Pandora Thomas – Reclaiming Earth Wisdom: Applying Ecological Principles to Social Design

Week of August 1, 2026

Reclaiming Earth Wisdom: Applying Ecological Principles to Social Design
Most, if not all, cultural traditions have practices embedded in Ecological Wisdom that can help guide humanity through the challenges we face today. How can we tend to the land, our communities, and our more-than-human kin in ways that honor the abundance of mutually beneficial relationships in which we exist? Through an intergenerational, ancestry-honoring conversation that weaves storytelling, Pat Mitchell and Pandora Thomas will share examples of these practices and lineages while exploring how they are being reclaimed, restored, and brought into our present-day.

The experience begins with a guided sacred yoga practice in the garden led by yogi and Afro-Indigenous permaculture teacher Tarah Hines.

Join us on Wednesday’s Garden Breakfast Hike for this inspiring experience.

 

“The Earth is Her Employer”
Pandora Thomas is a passionate global citizen: a caregiver, teacher, farmer, designer, and speaker. Her work emphasizes the benefits of applying ecological principles to social design and reconnecting humans to our more-than-human kin.

For the last 15 years her earth service has included being a carepartner for her mother(now an ancestor) who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s; co-founding the Black Permaculture Network; working with Toyota to design and serve as a coalition member of the Toyota Green Initiative, which supported African Americans in understanding the benefits of adopting sustainable lifestyles; co-designing, teaching with and directing Pathways to Resilience-a permaculture and social entrepreneur training program that worked with men and women returning home after incarceration; and working with the Urban Permaculture Institute in Marin City supporting a People’s Planning Process that helps community members assess and design strategies for their own resilience. Her lifelong commitment to honoring the ancestral legacies of earth stewardship among peoples of African Ancestry culminated in her most recent gift to the planet: founding the Earthseed Farm, the first Afro-Indigenous permaculture center in Sonoma County. Earthseed’s farming and center programming elevate the earth stewardship contributions and legacy of people of African ancestry throughout the Diaspora.