Hattie Carthan (1900-1984) was an extraordinary urban

Photo: Sarah Jenkin

eco-visionary and activist in the African-American community of Bedford Stuyvesant, NY. Though she humbly referred to herself as "Just an old lady born with the century," she is remembered and honored as Bedford Stuyvesant's First Lady of the Environment.

In the 1960s (when she was in her 60s) her community began to deteriorate. She responded to the decay by planting four trees, and in doing so she planted the seeds of the area's first "green" initiative. "We've already lost too many trees, houses and people... it's your community. You owe something to it. I didn't care to run," she declared.

Carthan also campaigned to preserve a 40-foot tall Southern Magnolia Grandiflora tree that was threatened by urban renewal. The tree, a rare species in the north, had been brought to Brooklyn on a ship from North Carolina in 1885. That magnolia tree was a popular symbol of the neighborhood. She not only succeeded in having a wall built to protect this tree, but in campaigning to have it designated as an official city landmark.

"That magnolia stands high and mighty and beautiful for us, but I wanted to train children to love all trees."

She started the Tree Corps in 1971 as a way to teach young people how to care for trees. Then in 1974, she established the Green Guerillas to provide supplies, advice and encouragement for all types of urban community green spaces in the inner city.

Today, 27 years after her death, the program organizes dozens of teams of 9 to 16-year olds to tend to the greenery in the area. They travel block-to-block, turning soil, watering, pruning, and nursing bark wounds on hundreds of their neighborhood trees

Her guerilla tactics were simple, but brilliant - and brilliantly successful. She was the first person to throw seed bombs - water balloons filled with seeds - into vacant lots, a technique that has been widely adopted by eco-minded folks everywhere. (Hint. Hint!)

As chairwoman of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Beautification Committee, Carthan galvanized the community to form 100 block associations, which banded together to plant more than 1,500 trees in Bedford Stuyvesant.

She convinced the City to convert three nearby abandoned houses into a home for the Magnolia Tree Earth Center, which sponsors nature studies for all ages. Over the years the center has established extensive gardens in her name - an urban farm, actually - that grows organic produce, and teaches agricultural skills and environmental response-ability to folks old and young in the community.

Queen Hattie's greatest harvest and most enduring legacy is the community spirit that she inspired and nurtured. She was a passionate gardener and dedicated emissary of Mother Earth. She sowed the seeds of awareness, watered and fertilized the tender shoots of involvement, pruned away apathy and resistance until the neighborhood that she loved turned itself into an officially recognized and awarded model of effective urban greening.

Seed bombs, anyone? Let's toss a few in Hattie's name! 

Yonette Fleming is the Vice President of the Hattie Carthan Garden, one of the oldest community gardens in Brooklyn. She is a gardener, herbalist and community organizer who has helped establish a tangible connection between community gardens and personal, environmental and neighborhood health. Her goal is to establish volunteer-run community revitalization programs focusing on food education, fresh food access and entrepreneurial opportunities.

For as long as I could remember the Earth and her organisms have been fascinating to me. My primary memories are colored with the scent of ripening sapodillas, fragrant guavas, potent chicken manure and long sunny days spent tending the many plants and animals that lived on my grandmothers' orchard in Guyana. I learnt many lessons passed down from generations on how to work in balance with Mother Nature to produce food from the land. I listened keenly each afternoon to my grandmother speak about how her grandmothers knew the herbs and plants, owned rice fields  and sugar plantations and extended lines of credit at their farmers markets to people who needed food but had no money.

"Making a living from the land is not easy" grandma said, "so you'd better pay attention to your schoolwork so that you could become a female lawyer or something better," she reiterated at least four times a week when I wanted to help with the chickens.  

What is clear to me now, was that my family understood the dynamics of partnering with nature around food. They also knew the importance of knowing how to balance this with business. They were first environmental stewards, not heady producers. They were sustainable farmers and environmentalists who not just sang about nature's beauty, but understood their role to be maintainers and caretakers of all forms of life and recognized the ability of the land to produce food into perpetuity if nurtured. Being good stewards of the land was hard work, it was dusty, noisy, even smoky at times, yet sustainable agriculture scrubs the air of carbon dioxide, through photosynthesis, day after day.

