The Vision: A Village in Silver Creek Canyon 

Hi, I'm Megan. Since 2015, I’ve served as a vocational guide, teacher, podcast host, writer, and tarot reader in Portland, Oregon. Through this work, I’ve been honored to help thousands of thoughtful people reconnect with something ancient and instinctual inside of themselves, reclaim their energy, time, and labor as sacred in ways that meet their material needs, and cultivate community with the more-than-human world, which is full of wisdom about how to work and live well.

Village-making is the next step in this work. This campaign is an effort to raise funds to cover a feasibility study for property within Silver Creek Canyon - 440 acres of wild, dynamic, beautiful landscape, with resident Bear, Elk, Cougar, and a plethora of native plants. Rather than simply buying land in isolation and with my own plans, my dream is to collaborate with both the land and other humans to create something vibrant and long-standing. Possibilities gestating within this vision include: a Village where some people live full-time in modest dwellings, a modern Commons where people who live off-site can responsibly forage or hunt, and a place where land-based rites of passage and healing for the human and more-than-human communities can occur.

There is no built-up infrastructure currently on this property, and Silver Creek, a tributary of the great waterfalls found in Silver Falls State Park, runs through it. This land is an ideal place for humans who will listen to the beings there and enter into a committed partnership with them.

This feasibility study, performed by real estate broker Nat Andreini, is designed to support internal reflection, shared decision-making, and early conversations with potential collaborators and supporters. Nat will take 3-4 weeks to conduct this study, and it will include a site visit.

In addition to my own family's funding, we need to raise $8,500 by May 26th in order to fund this study. I'm inviting our community to contribute the remaining funds, in part because we can't afford to do more ourselves, but also because it's never been my desire to move down this path alone.

If you've dreamt of stewarding land with other humans, this is an opportunity to begin walking down that path. Together, we could all get closer to making that dream a reality.

Even if it's not your dream to eventually live on or steward land, your support will help get us closer to protecting this important place, which–like land everywhere–is vulnerable to predatory development.

I'm honored that you would consider joining me in this next step. You can read more about Silver Creek Canyon, this project, myself, and the logistics of the feasibility study below.

A Bit About Me and How this Project Came to Be

As a girl growing up in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, my sense of self was shaped through the conversation I was in with the land and the more-than-human beings there. Knowing myself as a beloved of the Earth is essential to who I am, and today I teach, write, and host a podcast about land-based ways to relate to ourselves, each other, and the wider web of Life in order to find strength in this chaotic time. Today I live in Portland, Oregon with my spouse and our two young children. You can learn more about me here or by listening to my podcast, A Wild New Work.

For over 10 years, I've envisioned living more closely to the land and other humans. Rather than leaving the city as often as possible to visit places with wildness still intact, I long to live with that wildness–to attune to its rhythms and be changed by it.

Thousands of times, I have dreamed of a Village in the woods. It's a place without cars, where we take sun-dappled footpaths to one another's homes or to our communal gathering areas. The dwellings we make are well-crafted from materials right around us. We hear layers of birdsong each morning, and the burbling of a nearby creek. It's a Village that's home to people of all ages who desire to listen to the land and their ancestors as they do humble, culture-shifting work together. The quiet, connection, and deep joy that our ailing world needs dwells within this place.

I know I'm not alone in yearning for Village and a sense of deep connection to the land. I also know how impossible it can seem to meet that yearning. There are many factors that make it difficult to join hands with others and commit to living with the land in a good way; so many experiments like this have failed, or were never able to get off the ground. While that's true, I know many of us feel an urgency to keep trying–to keep honoring this desire we feel for another way to live. 

We also see the insatiable appetite of capitalist culture that is destroying ancient families of Trees, diminishing the flow of fresh water, and extracting all that it can from this precious Earth that we love. People like us are being called to come and listen to, learn from, and advocate for the more-than-human beings who are being ground up in this destructive system.

Over the last 18 months, I've decided that it's time for me to heartily embrace these callings and visions that I carry in my heart and begin asking the land to show me if there is a place in need of loving human stewardship. 

I believe they have answered.

The Place: Silver Creek Canyon

Soon after I began asking the land to show me a place that desires human stewardship, I "happened" to see a listing for property for sale about 15 minutes outside of Silverton, Oregon. You can view the listing here.

