A Typical Day for a Regenerative Design Fellow
Wake up in an 1800s farmhouse nestled in the rolling hills of Hawthorne Valley’s pastoral fields. Cows graze in the fields surrounding the house. Walk downstairs to tend to the wood stove and say hello to another fellow changing their load of laundry. Take time for your morning practice and chores such as movement in the practice space or a walk down the scenic road before breakfast at 8 am. Breakfast could be eggs from the chickens in cultured butter you made in a workshop with sautéed greens, garlic, and tomato all from the homestead garden.
Then, into the field by 10 am for the first workshop of the day such as working with your collaborative pod building the water catchment system you all designed with support from the build educator. You have scheduled unplanned time from 12 - 2 pm to eat lunch, refresh, and recharge before the second workshop of the day. Regroup at 2:00 in the classroom for the second workshop of the day. The second workshop is typically designed to develop a specific skill or deepen our understanding of place such as a class on interpersonal communications studying the effects of Group Think or values-aligned leadership.
After the second workshop, you independently schedule your time until dinner; you can work on independent projects, meet with personal advisors, or dive into research. Take a break from your research and explore the farm, meet the farm apprentices for a drink at the farm store, take a swim, work on homesteading projects, play in the dance studio or the ceramics studio.
After dinner, there may be a Place Corps organized evening activity such as a natural dye workshop, artist talk, movie and discussion, music at a local pub, or a yoga class. If there are no organized activities, you might want to read a book, prep food for the next day, knit a hat with yarn dyed from onion skins, or use the Hawthorne Valley studio facilities to continue developing your projects. Fall asleep to the sounds of the Hudson Valley excited for another day.
