In times of great challenge, it’s only natural for us to seek refuge and healing in the plant world. The pandemic finds plant-medicine people in high demand. Many herb shops are overwhelmed, valiantly serving those in need while adhering to ever stricter social distancing guidelines. Mail-order companies list many herbs as “out of stock” or “sold out” and some have been forced to temporarily close down. So it is good to know that perhaps the most potent healing comes from simply being present with the plants and trees, who have always offered their loving, healing presence and guidance to us humans, their younger siblings. In whatever way we are able, as we “shelter in place,” let’s embrace the kindly shelter of living plants.

The miracle of the seed never ceases to amaze me. For many years, I grew my own food, and over time became a seed saver. Upon the arrival of Spring, I carefully buried each seed in the soil, covering it gently, to be gone from sight and to rest in the embrace of the earth. Then came the time of anticipation and patiently waiting. Inevitably, my mind formed around questions like- “Is it really going to happen again? Could it really be that a plant will come forth from what is contained in the tiny seed?”

For the last 30 years, Pam has run a program called “Sense of Wonder Creations” www.senseofwondercreations.org from her home on Martha’s Vineyard. Children from age 7-12 can attend week- long day camp sessions in the summer and art classes during the winter months in her studio. Often when children “graduate” from this program they return to become Leaders in Training, Junior, then Senior counselors. One way to characterize the camp programs might be to say that they blend creative arts with caring for the environment and appreciation of ethnic diversity.

In all their shapes, sizes, colors, the seeds have granted us sustenance, flavors, art, craft, and most importantly story and song. The life-giving mystery in a handful of seeds has inspired the many stories and songs that create the sacred dance between people and plants. These seeds share insight on the alchemy of transformation of sunlight to food, one kernel into many. 

For hundreds and hundreds of year the Abenaki People lived on both sides of the Connecticut River in what are now called Vermont and New Hampshire in the United States around the villages called Haverhill and Newbury. By the time European settlers arrived in these areas, the Abenakis had been growing sweet corn on the oxbows of the river for centuries.  It was very different from the sweet corn of today. Abenaki corn grew only about three feet high and produced one ear per stock, that ear being about four inches long and containing 8 to 12 rows of kernels.

One long-ago September at age nine, I created a science project for school---a large and neatly labeled seed chart composed on poster board with scotch tape.  How thrilling it was to discover each beautiful and highly varied specimen, as Earth bejeweled her autumn cloak with seeds of hope for the year to come!

Recognizing the growing global threat to the diversity, integrity and sanctity of seeds, we would like to honor a few of the organizations which have taken significant steps to  protect seeds and to preserve our rights to save seeds.

We give thanks for the brilliance of the tiny Beings who carry the code of new Life. We give thanks for the immense rich diversity and adaptability of seeds, for their responsiveness to weather and land