Elizabeth Brown joins us this week for a discussion in our “The World is on Fire What Can I Do?!” series where we reflect on how we are showing up in our world as we know it. She is a dynamic soul who does a little bit of everything (as a mother, an audiologist, an author with one book just published, another on its way, and a third in process at her desk, and a flower farmer) with a refreshing humility, groundedness, and a buoyancy of spirit.

Drawing from her upbringing in York, Maine that she lovingly refers to as alternative and wild, Elizabeth takes us on a beautiful journey through the dark time of pandemic where she threw herself full into political movements and suddenly lost a father. This used up all of her resources and quite literally forced her outside into her back yard, in the soil to make something honest from scratch. What blossomed from this experience was—still is!!—full of healing and hope. Tending her own garden rippled out infinitely— reaching Elizabeth, her family, her patients, and her community in ways she had tried so hard to do before but never found. Over and over in these conversations, we are hearing that the greatest change begins with what you already have. Let’s let Elizabeth describe this to you in her own words through this promising conversation.

If you want to learn more about Elizabeth’s work, check out Foxglove Farmhouse and look for her amazing first book The Beginner’s Cut Flower Garden: Grow, Nourish, and Create Bliss Year-Round at your favorite book seller.

Show Notes

If you want to start playing with the garden metaphor as an entry into finding your own authentic role in movement, check out the list that dear friend of the podcast, Ashley O’Brion created. We view this as a starting point for understand, a first draft, not a rigid framework that’s universal. Send us a message or comment if this resonates or you have anything to add/alter. We would love to hear from you!

🌱 The Gardener (Seed Planter)

* Imagines new ways of being

* Starts experiments, pilot projects, cultural shifts

* Often misunderstood early on

Strengths: Vision, hope, imagination

Watch-outs: Burnout, being ahead of the moment

⸻

🍂 The Composter (Transformer)

Sits with the hard, messy work of breakdown.

* Names harm, grief, and failure

* Breaks down old systems, stories, and power structures

* Holds truth without rushing to “solutions”

Strengths: Depth, honesty, healing

Watch-outs: Getting stuck in despair or endless critique

⸻

🌿 The Tender (Caretaker)

Keeps things alive day-to-day.

* Nurtures people, projects, and morale

* Checks on burnout, builds trust, offers care

* Makes movements sustainable

Strengths: Empathy, consistency, relational intelligence

Watch-outs: Over-giving, invisibility, martyrdom

⸻

🌾 The Cultivator (Systems Builder)

Turns ideas into something that can last.

* Builds structures, workflows, and processes

* Connects people, resources, and timelines

* Helps movements scale without losing their soul

Strengths: Practical magic, follow-through

Watch-outs: Rigidity, becoming more system than human

⸻

🐝 The Pollinator (Connector / Messenger)

Carries ideas between communities.

* Translates language across groups

* Spreads inspiration, stories, and tools

* Helps movements cross-pollinate

Strengths: Communication, charisma, bridge-building

Watch-outs: Overextension, dilution of message

⸻

🌳 The Canopy (Protector / Elder)

Provides shelter and long view.

* Shields vulnerable folks from harm

* Holds memory, context, and lineage

* Knows when to slow things down

Strengths: Wisdom, protection, stability

Watch-outs: Gatekeeping, resistance to change

⸻

🪵 The Mulch Layer (Rest & Recovery Holder)

Often overlooked but crucial.

* Creates conditions for rest, integration, and pause

* Holds space for grief, joy, and celebration

* Marks endings and transitions

Strengths: Rhythm, attunement, nervous-system care

Watch-outs: Being undervalued or sidelined

⸻

🌧️ The Weather Watcher (Strategist)

Reads the larger conditions.

* Tracks political, cultural, and economic shifts

* Helps movements time their actions

* Knows when to plant, wait, or retreat

Strengths: Foresight, adaptability

Watch-outs: Analysis paralysis, emotional distance

⸻

🪨 The Mycelium (Invisible Networker)

Not flashy, deeply powerful.

* Builds trust quietly behind the scenes

* Shares resources, information, and support

* Connects struggles across distance and difference

Strengths: Resilience, interdependence

Watch-outs: Being unseen, taken for granted

Episode Transcript

Christina: Okay, so we just went for a off leash, frozen pond jaunt with Palo, and he completely ran away and started hunting this deer that was in the woods. And we didn’t see him for a long time, and Lucy was like, “oh no, we’re never gonna have a dog again”. And she literally was in the snow. I sat down next to her and she was like, are you worried?

And I was like, no, I think you’ll come back. And she literally looked up at the sky and said, “God, please bring my dog back”. And she started talking to God. And you know, we don’t go to church. I’m not, not talking openly about God. If she has questions, I answer in my honest way, but like, she’s so connected.

And um, and then. She asked him like what to do and God gave her an answer. And basically she, she like told me what the answer was and it was basically just like, don’t worry, your dog’s gonna come back. Just let him be in the woods for a while and like he will come back to you. You don’t have to worry. I am with you.

So she just said that out loud. She’s like, oh, there’s my answer actually. And I said. Um, I was like, wow, that’s really cool. I don’t think we have to worry either. And she said, yeah, I usually ask an answer and then I get an, or I ask a question and I get an answer in my heart. And so I just kind of let it go.

And then Palo literally came back as soon as she got her answer and told me out loud. And then, um, then on the way back I said, Hey. Um, where did you learn to talk to God like that? And she was like, oh, I just knew how to do it. I just decided to try one day. And so I asked a question and I immediately heard an answer.

