Stigma is a short film which is part of the British supernatural anthology series A Ghost Story for Christmas. Written by Clive Exton and directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark, it premiered on BBC1 on December 29th, 1977(2). The film opens with a car cutting through English countryside. A long suffering mother and her grumpy teenage daughter are travelling to their new home. As they arrive, an excavator rumbles up through the hedgerow, emerging onto the lawn. Workers emerge from

Graffiti on a brick building behind broken weed trees As the crisis of fascism deepens in the United States, anti-social behavior is the norm. While the left scrambles to hold back an avalanche of human suffering, the right wields the power of billionaires to destroy any scrap of compassion, solidarity, or common cause that still exist in American society. When I think about gardening, I picture being alone with nature. It feels like tuning out the human world and tuning in t

Photograph of a wood frog during mating season in a muddy vernal pool behind the author's house To Make A Prairie by Emily Dickinson "To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee. And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few." My mind turns often these days to identity. It is both searingly difficult and insistently important to form one's own identity in a way that is truthful. But identity isn't only personal, it's social. The shifting lan

Photograph of amur honeysuckle, an invasive species in Michigan, with berries Mark 8:36 Contemporary English Version Bible "What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself?" Ecological historian Donald Worster writes that, despite all our technological advances, "we have not learned how to live on a planet that is dead(1)." Rewilding our own landscapes is about bringing the planet back to life, one yard at a time, and with it our own relationship to the ea

Photograph of bright orange bluestem grass in fall from Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah(1) "There is no beauty but in relationships. Nothing cut off by itself is beautiful. Never can things in destructive relationships be beautiful. all beauty is in the creative purpose of our relationships; all ugliness is in the destructive aims of the destroyers arrangements." At the heart, rewilding is a lazy landscaping strategy. Leave the land alone to grow its own plants. If you

photograph of turf grass seedlings growing through cracked asphalt From Earthseed by Octavia Butler All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change. God Is Change. The great nemesis of the landscaper is self-willed life. Ornamental plants that up and die where they've been carefully planted, weeds that sprout where they're not wanted, rabbits that prefer eating the former to the latter. If landscaping is imposing our will on th

Photograph of tiny seedlings growing in a hole in a fallen log From Zen by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel(1) "Whether you are walking, standing, sitting, or lying down the earth will speak. You may give it expression or not. It is your choice." What does the philosophy of landscape rewilding ask us to do? In a word, listen. We need to observe the natural landscape around us and learn about our local plant and animal communities. Many landscaping books recommend creating a meadow-like

Black and white image of a small tree in a planter through the window of a library stairwell From Walden by Henry David Thoreau(1) "What does Africa – what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior white on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast, when discovered." Physical landscapes are the stage on which we perform our own beliefs and values. Destroying and creating wilderness is a way to define who we are and who we want to be. Lawns represent the indi

Wooden sign reads 'Maple Grove Loop' in front of woodland with yellow fall foliage From webinar What Is Wild and Why It Matters by Rick Darke(1) "I consider buying mulch to be a failure of horticulture" According to the EPA, Americans dispose of over 35 million tons of yard waste every year(2). I know my neighbors are certainly busy gathering up the leaves into their brown paper bags. It always strikes me as odd, especially in a neighborhood where almost everyone's house back

Dead seedheads on a dry stalk, sun shines from behind them Haiku 687 by Bashō Each and every year nourishing the cherry tree the fallen blossoms Spending time at the tiny nature preserve down the street from me has been my important ritual for decades now. It is the place I've taken first dates and new friends. It's also my place to clear my mind. I decided to get divorced on a walk in these woods. There's something about that quiet space that helps me bring things into persp

A rocky ledge with small plants and vines growing in the cracks Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around m