Projects Sponsored by Woman, Earth & Spirit, Inc
a 501-c-3 nonprofit corporation
Jae Haggard
JaeHaggard@gmail.com 575-421-2533
Woman, Earth and Spirit, Inc
Administrators: Jae Haggard & jody jewdyke
Founded in 2003, WE&S received final IRS 501-c-3 approval in 2007.
Administered by skilled volunteers, all highly regarded in the Lesbian community, WE&S sponsors a growing range of workshops, spaces and projects that expand possibilities for women and Lesbians— our primary mission. Each addresses a real need in our Lesbian and women’s lives.
Our oldest sponsored Project, Maize Magazine, has been serving our community for 25 years. Outland was founded in 1989, ALIC in 1998 and the Media Project in 2006. Most of our other Projects are rapidly growing toddlers.
30 women are actively involved in our range of Projects~ all volunteers who donate skills and time. We each bring different skills and skill levels and we share skill-building.
All our Projects and Events are offered on a sliding scale with an offer whatever you can option. In our experience women donate generously, whatever their economic status. That generosity is at the heart of our success and growth.
Want to Participate?
Energy. We invite your questions and welcome your energetic or financial support. See a Project that you find exciting? We’d love to have you join us in unfolding its potential. We’d love to add your vision to ours.
Have a Project or Creativity of your own? Part of our mission is to make our equipment and knowledge available to other women.
Donations. We have accomplished small miracles with an impressively tiny amount of money. Laugh, we are women of big vision with resources just sprouting to match.
Most all of our impressive array of equipment has been donated. We welcome your equipment and supplies donations.
Please consider what financial donation you are able to offer to promote and expand these wondrous Projects. You many designate your donation for particular Projects or to our General Pot of Abundance for distribution as needed to Programs. Although we have already been designated as a primary beneficiary in three wills, we have accomplished our wonders so far on several small donations.
Building Materials. We in particular in the Spring of 2008 need donations or loans to cover advance costs of our delicious buffet of 40 Outlandish Workshops and to cover cost of building materials for the wood and adobe cabins we are building during the Workshop Season (about $5000 each for basic materials).
We need more living spaces at Outland in order to make the land and opportunities available to more women. These living spaces are small and beautiful, constructed aligned with our Simple Living philosophy. Outland herself is a unique opportunity for women to come to regenerate, listen to ourSelves, create and heal. In a word, Connect—with the Earth, Self, other Women, and Spirit. We also believe that Connection is fundamental to creative expression and wholeness/ healing. Part of our mission is to make this opportunity available to as many women as possible for as long as they wish to be here.
The cabins we are building in the summers of 2008 and 2009 will then be used to make both the land and future Workshops accessible to even more women. Rental donations from the cabins will be used to repay building materials loans on a 2-year or other arrangement contract.
If our Workshop model continues to work as well as projected, we will tweak and offer a similar Workshop Series in 2009, again to focus on small house Construction Principles & Skills, Connection, Creativity and Wholeness/ Healing.
Tweaking as needed yet again, current plans are 2010 construction of two designated buildings: 1. Library, Archives & Media Production Studio and 2. Wholeness & Healing
Immediate Expenses to Fund
We, of course, do expect the Workshops themselves to generate income to cover most expenses related to holding the Workshop Program. The Workshops are not designed to raise the money for actual construction expenses. Ongoing rental income from the new cabins will eventually pay for building costs and provide seed money for future expansion.
Meantime, immediate and specific Workshop start-up, advance and prep costs to fund by loan or donation are:
A. Must Do
o Travel expenses for Facilitators who have volunteered their skills and time ~ $1500
o Food & supplies for March, April & May volunteers to prep and hold Workshops ~ $2400 (by June we expect Workshop Participant donations to meet expenses)
o Materials for workshop cabins ~ $5000 each. We will build 4-6 cabins depending on resources available. Materials for two cabins needed by end of March; additional two cabins by end of April; final two cabins by end of May.
