Permaculture Design Certificate Course
January 11th to 25th, 2025
Live In-Person Permaculture Design Course
Earth Activist Training’s (EAT) Permaculture Design Certificate course (PDC) is our longest-running and most-requested course– we’ve been teaching it for 20 years. This is our foundational permaculture course where you’re learning about resilient land management and climate adaptation begins.
We are so excited to welcome you home to Earth Activist Training!
ABOUT THIS COURSE
Explore resilient, living solutions to climate change,
and the strategies and tools to put them in place.
Artist’s Credit: Jessica Perlstein, designed for Starhawk’s book, The Fifth Sacred Thing. ..
Do you yearn for solutions to climate meltdown? This course is for you!
WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?
Are you concerned about the environment, and want practical solutions? Are you an activist, organizer, policy maker, advocate?
Are you a farmer, homesteader, land manager, gardener, or want to be? Whether you have many acres, a suburban backyard or an urban balcony, learn how to generate abundance where you are.
Are you worried about fire, flood, drought, and the impacts of natural disasters? Learn how to design resilient systems that can mitigate some of the effects of climate-caused disasters.
Are you a teacher, parent, educator, caregiver, or mental health professional wanting to bring nature education into your work?
Are you a young person looking for a livelihood where you can make a difference? Or are you at a turning point in your life, wondering what the next phase should be?
We firmly believe that everyone can benefit from learning how to apply the tools and insights of permaculture toward the broad goal of earth regeneration. Permaculture has solutions not just for landscapes and agricultural systems, but also for social design, public policy, and survival strategies for these challenging times.
WHAT TO EXPECT
- This two week intensive is an immersive permaculture experience.
- Spend two weeks in a stunningly beautiful natural environment, eating great food and learning a lot!
- Expect to work hard, but also to have lots of fun, meet great people on a similar journey to yours, and create lasting friendships.
- While our hands-on projects involve physical work, we plan them to accommodate many levels of physical ability. We welcome many sorts of diversity, including age and physical capacity. (Contact support@earthactivisttraining.org if you have questions.)
- Each day combines earth-centered spiritual practice, classroom theory, practical hands-on experience, and time to integrate, socialize and relax.
- The two weeks culminate with the creation of an integrated permaculture design.
- Upon completion of the course, participants will be invited to join Earth Activist Training’s private community and gain access to a wealth of online resources.
- Expect to have your assumptions challenged, your horizons broadened, and your connection to nature deepened.
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES
In this course, you will learn how to design human systems that mimic natural systems using renewable resources. We will cover principles and practices that teach how to read the landscape, heal soil, cleanse and harvest water, drought-proof land, make compost and biochar, sequester carbon, bioremediate toxins, manage forests, design and create food forests, and apply these principles to human systems.
HANDS-ON LEARNING
Hands-on projects that you will practice during your learning journey include:
- Site mapping
- Water harvesting
- Graywater and roof catchment
- Creating compost
- Sheet mulching
- Seed starting and plant propagation
- Natural building (cob, straw-clay, and/or plastering)
- Creation of a collaborative design project
Course Content
Design:
- Observation
- Reading the landscape
- Site analysis
- Zones and sectors
- Mapping
- Design tools and processes
- Collaborative design projects
- Broadacre permaculture
- Urban permaculture
- Permaculture for gatherings, mobilizations, and disasters
Water:
- Creating healthy water cycles in living systems
- Water harvesting
- Swales, ponds, and earthworks
- Keyline systems
- Erosion control
- Rain catchment for roofs
- Graywater and blackwater systems
Earth:
- Soil structure
- Soil biology
- Soil building
- Compost
- Sheet mulch
- Compost teas and ferments
- Mushrooms
- Bioremediation and mycoremediation (mushrooms & fungi)
- Biochar
Plants:
- Plant needs
- Plant guilds and polycultures
- Cover crops
- Agroforestry
- Food forests
- Plant propagation
- Tree care: pruning and planting, choosing varieties
- Sustainable forestry
Animals:
- Animals in our systems
- Raising and feeding “microherds”—healthy soil microbial communities
- Beneficial insects
- Bees
- Worms
- Humane treatment of animals
- Poultry
- Livestock for the homestead
- Holistic management grazing systems
- Role of predators
- Wildlife habitat
- Alternatives for vegans
Climate:
- Climate change and strategies for adaption and mitigation
- Microclimates
- Windbreaks
- Drylands
- Tropics
- Wetlands
- Cold climates
Energy:
- Alternative and renewable energy: evaluating and designing systems
- Active and passive solar
- Wind
- Microhydro
- Alternative fuels and biogas
Natural Building:
- Insulation and thermal mass
- Sustainable forest products
- Cob, straw bale, light straw-clay
- Plasters
Social permaculture:
- Personal regeneration and self-care
- Site design to support social aims
- Urban redesign
- Group dynamics
- Communication tools
- Governance structures for collaborative groups
- Ecovillages and community design
- Meeting processes
- Meeting facilitation
- Alternative economics
Organizing and activism:
- Strategic organizing
- Pro-active and pre-figurative movements
- Campaign planning and organizing
- Power mapping
- Organizing in diverse communities
Spirit:
- Connecting to the spirit in Nature
- Creating ritual and ceremony
- Grounding and centering
- Sensing and shifting energy
- Drumming, dancing, singing and meditation
- Daily rituals
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Permaculture is a system of ecological design that takes nature as our model, so we can meet human needs while regenerating the world around us.