We now know that sustainability in agriculture is not a new issue. Large civilizations have risen on the strength of their agriculture and subsequently collapsed because their farming methods had eroded the natural resource base. Today's conventional or industrial agriculture is considered unsustainable because it is similarly eroding natural resources faster than the environment can regenerate them and because it depends heavily on resources that are nonrenewable (e.g., fossil fuels and fossil aquifers).

What is needed now is the adoption of farming systems that mitigate or eliminate environmental harms associated with industrial agriculture, recognizes that natural resources are finite, acknowledges limits on economic growth, and encourages equity in resource allocation.

Furthermore, we are certain that agriculture is only sustainable when it is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, culturally appropriate, and based on a holistic approach. This form of agriculture does not refer to a prescribed set of practices. Instead, it challenges producers to think about the long-term implications of practices and the broad interactions and dynamics of agricultural systems. It also invites consumers to get more involved in agriculture by learning more about and becoming active participants in their food systems. A key goal is to understand agriculture from an ecological community perspective - in terms of nutrient and energy dynamics, and interactions among plants, animals, insects and other organisms in agroecosystems - then balance it with profit and consumer needs.

In this framework, health refers to the integrity of our soil, its nutrients, its living organisms and can only be achieved when our Sacred relationship  to the Earth is restored.

My return to living in harmony with the Earth and the crystallizations of stewardship began around fifteen years ago when I started yearning for a deeper connection to Life. I was uncertain about the ways that I could cultivate this deep connection in the urban city but soon realized that a person could practice environmental stewardship wherever they are and live their life in service through stewardship. 

My own conscious stewardship began with tending herbs and growing fresh food at a local community garden in a community where fresh food was not easily accessible. Most people in the garden saw the herbs as nice smelling plants that could be used for seasonings, but I saw this garden as an outdoor healing laboratory and began crafting herbs, preparing communal dishes with herbs and sharing the healing benefits of herbs (both to the soil and to humans).

 The following year, I mobilized the old gardeners to convert their hobby gardening into acts of healing and stewardship for the "food desert community" through the reclamation of blighted land. In 2009 the group was successful in reclaiming blighted property next to the garden.



Through our own grassroots efforts and with limited support from a few greening NGOs a children's garden was created with a vermi-composting system. A community composting system was built to take in organic community waste, a clay oven where community residents gather to bake healthy bread, two chicken coops and a community market which has distributed over thirty five thousand pounds of fresh food to residents in only two years.  

The reclaimed land is now a thriving community space that educates and empowers youths, adults and seniors, a place where healthy living, food justice and cultural education takes place.

In 2011, the garden reclaimed a second neighborhood lot that was used as a dumping ground by neighborhood developers. The lot was cleaned and revitalized by grassroots efforts and is now home to over seventy varieties of herbs that are used to treat our animals, nurture the land back to health while expanding our community's perception about herbs through education.

Wherever we find ourselves on this Earth, be it in the city or rural country, mountaintop or cave we can heal the rift between human nature and nature by self-organizing, respecting and honoring the Earth.

May we take our rightful place as stewards.

- Yonette Fleming

 

A community's health

Ultimately depends on

restoring the health of its Soil 

As what is in the soil, 

will get into the groundwater,

As what is in the soil,
is in our food and environment

As what is in the soil,

Is in our bodies and hearts.

Our unsustainable building practices have degraded our soil

Our poor business practices have caused us

to dump waste into the soil

Our disconnection from the Earth

has caused us to not recognize

that soil health is really human health

To create healthy communities 

we must restore the health of our soil,

To bring our cities back into balance

We must heal the rift between human nature and nature

May we begin the work of healing this rift

wherever we find ourselves on this Earth.

- Yonnette Fleming@ 2011

Maraleen Manos-Jones has raised, released and tagged butterflies for nearly forty years. In 1977, after a two-month search, she was the first woman from the U.S. to discover the over-wintering habitats of the Monarchs in Mexico. She presents programs at the Butterfly Habitat at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

I planted my first seed when I was 8 years old. I transferred from a city school to a more rural one near the end of the school year. In my new school, each child had a garden plot. Some wonderful thoughtful teacher gave me radish seeds, since they only needed 30 days to mature. I didn't like the taste of radishes, but I was in awe of the process. How did that tiny little seed know what to be and when to be it?