B. Most Helpful Additional Loans or Donations
o Donations of any amount to subsidize attendance by low income women. There are many already registered, including women with chemical and environmental sensitivities who require more particular living arrangements.
o Materials for recording portions of all 2008 Workshops and to do documentary interviews with as many Facilitators and Attendees as possible ~ $350
o Commercial washing machine ~ $500
o Nontoxic beds/ bedding for Workshop participants ~ $800
o Road repair at Outland ~ $1000
o Accessibility solar-powered cart, converted from used golf cart ~ $1900
o Well/ water line repair at Outland (one mile of disintegrating water line) ~ First half $3400; second half $3400
o Materials for 5 shade/ rain/ wind ramadas for tents ~ $900 each. Frame eventually enclosed as another adobe cabin) ~ $4500
C. Other
o Medications and food for Heartfull Giving requests ~ $1000
o 2008 WE&S and Project phone, DSL and utility expenses in donated office at Outland ~ $1200
Your contributions to WE&S touch a great many individuals and ripple out into the homes and communities of each woman. Your support makes our work possible.
2008 Outlandish Women’s
Administrators: Jae Haggard & jody jewdyke
Inspiring 21-Week & 40-Workshop broad-spectrum Program
Providing opportunities for women to
Learn, Expand, Connect, Create & Heal
Our extensive Workshop Wiki describes our philosophy and goals as well as how we intend to accomplish our mission. We invite you to visit regularly and invite you to receive our periodic newsletters.
Estrogenerations has joined WE&S to sponsor this wondrous Workshop Season. Estrogenerations is the 501-c-3 nonprofit founded by Sonia Johnson, Jade DeForest and others to host the 2007 Feminist Hullaballoo.
at Outland
Land Steward & Innkeeper: Jae Haggard
While preserving the Land as a plant and wildlife refuge and preserve, our Work is to provide opportunities for women to have access to this incredible, inspiring and healing 1000 high desert acres called Outland.
The Land and the tone we create helps women to connect with Self, Earth, others & Spirit. In Connection women expand, are more able to Listen to our own Knowing and can gain more clarity about our own LifeWork, what it is we are in this life to do.
We Connect and in the Connection unfold into greater Harmony where movement into Wholeness, Healing & Creativity are almost inevitable.
We are accessible to a broad range of women’s abilities/ disabilities, one of our top priorities. Our construction practices and use of scent-free products provides a space where most women with environmental or EMF sensitivities can not only tolerate but actually thrive. Our
We provide financial accessibility in a number of ways. We have a set GuestHouse rate and ask women to talk with us if that rate is a hardship so together we can find a way that works for everyone. Although we are a tiny nonprofit and the GuestHouses must support this land, it is most important to us that women are able to be here as long as they like. Our Woman-Empowering Workshops are offered on a sliding scale and we also specifically ask women to offer whatever they can if the suggested scale is a hardship or if they can donate above the scale.
We believe women are our own best Healers and that we best know our own bodies. We provide a range of Self-Healing support and workshops. And, we know that there are times when assistance in our Healing Journey is helpful. A spectrum of Practitioners offer their incredible skills to Retreat Center Guests and to Workshop Participants on accessible sliding scales in Towhee, our beautiful adobe Wellness Round.
We realize that Healing is also, or primarily, a Journey of Spirit which informs our tone, decisions and activities.
We plan to begin construction of a
Maize, a Lesbian Country Magazine
Editors: Jae Haggard & jody jewdyke
For 25 years and 84 issues Maize has served as the primary communications vehicle for Lesbians on Land or in town who have an Earth connection or interest in Lesbian community and culture.
Maize is published quarterly and thanks to generous subscribers who donate above the suggested scale is available to all wimmin who want her on an offer whatever you can when and if you can basis.
Maize and The Landyke and Lesbian Documentary Media Project are sponsored by WE&S and are housed in a Media Production Studio & Office provided by WE&S and Outland at Outland.
After nearly losing Maize just 3 years ago, under the stewardship of her current dedicated Editors and volunteers Maize is now thriving as shown by the 72-page Winter 2007-2008 issue with the annual Maize Connections & Resource Directory.
