People gathered in a lush green field with trees in the background.

Earth Abides

  • Communities

About the Communities

  • Forming
  • Ecological
  • Rural

Founding year

  • 2019

What we do

Earth Abides is located in a remote area in the Sierra Nevada foothills, in Central Sierra Miwuk lands.
We are a rural, intentional community and since 2019 Earth Abides is under the auspices of Canticle Farm, an Oakland, California-based nonprofit. Canticle Farm is an urban farm and educational center, an intentional community, and an experiment in faith-based activism, nonviolence, and restorative justice. Earth Abides was originally founded in 1976 in the lineage of the Catholic Worker movement, by people seeking to create a Catholic Worker Farm – one of the pillars of Peter Maurin’s three step program of social reconstruction (round table discussions, houses of hospitality, and farm communes or agronomic universities). You can learn more about our history on our website.
Surrounded by vast areas of wildlands, we have frequent encounters with a rich diversity of non-human kin, ranging from the smallest of organisms to large ones such as bear and cougar. We are currently building the foundation of our relationship to this place by learning how to harmonize ourselves with the ones who have already been living here in the form of human, plant, animal and elemental beings. Life here can be rugged at times. Examples include rural roads, social isolation, water and/or power limitations, being snowed in, chopping wood for wood stove heating, and living with fire hazard. Except for satellite internet and a landline, we are off-grid. Currently there are three people living full time on the land, with plenty of visitors and beautiful extended community members coming often.
Our main initiatives at this time are:
– Cleaning up waste left by previous occupants
– Wildfire fuels reduction
– Food, water, shelter and medicine sovereignty
– Building relationship with and creating land access for the Sierra Miwuk on their ancestral lands with the intention of honoring and being led by their ancestral wisdom.
– Educational offerings: Permaculture, nonviolence, restorative justice, and much more..

Our Mission

We are living the ‘Great Turning’ while experiencing the simultaneous ‘Great Unraveling’ and charting our service path and role in the planetary shift from an industrial-growth society to a life-sustaining society.

  • Purpose
  • Ecological
  • Community type
  • Coliving
  • Ecovillage
  • Intentional Neighborhoods
  • Sustainability practices
  • Permaculture design
  • Activities
  • Farming
  • Education
  • Experiences
  • Networking
  • Others

Commemorative dates

  • January 1, 2019
  • Started planning
  • January 1, 2020
  • Started living together
  • 3 Total members
  • Open to new members
  • Open to visitors
Total
4

How to join

Our membership is relational and thus earned in the dynamic long-term process of building intimacy and trust through serving in good works together on the land.
In other words, membership is not purchased but rather created from mutual discovery of how one’s gifts fit into the relations on the land and in the community.

Basic expectations or agreements for members

Our invitation at this time is to come serve with us in our daily and seasonal efforts of tending and restoration of the land. In this way we hope to build quality long-term relationships with those who are a good fit for the land and our community vision here.
Please email us at ea*************@***il.com to explore visiting/volunteer opportunities.

Primary decision-making authority

  • Small Leadership Group

A few people (not elected by the broader community) make the major decisions.

Decision-making process

  • Modified Consensus

Generally seek agreement, but have backup methods when consensus isn’t reached.

Governance structure

  • Collaborative/Horizontal

Power and responsibility are shared relatively equally among members.

Conflict resolution approach

The more longer-term, committed members carry the most weight of responsibility and decision-making.

Economic model

  • Independent Finances

Members maintain separate personal finances with minimal sharing.

Economic scenarios for this community

  • There is a labor obligation
  • Members typically need to have their own job or other personal source of income to cover their expenses while living in the community?

Additional economic information

Labor: Encouraged or suggested
Members with pre-existing debt: allowed
Financially we operate on a gift economy model. Insofar as labor is concerned, we are an off-grid community working towards self-sufficiency. As such we expect people to ‘step up’ and lend a helping hand to any one or more tasks that are always in the queue.

Shared resources and amenities that are accessible to everyone in the community

Common House, Garden(s), Library, Workshop, Outbuilding(s), Swimming pond or pool, Outdoor Kitchen, Large Scale Kitchen, Tractor & Farm Equipment, Fire pit, Swingsets & play areas, Internet

Frequency of communal meals

  • About once a week

Significant food acquisition practices

  • Locally sourced

Community activities and engagement

  • Transition Town (post-petroleum and off-grid communities.)
  • School, Educational Institute or Experience
  • Volunteer, Internship, or Apprenticeship, or WWOOF’ing
  • Organization, Resource, or Network
  • WWOOF'ing, Guest Farming

Substance use culture

  • Substance use occurs primarily at celebrations or ceremonies

Gender composition

  • Majority cis (over 60%)

Age demographics

  • Multi-generational (all ages well represented)

Property status

  • Privately owned

Property owner

  • By a Community Land Trust or some other kind of nonprofit

Setting

  • Rural

Countryside locations with significant distance from urban centers.