–Starhawk
In this PDC, we will explore an internationally-recognized permaculture curriculum with a grounding in spirit and a focus on organizing and activism. Learn how to work with nature to heal land and water as we create real abundance and advocate for social justice. Each day begins with ritual and personal resilience tools. Mornings focus on theory, information, and examples of regenerative design. In the afternoon, we put theory into practice with hands-on activities. Evenings are interactive times to go deeper into social permaculture and global issues.
Course Information
- Location: Black Mountain Retreat Center, Cazadero, California
- Dates: January 11th – 25th (2 weeks)
- Lodging: A bed in shared mixed gender dorm is included in tuition, private and semiprivate spaces are available for an additional fee.
- Catering: Included in tuition, we provide organic vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, and may offer gluten-free options.
- Certification: A PINA recognized certificate will be awarded upon successful completion of this course.
Typical Daily Schedule
This schedule is subject to change depending on the needs of the class. We ask that you stay flexible, and we will create a flow that we hope accomodates the group.
7:30-9:00—Breakfast
9:00-9:30—Morning circle
9:30-12:30—Morning session: Classroom instruction
12:30-1:30—Lunch
2:00-4:30—Afternoon session: Hands-on
4:30-6:30—Break
6:30-7:30—Dinner
7:30—9:30 Evening session
Tuition
- We offer sliding-scale tuition and payment plans to make our courses as accessible as possible.
- Abundant Tuition: $3,400
- Standard Tuition: $3,200
- Resilient Tuition: $3,000
- Work Trade Tuition $2,500 (limited spaces)
- Alumni Tuition: $2,500 to retake this course if you have already taken it before.
- All amounts are in US dollars.
- Discounts, Payment Plans and Diversity Scholarships available? Yes! Keep reading below.
WE ARE ALWAYS HERE TO HELP.
Please reach out to our Student Support Team at: support@earthactivisttraining.org.
MEET Your Teachers
Click here to learn more about your teachers
Starhawk (she/her) is the co-founder and executive director of Earth Activist Training. One of the foremost voices in Earth-based spirituality, Starhawk is an author, activist, and permaculture teacher and designer. Her 12 books include such beloved reads as The Spiral Dance, The Earth Path, and The Fifth Sacred Thing. Starhawk drew from 30 years of living collectively to write The Empowerment Manual, which is the basis for her social permaculture course, Empowering Collaborative Groups.
Starhawk has been recognized by the Permaculture Institute of North America (PINA) as a leading figure in permaculture and has been awarded dual diplomas for excellence in education and permaculture site design.
Best known as an articulate voice in the revival of Earth-based spirituality and Goddess religion, Starhawk is the co-founder of the Reclaiming movement, an activist branch of the modern Pagan religion. In partnership with Donna Read, Starhawk is the co-founder of Belili Productions film company, whose most well-known project was a trio of popular films on the Goddess religion.
Starhawk’s work in progressive activism has spanned generations and geographies. As a global justice and peace activist, Starhawk co-founded RANT: Root Activists’ Network of Trainers, and has taught non-violent direct action across North and South America, Europe, and the Middle East. She has been on the front lines of anti-nuclear actions at Diablo Canyon, Livermore Weapons Lab, Vandenberg Air Force Base, and the Nevada Test Site. She has been a witness for peace in conflict zones across the world, including Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Palestine and Israel.
As a teacher of magical activism and permaculture education, Starhawk’s life work takes her across the globe. She currently lives part-time in San Francisco in a collective house with her partner and friends, and part-time in a little hut in the woods in Cazadero, California, where she practices permaculture in her extensive gardens and writes. Her website is http://starhawk.org.
