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The Sacred Gardener
The Sacred Gardener
Golden Lake, Ontario
 
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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
This picture is of a stump, from a sugar Maple tre This picture is of a stump, from a sugar Maple tree I cut down. Usually stumps are portrayed as a symbols of destruction, of barrenness. Acts like cutting trees and killing animals makes most of us ‘modern’ people feel a degree of inner angst and dismay, because we’ve only seen these acts done in such a dishonourable way. But, we need wood and food. These takings sustain us and so, should be practiced in the most sacred and careful way possible. And, as you can see in this picture, these acts can be done in a good way that fosters life. This stump is not only anchoring the earth and stopping erosion, but is feeding all the life in the soil and plants around her. A whole moss ecology and a yellow birch seedling live right on her, helping in her glorious decay. She lives in the plump roots of the edible ephemeral trout lilies that carpet the forest floor around her in the spring. The eight year old Maple stump also feeds some edible Canada lilies I planted close by, and a butternut tree behind her. She feeds the large leafed wild shrub beside her called Hobblebush. Hobblebush is an understory ‘shrub’ that can exist in the low light of the understory with its big leaves. She got her name because she hobbles overtime by falling over and rooting to slowly spread. But if she is given direct light, such as the clearing I made, she literally flourishes. She flowers and produces the most exquisite fruit I’ve ever had. She grasps the opportunity of the opening in the forest canopy to quickly spread through the clearing and beyond. The deep purple fruits taste tropical, like butterscotch custard! Birds love them, so the fruit gets quickly eaten up and planted with bit of fertilizer. All this miracle of growth can only happen if we are able to honour and recognized the rights of the land and plants, while taking with deep gratitude the things that we need like wood, food and medicine. From Steven's book, "The Story of the Madawaska Forest Garden". Available through our website, link in bio. #forestgarden #farmthewoods #polyculture #permaculture #cocreate
Primrose is a common edible weed. Roots in sprin Primrose is a common edible weed. Roots in spring, greens, flowers, seed pods and seeds. These days we add flowers to our salads and for the first time, we’re going to try pickling the young seed pods. What are you experimenting with this year? Learn more about how to identify, cultivate, harvest and prepare primrose along with many other weeds through our Patreon membership, link in our bio. #weeds #cultivate #primrose #foodpreservation #pickling #wildculture #polyculture
Richness This time of year, as September’s sha Richness This time of year, as September’s shadow lengthens, I always feel a bittersweet edge in my heart. There is a richness like no other time of year, but you know it’s not going to last. In the equation of this mad northern existence where we basically have six months of winter, this time of year balances months of scarcity and harshness. Every day I carry back to the farm house baskets and bushels of the land’s gifts, the living jewels of herbs, fruit and vegetables to be stored and preserved, each in its own best suited manner. While some might say that the richness of this bounty came from my labours, I know better, because some years I might have worked as hard and not drawn as much from the land. This richness comes form the Earth Herself, from the spirits that weave life from the elements, from the cooperation of all the layers of life from the microbes and fungi to the other wild plants and animals, from the Gods and Goddesses of wind, sunlight, heat and rain. Each vegetable has its own unique story as well as its species history, some stretching back for thousands of years. Each is a story of where that particular seed was planted, how the plant grew and worked with the ecology and spirits. When we eat a being like this we feel the connection to its long ancestral story back to ancient times in Europe or the Americas when Native people first bred that plant or animal. We are part of its story after the point when we started growing that particular vegetable, where we got it from and on and on. I have had a personal relationship with every plant and animal in our food, some for twenty or more years. How we work with the Earth and Her plants that sustain us, forms the basis of culture. While this might seem overly simple, I think history proves out the truth of this connection; In that when we care and deeply appreciate where our food comes from and approach the Earth in thankfulness, then the richness of culture fulfills our deeper human needs and quells the hungry ghosts of our ambition. #agriculture #gardening #polyculture #harvest #foodpreservation #autumn #growyourown
