About this website
Eric Garza founded Next Safe Place and its associated media platforms to help people navigate today's converging crises with clarity, compassion, and dignity. This website builds community among those who are ready to ask big questions, wrestle with messy answers, and celebrate moments of joy in challenging times. We offer a free email newsletter, online events, and useful resources for those ready to do the work.
About Eric Garza
Eric lives in Vermont's Champlain Valley, in the northeast United States. His academic background spans the natural and social sciences. He has taught more than a dozen graduate and undergraduate courses at various colleges and universities. Eric has trained in several martial, contemplative, relational, and subsistence disciplines. He is of mixed European and American Indigenous heritage.
Eric owes a debt of gratitude to many teachers and mentors who have shaped him into the person he is today.
The land Eric wanders and the many living beings he shares it with have always been and will always be his primary teachers. He is also grateful for the mentorship of Leah Manaema Avene, Karl Haloj, the late Dai-Shihan Robert Johnson, Aimee Lewis Reau and LaUra Schmidt, and Zen Master Barbara Rhodes, along with many others who have inspired him through their writings, interviews, and teachings.
Origins of Next Safe Place
This website's name comes from one of Eric's past martial arts training partners. They explained that if an aggressor's attack puts us in danger, we first need to move to a safer place before we worry about neutralizing them. If they keep the pressure on, then we must move to the next safe place, and the next, and the next... until we find enough leverage to neutralize their aggression.
Note: Someone has partially recreated one of Eric’s old websites using a domain he no longer owns (ericgarza.info). Do not rely on any information you find on that website, and do not use it to contact him.