Towards reverent curiosity while working towards repair & regeneration in a garden studio.

Waiting for Wings to Dry

To practice agroecology at the farm means to work the gardens a way that understands the neighboring forest as not just a resource, but a partner. This practice entails applying regenerative principles to agricultural production. In a small farm such as this, with circular gardens that trace the hillside overlooking Sable Mountain, the successful germination of a high yield crop is less important than fostering thoughtful relationship to this wooded land. Rather than serving large numbers, these vegetables in the hoop houses, grapes and hops draped at the arbor, berries trailing trellises, and the medicinal flowers and herbs all support a small family and provide a supplementary source of food to a small rural community. The goal here is to farm in a a cooperative way to the living ecosystem: to have the hemlocks in mind’s eye as we weed the squash patch and collect blossoms for a tart later. To harvest potatoes late in the day, mindful of soil temperature, reducing the stress to the teeming microbes deep in the loamy earth. To harvest in one step and to spread clover in the next so as to keep the soil safe from erosion. It is to mulch the anise hyssop and echinacea rows with the dry leaf litter under the shadow of the white birch. In learning to tend this land, I understand and take heed to my task: tend to the gardens as if the gardens were an extension of the forest—as if these gardens were the forest—as if I were the forest. 

And so, I was quite dismayed that when edging the garden while excitedly harvesting the lover-lies-bleeding and strawflower to create bouquets for an upcoming community event, another artist and I noticed that we knocked down the chrysalis of a monarch. We had been mindful not to harvest the milkweed, knowing full well the symbiotic relationship between milkweed and monarch. But knowing that monarch butterflies rely singularly on the milkweed plant to lay their eggs at the plant’s underside. With much of the monarch’s habitat fragmented and some of the remaining habitat poisoned with pesticides, it was hard to accept that my clumsy body may be the reason this monarch doesn’t emerge to continue her migration to Mexico. As it was late September in northern Vermont, I also understood that this particular monarch is fourth generation, and if she emerged, she’d be responsible for finishing the life’s work of the generation’s before her: to fly the 2,000 mile journey south. We’d already shaken the chrysalis up, and simply laying the chrysalis at the base of a plant didn’t seem sufficient. Instead, we resolved to try to hatch our new larvae friend using a clothespin suspended in a wide-mouthed ball jar, inside the screened shed so curious orioles may not see. 

I’m anxious to know if the fall has rendered the emergence impossible. If our attempts to repair our harm to the chrysalis will be fruitful. But I must trust the process. And while I’ve never seen the process—there are slight changes to the chrysalis that have me hopeful. In this waiting, I consider: A remarkable thing, a chrysalis, holding all of the imaginal cells, so that the butterfly may remember being a caterpillar—may remember all the maps and wisdom past generations have encoded. I’m on your timeline now, monarch—for when you release you.

We make a couple check ins, throughout the day. In two days, we see that the jade green chrysalis turns black with an emboldening golden ring at the top. In three days, the dark chrysalis grows almost translucent. We’re heartened now, that the metamorphosis is happening despite the harm. Four days later, with our check-ins turning hourly, we find that monarch has emerged, with wet wings, holding onto the chrysalis in which she’s emerged from. She’s already stretched and unfolded her body, pumping her wings so that when we find her. We worry the jar is too small, and without access to internet, we have not a clue to the timeline of of waiting for wet wings to dry. Later in the day of the emergence, we pull the clothespin from the jar and underneath a tent platform. We bring the milkweed plants to her, and using the hollow shedded piece of white birch park, we offer monarch a resting area where she may wait for her wings to dry. When we come back a few hours later, monarch is gone and imagine she’s found her way past the deciduous trees, along the coast of the Atlantic.

for when you release you, block-print on handmade milkweed paper, vials, milkweed silk and seed. 22.86 x 22.86cm.

flower essences being charged by sunlight and early morning dew: woodland sunflower, nasturtium, love-lies-bleeding, celosia, hydrangea, aster, bee balm, squash blossom, anise hyssop, zinnia, amaranth, morning glory, milkweed, Sweet Joe Pye-Weed, viola. 

During a month long artist residency, I participated in an off-grid land-work exchange, learning agroecology at Sable Farm, in the Green Mountains of VT within Wôbanakik (Dawn Land,) unceded territory of the Alnôbak/Abenaki (People of the Dawn Land.)

From the studio of a 10 ft x 10 ft tent platform, I made a commitment to make art centering two practices that seed-keeper and Indigenous Food Sovereignty activist, Rowen White names as “reverent curiosity and “intimate immensity” in her work.

It is through Rowen’s framework that I commit myself to spending time on the farm and in the forest by working closely with individual plants and leaning into the immensity of the worlds each being holds at this ecotone at the edges of this small farm and the Green Mountains Forest.

While at the farm, I learned to farm to support Sable’s CSA with exccess going to incarcerated individuals, harvest and prepare meals in relationship to garden work, build and maintain a compost, and make art and plant medicine in response to the agroecological farming practices that I was learning. 

Flower essences are a way of working with plant medicine in which water is infused with the the energy of a flower, stone, intention, a moment in time—then distilled by the light of the sun or moon. Essences are a gentle yet powerful medicine that works with ideas of resonance and vibrations to support energetics for emotional, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. Essences are different than other plant medicines like tinctures, that work with the physical constituents of a plant, and for this reason, are a gentle way of working with natural elements in a way that is low-impact as very little plant material or harvesting is needed.

The principle of resonance works with the idea that water holds memory and with the observational and relational study of individual plant’s healing qualities. The life force and signature of each flower is imbued in the water—creating a mother essence. Each plant holds a unique signature—based on how and where they grow, the pollinators they are in relationship to, the soil they are most suited for, their adaptations, their morphologies, their colors, and beyond. To work with flower esscence is to cast a spell with each dose of medicine.