THE OVERVIEW

The Tending Alive Project is an experiment in restoring the people's hands to the soil and soul. We evoke a profound cultural remembering of how to tend our local ecosystems back to life in these complex times.

Our new 8-month program is a holistic training in land stewardship and horticulture, plus practices for attunement with self, ancestors, soul, cosmos and the wider ecology. You will learn how to tend land well, and fall madly in love with plants.

THE PROGRAM

In our immersive weekends, participants will grow a deep foundation of skills to partner with their landscapes in ecological ways.

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We will dig our hands into land stewardship topics over a full growing season:

• orienting to a landscape
• pruning
• propagation
• soil + compost
• water
• ecology
• ​wild + introduced plants
• garden planning + planting
• medicinal plants
• organic gardening
• ecological design
• restoration
• wildlife tracking
• climate resilience
• fire ecology
• ...and more, if you sign up for an add-on learning track.​

Our lessons are seasonally arranged to align our learning experience to the local ecology and moon + planetary cycles.

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As we learn how to relate to plants and land, we will engage a deep inquiry into our own ancestral relationship to place, and explore invitations to attune our senses to a deeper way of listening with the land. As part of this, we will experiment with practices to with cultivate our inner and outer resilience in a burning world.

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At the end of the season, participants can choose to participate in a 1-day rite of passage ceremony to mark the transition into their role as a land steward.

Graduates walk away with a broad foundation in land stewardship, a greater confidence in working with plants, a deeper intimacy with place, and much more. All participants are connected to a network of land stewardship opportunities where they can apply their skills in support of restoration, LandBack and ecological landscape projects.

THE STRUCTURE

As 2024 is a pilot year for the Land Stewardship Training, we are offering a flexible participation structure to meet our people where they are at.

The CORE training is our foundational offering—a comprehensive, holistic learning journey into land stewardship. This track offers a consistent structure for exploration in a supportive community over the year. It includes 8 months of seasonal learning in immersive weekends + a 1 day rite of passage ceremony.

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FLEXIBLE TRACK: This year, the CORE training may also be taken on a per weekend or per day basis. Mix and match to join a day or weekend (or more) as it fits for your schedule or budget. This option is only available as spaces are open. Note: Participants must attend a minimum of 3 full days to join the 1-day rite of passage .

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ADD-ON TRACKS: Participants who want a deeper learning experience can choose an add-on track (or more) to layer onto the basic training. These extra classes are offered on a regular basis over the year.

• Harvesting - A special focus on ethical harvesting of wild, medicinal and cultivated plants. We meet on a monthly basis to learn what is seasonally ripe, harvest together, and begin to process and/or make food or medicine from what we gather.
• Wild Plant Walks - A special focus on botany, plant identification, ethnobotany and growing ecological fluency. We will meet weekly (by season) to learn from different plant communities in the Snoqualmie Valley and grow familiarity with local flora.
• Wildtending - A special focus on seasonal propagation, wildlife gardening, and care and tending of PNW native plants. We will meet once per season to get curious about our local ecologies and how we can participate in good ways.

All add-on tracks are available to folks not enrolled in the Land Stewardship Training.

DATES

Mar 9-10

Apr 13-14

May 4-5

June - no class

July 13-14

Aug 10-11

Sept 14-15

Sept 27-29 optional: 1-day rite of passage ceremony

Oct 12-13

Nov 9-10

TIME

10am-4pm

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we will take a lunch and other small breaks. participants are responsible for providing their own lunch, snacks and water/coffee/tea. depending on the site, it may not be possible to heat up your meals.

LOCATION

various sites in the Snoqualmie Valley, near Duvall, WA.

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location shared after registration, and at minimum one week prior to the coming immersion.

CHOOSE A TRACK

full core program

join for all weekends and the rite of passage ceremony.

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full core program + add on

join for all weekends, the rite of passage ceremony, and any add-on track(s) of your choice.

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flexible core program

pick and choose the weekends or days you want to join.

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add-on only:

join an add-on track only.

COST

flexible

$110-180/day - sliding scale

​at checkout, please enter an amount above $110 that feels generous for you to offer.

+ plant walks

sign up separately.

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+ harvesting

sign up separately.

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+ wildtending

sign up separately.

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A limited number of pay-what-you-can and work trade options are available. Please contact Katie for options.

OUR LENS + PHILOSOPHY

This program roots in the truth that wilderness is a myth and—as Indigenous communities demonstrate today as since time immemorial—humans can be beneficial to ecologies. Further, that active and informed participation can lead to more resilient, vibrant landscapes for all. We challenge the word "homesteading" as a way to describe living closely to the land, and look to deconstruct our relationship to land so we can find a more genuinely relational way forward.

Our learning holds a lens of settler responsibility and dreaming toward intersectional liberation. We hold respect and discernment when sharing knowledge rooted in Coast Salish cultural plant traditions and technologies—especially in wildtending, restoration and wild plant lessons.

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A portion of program tuition is redistributed to the Tend, Gather and Grow Project—a wild food, medicine and cultural ecology curriculum for K-12 learners centering Coast Salish communities. Their work is a powerful catalyst to cultural sovereignty, and a foundation to my awareness of traditional land tending practices. The percentage donated will depend on enrollment and be calculated in response to Tend's suggested levels of financial support.

OUR INSTRUCTORS

Katie Vincent (they/she) is the primary instructor for the Land Stewardship Training, as well as all add-on courses. We will welcome a few guest instructors over the season to deepen our learning in special topics.

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The plants and landscapes we learn from will be our biggest teachers.

A MAP OF POSSIBLE TOPICS

March: welcome, site orientation, soils + compost, greenhouse + nursery design, propagation, vegetable garden planning.

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April: water in the landscape + irrigation, ecological design basics, companion planting, propagation.

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May: medicinal plants, edible trees + shrubs, food forest design, pests + diseases.

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July: pruning (summer), fall/winter vegetable garden planning, weeds + introduced plants, softwood cuttings.

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August: seed saving, pollinator gardens, fire ecology, climate resilient landscapes.

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September: fall propagation, cover crops, season extension, ecological restoration, food forests, guerilla gardening,

(optional 1-day rite of passage ceremony is Sept 27-29)

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October: mushrooms + fungi, forest stewardship, wildlife tracking, wildlife gardening, hedgerows.

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November: whole systems design (sketching, drafting, design) for a land you tend, garden logs + organization, propagation, potluck and closing.

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note:  topics each weekend are emergent and subject to change in response to seasonal conditions, timing, availability of supplies, and more.