Community type

  • Coliving

    Shared living spaces with private bedrooms/bathrooms and communal
    kitchens, dining, and social areas.

  • Ecovillage

    Integrated communities designed around ecological principles with sustainable living practices.

  • Intentional Neighborhoods

    Geographically close groups of independently-owned homes whose residents actively cultivate community relationships and shared values.

Sustainability approach

  • Permaculture design

Land practices in our community

  • The community practices permaculture

Self-produced energy

  • Over 66%

Energy sources used

  • Photovoltaic Solar
  • Biomass (from wood or other organic materials)

Self-produced food

  • Up to 33%

Local, organic, or fair trade food

  • 33 - 66%

Food systems

  • Community garden
  • Land area size
    100 acres

Guest Book

Written reviews are available for plus members. Click here to upgrade.

Location

  • California, United States

Earth Abides

Needs and Offers

Connecting people and communities through an intentional online marketplace

Offer
Need
Need
  • Forming Communities
2 weeks ago

A call for pioneers, trade-builders, and the four Elemental Elders to construct our first cooperative village prototype.

Intake Open: Flagship WE Network Village in Clubb, MO Call for pioneers, trade-builders, and 4 Elemental Elders to construct our first cooperative village prototype. WE Network is opening ground zero in Clubb, Missouri—our living model to build trade shops and train leadership teams for nationwide village rollout. We are building a self-sustaining, salvaged homestead ecosystem operating as a parallel society alongside existing systems. Bring your own living setup (tents, micro-campers, trucks, schoolies, tiny homes) to secure your lot within the co-op village. The 3×3 Exchange: Mental, Physical, & Spiritual Maintain your lot via our 3×3 exchange (3 hours/day, 3 days/week = 9 hours total): Mental: Classroom teaching, strategy, skill-sharing, and village instruction. Physical: Hands-on labor building active land and shop projects. Spiritual: Participation in our weekly Friday Fellowship Fire Circle. Trade Shops & Lot Placement Every member contributes directly to our local micro-economy: Trade Holders: Set up your specific service shop for the co-op. Transitioning Members: Assigned a trade lot to focus on constructing the physical shop structure. Weekend Operations: Retail open Saturdays and Sundays. Mid-week is reserved for building and life. Priority Intake: The Four Elemental Elders We are recruiting four foundational Elders: Earth Elder: Land, soil, livestock, permaculture, and natural materials. Air Elder: Building structures and Eco Junk waste-to-material upcycling. Fire Elder: Spiritual health, Natural Law, body healing, and Fire Circles. Water Elder: Resource flow, food storage, bookkeeping, and services. How to Apply 👉 Visit fffc.wtf to submit your intake request today.
Offer
  • Real Estate For Sale
5 days ago

