EarthCraft Residency

A weeklong Incubator in Generating Soul-Centric, Life-Enhancing Community

May 29-June 6th, 2026

Spirit Hollow in Shaftsbury, Vermont

Apply for 2026. Scholarships available.

About EarthCraft Residency

This application-based residency is a one-week immersive incubator for current and future agents of cultural change in generating ecological and soul-centric communities.

There IS an abundance of beautiful eco-communities and projects focusing on the technical skills and structures necessary to live in greater harmony with less harm to Mother Earth. We believe, however, that an important layer is often missing in their soil’s foundations. . . soul.

Soul, the place where our unique gifts satisfy the world’s hunger, where the joys of our offering meet our communities’ needs. We believe many eco-communities struggle to endure long-term because they have been given little water to nourish their individual souls, the souls of their communities, and the soul of the earth beneath their feet.

EarthCraft is an incomparable experiential offering that guides each participant further along their own soul’s path, while simultaneously tending earth and the human community. Youngers, olders, and elders are thus invited to bring their wisdom, skills, wonderings, and yearnings to this intensive week-long journey of crafting, creating, and cultivating community in microcosm. Your guides offer their cumulative decades of experience in contemplative practice, nature-based soul work, depth psychology, permaculture, animism, ecological building and community development while allowing the collective experience of the group to guide an emergent, rich, and practical response for these times that honors our own deepest calling.

Social unrest, endemic injustice, catastrophic climate and ecological collapse are calling for us to band together in ancient, yet never-before-seen ways. Our longing for earth-rooted connection in community whispers to us . . . there is a way forward. A way that affirms life and offers the hope of our descendants raising their children in a just, wild, and reciprocal world where humans have once again found their place in the greater “family of things.”

We look forward to answering the call with you.

Learn more

Foundations of EarthCraft

-People aged 18 and up from anywhere in the world.
-All racial, religious, gender-orientations, sexual orientations, social, economic and cultural backgrounds are most welcome.
-Visionary members of a current eco-centric community seeking to grow and evolve their community.
-Visionaries who are dreaming up a community by themselves or with others who know they want their community to be founded in eco and soul-centric practices.
-Professional Nature-based and/or human development guides who want to teach and train eco + soul-centric practices to their organizations, clients/students, and communities.
- One who knows there's another way to live that lies beyond the known and is looking for connection, inspiration, skills, and personal development.
-Residents are immersed in a relatively brief but potent experience of what is possible in an eco-centric and soul-centric community.
-Learn skills in how to track your personal as well as community’s psycho-spiritual threads for enhanced communal connection to land, soul, and each other.
-Learn to tend your personal soul threads while interweaving with and supporting the threads of your community through the process of healing, growth, and challenge.
-Take away actionable skills and experience in cultivating eco/soul-centric community, along with foundational knowledge and applications of contemporary western-centric models and frameworks that can be applied to your life and lands back home.
Learn More Here.
Spirit Hollow is a rustic retreat center with outdoor showers, outhouses, and outdoor kitchen. There is shared lodging in yurts and tent cabins, or you can camp in your own tent.
All meals and lodging included in tuition. We form meal teams to prepare meals daily: breakfast, packed lunch, and dinner. As one would in any village, everyone participates in the planning, cooking and clean-up of all our meals while at Spirit Hollow.
Learn More Details Here.
TUITION & SCHOLARSHIPS
Thanks to generous donors who believe in our work, we have scholarship funds to make Earthcraft accessible to all. Our tuition is structured in a tiered system where you pay according to your level of financial resources:
Supporting Tier: You Pay $1,800+
For those with abundance, your support allows others to attend at reduced or no cost.
Full Compensation Tier: You Pay $1750
This tier covers the actual costs of food, lodging, guide wages and other necessary expenses.
Supported Tier: You Pay $1000 - $1700
For those who need some support to attend.
Solidarity Tier: You Pay $0 - $1000
For those who need extensive support to attend or are experiencing economic hardship or historical oppression.
Please indicate which tier you will pay and fill out the corresponding section in our Application Form.
We wholeheartedly encourage all who feel called to apply, your tuition covers:
-All food and Lodging at Spirit Hollow for the program’s 6 night, 7-day duration.
-One preparatory group call and post-program call, as well as ongoing guidance and support during the residency.
A $500 non-refundable deposit secures your place, unless you are paying at the solidarity tier. Deposits can be deferred as tuition for another EarthCraft program within the next two calendar years. If we are able to fill your place, we will offer a 50% refund.

Meet the Guides

Tracey Forest, MA, CYT

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Joe Peloquin

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Deer Ryder

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“Earth Craft is a compelling, gorgeous offering; a socio-cultural acupuncture point for the health of the whole.”

~ Dr. Hilary Leighton, PhD
Ecopsychologist, Registered Clinical Counsellor, True Nature Counselling & Psychotherapy; Associate Professor, School of Environment and Sustainability, Royal Roads University; The Work That Reconnects Facilitator; Animas Valley Institute Board Member

The Land We Will Live On

Spirit Hollow is at the end of the road on 100 forested acres on the slopes of Grass Mountain in Shaftsbury Hollow, VT and enveloped by thousands of acres of National Forest. Our daily sessions are held in one of our yurts and out on the sacred land. The Medicine Wheel Garden, Oracle Brook and our fire circles offer ample space for gathering, solitude and ceremony.

Our resident-director, Tracey Forest, lives with her family and animals in the geodesic dome on-site. Along with organic vegetable and medicinal gardens, Spirit Hollow has begun the process of planting a food forest, to leave a food legacy for those yet-to-come.

Learn More about Spirit Hollow

The Spaces We Inhabit

Our large 30 foot Mountain Yurt serves as our lodge and hearth space throughout the immersion. When we are not meeting here as a group, it is open for your use for meditation and movement, rest and reflection, creating and crafting
One of our three fire circles is on the edge of Oracle Brook — a gathering space for council, ceremony, and wild communion. Hike from here into the vast forest with countless waterways, glades and hidden hollows to explore. Hike a bit longer, and you'll find yourself ascending Grass Mountain, our local peak.
Spirit Hollow has a large organic vegetable garden and perennial medicinal wheel garden, an emerging Food Forest and Spiral Labyrinth for sowing seeds of a soulful strain. We will spend time with all as a group and you are most welcome to develop your own relationship with these growing ones.