016 Convergence Panel: The Revolution Must Be Funded! Finding Resources for Your Organization & Projects

Brandi Mack is a mother, holistic health educator, therapeutic massage therapist, and permaculture designer. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Human Service Management and a certification from Starhawk’s Earth Activist Training. Brandi has worked and trained in the youth development sector for 15 years. Brandi currently is the national director of The Butterfly Movement where we are committed to support healing the wounds of our Soul (through Rebuilding and Re Framing our emotional selves), planting a Seed of hope as we Regenerate and Reconnect our hearts and our hands to the earth, leading ultimately to manifestation in the Soil of our Reactivated lives! Brandi uses permaculture principles to support individuals and communities connection back to the land. Brandi offers a Farmers Market basket full of workshops and trainings to help your rural or urban garden grow.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Working at the Edges: Exploring Our Personal and Cultural Eco-Systems

Brenda brings a strong history in nonprofit management to the Permaculture world. Past work history includes Director of Finance & Operations, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability (previously known as International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) and Director of Finance & Administration, The Climate Group. She has eight years experience as a private Consultant in the Nonprofit Arena with focus on fiscal management, compliance of federal awards exceeding 1million and full-agency development. Brenda’s Permaculture-based accomplishments over the last six years include: Founder, Golden Rocks Permaculture Farm (Middletown, CA); Founder, Middletown Community Farmer’s Market; Co-Founder, Valley Fire Phoenix Rising; and Founder, TREES as a Community Resource.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Resilience in the face of WildFires – The Lake County Story

Brennan Blazer Bird is an ecological educator, natural builder, and solutioncrafter who has led a diverse array of artistic and ecological projects around the world. For the past 5 years Brennan has taught youth and community members to transform plastic waste into an artistic community-gathering place (www.earthbench.org). Brennan is also starting a fossil-fuel-free ecological kitchen classroom called SolutionCraft (www.solutioncraft.org). Currently Brennan lives at an ecological collective in Oakland, CA and is a full-time Garden and Sustainability Educator at Alta Vista School in San Francisco.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Appropriate Cooking Technology – The Fossil-Fuel-Free Meal!

As a caring steward of life Bridget O’Brien strives to explore resilience through many pathways. Her studies and work focus on self-care, social, and land-use design. While utilizing her diverse skills, experiences, and trainings to provide a wholistic approach to culture repair. Bridget shares her passion for playful impactful loving service through her work as a Permaculture educator and designer. She is the Program Director for New Rising Sun (an educational retreat center, farm, and community developing in Ganges, Michigan), and is the creative inspiration of ‘Adapt’ – A Permaculture Game, in collaboration with PermaculturePrinciples.com.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Adapt – A Permaculture Game “Create a world you want to live in.”

Learn hands-on with Miguel “Sir Cobalot” Elliott during two workshops:

1) Miguel will be sharing the process of building a small hut built out of pallets, insulated with straw, covered in an earthen cob plaster, called a “Palletable Cobin”. This structure is very easy to build, affordable, super well insulated, non-toxic, and is a great solution for low cost housing.

2) For anyone who wants to learn cob and adobe building hands-on, Miguel will also be building a cob & adobe bench in the children’s play area between the oven and cob play structure. Covered in the Workshop will be building a sturdy foundation, earthen sculpting, setting Adobe bricks and plastering.

Presented By: Miguel “Sir Cobalot” Elliott

It’s possible, we can reverse climate change through permaculture/ regenerative agriculture. And the “we” is everyone on the planet. There is a movement building globally and we need your participation. This workshop will give you skills to add your voice and talents to building the global movement. We’ll go over messaging, social media, storytelling, and how your unique skills, no matter what they are, can help spread the word.

Presented By: Lauren Tucker

Sunday, September 18th | 11:40 AM – 12:00 PM | Solar Panel: El Sol

Bunker is a traveling documentary filmmaker who produces media for the social justice and environmental movements as part of Survival Media Agency, an international collective of media makers. His passion has brought him to South Africa and Mexico to cover the United Nations Climate Talks and working on documentaries involving the honeybee die-off in the United States and Halliburton’s destruction of the rainforest in Ecuador. One of his recent projects “Our Power” won 1st prize in the general public category and 1st prize overall at the Breathe California Clear the Air Film Festival.

2016 Convergence Workshop: “Commons” Film Screening

Caleb Gordon is the garden manager and intern coordinator at the Solar Living Institute. He has been living and working at the institute for three years where he is learning and practicing different techniques in sustainable living. His passions are teaching and learning new and innovative ways to live in harmony with the natural world. He is in charge of maintaining the large CCOF certified organic garden as well as assisting interns in site projects throughout the center. His dreams are to create strong resilient communities that provide abundance for all.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Earth Bench & Garden Tours of SLI gardens

Cannabis farming has not embraced sustainable practices, but with the evolving regulations, sustainable farming is becoming more common place.

In the past, cannabis farmers have not been considered to be sustainable, let alone farmers. Due to legal and enforcement issues, Cannabis farmers have struggled in the past to plan and develop beyond 12 to 18 months. As the State passing new legislation and develops licensing requirements and local jurisdictions do the same, the farming environment for the cannabis cultivator begins to stabilize. Sustainable and regenerative practices are being embraced by the farmer. The investment horizon for the cannabis farmer is beginning to extend to multiple years. Cannabis farmers can now realize returns on investments in terms of years instead of months.

As State legislation produces new regulations and licenses, cannabis cultivation has now become a commodity crop under the State Department of Food and Agriculture.  Sustainable practices are being embraced. This workshop brings cannabis farmers and sustainable practice service providers together to discuss this transition.

Presented By: Arthur Deicke, Larry Shaeffer, Asa Shaeffer, Naaman Hagman, Daisy Ozim