Co-housing Unit For Sale in Portland Oregon

Light-filled 976 sq ft, 3-bedroom, 1-bath end unit in Columbia Ecovillage, Portland’sestablished cohousing community in the Cully neighborhood. With windows onthree sides, this ground-floor home gets natural light all day, even onPortland’s grey ones. The open living and dining area has warm hardwood floors and flows into akitchen with solid wood cabinets and granite counters. The dining roomwindows look straight into a native vine maple — a wall of green from springthrough fall. There’s good storagein the unit, plus an extra storage space in the community storage building.A ductless mini-split provides efficient heating and air conditioning, andthe plumbing was fully replaced in 2026. The primary bedroom has a full-width closet behind a sliding barn door; thesecond bedroom’s closet sits behind a pair of French doors. The thirdbedroom has no closet, which makes it a flexible room — guest room, office,or playroom. Step out the sliding glass door onto your own covered patio, which opens onto the community grounds: organic gardens, personal garden plots,greenhouses, a grape arbor, a bamboo grove, native plantings throughout, andtrees everywhere — including a truly massive old black walnut. The orchard alone is a reason to live here — to name a few:apples, pears, plums, figs, mulberries, chestnuts, walnuts, grapes,blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, in several varieties each. A75,000-gallon rainwater catchment system keeps it all watered through thesummer. Kids have a playhouse, sandbox, small soccer field, a favorite climbingtree, and a parking loop where bikes can circle but cars can’t; adults havea workshop, garden shed, fire pit, quiet space and big community porches. The common hall is the heart of the village: a commercial kitchen anyresident can use, a kids’ play area, pool table and ping pong, and asoapstone stove that burns every winter evening. Residents can reserve it forevents for almost nothing. The historic farmhouse has guest rooms owners canbook for visiting family (about 30 nights a year). Shared laundry rooms(three washers and dryers) come with indoor drying racks and outdoorclotheslines, and there’s a craft room and a trade room where things you nolonger need find a new home next door. Potlucks, communitymeals, work parties, and acres of safe space for kids to roam makethis a rare chance to own a home and a neighborhood at the same time. Built in 1973 and fully remodeled in 2008–09 for energy efficiency and healthy indoor air — metal roof, HardiePlank siding, and standard community-built finishes throughout. Nothing to update, nothing deferred. The $522 monthly HOA coverswater, sewer, and garbage, plus the roof, siding, exterior paint, and allstructural maintenance — and it’s what pays for the grounds, the common hall,and everything else described above. And it’s close in: Cully’s cafés andparks are a short walk or bike ride away, the rest of Portland’s food,music, and neighborhoods are minutes beyond that, and the commute downtownor to the airport is easy by car, bus, or bike – 3.7-acre grounds with organic gardens, personal plots, greenhouses, native plantings, and mature trees (huge black walnut)- Orchard: apples, pears, plums, figs, mulberries, chestnuts, walnuts, grapes, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries- 75,000-gallon rainwater catchment feeds the gardens year-round- Workshop, garden shed, fire pit, quiet space, community porches  
Need
  • Forming Communities
3 weeks ago

Looking for: people building relational capacity, with a view to community

What’s here now: An intention, a framework developed over five years, and a programme running in central Victoria to find people to build with. No land, no group, no timeline. The question this is organised around: What makes a community of people living together sustainable over decades – where people enjoy being there, conflict is low, and the conflict that does arise gets handled in ways people value. The distinctive premise is capacity before formation. Most communities form first and build relational skill afterwards, usually under pressure. This one proposes doing it the other way round: people build the capacities first, and the group forms from people who have them. That includes a working idea about collective capacity – that a group has a ratio, and below some threshold it can’t metabolise its own conflict and starts consuming itself. Roughly: in a group of twenty, perhaps three or four with high capacity, most in the middle, and very few without. Untested, and something this project exists to find out. Governance: Sociocracy, with the intention of testing it meaningfully at scale rather than adopting it nominally. What’s actually happening: A three-week residency at a property near Castlemaine, and a practice group running before it. The medium-term aim is twenty to forty people at a rented facility. The long-term aim is a support hub sharing the framework more widely. What I’m looking for: People who want to build this capacity seriously, and who might eventually want to build something together. Not necessarily people who want to live here – the current property probably isn’t the long-term site. Happy to hear from anyone this resonates with, including people already in community who’d rather share what they’ve learned than join anything.
  • Events
3 weeks ago

Restoring Choice - free online practice group, from Australia

Restoring Choice – free sessions and a practice group Many of us are less practised at three things than we realise: making clear requests, saying no when it isn’t a full yes, and hearing no without something getting damaged. These aren’t personality traits. They’re capacities that were trained out of many of us by ordinary structures – families where some needs were allowed and others weren’t, workplaces that reward overstretch. They can be trained back. Why this might interest people here Most communities teach communication after people arrive, once conflict has already surfaced. This works the other way round – building capacity first, and finding out what a group can do when most people already have it. What’s running Free 60-minute introduction, online. Same session each time; come to whichever suits. Register for intro session below: https://events.humanitix.com/reclaim-your-power-with-restoring-choice Four-week practice group, Tuesdays from 15 September, 6:30-8:00pm. One session a week, and at least one short written entry a day about a real situation in your own life. The writing is the actual work; the sessions support it. Sign up by Sunday 13 September. Register for practice group below: https://events.humanitix.com/restoring-choice-practice-group Everything is free. Times are Australian Eastern 6:30pm here is the early hours in most of the Americas. Worth checking before you register. Who it’s for No prior experience needed. It isn’t therapy, and I’m not a therapist. Many people find that looking honestly at how well they ask, decline, or hear a no is less flattering than expected. That’s common, and it isn’t a verdict on anyone. Run by Glenn Russo – 13 years practising this material, seven years co-facilitating an NVC practice group in Castlemaine. If you’re already living in community and would rather share what you’ve learned than join anything, I’d like to hear from you too.

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