Emmy in Her Garden
Hello dear readers,
It is with a heavy heart that I write you today. I am still processing my grief around last week’s national election results and I’m sure I will be for quite a while. If you hold any sort of marginalized identity and live in the US, I imagine you are feeling this on some level. In the coming times we are likely to see the loss of rights for many people who don’t fit into a very narrow definition of acceptable ways to be. As I look to my community and chosen family, we are asking ourselves and each other: How do we take care of us? I’ve been thinking a lot about this question and it is what is keeping me strong in these uncertain times.
I was already planning to share some photos of my friend Emmy of Fabled Flora in this newsletter, and with last week’s news it feels especially apt to do so. Not only do I admire Emmy’s approach to business and the sustainable and intentional ways she creates her work, but also I believe that flowers themselves can teach us a lot about how to make our way in a hurting world. In my time studying flower essences under the direction of Liz Migliorelli this year, I am continually amazed by what plants are capable of. They know the art of the subtle—that all change is iterative and must start within. Eight years ago when Trump was elected the first time, I found myself filled with anger and shock, lashing out at anyone who may have supported him; this time I find myself inwardly focused, with a deep desire to increase my capacity—my capacity for feeling my feelings, for sacrificing comfort for the good of the whole, and for building webs of care. Ultimately, I owe a lot of the internal shifts of these last few years to the wisdom of the flowers and my other non-human teachers.
I hope you relish in these photographs as a visual contemplation of our relationship to the places we inhabit and how flowers can teach us to survive and thrive in difficult circumstances.
An unexpected pleasure of this session was shooting in the rain. We had already rescheduled multiple times due to COVID and other circumstances, so when there was rain in the forecast we decided to throw caution to the wind rather than rescheduling once again. “Well, it will be realistic—I work on the farm in the rain all the time,” Emmy said. I looked up tips for exposing film correctly for rain, and I came prepared with a little towel to cover my camera with between shots. What resulted was some of my favorite photos I have ever taken. Not only does film capture the ethereal light of a rainy day so well, but you can also see raindrops in some of the photos which delights me so much.
We also photographed Emmy in her studio creating an arrangement with the freshly harvested flowers from these photos, but I decided to save those for the next newsletter, because they have a very different vibe and I am excited to show them off separately. Hoping that you savor the feeling of these photos before going on to your next thing today.
Thank you for spending some of your precious attention being here. Here are a few things from this week that are keeping me focused on creating the world I want to be in:
Tomorrow, Amelia Hruby is hosting a free workshop called Crystal Clear: How Our Businesses Create Change as a response to last week’s election results. I am expecting it to be part brainstorming session, part call-to-action to stay hopeful and not become complacent about the ways we can enact change.
I continue to receive so much enrichment and honestly validation from Megan Leatherman’s Composting Capitalism reading group for Caliban and the Witch.
I have been reading Taking the State Out of the Body: A Guide to Embodied Resistance to Zionism by Eliana Rubin and I cannot recommend it enough.
I’d love to hear what is helping you stay true to yourself and your values in these difficult times.
Take care of yourselves and each other and I will talk to you soon,
Holly
These photos were taken on the traditional lands of the S'Klallam People, and I honor with gratitude the land itself and the S'Klallam Tribe. Learn more about the First Peoples of Port Townsend here.