Charles Williams (he/him) is Earth Activist Training’s program director. A long-time permaculture educator and certified permaculture designer, Charles comes to Earth Activist Training through a love of the wild, faith that healthy communities can solve complex problems, and a belief that working with one’s hands is sacred work.
Over the past thirty years, he has stewarded many pieces of land, including Diana’s Grove in Missouri, Farm & Wilderness summer camp in Vermont, and Starhawk’s Golden Rabbit Ranch in California. His approach simultaneously promotes both the preservation of wild spaces and conservation of the domestic.
His deep respect for and relationship with the divine in nature informs all he does, integrating spiritual practices with land management. Charles also understands the need for healthy community, and knows that skilled human implementation is an essential part of any design. In these challenging times, he finds hope for the future through the interlocking, symbiotic relationship of spirit, community, and action.
As an accomplished tinkerer, Charles brings a wide range of practical and somewhat obscure hand skills. He has installed complex systems such as solar electric arrays, gray water filters, and veggie oil diesel conversions. He has implemented simple systems such as emergency water filtration, humanure composting toilets, and rotational grazing plans. He is talented in wilderness tracking, solo canoeing, gathering and tending wild edibles, starting fire by hand, and mapping. He loves to work with his hands, whether he is tanning hides or repairing a generator, and this love is reflected when he teaches EAT’s hands-on segments.
Charles believes that no problems are unsolvable as long as we work together to develop and implement our plan effectively and honor the holy in our work.
Delyla Wilson, engaged Grr-Parent and resilience visionary, began her journey into resilient living as an environmental, social justice, and animal rights activist. Her path includes farmstead learning and living, community street medicine, disaster preparedness, permaculture, and decades of animal management experience with a special focus on all things dogs. Delyla acquired an Earth Activist Training Permaculture Design Certificate; developed and directed the Skills for a New Millennium Tour (a three-year traveling resilience education tour,) and earned a Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies focused on Resilience Education for Disaster Preparedness.
Delyla’s energy is focused on resilience education both as a teacher and life-long student. Delyla seeks to weave resilience into every system throughout the web. Delyla currently is developing lines of homestead working dogs, and keeps cows, goats, chickens, and sheep for land management, soil building, carbon sequestering, and dinner.
Food & Accomodations
Black Mountain Retreat Center
Refresh, regenerate, enjoy…
Black Mountain’s mission is to support all our guests in their spiritual, healing and environmental work and training programs, by providing a peaceful and nurturing space here in the quiet beauty of the coastal hills.
Click here to learn more
Located on a prime 485 acres in west Sonoma, Black Mountain Retreat Center consists of a cluster of one-story buildings in the center of wooded valleys and open meadows, at around 1100 feet altitude. Rustic but very clean and comfortable, we have room for up to 125 people, although the place is just as welcoming for a small group of 12 (our minimum). Many groups have returned to stay with us year after year, drawn by the beautiful setting, great prices and friendly service.
Black Mountain is dedicated to serving whole-heartedly all those who come to stay with us.
The Black Mountain Retreat Center is managed by the Padmasambhava Peace Institute, a 501(c)3 educational non-profit organization.
Black Mountain is an all-volunteer community in residence since early 2004, with staff of varied backgrounds and experiences. Our unifying purpose is a commitment to a spiritual path of inquiry and formal practice, and our belief that serving others is an important part of spiritual practice. Working for our guests’ happiness is something we enjoy and take pride in.
We warmly welcome guests of all backgrounds, traditions, and beliefs to our center. Black Mountain Retreat Center is an LGBTQ-friendly lodging.
Culinary Magic
Food catered by Chef Carin McKay of Culinary Magic
Culinary Magic is a gourmet natural foods catering company that specializes in catering multiple day retreats and daylong events. Culinary Magic views food as central to weaving together community, health, history, culture, lineage, and the environment.
Click here to learn more
“When I talk about culinary magic, I’m not talking about having the right ingredients and knowing how to mix them together. I’m talking about lineage. I’m talking about people. I’m talking about what emerges when you consciously weave together community, history, health, nature, and a real enjoyment for where you are.” -Carin McKay
Carin McKay started Culinary Magic in 1999. Carin started cooking over 30 years ago. A self-taught chef and world traveler, she incorporates these elements into her food. Carin is grateful to all the amazing teachers who have shared their recipes and methods along the way.
Culinary Magic sources much of its produce and meats locally and organically.