I asked a question in my head, and the answer came into my heart and. Um, she kept referring to God as he, and I said, how do you know God is a he? And she was like, well that’s, you know what? I guess you’re right. I guess it could. I think there are two. I think there’s a she and a he. And um, so, you know, when Mimi died, she went back up and became a she ‘cause the, she was Mimi.

And I was like, okay. And then, um. And then I said, okay, so like, no one ever taught you how to do that. And she said, no, I just, it’s just something that I knew how to do. And I just, I, I only get a response when I ask a question. So she’s like, mom, you should try it. And I was like, I do, I do get an answer in my heart when I ask a question.

I just never told you about that, so I didn’t know. That you knew? And she said, yeah. And she said, well, how many countries are there? And I was like, I don’t know. There are lots of countries. Well, there’s one God per country, and they’re in a line. And when someone in that country asks a question, the God that is for their country gets to the front of the line and all the gods are really close, and then they all go back together again.

And she was just speaking super, super openly about it and then was just like, yeah. Anyway, when we get home, you should totally try it. ‘cause I bet that my God and your God are very similar. ‘cause families probably have the same one.

Becky: Welcome to Noticing: A Podcast About Nothing And Everything At The Same Time. This week, we are continuing our series: “The World is On Fire. What can I Do?” And we’re speaking with mother, audiologist, author, flower farmer, and refreshingly humble and grounded human, elizabeth Brown. In this conversation we talk about Elizabeth’s journey through the pandemic where she threw herself into political movements and suddenly lost a father. Finding herself depleted of all of her resources,

Elizabeth turned to the soil in her backyard to make something honest from scratch. And what blossomed is full of healing and hope. I hope you enjoy.

Um, before we start, Elizabeth. Mm-hmm. My wife Tarra told me to tell you that she’s loving your book. Oh, yay. I haven’t even gotten to read it yet ‘cause she’s, she’s hoarding it.

Elizabeth: Oh, I’m so glad to hear that. You know, um, when I get those little messages, it means so much that it’s made me realize I need to do the same for other authors who have been meaningful to me because it’s super, I mean, you guys know, putting out your work to the public, it’s so vulnerable.

Becky: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Like it’s, it’s intense. You’re sharing this big portion of yourself and as much as you can be like, this is fine. No ego, I’m putting it out there. It is what it is. When someone comes back and says it resonates for them, it’s like, oh, thank goodness. Yeah,

Christina: totally. And that’s not even the original reason why you necessarily make the thing so that you get this pat on the back.

But it’s really beautiful realizing. Mm-hmm. That

it ripples out. It’s the same with feedback we get about this podcast actually.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s it. That it’s like, um, you put something out in the world that’s doing good and having an impact, that feels good.

Becky: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. So, Christina, for today, I thought since, um, you know, we started this podcast introducing each other.

What if you introduce Elizabeth.

Christina: Oh my,

Becky: I didn’t prep her.

Christina: You always like, seriously, you just like drop these

Becky: because I know you can handle it.

Christina: Oh

Elizabeth: my God. Do you want a little cv I can whisper into your ear.

Christina: No, it’s okay.

Becky: No, it’s not about a cv and it’s about like how, you know, how your. Perceived by people who love you, which I think is mm-hmm.

Is kind of cool. But you can say no if you don’t wanna do it.

Christina: No, of course. I’m gonna say yes. Okay.

Becky: Just back you into a corner so you can’t say no, sorry.

Christina: Nope. This is perfect. Okay.

Becky: You were even on before you got on here. I could’ve, if I had thought about it, I would’ve told her

Christina: No, you just keep my life extra spicy.

Okay.

Becky: That’s what the queers are for. They keep your life spicy.

Christina: Thank you. I love you for that. Um, all right, so this week we have our friend Elizabeth Brown on, and she is a newer, I would say, friend of mine and someone that Becky is getting to know, um, because we’re in a little group, a creative group outside of this podcast, but she is.

If I were to describe Elizabeth and why I was drawn to her, it is because she is a normal ass human being who loves life, is drawn to passionate, driven, creative people, which is something I also feel. And she’s, she’s so relatable in how she shows up in the world in that it is honest, raw, real, um, deep, dare I say philosophical.

Very resonant and incredibly grounded. She’s a flower farmer, flower enthusiast, lover of the natural world and bringer of all things wild, I would say. Um, so I went to, I. Visit her. You, I’m looking at you right now as I say this, um, at your house. And it’s, it, it was a beautiful old farmhouse like mine.

And I just love, I think your husband walked in from an outdoor shower in a towel. Your kids woke up and made their own breakfast and there was nothing, um, there was nothing uppity about the experience. It was just this like beautiful, relatable, incredibly real and present experience. And that is what I feel Elizabeth Brown embodies in ways.

Just sort of like scrappy, wonderful, real living. And the more that I learn about you, the more that I love all that you are. And, um, that would be my introduction of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: That is so lovely. I also love that you open with normal person, and I mean that in the most sincere way because. One of my favorite things that people will say is I’ll say something completely off the cuff.

And that I think is so bizarre, and people will say, you just made me feel so normal. So sometimes I think that’s, that’s my place in the world is just saying my, my own what I think to be strange thoughts and realizing that everybody has them inside themselves. So I love that.

Christina: Yeah. It’s, it’s incredibly disarming.

You’re a very disarming presence. It’s, it’s very generous. I say that in the, in the most generous, um, in the most generous way. But, um, you’re the second person, that we’ve brought on for this conversation about sort of community and how we’re showing up and how we’re thinking about this time in the world.