It immediately spoke to me, and after many months of sitting with the idea, I requested a showing. It was a joy (and also somewhat overwhelming) to go and visit these 440 acres, and I came away with more questions than answers.

The property is a green sanctuary amidst farmland and has multiple small tributaries of Water flowing through it. There are low, flat portions of the land, steep hills, and flat areas up above the canyon. This feasibility study will give us a much better sense of what's possible to create within this land and its unique geography.

The Next Step: Feasibility Study

For this study, we're partnering with Nat Andreini, a real estate broker who understands the sanctity of the land and can help us explore what's possible at this property.

The funds we're raising will be used to cover the cost of a study designed to support internal reflection, shared decision-making, and early conversations with potential collaborators and supporters. 

Key aspects of the feasibility study will include:

• Land Use & Regulatory Context: A high-level overview of Exclusive Farm Use (EFU) and Farm/Timber (FT) zoning and applicable overlays.

• Why this matters: How land is legally zoned determines whether residential dwellings can be built, whether a business can exist on the land and what kind(s), tax obligations, and other related issues. Zoning regulations are complex, which is why having a real estate professional's support is key.

• Stewardship Alignment Scan: An evaluation of how our intentions–such as land stewardship, ecological care, and potential community use–align with the regulatory framework and physical characteristics of the site.

• Why this matters: Nat's study will help us understand if this site is a good fit for our intentions. If there are multiple obstacles in the way of land stewardship or Village-making, for example, we'll know before making significant investments.

• Site Visit & Observational Assessment: An in-person site visit to engage the land as a primary informant, incorporating its inherent bias toward care and stewardship while assessing its physical characteristics, access, surrounding context, and experiential qualities.

• Why this matters: It's fundamental that the land's voice be included in this study, and a site visit will make that much more possible.

• Scenario Framing: Development of initial, high-level pathways.

• Why this matters: We'll have some actual possibilities to explore to see which paths would make the most sense at this time. This will make it easier for interested parties to begin a conversation because we'll have some scenarios to start working with. 

• Risk & Process Mapping: Identification of key considerations that may influence the path forward.

• Why this matters: At this point, we don't know what we don't know about this property. Nat will help us understand the full scope of what we would be entering into.

• Strategic Guidance & Next Steps: Clear, grounded guidance on potential possibilities.

• Why this matters: Nat's experience with other groups committed to land stewardship and community-building allows him to illuminate for us which possibilities are most viable and how to begin. If a cohort of us decides to move forward, his guidance will save us time and energy.

While Nat is conducting the feasibility study, I plan to continue looking into potential land stewardship models, such as the land trust model used by Oregon Women's Land Trust, private parties purchasing land together, or other possibilities that exist in this realm. 

If you'd like to see the full Scope of Work that Nat has created, you can contact me to request a copy.

The Funds We Need

We need to raise $8,500 by Tuesday, May 26th in order to fund this study.

Your contributions are welcomed via cash, check, or Venmo*. The link below will guide you through how to give toward this important project. I will track everything closely (we’re keeping it old school here), and all contributions will be shared via this public spreadsheet.

In addition to your financial contributions, sharing this project with other people who yearn for Village and/or care for the land would be most welcome. 

I'm honored that you would consider joining me in this next step. While a project like this can feel daunting, the right helpers and signs continue to appear with each step, and I'm tracking the evolution of this vision very closely and carefully.

I know that this massive, long-term dream can only come to fruition if it's held by many hands, and that starts now. 

What You Can Expect After Contributing

I will confirm receipt of your contribution via email and upload it to our tracking spreadsheet for transparency. When you fill out the form linked to above, you’ll be given the option to opt in to an email list where we’ll share the results of the feasibility study and possible next steps.

Risks, Refunds, and Other Questions

If we are not able to get close to our goal of $8,500, contributions will be refunded to you in the way that they were received (e.g., Venmo to Venmo, or check to check).

There is the risk that while we’re fundraising for this study and even in the midst of the study, the property will go under contract with another buyer. If that happens, we may either a) continue the study in case the sale falls through, or b) use the funds to cover a study of a similar property (if Nat has not begun the study already).

What other questions do you have? Please feel free to contact me here.