Trying to Grow

Hi there.

Today I’m sharing a flash fiction piece about an angry young sprout that just can’t wait to grow up and bear fruit. You can read the piece below, but first, a couple of brief announcements.

New Publication

I’ve been published! Again! My prose poetry essay, Making Friends with Fire, is now live online and in print in the April 2025 issue of Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts. Click on the link above to read it online or downloaded as a PDF. You can navigate to page 118 for my work, as well as read through the rest of the contributors’ writing for more.

In focusing on the cultural importance of cultural fire to regenerate landscapes across the Western US, the essay synthesizes permaculture knowledge with my personal history, from losing a home to southern California wildfires to practicing controlled burns in the Siskiyou Mountains.

Upcoming Educational Events

In other news, with my impending return to Eugene, Oregon, I’ll be resuming my foraging and forest bathing tours. I already have two events on the horizon:

Urban Foraging for Food Security Workshop, Sunday, May 4, from 12 - 2 p.m.

For Eugene’s May Day celebration, join me at the downtown Park Blocks for a free two-hour overview of how to get started foraging without driving two hours to the woods. From the event webpage:

Do you love nature but have trouble connecting with it on a daily basis? Are you interested in finding wild foods right where you live but feel afraid or unsure how to start? Celebrate the season of renewal and the holiday for worker sovereignty with a hands-on introduction to urban foraging! In this 1.5-hour workshop, we’ll explore the principles and ethics of gathering wild foods close to home—focusing on how to do so safely, respectfully, and sustainably. You’ll get an up-close look at a curated selection of edible “weeds” foraged from the immediate area, with guidance on how to identify, harvest, and use them in your own kitchen or apothecary. Whether you’re new to foraging or looking to deepen your practice, this workshop will offer tools for reconnecting with the land, increasing your food security, and nourishing both body and mind. We’ll discuss how urban foraging can strengthen your relationship with place, promote resilience in uncertain times, and inspire a more reciprocal connection to the ecosystems we inhabit.

Foraging & Forest Bathing Tour, Sunday, May 11 from 10:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.

What better way to spend Mother’s Day than getting more closely acquainted with Mother Earth? My first foraging tour of the year will focus on edible spring greens you can harvest for a delicious (and free!) salad from one of my favorite hiking spots within a half-hours’ drive of Eugene. More info from my recently launched (but still in-progress) website:

On a 3-4-hour tour blending outdoor education and group meditation, I’ll guide you and your group through mindful explorations of a public woodland, providing practical info while also slowing down to experience nature’s calming effects. This edition will focus on identifying and harvesting common edible spring greens like nettles, miner's lettuce, wood sorrel, and more. Learn ethical principles for how to safely identify and harvest wild edible/medicinal plants and mushrooms, deepen your understanding of forest ecosystems, and gain hands-on cultural knowledge that reconnects you to the land. Depending on seasonal availability, tours will also include fresh-brewed wild tea, personalized recipes, and the chance to bring home whatever wild edibles we gather. Blending silent reverence and spontaneous play, each journey is a feast for all senses through the textures, flavors, sights, sounds, and stories hidden in the forest.

There is limited space, so register now to secure your spot here.

Flash Fiction: Trying to Grow

Author’s Note: This story uses the ki/kin pronouns to describe plants as nongendered beings, as suggested by Robin Wall Kimmerer, based on an adaptation of the Anishinaabe word Bemaadiziiaaki.

There once was a little sprout who felt down on kinself for not attracting the same light and attention as the elder flowers around kin. Every day of spring, the sprout would look up at the brilliant bouquets and buzzing activity of the rest of the meadow looming over kin, and wonder,

Why don't the bees and butterflies ever pollinate me?

Deep down, the little sprout knew ki had lots of seeds and sweetness to offer, but nothing ki did—no matter how ki leaned to catch the patches of sunlight or relaxed kin’s leaves to let the globules of rain roll off—seemed to help it emerge. The flowers closest to the sprout could feel ki’s frustration in their roots. They told ki in turn,

Don’t worry.

You're still young.

You have enormous potential.

Be patient.

Your moment to shine will come.

The sprout thought that was easy for all of them to say. Ki didn't feel young—this was the oldest ki had ever been! And ki didn’t like being told to be patient, because it seemed so passive. That gave kin nothing to do except wait, when they had all this energy stored up, aching to burst forth and announce,

Look at me, world!

You may have encountered other plants before,

but there’s never been another like me!

The little sprout found ki wasn't the only one in the patch that felt like this, so ki and some of kin’s fellow frustrated seedlings would pass messages to each other though the mycelium complaining about what old fools the flowers were, and plotting how they would do things different once they were on top.

Although commiserating helped, sometimes the sprout still felt that none of it was worth it, and fantasized about kin’s stem being snapped or cut by a stray footstep or mower, just to validate the cold and sorrow the swept through kin’s whole being in the darkest hours before each dawn.

This was hard for the flowers around kin to bare, for it reminded them of their youth too, and their nutrients went out to the sprout underground In response.

Winter came, and the sprout withered back to its roots. The sprout felt vindicated in kin's cynicism—ki knew all there flowers were full of it after all. But because ki hadn’t fully believed their stories, the sprout didn’t realize:

Ki was biennial.

So after the sprout assumed kin’s time to shine had already passed, ki slept dormant in the frozen ground for four months, then emerged with a swelling bud at its apex as soon as the soil warmed again.

The sprout arose with kin's same memories,

but ki felt different now.

Calmer.

Humbler.

Ki’s flower bloomed at the other end of spring and attracted bee, butterfly, and hummingbird visitors to admire kin’s colors and collect its pollen all summer long. Ki’s time had come. It was a dream come true. When ki heard the new sprouts beneath kin missing the same attention, ki didn’t try to tell them what ki now knew, but still sent them any sugars ki could spare in their hours of need.

Before ki could go to seed and reproduce, a human on a picnic happened by to admire kin. The human cut the flower diagonally near the base of kin’s stem and brought kin home. They placed kin in a vase on a dresser, half-filled with water and surrounded by other flowers for their other human visitors to admire as well.

The flower recognized some of the other flowers as the other sprouts they had commiserated with in adolescence. Now they laughed about how young they had been, how far they had come, and credited the elders whose wisdom they’d spurned for helping them grow as best as they could.

As ki’s petals wilted away one by one, the old flower on the dresser found comfort remembering the little sprout it had been, with so much energy but so little faith in the beauty that lay ahead.

Thanks for reading Foraging for More! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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