So it’s very exciting to have you here.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I’m really excited to talk about it because when I was reflecting before this talk, I was realizing. That this is sort of a question I’ve wrestled with in my life over and over again and something that I think I can speak to because of some of my, my life experience.

Christina: This is great.

Becky: Do you wanna start since you’ve been sitting with this?

Elizabeth: Okay. Sure. So what I’ve been thinking about, I’ll tell you a little backstory, is, is this kind of finding balance between leaning in to, uh, chaotic times and sort of this gut feeling of I need to make a change and I need to make it right away.

Or this frantic energy that can sometimes come with it, this unsettling. Um, and how that, that didn’t serve me. And so the last time I can think of that was just before the pandemic. I got pretty involved. Um, with some, you know, political movements about gun safety and things like that, and it’s all such important work.

But I jumped in so fully that it, it just kind of destroyed me like I was so sad and felt so, um, out of control of my surroundings and felt like I couldn’t be present with the people I loved in my own little home space that Christina’s describing. Um, and then the pandemic hit and I started gardening and I found that I could access my community and uplift my community through flowers in a really small healing way for myself and other people.

And that is what sort of started my journey truly was coming from this space of feeling really sad and really disenchanted with the, the world as a whole. Um, but realizing in a very Judy Garland, sort of wizard of Oz way, that all the change that needed to happen was in my backyard and my soil. And from that comfortable space that felt sort of selfish to involve myself in, in many ways it, it rippled out into the community and became something bigger than I imagined.

But I had to learn that the hard way. I had to sort of do all the phone calling and letter writing and fundraising and, and fall apart before I found my way to, to enter the world and feel like I could make change longstanding.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

So I’ve been so excited to have this conversation, especially in the last week, um, with you specifically Elizabeth. ‘cause I, I, when I listen to you talk about, um, ‘cause my impression is. It’s not just your growing flowers. Like I’ve listened to you talk about the land and reconnecting with the land around us.

And my latest obsession is I just learned about the enclosures that happened. Um, do you both know about this? So the enclosures happened like right at the beginning of the, uh, capitalism and the industrial rev revolution where there used to be all these common lands in, in England, right? And through this enclosure system.

So the common lands meaning like the peasants would find substance on the land even if they didn’t have money. And through the enclosure system, all that land was taken and everyone was kind of forced into the factory. So this is not a history podcast, so I’m not gonna go too far into it.

But as I think about that. Um, rupture of the relationship of the people with the land. Um, you know, ‘cause we think about the systems of oppression that we’re talking about now that’s kind of making this moment so chaotic and so destructive. We think about, you know, indigenous people that were taking severed from the land, but everyone is disconnected from the land under a capitalist system.

So when I think of like you planting flowers and reconnecting with the land and learning from the land and using the land, I get so excited ‘cause it’s like this reconnection with something that was lost and a reminder for me that everyone suffers under these kind of oppressive systems where wealth power is concentrated at the top, which is kind of the root of what’s happening right now.

So, you know. And it, to me, it’s such a beautiful example of you found something that’s such in alignment and brings you joy and then, you know, ripples out into your community. But to me it’s also a reclamation of something that was, taken a long time ago.

‘cause I don’t know, I just, when I start learning things that I was never taught and then it starts to connect some dots for me, I just get really excited. Um, and it reminds me that like doing work, like planting flowers is so important in these movements, um, especially when it comes from such an authentic place.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think that you’re reminding me of one of the ways I started a, a presentation I gave last weekend, and the way I start most of my presentations is I. Or my talks what have you, is I have people close their eyes and I invite them to remember, um, a floral memory, sort of the first time someone handed them a flower, what it looked like, what it smelled like.

And my favorite thing, they’ll always be a few people in the audience who like their eyes kind of opened their elbowing, the person next to them, like, what is she talking about? But inevitably they closed their eyes. And, um, then I asked them to remember the person who gave it to them and what that felt like, what that felt like in their heart.

And then the recognition that, that you can be that person for someone else. Um, that sharing of something that’s grown in the soil is like you’re saying, such a part of us as humans that we’ve lost. Mm-hmm. And it’s so simple and small.

And all of us can do that. And that, that’s why I love being with children in the garden because they remind me that, you know, they touch everything.

They smell everything. I’ve had kids in my garden who the parents will say, no, no, don’t touch that. Or don’t. And I, I always say, no, get, you should touch it too. And, and you should smell it. And um, of course I always try to be mindful of the fact that, yeah, I have this land and it is stolen land and that weighs heavy on me.

So I don’t believe that I own this garden. It’s for everybody. And I oftentimes encourage people to sort of open the garden gate and, and share what you have, share with your neighbors. And, um, I think it’s so small and something that resonates with every, per, it’s a universal truth. We, we all share but have forgotten in life.

Becky: Yeah.

Christina: I also love, I love that it releases the preciousness of things like you and I have talked about this before, Elizabeth, about, um, letting, letting the land grow.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Christina: With or without our participation. It’s really easy to get outside in your yard and really like fuss over it. But this is what I love about you is that you really don’t fuss.

And once you, once you let it be unfussy and, and live in that middle place between the beginning and your goal, which would be the end, there’s such literal, fertile ground there to show you what you didn’t expect. And, um, so even inviting people into the garden as an experience, I mean, when I, when I came to your house that time.

