Regen Civics Alliance Pilot Projects Cohort 2

United States

Temple Mother Earth

• Representative Sonatta Camara, Project sponsor, building owner; Amani Mamodesene, tokenomics ambassador; Neil Takemoto, SEEDS ambassador, cooperative advisor
• Location Washington DC
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How is the place-based/regenerative development project(s) you're representing regenerative? This may be a helpful resource: https://www.regenlive.org/what-is-regenerative: Temple of Mother Earth focuses on regenerative development at the most human level. It is an international community gathering place for plant medicine and wellness created out of the need for more welcoming places serving people of color. The founding Temple is based in a predominantly BIPOC neighborhood in Southeast Washington DC, offering multi-faceted restorative and regenerative practices with a primary focus on sacred plant medicines. It is a safe container of spiritual resources and space holders to support everyone in its community as they step powerfully into their sovereignty. The Temple is about creating a community striving towards a holistic worldview. We teach our community to honor the world as a reflection of ourselves, taking great care of the Earth and each other. It is a shared sacred space open to anyone who wants to be a part of this community. We have a weekly gathering inclusive of all in our community to co-create our vision. Members mutually benefit by being served and serving the community. We are volunteer based offering public healing offerings such as holistic wellness classes, community integration circles, local forests clean-ups, beehive and honey production and a community garden.
• What values, goals, and focus areas are guiding your place-based regenerative project? Our mission is to make plant medicine accessible to all with a focus on the BIPOC community. The vision is for the SE Washington DC Temple of Mother Earth to serve as a model for other Temple of Mother Earth entities across the country, serving local communities and making plant medicine accessible to all with a focus on the BIPOC community. It is an international temple of consciousness, spiritual learning and healing center focused on providing the community with service, education, spiritual fellowship, healing practices, guidance, kemetic teachings, and plant medicine expansion. We believe in the rights of Mother Earth, and in protecting the practice of Mother Earth-based on spiritual traditions, ceremonies, and sacred indigenous natural medicines. What is of the Earth is our holy sacrament, and we retain the rights as citizens of this nation to use plant medicines as tools for the benefit of our physical health, spiritual growth, and personal evolution. Temple of Mother Earth is dedicated to being a safe space for the community to show up wholly as themselves to create unity as one community. We begin by educating our community on how to take a holistic stance on their own health, honoring their mind, body, and spirit. Through this journey of self-empowerment and individual healing, we learn to heal each other and our community.
• Is the property/land associated with this project currently owned privately, publicly or cooperatively? The property associated with this project is currently privately owned by Sonatta Camara and her husband King James Ellis, and is managed as a nonprofit.
• What is the long-term ownership intention of this property/land: private, public, cooperative, fractional? The Temple administers two adjacent privately owned buildings, with an intention for a community cooperative to purchase one of the buildings utilizing emerging NFT tools and practices.
• What is your legal structure? What type of or combination of legal entities will your project use to protect the land and the members? The Temple of Mother Earth is a 501c3 and the project building is being rezoned as a community church for the purposes of becoming a non-religious plant medicine church.
• How many acres/hectares is this project? 1 acre
• How many acres/hectares is native/untouched/wilderness? 0, as this is in a residential neighborhood, but adjacent to 3.7 acres of city-owned forest that has never been developed.
• How many acres/hectares will remain native/untouched/wilderness? 0, as this is in a residential neighborhood, and the community will support the adjacent property to remain native wilderness
• How many acres/hectares has been restored? 0, as this is in a residential neighborhood
• What is the status of your project’s governance structure, or DAO (decentralized autonomous organization)? What support do you need to develop it further? The Temple is organized as a 501c3 with two privately owned buildings, with an intention to establish a governance based on self organization and its own token, token economy. One of the buildings is a candidate for community ownership, to be governed by a self organization system and the Hypha DHO platform to establish its own local currency. It will be stewarded as a regenerative development pilot project by the MoM (Movement of Movements) DHO and the Changemakers program, to onboard its members into the SEEDS ecosystem, including completing the Partnerism and regenerative communications programs. "We steward 3.7 acres of native community forest located behind our property. We work with an arborist to learn about the forest's plant life as well as managing the invasive species of plants that threaten its health.
• How are you integrating with the local community in your area? We have daily integrative healing circles Monday through Friday – open to the community as well as spiritual ceremonies. Within these integration circles we debrief from ceremony in and out of the temple to help nurture our communities healing through discussion, sound, movement and community. Our circles often include yoga, sound healing, breathework, herbology, and other natural healing modalities.
• How many people does your project need to maintain or run the property, and are there limits to growth or how many people can live on the land? How many people are currently involved in your project? Because it is only one acre, it requires only one project manager. The Temple has a support network of about 300 people, given its role as a community center and plant medicine ‘church’.
• Have you addressed zoning, building codes, and taxes? The building designated for community ownership is being rezoned as a community church (non-religious) to offer plant medicine ceremonies based on indigenous heritage. The property taxes are the standard rate for all properties in Washington DC and are currently paid for by the property owners. When/if ownership is legally transferred to the community, such as through a legal cooperative, that legal entity will cover the property taxes. The building designated for community ownership is being rezoned as a community church (non-religious) to offer plant medicine ceremonies based on indigenous heritage. The property taxes are the standard rate for all properties in Washington DC and are currently paid for by the property owners. When/if ownership is legally transferred to the community, such as through a legal cooperative, that legal entity will cover the property taxes.
• What kind of funding are you looking for and what are you looking to do with it? The community is seeking collective funding to purchase the property owner from the private property owners. The current property owners along with the community are fundraising to pay for the legal and administrative costs of transferring ownership from private to cooperative/NFT/fractional community ownership.
• What level of experience do you have budgeting for and actualizing a place-based/regenerative development? Do you need support designing plans and / or itemizing costs? The Temple would benefit from assistance with regenerative building and development systems as it relates to building/architectural permaculture design.
• What do you think RCA should be looking for when selecting the 12 place-based/regenerative development projects in this first cohort of applicants? The potential of the project being a fractal with the smallest barrier to entry. A model that can be applied to any building in any neighborhood in the world.
• How do you personally want to support the 12+ projects in the alliance's first cohort and at what capacity and commitment level? The small scale and controlled ownership of the property and the project allows a more rapid implementation of the regenerative renaissance ecosystem that can serve as a live laboratory for the other projects. It is also integrating the services of the SEEDS Commons DHOs through the SEEDS Changemakers program. It is a complementary learning laboratory to the LaLa Gardens project at the same scale.