Beautiful! I love the artistry, labor, ecology, ritual and community that infuses your efforts! -Vidhu
The richness of slow food, made through the richness of attention to detail and the bigger movement of things. Bless you and all the nourishment you bring! –Jonathan
THE EARTH ACTIVIST TRAINING DIFFERENCE
– Grounded in spirit with a focus on organizing and activism –
– Climate solutions, strategies, and organizing tools to implement them –
– Abundant human systems through biomimicry that learn from natural systems –
– A courageous space for people who are/were exposed to any form of discrimination-
SOCIAL PERMACULTURE
Social Permaculture = RESILIENCE
Social permaculture is core to Earth Activist Training. It teaches us how to organize our human communities, resolve conflicts, make decisions, work together effectively, and support one another to renew hope and spirit.
As Starhawk often says, “The vegetables are the easy part–it’s people that are always the biggest challenge!” If we can improve the way we interact with one another, we can make all of our efforts more effective.
Funding Your Education
Payment Options
Diversity scholarships. Available for Indigenous People and People of Color working in or wanting to work in environmental or food justice.
Payment Options
We offer sliding scale tuition, payment plans and scholarships to make our courses as accessible as possible.
- Sliding Scale Tuition – $3,400-$3,000
- Alumni – $2,500 For those who want a refresher and have taken this course with us before.
- Payment Plan – Four-part payment plans ($800 down with 6 monthly payments of $400.)
- Bring a Friend & Group Discounts – For those coming as a group of 2 or more people.
Every Abundant Tuition helps support a Diversity Scholarship.
All prices are per session prices and in US dollars.
Sliding Scale Tuition
- Abundant Tuition: $3,400
- Standard Tuition: $3,2000
- Resilient Tuition: $3,000
- Alumni Tuition: $2,500 (EAT Alumni who have taken this course before.
Every Abundant Tuition helps support a Diversity Scholarship.
Bring a Friend & Group Discounts
- Bring a friend (2-5 people) – $500 off Standard Tuition ($2,700 total per person)
- Organizations of 6+ people – Contact support@eat-activist.org for special group rates.
PAYMENT PLAN
This plan is for students wanting to take the Full Certificate Program.
- Payment of $800 when you register.
- Six monthly installments of $400 ($3,200 total).
- Our Student Support Team will assist you in setting this up.
ALUMNI COURSE PRICE
- Alumni Tuition $2,500 – For those who want a refresher and have taken this course before with EAT.
Work Trade
A limited number of work trade spaces are available. Work traders pay a reduced tuition of $2,500, and are involved in a range of tasks before, during, and after the course.
Work traders are generally expected to come several days early for the course. The work involves preparing materials and project sites for the course. Work traders are also expected to work during the course. This may include help in the kitchen, cleaning, organizing tools and materials for class, or other activities.
Diversity Scholarships
DIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS
- Earth Activist Training is committed to increasing the diversity of global permaculture and regenerative land movements.
- We recognize the history of these lands called the United States and Canada, and seek to do what we can to rectify the deep injustices and systems of inequity that formed and continue to shape society today.
- Supported by your donations, a select number of pay-what-you-can Diversity Scholarships are available for Indigenous People and People of Color working in or wanting to work in environmental and social justice.
- These scholarships are pay-what-you-can, up to half off the standard course price ($1,600). Any amount you can pay above the half off discount is appreciated, and will allow us to support more people to attend the course. Scholarships are available as our funds allow.
If you have any questions, we are always here to help: support@earthactivisttraining.org
REGISTER
Click Here to Register
International Certification
What is special about an Earth Activist Training Permaculture Design Certificate?
Earth Activist Training (EAT) approaches permaculture with a dedication to social justice and a grounding in spirit. An EAT Permaculture Design Certificate course (PDC) covers the standard content outlined in the internationally-recognized 72-hour curriculum, then adds sessions on social permaculture, power and privilege, tools for activists, community organizing, conflict mediation and ritual arts.
PINA
Earth Activist Training courses are acknowledged for their excellence by the Permaculture Institute of North America (PINA) . Permaculture Design Course graduates are registered with PINA as PINA certified graduates.
Graduation Requirements:
Students must attend all classes, and complete weekly assignments and a final design project.
OUR NETWORK
An added benefit of this course – and every Earth Activist Training course – is our private forum: Earth Activist Training Online network. This platform is where you will find course resources, and a network to connect with classmates and other Earth Activist students outside of class.
OUR CALENDAR
Check out when our programs and events are taking place.
Join our announcement list
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