About Us
For 99.99% of the time that we’ve been walking on two legs, the future was quite predictable. As a child, all you needed to do was mimic the older children and adults to learn all of the skills, both physical and social, to meet your needs easily. As a hunter-gatherer, you lived as an integral part of nature, did not understand the concept of work, and knew that “the best place to store your extra food is in your neighbor’s belly.”
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The world has changed. Children are presented with a dizzying future that traditional schooling does not prepare them for. The digital revolution is in full swing. Technology is outpacing the ability to control its direction. Westernized social systems are deteriorating. The impacts of Climate Change have surpassed the need for sustainability and can now only be addressed through regenerative practices. Competition and radical individualism have led us to a path of separation and increasing isolation. The skill set necessary to connect and cooperate is needed now more than ever, yet many find these skills difficult to access. If we are to thrive in the new era, we must be creative, adaptable, cooperative, and conscious of our choices. We need new teachings that reach back into our pre-colonial past for inspiration and direction.
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Now more than ever, we need the solid foundation provided by ancient skills and our deep connection with nature. Through this journey of re-learning, we see the interconnectedness of all things. We learn the value of interdependence and discover our unique gifts to benefit humanity. We find stillness. We expand our awareness, cultivate patience and self-discipline, develop empathy and express gratitude. We share. Our critical evaluation skills improve with our intuition. We learn to meet the challenges of the natural world and technological world honestly and with an open mind and heart. We laugh, go on adventures, and have lots of fun, too!
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In our new world, wisdom is far more rare and valuable than knowledge. We are Wisdom Keepers… connecting the past, present, and future. Join us!
Lead Instructor
Chris Morasky
Lead instructor Chris Morasky is a world-renowned naturalist specializing in Stone Age living and wildlife biology. With over 40 years of experience, Chris has committed his life to bringing humanity back into deep connection with nature. Chris has lived most of the past 40+ years in the wilderness and small communities of British Columbia, Idaho and Utah and now lives in Pasadena, CA.
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He has lived in Stone Age homes, homesteaded along the most remote mail route in the lower 48 states and led totally Stone Age expeditions into the wilderness. His teachers include Lakota, Shoshone, Arapaho, Crow, Blackfeet and Serri tribesmen, many wilderness skills experts and life itself. Chris’ workshops focus on awakening instincts, ancient skills and deep nature connection as doorways to understand more fully who we are, why we’re here and where we could be headed.
Regenerative Sociologist
Rachel Natland
Co-founder Rachel Natland is a regenerative sociologist and cultural activist living in Los Angeles, California. Born and raised in Miami, Rachel has brought herself up out of the inner city, broken the cycle of abuse and addiction she experienced during childhood, and has stepped fully on her path of personal freedom and societal responsibility. A lifelong student of metaphysics, she has worked in mentorship for over almost 20 years, aiding women in discovering their authentic selves and healing from addiction and trauma. Rachel is focused on collective liberation through the active dismantling of oppressive systems and the co-creation of regenerative cultural practices. She earned her Permaculture Design Certificate through the Los Angeles Permaculture Academy.
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Rachel's focus is on an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the development, structure, and functioning of human social systems which seeks to co-create data-driven regenerative community processes that are rooted in the principles of natural systems.
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Homesteading
Christina Conte
Christina hails from rural New York and has been an avid lover of nature and all it has to offer for as long as she can remember. She is a mother to three fun-loving children, a certified lactation consultant (IBCLC) and has been providing lactation support for the past decade. When not working, you can find her in her Altadena based homestead with her hands in the dirt. Before working in lactation, she worked as a research scientist and a high school teacher of Biology, Physics, and Human Health.
Mycologist
Paula Peng
Paula Peng is the founder of LAmushCo, a new incarnation of LA Mushroom Coop, which she started a year after graduating from LA Permaculture Academy and Radical Mycology cultivation intensive in Oakland in 2014. She has been running functional mushroom culture ever since for friends and family and now is focusing on getting mycelial knowledge running in hands and hearts in the LA area. In summer 2022, she led her “Mycelium of the Body” workshop at Mycofest in Pennsylvania and began to teach DIY cultivation workshops to the permaculture community in LA. She is passionate about our fungal heritage, our practical pleomorphological and allegorical/metaphorical relationships to the fungal world and she can’t wait to get you fostering the conditions to make mushrooms happen.
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