Healing Gardens

SummertimeI was born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia. This is my second year at Evergreen. My favourite childhood memory is probably the time I tried to survive by eating only grass and blackberries but could also be when I visited my grandparents farm and my grandmother would make marionberry pies. I plan on becoming an apiarist.

WINTER QUARTER:

I was born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia and I spent most of my childhood summers on the Key Peninsula in Washington State. My dad was a farmer/composter and my (ex)stepfather is a government employed treaty negotiator with First Nations tribes in British Columbia. Although my (ex)stepfather is socially conscious, reading The Earth's Blanket last quarter changed/challenged my childhood/life experiences in the most amazing way possible. I want my education to challenge my assumptions and beliefs. My education pathways at Evergreen are ethnobotany and gender studies (combined as ecofeminism?); I hope to return to Victoria to study ethnobotany under Nancy Turner. I am inspired by stories of place, plant/human/interspecies communication, bee keepers, women's herbs, and herbalists. My family is a settler family. My ethnicity includes Russian, Irish, Scottish, English, Swedish, German, French, English ancestors. I live in a beautiful house with my best friends Natalie, Diana and Megan on five acres on Delphi Road. We have two treehouses, one stream, an extensive animal art collection and a bluegrass country band (I play broom and musical saw). We love friends, textiles, tactile sensations, cookies and hangin' out (which sometimes, but not always, involves short shorts and/or gold tights). So come hang out.

roommates

CREATION STORY:

Once, a very long time ago there was one. It was everything and nothing and everywhere and nowhere at once. There was so much emptiness is the whole/completeness that one separated and became two. The two wandered around the earth lonely, lonesome and alone. But, because they were no longer everywhere and nowhere and everything and nothing, they saw for the first time the beauty of the moonrise and felt the warmth of sunshine on their faces. They felt the mud and moss beneath their feet and were grounded, they had a place. They realized that there was no returning, only growing. Separation was not an ending but a passing of time/xperience. They had a place. Their roots were strong and deep. They had their own stories. They could share them with each other.

My story is about recognizing one’s own truth and still honouring/recognizing the truth of the other. I feel that dominant mainstream western society views life and people in binaries of either/or. I believe in complementary energies, but do not want to limit people. My story is about creating your own story/experience/life.