With Jae’s purchase of a used commercial copier in 2007, Maize is now published, edited, duplicated and distributed from Outland. This significantly aided our rapid growth and our ability to offer free and subsized subscriptions.
Submissions: due Feb 20, May 20, Aug 20, Nov 20
Subscriptions: Sub check or donation to Maize / Woman, Earth & Spirit
Suggested international sub is $35; $25 low income
Maize is always offer whatever if or when you can.
Your donations make Maize possible. Truly.
Lesbian & Landyke Documentary Media Projects
Coordinators: Jae Haggard, jody jewdyke, Jessey Jones & Constance Wagner
www.Lesbian-LandykeDocumentaryMediaProjects.org
WE&S values and initiates efforts to help record and preserve the lives, stories and cultures of marginalized women.
A primary focus is
Our mission is to gather existing materials, to organize systematic documentation of as many individuals and lands as possible, and to edit materials into DVDs, tapes, CDs, books, etc to make these lives and accomplishments more known. We then Archive all source and edited materials that we create as well as what we have collected.
In addition we have the equipment to duplicate and distribute print, audio, video and photographic media. We also make our equipment available to Lesbians and other women to produce their own Projects. And, we will increasingly be able to provide instruction and help as well. Several of our 2008 Workshops at Outland focus on Recording Our Lives: Basic Film.
We currently have 18 women working with the Media Project as Documentors, Editors, Coordinators, Advisors, Consultants and Supporters. We are delighted to have women offering their support and assistance like Martha Wheelock who has produced over a dozen highly acclaimed award-winning and internationally shown films. Author and Editor Julia Penelope is another of our Consultants. We are pleased to welcome internationally-recognized Liliana Kleiner, highly successful artist who has also produced award-winning films, has books published in 3 languages, and does performance art.
Although only 19 months old, the Media Project has already completed and is distributing 3 full-length DVD documentaries of the lives of 4 women from
Like all WE&S sponsored Projects, materials produced by the Media Project are available on a sliding scale, including offer whatever you can.
Heartfull Giving Fund
Administrator: Jae Haggard
Responding to needs in the extended Maize and Landyke community, WE&S initiated the Heartfull Giving Fund in November 2007. In time and with increased resources we plan to expand the range of our assistance services.
Through Woman, Earth & Spirit, Inc we accept one-time as well as regular ongoing donations— let us know if you need a receipt or donation letter. Monies are distributed as we receive them to those in our extended Web of aMaizing women who require assistance with immediate daily living needs— in particular food and medicinals.
In addition, we publicize the needs of individuals and lands for a range of physical and financial assistance, working to coordinate needs with offers of assistance. We are currently exploring a format to offer small low interest loans to Lesbians on land.
Women’s Affordable & Accessible Housing Project
Coordinators: Jae Haggard & jody jewdyke
link to Workshops and Philosophy
Clearly, a woman cannot fully expand in other areas of her life until she has dependable food and shelter and a nourishing environment. Just the fear of losing access to shelter and food can be immobilizing. Housing must be affordable and accessible to a range of abilities/ disabilities.
It is our mission to provide Workshops and other experiences so as many women as possible can hands-on or by example gain the confidence that no matter what happens in their lives they have the ability to build a simple shelter and provide basic food.
Just seeing the woman-built beautiful GuestHouses at Outland can inspire belief in her own capability in almost any woman. Most women who helped build our adobe casitas had no previous experience. Our structures and our lives reflect our Simple Living philosophy.
Woman-built GuestHouse
We believe that what women lack most is self-confidence and Confidence in Self. Encouraging this Big Self is at the heart of every WE&S sponsored Workshop and Event. We also consider it important that women realize they do have the option of living on land if they ever want or need to. Knowing lands exist that would welcome new women and believing in the option of access to land living, or living anywhere it is permissible to erect a simple structure or cabin without interference, is part of inspiring that I-can-do-it confidence.
Our Workshops are consciously designed to equally focus on Learning Skills, Personal Development, Connection, Creativity & Wholeness/ Healing. It is this multi-faceted and broad-spectrum blend that creates the perfect workshop experience and the most profound opportunity for changes in attitude, possibilities and dreams.
