Land Design & Care

Earth Ethic || Wild ones who hear the primordial call of the Earth Mother, as kin, we come to this gathering with hearts intertwined in the service of continued Life.

We will be welcomed by the great temperate conifer forests, oak woodlands, and wildflower meadows of the Siskiyou National Forest foothills. These brilliant compositions painted onto the landscape remind us of the world we want to inhabit and tend to. In such vanishingly rare places that are still intact, we can listen deeply to the wisdom of this land and her original guardians, and we can begin to rise to the ever-present call of Earth stewardship.

This is the ancestral land of the Takelma People. Long before European conquest, these foothills were the home of cougars, deer, elk, beaver, bear, antelope and bighorn sheep, owls, eagles, long-eared chipmunks, golden trout and of course lots and lots of salmon. A rich mosaic of ecosystems spanned the mountain ranges, with deep pine, cedar and fir forests opening into oak savanna, where the wildlife congregated to feast on acorns, as well as countless types of berries, grasses, and flowering plants. Every elevation hosted a different assembly of species, all the way up to where the lodgepole pines gave way to the alpine meadows and rocky spires.

 

 

The Takelma and other Rogue Valley peoples hold sophisticated cultural practices to diversify and regenerate the landscape for the benefit of all forest inhabitants. Cyclical harvesting, sowing, pruning, and especially the use of fire in prescribed burns, has shaped the character of the Siskiyou National Forest area. The Takelma cultivated only one crop, a native tobacco (Nicotiana biglovii).  Irresponsible logging practices coupled with the suppression of the natural fire cycles have caused many of the region’s forests to be crowded and susceptible to high-intensity fires. The traditional knowledge of the Takelma people, which is gradually recuperating after near-extirpation, holds a key to enhancing ecological health here in Illinois Valley. The Earth ethic of this gathering impels us to learn about the natural and cultural legacies that have been eroded in recent centuries, and to come with hands and hearts set on lending reciprocal support.

A guiding vision with the evolution of Spirit Weavers has always been to steward land. In 2017 we were able to make that come to fruition with Cedar Bloom Family Farm, a place for our community to call our own, and return to each year as we come together in celebration, ceremony, and respect. We are endlessly grateful for this intention to now be a reality, and by attending Spirit Weavers Gathering, you are also helping tend to the land and upholding this vision. This relationship of reciprocity is a huge priority for us as a community, and we all come together to share in this responsibility to care for the land we gather on.  You can learn more about Cedar Bloom here.

With Cedar Bloom under our care, we are able to tend throughout the year, however preparing for the Gathering calls for all hands on deck. Before the gathering each year, a beautiful process of preparation and maintenance takes place.  From arranging flowers, building altars, cleaning the land, and creating the fire circle, to hauling debris and logs from the winter, setting up tents, and decorating the spaces – it’s these preparations that make the Gathering feel more like a true village, a home for us all to grow in and to be inspired.

A team of dedicated land stewards and community volunteers, including carpenters, arborists, permaculturists, and committed staff all come together to prepare and maintain the land, preparing the grounds for the magic to unfold.   This balance of mindful tending and the energy poured into preparations is felt throughout the time we spend together on the land.

We appreciate the ways in which all Beings who attend the Gathering work together to keep the land that holds us looking and feeling beautiful and grounded. With this collective effort we can welcome ourselves to our home beneath the trees and under the stars, infused with presence and gratitude for the continuation of our reciprocal relationship between our Being and the Beings of the Land, seen and unseen.

As we continue with our vision of land stewarding with intention of sustainable self-reliance, the projects are on going & growing.  In 2023 a dream came true as we added a 72’x30′ Greenhouse with handmade raised beds from felled trees on the land, to expand our growing potential throughout the year, full of dahlias, zinnias, proteas, marigolds, desert plants, & culinary delights that were all majorly successful. The greenhouse produced hundreds of cut flowers in its first year, giving us inspiration and excitement to dream even bigger in 2024 and years to come. Over the past few years we have added food & flower gardens, with medicinal and herb gardens on the horizon for 2024.  And what a gift that all the water nourishing this growth is provided by the precious waters of the Illinois River, which runs along side the Land for a mile, helping to provide a natural border and another area we tend to with deep reverence. We have also  harvested and processed the fruits from our blackberry patches, orchard, and wild edibles on the land, helping with the continued abundance of their stands. We are expanding our array of cut flowers & made from the land offerings to be available for purchase and found at the local farmer’s market in town for 2024.

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Our Offerings

  • Our Conservation easement has been deep in the works, and we are almost there! With our dedication behind long-term stewardship of this land, we have been researching the best ways to protect her for the next 7 generations.  Through conservation and a soul commitment to safeguard the forest and aquatic communities who calls this land home, we commit to never log or develop this land in any harmful way.
  • Permaculture, native polycultures and flower farming has nourished and created habitat for our precious bird, insect and human kin.
  • We are proud to have 8 EcoZoic composting toilet facilities at Cedar Bloom, which turn all of our human waste into nutrients that get returned right back to the soil here on the land! Every year we empty the tanks, their contents going straight to feed the fruit trees and soil around the land. In this way, our event is actually giving back and nourishing the land on which we gather, as opposed to harming it. We are grateful to these innovative systems, and to have knowledgeable and inspired folks on our team that help us implement these new systems of sustainability into our community and homes.
  • To offset the absence of fire, we will bring biochar, a pure crystalline charcoal made from chipped wood. We will offer this to the soil around the Grandmother Oaks, Madrones, and Pines, which will hold water around the root system and provide some added protection against drought. The biochar will enliven the soil with bacterial and fungal activity, and thereby create fertility for the trees and plants. In these moist beds, we will leave endangered wildflower seeds imbued with our prayers for resilience.
Meet the Cedar Bloom Land Stewards

Mea Woodruff – Founder & Visionary

Mea is the founding Mother behind the Spirit Weavers Gathering. Her love for nature and earth play began at a very young age. She was raised on her family’s farm in Southern California, spending most of her childhood outdoors, camping, connecting with her animals and eating foods and fruits from her family’s abundant gardens.

