‘Edge Esmeralda’ Event Kicks Off in Healdsburg

Remember when I told you about the Edge Esmeralda “popup village,” a monthlong festival for futuristic ideas coming to Healdsburg for all of June? Well, the start date is upon us: Programming officially starts tomorrow. The two young women at the head of the organizations hosting the event, Janine Leger with Edge City and Devon Zuegel with the Esmeralda Land Company, are hosting a community meeting and “open house” this afternoon from 3-5pm at the CraftWork co-working space in the CVS shopping center, so that everyone can meet them, get more info and ask questions. You can RSVP here. You can also check out the full programming calendar here. And as a Healdsburg local, you can get discounted $200 tickets here to attend all the Edge Esmeralda events. (Outsiders are paying more like $2,000.) Some locals have had trouble making sense of the whole thing, thrown off by what some of them are calling the “word salad” of new-age lingo on the Edge Esmeralda website — but after speaking to organizers a few times, I think I’ve more or less wrapped my head around it, so I’ll do my best to explain. Basically, every day for the next month, a group of around 200 people will be attending talks, salons, workshops and other events at Healdsburg venues — like the Raven Theater, CraftWork and the Community Center — led by experts on topics like AI, crypto, biohacking, space exploration, renewable energy, geopolitics, urban planning innovation and all sorts of other cutting-edge stuff. The ultimate goal being to re-envision the way society and community can work, no less. Village “residents” will stay in existing Healdsburg hotels like Hotel Trio, the Dry Creek Inn and H2Hotel — so no new infrastructure — and will come together for nightly dinners with local farm-to-table type fare. Also on the menu of events: daily morning runs; meditation, yoga and therapy sessions; camps and classes for kids, as well as a “babysitting club” to make childcare easy; a series of “hackathons”; a central spot for “sauna, cold plunge and daily workouts” at Hotel Trio; “adventure days” on weekends; and more. So that everyone can get to these events from their hotels without cars, organizers say they’ll be putting shuttles into rotation and renting out “used beach cruisers” to attendees. They’re hoping most people will walk and bike along the Foss Creek Pathway, our local nature trail running the entire length of Healdsburg. From a recent Edge Esmeralda newsletter: “We planned all of our venues around a 7-minute bike path. We’re calling it Serendipity Lane, because it’s where you’ll bump into fellow attendees between sessions and go for walks with new friends!” (This same pathway has also been the site of multiple violent crimes in recent months, a trend pointed out by some of the locals who’ve been making the case that event organizers are out of touch.) Another intriguing aspect of the Edge Esmeralda experiment: It’s being modeled off the “Chautauqua” gathering in upstate New York, which Esmeralda Land Company founder Devon used to attend as a girl with her grandma. That, too, was a summertime popup village of sorts — famous for democratizing education, science and culture outside of a costly/elite university setting. Back in the day, there were also “traveling Chautauquas” that would set up shop in rural U.S. communities. Both Devon and her co-leader Janine have been visiting Healdsburg for years, and thought it would be the perfect spot to try out a multi-generational, college campus-style event that brings together folks with shared values of healthier community living and building a better future. Devon’s dream is to one day build a more permanent village like this somewhere in California, possibly just north of us in Mendocino County — and Janine, for her part, will apply the learnings to similar events she’s planning in Argentina and Southeast Asia later this year. Anyone game to take part in the Healdsburg version? Even if not, might as well go meet these gals in town today, to see what they’re all about… (Source: Edge Esmeralda via Luma & Facebook Groups & Facebook Groups & Healdsburg Tribune & Edge Esmeralda)