⭐️Gratitudes for You⭐️

🌱 reflections on 3 weeks gifting seeds 🌱

Rain gently falls as I sip maple sap, cardinals singing of spring as mulch rings around fruit trees suddenly become visible, deep snows rushing to become lake.

Can you feel?

The deep wet chill of the world?

And also the life

coursing so vividly

in the veins of trees

birds singing in the branches?

Let’s join them.

And Friends, after three weeks of gifting seeds around the Northeast, I’d love to share 1 affirmation, 1 gratitude, 1 intention (how Matthew and I begin & end most days) to surround us all with care and courage as we practice new worlds together.

Affirmation​:

Takes A Village

​Hundreds of people made it possible for thousands of people to receive seeds as gifts

practicing

releasing the fiction

of buying and selling life

even if just for a moment

and Friends, I am in awe of the gifts large and small that so many people offered so joyfully. Thank you 💛

Preparing for the Seed Feast. Thank you Nins Ortega for your witness & creative generosity!

Coordinating community space for us to gather, spreading the word to friends and neighbors, coming early to share laughter, pack seeds and laying wide the Seed Feast together, tucking seeds back in boxes, welcoming a seedy songbird into their home for a night or two, surrounding me with nourishment as well as friendship: I felt so welcomed and utterly at home everywhere I went.

And Friends, I’m an extrovert, but nonetheless:

stepping into such a

swift, wide river

of giving and receiving

and finding them synonymous

is only possible

when we go together.

Thank you for coming with us.

Also, a toast to all the people who joined our Gift of Seed practices: you showed UP! In the bustle of modern life, in the deep and relative mystery of what even are we doing and how: thank you for trusting and going on a journey with us.

So grateful to practice together. And feel together. Thank you Nins for your noticing and documenting suc presence.

And for feeeeeeeeling with us.

I often jest, without joking:

our seeds are more expensive than ever —

you have to feel your feelings.

A person in Massachusetts asked: What does success look like for you now? And immediately I knew: If at even one person is moved to tears, I am doing my work. Thank you for helping us all succeed.

If you want to see me laugh and cry simultaneously, ask me about the carved spoon Natalia gifted me moments after this moment. And Nins, your eye and camera are endlessly generous.

Gratitude:

S​eeds!

Our 400 Million-Year-Old Mentors & Kin

Thank you, seeds, for living daily the joy, courage and necessity of knowing where, when and how to germinate. Of opening up, of shaking off a seed coat that no longer serves. Of sending down roots, of sending up shoots, of bending in the breeze, of being in relationship with a thousand thousand beings, animate and (deceptively) inanimate all around. Of the beauty, the challenge, the dance of adapting.

do you ever feel like this sunflower?

In the​se past 13 seasons of Fruition Seeds, we’ve grown in the wettest year on record (in our county) as well as the driest, the warmest as well as the coldest.

As atmospheric and cultural climates change

we’re grateful for the seeds

that continue to germinate

even in seasons of despair:

May we do the same.

so much life within death within life

Thank you for bringing us together, seeds. Across so many seasons as well as political and cultural borders. For nourishing us every day, that we might remember to see and feed each other, composting the questions of who is worthy.

​As Adam Wilson shared in a closing circle:

“Thank you seeds

for not giving up on us.

I endeavor to not give up on us, either.”

Intention:

Iteration is Love & Iterate We Shall!

The intended comedic & perennial invitation of Fruition is that we are always ‘coming to fruition,’ always growing, always decomposing, always becoming. Growth is not linear and not always upward. Pruning, letting go and compost is essential. In this constant adaptation and becoming, we are committed to finding yet deeper ways to bring to life the wisdom that All Flourishing is Mutual.

Thank you for growing with us in all the ways, Friends!

Do you see the ear of corn? The puppets? The stories emerging? Nins, thank you again for bringing your camera as well as your heart to our practice.

We’ll continue to deepen our story telling (it’s so sweet to fall in love with puppets...!) and find ever more ways to live and love as if all of us need all of us...

...and we’re so grateful to keep sowing and growing together 💛

And Friends:

Let us gift you seeds!

to gift us all

& all generations to come

Our 300+ regionally adapted seeds we share as gifts in our gatherings, take a peek:

If you’d love to come ~40 minutes early to help set up our Seed Feast, play acoustic music or bring us a dairy-free snack (!), we love you and don’t be shy 💛

Also, if you’d love to contribute seeds to the offering, thanks for arriving ~20 minutes early to contribute to the cornucopia!

