Becky Elder Bio
Becky Elder was raised in the tall grass prairie of Eastern Kansas. Bald
rolling hills with grasses towering over six feet in a good year, made the perfect
fodder for cultivating a love for the natural world. Powerful weather, rattlesnakes
and water moccasins instilled a healthy respect for the dark side of nature.
Yips of coyotes, the buzz of insects, glorious sunrises and the vastness of
the night sky sparked wonder and awe, rocked in the sheltering arms of a grand
cottonwood tree. For 16 years, the homeland of her heart was the Flint Hills
of Eastern Kansas.
Coming to Colorado as a young woman, she was introduced to organic
gardening in 1975. A tiny backyard vegetable patch, squeezed between alley and
garage, grew successfully. A few years later she tended much larger vegetable
gardens, grapes and fruit trees. Intimate contact with the earth tuned her to
the environmental movement; she became an activist for wilderness and ancient
forests.
Moving to Manitou Springs, from the Denver area, she raised her two children
in the foothills of Pikes Peak and has been gardening in the Pikes Peak Region
for 24 years.
As a Colorado State University Master Gardener (1995) Becky's homespun
gardening intuition became a solid foundation. Through twelve years in the Master
Gardener program, Becky has presented many classes to the general public in
El Paso County, in the Gardening in the Pikes Peak Region series and for private
groups, and has taught within the Master Gardener program itself. She covers
many subjects from basic plant care and pruning to rainwater harvesting and
non-turf landscapes and much more. She speaks from experience on backyard habitats,
and the ethics of wild gardens. In the early '90s she was a Licensed Wildlife
Rehabilitator, holding both Colorado State and Federal permits. Her home gardens,
Annamaranna Gardens, are Certified Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife
Federation.
With her green organic heart, Becky has always been an active environmental
and social activist for change. For three years running, Becky was voted the
bronze award for Best Of… Environmentalist from The Independent's Best
Of Contest: 1999, 2000 and 2001. She has presented the Northwest Institute series
of Deep Ecology for the local Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission and
through their organization often offers Saturday seminars on Permaculture.
Keeping journals and jotting down observations, Becky shares her
vision with others, writing for local magazines and newspapers. As a freelance
writer, Becky tells of experiences and intimate observations as interpreted
by a whole systems gardener. She was awarded First Place in the creative non-fiction
category of the Paul Gillette Memorial Writers Contest in 2003 and writes for
the Pike's Peak Bulletin, Manitou Magazine, Springs Magazine, the Cheyenne Edition
and the Permaculture Activist magazine. She penned award-winning newsletters
for the Manitou Springs Garden Club, wining several first place standings. Her
first book, Raven in the Garden, a Front Range gardener's journal reports over
twelve collective years of writing, natural gardening and living in the front
range foothills of the Rocky Mountains. She is planning on self-publishing the
book in 2007.
Certified in permaculture design by the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture
Institute (2002,) Becky has taken the path toward sustainable design, and sustainable
living for the future. She returns to the Permaculture Institute each year to
teach. Becky also earned the Earth Activist Training permaculture certificate
as well (2005,) at Black Mountain Preserve in Sonoma County, California. Since
then, she has obtained an Advanced Permaculture certificate and a Permaculture
Teacher's Certificate. She is working to earn her Permaculture Diploma, the
highest level of permaculture study to be awarded. With other permaculturalists
in the area, Pikes Peak Permaculture was created and has an excellent website:
www.PikesPeakPermaculture.org. Design certification courses are planned for
the Denver area in August 2007 and in the Pikes Peak region beginning in 2008.
Of course, the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute will also hold
their course in September 2007.
With climate change bringing the unknown to our front doors, Becky
continues her work of supporting constructive change in the Pikes Peak Region.
She was a Charter Member on the Manitou Springs Open Space Advisory Committee,
serving seven years and currently is a Charter Board Member and Secretary of
the Manitou Springs Urban Renewal Authority. She is also a Charter Board Member
and Secretary of the Solidarity of Hope organization. Being active within her
own community is a mainstay of her social activism and is her way of giving
back to her community.
Becky is finding satisfaction in her gardening, writings and teaching.
In the garden there is always new experiences to be found and discoveries to
be made. Blue Planet Earthscapes is the vehicle that keeps her in touch with
nature, Pikes Peak Permaculture keeps her in touch with the future.
Gardening on the front range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains is
not easy, requiring persistence and patience beyond standard gardening methodology.
Permaculture, organic gardening, protection of the soil, the fauna, as well
as the flora, and discovering sustainable living techniques is clearly Becky's
passion and her path. She has begun integrating permaculture into her home gardens
and into the landscaping business. Passion for nature, building sustainable
landscapes and creating urban permaculture are the fundamental tenets of her
life.
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".... that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on
a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the
life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see
that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they
open the doors to you. I say, "Follow your bliss and don't be afraid. And
doors will open where you didn't now they were going to be."
Joseph
Campbell in his conversations with Bill Moyers in 1986. Power of Myth