Being Seeds in a Garden of Change

Being Seeds in a Garden of Change

What does it mean to see ourselves as being far more similar to our relatives, the seeds, than different?  What does it mean in the way we understand ourselves to look theologically at the similarities we share with seeds? 

We live in an age of forgetting – who we are, where we come from, how we are bound to one another and all other species. The call is to re-member.

In this retreat we will explore theologically but also practically our relationship to God, the earth, seeds and each other. 

As spring emerges, we will dig deeper into the stories, seeds and soil that nourish our landscapes both within and all around us. With reverent curiosity, we will cultivate both literal and cultural gardens to nourish both our personal and collective flourishing. With seeds,  gardens, fields and forests as our teachers given by the Creator, we’ll center the wisdom of seeds, our 400 million year old ancestors and mentors. Through embodied practice, reflection, creative writing, conversation, song and silence both in the garden and beyond, we’ll navigate both grief and joy as we compost stories no longer serving us. Bring your heartbreak as well as your hope, your laughter as well as your tears, your hunger for a world we’ve forgotten and not yet tasted. Together, let’s re-member, reimagine and grow more fruitful futures.

Petra Page-Mann

Petra grew up gifting seeds grown in her father’s garden in the Finger Lakes of New York. Her love of food, people and place led her all over the world studying seed, song and cultures of care. In 2012, she co-founded Fruition Seeds to share seeds, knowledge and inspiration nourishing regional resilience and collective flourishing. After selling seeds for 12 years, Fruition and Petra committed to gift culture, returning to seed gifting and growing new worlds. She is a foraging farmer, friend, neighbor, and auntie as well as mother of many millions of seeds to whom she is also the grateful granddaughter.

Petra can be found:

https://www.fruitionseeds.com/ 

Facebook @FruitionSeeds 

Instagram @fruition_seeds

Youtube @FruitionSeeds

and at events all over New York state

Deborah Duigiud-May

Deborah is an Episcopal parish priest of 27 years from South Africa and now rooted in Naples, NY. She is the rector at Trinity Episcopal Church, Greece NY, and lives on a small subsistence food forest farm with her wife, Melanie, their dogs, parrot, goats, sheep, ducks and chickens. 

Deborah can be found:

Facebook @Turtle Pond forest Farm

Instagram @Turtlepondcabin  

Her podcast The Priest & The Prof https://priestandprof.org/

Deborah’s parish can be followed on Facebook @trinitygreeceny

Br. Jacob Letchworth OHC

Br. Jacob is an initially professed member of OHC and a budding gardener. As assistant groundskeeper he enjoys composting, tending the vegetable garden, and absorbing as much wisdom and knowledge from the head groundskeeper, Br. Timothy, as he possibly can.

Jacob can typically be found in church or in the garden.

Note on the suggested donation for this retreat:  Please consider donating $395—$545 (whatever is within your means—all monies beyond what goes to the monastery will support Fruition Seed Co. which operates entirely in the “gift economy,” giving away seeds and selling nothing). Thanks!