Indigenous Culture, Permaculture, Digital Culture
LongGreenHouse, UMaine’s first Wabanaki/Permaculture Center operated a “communiversity” linking Wabanaki LongHouse Elders gkisedtanamoogk and Miigam’agan, UMaine’s Still Water Lab and Permaculture courses, the Wassokeag K-12 school, and community workshops. Formed in 2004 as a cross-cultural partnership for regeneration of cultural and ecological networks, LongGreenHouse wove together indigenous culture, permaculture, and digital culture exploring synergies and cross cultural collaboration in the spirit of gratitude and reparation to local Indigenous people upon whose lands we live and thrive. Together we developed a Living/Learning model for thriving cultures in the Gulf of Maine bioregion based on the intersection of evolutionary wisdom, natural patterns, and social networking.
LongGreenHouse housed and supported the Wassookeag School, based on an experiential and ecological curriculum; operated a Permaculture research lab for UMaine graduate and undergrads; developed and implemented protocols for Longhouse living in partnership with Wabanaki elders; and developed global social networks with state-of-the-art network technologies.
In partnership with MOFGA, we also created the Still Water Permaculture Guild to support a Permaculture Journeyperson program inviting UMaine grads and undergrads to live on site and participate in the permaculture “communiversity”. Founders of the project include StillWater co-directors Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, gkisedtanamoogk and Miigam’agan, and Debbie Bell-Smith, with support from ESTIA and Charles & Julia Yelton.