Past Events

Learn to Make a Black Ash Berry Basket
Come spend a pleasant spring day outside in beautiful Northeast Iowa learning to make a basket from experienced and patient teacher. This is a project for beginning basket makers, a Black ash berry basket that you can make in a day. It's a simple under one/over one design with a spiral weave, lashed on the rim.
Zac Fittipaldi lives in northern Minnesota on the edge of a beautiful lake and has been weaving baskets and teaching basketry for 12 years. Zac grows his own willow and harvests his own ash splints. He creates hex weave, black ash and willow baskets, with the occasional soft twined basswood bag. See more of his photos at Instagram@willow_and_ash_baskets.

Navigating Conflict: Building Skills for Connection and Resilience
More than ever, the world needs your aliveness. Gather to learn and practice relating with energy, skill, and effectiveness. Come Learn and Practice the Foundations of Nonviolent Communication in a beautiful rural outdoor setting.
We want to know that our collective efforts to bring about needed changes and work toward Just Transition will be fruitful. When we pour ourselves into the things we care about, we want to know it matters. Especially in times such as these, how exhausting to see our hard work melt away as conflict slows down, stalls out, or, worse yet, dissolves our collaborations.
The legacies of a domination paradigm (capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, to name a few) have left us without the skills we need to lean in to interdependence. This makes it incredibly hard to collaborate effectively. It makes it harder still to find generativity in conflict.
But it doesn’t have to be this way! Nonviolent or “Compassionate” Communication (NVC) offers us a toolkit to deepen our own embodied self-connection, build our capacity to reach out for support, and relate to ourselves and one another with empathy so that we can show up more fully to our work in the world. And as we begin to unpack the way that domination culture has shaped our very language, we can learn new/old ways of communicating that bring us more deeply into alignment with our values, our purpose, and into connection with one another.
During this weekend workshop series that offers 2, 4, or 6 hours of learning, we will explore practical strategies for undoing domination in ourselves, our communication, our relationships, and our collaborations. Each two-hour session will include interactive content and practices to engage with real-time examples from your life. You will have the opportunity to be paired up with a buddy for practice in between sessions and beyond the course (if you choose). This course will support you to:
Identify patterns of domination culture and develop a needs-based orientation that can enable you to undo domination
Explore NVC as an embodied mindfulness practice and grow your capacity to tune into body sensations as valuable feedback from your nervous system pointing you towards what matters to you
Grow your awareness of and vocabulary for resonant language including “feelings” and “needs”, and your understanding of the brain science behind why this kind of language works
Develop an empathic listening practice with a buddy between sessions as a foundational tool for resourcing yourself to show up better in conflict and collaboration
About Nicole Bauman:
Nicole Bauman is a midwest-based queer parent steeped in the sacred work of facilitation, transformative justice, somatics and Nonviolent Communication. They see building conflict resiliency as an essential part of living into the world to come, and are passionate about creating space where personal and collective liberation feel possible. As the descendant of white Western European peasant farmers who carried their trauma with them to the Americas, Nicole is committed to centering racial justice and ancestral healing in their work.
Nicole’s background in farming, yoga, doula work and natural building grounds their work in connection to the earth and the body. Nicole is an ICF-certified Professional and Community Healing-Centered Coach and a student of Somatics with the Strozzi Institute and in the lineage of generative somatics. Nicole finds rootedness in growing food, daily walks to the river, sewing ancestral quilts and through being a part of the Prairie Wolf Collective co-housing community in the Rust Belt city of Elkhart, Indiana (occupied Potawatomi territory).
- Wed, Apr 19Decorah (exact location TBD)Come acquaint yourself with an invigorating and unique vocal style, wrap your mind and mouth around new languages, and get a visceral glimpse into other cultures!
- RSVP ClosedSun, Apr 02Pulpit Rock Brewery Events RoomYou are invited to join the circle of song, 8 Sundays from 3:30-5:00 pm from Apr 2-May 21.
- RSVP ClosedSun, Mar 05Pulpit Rock Brewery Events RoomJoin Heartwood, a trio of songweavers and community song leaders for an afternoon of singing! They will teach original, harmony-rich, accessible songs inspired by the wild without and within. All voices are welcome and the songs will be taught by ear.
- RSVP ClosedSun, Jan 15Pulpit Rock Brewing Event RoomJoin us for an 8 week series of singing workshops and experience joy in community through voice and song! No singing experience is required.
- RSVP ClosedSun, Nov 20Pulpit Rock Brewery Events RoomWith Liz Rog and the EarthSong Community Singers. For the sheer joy of singing and being together with friends new and old!
- RSVP ClosedTue, Oct 25DecorahPlease join us as we explore the woods of local landowners Liz Rog and Daniel Rotto (Fern Hollow) in Winneshiek County. This event is designed to offer women an opportunity to meet each other and learn from Liz about how she and her family have managed their woodlands.
- RSVP ClosedWed, Oct 05DecorahPet lovers are invited to a meet and greet with Dr. Franchesca Zenitsky, holistic veterinarian practitioner.
- RSVP ClosedSun, Sep 18The LingonberryJoin Aimée Ringle and Barbara McAfee for an evening of song, story, and pleasure!
- RSVP ClosedSun, Sep 18Center for Belonging Folk SchoolJoin songleaders Aimée Ringle and Barbara McAfee for a joyful afternoon of heartfelt song!
- RSVP ClosedSun, Sep 18Center for Belonging Fold SchoolTake Your Voice to the Dog Park: A Workshop for Liberating and Celebrating Your Full Voice with Barbara McAfee
- RSVP ClosedThu, Sep 08Center for BelongingJoin award-winning songwriter Diane Patterson for a mystic Americana folk concert.
- RSVP ClosedWed, Aug 24Center for Belonging Folk SchoolThrough embodiment exercises, group inquiry, and fresh call & echo songs, we'll play inside the music we already are.
- RSVP ClosedSun, Aug 21Center for Belonging Folk SchoolJoin co-hosts Liz Rog and Ida Rotto for a day of singing songs that all ages love.
- RSVP ClosedSat, Jan 08DecorahYou are invited to join with Fairfield’s transition midwife Jennifer Hamilton and others from our community in learning wisdom, practices, and rituals around the transition of death.
- RSVP ClosedSat, Dec 04DecorahYou are invited to join with Fairfield’s transition midwife Jennifer Hamilton and others from our community in learning wisdom, practices, and rituals around the transition of death.
- RSVP ClosedSat, Oct 02DecorahYou are invited to the evening performance of world traveled and award-winning, singer/songwriters Sara Routh and Patresa Hartman surrounded by the sounds of Decorah’s natural wildlife and bright starlight.
- RSVP ClosedSat, Oct 02DecorahCome create and learn creative writing with world traveled and award-winning singer/songwriters Sara Routh and Patresa Hartman.
- RSVP ClosedSun, Aug 29DecorahCome stoke your households’ bird learning as we head into the autumn season and migration begins.