1/7/2025 Dear Anna,

I’ve just finished the remarkable book The Light Eaters. It’s truly astounding, and I’m excited to discuss it with you at length after you’ve had a chance to read it. In the final chapter—don’t worry, I don’t think this is a spoiler alert—the author Zoe Schlanger acknowledges that she now sees the world completely differently in light of all she’s learned about how plants interact and participate in their environment, noting that “her most luscious thoughts have all turned green.” And from that place, she draws the same conclusion we’ve both come to—once you know plants as ingenious companions on planet earth who offer no end of insight and intrigue and imaginative possibility, you can’t unknow it. “A new moral pocket has opened in your mind,” as she says.

The question that must follow such an assertion is of course the central one driving us as well: what changes when we know? How does our society—its laws, its systems, its moral and ethical conventions—reorient itself when we collectively accept this fundamental reality? We know how it has profoundly altered our own lives and ways of being in the world, and we see how our friends, students, and clients also orient themselves differently when they come to know it truthfully as well. It’s like we turn toward the light in a different, more plant-like way. It’s so validating to read such a wide-eyed, well-written account from a person whose life has changed completely by taking plants seriously as study subjects and recipients of our curious affection.  

She writes, “Rather than seeing a march toward doom, as I did as a disaffected office worker writing the news, I now see a boundless sea of change. Life finds a way, if given a chance.” This sea change is precisely what we’re after, and it’s alimentary to me to ground into this end goal as we’re slogging through the soul-sucking minutiae of trying to develop a pitch and marketing plan for our book. This process makes me feel like I’m trying to squeeze the most miraculous thing I know, the sacred light at the center of my heart, into a stifling shoebox of “platforms” and “followers.”

I truly believe that we are growing something together that can open the doors for others in the way that Zoe’s journalistic curiosity opened them for her. And I know that the marketing and self-promotion is a necessary evil for birthing this book into the world. I pray that we can do it in a way that doesn’t strangle its essence.

For my part, I have decided that, at all costs, I will prioritize the thing we enjoy most—our conspiratorial daily interactions with plants. When I feel ground into a pulp trying to figure out how to post a fucking video to Instagram, or paralyzed by imposter syndrome, or losing faith that this little seed we’ve planted is worthy of tending amid the intimidating world of capitalist book markets, I will stop and go outside. I will go outside to remind myself of the world we really live in, the boundless sea change of adaptation in real time, the unlimited capacity we humans have for what she calls “moral attention,” the way that simply being with the plants makes me feel wealthy beyond measure and ridiculously grateful to be alive.

I hope that you’re able to get outside today, and every day. I hope that even in the darkest times you can still glimpse the world offering itself to your imagination, the plants waving as you wander by.

I love the transformative power of paying generous attention to plants, and I love YOU for continually bringing me back to that when I get distracted.

We can do this!

Casey

11.12.2024 Dear Casey and Compost Kin,

I wrote a single word in my journal on the morning of the election: Breathe.

On Sunday I had made my list of five beings to intentionally gift my attention for the week, my breath being one of them. I knew I would be holding it. Honestly I think we’ve all been collectively holding our breath for months.

I wonder about all the ways those breaths came out on Wednesday morning. Sobs, sighs, screams? Tinged with what? Delight, fear, grief? This morning the local radio played a story about a yelling choir in Portland. There was no mention of the election, but I suspect their membership may soon spike. I did not yell, but I know my long awaited exhale joined a symphony last Wednesday morning.

My breath also came out as the prayer below - a prayer to the decomposers and detritivores. I think we have a lot to learn from them, especially now, about getting dirty and gritty, churning through the dark, metabolizing and working the cracks, finding the ley lines of lignin and liberation. Inhaling the possibilities and pockets of air.

Your letter was a pocket of air for me last week in the midst of the mudslide. Even now, my attention and my breath still feel fractured as we orient ourselves to this new season. The next inhale feels tremendously important. What will we use this beautiful gift of oxygen from our plant kin for? I hope we use it to fill up this void of hurt with stories of abundance and love, resistance and repair, solidarity and solutions.

Inhaling gifts. Exhaling gifts.

With love,

Anna

11.3.2024 Dear Anna,

Dear Anna,

I just reread your excellent blog post about attention. It couldn’t have come at a better time. The intersection of my personal life chugging along in stereotypically modern, chaotic fashion with the larger anxieties surrounding the upcoming elections is coalescing into a perfect storm of sorts—one that has me wanting to do literally anything except intentionally focus my attention.