I, I walked up and I was like, oh my gosh. You know? ‘cause you have a really strong Instagram presence. That’s very, um, what would the word, like, it’s, it’s very specific to you. It’s like, edited is not the word that I wanna say, but it just, it’s harm harmonious. Like, it feels like it stays within yourself and your brand or whatever.

But then going there is an entirely, um, it’s like a, it’s like a sweeping experience where there are like these entire plumes of, of native plants that are making these like sculptural shapes and you’re just like, oh yeah, that one, I just let do whatever I was gonna do this year. I wasn’t growing anything there, but I kind of like love this.

Um, and, and it’s, it’s not so precious and that’s such a beautiful way to be. Outside in your own, for those of us who have yards. Because a lot of, we don’t see a lot of that in mm-hmm. Um, in gardens, public gardens and things. It’s much more, uh, picky, you know? Yeah.

Becky: Manicured and tamed. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Elizabeth: Yeah. And you lose, to me, you lose sense of place in those gardens or sense of story or, um, yeah. My garden does tend to be pretty wild because I love nature just doing what it wants to. I find it fascinating, like you said, like when certain things curve a direction and I go out and say, oh, was this because of the sun or the wind?

Mm-hmm. Or, oh, look at those birds. It’s just like I have completely given up. Like that is my most beautiful expression of submitting to it all the natural world. Mm-hmm. Um, life. It, it is always a reminder to me that things are still beautiful in spite of all your misgivings and all of our, you know, humans kind mistakes that, that a garden can still exist without you.

That beauty is still there without you. Even if I neglect a garden for a week, I show back up and think, oh my gosh, look what bloomed in spite of me and my forgetfulness. Such a visual, powerful reminder.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: Um, yeah, that I think, you know, as we were talking about before, I think Becky, you were sort of mentioning this, um, there are so many things that people buy into, right.

Uh, paying gobs of money for, um, an experience of vacation or all these things to kind of remember those truths that could just be easily found, just stepping out the back door and staring at a tree or a plant. Mm-hmm. Um, it doesn’t all have to be something that’s purchased or bought to bring you along in your journey.

Becky: Yeah. But that is kind of what we’re conditioned to think. So it becomes such a radical act to just let your garden be, which I love. Um, I’m curious, Elizabeth, has this always been, so I know just a little bit about your story of, you know, in COVID you started putting your hands in the earth, but are, are there through lines throughout your life where you can point to as like, this is how you’ve always been?

Did it feel like a return or something new?

Elizabeth: Oh, it’s definitely a return. So I, I actually live in the town I grew up in, and that’s not by accident. I, I love it here. I feel. Very drawn to the landscape. Um, my cousin was reminding me recently that in the summertime, my brother, sister and I never wore shoes.

She’d come and stay with us for a week and she would, she just remembers distinctly all of us running in and outta my mom’s station wagon barefoot for the entirety of the summer because we were either in the woods or, um, swimming in the ocean. And I didn’t think anything was really strange about that.

Um, you know, I, I had a little notebook and I do experiments measuring the plants in my backyard as they grew when I was eight or nine years old. Um, we used to do a lot of bonfires in my backyard. I’ll say, you know, my parents were sort of. The originators of forest kindergarten, I feel like in a lot of ways.

Um, but I think a lot of parents were, there was a lot of that, like, get outside and the door closed behind you. Um, but beyond that, you know, my grandmother had this really lovely garden, uh, the next town over that looked out into the sea. And so she had to grow on this rocky soil and she mimicked her garden after this amazing artist and poet named Celia Thaxter.

And then I, at the end of my street growing up, um, May Sarton, the poet lived, I only saw her sort of driving back and forth in her car. My dad used to try and coerce us to put out a lemonade stand so he might be able to meet her. But I feel like my life was really influenced by these, um. Women artists that my parents or grandmothers admired and their connection with the earth.

And I didn’t realize that until I got older and, and, uh, discovered that not everyone had a childhood like that. So it’s, I, I guess I would say always sort of been my way of life, but the gardens were never, my mom’s gardening style was very much like you would call chaos gardening now. She’d just sort of like throw seeds and close her eyes, and maybe we’d have cucumbers or maybe we’d have zinnias or maybe we’d have nothing.

But it didn’t really matter. It was just for the fun of the, the magic of it. Yeah.

Christina: It’s so beautiful. And so you’re, I love hearing more and more about your history and also true or false, York is like, isn’t it kind of like an affluent, like old wealth, probably lots of people who live there have never had to work a day in their life. Kind of like inherited ta. Is it that way? That’s my impression of it.

Elizabeth: It’s the funniest little mixing. Less so now, but um, when I was a kid, we really still had a true working waterfront with fishermen and laborers. You know, my mom waited tables and my dad was a finished carpenter you know, but they could still afford a little house in town and.

During the nineties when the internet came, we had an influx of folks who then could work from home and commute into Boston. I think that changed the demographic a bit. It got, but York being historically a summer generation, a summer home destination for, for forever, there would be this huge swing of wealth in the summer.

Um, and people coming from all over, usually city folks. Mm-hmm. So that’s a whole other element of gardening too that I find interesting here. ‘cause you have the local folks who would sort of take care of these grand homes and summer gardens, um, and then the people who came just for the summer months to enjoy and the beauty of it because their family had for generations.

But there’s a huge farm down the street for me that’s been owned by the same family for generations. So there, there’s definitely a mix of working class. And that more affluent group, like you’re talking about that, that has shifted in in recent years. Yeah.

Christina: Got it. So you’re not an outlier in your wild landscape.

