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An Intimate relationship with Earth

An Intimate relationship with Earth

By megan spencer February 13, 2021 February 13, 2021

“You seem very close to the earth, how does one come to that place?”
Innocence, Consciousness and Conscience

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sacredgardener

Seeding earth wisdom since 1989.
Home of The Sacred Gardener School.
Wildculturing ~ Co-create ~ Wildcrafting
We're on Patreon!

The Sacred Gardener
The Sacred Gardener School is for those inspired t The Sacred Gardener School is for those inspired to move into a deeper level of being; to live in a connected, sustainable and soulfully present way with the Earth. 

The school will foster your growth over time, enabling you to embody the living skills and ceremony needed to engage the larger spirit and ecology of the Earth, so She may bless and redirect our collective and personal path. 

Many pieces must be in place for these teachings to unfold within us. To move into this deeper sacred space and then to be able to carry the knowledge in our life, takes years of personal work, a supportive community and guidance from elders who have gone through the transformation. The continuance of the Sacred Gardener School will afford our soul these gifts. 

The School and land Herself give students safety and nourishment to grow into a thick grape vine, that flows up, through and over the spiny armature of our life, bringing beauty and bearing heavy fruit.

#animism #sacredgardener
We feel that it's deeply important to support what We feel that it's deeply important to support what we believe in, and one of those ways is to donate money. 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-giwaabamins-free-herbal-clinic

In Toronto, there is a free street clinic run by Cathy Zhoong D'eh Kwe (Strong Hearted Woman), Giwaabamin Street Patrol. The need for her services is incredible, and should be publicaly funded. It's not, so she relies heavily on the generosity of the extended community to support the clinic. Offering herbal care for homeless folks should be considered an essential service; so many have chronic, often multiple health issues that can't be well or fully cared for by our public health care system, not to mention the need for culturally sensitive, integrated care. 

From her gofundme: 

Cathy founded Giwaabamin because even while the number of natives experiencing houselessness was overrepresented, the number of native workers was very low. She saw the need to bring Indigenous representation to community-based healthcare that was also inclusive of traditional medicines and ceremonies. Though Giwabaamin is still focused on supporting Indigenous community members, the program has expanded to include all street-involved folks. Throughout the pandemic, Cathy has been visiting encampments, COVID hotels, and people's homes to drop off care packages and medicines. Giwaabamin was run out of pocket by Cathy, with additional support from community donations like clothing, food and apothecary supplies and herbal supplies. Through Giwaabamin, Cathy offers free medicine, hot food, artisan teas, hospital aftercare, immune support, covid and wound care, and now Accudetox. She also firmly believes in using herbs to support those in active use or while they are in recovery. The clinic provides clients with the healthcare they want and need, free from racism, judgment or classist biases, with values heavily rooted in harm reduction.

Consider offering what you can to support. 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-giwaabamins-free-herbal-clinic

@giwaabamin #streetclinic #healthcareforhomeless #accessiblehealthcare #freestreetclinic #herbalstreetclinic
"I love to watch a field as it grows back in as it "I love to watch a field as it grows back in as it’s healed by the plants. 

I’ve learned most of what I know about polyculture by watching field’s natural successions, as they slowly move over time, from grassland to hardwood forest. 

The land regenerates with successive healers in the form of plants. Each plant has a time and place in this healing process. It’s such a beautiful thing to see this procession through the years, a glorious green parade of healers. It’s amazing to think that some people think of these gifts as noxious “weeds”. 

The herbs and pioneer trees in these clearings come by many means. They come by the wind, birds and rodents, ungulates and predators. 

Many plants were also spread from domestic farm animals, both wittingly and unwittingly brought, as an essential part of the settler’s existence." 

-From "The Story of the Madawaska Forest Garden" by Steven Martyn

Get your copy of Steven's books, link in bio. 

#polyculture #wildculturing #cocreativegardening #succession #forestregeneration #wildgardening #learningfromnature #deeptime #animism #forestgarden #forestgardening
Coming up August 13 the Wakefield Herb Gathering! Coming up August 13 the Wakefield Herb Gathering! Early bird fee is available until June 30. Link in bio to get your ticket!

Come be part of this special day long festival with twelve workshops by herbalists and plant lovers, three herb walks, story telling & music gratefully held on the unceded territory of the Anishnaabe Algonquin Nation.

Both Steven and Megan will be offering workshops. 

Healing Long Covid - Steven Martyn

In this workshop we will look at herbs and foods for treating long Covid, specifically with GI track complications. 