It is humbling how much the structure of modern life in this country siphons and distracts our attention. I want to devote myself to reclaiming the gift of my attention and intentionally placing it where it can nourish me and nourish others. Instead, I allow myself to be swept up in the minutiae of endless commitments and to do lists, and I cling to my favorite distractions like little momentary life rafts to avoid the ocean of dread I’m dog-paddling to stay afloat on.

The grief embedded in that ocean is profound, and I will do practically anything to avoid truly feeling it, to allow it to fully enter my mind and my body and to be consumed by its enormity. There is a part of me that fears that I won’t make it out alive if I dive in. This is also the truest description of the United States of America that I can think of.

The anxiety in the air is palpable. On the one hand, what semblance of democracy we currently have hangs in the balance. On the other, business as usual is marching steadily forward, sucking up every possible drop of oil and pumping it into the atmosphere. Sucking up every bit of wealth—natural, cultural, financial—and pumping it into the pockets of a few obscenely rich individuals who continue to grow richer by the second as late-stage industrial capitalism hurtles toward its inevitable, devastating conclusion. No matter which candidate wins the presidency, my tax money will still be used to fund genocide in Palestine, to stockpile an exponentially-expanding arsenal of weapons doled out around the planet to feed the insatiable bellies of those billionaires in the name of keeping us white folks in a comfortable delusion of supremacy. The system is working as intended.

We in Idaho are preparing to watch our neighbors voluntarily (re)elect a person who has stated that the democratic process is rigged if he loses, but not if he wins. We will watch ourselves elect local leaders who have taken away our bodily autonomy, our books, and our public education in the name of freedom. The part I’m dreading most is watching us vote down a citizen-led ballot initiative that hoped to put the tiniest of guard rails on runaway power consolidation in the hands of an increasingly unstable and radical fringe of people. I have not done enough to stop this from happening. There is never enough that I could do that would actually stop it all from happening. But that’s for another discussion.  

Yesterday, I went outside with your prompt to choose a being and gift my attention to them for five minutes. It’s not that I haven’t been getting outside—I’ve been taking plenty of walks, doing fall garden chores, winnowing my seeds for the Co-op, and soaking up any fleeting moments of sun before the winter descends. But on my walks, I’m so in my head that I’ll go for 10 minutes or more without actually noticing a single thing around me. Then, out of nowhere, a particularly brilliant tree ablaze in fall foliage will arrest my attention and snap me back into the physical world for a moment before I retreat into my own ruminations again. Flickering around the edges of my consciousness in the moments where the wind catches the leaves and sends them flying, leaving bare branches behind, is a sense of doom about the upcoming winter.

The darkness is devouring both ends of the day faster and faster each year it seems. Another dry winter is predicted for Idaho. I’m scared. And I definitely don’t feel like I should talk about that anywhere public. It’s such a non-productive emotion to feel. And nobody needs to be dragged down with that, right? It’s my job to be hopeful and inspiring and solutions-oriented.

I decided to spend my five deliberate minutes with an apple tree that takes up half of my wild front yard. I transplanted it there as a small seedling when I ripped out my front lawn as a proud new homeowner 17 years ago. Over the ensuing decades it has sprawled out between giant conifers that block most of the sun, making it stretch and reach with impossibly wispy branches that still manage to produce delicious apples amid the tangle of other plants.

I noticed the smell most of all. The fecundity of damp earth, decaying leaves, rotting fruit. The leaves are getting munched on by something—I hadn’t paid close enough attention to notice that before, even though I have been harvesting fruit.

I found a perfect puzzle piece of chewed off leaf lying face down on the leaf below it. I snuggled it back into its rightful place, seeing it whole again for a brief moment, and made myself a promise: I will pay closer attention to you, beautiful tree. Are these leaf chewers bothering you too much? What can I do to help you?

There is moss growing on the underside of one of the most northerly facing branches. Moss! I think I’ve marveled at that before, but it still seems like a new revelation. I can’t believe this spot I barely water is moist enough to support moss! Life can make so much with so little.

Only a few of the leaves have started to abscise, which seems really late in the season. I explored the base of the petiole where a leaf had let go from its branch, from the only home it’s ever known. It’s pink! Bright pink streaks at the very tip of a yellow leaf’s yellow petiole. How glorious! It’s like exquisite modern art, in miniature!

