Reclaiming Lifeways
Weaving Earth Offers Nature Based Education for Children, Teens and Adults
An Interview with Samuel Gray Edmondson, Associate Director of Weaving Earth
PHOTOS: DAVID HAGE
Weaving Earth offers nature-based education for action at the confluence of ecological, social, and personal systems change. They have served thousands of youth, teens, and adults in the Bay Area since 2013.
Made Local (ML): What are some of Weaving Earth’s current projects?
Sam Edmondson (SE): We offer nature-based programs for youth, teens, and adults. These include short offerings like weeklong summer nature camps and backpacking trips for youth and teens, and longer offerings like immersive journeys for youth and adults that span multiple seasons. The adult program, called Attune, seeks to recalibrate a sense of interrelationship with the living world, regenerate the wisdom of intuition, and develop tangible skills for living in and responding to the climate emergency.
ML: What measurable outcomes are you most proud of?
SE: Participants of color make up more than 50% of the current Attune cohort. In 2017, Weaving Earth established a Reparations Fund. This offering is not a scholarship fund, and we do not assume that individual BIPOC applicants do not have access to wealth. These funds are offered with a prayer for collective liberation. In 2021, we changed the name of this fund to the Lifeways Back Fund. We lean on the words of our kin and co-collaborator Pinar Sinopoulos-Lloyd, who reminds us that many of the so-called “skills” taught in the fields of nature connection and ancestral arts are, in their words, “not skills—these are lifeways—indigenous, multi-species pedagogy for time immemorial. We have the right to access and reclaim our Lifeways.”
ML: What do you want locals to know about Weaving Earth?
SE: We exist! Visit us at weavingearth.org to learn more about us and how you can get involved. We will be offering camps and trips for teens again this summer. We offer a free monthly bird language gathering at Ragle Ranch Regional Park. Another cohort of the Attune adult program will begin in the fall of 2024. And more!
ML: How can people support this work and/or get involved with Weaving Earth?
SE: Subscribe to our newsletter, join our programs, and contribute to our work and vision if it aligns with your values.
Samuel Gray Edmondson (he/him) is the associate director at Weaving Earth and a composer, performer and guitar teacher.