Knowledge Holders

Alexa René Rivera

she/her

Alexa René Rivera is a weaver of Puerto Rican and anti-Zionist Jewish descent. From the Hudson Valley, and residing in Northern Vermont, Alexa is the owner/founder of WOVN.COUNTRY- a small business selling handmade baskets and teaching basketry workshops around the region for the past decade. She is also the Program and Studios Manager at the International artist and writer residency, Vermont Studio Center. Alexa is currently spending her time thinking about basketry as vessel, and being humbled at adult beginners ballet class.

  • In this Basket Weaving workshop, we will discuss basketry as ancestral craft, as cultivation of presence, as record keeper of people and plant, and as meditation on the intersection of function and beauty. We will start the workshop with material introduction and cultural context, go into a demonstration that includes guided weaving time, and we will end with sharing and reflecting on the practice. Basket weaving is a world of cross-cultural invention, of communing with land and hand, of patience and pride. I am so excited to sit with you in a circle and weave- as has been done by so many before us. Everyone will make and leave with their own small basket, as well as the basic techniques to carry this skill forward.

Cris Bouza

they/them

Cris Bouza (they/them) is passionate about agroecology as a way to feed people, regenerate ecosystems, & connect to ancestral lifeways. With Caribbean roots, Cris was born & raised on the Tequesta lands of South Florida. Their work is focused on agroforestry, cultivating community sovereignty & resilience; and facilitating connection & relationships back to land. In 2019 Cris co-founded Finca Morada, a half acre educational community space that has hosted 100s of workshops; is a working model & hub for climate resilience, & is an urban food forest of over 200 diverse varieties of edible, medicinal, and native species, located in North Miami. Cris is an Alum of the Meso-American Institute of Permaculture, Soul Fire Farmer Immersion, Yale Tropical Forest Restoration & Agroforestry Program, Florida Master Naturalist Program, Syntropic Agroforestry Programs; and has a Bachelor's Degree from Berklee College. When Cris isnt facilitating workshops or tending to the land, they are also a professional musician & artist-activist.

  • Forest Principles for All Growers at Any Scale will introduce or provide deeper understanding of forest ecosystems and the principals that they operate within, drawing upon lessons from Brazilian based syntropic aka successional agroforestry and agroecology methods in the Caribbean & Latin America. The workshop digs into valuable technical theory (maximizing photosynthesis, the value of perennials, stratification, forest succession, support species, et al) to support growers at any level or scale, while also being highly engaging, dynamic, fun, and spirit centered.

Gwendolyn Nicholson & Toshima Cook

She/Her

Gwendolyn and Toshima are a grandmother–granddaughter duo rooted in their love for herbs, local history, and the wisdom of their elders. Raised along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, Gwendolyn is a seasoned forager and pillar in her community. Known affectionately as “Aunt Gwen,” she is adored for her herbal remedies, generosity, and love of a good party. Toshima is a community navigator, teacher, and healing artist who loves sitting at her grandmother's feet and sharing the stories of they're lineage and community. Together, they preserve the wisdom of those who came before them.

  • Many black and brown communities have developed a complex relationship with land over the generations. Poke Sallet Byrdie is an exploration of that relationship through somatics, art and storytelling. Join Gwendylon and Toshima as they slip into one of their favorite rhythms—granddaughter and grandmother journeying back through Gwendylon’s childhood, exploring her early lessons in foraging, old-country remedies, food preservation, and the deep sense of community she learned from her elders.

Hana’ Maaiah

She/Her

Peace! My name is Hana’ Maaiah (she/her/all pronouns), and I am a queer Palestinian-Jordanian nomadic farmer, beekeeper, educator, friend and organizer. My forever fascination of Earth’s intersections in farming, energy, climate, race, politics and spirituality has brought me to Montana as a River Ranger, Oregon to study Environmental Science and Environmental Agriculture, and Alabama as an Assistant Farm Manager and mentor in youth programs. In learning that “to free ourselves, we must feed ourselves” (Leah Penniman), I landed at Soul Fire Farm, and currently serve as the co-Farm Manager and Farm Education & Programs Manager. After almost a decade of farming and teaching around the country, I learned the urgent need to bring advocacy and care for the Earth from the fields to the streets. As “all revolution is based on land” (Malcolm X), the power of regenerative and communally grown food heals our planet, builds trust in our communities, and gives us reason to keep learning, dancing and feasting. When I’m not farming you can find me in the woods, by a river, and literally hugging trees.

