In Us Lies an Entire Landscape

We aren't intended to be one thing in this life, but find all the parts that make up the ecosystem that is who we are intended to be.

I have spent nearly 2 years back in school. This week I am closing that chapter of reimaginging my career through education. I submitted my final project for my Permaculture Design Certificate at Cornell University, and I have been humbled by the experience of being a student once again. A PDC isn’t hard to achieve, but in true fashion of choosing a school like Cornell to obtain it from, it was a mountain of reading, education absorption, notes, pushing my skills to new levels, and exercising muscles of learning I hadn’t used in years.

My life has been absorbed in inhaling land and reading its patterns through the lens of Permaculture, and now sitting at the end, I feel it is just the beginning of this way of thinking about not just land but our world.

I have struggled in the moment of learning everything to know how to apply the thinking, patterns, and practices into life fully, but now, finishing and working on my final reflection and self-evaluation, I am seeing that Permaculture thinking will be the base of my perspective on living in this world. Permaculture has taught me immense things about working with soil and designing plant systems. Things that have taught me how to look at the way it all has been done, and then flip it on its head. I do it often when it comes to planting systems for clients, but I am realizing Permaculture has made a constant voice in asking, Why do we continue to do it that way? What if it were done differently? Would that be better? Would it be more just? What stands in the way?

The curiosity I have birthed in going back to school as a late 30s adult has brought me new perspectives about self, the world, and how we aren’t designed to simply continue the way we always were. Instead, we can reshape our truth at any point. We can transform and evolve when it is right for us to do so. If anything, going back to school it has taught me a new perspective on resiliency (have you tried going to school, working, and raising kids?!?!) in myself as well as strength, pace, and patience for the process. I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, but sitting here putting in my final maps for this project, I see every bit of me thriving in these designs. I see the designer in me, the typographer, the nature lover, the gardener, the season observer, the artist, the deep curiosities I silently ponder, the dyslexic thinking, the big picture vision, and a desire to make the world more beautiful and whole. It all plays its part in the scribbles.

Though I see that this version of me I have discovered in this process, which I am holding with such gratitude and reverence, isn’t easily marked into a box in the world. I see just like I did in permaculture that what makes a good ecosystem or a whole design system are the many interconnected parts. I see it now. I see it in myself. The world tells us we must be one thing in the world, when permaculture tells us we can be many things that are connected to form something unique and important in the greater ecosystem. I no longer see the need to fit in a box, but instead that my individuality and all the parts of me as a human is an ecosystem all its own. It has allowed me to love and embrace myself and value in the world in a way that previously I struggled to feel okay with. There was never the right box for me, and now I no longer want to be placed in any one place. I love being an ecosystem of things that create who I am. In me lies an entire landscape.

If the last few years have given me anything, other than the layers of understanding of Permaculture and its principles, ethics, and solutions. It has also given me confidence in being exactly who I am. It has taught me love. Love of nature, self, the greater human existence, and the web we are all connected to.

I don’t want to say this email will be about Permaculture from now on, but it will be based on the thought process of what is best for Earth and Humans equally, while considering giving back and equal distribution of any resource of any kind. I plan to work from that base in my writing. I want to ask what a Regenerative life truly looks like in the most modern and real way. Not just in our use of resources, but in what we leave in our legacy as well. I want to ponder these things and ask to see them in new ways. It’s been a deep thought festering these last few months. So that is where we will begin to wander with the words shared here.

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Every season, I make a new playlist, and with the beginning of spring comes a playlist as well. I love taking time to make these lists and pull together new sounds for your season, and selfishly, I love it for myself, too. I hope it brings a good background sound to your season ahead.

You can find it on Spotify.

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The Tip I Live By In Spring

I get asked a lot about timing in the garden. When do we plant things? One of the things that I have learned through the years of not tilling is that the soil tells you exactly when to plant things. Just this week, when sifting through the soil and finding what needed to be there and what didn’t this coming year, I discovered all sorts of sowed seeds from last year’s plants.

What these sowed seeds tell me is about timing. First of all, they mean I can sow the thing that is coming up. If it has sprouted, then it is good to be directed seeded. Nature knows better than we do, without a doubt. Secondly, if you look at what other things time around that plant, then you know what else can be seeded or planted out as well. So, for instance, cilantro was up and sprouted, which means I could also sow carrots, peas, and for sure Kale (as a sprout).

This is one of many reasons I advocate for people not to till in their gardens. When we till, we eliminate the opportunity for the land to speak to us. We also destroy the ecosystem in the soil and then create a disturbed site best suited to weed pressure. I for one would not till solely to know the timing of my own soil spoken to me by the plants themselves. It’s a beautiful thing to learn the language through observation in your soil.

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Smitten with this look from Garmentory

On my mind this week

Just some things happening and that I am thinking of lately:

• Patchy Pants: I actually burst my favorite work pants this last week. I am debating if they are fixable. It was sort of a real laugh because it happened on a butt pocket and I was glad I had a sweatshirt to cover, but now I am debating how to secure and fix them because I still love them! I am loving the look of patched pants, especially on the knees.

• Alyssa Smith’s New Work: My dear friend,

  Alyssa Smith
  , was recently released and I am so smitten with it. It feels so spring-like and new in this beautiful way. She has such emotion and story in her landscapes, I love sitting with them. I thought you all would enjoy as well.

• Natural and Low Intervention Wines: I am not sure how many of you wine drinkers know the number of things that can go into a bottle of wine without you being told about it…but I, for the last few years have committed to only natural, low intervention, biodynamic, or organically grown wines. The industry is poised for a major shift in the coming years because people want transparency, and I am observing it closely. I don’t drink much, but I really appreciate a good wine that celebrates the land.

• Habitat for Bugs: Yes, these are things that run through my brain. I saw so many ideas in England when I was last there. I cannot wait to play some out in our own garden in the coming years.

• Gregory Alan Isakov: I have been deep in listening to Gregory this spring. Maybe it’s his calm voice or obvious connection to the soil. I love his sound and rarely dislike a song he makes. It has been the background to much of my work lately.

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The spring guide is here! It is for our paid subscribers so if you aren’t one yet, you can get a discount below to join and get access to a new guide every season. I have big updates coming to the summer one so sign up now.