Elizabeth: No. And that was sort of all the kids. I mean, I, I’m, I’m very lucky to be friends with so many kids I grew up with and a lot of them are creatives and we all share that. You know, we wandered the woods together. It was just sort of what you did. Like my girlfriends and I would pick up a canoe and that’s what you, you you did or you camped out.

And that was just sort of, I, I got the feeling that a lot of my friends and their parents were sort of alternative and that’s why they sort of moved to this little town. It was just southern enough, Maine that they weren’t really in Maine. Yeah,

Christina: yeah.

Elizabeth: But it’s beautiful here.

Christina: Oh, it’s so beautiful. It Maine in general, but where you are in particular is so great.

‘cause it’s so close to all these beautiful little like, brackish rivers and mm-hmm. Um, and the actual ocean. And then you have all of this land that merges the two. You were saying when you, during COVID, when you sort of like hit a certain wall, you came back into the soil. Can you like, speak a little bit more?

Um. I’m thinking about the return to what feels true in you. Mm-hmm. And how this is so far something that has been a pattern is the easiest thing for people to do, to show up in this moment is to just turn back to what’s very honest. You literally turning into your backyard and sinking your hands into the soil and realizing that that was the ground that you needed to grow from and welcome other people in from.

Um, but I’m thinking about you and how you were saying that it’s been able, you’ve been able to reach into your community via that. And I know you have one book that just got published and another one that’s coming. Mm-hmm. And so to me, as an outsider, I’m looking at this and seeing and hearing you talk about this and thinking, oh my God, like life is just pouring into you because you’re actually standing at the place where you.

You, Elizabeth, should be standing to create the most change. Can you speak to that at all?

Elizabeth: Yeah, so I’m someone I think who naturally feels in service to others. It’s where I feel most comfortable, but I’ve realized that I feel most comfortable connecting with people sometimes on a intimate, one-on-one face-to-face experience, which I think sometimes when I was, you know, becoming more politically active, I, I sort of lost that a little bit.

I was thinking about things that were big things that felt really overwhelming to me, and so. Just to kind of go back, before I started growing flowers, I had become so melancholy about the state of the world that I struggled brushing my daughter’s hair at night without getting teary thinking of what am I bringing my children to?

The world’s on fire, people are treating each other horribly. And the weight of that just, it sunk me so deeply and so truly, the, I started stepping outside in the backyard and this light inside me, like when I was a child, my, my curiosity of the bugs and the birds and, and things popping up out of the soil that, that shouldn’t, that, that, that was always something that interests me.

Like you’d have terrible rain or terrible weather, and against all odds, this beautiful flower would open. And the metaphor just springs forward and you’re looking at it. Just so amazed and so reconnecting with the natural world in that really simple way lit a fire inside me. And so it didn’t involve me needing to get up in the morning and go for a hike, which no shame for people who hike.

I have a lot of girlfriends and they love hiking. And now I’m like, I’m not going. I’ll be in my guarded. But it was, yeah, that way of finding sort of the path of least resistance to awaken that truth inside me, which was the world is still beautiful. And realizing I can share this message with people and it, it’s just as easy as cutting this flower and bringing it to someone who doesn’t expect it.

And that’s kind of what kept happening. So my, um, my job has been for the past 20 years as an audiologist, working with folks with hearing loss and during the pandemic especially. My elderly and hard of hearing population was so isolated because if you remember, they were all sort of locked down in, in their living facilities.

And also if you had a mask on, folks with hearing loss couldn’t read your, your face. And so they were coming in so sad to my appointments and I started giving them flowers. And when I did these stories would come out. My mother used to love to grow this flower, or I had this flower at my first house with my husband.

Have I told you about my husband? It just brought people’s faces. They lit up and I thought, gosh, this is the simplest way for me to access people. And it’s, I felt like I held onto this little secret that people weren’t talking about, which was, you know, you don’t have to. Go full bore, you know, online or writing letters to the editors and all those things.

That’s wonderful for the people who can do it and who can sustain that. But it weighed on me so heavy that I found that this was my way, uh, to reach people. And I had that intimate one-on-one experience face-to-face that felt very moving. And that’s, that’s, and then, um, you know, during the pandemic, I lost my father, he died unexpectedly.

And I called my brother and I said, I need you to come over and dig the yard with me. We need to make more garden beds. And we dug all day and I started calling it my grief garden. And I would say to people, people would say, how are you doing? And I’d say, oh, look it, I have 400 cosmos now. I’m doing terrible.

Like, if you wanna know what’s going on in my head, check this out. Um, but that was really healing for my brother and I to be out there in the soil together again, like when we were kids and knowing it was for the purpose of, again, for me, it’s always reminding people that the world is beautiful and that it’s really simple to access it.

Uh, so that’s, that’s how the garden and that feeling, like you said, I think you were asking about the feeling. It just, when you put your hands in the dirt and squeeze that soil between your hands and look at it and realize how much life is teaming in there with healing properties that we don’t even understand yet.

And again, even if you have a summer where there’s drought or there’s buckets of rain, something always shows up. And, and in those extremes, the little things that show up are so meaningful.

Christina: It’s so true. Also, I wanna point out that when you were, like, when you grab the soil and you have it in your hands and it’s teaming with life, there was like some bug that flew like behind your head.

I don’t even know where it’s coming from ‘cause it’s the middle of winter right now. But I saw that. So, um, also the word I keep thinking of as you’re talking about this, which is so touching and hearing you talk about this as like an infectious energy that I’m sure will, will like expand beyond this to everyone who hears, which I’m so glad about.

