In late 2019, my partner and I conceived a garden. Rooted in dusty recollections of summer gardening with grandparents, our memories animated a vision that inevitably turned out differently than imagined; as reality eventually supplanted the dream, we found ourselves heading into territory unknown.
Although the garden was initially intuited as a project of reconnection, propelled by silent desires to dispel an abiding sensation of ever-present anonymity, the garden evolved into much more in short order. One after another, wonders revealed themselves amidst tomato hedges and bean rows, and slowly we grew in relation to the mysteries of life: birth, death, memory, time, stillness, sight, knowing, unknowing, joy, grief, submission, grace, and – ultimately – the synthesis of all these, pointing toward something greater, intimating a road yet to be traveled, a journey barely begun.
More than a manual on how to produce food, the garden has become an act of reclamation – spiritual, physical, emotional – as we seek the wisdom to live well during our brief but wondrous time here on this Earth.
Natalie Long is somewhere between what she has been, and what she is becoming. Unfinished and still rough around the edges, Natalie hopes to be worthy some day of being considered a bread baker, gardener, and writer of greater-than-mediocre quality. In the meantime, she practices environmental law, and does her level best to fulfill the most important roles to which she has been assigned, those of student, daughter, sister, partner, and friend.
Join us
Sunday 13 December
Natalie begins sharing 7:00 p.m. Central Time
Via Zoom
Email markjchmiel@gmail.com for URL