  • Bees are our ancestors, pre-dating human existence on the Earth by tens of millions of years. When we host bees on land, they teach us about communal living, positive environmental impacts, and how to dance and make sweet treats. The goal of this workshop is to make bee keeping as possible as possible, so by the end of it, you will know how to manage your very own backyard hive! In this hands on workshop, we will:

    In this workshop we will:
    Learn about the history of bees
    Understand honey bee biology
    Discover pests and diseases that impact the hive
    Learn where and how to install a backyard hive, plus how to connect with a bee mentor
    Explore how to source bees, hive materials, beekeeping equipment and other related start up costs
    Be introduced to the honey extraction process

    Buzz buuz!

Jamani Ashé

Any Pronouns

Jamani Ashé is a land-based educator, organizer and weaver who understands emergency preparedness as ancestral practice and tending land as tending liberation. As a Wildland Firefighter and Wilderness First Responder, Jamani weaves between fire lines and healing circles, between policy tables and ceremony, guided by the knowing that all acts of care for Earth and each other are sacred resistance. As the founder and steward of Sankofa Roots, they support Black, Indigenous, and Queer communities in reclaiming sovereignty through ancestral skills, nervous system care, and collective preparedness. Their work is rooted in returning to right relationship with land, lineage, and intergenerational responsibility.

  • This workshop offers grounded, practical skills for responding to injury and crisis using both the intelligence of the land and modern safety tools. Participants will practice wound care, bleeding control, improvised carries, and stabilizing the body with materials found in natural environments, alongside professional equipment. Together we’ll explore care as sacred responsibility, collective readiness, and an extension of community defense and love.

  • This workshop offers grounded, practical skills for responding to injury and crisis using both the intelligence of the land and modern safety tools. Participants will practice wound care, bleeding control, improvised carries, and stabilizing the body with materials found in natural environments, alongside professional equipment. Together we’ll explore care as sacred responsibility, collective readiness, and an extension of community defense and love.

Juan Carlos Franco

he/him

JC Franco is an artist based in Kansas City who specializes in art direction and graphic design. He is also a lifelong practitioner of martial arts whose primary focus is internal martial arts and the study of the martial arts of his Filipino heritage: Arnis.

  • Filipino Martial Arts (Arnis) refers to a diaspora of martial techniques originating from the Philippines. During this session we will engage in a short grounding exercise, stretching and movement, technique learning, and partner drills. This hands-on workshop focuses on the movement and energy techniques used by Arnisadors to build awareness in their own physicality, spirituality, and energetic relationship to others. While many of these techniques are couched in a martial tradition, what we practice can be compared to tai-chi or qigong, in that it requires learning specific movements that can be built on independently or with a partner. This workshop can be beneficial for all walks of life and skill levels; those who make a living using their bodies will find more confidence in their ability to use their physicality to continue to do good work.

Khonsu X

he/him

“As an Afro-ecologist combatting my own nihilistic understanding of Afro-pessimism, my art and farming practices reflect my Hoodoo spirituality and philosophical lens on the world. I diverge from Afro-pessimism in my commitment to the liberation of all people as a function and result of Black autonomy." — Khonsu X is a community organizer, transmission artist, co-founder and co-steward of Ezili’s Respite Farm & Sanctuary, L3C. He is also co-developer and a co-facilitator of the Harm Reduction Heroes(c) model for intergenerational peer-mentorship programs, both virtual and land-based. Khonsu spends his days with his husband, two pitbulls, a rescued street cat, a livestock guardian dog, goats and chickens. His favorite forms of harm reduction are hunting, kayaking and calendula tea.

