A refuge for care and repair
The Cradle of Care is an emerging cooperative land project in Pisgah Forest, North Carolina, on the ancestral homelands of the Cherokee. Our vision is to be a multicultural, cooperatively-owned center for the spiritual and cultural work of learning, care, and repair across lineages.
We prioritize the land-based visions and dreams of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people connected to meeting unmet needs in our communities, and helping all people thrive along the full spectrum of life, from birth to death.
A Local Vision for Just Transition
The Cradle of Care vision emerged over two years of building relationships through the ancient technologies of walking, talking, and listening; fires, meals, and music; gathering, resting, and celebrating.
This vision is anchored in the specific land, cultures, people, and histories of this place in Appalachia, and it is tied to efforts from across the world to heal our relationships to land and each other—from globally-connected movements calling for food sovereignty, health equity, and land justice for Black, Brown, Indigenous, poor, and landless people, to a just transition towards systems that sustain us for generations to come.
How we get there matters as well. Through who we are and the unusual ways we are collaborating to build this vision, we hope that we may become a microcosm and laboratory of the thriving multicultural democracy we long for and need in America, creating ripples in the wider culture and politics well beyond us.
What’s Happening
Projects currently happening at the Cradle include:
Support for mothers, birthing people, and families through community, education, and spiritual support by doula, yoga teacher, and educator Demacy Monte-Parker from Of the Mountain Nurturing Services
Ripple Forest School for preschoolers and homeschoolers led by Ripple Collective
Programs and events for lifting up hidden or neglected histories of Black and Indigenous communities
Intimate community gatherings and retreats with focuses such as tending the forest, storytelling, art and music making, spiritual practice and rest, community-building, and more
Forest stewardship and forest farming, including a “Mother Garden” forest farm plot with herbs that support reproductive health and an “Ancestor Garden” honoring edible plants that are significant to the range of lineages that now call this region home
We are also holding space and cultivating relationships for other projects, particularly related to:
Multicultural forest stewardship and eco-cultural education rooted in Cherokee and other Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge and practices, woven together with stories and practices from other lineages
Farming or community gardening led by Black, Brown, and/or Indigenous growers with a focus on food sovereignty, education, healing relationships to land, or all of the above
Multicultural art, music, storytelling, and spiritual practice
Care for death, dying, and burial