The word participation keeps coming up because you found the appropriate way to participate in your own life. And it’s really, I’m hearing so much of how it healed you. It heals inward and outward, which is so awesome because you were doing it for yourself, which could feel like a selfish task, but totally it so is not, you know, like your.

Your instinct to share a flower, um, to someone who is having a hard time is such a beautiful gift. I do this in the, um, because sometimes we get groceries delivered to our house if life is too busy here and we can’t like find a way to pop out. And I always run outside and as their, as the delivery person is putting groceries on our step, I’ve learned that actually it’s harmful if I help them ‘cause it makes their system wrong.

So I don’t help them with the bags. That’s what I used to do. Um, but now I clip a flower from the garden and always give it to them as they get into their car and their reactions. Like, I always walk inside crying a little bit because it’s so touching to see a human being, especially now when everything’s so virtual and give them something and allow them to stop.

Look at it. One guy looked at it and said, usually the first response is, this is for me. And it’s all, yeah, this is for you. I just cut this for you. You can take it with you. And then one guy said, huh, I’m gonna take a picture and send it to my daughter. She lives in, I think she was in like South Africa or something south, and he literally sent her a picture to show her that he was having a good day.

Elizabeth: It’s wild. Yeah. And just like you said, that’s, I mentioned this in the book, that reaction, “is this for me?” I don’t that phrase, the more I heard, it continued to strike me as so profound and strange that so many of us don’t believe that we deserve even the smallest token. Uh, of, of beauty from the soil beneath our feet.

It is so shocking. We all go about our day to day with our head down, just doing and digging and trying the best we can. And then when someone holds a flower to your face, the first thing you say is shocked that it’s for you. Like, we’re also invisible in our own lives. And sort of the more you can remind someone, yes, this is for you and so much more, and yeah, you deserve it.

Mm-hmm. Like you’re a beautiful person. Mm-hmm. I see it and I’m a stranger, you know, it’s so wildly powerful.

Christina: It fills me right up.

Elizabeth: Oh, me too. It’s addictive

Christina: because it doesn’t take that much, like, it doesn’t take that much to do it.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Tending the garden is such a pleasure. It’s such a way of welcoming. I mean, even I love, I love your grief garden. Like, how am I doing horribly? Look at all these things that I’ve planted.

Oh my God, it’s so good.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Christina: Mm.

Becky: I think what I’m struck by is just like I, I keep thinking about this, you know, about community and like, what does it mean to be in community as if it’s this like. A thing outside of ourselves and what I’m hearing is, you know, you finding like a community is just a collection of people who have care for one another.

And that’s exactly it. Like you handing the flower to the driver, you’re in community with him. It’s just, I love these conversations for how it demystifies this idea of how to be in community because we have forgotten, we we, you said it, Elizabeth already, we’re so isolated with our heads down. I think a lot of us have forgotten what it even means to be in community and how simple it can be.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I love, you know, I always think, and I think part of it is because I live in the town I grew up in, but I sometimes I joke when I run about town that I’m doing my busy, busy town, you know that Richard scary book with all the little like So-and-sos The Postman and so-and-so’s the Dentist. And gosh, I loved that book as a kid and I love reading it to my kids.

I think because it is such a small town I grew up in, I do know everyone. I know the dentist and I know the postman. And in small communities, you know, all their business, everyone’s in a glass house for better or worse. And what I know about everyone in this community, which is not unique, it’s in every community, is that everyone suffers and everyone’s carrying their own weight.

And the bravery in which people show up every day, that, that sometimes I’ll walk around the grocery store and that thought just catches me off guard. Like looking at someone, pulling out a box of cereal and thinking, who knows what happens to this, this person, you know? Mm-hmm. And this is why I need to plan a garden because these thoughts roll through and I have to lift them up.

But um, yeah, I just find people are endlessly beautiful and fascinating, and the more you open your eyes to it, the more compassionate you are. And that. That echo back and forth. You know, like in yoga class, the, the light in me sees the light in you. It’s so easy to do on a daily basis. Um, you just have to open your eyes a little bit.

And I think everyone is capable of it, and they just need to be reminded because a community is a beautiful, beautiful place and we are so disconnected nowadays. Mm-hmm. But it doesn’t take much to shift the tide.

Becky: I mean, I keep hearing all these, you know, we’ve all heard the stories coming out of Minneapolis and, and it’s, it’s less the horror that’s striking me.

It’s the community coming together and it’s, so, this is not an original thought. I heard someone else say it, but it was so matriarchal. They’re all just like circling around the children and circling around care and who, who needs tending to, because you’re right, Elizabeth, we all suffer.

And it’s like, that’s the, the mutual understanding. But like, who’s suffering the most? Let’s put them in the center. Let’s encircle them in care. That’s matriarchy right there, that they’re showing us that this beautiful, care can come out of even the most horrible situations. And it’s an example for all of us.

And they’re winning, you know?

Elizabeth: Yeah. The love always wins. I mean, it really does. You know, I, I can be so pessimistic and so optimistic in the same breath. Um, but you’re so right. And I think even the little bit. Those weeks in Maine where we felt ice presence, that’s what I was taken over with. I mean, our community fridge here in Kittery, they had a movement where people all came together and made soup and they were delivering it for people’s homes.

And you had this real sense of terror and fear for your community members. That was answered immediately by people in the community to say, I see you, I feel you, and I will protect you. And that emotion, you know, really came forward and was so moving. Mm-hmm.

