Dear Wild Friends & Loved Ones,
Spring is on its way! I know the snow is heavy and the temps are cold… but do you feel how the sun is with us longer each day! And spring will come rushing up in just a few weeks... I promise. This winter I have been giving lots of space to mourn what is no longer with us, allowing time for the new future to slowly emerge. If you know me well, you’ll know I have been preparing for climate crises and this great change for many, many years. We were not surprised. But it has inspired us further to drill down on what we think is crucial and most important at this time. This has been a struggle as so much has been this year. Design Wild is here and still growing! For 2021 we're make a few changes.
In the incredibly wise words of Arandhati Roy, a hero of mine:
We are ready to move forward into this new world, light on our feet. And as the spring sun warms our faces we will be ready to fight for it! Below are the areas we're preparing to focus on. Please don't hesitate to reach out if our work speaks to you or if you'd like to support, collaborate or hire us moving forward.
With peace as always,
- Shanti
Last year we witnessed how in crises, our landscapes do not falter but thrive, caring for themselves and for us! We are building beautiful, native habitat in wildly unexpected places! The focus is on creating and expanding landscapes that support our resilient native habitats. We're always secretly working for the birds, bees, and butterflies. These gardens are necessary, regenerative, restorative, beautiful, lower maintenance, and ultimately more affordable.
We are creating landscapes that cultivate peace, recovery and a connection to the spirit of place. These gardens ground and give us the strength to continue the work of liberation and just transition from a place of rest and inspiration. We will continue to build this into our public plantings bring wild beauty to the public common spaces reminding humans that they are here living on earth, connected to the greatness. We are dedicated to our work around affordable and low-income housing creating spaces of sanctuary for New Yorkers with limited access who need this most of all. We continue to dream of other forms of sanctuary we will need as the displacement of humans continues to expand across the globe. What can we build, fight for, care for and share that will bring rest and safety to humans in ongoing global crises?
Our sanctuary on earth starts and ends on land. As we move into this next phase of transition our connection to the earth will be everything. How does our relationship to land affect our mental, physical and spiritual health? Who has access to land? And how do we WILDLY expand that access? Can we radically change the system of land ownership while creating true belonging to this place? And can we do it while being fully conscious and coming to terms with the fact that we stand on stolen land? We are building, collaborating, and breathing life into new ways of, once again, belonging to this land.
The plants continue to be our way through! They are our elders and our guides walking beside us while showing us how to thrive in peace and chaos, in corners of pain and neglect, showing up with beauty and dignity along the way. We are tremendously grateful for the example they lead with and all the gifts they bestow on us. We pledge to keep listening and collaborating with them above all else. To plant food, medicine, beauty, and guides whenever and wherever we can. To follow our plant relatives into unlikely places as they continuing to showing us a way forward on earth.