I was born in Easton, PA, on January 26, 1969 to Richard and Gaelen Ewald. I grew up in Vermont and later in Russia. So how did that route lead to northeast Missouri, you ask? Well, here's the medium-length version of the story.

One of the experiences that broadened my early horizons was a journey my family took when I was eight. My parents sold our house in Easton, bought and converted an old Sunbeam bread truck, and packed up our belongings. That summer we headed west looking for a new home. My brother Alec and I were home-schooled while we were on the road that summer, and I still remember visiting caves and parks on the way, reading the Narnia chronicles, and learning math from figuring out our (dismal) gas mileage. A sign of my parents' influence is that on the ceiling of the truck was a map where, along with our route, my father had marked every nuclear power plant in the country so that we could give them a wide berth.

We slowly made our way as far west as Missouri, where we encountered chiggers and bluegrass music. But I was not to live in the Show-Me State yet. After a mysterious decision involving a phone call my parents made during an Ozark Mountain Daredevils concert, we turned around and headed back east, landing in North Carolina. The following year we moved to Vermont, where Alec and I grew up sledding in the woods, helping with the bees and chickens and pigs, milking the goats, and biking to town to go swimming and see our friends.

Early on I was interested in languages. In middle school I started studying French, then Latin, then some Italian. I went to Bates College in Maine, where I majored in English and continued my foreign language study. My junior year, which I spent in Florence and London, was a turning point for me. That was when I became a vegetarian, stopped shaving my legs, got a taste of teaching English, learned to hitchhike safely, and bought my first tent. I'd never felt such freedom and excitement.

I returned to college for my senior year hungry to learn a new language with a new alphabet. It was 1989, walls were coming down all over Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev was at the helm in Russia. I thought it would be good if more Americans spoke Russian. Why not me? I dove right in, and soon Russian felt more natural on my tongue than any other language I'd learned. So I went overseas again, this time for a five-week Russian program in a provincial town called Orel, which I promptly fell in love with. I knew I'd be back.

A year after graduating from Bates, and just after the attempted putsch of 1991, I returned to Orel to teach English and study Russian. Over the following nine years I lived and worked with groups in Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, and Croatia, organizing educational exchanges, helping to run grant programs for environmentalists, creating activist training programs, playing percussion while wearing a jester costume and walking on stilts, and working to form a land-based sustainable international activist community.

I became fluent in Russian and adept at pretending to speak other Slavic languages. As I began learning to facilitate meetings, I discovered I was good at helping people from different countries understand each other and cooperate toward a common goal. I became certified in teaching English as a foreign language and got a thrill out of creating a special curriculum for sustainable energy activists from nine countries. I taught ultimate frisbee everywhere I went. I learned to write grant proposals for causes I believed in. When I needed to get somewhere, I hitchhiked, sometimes beating the train to my destination. I got arrested twice for sitting down, each time resulting in a night in jail: first in the Czech Republic, in front of the gates to the Temelin nuclear power plant (after fifty of us refused to pay a fine and twenty of us staged a hunger strike, they let us go); and later in Edinburgh for sitting on the sidewalk against police orders at a Reclaim the Streets event. That night in solitary confinement in a concrete Scottish jail cell was one of the high points of my life-no kidding.

In 1998 I got my first real experience of community when I joined the Sustainable Europe Tour and traveled around Europe with fifteen other artists/activists from all over the continent. That was my introduction to street theater, fire breathing, samba bands, action climbing, hanging from tripods, and critical mass bike rides. I loved belonging to a community, making decisions together and making music together.

I also went each year to Ecotopia, an annual gathering of young (mostly) European environmental activists, held in a different country every year, and organized and run collectively by participants. Each time, I learned more about consensus decision-making and about creating community. I began organizing workshops and gathering information on the idea of setting up a more permanent activist community somewhere in central Europe. I was captivated by the idea of living in community with like-minded people, supporting each other's activism, and living according to our ecological principles. It seemed like community was what my activist friends and I needed to keep us from succumbing to burnout.

