Storytelling

  • Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center | Blog | June 26, 2023

    It’s no more than 5 minutes after meeting Suzanne Lieberman, and she is tuning me into the utterly energetic and joyful call of a Black-headed Grosbeak. With a bright smile and grateful glimmer in her eye, Suzanne shares her fondness for the Grosbeak’s summer song, and her appreciation for their long-distance migration to Washington all the way from central Mexico where they nest in winter. Though we can’t see the bird, we hear its melodic chirppy notes whistling from the treetops of Oxbow’s alder grove—a 17-year-old restoration site buffering the Snoqualmie River. Suzanne documents the auditory observation on her clipboard, then we continue to concentrate our eyes and ears towards the riparian forest, curious about what other birds we may witness […]

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  • Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center | Blog | November 29, 2022

    On the morning of November 9, I followed Oxbow’s habitat restoration technicians Collin and Shard to “the point,” a peninsula hugged by the sharp curve of the Snoqualmie River. Here, they have been restoring the riparian zone between the river and our farm fields and they’ve prepped the landscape for the latest step in Oxbow’s Assisted Tree Migration experiment—transplanting bigleaf maple seedlings sown from our project’s southernmost seed source in Oregon. Over the next several years, Oxbow’s Conservation Team will monitor the health of these plants and compare them to maples grown from local and Willamette Valley (central) Oregon seed sources as well as other native tree species grown from Washington seed sources, in hopes of determining which genetic stocks are most suitable for our warming climate. This work has never been more relevant than now […]

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  • Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center | Blog | November 1, 2023

    On the banks of the Snoqualmie River, along the easternmost stretch of Oxbow’s “Big Farm Loop Trail,” you can observe riparian forests at various stages of growth—from knee-high baby trees in newer restoration sites to an undisturbed, century-old natural forest. Here, the difference between weaker and healthier shorelines can be not only seen but also heard. In contrast to the quieter, less active areas with young plantings, the more mature woods are noticeably alive with innumerable bird calls and songs, caroling from lush shrubs and towering maple and cottonwood trees. This area provides ideal habitat, food sources, and breeding grounds for various plant and animal species, including insects, birds, bobcats, elk, deer, beavers, otters, and coyotes. But did you know that riparian forests like these also support salmon? […]

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  • Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center | Blog | February, 27, 2023

    During early spring, ponds in the Snoqualmie Valley are a busy place, at least for a few creatures including northern red-legged frogs, pacific treefrogs, northwestern salamanders, and our own Oxbow Habitat Restoration Technicians. You can find the latter wading through water, overturning vegetation, and counting egg masses to evaluate amphibian abundance. Our team’s observations help other conservation experts understand where our local amphibians are (and aren’t) breeding across the region and evaluate if and how habitat restoration efforts are benefitting their populations […]

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  • Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center | Blog | May 31, 2023

    This spring, like every spring, our Agriculture Team transplanted thousands of onion seedlings into the farm fields. However, this time, instead of becoming bulbs bound only for Farm Share bags, farmers markets, or the Farm Stand in the fall, these onions are on a year and a half long journey from seed back to seed—destined to enrich farms and gardens throughout North America […]

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  • Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center | Blog | April 6, 2023

    Our favorite way to eat salmonberries is right off of the plant, by the handful. Their bright blend of sweetness and tartness embodies summer in the Pacific Northwest, and when we nourish ourselves with them, we too embody this time and place. It’s magical and life-giving. When we eat directly from the Earth, our interconnectedness to the landscape is clear and joyful. We’re able to recognize our relationship with the ecosystem at a primal level. We physically and emotionally integrate the wisdom and vitality of the plants we eat, whether we’re conscious of the transformation or not […]

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  • Oxbow Farm & Conservation Center | Blog | May 1, 2024

    On the first morning of camp, nervous anticipation surges among kids like a rising tide as parents and guardians drop them off with a cheerful “Bon voyage!” Questions flood in: What adventures await? Who will join? Campers ponder the potential risks, possible rewards, knowledge to be gained, and epic stories to be told. Amidst it all looms the biggest question: Will it be fun?