Core to our 21 Outlandish Women’s Adobe Building Weeks in 2008 and our 42 total Workshops is a focus on Women Build Our Own Houses. Within that confidence-building total experience, women learn how to build a cabin through both instruction and hands-on experience-- basic Construction Principles, Tool Use & Safety Considerations. Yes, even after one week and obviously preferably after a longer stay, a woman can return home able to start her own cabin or other building project. And, the same principles carry over to any activity or Project that each woman is involved with— assess the need, gather basic info and then just do it. Smile, that’s what we call Outlandish thinking.
Accessibility, both physical and financial, are fundamental to our approach to building. We focus on practices fitting to a woman’s body. Plus, we stress nontoxic, green and renewable, at harmony with the Earth. We prioritize affordable materials, owner-built, methods that women without training can use, and easily maintained. We encourage mutuality and cooperation, building together rather than alone.
Other workshops will focus on raising food and other self-sufficiency skills as well as personal growth and development, communication and concensus, creativity and Wholeness/ Healing..
Earth Friendly Energy for Women
Coordinators: Dianne Dyke Coapman and Jae Haggard
www.EarthFriendlyEnergyforWomen.org
Closely associated with our Affordable & Accessible Housing Project is this focus on Earth-friendly, renewable and affordable “alternative” energy resources.
In addition to the obvious wind, solar, and hydro systems, we want to explore other options ranging from parabolic mirrors to Tesla’s principles.
We will provide an ever growing physical and online collection of articles, illustrations and other information.
And, we will seek out or tailor information so it is more woman-friendly. As we know, everything from seat belts to hand tools to construction methods (like Earthships) is designed to reflect men’s perspective, size, proclivity for brute strength, etc. There is no right/ wrong, yet what works for men is often not at all how women would do it.
We are excited at the possibilities.
Lesbian & Women's Land Preservation Project
Administrators: Jae Haggard, jody jewdyke Advisor: Gail Dunlap
There are literally hundreds of Women’s Lands in the
There are as many kinds of lands as there are lands. On each land women consciously choose the values that inform their lives and choose the ways to live those values. Ideally we have as many lands as possible so each woman can find the land that best matches her values and needs and, as important, where she can contribute as is most nourishing to her.
Living and working in a range of neighborhood community to communal to intentional community environments, women have explored countless ways to learn better skills to live cooperatively, to communicate, to live in harmony with the Earth and neighbors, to make decisions and resolve problems and conflicts.
We have a great base of wisdom and experience. We have lands that are paid for and developed. We have lands that have been caringly tended and gardens that produce abundance. We have friendship & ally relations with neighbors and activist groups. Our women’s lands are a connected Webwork even though many women have not physically met.
Our lands provide spaces where women can come to learn, to connect, to celebrate, to be with the Earth, to live and to die. We provide opportunities for women to expand and find more clarity about what they want in their lives and what they are in this life to do.
We want to make sure all of this is as much as possible preserved and passed on to succeeding generations.
Our mission with this WE&S Project is to provide a wide range of services and options to help women get to land, remain on land, make provisions for their land to be taken care of both physically and legally, and pass their land onto like-minded women.
We will provide a range of information and options as well as referral to credible advisors as women make provisions for their lands when they are incapable of doing the maintenance tasks, are unable to remain living there, or die. Obviously, these decisions must be made carefully and with caring. Obviously too the needs of and interests of the individual, her land as well as of WE&S and the women committing to do some part or all of the Administration must all be fully addressed and protected.
We have already been asked to accept title to one land, to administer the land making sure that land needs are met, to assure on ongoing dependable presence of women on the land, to help organize the land as a home for aging women with a range of physical assistance needs, and to accept and distribute the monies designated in her will needed to maintain the land as home to aging women indefinitely.
We are currently exploring the range of questions that need to be addressed, the needs and wishes that need to be understood, the legal implications for everyone concerned, the wording and definition of terms that assure mutual understanding, the scope of responsibility and compensation, and the specific legal forms/ contracts to make sure all interests are fully and fairly addressed. We plan to have this fully explored and contracts written later in 2008.
