It’s spring, which means: starts and stops. Days bursting open like maple buds, and days soaked in cold rain.
It means there are a thousand ideas sprouting inside me, and I want to tend to each one at once. To riot like wildflowers in full bloom. And yet, spring is not the full bursting bloom of summer.
It is a season that tends to seeds and roots.
A season where the most important growth happens at the root stage. A season which reminds me with its cold rainy days that send me to the kitchen for another cup of tea, that I can pace myself.
And at the same time, spring sets me sprinting.
The fields once covered with snow are now shooting up with fresh blades of grass, and they grow faster than I can handle –
Didn’t I just clear last year’s weeds from the edges of the propagation house? How are the new shoots already 4 inches tall?
Is gardening only an attempt at control? A reminder that there is so little to be had? A lesson, maybe, that though I hoe and rake to make way for chosen crops, I could stop weeding and – even if it’s grass and goldenrod, burdock and chicory, instead of zinnias and sunflowers, radishes and carrots – green would explode across the land regardless.
Is weeding nothing but a spiritual practice invented by grassroots to remind us how connections beneath the soil persist and persist and persist, and there is something sacred in that. Could my own body be a blade of grass? Could this energy that pulses through me – unseen but felt – be my roots? Could I be part of the spreading, rambling, exploding chorus of spring. Could I be a song?
This is spring. A crescendo, a rest, a trill.
An invitation to sing into the growing season.
Among the ideas sprouting inside me is a perennial that’s coming up again, and that leads me to a question for you –
Would you be interested in a four-week writing workshop here on Art & Soil?
For a couple of years, I hosted Harvesting Words: a writing workshop for farmers and gardeners. It was originally a winter offering, to dig into creativity during the “quiet” season, but every year spring comes and it feels like this is when new rhythms, lessons, and words want to propagate.
I’m feeling the pull to bring Harvesting Words back, but first I want to know if you’d be interested in it. Click reply to this email, or leave a comment on the post to let me know.
Here’s a quick overview:
Harvesting Words is an online writing workshop for farmers & gardeners who want to cultivate a writing practice and grow the inspiration you get from soil and seeds into stories.
Throughout the workshop I’ll guide you through four sections:
Plant Seeds : sowing your writing practice
Cultivate : growing your writing practice
Harvest : revising & getting to the finished piece
Workshop : ask questions & get feedback on your writing
This new iteration of Harvesting Words will be hosted here on Substack, and will be for paid subscribers only. While I used to offer this workshop for $149, you can get it by becoming a paid subscriber for $70/year or $7/month.
If this calls to you, please let me know by replying to this email or leaving a comment on the post. Thank you so much!
Here’s to planting seeds and harvesting words (and many vegetables, too)!
~Katie
Looking forward to it! I did Harvesting Words a few years ago, I think, and I’m glad you’re offering it again 😊.