gravel, felt liner, then first layer of rocks

we had up to 25 learners our foundation breaking weekend!

Marjory teaching, Angia learning

UPDATES AND current activities:   

If you are interested in learning or helping on the current dragon hearth/cabin project, call 831-425-3393 to schedule a time to come. We are happy to trade education for labor on this first cabin, and much laughing is definately expected. We will be working on the project both during the week and on weekends, so do drop in and see our progress. We will also be playing with wattle and daub. If you are interested in our certification program, call our office and ask for information, or see the earn and join pages on our navigation bar.

When looking at the project pictures, notice we began with prayer, and corn meal and sacred tobacco cast in a sacred manner, at the very bottom of our foundation trench. Everything we do at natural villages is in honor of our Mother, the creator, nurturer of this earth she gifts us use of.

Women were praying while sprinkling corn meal/tobacco into foundation

Scroll down for the community or program of interest.

* Your financial support gifts us with profound value. We work to keep our asking for support simple and unpretentious as we respect how deeply you understand our need for funding to keep going.

There are donation buttons/clicks on many pages and in different places similar to the simple linked Donate Now words below. Thanks now for any support given!

Natural Villages is seeking additional team members, and  a Biographer for Roy.

We seek applicants for our team who are familiar with or skilled at building with the earth, working with diverse races and cultures of people. Speaking Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi or Lakota would be an advantage. The successful candidates will be knowlageable about the public educational processes for the social profit system and be confident at public speaking, articulate, skilled at board development and group facilitation and completely committed to environmental and cultural recovery in our lifetime, seeing the natural villages approach as optimal. To apply for this potential; send an email with a letter of introduction and your resume to: light-rain@msn.com The positions will eventually pay up to $2,000 per month, ONCE our pay for services programs are running. Our board believes our pay for services programs are ready to open, now, hence our first search for a qualified environemental and cultural recovery agents for our team. Lifelong, dedicated Social Change activists rank high on our list of qualified persons…

Autobiographer: This person will already have connections with a prominent publishing editor. This person is skilled and proffessional with writing projects already in print. The qualified autobiographer will recognize the profundity of Roys gifts to our culture, and be highly invested in our nations green technology elders getting thier due respect and recognition in a marketplace that robs hearts, steals ideas and doesnt make sure our profoundly contributing geniuses who have leaped our nations technological discoveries forward, get their day in the SUN. Especially if solar technology is part of their biggest contribution. Roy, in college, had one of the White House red phones in his frat house, where some of our brightest minds were instructed to call the big guys upstairs anytime they made a new technological advancement…

This project might make you well known as a skilled autobiographer, trust us, his life has been FASCINATING!!!!!! Send a letter of introduction and your resume to: light-rain@msn.com             

 Projects listed: Wounded Knee building camp and Pine Ridge reservation projects,

Sanctuary Of Gaia project at Wind Tree, Hummingbird Water Women/Native Nations California,

Local California Village Heart Center Building Camp, (For Hamsas, Dimestas, Natives and other serious ceremony and spiritual practitioners). Ceu Do Mapia ; Brazil Village Building project, Village Friends seed program support projects, and soon, the Interdependence Project Matrix and online radio links.

 T-SHIRTS for sale or barter, as a donation to the Hummingbird Water Women Ceremony Council Organizing Efforts.

Trade and donations from $20 for shirts, sarongs, choices in colors, styles. Fair trade/organic see Hummingbird Page on navigation bar.

 Of Hummingbirds and Hamsas, all natural villagers are sacred!

Our drop in building experience is always bring -your -own and laugh often. Our formal training certification program is described on our earn and join pages. See tabs on the navigation bar.

Environmental clean up, watershed maintenance, site design and firewood collection are all current activities that train villagers to be talented supporters.    Gardens being maintained, volunteers needed.   Please call 831-425-3393 for more information, or to become involved.

Our Tune to the Sun Solar Yoga and Kriya pranayama studies instigate deeper, faster spiritual evolution and healing.

Learn the Lightening Path techniques for self transformation. This work ends our negative thinking patterns and habits. It eliminates depression and anxieties. Very effective for healing body, mind, soul. Shivagoraknath Babaji empowers the lightening Kriya through the lineage of Shri Yukteswar passed to Paramhansa Yogananda, to Swami Satyananda Giri and Swami Hariharananda Giri, then directly to Yogiraj Satgurunath Siddhanath. Authorized Acharyas teach solar and lightening evolution practices under Yogiraj.  Call 831-425-3393 or 831-419-6817. All Natural Villages classes include work trade and barter options for the cash – less persons.

 The Himalayan Babaji

We suggest donations to help us cover our costs. Yogic study takes place while working and learning or staying in our building camp site. Again, call if you are interested in this study, and go to www.hamsa-yoga.org for more information.

