About Eloheh
The View from the New Eloheh in Yamhill, Oregon
Our Story
“Eloheh” (pronounced Ay-luh-hay) is a Cherokee Indian word meaning harmony, wholeness, abundance and peace.
Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice focuses on developing, implementing and teaching sustainable and regenerative earth practices. While there is an identifiable farm within the almost 10 acres near Yamhill, Oregon, the whole property is considered vital to the farm and as part of the farm. We have created a center that embodies educating mind, soul, and body to fulfill our mission of living in harmony with the land, using North American traditional Indigenous knowledge (TIK), wisdom and practices as a guiding model. Eloheh Farm & Seeds seeks to be a model of regenerative agricultural, animal husbandry and wild-tending systems that support human needs, while improving the earth and all creation inhabiting the web of life. Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice, which includes Eloheh Farm & Seeds, is a 501(c)3 non-profit under the auspices of Eloheh/Eagle’s Wings which began in 1999.
Meet Our Co-Creators
Edith and
Randy Woodley
The Woodleys have been influencing and mentoring Indigenous leaders and others, for over three decades. Their service to the most disenfranchised people in America led them to become serious about important issues such as peace, racism and eco-justice.
EDITH AND RANDY WOODLEY
Edith and Randy Woodley co-founded their non-profit, Eloheh in January 1999 with a passion to develop culturally appropriate service among America’s Indigenous peoples. The Woodleys saw the many needs in Native American communities yet neither the government nor the institutional churches/non-profits were addressing them well. With three decades of personal experience together in service among their own Indigenous people, Randy and Edith have been building bridges of hope where it had been abandoned.
As they brought hope and restored faith in Indigenous communities they saw the gifts residing in Native Americans were desperately needed among the non-Native population. To educate and restore all communities The Woodleys offer Speaking Presentations, Workshops, Teaching/Learning Gatherings, Consulting, Online Courses, Coaching, and Camps. Together, Edith & Randy Woodley have founded many initiatives and movements including their current organization, Eloheh/Eagle's Wings with a motto of: “Inspiring friendships, Engaging worldviews, Challenging structures.”
Randy and Edith Woodley have become recognized elders/wisdom-keepers in their community; having raised a family strong in their Indigenous traditions and practices. Along the way, the Woodleys have embodied the innate values and perspectives that have sustained America's Indigenous peoples for centuries. Those same values are not only available now, to help humanity in our current times of crisis, but they are essential to our future survival.
“The values of the Western worldview will not sustain us through the coming generations. The Western worldview is at odds with a sustainable earth. We must seek to convert ourselves to a more Indigenous worldview, with Indigenous values, if we hope to retain our place as co-sustainers on the earth. The earth will no doubt, survive. The question is, will we?”
Edith Woodley
Edith Woodley is a mentor/speaker on issues concerning Indigenous Spirituality and Creation. A full-time mother, grandmother and farmer, she has developed a unique relationship with the land and insights concerning how to raise a family on a small farm. Edith is an Eastern Shoshone tribal member raised on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. She co-founded several organizations with Randy. Edith enjoys carrying on the tradition in her family of Native American beadwork with her jewelry. Many women across the continent now adorn themselves with the bracelets, earrings and necklaces she has gifted to them over the years.
Dr. Randy Woodley
Dr. Woodley addresses a variety of issues concerning American culture, faith, justice, race, and our relationship with the earth and Indigenous realities. He currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Faith and Culture and Director of Intercultural and Indigenous Studies at George Fox University/Portland Seminary. His expertise has been sought in national venues as diverse as Time Magazine, Christianity Today, The Huffington Post and Planet Drum: A Voice for Bioregional, Sustainability, Education and Culture. Randy identifies strongly with issues of eco-justice, diversity and racial justice. Randy has found the sweet spot of sharing difficult truths, in the spirit of love and acceptance through his teaching. His authentic and timely messages dig to the root of our own imbalanced and unjust systems.
The History of Eloheh
It all started when…
Eloheh began in January 1999 as a service to Indigenous peoples. Randy Woodley, a recognized Cherokee descendent by the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and his wife, Edith Woodley, a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, along with their family, have been serving various Native American communities for over three decades. They have worked in education, community organizing, leadership development, pastoring, social service and as spiritual mentors for many Native American people across North America. Their vision of Eloheh comes from a sacred dream and desire to help their own Indigenous people regain their spirituality, values, vision, and land. This vision has expanded naturally over the years to assist non-Indigenous people to develop a more Indigenous worldview.
The first Eloheh Farm began in Kentucky. The unusual circumstances that brought the Woodleys to Oregon include losing their fifty-acre self-sustaining farm in Randy’s traditional Cherokee homeland to a racist county government, federal government officials, and a White Supremacist para-military group who pressured the Woodleys off their land daily by firing a 50-caliber machine gun on their property line. The Woodleys and their non-profit organization lost everything they had built over the years, including major donor-support during these years of transition and under-employment. Randy was eventually hired by George Fox University/Portland Seminary, where he currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Faith and Culture and Director of Intercultural and Indigenous Studies. Edith works full-time at the Farm.
The second Eloheh Farm was just 3.75 acres located in Newberg, Oregon, and was developed over a nine-year period. There, the Woodleys restored a 96-year-old, run-down farm that became Eloheh Farm. Before settling in the Willamette Valley, Randy approached the chairperson of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and asked how he and Edith might be able to live in the land of the Willamette (rightfully belonging to the Kalapuyan) and somehow honor them, the Creator, and the land? Chairperson Kennedy’s answer was quick and direct, “plant huckleberries,” she said. After a conversation about this aspect of restoring the land, the Woodleys have been resolute to plant not only huckleberries but all other types of plants Indigenous to the area. In fact, the whole ethic of Eloheh rests upon the desire to see the land restored to harmony and to live in neighborly respect with the Indigenous people of the area.
In 2019 Randy’s full-time teaching load was reduced by his employer and the Woodleys found it financially necessary to sell the small farm in Newberg where they had learned and established so much. In 2020 they purchased nearly 10 acres near Yamhill, Oregon, in the foothills of the Coastal Mountain Range. The new land will host a renewed Eloheh vision, akin to the first Eloheh Farm in Kentucky. The Woodleys are restoring the land to its original beauty as part of an ecological oak savannah including large oaks, wildflowers, camas, wapato, and other Pacific Northwest Oregon native species. Deer, rabbits, squirrels, woodchucks, coyotes, and other wildlife roam the land while songbirds, quail, woodpeckers, hawks, kestrels, turkey vultures, and eagles are seen flying in the skies overhead or perching in the flora on the land.