The brilliant Agnes Becker and I met during lock-down when I got involved in a ‘nesting adventure’ she was running that held space for us all to learn about birds and nests. I remember her inviting her to draw birdsong and to (attempt to!) build birds’ nests for ourselves. An artist as well as a science educator, what she embodies most beautifully is curiosity and I never felt to not only learn something, but to become enchanted by something, when I spent time with Agnes.
We are both super-inspired by the more-than-human world and share heroes like Robin Wall-Kimmerer and Mary Oliver, so we decided to collaboration for this Substack Live to share our love of nature and our deep connection with it through visual art and poetry.
We chose poems of mine that referenced flowers and then Agnes painted using those flowers in place of brushes and wild inks while I recited them.
It was a celebration of this abundant time of year, an invitation for you to join us in rewilding our lives and a nod to the fertility and union of male and female that we see in the Beltane fire festival, the portal into summer.
Watch the replay, paint or write along with us if you’d like to, and stay tuned for future collaborations—we might even get together for all the cross-quarter festivals to welcome in each season as it comes around.
