It’s been over three months since our last newsletter, so it’s high time to update you on SolSeed’s doings.
<br>
[[Image:Earth Day 2011 booth.JPG|410px|right]] As mentioned in the last report, our booth at City Repair’s annual [[Earth Day 2011|Earth Day festival]] was even bigger than last year, in a number of ways. In addition to the popular participatory mural painting and galaxy planter, we showed off our backyard cottage concept plans and a test copy of Happy in the Sun (more on those below). Plus we donated some space to three friends we met at last year’s Earth Day, Mathew and Molly representing [http://www.cloacina.org Cloacina] (and face painting), and Gus representing the Silverton [http://greengranges.org Green Grange] (and Extraterrestrial Agriculture). We met lots of interesting people and had a great time, and this time the weather was beautiful throughout.
Swift Architecture produced some beautiful concept plans for our backyard cottage. After showing them off at Earth Day, we took a break from architectural planning and started on a process of developing our community vision, values, mission, and goals, following the excellent advice in the book Creating a Life Together by Diana Leafe Christian. To this end, we held a two-day [[Vision Workshop]] during Memorial Day weekend, then continued the conversation on our regular [[Group Experiences#SolSeedCalls|weekly “work bee” calls]]. We’re also still considering other options for the next physical step in building the [[Seed Village]], from remodeling Brandon and Shelley’s basement to buying or renting another house nearby.
<br>
[[Image:Reading Happy in the Sun.JPG|200px|left]]
After working on it for a year and a half, we’ve finally self-published our first SolSeed book, ''[[Happy in the Sun]]''! We have an initial run of twenty copies, several of which are already spoken for (Sequoia is already very attached to his copy). If you’d like a copy, please contact [mailto:brandon@solseed.org brandon@solseed.org].
<br>
To celebrate the Summer Solstice this year, we went on a [[Summer Solstice 2011|hike to beautiful Wahclella Falls]] in the Columbia Gorge, followed by dinner at the Seed Village. [[Image:Hiking party at Wahclella Falls.JPG|300px|right]] The falls was in an impressively large side-canyon to the south of the Columbia, on a stream dotted with huge boulders. Near the falls, we found a cave that looked like it would have been fun to explore, if only anyone had brought a flashlight. The weather was looking questionable for the hike, but the rainclouds politely held off and only sprinkled us a little until after we got back in our cars to head home, at which point the downpour began.
As for the upcoming months: We will of course be celebrating the Equinox on September 23rd. This year we’re joining a massive global event on Equinox weekend, [http://www.moving-planet.org/map Moving Planet], with a SolSeed bicycle squad—we hope you’ll join us! Other things we’re getting involved in are more cryptic . . . like Meetups, a church survey, and space elevators. Stay tuned for more details!
Thanks for reading!<br>
Ben Sibelman