 All these many years later, I am still amazed when I plant seeds and they know what they want to be when they grow up and most definitely are nothing else but who they are, blatantly and beautifully. 

I have gardened since way back then, wherever I have lived, be it a garden on a ledge only accessible by climbing out a window, or another city rooftop garden also accessible only by climbing out the window, to an actual Brooklyn 20 x 40 foot back yard and now a hundred miles north of the city on three acres of land in the mountains.  

All of the many gardens that I have tended have one thing in common: they include host and nectar plants for butterflies. Yes, there are tough little butterflies in New York City and they need oases for nectar and shelter and a place to lay their eggs. 

Butterfly gardening is not just a frivolous gesture; it is of vital importance if we want to continue to have butterflies grace our planet, as they have for the past 150 million years. More than 2.3 million acres of butterfly habitats are lost each year in the U.S. alone. We cannot replace those habitats, but we can certainly play a significant role in offsetting that loss. Planting organic gardens with mostly native plants, while avoiding the use of pesticides and herbicides is a good start.

Why bother with butterflies when there is so much turmoil in the world? Butterflies are indicator species; like canaries in coal mines, if they die off, it means that the whole tapestry of life is unraveling, perhaps beyond repair. Besides being major pollinators, along with bees and bats, butterflies bring beauty and grace to our lives. They remind us that change is not only possible, but also inevitable and beautiful. And they are reminding us right now - loudly and clearly - to save their habitats before it is too late, and thus save our planet and ourselves. A world without butterflies would indeed be a world without hope.

September, a time of changing light and cooler temperatures, is the time when newly emerging monarch butterflies frenetically seek out nectar from late blooming plants like goldenrod, asters, sunflowers, sedums, ironweed, joe-pye weed, and the flowers of butterfly bushes, among others. They stop mating, going into sexual diapause, since they are saving their energy for the long journey they are compelled to make to a place they have never been before. Little do they know that it will be a journey of a couple of thousand miles, but it starts with one flap of the wing.

The monarchs east of the Rockies from Canada and the U.S. start flying toward Mexico. They start out one by one, and then soon join with scores of others, then hundreds, until they become rivers of thousands and millions of migrating monarchs. By the time they reach Mexico, the Indigenous people in the mountains of Michoacán say that sometimes you cannot see the sky for three days; it is so filled with monarchs.

Coincidentally, each year millions upon millions of monarchs arrive in Mexico on November 2nd, the Day of the Dead, an ancient festival celebrating departed loved ones. And as a Mexican shaman, Maria Sabina, told me many years ago, the monarchs are the old souls of Mexico returning to the sacred mountains. It is incredible that the monarchs always arrive at this special time. The skies in the mountains of Michoacán fill with the sound of hundreds of millions of wings as the monarchs find their places on thirteen mountaintops, at an altitude of about 12,000'. 

Once settled in they amass, ten thousand to a tree, for the warmth of the trunk and each other. They fly during the day in the warmth of the sun and take flight together as the winds sweep up the mountains, before settling into the trees for the cold nights. In these rugged and no longer remote mountains, millions of monarchs spend the winter months protected by the forests of mixed oyamel fir trees, pines and oaks.
 

There is trouble in this paradise, as deforestation has devastated about 40% of forests in Mexico. The monarchs are not yet on the endangered species list, but their habitat in Mexico is on the endangered habitat list of the World Wildlife Fund. These same habitats are listed as one of the United Nations Natural World Heritage Sites.

A small group of dedicated individuals are making a difference in this region through a non-profit sustainable reforestation project, Forests for Monarchs, Inc. If you go to the website, you will be able to see a compelling and inspiring ten minute documentary of what is happening in the monarch habitats as well as learn more about this effective project.

I work with Forests for Monarchs, which has planted 600,000 trees this year, at the cost of fifty cents a tree. Our goal is to plant one million trees a year. The mountain people, who are given the trees, plant and maintain them. Our educational initiatives include sustainable forest management practices for participants and programs in local schools that include hands on planting of trees.   