  • This workshop is tailored to folks who have access to land but have limited financial capital. Learn how to start a farm with just a few hundred bucks and a lot of ingenuity. This workshop will include information about building with pallets, salvage and how to find it, library knowledge, and extension websites. The workshop will also include information on animal husbandry and how to care for yr animals on a budget, with informational resources and DIY knowledge. We will also have conversations around mutual aid, connections, and community building.

  • Veggie Tales was Christian. Cedar Tales is spiritual. In this workshop we will wrap bundles of fresh and dried cedar in bath soaks and smudges while telling stories focused on masculinity. This workshop is a space for masculine energy to heal and gather with a potent, indigenous, culturally relevant, local, sustainable medicine. Stories may be recorded with participant consent.

Louis Tigney

they/them

Louis Tigney (they/them/silent 's' at the end) is a Black, agender solar/cyberpunk who loves nature and how it influences technology. As a disabled cultural organizer, they use different forms of artwork, landwork, and skywork as tools to inspire, agitate & prod at the radical imaginations of those around them. In the communities where they find home, from the US South to the Midwest, they utilize social artmaking and popular education, such as stargazing and storytelling, as primary modes of relationship building.

  • Amateur Radio as Land Based Practice in Community Care introduces amateur radio (or ham radio) as a method to connect with one's local surroundings and community. We will discuss West African histories of long distance communications, disaster preparedness as community care, and how radio communications are shaped by the surrounding land and sky.

Maebh Aguilar

they/them/elle

Maebh Aguilar is a plant tender, artist, gardener, herbalist, writer, and seed saver. Their work orbits themes like migration, anti-imperialism, ancestral reconnection and diasporic ecologies. They are Ecuadorian and Irish, from an immigrant family. They were born, raised, and live in Philadelphia, where they work as Seed Collection Manager at Truelove Seeds and as an herbal educator with the Building Your Home Apothecary course at Bartram’s Garden.

  • Saving seeds offers us a portal to connect more deeply with our cultures, ancestors, & diasporas, while writing the stories we will pass to future generations. In Connecting & Storytelling with Ancestral Seeds we will learn how to get started growing & saving seeds as farmers, land stewards, and home gardeners. I will offer an introduction to crop planning in order to save seeds from your market garden. We will discuss tools & tips for creatively sourcing culturally significant seeds in the U.S. and trialing them for climate adaptation. Finally, we will go through a demonstration of basic seed saving techniques from dry and wet seed crops.

Pampi

she/her

A newcomer-settler of Turtle Island (currently residing in unceded Wompanoag and Mattakeesett lands), Pampi is a nonbinary second-genx casteD-Bengali culture worker who plays at the intersection of healing and popular education: in community they develop community-centered art that releases creative potential and drives change-making. They lean on poetry, dance theater and gardening to help message the intersectional shifts in thinking we must embrace in order to be in a daily practice of liberation. For the last 15 years, Pampi has been a cultural worker leaning on the expressive arts and popular education techniques to champion community organizing efforts and to locally demonstrate the critical role of the arts in peoples’ liberation movements. Founding choreographer and dance researcher at In Divine Company, activist and experimental musical dance theater collective, Pampi is pleased to share Meditative Dance Song, a reclamation of simultaneous chant and dance, inspired by Buddhist chanting traditions and Mohiniyattam (aka Dance of the Enchantress), a temple dance form from Kerala, queered to support gender expansive expression.

  • Meditative Dance Song is a reclamation inspired by Buddhist chanting traditions and Mohiniyattam (aka Dance of the Enchantress), a temple dance form from Kerala; queered to support gender expansive expression. Though these days it is very rare to witness and participate in simultaneous dance and song, it is powerful people's somatic technology. We hope to experience the power of collective song and dance together as we celebrate the plants that continue to nourish each of our cultural lineages. Participants will learn how to craft a small chant (a seed of songwriting) and then sing it in canon. Participants will then learn some movements rooted in some of the gorgeous ways our bodies can make circles and fractals. Finally, we put the songwriting, canon, and collective dance all together!

