May/June 2003 Living Now
Starhawk Visit Highlights Village Building Convergence
by Michael Maggard
The Village Building Convergence is being held May 9th-18th, 2003,
and will include free hands-on workshops as well as nightly key-note
presentations by cultural visionaries from around the nation. Leaders
in the fields of green construction, community building and permaculture
will attend from around the world. The project is collaboration between
Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Program, The City Repair Project and KBOO
Community Radio 90.7fm.
The organizers of the Village Building Convergence believe that today's
barren and often dangerous traffic intersections can become public squares
and special gathering places for local residents. They are helping communities
"repair" their intersection spaces, calming traffic and increasing
a sense of community in the process. They transform them into beautiful
places where people want to go, where they feel safe and welcome.
Our public spaces are both reflections and shapers of our common culture.
By taking unhealthy street intersections and transforming them into
vibrant local gathering places, we reaffirm our interconnectedness.
Marking the very streets on which we live, we construct a new vision
of urban ecology and recover a place-based identity that links people
together in time, space, and community.
Each intersection repair project is the work of neighborhood residents.
The people who live in the neighborhood decide whether they want the
public square, what it will look like, how it will function and how
it will develop. One neighborhood may paint a giant mural on the intersection
and stop there. Another may go through many phases: planting trees and
flowers on the planting strips, painting the street, installing a community
bulletin board, a solar powered streetlight or reconstructing the intersection
with brick and cobblestones, an effective way to slow cars down.
During the day, free hands-on workshops are open to all. They will
be facilitated by internationally recognized leaders who will assist
in producing permanent intersection murals, benches, kiosks, and play-areas.
Other aspects to the week’s events include tours of eco-friendly
buildings such as People’s Food Co-op and Cob Sauna, both of which
feature cob construction and green roofs.
Each evening of the Convergence will include presentations by such
urban visionaries as Joseph Kennedy of Builders Without Borders, Mark
Lakeman of the City Repair Project, Penny Livingston-Stark from the
Permaculture Institute of Northern California, Mark Lamberth of the
Natural Building Collaborative, Richard Register of Ecocity Builders,
Jonathan Rowe of the Tomales Bay Institute, Paula Noël a dramaturge
specializing in ancestral connections, Stuart Cowan of Sustainable Systems
Design, Janell Kapoor of Kleiwerks School of Natural Building, Milenko
Matanovic from Pomegranate, and Starhawk world-renowned author, spiritual
innovator, and activist.
Starhawk, together with Penny Livingston-Stark, co-teaches a seminar
that combines permaculture design, political organizing, activism, and
earth-based spirituality. Known as Earth Activist Training (EAT), she
helps people become grounded in their environment, present in their
current situation, and able to access power.
Her message, on May 17th, will be a culmination of 10 days
and nights of transformation of the physical landscape, people’s
views of each other, and the world we live in. The Convergence will
facilitate the powerful and creative urge that is fostered by individuals
coming together to actively shape our environments.
Weeklong passes are available in advance for $80 or access to individual
evening presentations are available for $10 (on a sliding scale basis).
Also offered is an Out-of-Towner Package for $30 a day or $270 for a
weeklong pass, which includes dinners, housing and evening presentations.
Tickets are available through Southeast Uplift located at 3534 S.E.
Main, Portland, OR 97214. All payments and donations are tax deductible!
For more information and a complete schedule of events and locations
see our website at www.cityrepair.org/vbc
or call Jenny Leis at Southeast Uplift 503-232-0010 x25 or email jenny@southeastuplift.org