Maine Local Living School
nurturing the human-earth relationship
Community Programs 2024 Calendar
April 28: Grow Your Own Edible Mushrooms! with North Spore
May 5-9: Bioregionalism, Resilience and Active Hope with Antioch University
May 19: Wild Greens for the Common Table
June 23-27: Heart Teachings: Meditation & Whole Earth Study with Ray Reitze & Molly Gawler
July 28: Maine Open Farm Day at MLLS
October 5-6: Willow Basket Weaving Weekend with Mary Lauren Fraser
October 19: Acorn Processing Day
October 20-24: Heart Teachings: Meditation & Whole Earth Study with Ray & Molly
Our community programs are geared toward adults but many of them are appropriate for supervised kids as well. All programs take place on the Maine Local Living School campus, 71 Lake Drive, Temple, Maine. Our campus is unfortunately not ADA accessible; please reach out if you have questions about accessibility.
Grow Your Own Edible Mushrooms!
Mushrooms are fascinating and beautiful organisms that also offer opportunities for substantial food production in Maine. This workshop, led by North Spore educator Louis Giller, will share background and hands-on experience with some of the most reliable outdoor cultivation methods. Louis will start with a presentation explaining how to plan and execute log and bed cultivation with species including Shiitake, Wine Cap, Oysters, Chestnut, and Hen of the Woods. From there, we'll get outside and start inoculating, putting what we've learned into practice! Participants will be able to take home a freshly inoculated Shiitake log.
Date: Sunday, April 28, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Cost: $30-80 sliding scale
Bioregionalism, Resilience & Active Hope
How do we practice hope as the world unravels? Explore the power of place-connection and hands-on skill building to reweave fabrics of kinship and community.
In the course, offered in partnership with Antioch University, we will explore themes of just transition, downshift, localization, and resiliency through readings, discussion, and most importantly, embodied experience. You will carve a spoon, plant seeds, inoculate mushrooms, tend a woodland, feast upon wild and cultivated local foods, sharpen a knife, compost everything, and build your own rocket stove. Depart with practical and philosophical frameworks to create a small piece of “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible” (Charles Eisenstein).
Dates: Sunday, May 5 through Thursday, May 9
Cost: $500 - $1,000 with scholarships available through the Office of Continuing Education (you do not need to be a student at Antioch to receive a scholarship)
Wild Greens for the Common Table
Come feast on the wild abundance of spring! We will spend the day on identification, wise harvest, and cooking of multiple wild plants that grace the springtime table. Ever eat a tree-leaf salad, nettle stir-fry or knotweed pie? Come learn how and see how partnering with the wild can bring health, happiness, and hope. We will provide a mostly-foraged lunch.
Date: Sunday, May 19, 10:00 am - 3:00 pm
Cost: $30-80 sliding scale
Heart Teachings:
Meditation and Whole Earth Study
Ray Reitze, master Maine Guide, has led thousands of people through the peace of the Maine woods and into the peace of their own hearts. Molly Gawler is a fiddle teacher, mother, and dancer who has been studying with Ray for many years. During Ray and Molly's 5-day spiritual retreat, there will be time for stillness, learning, and questions as well as great home-cooked meals and music. Throughout the week, Ray will share stories and wisdom while guiding us, through breath, silence, and deep listening toward becoming what we all are: love.
The program will include: seeing, feeling and studying energy systems; root systems; above ground and the green family; the creature people; weather and wind directions; studying and learning to read the landscape (it has so much to tell us about life); observing the actions of water as it interacts with nature.
Dates: June 23 - 27, October 20 - 24. All programs have Sunday 10:00 am arrival and Thursday 3:00 pm departure; details in registration.
Cost: $350-500 sliding scale
Note: the program is hosted at but not run by Maine Local Living School.
Maine Open Farm Day
Visit the working homestead and education center of Maine Local Living School on Open Farm Day! We will lead tours of the campus including the ice house, root cellar, greenhouse and gardens, solar food dehydrator, animal barn, and the classroom/workshop. Visitors will learn about and interact with earth-friendly systems including rainwater collection and solar water heating, rocket stoves and outdoor kitchens, composting toilets, and alternative building construction. Visitors will also have the opportunity to put their hands to work on a homestead project and try cookies made with acorn flour. Free and open to the public.
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Date: Sunday, July 28, 11:00 am - 3:00 pm
Willow Weaving Weekend
Date: October 5-6, Saturday 10:00 am to Sunday 4:00 pm
Cost: $400-500 sliding scale, meals and accommodation included (see registration form for more details)
In this two day workshop you will make a round-base basket, otherwise known as stake-and-strand, traditional to much of Europe. Learn to make the slath, two-rod twining, staking up, 3-rod waling, French randing, a waled border, and handles of your choice. Take home a round-base basket to use for the rest of your life and the skills to make more.
The workshop is taught by Mary Lauren Fraser, who apprenticed with Karen Collins in northern Scotland. Mary has been weaving coffins for green burial and teaching basketry workshops throughout New England since 2015. Of Scottish heritage, she grew up and resides on the banks of the Connecticut River in today's western Massachusetts, on unceded Abenaki land.
Acorn Processing Day
Acorns: the amazing, bountiful, ancient staple of humanity! But did you ever try eating a raw acorn? Yuck! However, it just takes some simple processing to transform acorns into a truly delicious grain-like (and gluten free) food. This is real food; we eat hundreds of pounds a year. As part of this day we honor indigenous cultures that have enjoyed acorns for thousands of years, and we investigate the potential of acorn to transform modern food systems and culture. We'll begin the day with harvesting and end with baking!
Date: Saturday, October 19, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Cost: $30-60 sliding scale