Mea is a gatherer, artisan, student of the heart path and a Mother.  For almost two decades now, Mea has been consistently honing her craft,  expanding her creativity and love for earth based skills.  With Spirit Weavers now at the forefront of her time Mea spends most of the year deep in gathering prep and organization.

For the last 15 years, Mea has lived on the Island of Kauai with her partner and teenage daughter Naia.  Together they enjoy traveling, creating music, and surfing.  Mea and her family spend the summer on the Spirit Weavers land, Cedar Bloom  Together along with their dedicated and loving community, they host weddings, retreats and campground fun. In 2023, their campground was named #1 Hipcamp in all of Oregon.

Samantha Tanis – Production and Land Tender

Samantha has long been in communion with the Earth and the offerings of the Forest for many years, as a gatherer, herbalist, Ancestral skills lover, novice hunter, tracker, and dirt dweller. Her mindful tending, guided by Earth, Water, Fire, and Sky along with her attention to the subtleties has brought her to Cedar Bloom. There she supports the needs of the trees and all Land Beings, living year-round in reciprocal ways, truly becoming an integral part of the ecosystem . She first came to Spirit Weavers when the Gathering began to be held on these Lands of the Takelma people and heard a call from early on to be in deep service to the Beings by expanding the possibilities of rewilding the land with natives & medicinals, helping to grow our own food, and co-create the dream of a flower farm. 

Sometimes called a Jill-of-all-trades, you can find Sam fully immersed in whatever the land needs-chopping wood, holding rituals in the Forest, aerating compost, pruning trees, delicately cutting flowers, digging trenches, and more. She also works closely in relation to the Plant Beings with The School of Forest Medicine, makes small batch regeneratively wild crafted tinctures as the main harvester for Cascadia Folk Medicine,  and will begin offering Land Communion Outings in 2024. This great connection has brought Sam to being one of the 3 main organizers and Production Co-lead of the Gathering. With great humility, and steeped in gratitude, she walks in remembrance on this Earth singing to the Trees and the Ancient Ones.

Kelsey Moore – Production and Good Neighbor

Kelsey Moore is a multi-faceted and dynamic being – constantly growing, learning, shifting and expanding.  Somewhat of a chameleon, empathetic sponge and jack-of-all-trades, she finds it difficult to describe herself with words.  With both courage and trust in the process, she’s spent her adult life following breadcrumbs and glimmers, leading a life of adventure, self-guided studies, travel, trial & error, self-inquiry, and ever-winding and unfolding paths; over time acquiring many different skill sets and interests and molding herself to reflect and embody the aspects of life that she feels to be in alignment with her own truth and in service to the earth and collective good. 

Her involvement with Spirit Weavers and Cedar Bloom follows the same trajectory and also feels like a place of arrival and culmination – weaving together many threads of passions, skills, priorities and connections that Kelsey has cultivated over her life up to present.  She’s been involved with the Spirit Weavers community since 2015, beginning with attending, then volunteering, and deepening her involvement over the years with both Cedar Bloom land management and Spirit Weavers event production. 

 She now resides just across the river from Cedar Bloom, paddling her canoe across to help tend the land and support the management of the ongoing projects of our community.  She shows up to the here and now in her most humble and sincere attempt to weave it all together with authenticity and full of gratitude, in service to the myriad of ways we can live in harmony and reciprocity with the earth, each other, and the great mystery of it all.

Nenah Bondi – Photographer and Land Tender

Nenah Eve has been a caretaker at Cedar Bloom Farm for over three years now, touching the lives of hundreds of campground guests with her warm hospitality as they pass through. Profoundly committed to deep ecology, Nenah spent much of her early twenties traveling to ecovillages, intentional communities, permaculture gardens, social justice initiatives, and grassroots projects overseas to learn about the art of sustainable living. She believes connection to nature is the strongest healing force there is, and seeks to live in harmony with Earth and her creatures while developing and sharing the importance of earth-based skills and wisdom. Nenah cares deeply about serving the Spirit Weavers community through stewardship of this sacred land we all call home – from making sure the facilities are clean and functional, to sprinkling love and magic into all the details of even the furthest corners of the land. She believes local community efforts are slowly but surely returning beauty, relationship, and aliveness to our planet in crisis.

 

Six years ago, Nenah followed her heart to Southern Oregon to photograph Spirit Weavers Gathering for the first time, and has been photographing the gathering ever since. Working seasonally, she spends her summers behind the camera engaged in medium format film photography and spends her winters nestled up by the fire designing custom websites. Originally from Southern California, Nenah’s design sensibility and branding knowledge were shaped in Los Angeles where she studied business marketing and worked many years as a full-time design specialist for leading music festivals and events in the live entertainment industry. Now, Nenah’s photography and designs often showcase women joining together in profound and meaningful ways. In her free time, you’ll often find her playing music and seeking inspiration outdoors in solitude.