Past Events
Gathering Places
La Mesa de Las Abuelas/Our Grandmothers’ Table
(click on image to see this lovely bilingual photo produced by Maria Niggle of Shoreline School Readiness)
a community potluck
celebrating traditional, simple, wholesome foods
all are welcome
Saturday, July 10, 2010
5-7pm
Freitas Center at Sacred Heart Church in Olema
Please join us for a community pot luck.
We invite the nourishing wisdom of our ancestors to the table.
Share in the wealth of nutritional knowledge
and practices that exist within our community.
What would your grandmother serve?
Please bring a dish that is made using whole ingredients
from the richness of your culture.
Do not forget the recipe.
presented by
West Marin Commons
Shoreline School Readiness
Gallery Route One’s Latino Photo Project
with additional support from
Marin County Library, Point Reyes branch
Marin Literacy, Point Reyes
Sacred Heart Church
Point Reyes Events Library
Place Making with Milenko Matanovic of the Pomegranate Center
(www.pomegranate.org)
co-sponsored with Point Reyes Books (www.ptreyesbooks.com)
Friday, March 26, 2010, 7pm
Dance Palace Community Center in Point Reyes Station
We humans like to gather; and for time out of memory, places in which to do so were the heart of human settlement. Medieval cities had the squares outside the churches. Boston started with a Common. Towns in Mexico have zocalos, or central plazas where people congregate and socialize. In New York City it was front stoops; in the rural Philippines, the shade of mango trees, where gnarly roots provided benches.
These all are versions of the same thing: spaces in which people can congregate informally, and sit and chat or just enjoy the presence of others. They make localities distinctive, and help to create a sense of “we.” Community becomes real through the spaces people share.
In America such shared spaces have been in long decline, thanks to cars and televisions and the rest. Developers have built endless suburbs with no gathering places at all. Not coincidentally, loneliness and depression have become epidemic, and the sense of community has waned. Everyplace seems just like everyplace else.
For these very reasons, gathering spaces are coming back, in cities and towns across the country. Stinson Beach has a town green. What would it take for us to create one here in Point Reyes Station? What should it include?
Milenko Matanovic will discuss the possibilities for such a space at the Dance Palace on Friday, March 26th, at 7:00 PM. Milenko was an artist in Slovenia, in former Yugoslavia, who came to the U.S. and turned his focus to the creation of common spaces in which the life of a community can flourish. His Pomegranate Center [ http://www.pomegranate.org/ ] has worked with communities all over the U.S. and abroad to design and build village greens and pocket parks that embody what is unique about each particular place. Community members have been involved in all phases of the projects.
Milenko will talk about these projects and the thinking behind them; and he will help us explore the possibilities for a village green in Point Reyes Station.
Click on the thumbnail to see the event flyer designed by Wayne Pratt:
Past Presenters in the Illuminating Landscapes Speaker Series:
Nick Tipon – Southern Pomo Elder (September 25, 2009)
Ignacio Chapela – UC Berkeley Scientist (October 9, 2009)
Lillian Vallee – Poet, Teacher, Translator, Central California Restorationist (December 13, 2009)
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The Low Carbon Faire and 350.org Teach-in (October 24, 2009)
- click to enlarge photo from 350 Climate Action event
Shown above are Bing Gong, Elizabeth Barnet, Mark Butler, Madeline Hope, and Megan Matsen with thermometer of Climate Action at 350.org event on Saturday, October, 24, 2009. More photos by Michael Keefe available here: http://iammike.smugmug.com/Other/350-Day/10084803_gB84y#692088551_9pmDj
Activities: a Natural Dye Demonstration with Ecological Artist Rebecca Burgess, Electric Bike explorations with Michael Bock; a CLAM open house showing the recent energy-efficient renovation; a group photo with Art Rogers which can now be found on the 350.org website.
Speakers: Jerry Mander, Marin County Supervisor Steve Kinsey, Paul Fenn and Julie Peters, Madeline Hope and Fred Smith, and more. Video footage can now be viewed at http://transitionwestmarin.wordpress.com/.
Food and Drink: Thanks to Straus ice cream for donating ice cream, the Latino Photography Project’s delicious and simple tacos and tortillas; Rufus Blunk and Mark Butler facilitating a Community Apple Pressing!
Music: Stitchcraft, Antioquia, Michael Stocker, Peter Asmus
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The GMO Crises: Politics and Prophecy
An evening with Traditional Mayan Elders,
Tata Tomas and Tata Cecilio
Tuesday, October 20th, Point Reyes Station
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Barn Dance
Find out about barn dances in West Marin by visiting this page, Barn Dance Hub. 2009 January, April, August, December (in Point Reyes Station) and October (in Tomales at Tomales Town Hall). In 2010 Barn Dances took place in Tomales on February 20 and our next Point Reyes Station Barn Dance will take place at Toby’s Feed Barn on Saturday, June 5, 2010, Western Weekend.
Ecological Artist Rebecca Burgess
Community Dye Workshop using Native Plants in the Livery Stable Native Garden in Point Reyes Station (August 10, 2009 in the Livery Stable)
Emily Levine
Comedian, philosopher, political analyst, Emily Levine, entertained and enlightened a full audience at the Dance Palace Main Space in August 2008. (http://www.emilylevineuniverse.com/)
Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben offered this fundraiser to the West Marin Commons. He spoke on Easter Sunday in April 2008 at the Dance Palace Community Center in Point Reyes.
David Morris
David met for an open discussion about local self-reliance on the community level in March 2008 at the Old Schoolhouse in Point Reyes Station. David Morris is co-founder and vice president of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and New Rules Project: Designing Rules as if Community Mattered (http://www.newrules.org/ and http://www.ilsr.org/).
Sandor Katz
Author of The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved and Wild Fermentation gave an information-packed workshop on the traditional art of making sauerkraut and a history of fermentation, to a full audience at the Dance Palace in the fall of 2007.