As I reflect back on my time as a Food and Ag intern, I wish to start by inserting sections of a reflection that I wrote about my highlights and personal learning from the Medicine of Community and Place program that I participated in during the time of my internship:
“…the plant botany, identification, and discovery list were super meaningful aspects of this program for me. Through my learning with these elements, I have realized that I think I want a big part of my future to include working outside in nature with plants. I want to have my hands in the soil, my feet exploring new paths, my eyes identifying new plants and making new connections. I am feeling incredibly antsy and stagnant in my education because of this, I feel like I’m at a point where I just want to get outside and learn, just like Vivian Mork told us to do. Discovering this feels very empowering, but also leaves me unsure of what to do about these feelings and nervous about cutting off other paths of interest to me. Either way, I am incredibly grateful for the exploration in these areas of herbal learning as, no matter what, they have played a part in shaping what I want my future to be.”
“These past couple months, I have felt insanely scattered when thinking about my future. What do I want to be doing after I graduate from Evergreen? Do I want to stick around for both my Art and Science degrees? Do I want to attend a more focused herbal institution to hone in on this new interest of mine? Do I want to attend an outdoor wilderness program that will fully immerse me in nature? Do I want to just drop out and work on a bunch of farms all across the world? All of these ideas have crossed my mind. However, I feel like writing the above reflection made me realize the true things I want for my future, so it was actually an insanely helpful passage for me to sit down and take the focused time to write. I want to be outdoors, learning in and with nature. I want to have my hands in the soil, working with plants and forming those personal relationships through my care and love for them. I’m antsy to just get out and do all of this, and because of that, I’m not sure if sticking around for two degrees or furthering my education at a different institution would be the best idea for me.”
While writing what I first thought was just gonna be a simple reflection on my participation in a highly meaningful program turned into a minor epiphany about what I think I truly want for myself in my future. Exploring all aspects of herbal studies through the Medicine of Community and Place program was so beneficial for me; it gave me insight into the different areas of herbalism that I could choose to go more in-depth on. So as I reflected on all of these areas of herbalism, I realized that what stood out to me the most was my hands-on work outside with the plants, studying botany by engaging with nature, digging in the soil and planting new herbs in the garden, creating personal connections between me and the plants I felt drawn to. Those are the things I want to be doing with my life, those are the aspects of herbalism I think I wish to focus on.
But what do these reflections on my spring quarter class have to do with my Food and Ag internship? Without fully realizing it, my internship was showing me what I wanted to do with my future as well. Having an herb garden space that I got to care for and tend to was really powerful for me; the garden was a space of respite, a safe haven of sorts, where I could breathe and take my time and pour out some love into these plants that were highly in need of it. This garden taught me to be a leader, taught me to get my hands dirty, taught me that it’s okay to take things slowly. Heck, it even got me a summer WWOOF job on a commercial herb farm that I am absolutely ecstatic for in the near future. I am so appreciative of everything that this opportunity has brought to me, including the clarity on what I want my future to look like. I am so appreciative of all the support and trust through this process, all the humans that have left their mark within this space. There are seriously no words to describe how meaningful this experience truly has been for me.
My deepest gratitude to all of my herb garden peers. <3