Mutable Earth Botanicals

I haven’t shared much of Green Song Farm here lately, and so much is unfolding. 🌾

Yesterday afternoon my friend Gabriela and I walked the land, made an offering of fall flowers and spring water, and visited the springs at the top of the land.

It has been a dry late summer here in the mountains. The ponds are low, one of the three springs has stopped flowing and the other two are down to a trickle.

I can feel the part of me that wants to immediately go into solution mode—to fix and control something simply because what I’m seeing makes me uncomfortable.

And I’m practicing something different.

Slow down. Observe and interact. Watch where the water moves and where it doesn’t. Keep visiting. Keep learning. Trust that through observation and interaction, a course of action that truly supports the health of the water and the land will begin to show itself.

We climbed up through the goldenrod, sat with our backs against Grandmother Oak and looked out across the Blue Ridge and down toward the orchard that, over the coming years, we plan to transform into a food forest.

There is so much changing here, and so much that will take years.

The ponds are low. The springs are barely flowing. The goldenrod is blooming. And fall is here.

I wrote more about this walk in my first new Field Note, Following the Water: On water, trust and the practice of observation and interaction.

I’ve started Field Notes as a place to share more of what is unfolding here—plants, medicine, gardens, animals, Green Song Farm, and all the learning along the way.

Field Notes is free and open to everyone. If you’d like to follow along, you can find it at the link in my bio. 💛 Caroline

Fall has arrived with horses and friends and join Field Notes in its new home on Substack. It's free!

Fall Arrived on Its Due Date Greetings friends, Fall arrived on its due date this year, bringing with it a couple days of much-needed rain and hoodie weather! The goldenrod is glowing everywhere, and the trees are starting to change and fall around us. In the garden, I've decided to let the summer veggies like squash, basil and...

Let's Grow! Abundant Ecosystems, Community Herbalism Days & A Permaculture Course.

Let’s Grow! Abundant Ecosystems, Community Herbalism Days & A Permaculture Course Greetings friends, I am growing more food right now than I have in years. As I write this, I am looking out my sliding glass door at tomatoes on the vine, okra and cucumbers thriving among sweet basil, tulsi, cilantro, thyme, arugula and lavender, with a backdrop of tatume squash winding its way thr...

Hello friends. It’s been a while.
I haven’t shared here since May, and I hardly know where to begin.
We packed up our home in Austin, said goodbye to a community and landscape that held us for so many years, and moved our family to the mountains of Western North Carolina.
The Mutable Earth shop has been quiet through all of this, and I don’t have plans to open it back up for now. But, of course, the plants keep calling me back.
I am beginning the slow process of getting to know the plants of this place and finding my way into a new relationship with the land around me.
I harvested elderberries and tulsi from our gardens and made an oxymel. My first tincture from this land was mimosa flower, a powerful grief medicine and an old plant ally that feels particularly meaningful to meet again here.
I don’t know who this medicine is for yet. Maybe that is part of the practice too.
Place-based herbalism has never really been about having a shop for me. It is a practice and a relationship that continues through all the seasons of life. We learn the plants around us. We grow them. We harvest. We taste. We make medicine. And through that relationship, we cultivate joy, resilience and connection to the places we call home.
And we are beginning to feel at home here.
The boys have started school, we are eating from our little gardens, and at Green Song Farm we have started putting our first seeds into the ground.
We are taking our time getting to know this land. Walking it, tending springs, beginning the orchard garden, removing old fences and imagining what might grow here in the years ahead.
One of our Green Song project team members, Gabriela, said early on that the spirit of the land has a seat at the table. I keep returning to that as we make plans. We may hold the deed, but we are not the bosses of this land. We are trying to listen, observe and allow the land itself to help shape what comes next.
So that is where I am these days.
Planting seeds. Making medicine. Feeding my family from the garden. Learning a new landscape. And slowly putting down roots.
It feels good to be back here and sharing a little of it with you. 🌿

Planting Seeds

Planting Seeds Greetings friends, It has been about a month since my last update, and somehow summer is already beginning to lean toward fall here in the mountains. We are continuing to settle into our new home, and for the first time I can really say that we are beginning to feel at home here. The boys have start...

We've Put Down New Roots - An update from our family, Green Song Farm and the mountains.

The garden is so darn beautiful and abundant this time of year. These photos are from the last couple of weeks - can you feel the healing and heart shine through?
🌼💕🪺
There are many ways to join us. From afar, this is the place. In person, we have community events every season. We have two more Community Herbalism Days - Friday April 17th and May 1st from 10-1pm Mark your calendars and bring friends and family to our Spring Shine Celebration and Community Fundraiser on Saturday April 25th from 12-4pm.