I also noticed some new, tiny leaves sprouting from the petioles of the leaves still attached. Which surprised me, and of course led me down a rabbithole of research. They’re called stipules, and they fall off earlier in the season on most plants that make them. Not all of this tree’s leaves have them, just the ones closer to the bottom. It makes me wonder if the tree made them in response to not having enough sun and wanting just a bit more opportunity to catch the light to photosynthesize and make food down there in the relative darkness. I love knowing that other noticers have long been studying something I’ve just barely come across.

And of course, there is the perennial comfort that comes from seeing next year’s buds, already perfectly formed on the soon-to-be bare branches, awaiting the coming spring. It’s like the tree is certain that the world isn’t going to end this winter, that the light will return and the sun will provide and it will continue to participate and provide in the ways it always has, in the ways it is uniquely qualified to do, for the tiny but vastly complex speck of the world that it occupies.

I know you are capable of holding space for all of this, that I don’t need to wrap it up tidy with a bow to make us both feel better. I guess I’ll just end this by saying that this practice of truly gifting our attention to the nonhuman beings with whom we share space can feel to me like it’s not “enough.” But every time I do it, I glimpse truths so grounding, so real, that I am certain that it is central to everything else we might do to approach collective and systemic health. Without this attention, we are not present to the actual world around us—the world of rich smells, tactile growth, literal nutrient cycling. We are unmoored, lost in our own abstractions, and susceptible to the distractions foisted upon us by swindlers who to not have our or the planet’s best interests in mind. Our attention makes nurturing relationships possible.

In your last letter, you wrote: “If there is any sort of perfection, it comes from the shape of our relationships. Not in the singular, but in the multitudes. It exists in the way a bumblebee wiggles her body into a penstemon flower; in how a water molecule caresses a cobble on the way downstream; in a chickadee song accompanying a sunrise; the radiant heat of a compost pile; in the intimate exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between us and plants.”

Hear hear! Thank you for gently and patiently guiding our attention toward these brilliant truths.

With everlasting love and gratitude,

Casey

10.10.2024, Dear Casey,

As always, I am grateful and in awe of your ability to say precisely what needs to be said. 

A few months ago, I was working with a writing prompt: name five people you admire and why. No surprise, you are on the list. “Casey is so curious, hilarious, a good storyteller, and cuts through the bullshit.” I think our current endeavor plays to all of these strengths.

Humor and curiosity are our lifeboats at this moment. They help move us from apathy and paralysis to metabolizing and storytelling. Through storytelling, we become enmeshed, weaving together and expanding the threads of our experience and understanding.

In our years of sharing stories, we have begun to recognize the ideas and narratives that nourish us and our relationships. And also, that some of the narratives we’ve been holding onto – and that our society is built on – are bullshit. I’m so grateful and honored to be here with you, in this moment, trying to decompose the bullshit and dream new and fertile futures together.

“I believe it is time to step back into the arena in a more public way, to try to give voice to these things that we are studying and doing in our private lives that feel potentially earth-shatteringly transformative—specifically for other white folks, but hopefully in service to the larger community of all beings with whom we are sharing this planet.”

“Earth-shatteringly transformative” is an apt description of your influence on my life. When we met, I was a bright-eyed 22 year-old. I was burned out on academia and overwhelmed by the enormity of trying to figure out what to “do” with my life. I had no idea the gifts I would receive on your farm. You gave me not only the knowledge and the tangible tools to feed myself and others, but also planted the seed for a deeper relationship with place and a reverence for plants. You introduced me to growing spinach! That lovely and fickle plant. And squash bees! And corn smut! My life is infinitely more rich with your trademark enthusiasm, unabashed ardor for life, and fierce desire to practice your values and help others.

Perhaps most importantly, you continually cultivate a safe and loving space in which to find and practice my voice. As an introvert overflowing with anxiety, I’ve wrestled with “my voice” my entire life. In comparison to voices like yours and many of our teachers’ who appear so strong and confident, seemingly straight out of the womb, mine is an instrument I’m still tuning. You may have taken a step back from the arena for a few years, but in many ways, I feel as though I’m entering it for the first time. It’s only because of amazing mentors like you, modeling courage and vulnerability, and helping me break down internal and cultural barriers, that I feel even slightly ready to take the first step. 

As you said, it feels at once too early and too late to begin this chapter. But perfection is one of the dominant cultural narratives that suppresses our voices. It has clipped the wings of so many of my ideas and dreams. But, I don’t think perfection really exists, do you?

