Learn how to make wicking buckets for your plants! Anyone who wishes to make their own Wicking Bucket should bring a 5 gallon bucket. Suggested donation: $10

https://goodlife.org/event/wicking-buckets-workshop-2026

Since the 1950s, the United States has seen a steady decrease in gathering spaces that effectively foster meaningful, long-lasting support networks and community belonging. As the country becomes more divided and individualistic, we see an uptick in isolation and a decline in public health and well-being. In this talk, explore the three components of community building Queerly ME employs to foster strong support networks and strengthen community belonging for LGBTQIA+ adults in Maine. Dive into what is needed for a gathering place to thrive and lead towards meaningful, long-lasting community connections. This workshop will have a strong focus on the LGBTQIA+ community in Maine, and the many sociopolitical obstacles challenging the creation and growth of gathering spaces and how we may overcome those challenges through collective action.

https://goodlife.org/event/cultivating-community-2026

In 1976, inspired by the ideas of Helen and Scott Nearing, Sherrie Lovler and Norm Lee began a back-to-the-land life in upstate New York. They later founded The Good Life Get-Together, a yearly summer gathering with workshops for those drawn to the back-to-the-land movement and published Homesteaders News magazine for over nine years. Helen and Scott came to the first festival and Helen came again to teach stone wall building. Fifty years later, Sherrie reflects on how the Nearings’ influence continues to shape her life as a self-employed artist, poet, teacher, and author.

https://goodlife.org/event/the-influence-of-helen-and-scott-nearing-a-50-year-journey

Thousands of people have visited the Nearings' final homestead, at The Good Life Center, in Harborside, Maine, and many have seen the Bullfrog documentary film about their lives. At this gathering, Greg Joly will offer live commentary on the Nearings' homesteads, their life-ways, and the political and economic radicalism that undergirded everything they built.

Much of history has been buried by the passage of time. Join writer and history researcher Avery Yale Kamila who will go over Moral Treason, a paper she wrote for the Elizabeth Oakes Smith Society exploring 19th-century Maine author Oakes Smith's early work as an editor and involvement in the previously unknown Portland Female Anti-Matrimonial Society of 1833 and the little-explored Portland Graham Riot of 1834. Kamila will then share information of how she uncovered details of these events and how audience members can use the techniques in their own searches for lost history and forgotten ancestors.

https://goodlife.org/event/how-to-find-hidden-history

In this talk, Sarah Speare, CEO and co-founder of Tootie’s Tempeh will share the story of how a food company stood up to nearly every norm in business to become best in its category.

https://goodlife.org/event/going-against-the-grain-with-a-legume-2026

Archaeological sites along the Maine coast show that swordfish existed in the Gulf of Maine between approximately 5,500 and 3,700 years ago. Excavations at multiple Maine sites have produced swordfish rostra, vertebrae, and other remains, indicating that Wabanaki ancestors harvested and processed these large fish for millennia. In this presentation, Dr. Bonnie Newsom will discuss the presence of swordfish in Wabanaki homeland and what these archaeological data reveal about past marine conditions, Wabanaki fishing practices, and how climate change affected local ecosystems. Through archaeological study of swordfish remains from the Gulf of Maine, we can appreciate the sophisticated relationship Indigenous peoples had with swordfish specifically, and the marine environment more broadly.

https://goodlife.org/event/swordfish-in-wabanaki-homeland-2026/

This talk considers the history of “commoning” as a way in which generations of people around the world and right here in Maine have resisted private property, settler colonialism, and enclosure by moving more lightly across places, from swamps and forests to urban edges and oceans. Can sharing energy, food, and transport help us achieve more ethical relations of trans-species climate justice?

https://goodlife.org/event/mobile-commoning-2026

Good Life Center resident stewards Lucy and Jordan have led writing and poetry workshops for years. In this hands-on workshop for writers of all experience levels, participants will explore sensory writing with a focus on place and memory. Drawing inspiration from The Good Life Center’s gardens and from short excerpts by the Nearings and contemporary authors, we’ll engage in guided exercises to craft vivid, sensory-rich pieces. Along the way, we’ll dive into craft techniques to sharpen our sentences, deepen our attention, and foster a greater sense of connection—to the natural world, to our writing, and to one another.
Suggested donation: $10

https://goodlife.org/event/tending-the-page-2026

Alyssa & Michael O’Brien, co-founders of Protect Ancient Forests, make the case for working together to protect our remaining old-growth and mature public forests — why they’re irreplaceable, how policy shapes their fate, and what it looks like to build a movement on their behalf. Drawing on law, education, and deep roots in the Maine landscape, they’ll invite us to join them.

https://goodlife.org/event/protect-ancient-forests-2026