Wed, Mar 4: Buddhist Mobile Monastery visits Fruition 2 to 9 pm (free, details on website)

Thurs, March 5: Gift of Seed from 6 to 8 at Village Community Room (behind the Library) in Potsdam, NY (free)

Tues, March 17: Gift of Seed from 5 to 8 in at HardPressed in West Danville, VT (free)

Thurs, March 19: Sand River Community Farm supper at 5:30 with Gift of Seed from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Grange in Keeseville, NY (free)

Sat, Mar 21: Rochester Urban Ag Conference & Seed Swap! (sliding scale, registration coming soon!)

Wed, March 25: Gift of Seed from 6 to 8 at CPP High School Cafeteria in Corning, NY (free)

Fri, March 27: potluck, mini Gift of Seed + community gift culture + solidarity conversation from 5 to 8:30 at Foundation of Light in Ithaca, NY (free)

Sat, March 28: Gift of Seed from 2 to 4 pm at Soil Factory in Ithaca, NY (free)

Tues, March 31: Gift of Seed from 6 to 8 pm at Wood Library in Canandaigua, NY (free)

Wed, April 1: Gift of Seed from 6 to 8 pm in Olean, NY (free, details to come)

Thurs, April 2: Gift of Seed from 6 to 8 pm at RIT’s Bamboo Room in Rochester, NY (free)

Sat, April 4: Gift of Seed at Fruition (more details on website)

Wed, April 8: Gift of Seed from 6 to 8 pm at UU Church in Schenectady, NY (free)

Sat, April 11: Gift of Seed, Keynote & other delights at the Maine Seed Festival (free)

Wed, April 15: Gift of Seed from 6 to 8 pm at Sawmill Herb Farm in Montague, MA (free)

Fri 17th evening ~ Sun 19th morning Seed & Gifting Retreat: Bulk Seed Gifting & Gift Culture Cultivation for Community Organizers at Fruition (free, details on website)

If you are connected to community gardens, seed libraries and other means of sharing seed abundance in non-commercial ways, join us to receive lots of bulk seeds and deepen our gift culture community and skills together!

Sun, April 19: Growing the Gift of Seed (seed gifting 1 to 2 pm, seed starting 2 to 4 pm) at Genesee Country Village & Museum in Mumford, NY (free, details on website)

April 28 – May 1st Retreat: Being Seeds in a Garden of Change at Holy Cross Monastery West Park, NY (sliding scale, details on website)

Sat, May 2: Gift of Seed from 2 to 4:30 at Media Sanctuary in Troy, NY (free)

Sun, May 3: Gift of Seed in Cooperstown, NY (free, details to come)

Wed, May 6: Seed Starting at Fruition (free, details on website)

Sat, May 9: Gift of Seed & Transplants at Fruition (free, details on website)

Tues, May 12: Gift of Seed & Transplants at Library in Geneva, NY (free, details on website)

Thurs, May 14: Gift of Seed at Trinity Church in Buffalo, NY (free)

Fri, May 15: Transplant Swap & Share at Public Market in Rochester, NY(free, details to come)

Sat, May 16: Gift of Seed & Transplants at Fruition (free, details to come)

Sat, May 19: Gift of Seed & Transplants in Canandaigua, NY (free, details to come)

Sat, May 23: Gift of Seed in Rochester, NY (free, more details to come)

Stay tuned for music, abundance sharing, plays & more opportunities to savor, laugh, learn, serve & grow together all summer, fall & for seasons to come!

If you’d love to say thank you, we love you and wonder:

What if giving was the new receiving?

What if we couldn’t tell the difference?

What if you trusted your presence in our lives was simply enough?

Sustain this work and joy alongside us!

~ In the words of our beloved friend Adam Wilson, we dream of a world than sustains rather than pays us all…

…and in this spirit, we share Fruition’s relational, material & financial non-profit needs and we’re so thankful for your vision and generosity nourishing generations to come 💛

Ohhhhh we love you, Friends!

Thank you

for laying the Seed Feast wide

for all of us

and all those yet to come.

we are the seeds

Sow Seeds & Sing Songs,

and the Many Possibilities of Fruition

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