Facing Life Head-On: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Facing Life Head-On: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Graham and I have tried to implement as many permaculture concepts in Cob’s vegetable garden this year as time has allowed. One concept that really caught my fancy was to plant perennial flowers and certain veggies in amongst the veggie beds to attract pollinator insects (e.g., cosmos, nasturtiums, zinnias, daisies, borage, and dandelions) and to discourage pest insects (e.g., onion, garlic, leeks, basil, radishes, and marigolds). Liz here, in awe of the beauty of a permaculture garden in the fullness of summer. The summer bounty is beginning to come in at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. It’s been a dry summer and…read more >
Shine Light on the World: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Shine Light on the World: A Dancing Rabbit Update

I've been fascinated lately reading about forest baths. Doctors in Japan prescribe walking in forests for their patients to combat anxiety and depression. When I moved to Dancing Rabbit, I was struck by how good I felt, kind of like after going on a camping trip or a hike, but 24/7. There is more oxygen in the air when we are surrounded by greenery, but it goes beyond that. There is something that feeds the human spirit when we are surrounded by rustling leaves, changing, growing landscapes, flowers of different shapes and colors, birdsong, and bees humming. Liz here, with…read more >
Embracing Change: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Embracing Change: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Some folks embrace change, some avoid it at all costs. I’m somewhere in the middle. Liz here, with the latest from last week at Dancing Rabbit. I’m fully in the flow this spring and summer cooking for the visitor sessions, two so far, and cooking breakfast for workshops at the Mercantile, six so far this year, and inn guests. I’m able to meet visitors, chat, and remember their faces and most of their names. By fall, Dancing Rabbit village will have hosted close to 300 people: housing them, feeding them, spending an hour or two showing them around the village,…read more >
Becoming our Best Selves: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Becoming our Best Selves: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Its official: I have lived at Dancing Rabbit for a year. I’m so glad that nature reserved this wacky weather for my second spring and not my first. This time last year there was no last-gasp snowing or freeze/thaw/muck/freeze/repeat cycles in the month of April. I think I made a handful of fires last year in April; this year, a handful each week of April, so far. Liz here, rolling with the ups and downs of spring in the midwest. When the days are warm, (and last week there were several days of downright hot) my son, Graham, and I…read more >
Nourishment and Energy: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Nourishment and Energy: A Dancing Rabbit Update

One of the jokes that Californians often chuckle over is how much we talk about the weather even though it doesn’t change much. But here in northeastern Missouri the weather changes pretty much hourly. Liz here, with more of the latest from Dancing Rabbit. And so many kinds of weather! I feel as if I am becoming a connoisseur of weather. As an example, I hear raindrops on my metal roof and as soon as I get my coat on to go outside, the rain has changed to snow, or sleet, or freezing rain, or just an icy coat on…read more >
Winter Wisdom: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Winter Wisdom: A Dancing Rabbit Update

I was going to write about my Christmas week spent back in my hometown in California, but California gets enough attention. In the meantime, I’ve weathered record cold temps here at Dancing Rabbit, and lived to tell the tale. Liz here, with the latest from my ecovillage home. I returned from California to find my yard covered in snow, and it took several days of running the wood stove to get the straw bale walls back to releasing heat at night, that process aided by passive solar warmth passing from the attached greenhouse through a bank of windows on the…read more >
The Silence that Listens: A Dancing Rabbit Update

The Silence that Listens: A Dancing Rabbit Update

This is my first winter in the Midwest. Liz here, watching the temperatures drop and the days get shorter, and reviewing the bits of advice and commentary people have been giving me about winter since I moved here from California seven short months ago. I was actually disappointed that my time outside was about to decrease and I watched people here pull up spent vegetable stalks, cover everything with straw and retreat inside. My son came to visit me for two weeks recently and in thinking of things we could do together I remembered that he and I attended a…read more >
Full Circle Memories: A Dancing Rabbit Update

Full Circle Memories: A Dancing Rabbit Update

This fall I’m experiencing some pleasant full-circle memories that I’d like to share with you. Liz here, one of the newer residents of Dancing Rabbit. You see, this time last year I was a student of the nine-day Permaculture Design Course that has taken place at Dancing Rabbit the last several falls. I had a hidden agenda for taking the course: to spend nine days at Dancing Rabbit, to see if it was the right place for me to begin a new life. I stayed another two weeks after the course was over, one week as a guest and one…read more >