A bushel of these tiny plums. Bitter tough skins w A bushel of these tiny plums. Bitter tough skins with a sweet inside. We love them for eating as is, but will make plum sauce, dried plums, plum leather. It’s a dance every year, diversity is key. Some years there’s loads of one plant or fruit, not much or any of another. We’re learning not to lean on one season’s harvest, this seems more necessary in these times of who knows what’s coming. We’re learning to plan for at least two years storage if we can. Sometimes more. So, there’s good storage to think about, once you get there. Once you have the beautiful dilemma of a bushel or more to process. We can some, freeze some, dry and store in many mouse proof garbage containers. For this, you need space. This journey is an ongoing creative curiosity and problem solver’s dream. This becomes part of your way of being, when you’re working ‘with’ and ‘making do’. It’s a lot of work, but there’s so much joy in it. Plus, there’s summer in your mouth in the dead of winter. #harvest #diversity #plums #northern fruit #foodstorage #foodsecurity #polyculture #wildculturing #wild #workingwith #cocreate #sacred #workingwiththecycles
Finding the Sacred in a Secular world – Learn Ho Finding the Sacred in a Secular world – Learn How to Reclaim our “Rights of Life” October 2, 2021 1-4, a walk and talk with Steven All Welcome. It has taken me many years to find the sacred thread of existence, this golden way. To find it I looked in the highest and lowest places, I looked deep in the wilds and within myself, I traveled far and wide in all directions. Yet, like a blind fool sailing on the very boat he’s looking for, I failed to recognize it was these sacred threads that were holding me up the whole time. What I was looking for had already found and claimed me long before I could see. The truth is we don’t find this divine being in the wilds because everything there is of Her. This would be like finding fresh water at sea. What you find in the wilds is what you bring, yourself. Where you see Her most clearly is in our co-creations. A small part of the wild holy being that we partnered with to make the foundational things and arts of our culture still lives hidden inside our everyday life and its objects. As we begin to see the signs of our protogenic ancestors everywhere and recognize them, we hand ourselves over to ancient ‘animistic’ ways. Our sense of what is common, mundane and unimportant is devoured. As is our sense of disempowerment, hopelessness and depression. All of life comes alive. And for the first time we start to really live with those that surround us and who have sustained us from the beginning. What am I talking about? Who are these beings? They are in every human made thing. From your domestic food to what you're wearing, to what you're sitting on and sitting at, to what your living inside of. None of these things, like domestic food, clothes, tables, chairs and houses just came to be. They were gifts that came from an eternal dimension outside of our biological existence. Gifts which we have not only forgotten we were given, but forgotten the deities who gave them to us. And in our deep forgetting we’ve left ourselves behind and become lost in a material world. Join us on October 2 in Meaford. Link in Bio for more info, or the register.
Storm’s coming. Storm’s coming.
This year we added more hazelnuts, mountain ash, e This year we added more hazelnuts, mountain ash, elderberries and apple trees. Both kids chose one to claim as their own, Oscar chose the apple with the name ‘Wealthy’. 😂 This tree produced two beautiful apples this year, and after he harvested them, we shared the wealth. As years go by with our kids, we recognize more and more it’s the seemingly small things. Planting a tree. Visiting once in awhile to see how they’re doing. Watering if needed. Learning how to tell if something is ripe. Harvesting. Eating. Sharing. This is a blessed life, to be sure.
Herbs, like people, are complex multi-dimensional Herbs, like people, are complex multi-dimensional beings, which is to say we all have many different capacities. It would be a great mistake to think a herb or somebody is just one thing. I’m not talking about a herb’s primary and secondary actions, don’t go there, that’s our reason talking, trying to put big things in little boxes so we can fool ourselves into thinking we understand and own the knowledge. Plants are just like us, they have their functional everyday things that they do, but also have the capacity to do so much more. Just like us, plants have a higher calling or special purpose that may be hidden. We are all just regular folks doing our everyday thing, going to work taking care of kids and gardens, but then we are also a divine singer, healer or artist that our kids and workmates may have never seen. As humans we must learn to recognize each other and the plants and animals around us in this way. The commonness of everything is just an illusion. Everyone and everything is part of a bigger multi-dimensional being. Join us at The Sacred Gardener School next spring. Link in our bio. Steven will be offering a workshop in Medford, ON, October 2. Details here soon, info on our website!