    From a kiddo’s perspective, summer camp may feel like an expedition into uncharted territories. Venturing into new relationships with unfamiliar people and places is often a mix of “Whoa, I’m not sure about this…” and “Wow, I’ve got this!” […]

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  • Personal Instagram Post | November 9, 2023

    I’m in awe of the sophistication and strength of cacti. Thriving in extreme conditions requires a radically resilient spirit and a clever economy of resources. After noticing my fascination with the fractal geometry of various cacti, my baby mama and favorite plant nerd, Ali, elevated my curiosity to an obsession with desert biology and ecology by teaching me that, in addition to protection from predators, cacti spines also serve as shade for the plant…

    … excuse me while I lasso my brain back from the moon and into my skull…

    SHADE!

    I am too darn charmed by this fact (and also a little embarrassed I didn’t already know it, but that’s ok). I can’t stop thinking about the brilliance of cacti’s efficiency. In an effort to conserve water and survive severe sun exposure, cacti modified their leaves into spines for the dual purpose of keeping animals from eating them but also casting thousands of tiny shadows that cool the plant and slow evaporation. Spines are also the perfect architecture for atmospheric water to condense and form into droplets that then drift down the spine, to the body of the cactus, and eventually the ground and roots. This is the definition of form and function in design and I’m simply inspired.

    Cholla branches also provide nesting birds with a spiky safe haven from snakes, coyotes, and other creatures. With a poetic flair, the spines of some species of “jumping cholla” brandish microscopic barbs with tenacious sticking power that helps the plant propagate itself. Passing predators are dealt a double whammy when they unwittingly collect and disperse reproductive stem fragments during the cactus attack. It’s so badass! Not many creatures know how to play defense and offense at the exact same time (winking at you, roller derby friends who are still reading).

    I’m so deeply grateful and honored to witness these plants with my growing family during our “babymoon” vacation in the Sonoran Desert. I’m inspired by cholla, and have a strong desire to learn from their wisdom and embody their steadfast strength and sharp wit as we enter parenthood. But I also want to acknowledge that it’s easy to romanticize the bravery and resilience of those surviving severe conditions while only being a casual observer.

    I have many fears about raising a child into an adult during what feels like exponentially increasing extremes—from the climate crisis, to the wealth gap, to political and religious zealotry (it’s all connected). I pray for help approaching life’s ever-changing circumstances with curiosity, compassion, and generosity of spirit and sustenance. I pray for help nurturing reciprocity in all my relationships from the folks I meet, to the food I eat, to the landscapes I roam. I pray for help being present and spiritually and emotionally attuned with my surroundings (which often feels overwhelming now that scenes and stories from around the world are at my fingertips). And I pray for the wisdom to understand when it’s time to brandish spines to protect my family and heritage, and when it’s time to “make it rain” so others who are being annihilated and starved of resources can protect theirs.

    Here’s a few resources:

    Doctors Without Borders
    Offers medical humanitarian assistance to people based solely on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender, or politics.

    Dr. Rosales Meza
    Xicana/Mexicana seer, medicine woman, counseling psychology Ph.D., and mama who’s practice weaves decolonial teachings, Earth medicine, somatic work, energy work, and shadow work.

    Jewish Voice for Peace
    Envisions a world where all people—from the U.S. to Palestine—live in freedom, justice, equality, and dignity.

NEWSLETTERs

POETRY

  • “Rachel! Focus!” My fifth grade teacher chides—
    ordering my attention away from the window,
    and the recess of my mind,
    towards a life-size model of a skeleton.

    There are 206 bones in most human bodies,
    each with a name I’m supposed to memorize.
    As my teacher motions towards the hip,
    I quip that “Elvis shook his pelvis, am I right?”
    But mostly that device awakens me
    to the fact that we all die.

    At this point, death seems so distant
    it’s fiction. It’s a Halloween costume I disrobe
    and disregard for another year.
    Loss has not yet thinned my skin enough
    to examine hollow skull sockets in the mirror.

    My hands haven’t become a wrinkled map of time—
    charting the topography of every impossible valley
    and precious peak I’ve climbed.

    I haven’t held my love on the banks of the Snoqualmie,
    each synced heartbeat made more exquisite by the inevitable
    letting go—knowing half of our lives already arose
    and disappeared like each sun, flood, and breath.

    I haven’t yet climbed pines with my children,
    gently grasping nothing is evergreen—finding peace
    in ancestral wisdom that we will ascend more freely
    once the earth reclaims our limbs.

    I have not yet shared laughter with an arena
    of angels all enlivened
    by Creation’s clever setup
    and punchline—
    that our most basic instinct is self-preservation,
    and our one guarantee
    is our demise.

    For now, in this classroom, all I know
    is even The King died alone and
    that burden crushes my sternum
    under a 6 foot mountain of fear.
    My cranium is perplexed and too rigid
    to wrap itself around the paradox of duality
    and the utter ineffability of “RACHEL!”
    My teacher snaps.
    She points and asks, “What do we call this?”
    Oh no, I’m not actually certain
    how to name it, yet.
    But I’m pretty sure…
    at least I hope…
    it’s humerus.

  • Your nest is my neck
    woven in the womb with debris
    from both my parents’ family trees.
    And your legacy 
    is our labored breath
    strangled under the weight 
    of each generations’ failures
    and unfulfilled dreams:
    Eugene’s sobriety;
    Shirley and the kids’ safety;
    Barbara’s freedom from the patronizing
    edges of our hometown and
    her father’s tongue;
    Jerry’s unconditional love
    from Lamar;
    My own expressions
    noticed and cherished—
    liberated from damnation, 
    and your fire-forged shell.

    None of us ever had the right words
    or prayers to crack our shared shame
    free from your egg, delicate as an anvil,
    lodged our throats. So we dragged you
    through centuries, making our silence your home.
    I’m so sorry it’s taking me so long 
    to not resent your gravity
    and to learn our shared history.
    Thank you for showing me my family’s strength.
    Thank you for gifting me peace
    in knowing
    I never carried you alone.

  • These days, I spend a lot of time in my prayer chair.
    Though, I’m not praying, exactly;
    at least not in my old Southern Baptist
    Heaven Insurance bargaining kind of way.
    It’s more in the static-seated, deep-breathing,
    electric awareness humming, ironclad heart disarming,
    frontal lobe loitering somewhere 
    between “Goddamn!” and “Hallelujah!” kind of way.

    My prayer chair is yellow and green vintage floral–
    a 70’s Sunday School dress upholstered 
    on a wide, regal oak construction, 
    fit for a Queen’s 
    ignoble cousin. It’s a well-worn heirloom
    of sorts, not unlike my Christian heritage.
    They are both being scarred by Doubt.

     

    Doubt is a dog that needs to be walked.
    She favors a coyote and is militantly pesky,
    like a Jack Russell.
    She’s carving canyons into antique framework,
    gnawing arms and legs raw,
    rounding square corners, ripping out trim, 
    tugging at seams exclusively
    when I’m preoccupied seeking peace.

    I relent and hook her leash.

     

    Behind taut rope, I’m led by Doubt’s nose.
    We sift through trash and follow crumbs 
    only finding hollow wonder bread bags,
    there are dozens. And there are hundreds 
    of empty cups that furnish this unholy side
    of the fence line.
    We pause
    and fraternize 
    with flies—recognizing something familiar
    in those tiny, hasty machines
    performing manic choreography,
    tracing finely tuned migrations 
    between regions 
    of human defecation.

     

    Slack leash, tail dancing,
    Doubt finds a pruned fruitless branch
    perfect for fetching.
    I throw it practically out of sight,
    at least two thousand times.
    And two thousand times, 
    freed from fetter, unrepressed,
    she retrieves it with boundless joy.
    I see glimpses of rapture
    in her grizzled smile.
    When she finally sits,
    motionless,
    she’s like a lucky Laughing Buddha
    absorbed in mindfulness.
    I rub her belly.
    We walk each other home.

     

    I get cozy in my prayer chair.
    Doubt climbs onto my lap, twirling twice,
    sweetly collapsing with a tiny thump.
    While she rests, I too find stillness.
    I relax into the rhythm of my breath.

     

    Awareness begins to crescendo from the inside out.
    I am strummed like harp strings, 
    blurring lines between bone marrow 
    and sky.
    There’s electric fellowship 
    in every sound and sensation:
    blood cycling,
    planes roaring,
    lovers quarreling,
    doubt snoring.
    Borders blend, and intermingle
    like kin at a family reunion.
    I imagine this energetic communion 
    is what Heaven might feel like.
    I begin believing 
    this loving presence is my birthright,
    like my yellow chair,
    and faith.
    My smile swells and I stay a while,
    conscious not to wake the dog.