Christina: And there are so many different ways of protecting.

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Yeah. And, and I love that, that this moment feels like a, like a peak of that expression, but all it’s doing is reintroducing. You know, it’s like what I feel like living in an old house, you have this incredibly long to-do list and something breaks and moves to the top of the list. And so right now it’s like our reaction, our compassionate reaction is moving to the top of the list.

So it’s top of mind for so many people, so many people, particularly women. It feels, but maybe that’s just because I know so many of them, but it seems very top of mind of how we can tend the right things to move this, to move all of us forward in a way that is more benevolent. And, um, and yeah, it, I think it’s just, I think it’s just one of those times where we are getting reintroduced to what really matters and we get to respond and we get to choose.

It’s like what Becky always says, like we get to pause and choose our response and exercise choice here as long as we’re at a point of safety. But, um, it’s. It’s really lovely. I love having these very generative conversations to find lots and lots of examples of how people are participating and choosing the way that they walk bravely into the change..

Elizabeth: I’m thinking about, um, when you saying women, I think so much of the resistance I was witnessing was happening in a hidden way, um, sort of around kitchen tables and behind closed doors and grocery shopping and dropping things off. Things that women have been doing in the shadows for forever.

Mm-hmm. We know how to move mountains without making a noise, right? Mm-hmm. We can run an entire household and raise children and, and make life more beautiful without making up peep. So who better to run a resistance like that than, than the women Truly.

Christina: Yeah.

Becky: I think it’s also a testament of even having these conversations, I am witnessing and feeling in myself, uh, awakening to, it’s not time to not make a peep anymore.

Mm-hmm. Let’s take the work that yes women have been doing, plenty of people been doing, but let’s elevate it. Let’s talk about it, let’s do it out in public. Are you, you all noticing that it feels like a shift? Like when I think about the shifts now and in my short lifetime, um, it feels like it’s less, let’s fight this moment and instead let’s really build something new.

Do you feel any of that in this moment? Like are and are you witnessing that?

Elizabeth: Yeah, I think like absolutely the most forward way, and I think this is where a lot of people get stuck. Is you think of protests, right? That, that real visual community of we’re here and we’re angry and protests are amazing.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: And I have participated in some, but they’re not a reality for everyone. So like you’re saying, instead of being in the shadows and doing things behind doors, let’s do it our way with our strengths and not be quiet about it. Yeah. Talk to our neighbors and tell the stories of these people to sort of give someone access to, there are so many ways to participate.

Um, it doesn’t have to be, you know, one way or the other. And I, I do think that’s why people get stuck and they start feeling, um, guilty or overwhelmed. Um, and so I think, yeah, figuring out the way that you can show up in the world that that works for you, and being vocal about that and telling people so that you inspire others.

Becky: Exactly. It gives such a permission to like talk about all the ways and people are showing up in community. It gives people permission to, oh, I have choices. I can like show up in my own way. And that’s what we need. You know, we don’t need billions of people showing up the same way. We need billions of people showing up in the way that they were born to show up.

Um, yeah, and I just keep thinking about, um, I don’t know, something about you talking about doing things quietly in the shadows and I think a lot about shadow and like the shadow meaning what is unseen, not what’s evil, not, but what, like what’s unexamined? Um, and when I think of like guilt and shame, those emotions.

That we’re all familiar with. We all feel like we don’t, we’re not doing enough, you know, all the reasons that bring up guilt and shame. Those emotions tend to make us wanna hide. They wanna make us, you know, hide in the shadows. And I just feel like we’re being called to come out of the shadows and metabolize what’s been in the shadows so that we can build something new very much in the light.

Christina: I, I, I see what you’re saying and I think that, I think that both things can be true here, because I think women, I see it’s maybe a sweeping generalization, but I’m gonna try not to make it that way. I see women doing really deep work right now as a reaction to what’s happening in that we are not necessarily going to, I will, I won’t say we, I, I’ll say I, I am seeding the world that I want to

w have my children grow in and their children grow in by doing really, really deep work with other deep people so that then I can come out with more of a fully formed non-reactive burst of something very whole and true. And so maybe the women working in the shadows is more like we’re doing the thing without, how do I wanna say this actually?

Like I think it’s very considered and doing it in the shadows so that then when it comes out, it’s like fully formed and ready to move forward. Does that make sense? Rather than more of like a masculine reactive burst. Is that different than what you’re thinking or not really? You’re still like, get it in the light.

This is annoying.

Becky: Well, by the light I just mean like, examine it, look at it, talk about it like having conversations about this moment and how it’s affecting us. That’s bringing what may have been, you know, I mean, how many family functions have you either been at or heard about or heard people talking about where it’s like, we don’t talk about politics, we don’t talk about those things.

We don’t talk about the moment. To me, that’s like in the shadows. Mm-hmm. You know, we do the work, but we don’t talk about it. Or even like how this moment sharing how this moment is living in you and how you’re dealing with it. Talking about how you’re processing grief, to me that’s, that’s bringing all these things out of the unexamined and into the light, meaning we’re talking about it and we’re open about it.

That’s all. I mean.

Christina: Like what we’re doing right now.

Becky: Exactly. Exactly. And I feel more people are being more open about talking, talking about it. Like I said, when grief and, and shame, when you carry those feelings of, I’m not doing enough, because it’s not, it doesn’t look like what you think the work is supposed to look like but all I know is, we’re better when we talk about it and when we, when, you know, we’re honest and open and can be vulnerable.