sacredgardener

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

The Sacred Gardener
This picture is of a stump, from a sugar Maple tre This picture is of a stump, from a sugar Maple tree I cut down. Usually stumps are portrayed as a symbols of destruction, of barrenness. Acts like cutting trees and killing animals makes most of us ‘modern’ people feel a degree of inner angst and dismay, because we’ve only seen these acts done in such a dishonourable way. But, we need wood and food. These takings sustain us and so, should be practiced in the most sacred and careful way possible. And, as you can see in this picture, these acts can be done in a good way that fosters life. This stump is not only anchoring the earth and stopping erosion, but is feeding all the life in the soil and plants around her. A whole moss ecology and a yellow birch seedling live right on her, helping in her glorious decay. She lives in the plump roots of the edible ephemeral trout lilies that carpet the forest floor around her in the spring. The eight year old Maple stump also feeds some edible Canada lilies I planted close by, and a butternut tree behind her. She feeds the large leafed wild shrub beside her called Hobblebush. Hobblebush is an understory ‘shrub’ that can exist in the low light of the understory with its big leaves. She got her name because she hobbles overtime by falling over and rooting to slowly spread. But if she is given direct light, such as the clearing I made, she literally flourishes. She flowers and produces the most exquisite fruit I’ve ever had. She grasps the opportunity of the opening in the forest canopy to quickly spread through the clearing and beyond. The deep purple fruits taste tropical, like butterscotch custard! Birds love them, so the fruit gets quickly eaten up and planted with bit of fertilizer. All this miracle of growth can only happen if we are able to honour and recognized the rights of the land and plants, while taking with deep gratitude the things that we need like wood, food and medicine. From Steven's book, "The Story of the Madawaska Forest Garden". Available through our website, link in bio. #forestgarden #farmthewoods #polyculture #permaculture #cocreate
Primrose is a common edible weed. Roots in sprin Primrose is a common edible weed. Roots in spring, greens, flowers, seed pods and seeds. These days we add flowers to our salads and for the first time, we’re going to try pickling the young seed pods. What are you experimenting with this year? Learn more about how to identify, cultivate, harvest and prepare primrose along with many other weeds through our Patreon membership, link in our bio. #weeds #cultivate #primrose #foodpreservation #pickling #wildculture #polyculture
Richness This time of year, as September’s sha Richness This time of year, as September’s shadow lengthens, I always feel a bittersweet edge in my heart. There is a richness like no other time of year, but you know it’s not going to last. In the equation of this mad northern existence where we basically have six months of winter, this time of year balances months of scarcity and harshness. Every day I carry back to the farm house baskets and bushels of the land’s gifts, the living jewels of herbs, fruit and vegetables to be stored and preserved, each in its own best suited manner. While some might say that the richness of this bounty came from my labours, I know better, because some years I might have worked as hard and not drawn as much from the land. This richness comes form the Earth Herself, from the spirits that weave life from the elements, from the cooperation of all the layers of life from the microbes and fungi to the other wild plants and animals, from the Gods and Goddesses of wind, sunlight, heat and rain. Each vegetable has its own unique story as well as its species history, some stretching back for thousands of years. Each is a story of where that particular seed was planted, how the plant grew and worked with the ecology and spirits. When we eat a being like this we feel the connection to its long ancestral story back to ancient times in Europe or the Americas when Native people first bred that plant or animal. We are part of its story after the point when we started growing that particular vegetable, where we got it from and on and on. I have had a personal relationship with every plant and animal in our food, some for twenty or more years. How we work with the Earth and Her plants that sustain us, forms the basis of culture. While this might seem overly simple, I think history proves out the truth of this connection; In that when we care and deeply appreciate where our food comes from and approach the Earth in thankfulness, then the richness of culture fulfills our deeper human needs and quells the hungry ghosts of our ambition. #agriculture #gardening #polyculture #harvest #foodpreservation #autumn #growyourown
A bushel of these tiny plums. Bitter tough skins w A bushel of these tiny plums. Bitter tough skins with a sweet inside. We love them for eating as is, but will make plum sauce, dried plums, plum leather. It’s a dance every year, diversity is key. Some years there’s loads of one plant or fruit, not much or any of another. We’re learning not to lean on one season’s harvest, this seems more necessary in these times of who knows what’s coming. We’re learning to plan for at least two years storage if we can. Sometimes more. So, there’s good storage to think about, once you get there. Once you have the beautiful dilemma of a bushel or more to process. We can some, freeze some, dry and store in many mouse proof garbage containers. For this, you need space. This journey is an ongoing creative curiosity and problem solver’s dream. This becomes part of your way of being, when you’re working ‘with’ and ‘making do’. It’s a lot of work, but there’s so much joy in it. Plus, there’s summer in your mouth in the dead of winter. #harvest #diversity #plums #northern fruit #foodstorage #foodsecurity #polyculture #wildculturing #wild #workingwith #cocreate #sacred #workingwiththecycles
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