 Yogiraj Satgurunath Siddhanath

 Pictured above: One of our NV trustees, enjoying the spirits of our  hiking trails and rest stops

A Trustee from the community of Wounded Knee, taking account of the differences in our trees.

NEWS from the Sanctuary Of Gaia Project at Wind Tree : Opening new doors, exploring new options.

Villagers of the Sanctuary Of Gaia project at Wind Tree are urging all connected natural villagers who desire hands on wall construction experience, to give a call, and try us on a weekend. For more information:   831-425-3393

 NEWS from the Wounded Knee community in South Dakota:  THIS YEARS BUILDING CAMP 2010:

 We are preparing a new Camp for next year, where our goal is to pass the method into the local community in a manner that stays with the community. Shannon Freed is working to build a home in Manderson. Plans are being made for a small model cabin for Gradma Claudia Iron Horse Sulley and her family. Camping will be along Wounded Knee Creek. Finishing of Leola One Feathers house is being directed by Steve Travis, our Arichitect.

 El mer Bear Eagle is posing to say: Please feel welcome to visit Wounded Knee, California Bears!

                                                                 WE all share the same paws.

 This community has been tolerating the sub standard housing that was to be sent to Arizona, by the Federal government many years ago…and a sad housing mix up, has natives in Arizona, with South Dakota style houses…go figure. This, only one of the reasons we have black mould and rodent and bug problems, et al…

NATURAL VILLAGES BUILDERS were contacted in 2002, when a Lakotah man deeply concerned about the suicide epidemic among Lakotah teens, came to California, and to the door of a natural builder, requesting help in discovering how to deliver the sustainable village system back into the hands of his people. This, he believes is what will bring them back from this dance with suicide, that had 62 teens attempting death in just a two month period.

Once camping in the community, Women of Wounded Knee, kept coming to the building camp organizers asking for the beautiful earth houses, when others were not looking. Sometimes four or five women a day would come down by themselves… so…when Leola One Feather asked if we would find a way to build a home for her family, and that she would promote the building method in her community as a gift to them, we decided to begin the long journey of creating a for social profit sustainable village delivery system, working in this, the most economically devastated community in the US.

So we built a nice scale round house model, and started organizing building camps to erect the house, and began the simple circle design to become our first model village project on Pine Ridge reservation. The rest is history, and led to obtaining our 501 c 3 status in April, 2008. Tax deductable donations go towards finding ways to pay local people to learn and eat while helping build homes in these communities.

: IF YOU HAVE BUILDING MATERIALS AND COMMUNITY SUPPORT GIFTS to send:

You must speak directly with Elmer, a local Natural Villages Trustee: you can call the Wounded Knee Head Start program after 4 pm, at 605-867-5464 and ask for Elmer. Or, to leave a question or find out about helping call 831-425-3393

 Every year trustees from Natural Villages in California, travel out to support the building camp projects on Pine Ridge reservation. Pictured above is Steve Travis, NV trustee, licensed architect, and earth element house designer doing part of an educational presentation at the College Library in Kyle, summer, 2008. New Eagle House design adaptations for Leolas are being considered.

 At right, the foundation of Leola’s house… a very solid base that will host our massively strong walls for 1,000 years! Together we continue to shape Leolas homestead and project into some thing she is proud of.  Set backs such as poisoned water, and running out of funding to pay laborers has set this project onto a slower pace. Family in transition, and Leola’s schedule that requires much travelling, has required re-evaluation and reorganization. Lack of facilities and basics such as telephones and showers make it difficult to host qualified volunteers. Creek camping is available for serious laborers. Please call for more information. Tornado velocity winds and below zero climates make planning and attention to design quality especially important. Sudden storms makes labor challenging at times.

Pictured below:         Johanna and Leola

The group below, on the right, is the very first ground breaking team that travelled out to respond to the Lakota request for villages. Women from two continents helping and learning with friends and family. The original call went to the women of Womenrise for Global Peace, natural builders being among them, who responded by sending a team to investigate. www.womenrise.org

Walls when trimmed for plastering become smoothe and beautiful in final stages. As can also be seen in posts on cob houses, see left blogroll for links to more finished house photos.

 Leola’s greenhouse.

NEWS from Manderson Community in the Lakota Nation:

Below is a picture of the road to Manderson from Wounded Knee. That thin, straight line near the bottom of the hill. Manderson residents also got the houses meant for the sunny warmth of Arizona, and blizzards keep folks at home here in the winter, Wilma will tell you this.

On the right, below, is Wilma Thin Elk. She has been working in and for the Maderson community for her lifetime. She was a police officer, and has healthy kids. She is also helping raise her grandkids. Wilmas work to help bring organization to local Tiyospaye projects promted us to invited her to join our board of trustees. We welcome Wilma to our team of advisors, and promise to call soon! Wilma gives our organizers advice when we are working in her community of Manderson.