There are challenges to monarchs in every stage of their life cycle and in every habitat they traverse. We have to plant trees in Mexico and we have to plant gardens here in the States and Canada. Here in the Northeast, our gardens can accommodate many of the 70 species of butterflies indigenous to the area. A simple one is to plant fennel, dill and parsley in abundance upon which black swallowtail butterflies will lay their eggs. And let the violets grow for the fritillaries and the plantain grow for the buckeyes. Invite butterflies for lunch; they'll come for dinner along with their friends, who love and share the nectar from the same flowers, the ruby throated hummingbirds.  

Here a partial list of host and nectar plants, please visit my website: www.spiritofbutterflies.com where you will find much about monarchs and more, including the extensive cultural research I have done.  There are also many resources in your bookstores and on the Internet about butterfly gardening.  But if we want to help the monarch, we must plant milkweed and September is the time to help out by becoming Johnny milkweed seeders, releasing the seeds on the wings of their silken pods.  The seeds have to overwinter in the cold to emerge in late spring.  

In the early days, when I camped out in Mexico and created a modern dance among the millions of monarchs, I also made a pledge: that I would do everything I could to honor and protect these sacred mountains, the monarchs, and the Indigenous people living there. According to a Mexican creation myth, this is the mountaintop from which light was brought to the world by the first gods and goddesses and the butterflies and flowers were a gift from the God Quetzelpapalotl, the Plumed Butterfly, as a way to prepare for and welcome humans.   

We humans are responsible for taking care of our beautiful planet that provides us with food, shelter and wealth. According to an African myth from Burkina Faso, it is only the human who knows her true nature and who dares to dream, who can soar like a butterfly.

So during the long cold winter months, let your dreams of gardens filled with light and life and living color sustain and nourish you. Remember, butterflies pollinate not only the flowers, but pollinate our souls and open our hearts.   

Also remember that the effect of a butterfly's wing can be felt around the world, so that every positive action and or intention/thought can have profound ripples.

We can all be the change we have been waiting for. Put on your dream wings and plant gardens for butterflies and for life.

- Maraleen Manos-Jones  

We extend hearty congratulations to our multi-talented circle of Sister Queens for their impressive accomplishments and successes.

 I firmly believe that all human beings have access to extraordinary energies and powers. Judging from accounts of mystical experience, heightened creativity, or exceptional performance by athletes and artists, we harbor a greater life than we know.

- Jean Houston

Dalia Basiouny, Egypt; Amanda Gordon, NY; Marcy Gordon, NY; Ionew, NY; Deena Metzger, CA; Pauline Oliveros, NY; Suni Paz, NV; Reno, NY; and Carol Tandava Henning, NY; on their performances and/or performances of their work.

Monique Lang, NY,Meditation for Healing (Book); Vicky Alvear Shecter, GA, Cleopatra's Moon (Book); Terese Svoboda, NY, Bohemian Girl (Book); Diane Torr, Scotland, Sex, Drag and Male Roles (Book); Martha Wilson, NY, Martha Wilson Sourcebook: 40 Years of Reconsidering Performance, Feminism, Alternative Spaces (Book); Terry Wolverton, CA, Stealing Angel (Book) and Smoky Zeidel, CA, On the Choptank Shores (Book); on their new publications.

Send your good news, achievements, accomplishments, successes and celebrations so that our international circle of sovereign sisters can send you blessings and accolades.

And we are glad to so. It is a joy and a privilege to share in the fortune of another woman. I recently heard Oprah say the saddest thing ever - "The hardest thing about being successful is having someone to be glad for you."

It takes a centered and confident Queen to break that pattern. There are 60 million thrones out there. One for each of us. There is plenty of purpose, passion and power for us all. May we use it well!

It is important that you recognize your progress and take pride in your accomplishments. Share your achievements with others. Brag a little. The recognition and support of those around you is nurturing.
- Rosemarie Rossetti  

Alison, TN; Amy, NY; Bebee, DE; Berenice, NY; Betty, AL; Carol, NY; Chrissie, NY; Cristina, NY; Dana, CA; Dani, WI; Dominique, NM; Donna, NY; Dee, NY; Elizabeth, NY, Erica, New Zealand; Gail, OH; Geraldine, ID; Glenys, Australia; Jo, AZ; Judith, NY; Karen, NJ; Kathleen, PA; Kazuko, NY; Kimi, NJ; Lydia, CO; Linda, NY; Lisa, PA; Lucia, TX; Margo, NY: Mary Gatle, MD; Matild Cathy, NY; Naomi, DC; Pat, MA; Pearl, NY; Randi, NY; Ruth, NY; Sandy, CA; Sheri, NY; Shirley, IN; Sid, PA; Smriti, CA; Susan, MA; Susan, NC; Terri, FL; and Yvette, NY; who are in the process of healing themselves from illness, accident, injury or surgery.

