Volunteering at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Occidental, California!

The Love Cycle crew loves to get down to eARTh! While working in California, we discovered an amazing community called The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. "The Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (OAEC) is an 80-acre research, demonstration, education, advocacy and community-organizing center in West Sonoma County, California that develops strategies for regional-scale community resilience and the restoration of biological and cultural diversity." Wednesdays from 10am-5pm, there are open volunteer hours in their garden. We were excited to go on a mini travel adventure and check out their organic gardens and permaculture practices.

Our first stop when we arrived was their nursery. We helped transplant baby plants, and prepare flats for new seed. OAEC fills their nursery with a huge array of plant species, all 100% organic. This includes "open-pollinated, heirloom vegetables, flowers and culinary and medicinal herbs, many started from our own seed collection and propagated from plants in our 'Mother Garden'."

Around 12:30 a bell rang in the distance signaling to all it was time for lunch. We followed the garden staff to the kitchen, gathered around a buffet, and stood in a circle. One by one, gardeners, volunteers, and the OAEC kitchen staff introduced themselves before we ate.

Our delicious lunch! It was an amazing meal cooked by the kitchen staff; most of which came from the gardens themselves! Chili with a lime creme sauce, rosemary cornbread with honey butter, spinach fennel fritters with a sorrel sauce, and collard greens!

The center has their own cook book too! It's filled with recipes like this and so much more. It tells a wonderful story of the kitchen/garden relationship.

Once our bodies were nourished, we headed down to the gardens for the afternoon.

Even in the dreary winter, the gardens were an illuminating sight.

It's no wonder the food was so tasty coming from this garden. So much work and dedication is put into.

It was time to get down and dirty! We helped by weeding out bed ends, prepping beds for new transplants, and topdressing perennial beds.

"Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul" - Alice Walker

We had such a wonderful time volunteering at OAEC. We made new friends, learned so much about the care of plants and process of gardening, and ate gourmet organic food. What more could you ask for? We can't wait to go back and spend some more time volunteering!

Love Cycle is a nonprofit that creates and supports projects and lifestyles in alignment with unconditional love for the planet and all beings. A collective of OUTside the box solutionaries that recycle TRAsh into eARTh in order to bring paradise on eARTh! Everyday brings us an opportunity to Rise our Eco, and Heal the Ego. It takes a tribe to create paradise on eARTh!

As a commUNITY we thrive by adopting organic systems and lifestyles that flow abundance and sustainability. This consists of simple daily actions like recycling and reusing every piece of eARTh as a piece of heART.

We partner with like minded humanitarian organizations, ecovillages, and cooperative businesses to support and activate communities, providing them with regenerative resources and lots of love!

Our projects feature organic food support and distribution, support for local farmers, natural medicine, ecological clean-up walks, yoga, sustainable arts and crafts, educational workshops, event organization, and so much more!

Visit our website to learn more!

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Most importantly, THANK YOU! We have so much gratitude for all the beautiful souls that support us. Namaste! \o/\O/\o/