Hi Friend,

First: Sending blessings and care to everyone who is directly impacted and/or watching loved ones experience the wildfires in Southern California, the blizzards in D.C./North Carolina/Virginia/Oklahoma/Texas, and other manifestations of climate change x infrastructure that both contributes to and is not designed for this new era that we are now in. This email is not about that, but I want you to know that you are in my prayers.

My partner Krissy often shares with folks that for her people, who live in a place that is very cold for many months (the Tuscarora nation is located very close to Niagra Falls), winter is the time for seed-sorting. And for story-telling. And for fixing things, tool carving, making toys, and other activities that are suited for less light, cold days, snow-covered fields and forests, and more time indoors with family and community.

Seedsorting.

Too often, in our metaphors around beginnings and our (usually metaphorical, as humans think in metaphors and stories) planning for the future, there is a tendency to jump straight into the seedplanting stage.

I've seen this from leaders of retreats and online communities as well as from individuals thinking about their upcoming year/project/new initiatives. Even in the midst of winter, if they are starting something, there is a tendency to associate "beginnings" with "seedplanting."

Reflecting on this tendency, I am reminded of many generations of colonists, who regularly used the metaphor of "seedplanter" and "seedplanting" to describe colonial endeavors. For the English, one of the primary rituals claiming their discovery - and thus their ability to own - a new land was to literally plant a seed on it. The English are (in)famous for their love of gardens, and planting their own seeds (especially fruits and vegetables) was a commonly used way of expressing their "right" to the land. Seedplanting was also closely associated to the importance they attached to "improving" land. Other European colonists enacted other rituals - the Spanish, for example, tended to use ritualized speech (often including reading a pronouncement from on board their own ship) and piercing the ground with their sword and let the sword stand there and the French would have processions entering a particular area they were claiming possession of. If you are noticing that both of these rituals are pretty sexual, you are reading them correctly. ( They would also vehemently disagree with one another about which ritual was an "authentic" claim on the land.)

Listening to the land, thinking about the seeds themselves, carefully looking at what is already growing and already "here" - ecologically, socially, economically - were not a part of what it meant to engage in "discovery".

So I wonder how much our tendency to think that when we begin, we need to "plant a seed" is reminiscent of how "seedplanting" and rituals of "discovery" (linked today to all sorts of initiatives, many of them cool, including creative art projects, science, technology, projects to "make a difference in the world" etc.) came to be.

It's also possible that in our modern world, where so many people get their physical seeds from a packet (if they get seeds to plant at all), that people associate seeds with ‘the beginning"... and somehow as something that comes before all else. Really its more of a chicken-and-egg cycle. Of course, seeds do not actually come from packets. They come from plants. As any seedsaver knows, after harvesting and eating the vegetable/fruit/plant, people take the seeds from those plants, prepare them, and then, of necessity, sort them. This whole process often (though not always) happens in between growing cycles. Then -and only when the ground is ready - do they plant. 

So a critical step - possibly the first step of the cycle of growing is... often some version of sorting and caring for the seeds themselves. And the soil.  Examining the seeds. Planning what you are going to plant this year. Did you like that particular variety of tomato and squash? Maybe this year you got a lot of pumpkin seeds but the birds ate all of your sunflower seeds. Can you trade with a neighbor? Seed festivals - places where farmers/growers can trade seeds and acquire seeds - are essential and vibrant parts of regenerative societies.

And Soil-nurture is really important! what's already there? Previous seeds? (Oh dear I think I forgot to plant more bulbs!)

I don't think it is an understatement to say that our culture (metaphorically) rushes into planting new seeds - and takes a lot less time thinking about the soil that supports those seeds, the importance of sorting seeds, the care needed in caring for seeds (is it being stored in the right place? Will the mice find all the seeds?), the role of trading (not just selling!) seeds, etc.

Metaphorically, too many people are asked to constantly produce - which means constantly planting new seeds, as well as forcing a fast harvest. This echoes the agricultural trends in GMO-orientated agriculture, which also focuses on over-production.

Here's an additional caveat to this discussion: I've been focusing on agricultural metaphors here. But I want to really encourage all of us to lean into metaphors that engage the whole ecosystem. Cultivating an environmental consciousness is not about everyone having a garden! Indeed, indigenous practices in North America included gardens - but where so much more. They included shaping rivers, streambeds, forests, waterways, ponds, fisheries, kelp forests, the Great Plains/vast grasslands.... as Dr Lyla June Johnson pointed out in her dissertation (and which we talked about on this podcast episode, "Architects of Abundance"), regenerative food systems and bio-cultures in North and South America were designed for all of life (not just for human consumption) and went far, far beyond local gardens. I think returning to that kind of thinking - not just about an ecosystem but about foodways and fireways and larger ecological patterns - is going to be critical to our collective survival. Towards that end, our poetics, as well as our practices, need to expand.

Our metaphors matter. They shape how we see ourselves and our actions. They also shape our understanding of the natural world, and help prepare us for what that world requires of us.

I myself am in the midst of doing some metaphorical seed sorting this winter. I'm looking at what I gathered and harvested and what was gifted to me this past year - really so much beautiful abundance! - and I'm going through the seeds from those endeavors. Sometimes that includes figuring out what part is the seed and what part is the flesh - maybe yummy, but not what I'm going to plant in the future.

In the next few weeks, I'll be sharing from some of the experiences and gatherings I contributed to in the last few months, focusing on those that I think will be of interest to you. Maybe it's my version of sharing some of my seeds with my neighbors: look, here is some of what I've gathered, and I'm thinking of planting these again in the future.

Of course, I'm using my own circular calendar (in addition to mind mapping) as part of my process for doing this. I also keep learning from the tools that I am teaching. We’ve got a few spots left - including a new session on Monday jan 13, which is a full moon, that we opened up! 

Part of that seed sorting includes looking at how I want to offer things this year - including my 1-1 work. I love the 1-1 work I do with individuals. But what do I call it? sometimes I call it "spiritual direction"? "leadership development"?  "coaching? So this week I had a mini focus-group wherein some of the people who work with me 1-1 about how to frame this work. Language around "wise counsel" and (Quaker-informed) "eldering" also rose to the surface. I admit: I am both drawn to and repulsed by words like "wise" - who am I to call myself that? But it is something that others often call me. So - words and language usage is part of my seed sorting. And so are much bigger things. 

Right now, as I write this, the wind blows strong; according to my weather app it feels like 7 degrees outside. So I am also sensing, as I write and paint and cook soup and engage in other forms of wintering, on the many ways in which the world is changing - including this uptick in climate change. What kinds of teaching, journeying, and structures of support will be most supportive for all of you? There are many seeds to sort, and much soil to consider.

I hope that in what I share in the next few weeks there will be that which will support your own discernment.

Maybe you'll want to join in on some aspect of this forest I'm tending, in which there are multiple stages of growth. And a lot of groves.

Many blessings- 

Sara Jolena 

We have three more sessions this month for circular time! Please do join us!