Amy, NY; Chrys, NY; Erica, New Zealand; Gail, NY; Kayla, NY; Lee, NJ; Lois, NY; Nancy, NC; Roslyn, NJ; and Sharon, FL; the caregivers who are in weary need of care themselves.

May Their Spirits Rest in Peace:

Dr. Marcia Benjamin, IN

With Sincere Condolences:

Lois Guarino, NY

Prayer Request: Last month I asked for prayers for my cousin Gayle Clarke. She is now doing very well, thanks to all your prayers. She is off IVs and transferred to a physical therapy site, working on getting around and doing stairs in preparation to going home pretty soon. She thanks everyone for the prayers and asks us to continue as she recovers from this amazing experience. Take care,  

- Margaret, NY  

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

CALIFORNIA

A Garden Blossoming In the Off Season

It was a bright sunny day nearly twenty-two years ago when I had my freedom snuffed out like a candle. The day that I was arrested was the beginning of a new journey into unchartered waters. After almost three years in the county jail awaiting trial, and eventual sentencing, I was shipped along with my mother to the Central California Women's Facility to serve a 25 years-to-life sentence in the death of my abusive stepfather.    

Prison is a system that takes everything away from you that it possibly can, but you can elect to retain two things: your sense of integrity and your identity. I believe my sense of identity has changed for the better over the years, sculpting me into a more confident woman and a work-in-progress that is no longer ashamed of her mirror's reflection.

As a child, I saw my stepfather as a beast, but in prison, the beast can be the very system, itself. While there are a lot of people here that I wouldn't want watering my lawn, there are a good many that I'd have over for dinner. Regardless of which one crosses your path, in prison or in life, there is always a lesson to be learned. I've learned more about myself in the personal relationships that I've had, than I've ever learned in any book. Other people in your life will bring out the true being of your "Self." It takes courage to observe and embrace whatever manifests - good or bad - and learn from it. Knowledge is what you gain. Don't fear it, for it is your friend on this journey.

When I entered state prison I had very little self-esteem. I had always had my kindness taken for weakness, and my first year here wasn't much different. I learned how to say the word, "No" as my first step toward self-preservation, healing and self-discovery. I learned that it is okay to be a little selfish with my time and to visit the theater of my soul. I learned that scars fade even if memories don't. However, the most vital lesson I learned was that the abuse was not my fault, and that I had the ability to take back the power I had lost, even if not the innocence. I learned that we are all capable of blossoming in the off-season. I chose to do just that.

In 1995 I began working with youth-at-risk in a prison diversion program. I saw my younger self in the faces of those kids, and I knew their pain. By telling my story, I encouraged them to tell theirs. I lost count of how many police reports I helped to file in order to save the life of a child. The work didn't just help me find my voice, but to nurture it. I began conducting presentations in the Educational Department on the subject of abuse and violence prevention and non-violent resolution. There's a great sense of relief, growth and accomplishment in knowing that you're helping others. I cannot express enough what a sense of gratitude I have in being used as a tool for a bigger purpose by a power greater than myself.

I guess it would be fair to say that it took coming to prison to dump my self-pity, grasp my past as something I could never hope to change, and to see that I'm not defective. This prison sentence helped me choose to heal the open wound that I had become. I grew up in prison, and I worked on who I was, to become who I am. The only bars that held me back were the negative thoughts within myself. I am free of that inner prison now, but only because of this man-made one that confines me. Believe it or not, prison can be a sanctuary of healing. It removes one from the roots of pain, and makesyou tend the garden of the own being. Today, my garden of life flourishes with vibrant colors, and I have never felt more alive. The first step is the hardest, but each one thereafter gets easier, and you make a really good friend along the journey - A friend called Self. This has been my harvest.

- Teresa Christine

Chowchilla Prison, CA

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