As we discover the fundamental richness of our environment and the immense wisdom of the earth, you will find a foundation from which to begin your work in sustainability and stewardship. In this stream, you will learn how to:

-work with the earth
-grow you own food
-protect the water
-generate electricity
-create a sustainable lifestyle with a small carbon footprint
-ask questions around responsible human behavior
-understand the impact we have on the earth
-understand true economics
-explore the science of the earth and universe.
-learn to work with the earth and its food

At Shift21 we work with partners from around the world influencing a next-generation educational system. More and more people are aware of the need to transition industrial paradigms to environmentally savvy frameworks. Current education systems and ideas, however, are largely suited to an industrial world. A post-industrial world demands an education system that is better suited to an emerging sensitivity to our shared natural environment. We are working to bring to shift the educational system so we can all work together to meet the needs of the present and immediate future.

1. Will we actually get to participate in the stewardship activities at the farm?

Yes, earth stewardship includes all the very practical applications of sustainability.

Sustainable energy means living off grid and building a wind turbine.
Sustainable agriculture means picking apples, planting garlic, harvesting carrots, caring for animals and making compost.
Sustainable forestry means selecting trees for the firewood harvest.
Sustainable community means living in creative harmony with others: cooking food, doing dishes, washing clothes, playing music and building fires in the kachelofen.

In addition to learning the philosophy of sustainability, and what effect it has on our lives and the lives of other beings, we will actually get our hands dirty bringing theory into practice.

Yes, Shift 21 is not only about studying, thinking and speaking. It is about doing. Most of all it is about being - being real.

2) What is this Earth Stewardship "stream" about anyway? Earth stewardship is really about caring for all beings - human and non-human. That is the way we care for the earth. If human and non-human beings are healthy and doing well, then that is the measure of how well we are stewarding the earth. If things are not so great, we need to pay more attention to how we're conducting our lives. This is true at all scales from back yard to the whole world.

In this stream, we will spend a lot of time in the natural landscape - tuning into our world through our senses, practicing silence and stillness, learning from nature. We'll spend time hanging out in the forest, gardens, river and lake - observing, learning, working, playing. Earth stewardship practice begins with becoming familiar with ourselves in nature, in all kinds of weather and at all times of the day and night.

Earth stewardship also is about actively engaging in the "environment". We will learn ways of doing things that tend to minimize harm and maximize benefit - for ourselves and others.

We'll have genuine conversations about how we feel and think about ourselves, each other and our environment. This will be a co-creative process, not dominated by the "teachers". In fact, we'll discover our own leadership through stewarding the land. This stream is not really separate from the others, but we'll use a different lens - and we'll learn mostly outside the walls.

3) What is Windhorse Farm?

Windhorse Farm, now owned and operated by Jim and Margaret Drescher, builds on the rich 150-year history of the Wentzell family's stewardship of this forest and farm in the LaHave River Watershed at Wentzell Lake in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. Founded in 1840, this is the longest-standing demonstration of sustainable forestry in Canada.

Today Windhorse Farm is the home of three for-profit businesses demonstrating the economic practicality of ecologically protective stewardship practices. Windhorse Education Foundation, a charitable society, is responsible for education and training programs in earth stewardship. It is as an "earth stewardship training centre" that Windhorse Farm is best known. More than a thousand young people from at least ten countries have lived and learned here over the past 20 years - as students, interns, apprentices and resident trainees. Most of these people have gone on to do environmentally and socially beneficial earth stewardship work in Canada and other countries.

Earth stewardship, as it is practiced and presented at Windhorse Farm, is based on fundamental human goodness and caring for all living beings. Arising naturally from that genuine caring, open-minded curiosity leads to investigation of how other beings, both human and non-human, are harmed or benefited by how we conduct our lives. Encouraging this curiosity and spirit of investigation, rather than "teaching" any environmentalist or spiritual viewpoint, is what directs the earth stewardship training at Windhorse Farm.

The programs include opportunities for enhancing our appreciation of the beauty and magic of the rural landscape through opening our senses, silent forest wandering and stillness practice. Equally important is hands-on training in basic sustainability skills in forestry, agriculture and energy generation and conservation. This combination of contemplative practice and training in hard skills is one of the things for which Windhorse Farm is best known.

The businesses which operate here include organic market gardens/orchards and native plant nursery, forestry and wood products manufacturing, and the management of facilities providing overnight accommodation for program participants, visitors, and farm vacationers. These businesses are demonstrations of how to bring the theory of earth stewardship "down to earth". In addition to their demonstration and training value, these businesses provide valued employment for members of the local community.

The aspiration of all of us at Windhorse Farm is to encourage and nurture truly sustainable and peaceful rural communities in the Maritimes and beyond. Our work is directed toward realizing that aspiration.