Realizing that it might be a good idea to live in an existing community for a while before trying to found one, I came back to the states briefly in 1998. Having heard of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage while visiting Twin Oaks, I came out to Missouri to check out DR and Sandhill Sandhill. I spent a couple of weeks here and felt a real kinship with the people. I was inspired by their commitment and camaraderie. In fact I felt so aligned with what was going on here that I was tempted to join Dancing Rabbit then and there. But I felt a real calling to take a stab at forming an eastern European activist community.

So after several months as a resident at Twin Oaks, in the summer of 1999 I went back to Europe with my partner. To cut down on air travel, we took a Polish cargo ship, but that's a whole 'nother story.

For a few months we lived on the Istrian peninsula in Croatia, trying to get our activist community off the ground. Why that didn't work out is another long, fascinating story that I'll tell you someday if you like. Eventually we made our way back to the US (again via cargo ship). I landed a job in Amherst, MA working for a "deep ecology" based nonprofit called Sacred Earth Network, helping support environmental groups in Russia.

...And it only took a couple of years of paying exorbitant rent, relying on cars, and feeling disconnected from my food, before I made a beeline back to Dancing Rabbit. But more than fleeing those things, I came to Missouri because I felt I'd found my tribe. I realized I desperately needed to be surrounded by folks who share the same ideals and dreams as I do. That's what keeps me sane, gives me energy, and fuels my creative impulses.

DR's Skyhouse Community, an income-sharing group, was my home for three and a half years. Besides serving our community in many ways, I brought in a modest income by working on Russian environmental projects, writing grants and helping organize exchange programs for Sacred Earth Network and The Altai Project (a project of Earth Island Institute). I'm still working for those same organizations, and I also do membership and development work for the Fellowship for Intentional Community.

In 2003 I married Chad Knepp, formerly of Sandhill community and Acorn community. Although we divorced a few years later, we continue to have a strong relationship as community members and friends.

Chad's a permaculture-based farmer, and struggled to find a way he could fit his dreams and vision into Dancing Rabbit's "village" land use model. He wanted to be not in a village but on an outlying farm. After much discussion, contemplation, and exploration, we decided to seek ways to be near the village while creating a different kind of community. Fortune smiled upon us when another couple visited DR, met us, and later contacted us about being part of our new community. We welcomed them eagerly. And with Corey and Kim's arrival, Red Earth Farms was born.

Fortune grinned again (we must have looked amusing) and sent us an angel: Aron Heintz, a friend who had been seeking initiatives like ours in which to invest. We stumbled upon the perfect piece of land, right next to DR, and learned it was for sale. Aron helped us purchase it, and on Summer Solstice 2005, Red Earth Farms acquired our lovely 76 green acres.

Love and romance have always been an important part of life for me. In 2006 I became re-acquainted with Mark Mazziotti, whom I'd met several years previously at a natural building event. We fell deeply in love, and before too long he moved to Red Earth Farms, where we're now sharing our lives.

On March 25, 2008, our daughter Cole was born here at home. She is a delightful little person who loves to learn and grow, and I'm thrilled to have the privilege of being near her as she does so.

My life here is diverse, relaxed, and full of new learning opportunities. I am where I want to be, doing what I want to do, with the people I want to do it with. I spend my time with friends at Red Earth, Dancing Rabbit, and Sandhill. I enjoy maple sugaring, playing ultimate frisbee, swimming in the ponds, hunting wild morel mushrooms, singing, facilitation, swing dancing, baking bread, fundraising, and learning about ways to ferment and preserve food.

I want our community to be a clear and visible demonstration of a thoughtful and compassionate way to live on this Earth. I want to create a home where my family, friends, and I can learn, love, grow and flourish. Not to mention having fun! And I hope you and others will be inspired by our vision and our practice.