A song for you.
December 2 2023 Work Party
November 18 2023 Work Party
“So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.” — Pema Chödrön
October 7 2023 Work Party
First meetings. Tree branches swoop to make swings. The forest swallows children, spits them out. A cardboard brigade. Small feet stomp mulch. The children become lost to the creek.
You arrive. We begin as we left off, the mulch pile moved, canes cut, root balls dug. Pill bugs and spiders scrabble over rick, dark earth, a dear long-toed salamander travels from glove to arm on ki‘s way to safe shelter. Canes moved by clipper, the last ripe blackberries of the season foraged, a heavy chain pulled from the brambles, a crushed frying pan declared non-native. Our time together inevitably comes to a close and most of you have ridden away, but you call from across the creek where you have nestled thirteen tiny Western red cedars here and there. You cross and we linger on on the slope among tangled roots, tangled relationships, tangled thoughts. None of the tension dissolves immediately, but there is relief in being witnessed. Together, we are healing more than just the earth.
September 9 2023 Work Party
We push back Himalayan blackberry regrowth in preparation for layered mulching. Forsythia and boxwood are trimmed, salmonberry and elderberry discovered under weeping brambles of blackberry. The weed wrench takes a stellar turn at pulling up bamboo, ferns are liberated from canes that have been hiding in their fronds. Ivy is pulled, knotweed surveyed, trash in the creek contemplated. So much is in our care.
July 22 2023 Work Party
You send your heartbeat 100 feet. Water sloshes from pails. You smile, your gaze steady, encouraging. I pull out tiny English hawthorn, ferret out fast-growing black locust hiding in the shade of towering cottonwoods, dig a horse chestnut on the verge of adolescence. We bear the heat and sun for the good of our first native plantings. There is refuge in the shade and in being with you.
July 1 2023 Work Party
Cleaver seeds ride along. English hawthorn fall. You point out the musical clatter of dry canes and sticks as they rake across the ground. Now I delight in it, too.
March 11 2023 Work Party
You arrive, the Elders arrive, two Christophers from Texas find their way to us through separate winding paths. We build protective cages, secure them with wooden stakes, pull ivy and wrestle Himalayan blackberry from the earth. Betty and Thelma race side-by-side through the muddy field to rest at the center of a prickly pile of English hawthorn branches. You hold a far-ranging course for two in science and nature and culture, maybe untangling a theory of everything beneath the osoberry blooms. I hear just enough to be intrigued, not enough to really know. We prop up a listing conifer. You snuggle Betty and Thelma, they gaze with beseeching eyes, give you sloppy kisses. Layers shed, skin scratched. Beautiful, watchful forest dog a witness to our comings and goings. How does this happen? How are we so lucky to be spinning through this universe together?
February 18 2023 Work Party
We worked to the soothing sounds of Swamp Creek, creating survival rings and pushing back against Himalayan blackberry. A raccoon observed from a wary distance, birds graced us with song. We learned about this place and each other. We grew. Together.
February 4 2023 Work Party
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” –Desmond Tutu
Thank you for being the light, my dear ones, and a wellspring of hope.
January 16 2023 Work Party MLK Jr Day of Service
“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking before the Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1968
It was an honor to serve alongside you. Thank you with every part of my being.