Um, and that’s what I’m seeing a lot of, is a lot of people being honest and open.

Elizabeth: And I think being open for the long haul. One of the things that’s always interests me is this, like, Christina, you said this flash of energy when people are afraid, right? When a tragedy or a big event happens, everyone is all in, and then three weeks later it’s back to whatever we were before.

And I think like you’re discussing. These long, sustained, meaningful conversations that perhaps aren’t so fear or shame driven.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: But come from a space of compassion, love, beauty, those are the things that are gonna take us for the long haul and make longstanding change. And that I’m really curious about because I have noticed, I, I tend to talk about politics and all these things a lot.

And then, you know, in certain circles it could be like, oh, here’s Debbie Downer again, showing up, chatting, chatting about the struggles of the world. So how do I approach it to make it this really beautiful conversation where it’s not as if I’m judging people for not doing something or for not talking or caring about it, but it’s just sort of a part of your day-to-day lexicon.

Hey, how are you doing? Oh, do you have anything in the back of your cabinet that you wanna bring to the food pantry? Kind of acting at this very, very local level, and as you’re saying, not at this being this sort of hidden thing that we’re doing, but just the way we continually show up for one another and championing people who do that so that the systems are in place when there’s a big flash event that makes people afraid or feel shameful for what they have or have not been doing.

Mm-hmm. It’s a long game for sure,

Christina: but I think the long game is what women do in the shadows all the time and always have like, that’s where I feel like that that ground comes in and it also, the long game is like the long game of the garden. Mm. You don’t throw seeds out and see plants grow immediately.

You have to, you have to wait and like go check them and tend them. Or not, and then, you know, let them, let them do what they can do. Right. We talk, we’ve been talking so much about like seeding the world we want to be in through these conversations and, and you, Elizabeth, are literally someone who is seeding as a courier.

It’s, it’s, um, yeah. It’s so beautiful. We have, did you get a chance to look at the list that I sent you Yes. That Ashley made? So we have like, just to, we don’t have to read it all, but like for the listeners who didn’t read the list, we put it on our substack and we can, we can put it in the show notes again this time.

But I’ll read so far in a community garden, the titles that Ashley O’Brien, who was on here last time made. So we have the gardener. The seed planter, the composter, who is the transformer? The tender, the caretaker, the cultivator, who’s the systems builder? The pollinator, which would be the connector messenger, the canopy, which is the protector elder, the mulch layer, the rest and recovery holder, the weather watcher, which would be the strategist and the mycelium, which is the invisible networker.

So when you looked at that list, did you feel you could relate to any of them?

Elizabeth: Oh, what I loved about looking at that list was sort of, it was almost like reviewing my. Music interests when I was 13 and 14 years old and trying to find my, find Tori Amos basically was the, the conclusion. But I tried all the things.

I tried Nirvana and Pearl Jim and all the things, so I was looking at that list going, oh, I tried that. Oh, it was bad. That really depleted me. So I think it is the tender, which is the caregiver, which really goes with like my, my day job and just my, you know, the garden, which is, yeah, I, I’m most comfortable kind of, uh, overseeing the day-to-day facilitating of things that are already there in the soil and, and not necessarily finding them or connecting them to people, um, but offering like a quiet skill of observation, which is very similar when you take a patient’s case history and things, you have to sort of listen and be mindful and take care of this, the situation right in front of you.

And I think that that is my, my strength. The other things I’ve tried and it just, it’s for other folks.

Christina: Mm-hmm. Beautiful. Mm-hmm.

I love it. I love having this list for people to kind of look at. ‘cause it really does, it encourages you to self-reflect.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Because I think you could look at all of them and say, oh yeah, I do that.

Christina: Yeah,

Elizabeth: I do that. But then you wonder, why did I do that? Was it to Yeah. That, that this gift that I keep getting in middle age, which is discovering my true self, who is always there, who was that little girl in the backyard measuring, you know, wild flowers like.

I’ve gone done laps over the past 40 years trying to just get back to who that person was for various reasons that we all go through. Um, so it’s nice to look at that list and very comfortably say, definitely not that.

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: What a gift.

Christina: Yeah. And then you just take that knowledge and you step into your next day with that, which is beautiful to see you doing that.

I feel like that feels like a nice,

Elizabeth: Yeah. Tori Amos. Mic drop. Cornflake girl. Corn girl.

Becky: I was about to ask is, what was your favorite Tori Amos song?

Elizabeth: Oh my gosh. This is so perfect. Silent all these years. So obvious he’ll still be waiting for somebody else.

Still my karaoke song, people will be like, I put it on for you. Thank you.

Christina: Oh

Becky: yes.

Christina: I just love it.

Elizabeth: Yeah,

Christina: these years

Elizabeth: so good. Oh, what an angel among us. That one is.

Christina: Oh, I love it. I love it so much.

The music was recorded live as a part of the Sound Service at 3S Art Space in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in January, 2025, where musicians responded to the changing light in the room that reflected and refracted through Christina’s suspended artwork. Andrew Halchak, the composer of this piece is playing bass clarinet and Tomas Cruz and Katie Seiler are singing.

Okay, I’m making the post right now while Becky finishes editing it, and it’s probably gonna go live a little later than normal, Elizabeth. Usually we post in the middle of the day, but then we had a really long conversation with Kate Garmey this morning that’s gonna come out in two weeks. But I have to say, I have never been more excited to choose an audio for the Instagram post.

Years go by and I still keep waiting. Silent all these years. Oh my God, it’s so good.

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