Who Are We?
About the Author (and one of the partner gardeners)
The best way to describe myself is to describe why I do this, a separate piece that probably gives the best appreciation for who I am.
Beyond that, at my core, I’m a gardener and a teacher. Few things give me more joy than those two endeavors. But why I do this is more than that.
My core also contains deeper tenets of self-determination and reverence for each part of the created world—both those clearly living and those less so, the rocks, the rivers, and trees that Maya Angelou so eloquently describes—that lead me back to gardening as the most powerful action I can take and teaching it as the most powerful gift I can give.
Immersed in nurturing plants and learning about the natural world from as early as I could interact, learning bird songs before colors and winter tree identification before multiplication, was all part of my glorious induction into the worlds of the two-green-thumbed gardeners and students of the natural world bestowed upon my by my loving father. Being someone who’s found peace, tranquility, and wholeness in those pursuits, to say I was lucky is clearly an understatement. Even more importantly, however, his teachings and example have set the stage for me sharing these experiences with those kindred spirits with similar aspirations and yearnings but who weren’t as lucky.
I believe, somewhere in our hearts, we all share the twin desires to have our hands in the dirt and grow some of our own food. It’s our birthright that harkens all the way back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Although our hearts still long to express these skills as if they were vestigial parts of ourselves, severed appendages we can almost feel with a ghost itch, many of us have lost our link to this birthright simply because no one passed this knowledge on to us. Some links in that chain may be broken now, but I hope to remedy it as simply as I can: by helping those newer to the craft to learn to grow in themselves and in their gardens and reminding those more experienced to remember to focus on the most important parts first—and to be gentle with themselves if they feel they fail. I can think of no cause I’d rather spend my life undertaking than to mend and reforge those sacred bonds.
About the Photographer (and one of the partner gardeners)
Like my father, at her core, Jen sees and appreciates beauty—and lives to share that, and the immense joy it brings, with everyone around her. She regularly stops me in my tracks, noticing something I would never have seen that transports us both to another place and a fuller joyous appreciation of the world and the beauty it contains.
I’ll leave to rest of this explanation of herself and her reasons to her, ready when she is.