November

On November we hosted a grief retreat on El Día de los Muertos and we had our usual monthly work day. 

This was our 3rd time hosting one. It started as a response to the genocide in Palestine, opening up our space for those who needed to connect with nature to grieve and an opportunity for us to take care of those who needed to grieve in a communal way. Providing food and materials for rituals and altars. Some people like to engage in conversation, others prefer silence, some find remote areas to scream from the top of their lungs, others bring their own rituals, burn things or add them to the collective altar. 

It’s an honor to open up the space and provide simple sustaining elements like time spent outside and a shared meal while allowing the retreat to take whatever shape the participants need it to be. Grief takes time, and though it’s not as containable or schedulable  as other necessities added to our calendars-  we can make space for it so that we are not neglecting it/neglecting our sadness. Allowing ourselves to grieve openly creates space for deeper connection and solidarity with others.

In the context of "Emergent Strategy" by adrienne maree brown, grief is viewed as a powerful and necessary force for social change, a natural response to loss that can be harnessed to create deeper connection, vulnerability, and ultimately, a more just and equitable world.

Our last Grief Retreat held space for a lot of personal grieving. We made tea with special herbs for grieving, we planted lotus, ate soup, sat by the fire and made art. Thanks to everyone who joined us.

During our last work day in November we focused on opening up space in the nursery and continued our restoration work in the fen. Winter and Fall are the perfect seasons to clear invasive shrubbery and make room for the new native trees that will be planted in the Spring! 

We also added a platform to one of our ponds to make it easier to haul water - but also to take a quick dip in the long gone hot summer days! We are very excited about the possibility the nursery brings, especially after reading Silver Run Forest Farm’s article A Nursery Theory of Social Change - a nursery circulates and grounds abundant fertility in place like a seed bank, not for permanent accumulation but for seasonal redistribution: the point is to keep the gift moving!

Thanks to all the volunteers who showed up - we couldn’t do it without you!

Collective Altar at the Grief Retreat

Mike working on a platform to access water from one of our ponds.