The Good Life Center in Harborside opens June 16 for the 2022 season. Visitors may tour Forest Farm, the final home of Helen and Scott Nearing, icons of the modern back-to-the-land and organic gardening movements. Gardens, yurts, and trails are also part of the property’s available features. Hours are Thursday through Monday from 1-5 p.m. until Labor Day, Saturday and Sunday from 1-5 p.m. from Labor Day until Indigenous Peoples Day when the season ends.


The community is also invited to the Good Life Center’s Sunday Speaker Series. Authors and activists highlight this summer’s line-up which continues the Nearings’ legacy of regularly engaging the community in discussing timely issues. The series’ title, Living Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World, is a byline from the Nearings’ most reknowned book, Living the Good Life. Presentations take place outside at the Good Life Center on Sunday afternoons at 4 p.m., rain or shine. Admission is free, but donations are greatly appreciated.

For more information and directions, go to http://www.goodlife.org or call 207-374-5386.


Speakers and dates are as follows:


July 3 Patrick Donovan, environmentalist and activist at the Berkshire School will discuss the intersection of climate change and social justice.


July 10 Matt Murphy, WERU’s manager, will present on community radio and the media’s role in addressing the important news topics of today’s world.


July 17 Bill Case, teacher at Maine Maritime Academy and George Stevens Academy, will lead a discussion on prewar Germany and the Holocaust and its relevance to today’s world.


July 24 Homesteader, author, and Nearing scholar Greg Joly will discuss “Scott Nearing, Resource Wars and the Green Economy.”


July 31 Environmentalist and children’s author Lynn Cherry (The Great Kapok Tree) will share her research on the Florida black bear as well as her experience reaching and inspiring a next generation’s activism.


August 7 Local Stonington scientist Abbi Barrows will present her renowned research on micro plastics in the ocean and environment.

August 14 Maine’s sixth poet laureate, Julie Bouwsma, will read her poetry about the natural world, gardening, and farming.


August 21 University of Maine Farmington professor Gretchen Legler will read from her book, Woodsqueer, a memoir of homesteading in central Maine.


August 28 Port Clyde author Margot Kelley will read from her book, Foodtopia, a treatise on the history of the American homesteading movement.