Invincible Green Dreams

With our rich soils, steady water, and equatorial sunlight, everything flourishes. This week we’re hosting a writers’ retreat and we cautioned them: if you happen to drop an idea to the ground, it might grow into a poem. Yes, everything comes alive here, especially green dreams. Many years ago Steven told me of one of […]
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Our Sacred Seeds Sanctuary

United Plant Savers just published this article I wrote about our dear friend and teacher Dr. Jim Duke, pictured above, who is forever in our hearts. Jim, together with Rafael Ocampo, Michael Balick, Ruthie Goldstein, and Steven Farrell, gave birth to our Sacred Seeds Sanctuary, Semillas Sagrada, at Finca Luna Nueva Lodge. I am proud […]
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Resolute in Regeneration… the rest of the story

Regeneration. This is our prayer and our polestar. Yes, we’ve been an organic farm from the beginning. Still, the climate crisis has raised the standards, requiring we ask: Do our actions put carbon back to work underground by optimizing the life force of the soil? Are we contributing to the biodiversity of our region in […]
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Your Dome Away from Home

There’s a trail through the rainforest, and you know there are curious kinkajous above you but they’re so hard to spot. Best look for their eyes, which are impossibly large and follow you as walk the path below. Chestnut brown agoutis scamper, and you think rabbit? Chinchilla? And what are those crazy fruit trees, with […]
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A Golden-Mantled Morning at the Bamboo Tower

The loud wake-up call generally starts around 4:45 a.m. and lasts for at least 15 minutes.  From our lodge it’s hard to tell from where the call emanates – it’s a deep bass that rumbles in from the forest and seems near, but then again it could be miles away.  And then there’s often an answering call, […]
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Farm Like a Forest

We have a whole lot of fun every day at the farm, and our souls and stomachs celebrate the delicious productivity of our ecosystem. We joke that this land is so fertile that if you drop your car keys a new car might grow. But like farmers everywhere on the planet, we’ve had to deal […]
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Scarlets and Kings

What does November mean on the Caribbean slope in the rainforest? For the Luna Nueva farm team, it means planting. We can confidently plant tree crops and annuals, certain that there will be both warmth and rain to welcome rhizomes and roots. And planting we are, with hundreds of prized cacao, allspice, peach palm, coffee, […]
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Regenerate Now!

It’s September, 2019, and millions of students around the globe are striking to demand action on climate change. We are in solidarity with all those young voices, especially the voice of Elias Gradinger in Brattleboro, Vermont. Elias is our grandson, and he and his classmates held up a banner calling out for regenerative agriculture to […]
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An article from Regenerative Travel featuring our perspectives on biodiversity and climate solutions

From the article: “Newmark’s suggestion for ways to support the Amazon is simple. “Average citizens need to do everything possible to learn about rainforests and why preserving them is critical to our survival and happiness,” he says. “They need to teach their families and their communities, and they need to come see the rainforest, take […]
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Our Garden in August

The great English wordsmith D.H. Lawrence tells us that “Every fruit has its secret.”  Come on a walk with us around Finca Luna Nueva in August to learn our garden’s exotic tropical secrets.There’s the cocoplum tree, which we know as icaco, covered with what seems like thousands of round fruits the size of ping pong balls.  The copious […]
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