A Bath for the Soul and the Seeds Birth of a Community It was June when the idea went from dream to reality: A commitment by the group of four, a place to tend, donated by a landowner on Roland, and a grant secured from the island’s Farmland Trust. After a few collective gatherings filled with the excited hype of beginning, and many preparatory tasks (which you can read about here and here) we set up a weekly watering schedule. That Monday morning it was my turn to tend the plants at the garden. I woke early and walked over to the site, plucking some of the plump blackberries in the bushes on the way. The first task that day was watering the new seedlings we’d planted in the greenhouse the Saturday before. Dripping the water gently over the tiny squares of speckled soil where thin yellow-green threads shot up like flagpoles, their thin cotyledons airborne, I felt a rising discomfort in my body. Holding my heart open, I spoke softly “Oh dear nausea. I see you and feel you.” Wit