Perfection implies completeness, autonomy, independence. Nothing and no one is perfect, because nothing and no one exists in a vacuum. Even our own bodies, our squishy water-carrying meat sacks, are more microbes than human cells. Like a seed, planted into a particular soil, taking up nutrients, water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight, we wouldn’t exist without the mesmerizing web of interbeing. And that is so liberating!

If there is any sort of perfection, it comes from the shape of our relationships. Not in the singular, but in the multitudes. It exists in the way a bumblebee wiggles her body into a penstemon flower; in how a water molecule caresses a cobble on the way downstream; in a chickadee song accompanying a sunrise; the radiant heat of a compost pile; in the intimate exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between us and plants.

These are the relational stories we have been discovering and delighting in together. The stories that we crave because they nourish, help us to heal, and are vital to larger biocultural repair. We could continue sharing these delights and revelations between each other and our small networks. But I know our hope is that this offering leads to more entanglement – more perfectly imperfect relationships – not less. That we spread out our roots, find new cross-pollinators, explore the shape of new relationships.

Years ago, singing the sweet song of seeds, you generously guided a bunch of clueless greenhorns through season after season on your farm. I can never thank you enough for taking the leap and opening yourself up to those relationships because it literally changed my life. Time and again, you – and the seeds – have shown me what it looks like to participate in this grand experiment of life – to become entangled and embodied beings.

So even though my voice shakes, even though I’m still figuring out what to “do” with my life, I’m honored to be on this journey of belonging with you and the seeds. Cheers to another decade of humor, curiosity, and conversation.

Abundant love,

Anna

9.29.2024 Dear Anna,

OK, here we go on this next adventure! I am so grateful to be in deep conversation and exploration with you, and planting this new seed of hope for what can come. In this intense time, you are one of the few people I know in real life who want to have these types of conversations—the ones we both believe with our whole hearts are vital if we are to find (or remember) a life-giving path forward here on planet earth. And you are also one of the few people I know in real life who is in an active practice of reorienting yourself toward seeking literal guidance for how to move forward from nonhuman beings as well.  

One of my favorite things about you is that you are a voracious seeker of information and ideas. I literally would not be the person I am today without our back-and-forth sharing of new books, podcasts, and other offerings from human teachers we’re finding to guide us and stretch our imaginations. These generous souls are sharing visions that invite us to grapple with gritty facts, to grieve immense losses, to ask impossible questions, and to reimagine a world of belonging for each of us. It is vital for me to be in a community of people who are actively chewing on and metabolizing these radical ideas into tactile acts adapted to our unique place on earth.

And you are so brilliant at developing relationships in place! Equally precious to me as our sharing of inspiring ideas is our time spent wandering through the foothills or the city streets, or scootin’ around on our little cross country skis, marveling at the tiny wonders around us. Mostly the plants, but also the insects and the fungi and all of the other things that I might otherwise overlook without your skillful and joyful noticing. This journey toward an ever-more embodied knowing of our belonging as natural creatures is one of the most sacred parts of my life.

As you know, I have spent the last five years of my life stepping out of the small spotlights that have been shined on me as a regional food- and seedshed grower, and devoting myself to listening and absorbing as much as I possibly can about how to be in right relationship with land and community as a white descendant of settler colonialists both in the larger white supremacist society of the US as a whole, and on an intimate, local level. Over these past five years, arm in arm with you, I have been grateful to have the opportunity to expand my perspectives to encompass not only our cultivated landscapes, but also the wild landscapes of our area, and to consider our right roles within them.

I have begun to feel the call again to stick my neck out and offer my voice to the collective struggle for a different way of understanding and organizing ourselves in a more public way. It feels scary to do this, because I am certain I have not arrived at a point of knowing exactly what to do, exactly how to be helpful. But right now, the choice to remain quiet (at least in any sort of “platform” type way) has started to feel less like allyship and more like privilege. I believe it is time to step back into the arena in a more public way, to try to give voice to these things that we are studying and doing in our private lives that feel potentially earth-shatteringly transformative—specifically for other white folks, but hopefully in service to the larger community of all beings with whom we are sharing this planet.

In naming the potential power in these learnings and practices, I’m calling us both forward to be brave in ways that are not comfortable for either of us. I’m calling on us to draw from the wisdom of the seeds we both adore and are intimately intertwined with. It feels at once too early and too late to be embarking on this new project. But this time is fertile soil. We of course can never know when we plant a seed with love if it will sprout. There is no guarantee that it will flourish even with our most devoted tending. But if we don’t plant it, we can never find out what will happen! Thank you for being on the journey with me!

With deep, deep love and respect,

Casey