Stewardship

At Windhorse Farm, we are committed to living in a way that expresses care for ourselves, other people and our living Earth. But what does it really mean to not harm oneself or other beings? Is there a sensible way that we can organize our lives – how we produce food, how we build our homes, how we work, travel, and play – so that we reduce the harm to our world and provide a genuine benefit to ourselves and to others? For us, this is a matter of ethics. More importantly, however, it’s a matter of practice – of consciously creating ways of living sustainably and in harmony with our world. As we experiment with achieving this goal, it is our hope that we can offer practical alternatives for individuals and rural communities.

The Five Filters: At Windhorse Farm, our particular path toward a sane and sustainable society is one of land stewardship. Although our understanding of genuine land stewardship continues to evolve, at this point we consider it to include practices that

  1. Minimize harm to human and non-human beings,
  2. Increase social harmony,
  3. Stabilize the economy of rural communities,
  4. Nurture a culture of wakefulness, kindness and compassion, and
  5. Tend to illuminate direct connectedness between people and the natural landscape.

The Natural Step: We are inspired to change the way we live in order to reduce our ecological footprint, the negative impact we have on other living beings. In this regard we work with the processes of The Natural Step.

Shambhala: While the activities at Windhorse Farm comprise food production, forestry, woodworking, renewable energy generation, and nature education, all this takes place within the context of meditative and contemplative practices that arise out of Buddhist and Shambhala traditions.

Land Stewardship Practices: The above foundational principles of our land stewardship path have given rise to a number of land stewardship practices that you can read about on this website: