In “Well Rooted Readings”, I’ll be digging up a collection of public-domain nature and garden writing and reading it aloud. You can expect to find fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, held together by the simple thread that I find it beautiful.

It is a great delight to read these texts, both in their similarities to, and differences from, our current sensibilities. A gardener in 1906 was, like a gardener in 2026, both an observer of nature and an agent of creative disruption; a partner to the landscape and the aspiring master of it. This much is the same. What is most different is the language, worlds away from our current fetish for brevity and efficiency. Instead, we find lush, evocative passages, nimble and humorous turns of phrase, deliberate pacing.

We begin the series with “The Garden, You, and I”, a 1906 work in 19 chapters (plus an epilogue) written by Mabel Osgood Wright (pseudonym “Barbara”) a writer and conservationist who was the founder and first president of the Connecticut Audubon Society. I love the playful, yet respectful, relationship between gardener and natural world described here, with an emphasis on learning from, rather than controlling, one’s environment. I hope you, too, are charmed by Ms. Wright’s prose.

Read here: The Garden, You and I, Introduction and Chapter 1, by “Barbara”, Mabel Osgood Wright. New York, The MacMillan Company; London, MacMillan & Co, Ltd., 1906

Inspired to read more? You can find the full text of this work, along with a vast library of other public-domain writing, at Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17514

Did this reading help you feel more Well Rooted? Your subscription means the world. Free subscribers are warmly welcomed; paid subscriptions help keep the teapot warm and the bird-feeders full.

Subscribe now

Too many subscriptions, but enjoy seeing this content in the world? I also gratefully welcome one-time contributions to my

Tip Jar

This week begins a new feature on the Well Rooted Being blog. Over the last few months, interspersed with yoga videos, guided meditations, recipes, and sunrise photos, I’ve found that it brings me particular joy to share stories of this wild and wonderful (the tourist brochures have it right in this case) place I call home. I am particularly inspired by the people - both generations-deep and transplant - who are around just about every corner making art, building businesses, growing food, maintaining traditions, raising families, cultivating community.

I’ll be releasing episodes of this podcast each month, interviewing folks in and around my community out here in West Virginia who inspire me and help the place feel a little more like home.

Up first: Dr. Antonia “Tona” Allison, a mom, new farmer, West Virginia transplant, entrepreneur, and Executive Director at Hampshire County AI, a technology initiative focused on Hampshire County youth. We talk about building community, buying land, taking risks, creating opportunities for rural youth, the doorman fallacy, and whether artificial intelligence is coming to replace us all.

If you’ve ever wondered whether the farmer and the techie can be friends, Tona proposes something far more radical: the farmer should be the one making the development decisions. She envisions a technologically-democratized future where control rests with the people who have their hands in the soil, doing the work - and believes rural youth hold the key to this transformation:

“People in West Virginia are brilliant. The kids out here are brilliant. They’re very connected to the land. They’re grounded in their community. They have a strong faith and strong purpose. So if anyone’s going to come up with an idea that’s worth a million dollars, I think it would be our kids here.”

At the end of the day, says Tona, despite the many hats she wears, “I only do one thing. I only raise my kid.” She envisions a world where - far from the dystopian future many of us fear - it is “the kids right here in Hampshire County, more broadly in West Virginia”, who will write the script for the world we’ll be living in.

Although I’ll freely admit that I run in the “tech skeptic” pack, Tona’s optimism, energy, and sense of wide-open possibility gave me a glimpse of what might be possible. You can learn more about her work at HampshireCountyAI.org, or via this short video.

I hope you enjoyed this first episode of Well Rooted Radio! I’d love to hear what you think - is there room for optimism in AI? What are some other ways that we can ensure the prosperity and sustainability of our rural farming communities? Drop me a note in the chat below!

Until next time - stay rooted, and be well,

Havala

Want more movement practices, mindfulness, recipes, and stories about the amazing place I call home? I’d love it if you wanted to…

Subscribe now

Too many subscriptions, but like seeing this content in the world? You can also add a small one-time contribution to my:

Tip Jar