writing
land stewardship training
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.
Awaken your
inner land steward.
Help your hands
remember how to tend
our local ecologies
back to life.
the program
In our immersive weekends, participants will grow a deep foundation of skills to partner with their landscapes in ecological ways.
We will dig our hands into land stewardship topics over a full growing season:
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orienting to a landscape
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pruning
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propagation
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soil + compost
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water
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ecology
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wild + introduced plants
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garden planning + planting
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medicinal plants
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organic gardening
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ecological design
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restoration
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wildlife tracking
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climate resilience
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fire ecology
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...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.
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.
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.
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:
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 full Land Stewardship Training is a comprehensive, holistic pathway into land stewardship. It offers a consistent learning structure in a supportive community over the year. It includes 8 months of seasonal learning in immersive weekends + a 1 day rite of passage ceremony.
Participants in the full training receive a 10% discount off other Tending Alive classes during the course of the Land Stewardship Training—wild plant walks, harvesting and more.
WEEKEND ONLY: This year, weekends of the full training may be taken on a per weekend basis. Mix and match to join a weekend 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 weekends to join the 1-day rite of passage .
10am-4pm
we will take a lunch and other small breaks.
lunch is not provided.
location:
various sites in the Snoqualmie Valley, near Duvall, WA.
location shared after registration.
choose a track:
full core program
join for all weekends and the rite of passage ceremony.
weekend
join for the weekends you want.
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.
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 lens + philosophy
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.
The plants and landscapes we learn from will be our biggest teachers.
cost:
full program
$2,950 ($350 discount)**
per weekend
$300**
rite of passage ceremony
$400**
(ceremony is included in full core program cost.)
**Sliding scale is available for all.
Choose a tier that fits your capacity:
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full program - $1250/$2050/$2950
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weekend - $150/$225/$300
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ceremony - $200/$300/$400
A number of work trade options are also available, as are payment plans. Contact Katie for options.
our schedule:
march - SOIL
soils, compost, greenhouse + nursery design, site orientation, seed-starting
april - WATER
water, irrigation, rain gardens, water catchment, swales, riparian + wetland plants.
may - FOOD
medicinal plants, edible plants, food forest design, vegetable gardens,
companion planting.
july - TEND
pruning (summer), fall/winter vegetable garden planning, weeds + introduced plants, softwood cuttings.
august - CLIMATE + RESILIENCE
seed saving, pollinator gardens, fire ecology, climate resilient landscapes.
september - RESTORE
ecology, restoration, forest stewardship, cover crops.
optional rite of passage ceremony on Sept 27-29
october - WILD LIFE
mushrooms + fungi, wildlife tracking, habitat-building, hedgerows.
november - WHOLE CIRCLE
whole systems design, garden logs + organization, potluck + closing.
about the Tending Alive project:
The Tending Alive project is by design a small, place-based land stewardship experiment with an intention to organically build through community relationships over time to become a replicable, adaptable model and network that engages human hands into ecological stewardship projects worldwide.
We learn from the wild and introduced plant communities of the Snoqualmie Valley as our primary teachers. All courses are place-based, and rooted in a vision for ecological fluency and cultural humility.