PennElys Droz

she/her

Dr. PennElys Droz, Anishinaabe, Wyandot, and mixed European descendent, is a mother of five, Partner in Rematriation and Governance at Salmon Returns, and culturally based biomimicry design facilitator and consultant. She applies this design approach with a healing justice lens to infrastructure and economic development, as well as governance and organizational transformation. She has worked in Indigenous-centered engineering and regenerative development for over twenty years, with the vision of the redevelopment of thriving ecologically, culturally and economically sustainable Indigenous Nations and a shared intercultural future. She is a natural builder and lover of all things dirt, moss, lichen, and fungi.

  • In Composting Toilets Science and Construction we will cover the science, ecology, importance, and magic of composting toilets. By the end of the workshop participants should have a grasp of how to build your own composting toilet!


  • In Relational Governance Practice for Building Power we will engage with tools I have gathered from a 25 year background in hands-on Indigenous, community based infrastructure development and community building. These tools apply across cultures to bring communities and people together to build, design, and hold us in good relationship as we offer our contributions to this world.
    We have the knowledge, vision, and skill to build the world we know is possible. Often, the challenge we face is rooted in the impacts of colonial culture and white supremacy culture. Our disconnection from each other, and our internal division and pain stands in the way of our collective decision making. In this workshop we will practically collaborate on the creation of structures of accountability, care, and reciprocity that provide a healthy foundation for action.

Susan Yao

she/her

Susan (she/her) is a radical educator and homesteader based in Bellows Falls, Vermont. She co-founded the Vermont Village School, a microschool in Brattleboro that reimagines school as a liberatory space for people of color. She lives on a 2.5-acre tiny house compound that she built with her family, where she raises animals and grows vegetables. She also sells locally sourced Chinese food at farmers markets. She’s actively involved in BIPOC affinity groups, including Liberation Ecosystem and the Education Justice Coalition.

  • Stewarding land requires resourcefulness and creativity. In EmPowering Ourselves: Power Tools 101 we will grow our comfort level with a variety of power tools: jigsaw, miter saw, drills, and more. During this workshop you will be able to work on a specific project, or just practice getting comfortable with each tool in community. PPE options will be provided.

Tala Khanmalek | mecca monarch

all pronouns

Tala Khanmalek | mecca monarch is a queer, disabled, Iranian writer, editor, scholar, and sailor based on Ohlone land. They earned a PhD in ethnic studies from UC Berkeley and were formerly a university professor. Currently, they are a full-time artist and activist.

  • What does sailing have to do with land, food, and climate justice? In Sailing for Social Justice we will explore moments in time where water vessels (e.g., canoes, boats, ships) have played a central role in activist movements. We will make connections between navigating waterways and navigating systems of oppression, and finally we will uplift the significance of global BIPOC seafaring traditions for building a livable and sustainable future for all.
    This workshop will involve a presentation, small and large group discussion, and reflective writing prompts.

Teresa E. Leslie

Dr. Teresa Leslie is currently the Regional Director for Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education @ the University of Vermont. An anthropologist by training, Dr. Leslie has worked nationally and internationally as a scientist and community engagement specialist in public health and sustainable agriculture.

  • In a a quickly shifting Federal landscape what are the best practices and strategies when thinking about preparing a proposal? In this session we will discuss what this shifting landscape means currently and into the future. Federal funding opportunities remain available and the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (NE SARE) remains in operation. NE SARE is a farmer first program that is legislated through Congress and funded by NIFA, USDA. In Navigating the Federal Landscape: The Northeast SARE example, we will discuss the ins and outs of being an organization that is Federally funded, knowing how critical it is that we adhere to both our legislative and administrative priorities. Finally, we will also discuss ways to scope proposals so that we can continue to best serve our communities.