planting the seed
Germinating question:
If we truly believed that we were “natural,” what would change?
Well, here we are, how exciting! We’re planting the seed, aka this HUGE question, and we’re so glad you’ve joined us as we begin to chronicle this nature connection journey. It’s one we’ve been on for a while actually…
We’ve been members of the seed fan club for years. And for the past decade we’ve known each other, we’ve (mostly) unknowingly been preparing the soil for this exact moment. While we were busy saving seeds, the seeds were working their magic and saving us.
Our deep love of plants and our work with them was born from a desire to connect with our natural world and others enamored of her abundant wonders. We’ve spent a good chunk of our lives obsessing about plants and getting dirty. The taproot of our mutual admiration goes back to our early days, harvesting vegetables for CSA pick up, hauling compost, saving seeds, and having radical conversations on Casey’s urban farm plots.
Paradoxically, even though we’ve been intimately interacting with nature for years, no matter how many gardens we started, seeds we saved, trees we’ve hugged, or how much dirt ended up under our nails, in our pockets, or in other orifices…at the end of the day, we still felt separate from nature - like a weed out of place in the garden, struggling to figure out our niche in the ecosystem - wondering if we even belonged in the ecosystem.
And we know we’re not alone in feeling lonely and disconnected under the weight of the interlocking crises unfolding around us, destroying people and the planet. Casey has seen it in her years of mentoring young and eager farmers. We’ve both seen folks grasping to belong in work with environmental education, conservation, and restoration. And we see it reflected deeply in our beloved community of nature nerds, gardeners, scientists, artists, and activists.
“Trauma in a people looks like culture.” - Resmaa Menakem
We are feeling what Indigenous seed keeper Rowen White so poignantly and accurately calls the “diaspora of disconnection”. The dominant settler colonial culture has violently and rapidly severed us from each other and from the land. It has done this by sowing systems within this culture rooted in the myths of individualism, otherness, and scarcity. So, like a seedling trying to break through concrete, our best efforts at nature connection have been in the context of this larger story. But we are breaking through…
“What you pay attention to grows.” - adrienne maree brown
In all of the spaces where we have felt disconnected, where the myth of separateness still prevails, we’ve seen cracks starting to form thanks to the never ending abundance of nature’s beauty, everyday awe, and nature-inspired teachers. We have seen the power of nature connection - in growing cooperative and equitable food systems, in environmental education, in forest and nature therapy. We’ve heard the call from so many wise and generous teachers, especially Indigenous folks, that we (white people) need to remember what it means to be in relationship with the earth and OF the earth.
In this blog we’re excited to help widen those cracks and practice exactly that. We’re excited to begin sharing what’s bringing us joy and inspiration - our cultural pollinators and nurse logs - what we’re practicing and experimenting with - and a healthy dose of nature nuggets and the weird and wonderful ways we’re reconnecting with nature.
“Thinking like a seed” is our seedy heart song and imperfect offering in service of cultural repair and new eco-systems. It’s the cyclical way of reclaiming our sense of belonging as part of the natural world and reimagining our culture. For us, the cycle looks something like this, and we’ll explain it more in future posts:
It took us a looooong time to even get this far (did we mention it’s been a decade?). To wake up and feel some small semblance of belonging. Making good soil takes time and planting a seed is an act of trust. But we trust in the seeds to guide as their students in symbiosis.
“I want to seed the soil with stories of love for the earth, for it is our failure to love the Earth enough that allows us to let it slip away.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer
Keep it seedy!
~Anna & Casey