Intuitive Healing With Herbs - Steven Martyn

In this workshop, as a group, we will do an intuitive 'reading' with one or two living herbs, exploring there physical indicators (Doctrine of signatures) as well as their spiritual essence. 

Creating Bioregional wildcrafted spices, salts and condiments - Megan Spencer

A demonstration on creating Bioregional wildcrafted spices, salts and condiments and how to add them to your daily meals.

More details on our workshops and all the other incredible offerings on the Herb gathering website. 

#wakefield #herbgathering #ontarioherbalists #quebecherbalists #100milemedicine
Wildculturing is arguably the ‘proto’ form of Wildculturing is arguably the ‘proto’ form of agriculture. 

Where the forager meets the farmer. Where we work to co-create an intense foraging 
area of productive local plants. 

By local I mean naturalized or native 
plants that can hold their own.

These wildcultured, polyculture-fields are productive for many years with very little input needed, gifting us with beauty and fecundity. 

These gorgeous environments not only give us food and medicine but they 
are a boon for a massive range of moths, butterflies, bees and other insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and even a few herbivores that brave the dogs at night. 

It creates habitat for these friends who have 
been part of this ecology for far longer than I.

The older footage in this instalment is from a time when I was more 
focused on herb production for tea then I am now but it is all still 
relevant to my present practices. Both gardens in this footage are 
zeroscaped, meaning this abundance is created without watering.

View the full video and upcoming series on wildculturing : Field Polyculture when you join our Patreon at any tier. Check out the link in our bio. 

#wildculturing #polyculture #gardening #zeroscape #perennial #regenerative #nativeplants #naturalizedplants
For humans, foraging isn't just some side thing th For humans, foraging isn't just some side thing that we did before we
came up with Agriculture. Rather, foraging forms the very basis of who we
are and what we've done from the start. 

Even before we'd learned to make shelter or fire and long before we learnt 
to hunt and make specialized tools for processing animals during 
"the Stone Age" we were foragers. 

During this course, as you move toward being more of a forager I
encourage you to feel the clear and direct physical link to our ancient
ancestral way of life and even to our origin as humans. 

Foraging and informal methods of 'gardening' form a continuum that 
has enabled us to live well all over the Earth, in some places for nearly 
half a million years.

When we reclaim this archaic path we reclaim our place here on Earth.
Not as colonists, not as takers, but as human beings, as co-creators of
culture and fecundity.

Link in bio for more info or to join. 

#seeding #seedingabeautifulfuture #foraging #wildculture #polyculture #archaic #human
Join us for The Sacred Gardener School starting in Join us for The Sacred Gardener School starting in May. 
Generous words from some who have come: 

"The experience of being with Steven and Megan and with others at the Sacred Gardener school is deeply embedded in my human DNA. I felt a belonging and was seen and heard during these times in a way that has not been matched elsewhere. Learning proper etiquette and ways of approaching the plant and unseen world serves one in so many ways. I highly recommend spending time around the fire with these fine humans." - Barb 

"I was standing ankle-deep in the cold wet mud when it hit me. As the slick, soft earth seeped between my toes, my senses heightened in anticipation and absolute presence.

Every cell of my body said: “Pay attention to this.” I watched my companions on their knees in the mud, struggling to wrangle the treasure of Cattail buds, then radiate with joy upon securing them. There was a childlike wonder in the thrill of mucking about, a scientist’s curiosity about the ebb and flow of wetlands and the different uses of Cattails and then there was the fellowship. In that moment, I felt a deep visceral knowing: this is the way we were meant to be.

Together. Foraging together, preparing food together, learning, eating, mourning and celebrating together.

I was studying with my teacher Steven Martyn, in Golden Lake, at the Sacred Gardener School. We were there to learn about medicinal plants, medicine making, foraging, and homesteading.

But more than anything we were there to explore something much greater; to learn how to listen to the land and to remember our rightful place with her. Although the official school is a two-year program, in truth the learning that was initiated could not but otherwise continue through to our dying days and beyond. Moving through and perhaps beyond the depth and breadth of our (de)colonization is the work of generations. And so, in graduating we were gifted with the necessity to humbly show up and step back over and over again." -Kelly

Join us in May, there is still room for you. 

#reconnect #animism #lettinglandlead #sacredgardening #forage #wildcrafting #communionwithnature #morethanhumanworld
Instagram post 17997408355689986 Instagram post 17997408355689986

sacredgardener

Seeding earth wisdom since 1989.
Home of The Sacred Gardener School.
Wildculturing ~ Co-create ~ Wildcrafting
We're on Patreon!

