“Are humans parasites sowing our own hunger, or fruit, gifts from Earth to our future, is the edge of our lives, civilization, and species, a cliff to catastrophe or a bridge to transformation?”
These are the words, questions, and motivations of poet and gardener, Frederick Livingston author of Trees are Bridges to the Sky a collection of essays and poems exploring the human/climate connection.
I first met Frederick when I served as keynote speaker for the National Native Seed Conference earlier this year. The conference was kicked off by an address from Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, and another by Tracy Stone-Manning, Director of the Bureau of Land Management, both of whom preceded me on the first day of the conference.
The two days of events were punctuated throughout by readings from Frederick – the Conference Poet.
The fact that this conference of policy makers and advocates across such a range had a Conference Poet at all, says a lot. The fact that their chosen poet was Frederick, says even more.
"Frederick Livingston grows poems, plants, and peace.
As an ecologist currently working in the prison-to-school pipeline, he is growing native plants with incarcerated people for restoration projects across the American West. Born at the southern tip of the Salish Sea in Olympia, Washington, his work in experiential education and peacebuilding has taken him across the world, from Peace Corps in rural Tanzania to the United Nation’s University for Peace in Costa Rica, and beyond.
Since his 6th grade debut on local-access television performing “Ode to a Chair”, Frederick’s work has appeared in scientific journals, dozens of literary magazines, and public spaces. He has been the featured poet of California Quarterly and nominated for several Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. He is the author of the poetry collection The Moon and Other Fruits as well as his most recent title, Trees are Bridges to the Sky, which won the Prism Prize for Climate Literature."
He is as well the Ecological Education Program Coordinator for the Institute for Applied Ecology, which hosted the National Native Seed Conference in early 2024.
Frederick has studied and practiced sustainable agriculture, experiential education, and peace building across the world and he joins us this week to share more.
ENJOY!
All images courtesy Frederick Livingston. All rights reserved.
You can follow Frederick Livingston online at:
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HERE IS THIS WEEK'S TRANSCRIPT by Doulos Transcription Service:
IF YOU LIKE THIS PROGAM,
you might also enjoy these Best of CP programs in our archive:
JOIN US again next week, when we revisit a favorite conversation from the archive, The Comfort of Crows, with author and backyard tender and observer, Margaret Renkl. Reminding us that even on days when we feel overheated and overwhelmed, there is always some comfort and agency to be found among the flora and fauna of this generous planet. That’s next week, right here, listen in.
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Thinking out loud this week:
Last week I sent out an update all about Cultivating Place Live: Dialogues to Grow By – a special project of Cultivating Place. Funded through a matching grant from the Catto Shaw Foundation with many of having helped to almost meet the match support, CP LIVE is a series of curated in-person recorded and filmed live events taking place across the country this year in support of places, and the people who cultivate them with care – animating important and impactful connections growing our world better.
When I first started Cultivating Place, I really wanted to get beyond what our gardens look like and focus on their meaning and their power, but over these past nearly 10 years, I have also come to understand how meaningful it can be to make so much more visible all that our gardens and the best gardeners of our world grow. For more on this special legacy project – head over to Cultivating Place.com and click on the CP LIVE tab.
I am so excited to be able to share more as we move through this growing project together!
In other news – has anyone else noticed the incredible uptick in marketing being aggressively directed at us the gardeners of the world wherever marketers think they may find us? On the radio, on the television, between our favorite streaming shows, at the ballgames, in the paper, in the market….Well I have – from Proven Winners to Lowes and Scott’s Miracle Grow.
And this grates on me.... Why? Because I don’t want to be sold to - noone really does, but I especially don't like to be sold poisons, dumbed-down products I don't need, and I really don't like to be sold trash veiled in the tempting refrain of convenience and ease.
And I’m not an idiot and neither of you. Truly.
This insidious marketing of “easy, fast” dumbed-down and poisoned-up gardening is persistent and pervasive and in all likelihood persuasive to well-intentioned people who do not have time to read the small print.
But it’s also a seriously interesting indicator, isn’t it? It is reminding us and even PROVING TO US that we are everywhere and there are a lot of us – which is why the largest powers that be want our attention and want our dollars.
And I am here to remind you and me that our attention and our dollars grow the world we want (whether this is really clear to us or not) as much as our gardens do, as much as our parenting does, as much as our literal votes do.
SO remember this – with each purchase you make in the name of your garden, you’re voting. Take a beat – do a little research like who is this company’s parent company? Are they working on behalf of health and biodiversity in our garden world, or simply on behalf of profit? Ask a few questions, like "are your plants treated with noenicitinoids that harm all insects (and our immune systems)?" Like, "does supporting large petrochemical companies like Bayer Monsanto or others really align with the goals of your vegetable or habitat garden?"
We have the numbers – last checked “gardeners” lived in and represented about 80% of all U.S. households; clearly, collectively, we have the dollars, otherwise they would not be vying for them so strenuously and last checked the home and garden industry ranked in the tens of billions (nearly 50 Billion). So we have the power to act on how and with whom we want to grow this world, and our power can grow the world better.,.
Trees are bridges to the sky and gardeners could be the bridges to a better world growing.
recent views from here: a new to me Calochortus (note the larval friend on the bud!); a damp meadow of bistort looking like a starry sky; a gorgeous dryland rock garden of native western phox and a low fuzzy lupine beyond; the winning combination of native tiger lilies with a yellow pea; sunset on the full moon in June (day after the official solstice); and another new to me Calochortus tomleii (Tolmei's pussy ears).
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