<aside> 👋🏻 Welcome friends! This is an introductory guide to cultivating a growing space through the lens of building relationships with all aspects of the gardening experience.
Our goal is to provide some resources to inspire you to get in the garden and understand a whole approach that integrates connection with the land with personal health and empowerment. This guide was inspired by our webinar events with Deb Soule and her new BotanicWise Program, the Whole Garden.
First we’ll explore the importance of acknowledging the land we work with and on, as well as our teachers; moving into understanding the need to create a relationship with the spirit of soil and the generous wisdom of the seeds we sow (with suggestions on where to source your seeds), and finally we’ll provide you with a boatload of book recommendations that you can choose from based on what calls to you!
So, let’s dig in! At the bottom I’ve included details about our brand new online program, starting just after the Equinox – The Whole Garden. Enroll in time for our first live session on March 22nd. → More details here.
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🗓 Free Webinar with Deb Soule, Tuesday, March 15th
→ Register here to join us live
<aside> 📎 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Before we begin, we’d like to invite you to bring a moment of ceremony and sacredness to your learning experience.
Each time we step into the role of student, we are connecting with the wisdom keepers who came before us as well as the inherent intelligence of the land we’re on.
So if you feel called, please take a moment to light a candle, sit quietly for a few breaths, and set the intention to open your heart and allow yourself connect with whatever information is most important for your learning experience at this time.
A map of what is popularly known as North America from the website native-land.ca
Just like with meeting a new friend, before any meaningful relationship with a garden can begin, introductions must be made. One way to say “hello” to the land you’re working with in the process is through the practice of Land Acknowledgement.
Particularly here in what is now called the United States, we are speaking to understanding who the Indigenous peoples of the land are. These are the communities that tended, cared for, and cultivated relationships with the spaces we now live our lives upon.
There is a wonderfully helpful resource available at https://native-land.ca/ to learn the names of the original people and tribes of the land you now call home.
As Deb has shared, she lives in the territory of the Wabanaki people — known as the people of the dawn and comprised of the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot. The land where she lives, which is unceded, is now known as Maine.
If you're unfamiliar with the territories of where you live, we would like to encourage you to pull up this map and to take up that work of learning — learning the history of the peoples, the territories that we are in, and also beginning to really take up the work of repair and reciprocity, which is so important in this time that we're in.
It's also important to acknowledge the ongoing struggle for independence and self-determination for native peoples in this continent. Along with land acknowledgement you can make efforts to learn about and support organizations in your area working toward healing and justice.