For this instalment of the Eco-Series, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with one of the co-creators of the Oregon-based Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice, Randy Woodley. Randy, a Cherokee descendent, along with his partner, Edith, a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, have been running the non-profit Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice since 1999. They began as a service to Indigenous peoples and now have a farm, seed bank, school, and a plethora of events built around the concept of “Eloheh”, a Cherokee Indian word meaning harmony, wholeness, abundance, and peace. During our conversation, Randy highlighted the earth justice, relational, and decolonial practices and principles that guide their vision.
The Beginnings
Randy and Edith have been committed to serving Native people for more than three decades; they’ve helped homeless people, teen mothers, held after-school tutoring programs, summer culture camps, language programs, and much more. As part of this, Eloheh began its journey to creation in 1997 when Randy had a dream. He explained,
"In that dream, I saw a generative, sustainable farm. I saw a place where our culture could be practiced unmolested. I saw a school where people came – our Indigenous people came – and learned with each other in a farm, in a community, basically. So I woke my wife up, and I shared it with her, and it was obviously a very sacred dream, and we thought, well, this is the answer. And then over the next four or five years, we sought to find that."
He explained it was not a simple journey to begin with but eventually they were able to buy 50 acres in Kentucky. After two years, they had a self-sustaining farm and schools, of between 40 and 50 people, but were forced to leave this location due to white supremacists who posed a threat to the lives of them, their family, friends, and livestock. They moved to Oregon and Eloheh’s second rendition was a three-acre property where they focussed on restoring the land through planting native plants to that area. Randy taught during this period, retiring just two years ago with tenure as a Distinguished Professor Emeritus. In 2020, they purchased their current iteration of the Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice, a 10 acre plot in Yamhill, Oregon; Randy said that here they are able to do everything that they had sought to do to begin with.
Source: eloheh.org/eloheh-farm
Through a combination of permaculture, biomimicry, and Traditional Indigenous Knowledge, on the farm they grow the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash), all kinds of flowers, herbs, tomatoes, peppers, squash, kohlrabi, cabbage, cucumbers, radishes and many other things that can grow there. Their focus on native plants has also seen them grow things like olives, that are native to the southern part of the Willamette Valley. Randy explained that some things are grown for food, some are grown for seeds, and some are grown for both. The seeds are part of the seed bank element of Eloheh, where they sell their products and all proceeds go back into the farm and the schools. Randy highlighted the importance of this work as the world has lost 75% of its seed variety since 1900.
Guiding Philosophy and Eloheh Schools
Randy and Edith have built Eloheh around a commitment to a decolonial worldview and Indigenizing, or for Indigenous people, re-Indigenizing, on the basis that the Western worldview does not work. They have experienced this first hand on the farm as the climate crisis has wreaked havoc with the growing patterns of his plants; he noted that recent developments of extreme cold winters and ice storms have prevented the usual winter harvest and that extreme heat in the summer has prevented many plants from growing, and brought in many new insects. Although this presents new challenges for Eloheh, Randy understand this as part of the ‘Europatrocene’, a term he coined as an alternative to the ‘Anthropocene’, so as to specifically highlight that it was a class of European males who created the worldview that has lead to climate breakdown. To combat this, we need to take on an Indigenous worldview, which for Randy is built on adaptability. Indigenous people have learned how to live and adapt with the land for millenia. Randy told me this is what he thought was missing in the Western worldview: buildings are made for homeostasis which causes chaos, he said, but adaptability to the environment is stability. The Indigenous worldview, then, works to remedy the ‘Europatrocene’.
While imbuing the farm practice and seed bank with these philosophies from the outset, Eloheh also works to educate Indigenous and non-Indigenous people on these philosophies at their schools. Through these schools, they focus on empowering women and Indigenous peoples, hoping people will get involved in their communities politically and adopt an Indigenous worldview. This year, they are running 8 weekend schools, of 16 to 18 people, that run from Thursday afternoons until Sunday afternoons. Randy explains,
In those four days, Edith and I are two of the teaching Elders. And then also Lenore Three Stars, who’s a Lakota Elder, and then Jim Sequeira, who’s a Hawaiian Elder. Then the four of us basically share our stories, talk about the land, and do some teaching on things like the Doctrine of Discovery, Platonic Dualism, and you know, America before Columbus. We're just basically educating people in understanding peace and the land and all of that, and how they're related. We're just educating people as to how to live right in this world, how to live in harmony. And that's what Eloheh means, basically… We sit around the fire and we sit under the oak tree and we eat around our table. It's very dialogical, the pedagogy is very Indigenous. We have some ceremony while they're here but basically we're trying to draw out of them answers that come from them so that they can go home with them.
People come from all over the U.S and Canada to attend these schools, and they’ve also had people from Central and South America attend. Alongside the teaching elements, the farm is integrated in the schools program to connect people back with the land. Some school sessions focus on the agricultural side, while some lean to the spiritual side, but all schools regardless have at least one hour in the farm. Edith teaches about Creation and then sends the students out, with no cell phones, to walk and connect with the grounds. Randy said it’s amazing some of the stories that people come back with and it really shows they how isolated people are from nature. When I asked what he felt the practical wider impact of this teaching and learning was, Randy expressed that an embodied worldview for the participants is the goal:
Even if we can just get [people] to go home and plant a tomato on their patio and grow it, and then save the seeds and share them with their neighbour. Then, all of a sudden they are feeling like they're a part of the community of Creation rather than isolated from it. I think that changes a lot. We hope that people will go back and begin to implement these things in the community gardens and their neighbourhoods, and even open up places like this.
Importantly, Randy noted that it’s the people that make this work possible: the farm managers spend a lot of time talking with people about how to do this; Fern Cloud, a Dakota artist who is part of the ‘Decolonizing with Badass Indigenous Grandmas’ with Edith, speaks with people about how art relates to this work; and the relationships created with visitors are essential. One attendee noted, after attending the school and a Saturday night at the tavern doing karaoke, that it was the most fun she’d had in a decade.
The Future of Eloheh
Eloheh is a model; a model for more just relations with land. They currently have people talking to them to see how they can set up similar initiatives, and Randy and Edith go out and speak several times a year to share their teachings. They also hope to begin hosting conferences at Eloheh Farm, and are working on specific programs for Indigenous peoples at the school, while exploring the possibility of hosting more school sessions for everyone. With this, they hope to continue engaging and embodying alternatives to the ‘Europatrocene’ every day. The climate crisis has brought unprecedented global change, however, Eloheh acts as a bastion of hope for regenerative practices and sustainable living through an Indigenous worldview.
For more information on the Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice, please visit their website: eloheh.org
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