It is this kind of service that is essential and not provided by anyone else. We want to preserve and expand on the marvelous accomplishments and connections on each land.
This is the inspiring scope and work of the Women’s Land Preservation Project.
Landyke & Lesbian International Library & Archives
Coordinators: Jae Haggard, jody jewdyke; Librarian & Archivist: Aimee Morgan Wright; Librarian: Cat Heron; Advisors: Gail Dunlap & Charoula Dontopoulos
Our Media Project Archives is housed as part of our main library of books by women and Lesbians coveing every conceivable genre and topic. We currently have several thousand books and periodicals and have preliminary notification of bequests of three separate extensive libraries of Lesbian and women's books and periodicals. Each library contains several thousand books and periodicals and together contain most Lesbian books and periodicals published from 1950 to the present.
We have a volunteer professional Librarian & Archivist, Aimee Brown, who has begun the process of organizing our library and archives for efficient present needs and for comprehensive future expansion. By winter 2008/2009, we plan to have a significant portion of the current library entered into an annotated and cross-categorized computerized index for women to use here or by invitation online.
Our plan is to construct a designated Library/ Archives/ Media Center building in 2010. We will soon begin fundraising for that Project.
Landyke & Lesbian Creative & Expressive Coordinators: Jae Haggard, Gail Dunlap, Charoula Dontopoulos & Dayna Lea
2008 Germinating Projects
http://www.alicinfo.com"> www.alicinfo.com
Association of Lesbian Communities has indicated a desire to merge as a sponsored project of Woman, Earth & Spirit, Inc in 2008.
ALIC serves as an umbrella for resources, information and communication among Lesbians interested in community on land and ALIC volunteers appear at several Women’s Festivals to network, disseminate information and answer questions.
A.L.I.C. is a participatory organization, designed to support the Lesbian intentional communiteis movement by sharing our collective wisdom, experience, and skills. Our intent is to foster solidarity, sisterhood, and community amidst diversity through: networking, energy and resource sharing, and project funding. Our overall outreach goal is to be a vehicle for Lesbians to discover, participate in and contribute to Lesbian intentional communities.
We at Woman, Earth & Spirit intend to expand the scope to providing resources and assisting Lesbians or communities dealing with communication, decision-making, sustainability, economic or other questions.
EarthHewn
One of our WE&S priorities is to help women expand their confidence, skills and organizational abilities, to supplement their current incomes or to establish home-based businesses.
Women often need an outlet and someone to help publicize the products, creativities, services and other wares offered from their homes.
EarthHewn is a Land and Home Based Economy / Store / EStore / Gallery still mostly in the planning stage. We will provide a range of retail outlet possibilities for the spectrum of Women’s Creativities from their own homes as well as from Outland Workshops, WE&S Economic-Development Projects, Writing & Creative Retreats at the NM Women’s GuestHouse, plus the Lesbian Media Project Production Studio and the Our largest tangible accomplishment to date is the many pages of listings in the Home and Land Based Economy section of the 2008 Maize Connections & Resources Directory. We are really pleased with the scope of this our first Edition.
Estrogenerations, Inc
The Feminist Hullaballoo
As of January 2008 WE&S is administering the work of Estrogenerations, Inc, a 501-c-3 nonprofit corporation established in 2007 by Sonia Johnson, Jade DeForest and others to sponsor the Feminist Hullaballoo in
Sonia approached Jae to assume responsibility for the nonprofit and to carry on the mission of Estrogenerations. Woman, Earth & Spirit now has stewardship of Estrogenerations which is available to sponsor a range of educational programs that benefit women as well as to provide a vehicle for women wishing to organize future Hullaballoos.
Lesbian Memorial Gardens
In response to requests from city Lesbians and Outland visitors desiring a final home for their ashes, we have initiated the Memorial Gardens Project. We can currently accept ashes and eventually will also provide burial on the incredible 1000 high desert acres at Outland. Legalities and provisions have already been fairly extensively researched.
Women can request that their ashes be distributed, buried with a flowering bush or fruit tree in honor of them, or have their urn placed in a designated space of Honor.