Percy White Plume is the man to contact in Manderson Community if you would like to donate housing materials over in this area. Percy has been helping Leola and her family, and helps many who need it locally. Percy is one of the organizers of the community horse races. Percy is also the man to contact if you have jobs for horsemen, or are in need of good horses.  You can ask for Percy at the Post Office.

NEWS from Mapia, Amazona, Brazil:

After travelling almost nine hours by small boat, on the Puruse river in the Amazon Basin, we arrive in the small village of Mapia. Residents of this highly spiritually charged, sustainably oriented community is where we have been working to integrate earth based building projects.  The jungle takes the wood of simple hand built homes so quickly and there is much hardship and poverty when housing is inadequate. Supplies must be brought by small boat for every building project, making local walls from clay based soils a very low cost alternative that was used more, decades ago. Clay ovens and burners still augment the kitchens of houses in this village. A building with earth video from our trip to Mapia, South America is available at the videos page, the link is in the rightside blog roll.

 Food gardens are abundant in the Amazon jungle. The houses must be frequently maintained against an environment designed to turn everything alive into compost. Many bugs take big tolls on crops, many bug predators even things out.

Students can stay at Viva Sao Joao, a large homestead village base between the healing center and the herbal medicine farms. There are about 1,000 residents in this rural community.

Speaking the language of Portuguese is necessary. Guided learning groups and those interested in the ceremony practices of this village can be accomodated. Call 831-425-3393 to get on our list.

Villagers wait for ordered food at a small cafe, after a ceremony (below)

Inca cleaning house.

The Bebemos Tribe

   Compassionate Humans Model Decency in AFRICA  

In the Babemba tribe in south Africa, when a person acts
irresponsibly or unjustly, he or she is placed in the center of the
village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and every man,
woman and child gathers around the accused individual. Then each
person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, about all
the good things that person has done in his lifetime. Every
incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and
accuracy is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds,
strengths and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length. The
tribal ceremony often lasts several days. At the end, the tribal
circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person
is welcomed, symbolically and literally, back into the tribe.

Johannesburg

NEWS FROM Seahorse Key Island “

Animal consciousness higher than humans?   Biologist Harvey Lillywhite has found that on Seahorse Key Island, cottonmouths that live near seabird nests are bigger than snakes elsewhere on the island. The snakes closest to the nests receive an abundance of dead fish dropped by the birds, the scientist explained.In return for this fishy bounty, the cottonmouths refrain from eating the birds—including baby chicks that fall from the nests—and deter other predators from raiding the nests, he added.The result is a win-win for both snakes and birds that Lillywhite said he has not seen on any other island.“There are a lot of island systems where there are birds and snakes. Of all the cases I know, the snakes are predators on the birds,” he said.“At Seahorse Key it’s totally different. Here the snakes do not eat the birds, and the birds are providing food for the snakes. So it’s a pretty cool system.”

ALL TEACHING EVENTS ARE AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE: Those who cannot give a donation for the education, can give labor trades or work around gifts to balance our exchange. Do remember the value you receive, is the value you should give, according to natural law magnetics, and spiritual realities…namaste, to your heart, and our pay- it- forward universal system.

June-September 20009: Calling woofers, cobbers and farmers and those who love the earth…we are building with COB making showcase small below code sized sheds, kilns and oven fireplace. This process teaches all aspects of adobe freestyle construction. Many competencies can be earned.

We are teaching all aspects of Cob construction within the below code sized shed, so that we can show everyone the process, the safety and the possibilities of this construction method that has been very sanely adopted by many counties. We need LABOR. Food, and a place to camp or stay will be provided. Contact us by phone if you are interested,  call our office at 831-425-3393.

Upcoming learning projects:

Outdoor Kiln, oven and benches

Preparation for shower  project

Our Cob, Earth and shelter instructors:

ie; local building guides will be posting the regular class schedules soon.

Johanna is teaching Oven design and construction at the camp ground.

Fridays from noon till dusk we have volunteer projects. Please Call first.

VISITING FROM A HAMSA VILLAGE IN INDIA:

A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HELPED PREPARE for Yogiraj Siddhanath…and a thanks to the spirits of the place, who hosted all 30 of us!

The really big thanks came from the nature spirits themselves after we left and a beautiful light  rain descended for two days…THANK YOU, THANK YOU,   YOGI RAJ!!!!!!!!!!

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  We recommend KILI radio, streaming at Kiliradio.com

For alternative news straight from author and news anchor Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, go to www.DemocracyNow.org

For  realities of indigenous and native nations: www.indianz.org

For financial and global political news go to BBC – World

For updates on weather changes and global warming conditions go to www.Algore.com