Permaculture in Practice: Hands-on Skill Building & Homestead Tours, May 16 & 17

Charles Williams (he/him) is Earth Activist Training’s program director.  A long-time permaculture educator and certified permaculture designer, Charles comes to Earth Activist Training through a love of the wild, faith that healthy communities can solve complex problems, and a belief that working with one’s hands is sacred work.

Over the past thirty years, he has stewarded many pieces of land, including Diana’s Grove in Missouri, Farm & Wilderness summer camp in Vermont, and Starhawk’s Golden Rabbit Ranch in California. His approach simultaneously promotes both the preservation of wild spaces and conservation of the domestic.

His deep respect for and relationship with the divine in nature informs all he does, integrating spiritual practices with land management. Charles also understands the need for healthy community and knows that skilled human implementation is an essential part of any design. In these challenging times, he finds hope for the future through the interlocking, symbiotic relationship of spirit, community, and action.

As an accomplished tinkerer, Charles brings a wide range of practical and somewhat obscure hand skills. He has installed complex systems such as solar electric arrays, gray water filters, and veggie oil diesel conversions. He has implemented simple systems such as emergency water filtration, humanure composting toilets, and rotational grazing plans. He is talented in wilderness tracking, solo canoeing, gathering and tending wild edibles, starting fire by hand, and mapping. He loves to work with his hands, whether he is tanning hides or repairing a generator, and this love is reflected when he teaches EAT’s hands-on segments.

Charles believes that no problems are unsolvable as long as we work together to develop and implement our plan effectively, and honor the holy in our work.

Raina McDonald is an artist, yoga instructor, and grower focused on permaculture design, land stewardship, and seed saving. She co-owns Back Road Farm & Forge with her husband, blacksmith Ruben Irons, where regenerative homesteading meets the ancient craft of ironwork. Guided by ancestral ways of living in relationship with the land and each other, her work spans community building, placemaking, and cultivating food sovereignty.

Raina is the founder of the Scotsburn Community Food Forest, an edible and medicinal hub for intergenerational knowledge sharing and resiliency, and a founding member of the Pictou County Seed Collective. As a certified permaculture designer, she has supported schools and small-scale projects with edible landscaping and ecological design.

Through her work in the non-profit sector, she is helping to build a provincial network of school gardens by developing resources, expanding infrastructure, and strengthening capacity for garden leaders. Her teaching and facilitation empower people of all ages to connect with food systems, and she envisions edible forest gardens as a natural part of every schoolyard.

Raina and her family steward 150 acres of Wabanaki Forest, wild blueberries, and edible forest gardens in Mi’kmaw’ki/Brookland, Nova Scotia.