“Since that momentous colonization of land 450 million years ago, when the first moss set leaf on rock, everything on Earth has changed. All those species, entire phyla–gone. And yet, the mosses are still here, their contemporary form indistinguishable from their fossil ancestors. They have drunk from the fountain of youth, or maybe the fountain of longevity, flourished beneath a sky of pterodactyls, and flourish today under a sky of weather satellites that tell us the oceans are rising and the ice caps are melting.
All things pass away. Oh, lovely, cool shaded maples, towering pines, waving grass, and extravagant lilies, will you, too, pass away in this overheated greenhouse, yielding to the ones who are yet to come?
…At this time of the sixth extinction, might we stop wringing our hands long enough to sit quietly at the feet of the ones who have avoided every era of extinction since the dawn of life on land?”
Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Ancient Green: Moss, Climate, and Deep time”
Related articles i’ve written
An autumn poem I wrote is featured on the Little Bluestem Poetry Page
Dark Night of the Soil: Restoring the Human-Humus Relationship
Kinky Roots: What Tree Transplanting and Trauma Can Teach Us
Meet the Mushrooms: Giant Puffballs
Meet the Mushrooms: Chicken of the Woods
If you use Instagram, I do occasionally update my “plants&flowers” highlight reel with plants I am currently tending or am excited about.
Useful Links
The Lost Forest Gardens of Europe
How to grow liveable worlds: Ten (not-so-easy) steps for life in the Planthroposcene by Natasha Myers
Mary Reynolds on being an Arkevist
Propagating native plants from seed
on my reading shelf as of late:
Body and Earth: An Experiential Guide by Andrea Olsen
Botany in a Day by Thomas J. Elpel
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
Forgotten Fires by Omer C. Stewart
Energetic Herbalism by Kat Maier
Rivers of Wind by Ben Kessler
This Very Ground, this Crooked Affair: A Mennonite Homestead on Lenape Land by John L. Ruth
groups&people to support/join/learn with, who have taught/are teaching me well!
Little Bluestem (Central VA, cultivating bioregional resilience)
Center for Urban Habitats/Piedmont Discovery Center (local biodiversity education and research efforts)
Lyrra Magda (Mid-atlantic and Southeast folk botany, hide tanning, fiber arts, and more)
Wild Altar Farmstead (Central VA, ecosystem stewardship, food sovereignty, arts and crafts, community and embodiment)
Leapfrog Programs (Western MA nature connection and skills education)
Mobile Moon Coop (Femme and queer-led collective aiding communities and ecosystems)
New Moon Mycology Summit/The Mycelium Underground (Environmental and Social Justice)