The Sacred Gardener
The Sacred Gardener School is for those inspired t The Sacred Gardener School is for those inspired to move into a deeper level of being; to live in a connected, sustainable and soulfully present way with the Earth. 

The school will foster your growth over time, enabling you to embody the living skills and ceremony needed to engage the larger spirit and ecology of the Earth, so She may bless and redirect our collective and personal path. 

Many pieces must be in place for these teachings to unfold within us. To move into this deeper sacred space and then to be able to carry the knowledge in our life, takes years of personal work, a supportive community and guidance from elders who have gone through the transformation. The continuance of the Sacred Gardener School will afford our soul these gifts. 

The School and land Herself give students safety and nourishment to grow into a thick grape vine, that flows up, through and over the spiny armature of our life, bringing beauty and bearing heavy fruit.

#animism #sacredgardener
We feel that it's deeply important to support what We feel that it's deeply important to support what we believe in, and one of those ways is to donate money. 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-giwaabamins-free-herbal-clinic

In Toronto, there is a free street clinic run by Cathy Zhoong D'eh Kwe (Strong Hearted Woman), Giwaabamin Street Patrol. The need for her services is incredible, and should be publicaly funded. It's not, so she relies heavily on the generosity of the extended community to support the clinic. Offering herbal care for homeless folks should be considered an essential service; so many have chronic, often multiple health issues that can't be well or fully cared for by our public health care system, not to mention the need for culturally sensitive, integrated care. 

From her gofundme: 

Cathy founded Giwaabamin because even while the number of natives experiencing houselessness was overrepresented, the number of native workers was very low. She saw the need to bring Indigenous representation to community-based healthcare that was also inclusive of traditional medicines and ceremonies. Though Giwabaamin is still focused on supporting Indigenous community members, the program has expanded to include all street-involved folks. Throughout the pandemic, Cathy has been visiting encampments, COVID hotels, and people's homes to drop off care packages and medicines. Giwaabamin was run out of pocket by Cathy, with additional support from community donations like clothing, food and apothecary supplies and herbal supplies. Through Giwaabamin, Cathy offers free medicine, hot food, artisan teas, hospital aftercare, immune support, covid and wound care, and now Accudetox. She also firmly believes in using herbs to support those in active use or while they are in recovery. The clinic provides clients with the healthcare they want and need, free from racism, judgment or classist biases, with values heavily rooted in harm reduction.

Consider offering what you can to support. 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-giwaabamins-free-herbal-clinic

@giwaabamin #streetclinic #healthcareforhomeless #accessiblehealthcare #freestreetclinic #herbalstreetclinic
"I love to watch a field as it grows back in as it "I love to watch a field as it grows back in as it’s healed by the plants. 

I’ve learned most of what I know about polyculture by watching field’s natural successions, as they slowly move over time, from grassland to hardwood forest. 

The land regenerates with successive healers in the form of plants. Each plant has a time and place in this healing process. It’s such a beautiful thing to see this procession through the years, a glorious green parade of healers. It’s amazing to think that some people think of these gifts as noxious “weeds”. 

The herbs and pioneer trees in these clearings come by many means. They come by the wind, birds and rodents, ungulates and predators. 

Many plants were also spread from domestic farm animals, both wittingly and unwittingly brought, as an essential part of the settler’s existence." 

-From "The Story of the Madawaska Forest Garden" by Steven Martyn

Get your copy of Steven's books, link in bio. 

#polyculture #wildculturing #cocreativegardening #succession #forestregeneration #wildgardening #learningfromnature #deeptime #animism #forestgarden #forestgardening
Coming up August 13 the Wakefield Herb Gathering! Coming up August 13 the Wakefield Herb Gathering! Early bird fee is available until June 30. Link in bio to get your ticket!

Come be part of this special day long festival with twelve workshops by herbalists and plant lovers, three herb walks, story telling & music gratefully held on the unceded territory of the Anishnaabe Algonquin Nation.

Both Steven and Megan will be offering workshops. 

Healing Long Covid - Steven Martyn

In this workshop we will look at herbs and foods for treating long Covid, specifically with GI track complications. 

Intuitive Healing With Herbs - Steven Martyn

In this workshop, as a group, we will do an intuitive 'reading' with one or two living herbs, exploring there physical indicators (Doctrine of signatures) as well as their spiritual essence. 

Creating Bioregional wildcrafted spices, salts and condiments - Megan Spencer

A demonstration on creating Bioregional wildcrafted spices, salts and condiments and how to add them to your daily meals.

More details on our workshops and all the other incredible offerings on the Herb gathering website. 

#wakefield #herbgathering #ontarioherbalists #quebecherbalists #100milemedicine
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