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
