This gathering is centered around respect for this earth and ancestors, and we gather with a desire to heal our personal and cultural wounds and regain our authentic identity as a diverse community. Share stories and gain tools for constructive, respectful, and thoughtful dialogue across boundaries of culture, religion, class, race, and age. You’re invited to this healing, joyful, challenging, and life-giving experience, which will lift your heart without asking you to switch off your brain. Our intent is to create an experience where we practice being the way we wish the world to be, undertaken in hope, respect and reverence. Participants will be inspired and challenged by healers, artists and activists who work at the intersection of creativity, peace, spirituality, and social change and environmental justice, and will walk away with a renewed spirit for environmental and social justice and tools for community healing. Together we will discover steps into possibility of a more beautiful world, not by avoiding the pain that does exist, but by being attentive to a way of talking about it that has the potential to heal and recreate our world. We’d love to welcome you to the conversation.

Botany Basics with Marc Williams – Sunday 9 am – 12 pm

Our botany intensive will focus on the families of plants found commonly in Florida. We will cover the differences in how plants look regarding leaves, flowers, fruits and other parts and how this may help in proper identification. The way plants are classified based on these features and more recently DNA will be discussed relative to how they are referred to scientifically. We will also look at the best book and web resources for the exploration of botany on the peninsula. The class will feature a powerpoint covering the major characteristics of botany in general and then we will examine various forms of plant material to further emphasize the lessons learned.