People & Community

Social
Permaculture

The human ecology of Boulder Gardens: shared meals, morning yoga, gatherings, music, hospitality, field trips, stewardship, and the relationships that make a place possible.

Members of the Boulder Gardens community gathered around a long outdoor table for a shared meal. — Community life gathers around food, conversation, work, celebration, and time spent together.

Sanctuary History

The welcome that shaped the community

Garth Bowles founded Boulder Gardens as a place where people of every spiritual belief could belong. His story is part of the Sanctuary record.

Read Garth’s story →

Shared Life

Food, music & everyday fellowship

The photographic record of community is often found in ordinary moments: preparing food, setting a table, sitting down together, making music, welcoming people, and marking the seasons.

A long outdoor table covered with dishes prepared for a community meal. — **The shared table** Food becomes a reason to gather and a way to care for one another.

Two people standing together behind freshly prepared pies. — **Hospitality** Homemade food, visitors, and small celebrations help give the sanctuary its social rhythm.

A person playing an upright piano outdoors at Boulder Gardens. — **Music** Community culture is also what happens between projects and chores.

A group of people gathered outdoors around food and tables among desert boulders. — **Gathering outdoors** The landscape itself becomes part of the dining room.

People preparing a large batch of dumplings together in an outdoor kitchen. — **Cooking together** Shared work can be practical, social, and celebratory at the same time.

People working together around trays of food in the community kitchen. — **Kitchen work** Preparing a meal is one of the recurring forms of cooperation.

People seated and standing around a shaded outdoor table during a meal. — **Time at the table** Conversation is part of the infrastructure too.

A platter of prepared food set out for a shared meal. — **Prepared to share** The details of everyday life accumulate into community tradition.

People preparing food together in the open-air kitchen during warm weather. — **Open-air kitchen** Much of community life happens in the spaces where work and social time overlap.

People sharing a casual meal around a small outdoor table. — **Everyday meals** Not every gathering needs to be an event to matter.

Outdoor gathering spaces at Boulder Gardens covered in snow. — **Seasonal life** The same gathering places change character with the weather and the year.

Morning yoga gathering at Boulder Gardens — Morning yoga · October 2026

Shared Rhythms

Morning yoga at Boulder Gardens

Around 7 in the morning, a small group of about five people often gathers for yoga. It has become another simple part of community life alongside shared meals, work, music, outings, and time together.

Read Field Report 025 →

Beyond the Sanctuary

Community Field Trips

Once a month, the Boulder Gardens community chooses somewhere beyond the sanctuary to explore together. The outings are a chance to get out of town, share an experience, and strengthen friendships away from the routines of everyday work.

April 15, 2026 · Community Field Trip

Mount San Jacinto

A day in the high country

With complimentary tram tickets for the group, the community headed up Mount San Jacinto together for a day away from the sanctuary.

Open the field-trip journal →

October 2, 2026 · Community Field Trip

Deep Creek Hot Springs

An overnight walk into the canyon

Community members approached Deep Creek from opposite ends of the trail, meeting at the hot springs before camping together and hiking out the following day.

Open Field Report 019 →

This is an ongoing record of community outings beyond the sanctuary. Mount San Jacinto and Deep Creek are now part of that growing field-trip journal.

A visitor framed by natural light during a cave tour at Boulder Gardens — Cave tour · October 24, 2026

Community in the Landscape

A cave tour together

Exploring the caves is one of the ways people come to know Boulder Gardens. During this October walk, natural light entering the cave created one of the most striking photographs in the Fieldstation record.

Read Field Report 030 →

Field Reports